Gearbox and Take-Two recently brought forward the release of giggling gunslinger Borderlands 4 from 23rd September to 12th September. This came a week or two after Bungie and Sony also decided to release their Marathon reboot on 23rd September.
If you thought all that was evidence of publishers playing 4D chess around the currently unannounced release date of GTA 6, with Bungie and Sony making the fair assumption that Take-Two won’t release GTA 6 and Borderlands 4 on the same day… then you were mistaken. You should be ashamed to speculate in this fashion! Pshaw! Harrumph! Damn your eyes, sir, and damn the stalking horse you rode in on.
We’ve been eagerly awaiting news of the Sea of Stars ‘Throes of the Watchmaker’ DLC ever since Sabotage Studios first teased it in early 2024, and now, we finally have a release date.
The excellent retro-inspired RPG will land its free DLC on 20th May, adding an extra eight-hour adventure that features new characters, worlds, puzzles and a cinematic budget equivalent to that used on the main game. In short, it’s quite a beefy sausage.
Indie Selects for April 2025: Fresh but Familiar Vibes
Raymond Estrada, Nick Zuclich, Deron Mann, Oscar Polanco, Steven AllenID@Xbox Style Coordinators
Sometimes you just can’t put your finger on it. You want something familiar and comforting, but also something just a little different. You want to mix it up with some excitement, but still maintain a sense of connection to what you already know and love. Something balanced. Well, aren’t you in luck! This month the ID@Xbox team has handpicked six Indie Selects that have immaculate vibes.
We give you a bit of intensity with a co-op heist and gliding down mountains; chill out with heartfelt narratives over some tea and a bit of sticker commerce; and, finally, run some very strange errands while strategically expanding your universe. Perfection! Here’s what we’ve got for you this month (in no particular order):
From the creator of The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide, Wanderstop is a narrative-centric cozy game about change and… tea. Playing as a fallen fighter named Alta, you’ll manage a tea shop within a magical forest and tend to the customers who pass through. But Alta does not want to be here. And if she gets her way, the tea shop will be nothing but a brief and painful memory.
While this year’s Game Developers Conference was incredibly energizing and inspiring, it was also stressful and overwhelming at times. I needed a meditative escape after I got home, and Wanderstop was the perfect game to help me recharge. It’s beautiful, whimsical, magical, and deals with emotional themes that I found both cathartic and uplifting. The narrative touches on shame, burnout, personal growth, satisfaction, and introspection. There are low stakes here, no stressors, no time limits, and there are no fail states. The game actively encourages players to enjoy the moment, to take a breath, to reflect inward and delight in simple pleasures.
At the same time, it has a strong and compulsive loop. Players grow plants, harvest fruits, acquire trinkets, make friends, and brew increasingly in-depth tea recipes (and other types of brews) with off-the-wall ingredients for an ever more diverse and colorful cast of characters, all who have powerful stories to share and lessons to bestow.
I loved this game and will absolutely be playing through again in the future. This is a fantastic example of games as an artform for me, and I feel fortunate that we get to experience creations like this.
Wanderstop is a narrative-centric cozy game about change and tea. Playing as a fallen fighter named Alta, you’ll manage a tea shop within a magical forest and tend to the customers who pass through. But Alta does not want to be here. And if she gets her way, the tea shop will be nothing but a brief and painful memory.
Wanderstop is a tea shop management ritual. Grow and harvest the ingredients needed for tea, and then mix them together in an unusual tea-making contraption. Along the way, speak with the many travelers who pass through the shop, learn their stories and make tea that’s just right for them.
In your downtime, you might tidy up around the clearing, decorate the shop in your style, or just sit on a bench with a cup of tea and listen to your own thoughts. Maybe doing nothing at all is okay. The shop demands patience, it rejects those who have come only in the pursuit of growth unchecked.
And that’s why Alta can’t be here. It’s why she’ll never make it. This isn’t who she is. No, she’s a fighter! Why would anyone insist on turning the world’s greatest championship warrior into a docile shopkeeper?! With everything she’s capable of?? No no no, she won’t, she won’t do it… she can’t…
Wanderstop is a game from the team at Ivy Road, including Davey Wreden (creator of The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide), Karla Zimonja (co-creator of Gone Home and Tacoma) and Daniel “C418” Rosenfeld (the music of Minecraft).
What genre is this? Unhinged? I mean let’s be fair: What do you call a mascot management/relationship management sim/open world driver/Yakuza mystery narrative, with the most bizarre cast of characters you will ever come across? Fantastic, you call it fantastic.
Promise Mascot Agency is unlike anything I’ve played. The plot may seem bizarre, but the narrative is surprisingly wholesome. You’re a former Yakuza “fixer” sent out to a small town to run a local brand ambassador business. Accompanied by your mascot companion (who is… a living severed finger) and beat-up truck, you drive across town in effort to earn profit, all while uncovering a range of political conspiracies undermining it. This game is about a lot of things, but it really centers around optimism and adapting to new circumstances when things go awry. Very, very awry.
Oh my goodness, do I love this game. I literally could not stop playing. At its core, the game has you finding and recruiting a variety of mascots. You negotiate their benefits package, find clients that would employ them for events and send them out on jobs hoping that they won’t mess up, and inevitably get attacked by a demon, or some other hilariously random incidents that trigger a card-based minigame. On the one hand, the game is a very chill experience driven by a lot of narrative quests and casual management sim tracking and efficiency gameplay. On the other hand it’s an exploration driving game with few limits and plenty of ways to profit. The difficulty ramp on either side is gradual and not overwhelming. Overall, the gameplay loop was absolutely built for my short attention span and general weirdness, and the writing had me fall out of my chair laughing. On top of the that, the cast of mascots you meet are incredibly likeable in their own little, weird way. You’re bound to find a favorite.
As chaotic as this all may seem, this experience was incredibly cozy and heartwarming. The gameplay is, indeed, fairly simple, but it’s so unique in its presentation that it kept me glued. I think people who enjoy the Yakuza series would especially enjoy this, but honestly I’d want everyone to play this totally preposterous game about you and your giant finger friend helping a town become whole again.
From the creators of Paradise Killer comes a mind-bending open-world narrative adventure mascot management simulator where mascots are more than just symbols – they’re unpredictable forces of nature! Step into the chaos, unravel the conspiracies, drive a tiny truck and try to keep it all together in Promise Mascot Agency!
Welcome to the Mascot Hustle
You thought mascots were just fluffy, innocent brand ambassadors? Think again. The Mascots are all living, breathing, fully formed personalities, with dreams, fears, and the occasional breakdowns of their own- just like us! Whether it’s Trororo, a charming cat who’s a little too obsessed with “adult video” or sweet, silken To-Fu, who can’t stop sobbing, your job is to befriend, mentor, and (hopefully) get these mascots to finish their jobs without causing a major catastrophe.
Play Your Cards Right
Sending your mascots out to work is never as easy as it sounds. One minute they’re promoting delicious food, the next they’re stuck in a doorway or starting a kitchen inferno. Need help? Good thing Kaso-Machi is full of intrepid everyday heroes ready to lend a hand (if you’ve managed to befriend them, of course). Unlock Hero Cards, featuring Kaso-Machi’s lovable local weirdos like Captain Sign, Japan’s only road-sign superhero (don’t ask questions), or Mama-San, a bar owner with a serious latex collection. These heroes will step in to provide help when your mascots inevitably lose control.
Tear Through Town in Your Upgradable Kei Truck
Kaso-Machi is a town full of secrets, and Michi isn’t just stuck in an office managing mascots – he’s on the road in his rusty (but upgradeable!) Kei Truck. This nifty little ride may look like a heap of junk, but with a few tweaks, it’ll have nitro boosts, glider wings, and even the ability to launch Pinky☆ – Michi’s maniacal mascot assistant – like a missile. Use your truck to explore the strange, forgotten town, unlock collectibles, and uncover hidden mysteries. Who knew a Kei Truck could be your best friend in a town where literally everything else hates you?!
Crime! Drama! A Walking Finger?!
Exiled after an ambush that left his clan in shambles, Michi finds himself piecing together the mystery of what really happened, while the town seems to actively conspire against him. Nightmare spirits seem a little too interested in your business, and there’s an ever-present sense that something’s very, very wrong in this place…
Think you can resist? Think again. The mascots know where you live. Step into the world of Promise Mascot Agency and claim your place in this brave new world of mascot domination.
Monaco 2, the sequel to a beloved, Xbox Live Arcade classic, is a top-down stealth-action game where you and up to three others cooperate as a band of thieves tasked with pulling off “perfect” heists. The flow of the game is relatively simple – players select a mission, go through a quick, narrative driven debriefing, select one of four unique characters, strategize through an interactable overview of the level’s layout through Blueprint Mode, and proceed to the mission. Where it gets complicated is when you actually enter the premises. You can create the most elaborate plan ever, but it can (and almost always will) fall apart once someone is detected by a guard or walks through a laser, triggering an alarm.
I spent most of my time in the single player mode, which was fine since the game offers the ability to switch between characters at various checkpoints. I was able to squeeze by the first few missions as one character, but you’ll quickly realize the strategic advantages of leveraging the whole cast as missions become progressively more elaborate. My favorite character is Sake since I not only loved her design, but her emphasis on speed and stealth. She’s perfect for beginners as, when situations get too sticky, you can count on her dodge roll to avoid attacks. Of course, there’s also Una who doesn’t really care about the game’s rules – opting for combat over stealth with her ability to knock guards out.
I found the most fun weaving in and out of strategic stealth to cat and mouse chases. Getting caught and leveraging shadows, barriers and furniture to juke and loop the guards, only to return undetected, felt extremely satisfying every time. While I did have fun solo, I recommend firing this up with friends whether online or locally!
Monaco is a city overflowing with luxury and greed, which makes it a perfect target for you and your international gang of criminal masterminds. The best of the best have been assembled, and they’ll need to work together using their unique abilities to rob the city blind. Do you and your friends have what it takes to bring the city of Monaco to its knees?
New characters mean all new ways to play! Assemble your team from a selection of eight playable characters, each with their own unique abilities and playstyles. Need to adapt? Switch your character mid-run to overcome whatever obstacles stand between you and untold riches!
Every heist requires careful planning. With Blueprint Mode, you can look at the level’s layout before you start the mission, allowing you to case the joint before you and your friends fleece it for all its worth.
They say there’s no honor among thieves, but they’ve never met your crew! Team up with up to three other players in local or online multiplayer and plan your heist. However, nothing ever goes exactly according to plan in Monaco, so you’ll need to work together and improvise if you want to get away with your haul of riches.
Monaco 2 offers a new level of immersion with an updated 3D art style and a procedurally generated level design system. Complete the structured campaign or test your skills against the hundreds of seeded levels, proving once and for all that you and your friends are the ultimate thieves!
Sledders is an open-world snowmobiling simulator that captures the true spirit of backcountry freedom and exploration. Unlike other entries in the genre, it offers less arcade-style gameplay and instead focuses on realism. It features physics-based snow environments and a robust catalog of fully licensed snowmobiles – including some awesome retro models. If you ever daydreamed about carving through untouched powder, discovering new trails, racing for bragging rights, or trying out new tricks, Sledders might just be your next favorite ride.
What stood out the most to me is how the sleds handle. They don’t just glide over the snow, they dig in, sink under the weight, and fight back like they should. You have to shift your weight, ease into the throttle, and use your skills to navigate the terrain. It’s challenging at first, so be prepared to fall often. But don’t worry, sticking to the trails is a great way to familiarize yourself with your sled before heading off into the wild. Once you find your rhythm, it’s addictive.
Whether you’re a weekend warrior looking for a peaceful solo ride, hosting a private session with friends, or a hardcore sledhead ready to challenge the world, Sledders meets you where you are with multiplatform cross-play support for up to 32 players. You can customize every detail of your sleds in the garage, and it offers plenty of options to style your character with gear that matches your look. If you’re looking for a game that lets you ride on your own terms and at your own pace, Sledders delivers an experience that will stay with you long after the snow melts.
Shred your sled in open-world backcountries. Sledders is a realistic, physics-based snowmobile simulator. Manoeuvre the big open terrain, plow through tons of fresh snow, conquer the mountains, and reach the peak faster than your friends!
Sit back, relax, and enjoy as you rip around on one of the sleds speeding between trees and throwing it around at the ridges. The limits are only set by you so let loose and show us what you can accomplish!
The game offers a big map for you to explore and play around in. It contains steep hills, mountains, lots of trees, and open areas ready to be ridden by you (yeah, there’s a plenty of jumps, and also water…)! It will take ages for you to ride from one corner to another, that’s how big the map already is. And who knows what the future holds, our plans include bigger, better, and many more maps to come (we hear you ditch bangers, snow crossers, tricksters, trail riders, and all!).
The snow in Sledders feel as real as possible, so you better sharpen up your powder skills or you’ll just keep on digging deeper and deeper into the snow! Freeriding in backcountries means a lot of snow to plow and riding in it is way different than on other terrains. You must master the steering by shifting your weight around, making turns with your throttle, counter steering with your skis, and many other new skills. Once you master the skills needed in the backcountries, you’re unstoppable and no pow will make you stuck.
– Freeride snowmobile simulator with real-world physics in deep-snow backcountry
– Ride with and against your friends in epic freeriding experience
– Online, crossplatform multiplayer takes you ride around the world with a likeminded community of sledheads
I used to love stickers as a kid, but I never thought about designing and showing off my own creations. Enter Sticky Business, a cozy, small business simulator game where your motivation is to run a small business designing, selling, and packing stickers for a variety of customers. No end of the world scenarios, no final boss to violently fight off, and no heart stopping action. The game is as advertised: cozy as it comes and twice as wholesome.
After naming your store, you start at your desk and begin designing stickers for customers. You have hundreds of parts and options to choose from, and they can be meticulously layered to make some truly ridiculous stuff. Illustration sizes, text colors, outline sizes, and other options can tweaked and changed rather easily. You don’t have the option to use individual letters to make your own words (which makes sense, even though I really just want to make a wholesome Wu-Tang sticker). Still, there’s some pre-made words that you can put together, so I’m a bit proud of my line of “Cozy Metal” stickers with various combinations of animals and instruments. Yes, it’s dumb, but I do enjoy them very much.
Once your design is finished, you can pay coins to print them on different types of sheets. You have to be extremely thoughtful about how you to fit the stickers to the sheet because a single sheet costs the same regardless of how many stickers you can fit on it. More stickers, more profit. You then package everything up exactly how you want it and send it off to make some cold hard cash (and hearts) which you can use for upgrading and unlocking more designs.
Unlike most games, the story doesn’t revolve around you. Instead, it’s entirely focused on your customers, who write you about their lives and how stickers fit into their narratives. Some are heartwarming, some are ridiculous. You’ll find that different stickers attract different customers and there will be some requests for specific types of stickers that you’ll need to fulfill. It’s a great, short Etsy-sim that’s super soothing and chill. Especially if you have younger kids, nieces, or nephews that are into design, this a great find.
Create, pack and sell your own unique sticker creations!
Experience the joy of running your own cozy small business: Create stickers, pack orders and hear your customers’ stories. Time to build the cutest shop on the internet!
You want a collection of cat stickers? A witch-themed shop? Or add a derpy face to all of your creations?
Combine dozens of elements to create your own collection and sell them to like-minded people. Different stickers attract different customers! You can add some sparkles or holo effects to make them even more special!
Pack orders and hear more about your customers’ stories every time they buy stickers!
My Little Universe by Estoty is a delightful blend of adventure and simulation that invites players to create and explore their own miniature worlds. This charming game falls into the genre of sandbox adventure, where creativity and exploration are key elements. Players start with a small plot of land and gradually expand their universe by gathering resources, crafting tools, and unlocking new areas.
From the moment I started playing, I was enamored by the game’s whimsical art style and engaging mechanics. The process of building and expanding my universe felt incredibly rewarding. Each new discovery, whether it was a hidden treasure or a new biome, added layers of excitement and curiosity. The game strikes a perfect balance between relaxation and challenge, making it easy to lose track of time as you immerse yourself in your little universe.
One of the standout features of My Little Universe is its intuitive gameplay. The controls are gratifyingly simple, allowing players of all ages to jump right in and get creating. There’s no need for a lengthy tutorial or complex button combinations. You gather resources with a simple tap, craft tools with a few swipes, and expand your universe with ease. This simplicity makes the game incredibly accessible and enjoyable for players of all ages. It also offers a variety of customization options, enabling you to personalize your world to reflect your unique vision. Whether you’re a fan of games like Minecraft or Terraria, you’ll find familiar elements here, but with a fresh and charming twist.
My Little Universe is a must-play for anyone who enjoys creative and exploratory games. It’s a perfect escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, offering a serene yet stimulating experience that will keep you coming back for more. So, grab your tools and start building your own little universe!
Go above and beyond the cosmos!
The universe is vast and filled with adventures, mysteries to solve, and enemies to fight… who knows, you might even meet a few friendly faces along the way. Better yet, invite up to three of your friends to join you in the split-screen local co-op mode because it’s always more exciting with friends!
EXPLORE!
9 mythical worlds and 65+ different dungeons, from mythology-inspired lands to hostile alien worlds await you and your friends. Filled with wonder and plunder, challenges and adversaries, your task is to restore these beautiful worlds to their former glory!
GATHER RESOURCES!
The worlds are filled with rich minerals ready to be harvested by your trusty tools, and mythical artifacts of untapped power guarded by powerful foes. Use more than 70 different gatherable resources to recreate lands long lost to a mysterious threat.
RISE UP TO THE CHALLENGE!
The universe won’t be restored that easily, and each challenge requires the proper tools for the job. Equipped with your trusty pickaxe, sharp sword, and sturdy axe, you’ll be thrown against 150+ different adversaries including mythical creatures, alien horrors, and even demigods!
UPGRADE YOUR GEAR!
With each planet comes new challenges and because of that, you have to stay prepared by upgrading to the newest and freshest tools, which will always keep you one step ahead of your opponents! Improve your weapon, tools, and armor up to 30+ levels!
Just Enjoy The Adventure.
Get entranced by the game’s cozy atmosphere, enjoy the relaxing soundtrack, and fall in love with the simplistic yet charismatic visuals. After all, it’s all about the journey and the friends we make along the way!
Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is set to leave early access and launch on May 21, Netmarble and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have announced.
The action-adventure role-playing game based on George R. R. Martin’s much-loved fantasy universe is set for release on all mobile platforms as well as on PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Windows.
Game of Thrones: Kingsroad launched in early access form in March, and has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam. Most of the negative reviews revolve around its monetization, which some have called “greedy.” “It’s like a mobile game on steroids and kinda not in a good way,” reads the current ‘most helpful’ review on Valve’s platform.
In a release date FAQ posted to Steam, Netmarble addressed the expected gap between the progression of early access and new players. It said that Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is “fundamentally designed with a focus on single-player gameplay,” and that it had worked to “minimize any feelings of imbalance or unfairness that might arise from differences in progression.”
Testing was conducted to improve the game, the development team continued, “to improve the game and make it more enjoyable and accessible for everyone.”
“We encourage all players to focus on the inherent fun of progressing through the later stages and reaching the endgame content, rather than comparing progress with other characters,” Netmarble suggested.
Netmarble went on to apologize for its prior communication and patches, which it admitted were “somewhat lacking.”
“Moving forward, we are committed to more frequent and transparent communication through regular AMA sessions and Developer Notes,” it added. “We kindly ask for your continued anticipation and support as we approach the official launch.”
As you’d expect from a game like this, there’s a premium Founder’s Pack that offers Early Access and other exclusive in-game content. Mobile players can pre-register through the App Store and Google Play store on iOS and Android devices ahead of the grand launch.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
With The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered out and millions of players enjoying Bethesda’s much-loved open-world role-playing game, its army of fans are coming together to issue advice to those who might have missed out on the fun 20 years ago.
Oblivion remastered is a remaster, not a remake, Bethesda has stressed, and so many of the quirks of its ageing design remain. One of those quirks — or frustrations it might be better called — is Oblivion’s level scaling system.
It’s this latter point that has sparked a fresh round of advice from Oblivion veterans to newcomers, and it all revolves around Castle Kvatch.
Warning! Spoilers for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered follow.
Breaking the Siege of Kvatch is the fourth main quest, and tasks you with defending the city of Kvatch against the Daedric hordes. It involves going through an Oblivion gate where you’ll face off against multiple high level enemies. Once you’ve done that and closed the Oblivion gate, you have to clear out the Daedric invasion in the main plaza of Kvatch itself.
If you waited too long and leveled up a lot, you’ll find that all of your helping friends are quickly killed because the enemies you’re facing are extremely difficult. Due to Oblivion’s level scaling system, the higher level you are, the tougher those enemies will be. At higher levels, Kvatch will throw every variety of Daedra at you, rather than easy-to-kill Scamps. You might encounter a room full of Daedroth (strong crocodile-headed bipedal Daedra), Daedric Princes, or other monstrosities.
Breaking the Siege of Kvatch leads into The Battle for Castle Kvatch, should you take it on. Here you battle to retake the town’s castle, defeating the Daedra along the way. Like Breaking the Siege of Kvatch, level scaling can be a real problem here.
Enter helpful Oblivion veterans who are recommending players take on Kvatch before they hit level 10.
“I’m like panicking now…” said redditor IsThatHearsay. “First time playing Oblivion, didn’t even know you had to sleep to lvl up until just before I got to this mission.
“Closed the Kvatch Oblivion gate right before this mission still as lvl 1, then read online to sleep and I jumped from lvl 1 to 9 immediately with hour sleep increments. Met Martin there and decided to escort him to the Cloud place to take a break from fighting, followed by deciding to cheese some skills like Conjuration, Acrobatics, Sneak, and whatnot quickly and climbed to lvl 15.
“Now have to go back to do Kvatch at lvl 15+, when I’m hearing I probably should’ve just done it while still lvl 1…”
“I just tried it at level 20 and let me tell you, that shit is fucking rough,” said frontadmiral.
“Completed at lvl 21 on a mage, god it was tough,” said Ranaki_1967. “Had to in the field recharge my staff, drink potions escape down the ladder, have maximum shield armour, a Dremora champion.
“The framerate was bad.”
“Bro im doing it at 27 rn and im NOT having a good time, Xivali are EVERYWHERE,” Mother_Bid_4294 said.
Even Oblivion experts have been caught by taking on Kvatch at too high a level. “I’ve oblivioned extensively in the original but I still made the same mistake, went back to Kvatch level 13, just about manageable,” Various-Jellyfish132.
“Make use of sneak for bonus damage and retreat through loading doors to recover if needed, if you have a bit of space, their attacks are easily dodged. The daedroths don’t seem to follow you through the doors so you can pick them off one at a time.”
“Oblivion scaling is just wild though because you will level up once and suddenly Scamps transform into Daedroths and Clannfear Runts turn into Daedric Princes,” Groosin1 said.
“Because the scaling cap is only 17-18. And the way leveling works, at 17-20 you could be anywhere from a guy with middling combat skills for what you’re using and getting obliterated, to being God.”
Part of the issue here is that players are leveling up faster in Oblivion Remastered than they did in the original Oblivion. That’s because the developers changed the leveling system to modernize it, but kept the level scaling the same.
This has had the knock-on effect of causing some players to be a higher level than they would have been in the original when taking on tough quests such as Kvatch.
For the first time ever I decided to do Kvatch before level 10. It was cool to see it actually functioning as an even battle instead of a horde of overleveled demons one-shotting all the guards. Really makes you wonder if they ever tested it at higher levels. pic.twitter.com/VeQH3xst0b
As you’d expect, modders have once again come to the rescue. Fresh from tackling PC performance issues in Oblivion Remastered, modders have also released balanced NPC level cap mods and balanced unleveled rewards mods, so if you’re on PC, you can change the way Oblivion Remastered works significantly. If you’re on console, however, you’re stuck with level scaling.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Lost Soul Aside is delayed three months, from May 30 to August 29, 2025, its developer has announced.
After roughly a decade in development, the PC and PlayStation 5 single-player action game was finally scheduled for llaunch next month, but a statement from developer Ultizero Games revealed the delay to late September to add polish.
“We are truly grateful for the positive response we’ve received from players all over the world since we announced Lost Soul Aside,” Ultizero Games said.
“We remain committed to delivering a high-quality game experience. To match the standards Ultizero Games have set for ourselves, we are going to take some additional time to polish the game. Lost Soul Aside will now release on August 29, 2025. We want to express our heartfelt thanks to our fans waiting for the launch.”
Originally the passion project of solo developer Yang Bing, Lost Soul Aside has grown to become a major Sony-published title under the company’s China Hero Project, with Bing now the founder and CEO of Shanghai-based studio Ultizero Games.
IGN recently had the opportunity to sit down with Yang Bing to discuss the long road to launch. So many years of development went into Lost Soul Aside, escalating from a solo creator’s vision to a trailer reveal at Sony’s State of Play broadcast. Through it all the hype has built up, with some calling Lost Soul Aside an exciting mix of Final Fantasy characters and Devil May Cry combat — even from the moment Yang Bing’s initial reveal video went viral in 2016.
The main character Kesar wields a shape-shifting weapon you can swap between, which changes your playstyle, and you have a dragon-like companion named Arena who can summon abilities to support Kesar.
Like its inspirations, Lost Soul Aside emphasizes aerial dodging, precision timing, combos, and countering along with large-scale boss fights. The game blends its sci-fi premise with a variety of contemporary aesthetics that fit into a campaign that takes you across multiple dimensions. Although it’s tough to glean where the story is going based on its trailers, Bing describes Kesar’s journey as one of “redemption and discovery.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Proton, the compatibility software co-developed by Valve and CodeWeavers for helping Windows games run on Linux – and, thus, the foundation for the Steam Deck – is getting its first full version update in nearly a year. Proton 10.0 is now available in beta form, heralding compatibility fixes and improvements in enough games that I gave up bothering to do an accurate count. Loads, basically.
Virtual Game Cards is now a thing for the Nintendo Switch, letting you easily ‘eject and load’ titles from one console to another and lend digital games to family and friends, while providing a more elegant solution to redownloading your eShop games.
One small, yet notable addition includes the ability to hide your Virtual Game Cards. So if there’s anything in your collection that might be, shall we say, unsavoury to some, then you can simply hide it from view.
Bloomberg reported the canceled game, codenamed R7, was an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe. And while that is not the Titanfall 3 sequel fans have been clamoring for, some are devastated that the fan-favorite Titanfall 2 is still without a sequel almost a decade later.
“I just fell to my knees at Walmart,” said one player, while another simply wrote: “I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE.”
“How many more times will this happen before they finally give it up and leave us to our sorrow?” lamented another.
Not all fans are taking it as bad news, however, as some think an extraction shooter based in the Titanfall universe could have failed, killing the franchise for good.
“Best thing that could’ve happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned,” posited this redditor. “A Titanfall extraction shooter would probably flop and the c-suite executives would say ‘see, the people just don’t like Titanfall anymore,’ instead of the obvious reason being nobody asked for a Titanfall XTS.”
“I’m fine with this one being canceled,” responded someone else, followed by: “Extraction shooter lmao. Good riddance.”
“So sick and tired of ‘extraction shooters’. They’re so formulaic and boring. I don’t want to loot bunch of useless shit and camp in an attic or sit in a bush for 20 minutes or risk getting shot moving thru big open fields. Give me quick matches, wallrunning and titans blastin’,” suggested this fan.
“Got sad. Read extraction shooter. Was literally okay,” summarized someone else.
The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other thought to have been the aforementioned extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe.
Mohammad Alavi, who became narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3 before it was cut, told The Burnettwork that much work on the sequel had been done.
“Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about 10 months, right? In earnest, right?
“We had new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right? But I’ll make this clear: incrementally better, it wasn’t revolutionary. And that’s the key thing, right?
“And we were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were making something revolutionary, y’know what I mean?”
So, what happened? According to Alavi, it was a combination of the multiplayer team having issues making an experience that didn’t burn players out quickly, and the explosion of the Battle Royale genre with the release of PUBG in 2017.
“The multiplayer team was having a hell of a time trying to fix the multiplayer, because a lot of people love the multiplayer. People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer,” Alavi said.
“But the people who love Titanfall 2 multiplayer is a very small number of people. And most people play Titanfall 2 multiplayer and think it’s really good, but it’s just too much. It’s cranked up to 11, and they burn out a bit fast. And they’re like, ‘That was a great multiplayer, that’s not something I continually play a year, two years,’ right?
“So we were trying to fix that. We were trying to fix that from Titanfall 1 to 2, trying to fix it from Titanfall 2 to 3, the multiplayer team was just dying.
“And then PUBG came out.”
Respawn developers were seemingly more interested in playing a Battle Royale map with Titanfall 3 classes the team had put together, than any of the standard Titanfall multiplayer modes they were working on. This prompted a realisation: ditch Titanfall 3, which may or may not have ended up a better game than its predecessor, to create a Battle Royale that was wonderful.
“And at the time, I had just literally become [the] narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3. I had just pitched the story, the whole game, that me and Manny [Hagopian] had come up with. We made this big presentation and then we went off at break, and came back from break, and we talked about it and we were like, ‘Yeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game.’
“We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves ’cause we were like, ‘We can make this game, and it’s going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.’
“And don’t get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall. I love that game. Titanfall 2 is my most crowning achievement, but it was the right call. That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didn’t even know about it for another six months until we had a prototype up and running that we could show them!”
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Diablo 4 has launched Season 8 and with it kicked off a series of free updates that will, eventually, lead into the action role-playing game’s second expansion, due out at some point in 2026.
But not all is well within Diablo 4’s ravenous core community. It is a player base hungry for significant new features, reworks, and fresh ways to play the near two-year-old game, and it’s not shy about letting Blizzard know how it feels. Yes, Diablo 4 is more than its core community, with a significant number of casual players who just like to blast monsters without too much thought on how they’re doing it. But the foundation of Diablo 4’s community is made up of veteran fans who play week in, week out, fuss over meta builds, and want Blizzard to give them much more to think about.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Diablo 4’s recently released 2025 roadmap — the first Blizzard has released for the game — suffered a backlash. In the wake of the roadmap’s release, Diablo 4’s community expressed concern about what’s coming up in 2025, including Season 8, and questioned whether there’s enough new content to keep them coming back.
Season 8 launches not only with all this in mind, but with a number of controversial changes of its own. Chief among them is a significant change to Diablo 4’s battle pass to bring it more in-line with Call of Duty’s, offering players the chance to unlock items in a non-linear fashion. But the battle pass now pays out less virtual currency than before, leaving players with less currency to put towards subsequent battle passes.
In this sweeping interview with IGN, Diablo 4 lead live game designer Colin Finer and Diablo 4 lead seasons designer Deric Nunez respond to the reaction to the roadmap, confirm plans to update Diablo 4’s skill tree (something players have wanted for some time now), and explain those changes to the battle pass.
IGN: How is the team feeling about the rollout of Season 8? Are there any challenges you’re predicting that you might have to tackle?
Colin Finer: Season 8, we’re feeling really good about it. The thing we’re really looking out for is anything crazy that happens in the first week. We’re looking to see if there’s anything that’s gonna be underperforming as part of the boss powers, which is the big marquee seasonal thing that we’ve introduced in this season. So anything that might be underperforming, we’re looking to make buffs. To anything that’s massively overperforming, that’s just breaking the game in terms of, you get one boss power and now everything is easy, we’re probably gonna be toning down.
It’s nothing that we’re too scared about. We find on Diablo the harder something is to balance, the more fun it is. So I think it’s in a pretty good spot. We’re excited for this season to come out and really have players become bosses.
IGN: Has the team’s philosophy around buffing and nerfing following a season rollout changed over the course of Diablo 4’s lifetime?
Colin Finer: Absolutely has evolved and changed, and a lot of it has been revolving around what we try and uphold and respect, which is player time investment and where players are having fun and meeting them there.
So just to give a history on it, in the very first season of Diablo 4, we made a bunch of changes, sweeping nerfs to the game because we wanted it to fit more within our launch vision of the game, where combat was a little bit slow and methodical, and you’re gonna take monsters one-on-one, and bosses are gonna be really challenging and difficult. Obviously, that didn’t go super well because it felt like were defining what the fun of the game was for the players.
Over time we’ve become a lot more hands off once a season goes live. We don’t want to necessarily make any big changes in the middle of a season, for example, to nerf or do big buffs to classes, because we again want to respect player time investment.
For a while we had a thought after Season 1 where it was like, ‘OK well, we won’t nerf at the start of a season, but we will make big nerfs in the middle of a season, or will make big buffs in a season.’ As we saw progression became more deep and we added more ways to min-max your characters, we felt like doing big sweeping changes in the middle of a season would disrespect player time investment. You might work your way up to a really powerful Necromancer build with tons of minions, you’ve tempered your gear, you’ve masterworked it, and then if we found that it was too powerful in the middle of a season, it was way overperforming, if we nerf that, that meant all that time you put into that character was essentially being thrown away. So we didn’t like that.
And we didn’t like the other part where we were going to massively buff a class, for example, in the middle of the season, because you might have wanted to play that. But now, now that you haven’t invested in that build, now it presents this obnoxious challenge where it’s like, ‘Well, I wanted to play this, it wasn’t strong at the start of a season, and now it’s this big climb to get to that point where you’ve unlocked this new build for me.’
In Season 8, what we’re really looking at now is being a little bit more reactive early into a season and then taking a step back. What that changes now in terms of our philosophy is if we see something in the start of a season that is crazy or overperforming — and how we define overperforming is that it’s just short-cutting a lot of the challenge and progression of the game.
Season 7, to give you a clear example of that, we felt like Blood Wave Necromancer was doing this, where you get one unique item on the Necromancer, and now all the bosses in the game are falling over. You’re one-shotting everything in the game. We like getting to that point. We like when players can become God-like powerful. We don’t like when it’s cheapened by one item or one interaction that invalidates everyone else’s journey to get to that spot.
So we’re going to be looking in Season 8 for early outperformers like that, taking S-plus builds to just an S. And if there’s anything new that we’ve added — for example, we’ve added this really cool unique item on the Sorcerer that allows you to fan out Ice Shards — if, for example, that underperforms we will also be buffing those early into a season.
So it’s really just being a little bit more reactive earlier into a season and then taking a step back and letting players have fun with all the stuff that we’ve added.
IGN: I’m big into Diablo lore, and so it’s exciting to see Belial arrive in Diablo 4 as part of Season 8. Why Belial now? And for Diablo lore fans, is there anything meaningful here they should keep an eye out for?
Colin Finer: Absolutely. Diablo, the genre and the IP, greater and lesser evils always have a way of somehow coming back into Sanctuary, right? You thought you had banished them, like Lilith was banished to the abyss but she somehow came back. So Belial is another great example of that. In Diablo 3, he took over Caldeum, throughout the Iron Wolves, which you now see in the outskirts of Diablo 4, and they’ve been cast out. They’re sort of outcasts.
In terms of why Belial now? In Vessel of Hatred, Mephisto is walking the earth in his human form, all hell has broken loose, and Belial, who’s a lesser evil, obviously can’t pass up this opportunity to try and wreak havoc, take advantage of the chaos, take advantage of the fact that the gates of hell are open, Mephisto is walking the earth. And this felt like the proper time for someone like Belial, who’s such an incredibly cool villain, incredibly cool demon, to want to come in and take advantage of this chaos.
So overall, the narrative that we’re really pursuing and interested in is that Diablo 4 is evolving with these expansions and the Vessel of Hatred kicked off this… you never know who’s going to come back. So we have a ton of big bads up our sleeves who are looking and eager to come back into Sanctuary to take advantage of this madness.
IGN: You’ll obviously be keenly aware of some of the reaction to the roadmap among the core community. I think it’s fair to say there’s been some mixed reaction there. Were you surprised by some of the reaction about what was coming to the game this year?
Colin Finer: I don’t know it was necessarily surprising. You know, if you ask our fans, ‘What is it you want more of?’ It’s more details, more content, more things. So we know we have an obligation and we’re in service of the player in terms of really getting them a fantastic experience and adding and evolving Diablo 4 over time.
What we are talking about more on is ensuring that the players understand that this is just a starting point and that it is a conversation with the player base. Part of the seasonal model that we really enjoy is that seasons are a place for us to try really big, crazy, bold new ideas that we then can use community interaction and conversations to validate what’s working for them, to then bring it into the eternal game and to evolve Diablo 4 over time.
So a good example, if you think back to our past, we did this crazy Blood Harvest in Season 2 where all these vampires were running around, it was all hell broken loose on the overworld, and we took a lot of those lessons learned and things that players really enjoyed and pulled that straight into Season 4 with our updates to Helltides. So we’re always looking to have a conversation with the community and hearing their thoughts on what’s working for them and to pull that back into the broader game of Diablo 4 to make it feel like it’s evolving over time.
Part of this was, we have Nightmare Dungeons and Infernal Hordes, we have a couple of features called out on the roadmap, and again, it’s a starting point. We’d love to hear some of the community thoughts and feedback when they see these things in terms of like, ‘Oh, I wish this thing was changed in Infernal Hordes,’ for example. That gives us a lot of great validation in the direction that we’re heading on that particular feature.
Deric Nunez: My initial reaction to the reactions of the roadmap, it was all definitely very fair feedback. We see the roadmap as the kickoff for a conversation that we’re looking to have with the player base. Obviously things get a bit more obfuscated the further out we get. We’re really excited that some element of what the fans are looking for will definitely be revealed as we get further along. When it’s all said and done, I think we’ll be in an overall very strong place for Diablo 4, as we make the road towards the next expansion and refining that foundation and seeding in the new seasonal fun that we’d like to inject season after season.
The fact we’re getting so much feedback from a broad spectrum of the player base, the hardcore blasters and the casuals alike, is definitely all very important for us as we make decisions moving forward, and also validating some of the decisions and directions that we’re already taking with the roadmap yet to be revealed.
IGN: I play a lot of Diablo and I play a lot of Call of Duty, and it looks like Diablo 4’s new battle pass has taken some inspiration from Call of Duty with the way you can now pick what you’re working towards. Can you talk about why you’ve changed it in this way?
Colin Finer: We are updating the battle pass in Season 8 with a new system called Reliquaries. A lot of this was driven by, the battle pass just felt like a pretty long and tedious grind through 150 levels to get the things that you wanted. And we felt like that wasn’t necessarily servicing our players in the best way that we could.
Diablo, there’s a lot of different ways to target or get chances at the types of loot that you want in the game. There’s a lot of control, there’s a lot of ways for players to manipulate the odds, or target something they want, just like the Lair Boss system where maybe there’s a specific boss you want and you can farm that boss to get the unique item of your dreams.
The Reliquary system aims to inject some of that choice and allow players to drive and work towards the things that they actually want out of the battle pass. The high level was, how do we get players more in the driver’s seat in terms of claiming some of the stuff that they actually want out of the battle pass? We think it’s just a lot more flexible now.
IGN: I’ve seen negative feedback to some of the changes to the battle pass where you get less virtual currency back from it now than before. That won’t have passed you by. Can you talk about the reasoning behind those changes?
Colin Finer: Yeah, I think it’s definitely fair reaction. We’re always listening. I think the thing that we think works a lot better as part of the system is, again, you’re able to really work towards and pick the things you want out of the system. I believe also the Platinum that you gain out of the entire system is available to everyone now. So you don’t even need to buy the battle pass necessarily to gain some of those things back. So it’s a net win for everybody overall, in that sense.
IGN: For Season 9, is there anything on the roadmap that people can expect might change either as a result of feedback or because things have become clearer internally? Or is everything on the roadmap that we’re seeing now still what people can expect? I’m talking about Season 9 there but that can extend to Season 10 as well.
Colin Finer: At a high level, it really sets the expectation for what is the big major thing that we’re gonna work on. But just like Season 8, how it has tons of quality of life changes, tons of updates, tons of details, each future season is also going to have that level of detail, content, and variety.
I’ll give you a great example: because it was the Season of Bosses in Season 8, we thought what better time and opportunity do we have to actually update a lot of the bosses that exist in our game? So we took a look at Duriel. He’s been in the game for quite a while. We’ve completely changed the fight. We’ve added some new attacks. We’ve added a lot of fun new ways for him to eat you and kill you. Those level of details all coalesce into one really solid, incredible package for a season that the roadmap just isn’t really able to capture at this point. Because it’s really just trying to say, ‘We’re going to be investing and looking into Nightmare Dungeons… how do we level up that system and feature?’ And there’s just going to be so much that goes into it that really is hard to sell with just a few bullet points in terms of telling players where we’re actually heading.
Deric Nunez: The devil will definitely be in the details when we reveal more. There’s a lot more beyond the veil, the broad stroke of what was revealed.
IGN: Generally, there is a desire from players for brand new skills and build variety. What’s the thinking there about whether or not to do it either way?
Colin Finer: This is a really meaty question, so I’ll dive into a couple sections. Our goal every season is to completely refresh the meta and make it feel like there’s tons of exciting new ways to play the game. A great example of this is you might have played a Whirlwind Barbarian last season, but you can still play it this season, and our hope that the boss powers that we’ve added that are unique to this season have ways to actually make that Whirlwind Barbarian feel completely different and get you to care about different things, and to have it change the way you play.
So a great example is one of the boss powers has essentially a power that when you’re channelling, it’s going to fire a death laser beam. It’s the Wandering Death. If you fought that one, you get to rip the power out of it, and now while you’re Whirlwinding it’s going to shoot that death laser. So that’s a really cool way for you to have a really big impact on your overall build while still having a similar playstyle.
As far as the skill tree changes, I can confirm we are talking about updates to the skill tree, but I don’t have any details. It’s something the team is taking very seriously, and we are talking about, what is a major change that we think would create more build variety and more build diversity going forward?
The reason why it’s going to take us quite a while is it’s kind of a big problem to entangle. So right now, just to dive into some of the details, Legendary aspects are two parts that we consider problematic. It’s both customization, which is like, ‘I want my — for example, if you played Rogue — Twisting Blades to orbit around me.’ We think that’s a really cool thing and really cool playstyle customization choice.
But because it’s a Legendary item, it also has what we call power growth, which is, now Twisting Blades deals more damage. And what that means is if you want to play a Twisting Blades Rogue, you have to play with the Twisting Blades orbiting around you playstyle, right? We’ve just sort of said because there’s both power on this as well as customization, this is the only way you’re allowed to play Twisting Blades Rogue.
So we want to separate some of that out. We want to pull more of the customization into the skill tree and allow aspects to be more power growth. That’s a lot to entangle and that’s why it’s a lot of conversations that we’re having right now. And it’s a lot of work on us to make sure we get it right, so that we release it into a high quality state. That’s just like a little insight into the philosophy that we’re working towards as part of that.
The TL;DR to that is we do want to do something to the skill tree, no plans that I can share now, but it’s something that we’re definitely talking about.
Diablo 4 Season 8 is live now.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
