podcast talks all things mods – specifically, the ones that got real big and broke out from their respective source games. It’s a chat that’s been prompted by the developers behind Slay The Spire mod Downfall announcing their own brand-new game, Tales & Tactics.
There’s also a lot of undead fish chat, and Alice’s plans for entertaining herself on an upcoming long-haul flight. And in James’ hardware corner, the gang chat about Nvidia’s comments on AI and crypto, as well as Ubisoft’s AI writing software tool thinger.
Learning magic is full of danger. One day you’re just getting your head around the basics of summoning different creatures and the next you’re stuck in an inexplicable time loop to prevent a trapped Archmage from reclaiming an artifact of unimaginable power. At least, that’s the way things go in GrimGrimoire OnceMore as Lillet Blan tries to survive her studies at the Silver Star Tower.
A remaster of 2007’s GrimGrimoire by Vanillaware, this game does a lot right in its attempt to capture the action of a Real Time Strategy title. Things begin as Lillet Blan arrives at the Tower to study magic. The “new student at the academy” setup is familiar enough that players will feel at home in the first few minutes of the game. Lillet is sent to various professors, each specialising in a type of magic that she must learn. These lessons take the form of RTS battles that make up the gameplay in GrimGrimoire OnceMore.
Welcome to Next Week on Xbox! In this weekly feature we cover all the games coming soon to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows, and Game Pass! Get more details on these upcoming games below and click their profiles for further info (release dates subject to change). Let’s jump in!
Great New Games Spotlight has officially kicked off and we’re excited to bring you a ton of games every week for the next six weeks — more than 100+ new games will launch on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One between February 28 and April 10 – and if you spend $50 on eligible games and movies, you can receive 2,500 Microsoft Rewards points! Get more details here.
You are the Custodian of the Chimera, a living experiment created as a last resort to save life on Earth. Enter a tactical battle for the planet’s most coveted resource and the key to your Chimera’s evolution: pure Genetic Material. Meet Your Maker is a post-apocalyptic first-person building-and-raiding game where every level is designed by players. Switch between roles as you mastermind devious maze-like Outposts filled with traps and guards, then gear up for methodical fast-paced combat raiding other players’ creations.
Embark on an epic, hand-animated, “ratoidvania” adventure, where your crew has been turned into rats by a pirate witch. Explore a rich, non-linear world, enjoy fun action platforming, face challenging bosses, and unlock unique abilities either by yourself or in local co-op.
A fast-paced 2D platformer with a focus on precision and fluidity, where you´re in control of a cute little Orange in a journey in an abstract world. Master jump, wall-jumping, wall-sliding, dashing and more as you leap from level to level, moving along, up and down the screen to put in your best possible performance in 75 challenging stages.
Immerse yourself in a thrilling and exciting adventure. Children have been missing for a long time in Lakewitch, and you’re destined to solve this creepy mystery. Who is the kidnapper? Where are the children disappearing to? How do you save them? Solve the puzzles and find the answers.
Play as Ludovik, a Seeker, sent to investigate a murder case in Babylon. When a state of emergency is suddenly declared, Ludovik finds himself in increasingly dangerous territory as he follows the murderer’s trail and unravels the mystery behind the Library’s sudden lockdown. Featuring a world full of vast jungles, abandoned temples, and plentiful cybernetic inhabitants to interact with, The Library of Babel promises both a thrilling adventure full of danger and intrigue, and a thoughtful, atmospheric tale of how we consider infinity.
Embark on this cute but frantic adventure spanning across an incredible world full of danger. Explore seven unique worlds overflowing with beautifully animated graphics and retro game nostalgia. Overcome various perils to save Bumballon’s magical kingdom and rescue the beautiful Princess Moon.
The tee is yours across 30 courses in EA Sports PGA Tour, designed in stunning quality with Frostbite so you can enjoy more of golf’s finer details than ever before. PGA Tour is also the exclusive home of the Majors, including the Masters Tournament, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open Championship, and The Open Championship. Powered by ShotLink, TrackMan, and Pure Strike, giving you golfer-specific tendencies with unique course dynamics and revolutionized ball behavior for the premier golf gameplay experience. Create and customize a golfer, develop your skill set with new Shot Types, gain deeper course knowledge as you play, and learn to attack every hole like a pro. Pre-order the EA Sports PGA Tour Deluxe Edition to start playing on April 4. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members with EA Play can enjoy a trial of the game as well starting on April 4.
Roadwarden was one of many fantastic mystery games from last year, and fans of the text-based RPG can now look forward to solving more secrets from the world with Windy Meadow – A Roadwarden Tale, coming to PC later this year.
Windy Meadow is set in the same fantasy world as Roadwarden and similarly presents a slice-of-life story that can branch out depending on your choices. This time, though, you’ll be following three protagonists in their interweaving day-to-day lives.
Windy Meadow’s press release teases the stories of Vena, Fabel, and Iudicia: “Will talented huntress Vena depart the harmonious but harmless village and leave her family behind in pursuit of riches with a merchant guild? Can Fabel finally embrace his talents, ditching the figurative shackles of his difficult past as he chases his dream of becoming a famous bard? And will outsider and herbalist Iudicia take hold of her love life, choosing not to marry a man she doesn’t really love at the risk of leading a lonely future?”
Development on Final Fantasy 16 is now complete as developer Square Enix has announced the game has gone gold.
Shared in a tweet (below) on the Final Fantasy 16 Twitter account, Square Enix has wrapped up development way ahead of the game’s launch date of June 22.
“Final Fantasy 16 has gone gold,” it said simply. “From the entire development team, including Torgal, we hope you’re looking forward to Final Fantasy 16’s launch on June 22.”
Final Fantasy XVI has gone gold.
From the entire team, including Torgal, we hope you’re looking forward to #FF16‘s launch on June 22nd ? pic.twitter.com/Vrtd3cMNW5
Square Enix has provided incremental updates on its development since then, even saying the game had completed basic development one month after its announcement. Producer Naoki Yoshida then said in April 2022 that it was in the “final stages” of development,” leading many to believe Final Fantasy 16 would launch towards the end of that year.
That didn’t happen, of course, but June isn’t too far away for those looking forward to the game. It’s only coming to PlayStation 5 at launch despite some conflicting messaging from Square Enix, though Sony only has six months of exclusivity.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Join Emma, Mat, and Matt as they discuss the new Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie, followed by a special interview segment with directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. The ‘Matt’ Trio also talk about this week’s TV highlights as both Succession and Yellowjackets are back on our screens, then move onto Counter-Strike 2 thoughts, and some doughnut-fueled feedback.
Got a game for us to play, or just want to tell us the weirdest thing you’ve eaten for breakfast? Drop us an email: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.
Mask Of The Rose: green-tentacled creatures, underground Londoners, and most frighteningly, love. Sometimes two or more of these horrors intersect, and by that I mean you can romance that tentacled man in this gothic, alternative-history dating sim. Spooky suitors will need to wait a while more, though, as Mask Of The Rose has been delayed to June 8th – previously slated for April.
The writing had been on the wall for a couple of months. Despite the ESA and ReedPop’s stated intentions to “reunite the industry” with a new vision of the hallowed yet ailing industry event, hopes of a “return to form” were arguably dashed the moment the ‘big three’ — Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo — confirmed that they wouldn’t be attending the revamped expo this year.
While on previous Forza Horizon games the wild, toy-themed expansions have come after a more grounded one, for Forza Horizon 5 developer Playground Games led with its terrific Hot Wheels add-on last year. However, after seven months of pounding the orange plastic high above the clouds, the team has taken us right back down to the desert and dust for some new rally-themed racing across a fresh slab of Mexican countryside. It admittedly isn’t quite as eye-catching – and it’s regressed from some key tweaks to the progression system introduced in Hot Wheels – but competing against the clock with a co-driver is a great new way to race in Horizon, and the excellent map is packed with far more technical routes than found in the main game.
This map, which Playground has dubbed Sierra Nueva, is really the highlight of Rally Adventure – and perhaps deceptively so, considering it’s not as immediately distinct from the main game itself as, say, the snowy Blizzard Mountain DLC was from the core Forza Horizon 3 map. There are six different environments blended together in Sierra Nueva, and on closer inspection it does effectively look and feel like a separate part of Mexico than what we’ve been driving around since late 2021. There’s new vegetation, and zones like the quarry are unlike anything already in Horizon 5.
Sierra Nueva’s real strength, however, is its road network.
Sierra Nueva’s real strength, however, is its road network. Don’t be fooled by the early pop-up that indicates you’ve only got 32 roads to drive down before you’ve seen them all – many of these roads are long and technical, like the guitar solo in Free Bird. The best among them are characterised by tighter corners and more hairpins than you’ll find on a typical Forza Horizon 5 road, plus more bumps and jumps, as well as longer stretches between junctions. Sierra Nueva’s new dust effects are also a standout, and it hangs in the air above the dirt and gravel for far longer than before.
After a strong opening drive, where the route into the festival is clogged with campers on the way into the main hub, Rally Adventure breaks the racing up into three threads – each with a slightly different take on rallying. In a somewhat unfortunate step back, things have reverted to a bit of a free-for-all rather than the gated class system that gave the Hot Wheels expansion a nicer sense of progression. Of course, you can still use any car you want to enter events and the AI will adjust class accordingly. This is how I played, changing cars for each of the nearly 30 events to keep things varied. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by blazing through everything in your fastest hypercar, unless you’re only here for a short time rather than a good time.
Each event can be played two ways – either as a single car rallying against the clock or a standard race against a pack of opponents – but the proper rallying is the highlight. It’s not a particularly demanding simulation (and its straightforward pace notes crib plenty from the pick-up-and-play pleasure of genre granddaddy Sega Rally) but it’s absorbing, arcade-inspired fun. Having your co-driver soaring over the stage above you in a helicopter is a cool touch, too. It doesn’t just look slick, either – it’s also a smart solution to explain why you’re still receiving co-driver audio in single-seater vehicles.
Dust ’Til Dawn
As with Hot Wheels, Rally Adventure adds 10 new vehicles to the garage – and it’s worth noting the selection here is a way more natural fit in this rally-themed expansion than it was last time around. Now don’t get me wrong, because there are some wicked cars that come with Forza Horizon 5 Hot Wheels – especially if you’re into… supercars named after Australian 24 Hours of Le Mans winners, which peculiarly accounts for 20 percent of them. However, it’s hard to say there’s much inherently “Hot Wheels” about cars Mattel has never made diecast versions of.
I’m an enormous fan of the iconic 2001 WRC Ford Focus RS of Colin McRae and Nicky Grist, and it’s a perfect fit as essentially the hero car of this expansion.
In Rally Adventure, the curation leans entirely into rallying and off-roading. I’m an enormous fan of the iconic 2001 WRC Ford Focus RS of Colin McRae and Nicky Grist, and it’s a perfect fit as essentially the hero car of this expansion. I also love the Hoonigan Beetle, affectionately nicknamed the Scumbug. It’s not quick, but lower-powered cars are regularly a lot of fun to use as it’s all about pushing them up to their absolute limit and keeping them there on the brink of losing control in order to maintain your momentum. It’s especially serendipitous here considering the Scumbug was literally built by the Hoonigan team to rally in Mexico.
There’s an argument that the 10 new cars are too heavy with trophy trucks and buggies over traditional rally cars, but keep in mind the latest update to the main game just added a host of new rally parts for pretty much every traditional rally car already in the existing garage. On top of that, the incredibly talented community has whipped up excellent replica liveries for all of them over the past few years. The lack of a license for Lancia in Forza Horizon 5 hurts, and it definitely leaves a hole in an experience so overtly inspired by the likes of Sega Rally, but there are plenty of other rally legends that can be built to tackle this new map.
podcast talks all things mods – specifically, the ones that got real big and broke out from their respective source games. It’s a chat that’s been prompted by the developers behind Slay The Spire mod Downfall announcing their own brand-new game, Tales & Tactics.
Roadwarden was one of many 
Mask Of The Rose: green-tentacled creatures, underground Londoners, and most frighteningly, love. Sometimes two or more of these horrors intersect, and by that I mean you can romance that tentacled man in this gothic, alternative-history dating sim. Spooky suitors will need to wait a while more, though, as Mask Of The Rose has been delayed to June 8th – previously slated for April.
Vampire Survivors is the best game of 2022. Good BAFTAs.