For the month before the 3DS and Wii U eShops close for new purchases on 27th March, each day we’re going to highlight a specific eShop game for one of those consoles and give a short pitch as to why we think it deserves your love and attention — before it’s too late. The chance to add these to your library will be gone for good soon and, for one reason or another, these eShop-exclusives are close to our hearts.
Today, Gavin picks out a Platinum Point-ed Picross …
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is Nintendo’s first $70 game, and Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser has shared why Nintendo chose to raise the price of this specific Nintendo Switch title.
“We look at what the game has to offer,” Bowser told AP News in a recent interview. “I think fans will find this is an incredibly full, deeply immersive experience. The price point reflects the type of experience that fans can expect when it comes to playing this particular game. This isn’t a price point that we’ll necessarily have on all our titles. It’s actually a fairly common pricing model either here or in Europe or other parts of the world, where the pricing may vary depending on the game itself.”
Bowser’s statement echoes what Nintendo has previously said on the matter. Shortly after revealing Zelda’s $70 price tag, Nintendo confirmed that it determines “the suggested retail price for any Nintendo product on a case-by-case basis.”
Tears of the Kingdom is currently the only $70 game on Nintendo’s publishing slate, as the upcoming Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon and Advance Wars 1+2: Reboot Camp are listed for $60. Even Pikmin 4 — which launches after Nintendo launches Zelda at $70, will retail for $60.
Nintendo is still keeping most details about the Breath of the Wild sequel under wraps. The latest trailer (which was revealed alongside a Collector’s Edition and amiibo) showed new vehicles and enemy types, but we’ve still seen very little of the game that’s now less than two months away. The game is surely packed with secrets and content, given the $70 price tag and the fact that it has the largest file size of any first-party Switch game.
While fans are hoping Nintendo will spill the beans soon, Zelda won’t be at PAX East later this week. Nintendo confirmed to the Boston Herald that while Nintendo will have a presence at the show, ““The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will not be shown at PAX East 2023.” Instead, it’s likely that Nintendo will bring March’s Bayonetta Origins or April’s Advance Wars remake to the event.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Samsung are also offering cashback for the same amount, dropping the price to £108 after all is said and done. That’s an awesome price for a high-speed external SSD capable of read speeds of 1050MB/s and write speeds of 1000MB/s – and one that ranks among the fastest portable SSDs we’ve ever tested.
Professor Layton is making his grand return to Nintendo consoles in Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, and Level 5 has revealed that his trusty assistant, Luke Triton, is coming back too.
The trailer begins with a voiceover from Luke, who’s writing a letter to Professor Layton. The trailer reveals that it’s been one year since Luke parted ways with Layton at the end of 2010’s Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, and that he’s settled into his new life in America.
Luke is writing to the Professor because of something “deeply puzzling” that’s “tailor made for Professor Layton and his apprentice.” The trailer then shows Layton flying to a very steampunk inspired town called Steam Bison to reunite with Luke.
The dynamic between Professor and apprentice might be slightly different in The New World of Steam, as Luke has started to make a name for himself in America, while Layton is just an anonymous gentleman.
Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is the tenth entry in the Layton franchise, and the eighth starring Hershel Layton himself. We haven’t seen the good professor in a starring role since 2014’s crossover with Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
The last proper Layton game was Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy, which was a 3DS release in 2017 and a Switch port in 2019. We’re still waiting to hear a release date for Professor Layton and the New World of Steam.
After years of absence from the western market, Level 5 came back in a big way in the latest Nintendo Direct, revealing Professor Layton, a Fantasy Life sequel, and new IP Decapolice. The company is also working on new Inazuma Eleven and Megaton Musashi titles.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Back in January, we ran down every Zelda-themed Nintendo console out there in an attempt to find which one you lovely lot thought was the best. There were a lot of these Hylian designs, with the series clearly standing as one of Nintendo’s most popular choices in the special edition design room, but these are dwarfed in number by the Pokémon designs, which require a Pokédex-length list all of their own.
Ok, that might be a bit of an over-exaggeration, but the point stands that throughout the history of Nintendo’s special edition console releases, there have been a lot of Pokémon designs.
Here’s some good news for anyone who’s not wild about spending $70 on a video game. The new 2023 remake of Dead Space is on sale for PS5 for $49.99. That’s $20 off the standard retail price, and a much easier pick up for anyone who didn’t want to drop major cash on a remastered version of an (admittedly excellent) game they’ve already played. The Xbox Series X version is also on sale, but for $54.99 for some reason.
Dead Space 2023 is a remake of the 2008 original that came out for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Like its predecessor, it’s a single-player survival horror game that puts you in the boots of an engineer named Isaac Clarke. You unfortunately find yourself on a derelict mining space ship that’s been overrun by violent (and terrifying!) beasts called Necromorphs.
Thankfully you have access to a series of mining tools that act as weapons that do a good job of slicing the enemies limb from limb. You can also upgrade them along with your armor to make yourself into a potent Necromorph-killing machine. It’s all good fun.
From our Dead Space review: “With its stunningly redesigned spaceship, smartly and subtly enhanced story, and spectacularly reimagined action scenes, Motive Studio has managed to successfully breathe new life into the seminal sci-fi horror universe of Dead Space.”
This is the first discount we’ve seen so far on Dead Space, and it’s a pretty good one. I for one feel a lot better paying $50 or $55 for this remake than I would dropping a full $70 for it. It’s a superb remake by all accounts (including our 9/10 review), but the main story takes roughly 12 hours to beat, so this sale price just feels more reasonable. If you haven’t picked it up yet, now is a good time to take a trip on the USG Ishimura. Just don’t forget your plasma cutter.
Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed or on Mastodon @chrislreed.
“It’s exciting to see that demand is still there”.
While the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom might just be the most highly-anticipated video game of all time, the announcement that the title would cost $70 on release opened up the conversation about how much we are all willing to pay for a game in 2023.
Doug Bowser, the head of Nintendo USA, has recently defended the price point of the Breath of the Wild follow-up in an interview with AP News, in which he reaffirmed the company’s stance that this is not Nintendo’s standard pricing going forward and all games will be judged on an individual basis.
Cave Story and N to grow. With online distribution further helping games like Bastion, Journey and World Of Goo to flourish, the definition of the indie game became: a title with big ambitions and creativity grown from small budgets and teams.
It’s not entirely wrong, but it has obscured decades of hobby development that was once at the forefront – not just the stories of BBC Micro solo-development stars, but similar ones of hobby development from around the world. In Japan, the doujin markets of Comiket and beyond serve as a home for hobbyists to make, sell and share their creations. It is the doujin gaming scene that helped major studios like Fate/ studio Type-Moon, and franchises like 07th Expansion and Touhou Project, flourish in a way that would never be possible otherwise.
We take a deep dive into the decisions behind Destiny 2’s second Darkness subclass
Gameplay Features Lead Eric Smith talks us through Strand design choices
Check out early concept art for Strand supers and abilities
Late February saw the highly anticipated release of Destiny 2: Lightfall, the new expansion that signals “the beginning of the end” to the Destiny’s Light and Darkness saga. The campaign takes Guardians to the hidden city of Neomuna, nestled inside Neptune and undisturbed until the forces of the Shadow Legion arrive. It’s up to you and Neomuna’s protectors, the Cloud Striders, to defend the city.
Our Guardians also discover a brand-new power: Strand. They learn to wield this suspicious, stringy substance throughout the Lightfall campaign, and it manifests itself into a whole new subclass for Destiny 2 players, the first to be introduced since Stasis in 2020.
We wanted to learn more about this new subclass, how Bungie arrived at its design and how all of its elements weave together, and to dig deeper in, we spoke to Gameplay Features Lead Eric Smith to uncover how the new Darkness power came to be.
Strand Titan Super concept art next to the final product
Like every subclass in Destiny 2, Strand gives each of the three player classes—Titan, Hunter and Warlock—different abilities and one powerful Super ability tailored to each class. Beefy Titans gain the Berserker ability, summoning two giant hand-blades to cut down enemies, the sleek Warlock sends wisps of Strand coursing through baddies that explode into fierce Threadling enemies, and slick Hunters can use the Silkstrike skill to summon a long rope dart and thwip through their foes.
A Helping Strand
Strand focuses on traversal in a way that has never been explored in Destiny 2. Every character gains a grapple, which allows you to latch onto a surface or area and swing through the air, perfect for getting around quickly or solving tricky jumping puzzles. Smith tells us that the grapple sits at the center of the Strand class, and that it was made possible by the team’s exploration of the skill.
“The theme of the Strand damage type is all ropes and strings, so it just felt like a natural fit to put a grappling hook in there,” Smith says. “We did a lot of exploration of how the grapple should work, did we want it to be a burst of acceleration, or zipping from point to point, and we ended up in this place where, as players learn Strand, it’ll read your mind a little bit.”
“You can zip to a certain point if you’re looking straight at it, but you can also swing under it, you can throttle left or right or swing around it. We ended up with a really dynamic grapple we’re all very proud of.”
The grapple ability replaces the grenade slot for players using Strand, so it also needed some sort of damage capability to make up for the loss of that slot. The result is, what if you are the grenade?
“As it takes that slot, we wanted to give it an offensive utility,” Smith explains. “One thing you can do is grapple punch, which does pretty big area-of-effect damage. You can use the grapple to get out of bad situations, but you can also use it like you would a grenade to clear multiple enemies. I think there’s a learning curve to Strand that I’m excited to see players master.”
Strand And Deliver
During combat, Strand users can create Tangles by defeating an enemy that has been debuffed by another Strand ability. For example, Hunters have the Ensnaring Slam ability, which allows them to suspend groups of enemies in the air by slamming the ground. Titans can also suspend enemies with the Drengr’s Lash skill.
This Tangle can then be shot to cause an explosion, picked up and thrown at another enemy, or into the air to be used as a grappling point. Smith tells us that the passive Tangle skill felt immediately at home in Strand’s roster.
“Once we got that system in there and we had different perks triggering the Tangles, it felt like we were doing something different than the other subclasses,” he says. “It happens passively, and once you create a Tangle, there’s a branching decision-making point where you can choose what to do with it.”
The Tangles are just one aspect of Strand that works to make it a more collaborative subclass for Guardians playing together. For example, because a Guardian’s grapple ability has no cooldown if it’s used on a grapple point, the Hunter can use their Widow’s Silk ability to create a grapple point that another teammate can use without expending their own grapple ability. Smith explains that as Strand develops, the team wants to create more opportunities for fireteam members to combine their unique skills.
“We wanted players to blaze a trail for their teammates, to help them with jumping puzzles, and that’s something we’re planning to double down on in the coming Seasons,” he says.
Guardians can use Tangles to swing around, or shoot them to cause an explosion
Release The Threadlings
The Strand subclasses introduce Threadlings—small creatures formed from Strand that will scurry off and attack whatever is in range. Smith tells us that this was one of the more difficult abilities to nail down, due to Destiny 2’s turbulent terrains and dynamic environments.
“The Threadlings are what we call ‘ground follows,’ because they’re restricted to crawling on the ground, and we have a lot of surfaces in Destiny 2 where it can be difficult for a player to use them effectively,” he explains. “They have a pretty long tracking range so they can follow an enemy and then stop and jump which gives them some verticality, but we’ll be tuning how they work as time goes on.”
The team also had to balance how much damage Threadlings can do and how often they’re active, not just in PvE modes like the campaign, but in online PvP, where the smallest amount of damage can dramatically change the game.
“Too many Threadlings in PvP would feel frustrating to play against, so it was a balancing act of letting players have maximum fun while not destabilizing PvP modes.”
Strand abilities release Threadlings (pictured) that can damage enemies
This balancing act was also important during the design of the three main class Super abilities, and Smith details the level of work and the spread of disciplines that must be involved in the creation of one.
“Anytime we make a new Super, we come up with a list of possible designs, and we trim that down to what’s realistic,” he explains. “But there are a lot of decisions, it’s animation, it’s VFX, design, engineering, audio—so many things have to come together, and then you have to balance the Super itself across so many game modes.”
You can check out some of the unused Super ideas in the images below, but Smith did tell us that the Warlock Super ability almost ended up with tentacles that sprout up and lash out at enemies. The actual Warlock Super, Needlestorm, which lets players unleash a barrage of spikes onto enemies, is still equally as cool.
Concept art of early Strand abilities
With Strand explored in detail, we were left with just one question: Why did the team choose green for the subclass color? Smith tells us that on the hunt for the perfect hex code, the team wanted to ensure every class is both immediately identifiable and aesthetically pleasing.
“We had a handful of options, but green felt the most distinct,” he tells us. “It just worked really well with the Strand theme. We kind of saw it as green ball of yarn, and wanted you to think of that every time you walk past yarn in a store.”
Lightfall players unlock Strand permanently at the end of the Lightfall campaign, and from there, can unlock Aspects and Fragments that allow them to really personalize the subclass to their playstyle, be it keeping distance or smashing straight into the action.
Last Friday also saw the release of Root of Nightmares, the brand-new raid packaged with Lightfall, so be sure to get swinging through Neomuna to unlock those Strand abilities and get equipped to confront the ancient threat growing at our doorstep.
Destiny 2: Lightfall is available now on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.
Pre-order to instantly unlock a new Exotic Ghost and Legendary emblem.
Includes Lightfall, the new raid, and a Season Pass for Season 20.
Campaign
In a Neptunian city under siege, find strength in your fellow Guardians as the end to all things approaches—the Witness is here. Arm yourself with new rewards and unlock new Dark powers to triumph in Lightfall’s unforgettable Legendary mode.
Strand
Harness Darkness and pluck at the threads of reality with this new subclass. Flow through the city with newfound speed as you grapple from building to building. Every class can tap into this new element, but it’s up to you to create the perfect build.
New Destination
Travel to Neptune and discover a neon metropolis unlike any you’ve explored in Destiny 2. Meet the Cloud Striders, join the fight against the Shadow Legion, and prevent devastation in the technologically advanced secret city of Neomuna.
105 GB hard drive storage space required as of November 10, 2020. Subject to change. Requires broadband internet. After November 10, 2020 see www.destinythegame.com/size-requirements for current requirements prior to purchase.
Destiny 2 may contain flashing patterns and images that may produce adverse effects for a small percentage of people sensitive to them.
Bungie, Inc. makes no guarantee regarding the availability of online play or features and may modify or discontinue online services with reasonable notice at any time. Using the software constitutes acceptance of the Destiny Software License Agreement available at www.bungie.net/sla.
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Samsung are also offering cashback for the same amount, dropping the price to £108 after all is said and done. That’s an awesome price for a high-speed external SSD capable of read speeds of 1050MB/s and write speeds of 1000MB/s – and one that ranks among the fastest portable SSDs we’ve ever tested.
Cave Story and 
