New MultiVersus Datamine Suggests Future Content Around Barbie, Harry Potter, and More

MultiVersus players may soon be able to enjoy content from the worlds of Harry Potter and Barbie if a datamine leak is to be believed.

Information on what could be the Warner Bros. platform fighter’s next batch of content comes from X/Twitter user @AusilMV, who has been sharing what appears to be images from concepts of different stages and characters. While some of the pictures highlight what appear to be early-in-development locations and gameplay modifiers, others are instantly recognizable.

One notable example shows a stage with broomsticks that hover above a platform decorated with four distinct colors: blue, red, green, and yellow. It doesn’t take a Harry Potter expert to recognize that the broomsticks could signal that the map is intended to be Quidditch-themed, but those banners also seem to be placeholders for the universe’s four houses, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff. While no Harry Potter representative can be seen in the image, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the stage accompanied by someone like Dumbledore or Hermione should Harry Potter content ever make its official MultiVersus debut.

The datamine also reveals a stage that is unmistakably inspired by last year’s megaton movie hit, Barbie. The all-pink location is dressed with palm trees, multiple levels to fight on, and a twisty slide that seems to lead to a pool. It looks almost exactly the same as star Margot Robbie’s Barbie Dreamhouse, though like the Harry Potter stage, it lacks any Barbie or Ken character representation.

Other MultiVersus datamine images show off heavily rumored characters like the Powerpuff Girls, DC’s Nubia, and Adventure Time’s Marceline, though until developer Player First Games has anything to announce, it’s best not to expect any of the content shown to officially appear in-game. It’s at least clear that the developer has more plans behind the scenes, as Warner Bros. Games moved to acquire the studio earlier this week.

MultiVersus is still in the midst of renewed player interest following its re-launch in May. Fans are currently enjoying Season 2 of its post-launch roadmap, which brought along newcomer Samurai Jack with Beetlejuice promised to arrive at a later date. This is all while players continue to wait for introductions for other characters who have been previously leaked, such as Aquaman and maybe even a few mystery anime characters.

We’ve had our eye on MultiVersus since its return to the public and had great things to say about it in our 8/10 review. At the time, we said, “MultiVersus may not be a must-play at social gatherings, but its refreshing team-based battles make it a great platform fighter online.”

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.

Tekken 8 Interview: Why Harada Lied to Us and How Heihachi Found His Way Back to Tekken 8

Tekken 8 had a big Evo. Bandai Namco announced a new free single player story expansion, and a partnership with Nike and Chipotle. There was an incredible Grand Finals that saw Arslan Ash prove to the world that he is still the king of competitive Tekken. And there was also the return of arguably the most iconic and recognizable character in Tekken Lore – one that we were told was dead dead, like, for realsies this time – Heihachi Mishima.

During the show, I got a chance to sit down with Tekken series director Katsuhiro Harada, producer Michael Murray, and game director Kohei Ikeda, to pick their brains about Heihachi returning to Tekken, how the game is performing six months in, and much more.

So, to start this off, why did you lie to us? How is Heihachi coming back from the dead and what made you want to bring Heihachi back as the third DLC character for Tekken 8?

Katsuhiro Harada, Tekken 8 Series Director: [I] didn’t mean to lie or anything about that. It was… Tekken 7 really focused on the story arc between Heihachi and his son, Kazuya, and so, we really wanted to show that kind of final conclusion, and he seemed to die at that point. Right?

But then, after that happened, Tekken 8 was released, and we put a lot of effort into the story and the fans really seemed to be engaged with that. And as that was happening, we were kind of feeling that the players kind of missed him as well. Obviously, we did, too. So, it was kind of decided later on that we would do that.

So, it wasn’t a lie. And then, also, the timing is right since it’s the 30th anniversary of the franchise. And so, we need all three of the Mishimas. This is the most iconic in the series. Right?

Its the 30th anniversary of the franchise. And so, we need all three of the Mishimas.

Kohei Ikeda, Tekken 8 Director: So, after the fact, we did kind of make the preparations, you know, Reina, kind of that link that she has to Heihachi. And then, also the logo, the 30th anniversary. If you look closely at it, you can see that it’s comprised of Devil’s wings, two different styles, but if you take a step back and look at, it actually looks like the silhouette of Heihachi’s face. Right? So, we were doing some of the preparations in the background.

I know it’s early, but can you tell us a little bit about how this Tekken 8 version of Heihachi will be different from previous iterations, and maybe, how he’ll use heat to his advantage?

Ikeda: Like you imagine, it is a bit too early to be talking many details about his character, but to give some hints, he’s a very powerful play style throughout the series, so we tried to recreate that in Tekken 8. So, the focus is on that. But also, if you saw that a story hints about the monks and the footage and what he has to do with them, that maybe will dictate some of his move set as well.

So, there’s some hints there. We hope that you’ll look forward to hearing more about it.

So, another thing that you’ve announced is this partnership with Chipotle and Nike. Can you talk a little bit about how both those deals came about?

Harada: It really is several different cases. Sometimes, they approach us, other times, it’s something that we ask of them. But there needs to be the right conditions such as it’s a win for us, it’s a win for them. But more importantly, a win also for the fans.

For example, with the Nike thing, Nakatsu and I are both big sneaker… Myself and him, our fans, but there’s a lot of people on the team as well that love Nike. And so, it just happened that that’s something that there’s a lot of sneakerheads in the fighting game community as a whole.

And then, also on the Nike side, we found out they really knew about Kazuya’s being a sneakerhead, and we had a lot of fighting game fans on the Nike side. So, it was a win-win for everyone. And then, also, Chipotle as well, they’ve been supporting the fighting game community. It’s a good match with gamers and their franchises.

And then, also, if it’s something the fans are enjoying, obviously, that’s good for us from our side as well. So, it came about that, hey, that’s a win for everyone, let’s do it. Although the start is different, the conditions are pretty similar.

So, we’re half a year into Tekken 8’s life cycle. How happy are you with how the game has been received by fans, and then, separately, how have the sales so far met with your own expectations?

Harada: After the game released, it’s been six months, like you said, we’re happy with how the title’s performing. It’s continuing at a faster pace than Tekken 7.

Also, considering that compared to the other fighting game titles, we haven’t done the previous generation of hardware. It’s only on the current generation. So, that considered as well, I think it’s doing well.

And then, also from the community’s perspective, the game has been released and it was supported a lot by new players. Some of the people who’ve been with the series for a long time, they voiced some concerns, et cetera, at the beginning, but those opinions changed over the time.

We’ve noticed, during tournaments progressing, et cetera, people have more time with the game, even the more advanced players kind of got a handle on it. And so, their opinion has seemed to change in the past three months, was what he was saying.

Michael Murray, Producer: And I would add the same. We had to make a brand new game. It had to feel like a proper installment. So, Nakatsu and his team really changed the game system a lot, and really clarified the key concepts of the characters and their strengths and weaknesses.

And also, we did an update recently that addressed some of the things that the older players didn’t like. Maybe, enhancing some of the defensive options, et cetera. So, I think the game’s really in a good place currently.

Many of the core mechanics of Tekken 8 have changed since the game was first revealed. Specifically, I remember how the heat mechanics worked a little bit differently when I first saw it. Now that you’ve had six months since release and have heard feedback from both casual players and top-level pros, do you envision any more sweeping changes to the core systems in Tekken 8 or even some new additions?

Ikeda: Like you said, we’ve made some changes to the heat system after release. The reasoning being that, although the concept was clear and we felt we achieved it, that it was very fun to be on the offense and to open up your opponent and to be able to do damage, et cetera, was quite exhilarating, but we realized that some of the elements that people liked about 3D fight game, being able to have defensive options of side stepping or using that 3D environment to your advantage strategically was a little bit weaker perhaps in past installments.

So, with the update like we were mentioning, we enhanced those features a little bit more. So, we currently think that the game is in a good place and there are no further… we’ve already announced this to the player base as a whole, but we don’t plan on making any sweeping changes to the game system itself. We plan on proceeding with this. Although we’ll continue to be fixing bugs and things like that.

And also, like we talked about today, more about the product as a whole, adding new features or making quality of life improvements, trying to make it the best Tekken we can since it is, after all, the 30th anniversary of the series.

So, Tekken has historically been a series that has included some kind of off-the-wall characters like Gon, Mokujin, Roger, Alex and Kuma, and Panda. Since Tekken 6 though, it’s only really been Kuma and Panda representing that kind of character archetype.

Do you think Tekken, as a series, has largely outgrown those types of characters, or is there a chance that we could see those characters come back?

Harada: So, the strategy, the thinking behind the franchise hasn’t changed. It’s not like we’re intentionally removing those characters per se, but if you really take a close look at how they were back in those iterations, it was more of like they were… We call them compatible characters in Japanese, which means like the move set is another character and it’s just the skin is different, right?

There are many of those characters in the past, not just the animals that you mentioned. And over the series, we’ve tried to flesh them out and to do away with that portion. So, making sure that each of the characters are unique. So, even if you have Kuma and Panda, their moves might be slightly different or the Rage Arts or whatever, they’re their own unique character.

That was the main thinking behind that. It wasn’t intentional that the other characters are not making an appearance. That said, in order to get everyone’s favorites, and then, also include characters like that, we’d have to have a roster of like 60-some characters, which just isn’t viable from a launch, and then, also, for the player base to learn how to play against that number of characters is a lot.

So, we wouldn’t say they’re not going to make a appearance ever again. That’s just the current state.

Guest characters have been an important trend in fighting games, and Tekken, obviously, no stranger to them. What are your thoughts in general of having guest characters in your games, and do they come with any sort of unique challenges that, maybe, the average Tekken fan might not think about as just, from the perspective of a fan?

Harada: There [are] some things that maybe are behind the scenes that most people won’t notice – there’s got to be a variety of conditions that align. We want that particular character in our game is the start. Does that IP owner want their property in our game?

And then, maybe, both say, yeah, that’s awesome, but there’s a timing, like for our franchise, when do we want that character to appear? And for them, maybe, they’re like, no, we have plans, we can’t have it until later. Or we have plans that are coming later, so it has to be right now. And then, the fans want to see that in the game.

So, there’s a variety of conditions that have to occur before all of this can work out to be in the game. And then, I was just mentioning that, even if that happens, which is the hard part, right, and then if you’re using a famous character that has a well-known actor attached to it and their schedule is insane, you have to be able to find time to get them into the studio to record voice lines and things like that.

So, there’s so many obstacles that have to be overcome for that to happen. So, it is quite a challenge.

I wanted to ask you if you are familiar with the recent rise of creator-led team tournaments like the Sajam Slam, which, I know you had a thing with yesterday. And the CR Cup. Have you checked any of these out, and what do you think of the team format of having teams that are led by professional players, but then, the teams themselves are mostly made up of non-FGC streamers, YouTubers and other content creators?

Harada: [I do] watch those events, and [I’m] a fan of some of the YouTubers or streamers as well that maybe might not be a FGC person. So, [I’m] aware of it, and [think] it’s really a great thing that’s happening.

Because you have these pros who know their games quite well, but you have the streamers who haven’t, perhaps, played some of these games, and they all have their own communities who, maybe, don’t play fighting games that are, then, become interested because of their favorite streamer.

Another thing that’s quite interesting that happens is that, even if some of these people watch that stream and they find it interesting, maybe, they’re not even motivated to play the game themselves, but they still enjoy watching it and being a part of the audience and enjoying that experience. So, that’s a cool thing to see fighting games reaching a new audience, but maybe, they’re not playing it. That’s still cool though.

Murray: I would say the same thing. I mean, I’m a close friend of Sajam and some of these people, and we’re not directly involved that often, although we did make an appearance, it’s great to see what they’re doing with the game and to see the journey.

For me, especially, I was watching LilyPichu and to see her start off with no knowledge of Tekken, and then, she just becomes so engrossed and I see her face, the hurdles that beginner players face, and then, she overcomes them as she’s playing people online, and, then to see her face new problems as an intermediate player and to see that journey is really cool.

And to see her community experience that and grow with her is just totally awesome.

I want to just really quick touch on how it was launching on console and PC without an initial arcade release, and how has that changed development and post-launch updating?

Harada: Back in the day, it was, I guess, you could say a bit easier, because we started off the arcade iteration which just includes the battle portion of the game. So, that allowed us to put some time into polishing that portion before moving on to the console in which you start adding the various modes and other features that the console version received.

But since we don’t have that now, it’s like you have to provide everything from the start. You have to do the brand new game systems, all the stuff that goes into the console version. You have to polish them at the same time, as well as, create it.

And it’s really intense. That said, back in the day with the arcades, there wasn’t a worldwide connected internet and the fan base and all that. So, the communities were really localized and to get feedback, it was very hard. You’d have to pretty much go to that location.

Where now, although we have to create everything at the start and it’s quite intense, we’re more easily able to get feedback from the community because they’re connected to each other across the world. And it’s easier to access some of the more advanced players as well to get their feedback with the game. So, that does help. So, there are the challenges and drawbacks.

And then, also, the feedback, it’s easier to get, but you’re kind of overwhelmed by it, because before, you’re looking at just the battle portion for the arcade. But when we released Tekken 8 without an arcade version, you’re getting feedback about the balance of the game, the brand new system, some kind of characters.

Maybe, one of the features of the game, the people. There’s so much that encompasses, that it’s quite difficult to sift through it, and then, decide what do you prioritize, because we can’t do all of it at once, right?

Final question, I’m asking this to all the fighting game developers and producers that I’m talking to. But what do you believe is the next step forward for the fighting game genre?

We just kind of overcame Netcode with most games coming out now having rollback Netcode. What do you envision as any sort of new innovation or technology that you think could improve the genre and bring it into a new era of fighting games?

Harada: Like you said, there’s been various changes like rollback, et cetera, that have changed, but what [I’m] looking for in particularly is more of the community aspect and how that changes. Because we’ve seen a change outside of games, just the internet as a whole, in how people interact with each other and make friends, et cetera, that, perhaps, that will, somehow, make its way into fighting games.

We’ve seen a change outsode of games in how people interact with each other and mke friends. Perhaps that will, somehow, make its way into fighting games.

And there’s kind of earlier iteration of fight launch in Tekken 8 that you can experience that to some degree. But then, also, just the way that you play the game. For example, currently, it’s… Normally, a one-on-one match is maybe ranked or something like that, where maybe we start to see more of a team-based battles, which are quite popular in areas like Japan.

Just seeing the way that people interact with each other in a fighting game, not just directly in the battle is something that will probably evolve. Maybe, perhaps, the way that you cheer on someone in a fighting game. You’re not playing directly, but you’re still enjoying it as you watch them. Or maybe, the way that you interact with that certain group who are playing the games online in some kind of a lobby, et cetera. These are the areas he thinks will maybe see changes in the future.

Ikeda: There’s a lot of possibility in the AI features that we included. For example, in Tekken 8, we can play against more refined CPU character because they mimic tendencies, et cetera. But the AI characters, the Ghosts example that we have, there are various uses, it’s not just to battle against them. It helps point out your flaws and help you practice and enhance your weak areas. Or maybe, it’s a AI version of yourself and allows you to more take a step back and see your own weaknesses more effectively.

And so, it kind of complements what Harada was talking about, that online community and how you interact with them. But then, you also have this kind of AI companion to help you in your journey as a player, and they’re kind of interwoven as he sees it.

Harada: Maybe, from the AI players, when you beat them, they’re going to start sending you salty messages like real players. [laughter]

Murray: I agree with Nakatsu, that I think the fun part of fighting games, and Harada mentioned this, is not going to change. It’s that chess between you and your opponent. But we see that, it’s often hard to get people who have no knowledge of fighting games to get to that step where they find out why fighting games are so amazing.

So, I think like Nakatsu and his team, some of the things that they’ve done with AI characters, or… I don’t think he talked about it today, but the replay against you and opponent where you can see that, but then, you can practice a certain iteration, I think those kind of things where it helps people get to that point where they can enjoy the chess is some of the evolution we’re going to be seeing as well.

Mitchell Saltzman is an Senior Producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit

Dragon Quest Creator On The Challenge Of Silent Protagonists In Modern Gaming

“If you make a protagonist who just stands there, they will look like an idiot”.

The silent protagonist is a hotly debated topic among RPG enthusiasts. Usually acting as a stand-in for the player, this character is usually the lead, although they have no (or very little) dialogue, and can only interact with characters through basic dialogue options. And the creator of Dragon Quest, Yuji Horii, has weighed in on the difficulties of using silent protagonists in modern video games.

In a chat with the director of the Persona series Katsura Hashino published in Denfaminicogamer (and translated by Automaton Media), Horii admitted that “increasingly-realistic” graphics have made silent protagonists “increasingly difficult to depict”.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Robinson Crusoe Board Game Buying Guide and Expansions

Simulating the perils of being stranded on a desert island, the Robinson Crusoe board game series is a daunting epic. Like the many dangers that roam the island, the base game and its various expansions aren’t for the faint of heart. A dense ruleset and a wealth of mechanics await those looking to pick up Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island, as well as its various expansions. Those who stick with it, however, will be treated to one of the best cooperative board games money can buy.

Adventures on the Cursed Island is a thematic experience with intricate mechanics, and the subsequent expansions add even more depth. The Robinson Crusoe series doesn’t feature quite as many add-ons as some other popular games in the medium, but each package contains quite a bit of replayability in its own right. Completing the various scenarios within the base game is its own challenge, and it’s one players will find quite difficult.

The Base Game

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island 2nd Edition

MSRP: $70.00 USD

Age: 14+
Players: 1-4
Play Time: 60-120 mins

The only place to start with the Robinson Crusoe series is with the base game, as all future expansions require it. That said, rather than begin with the initial release, it is recommended to grab the second edition, which is the version currently in print. The first edition is fine if you find it at a good price from a secondhand seller, but the newer iteration features a much-improved rulebook along with updated artwork and components.

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island is an intricate cooperative worker-placement game in which players must survive a wide range of scenarios on a deserted island. In each round, players can choose what actions they wish to take to ensure survival, from exploring new areas to crafting tools or even hunting wild animals for food and resources. Players must also mind the group’s morale levels and any random perils they might encounter, such as weather, attacks, and other threats to general health.

Of course, mitigating threats and surviving are key, but so are taking actions to accomplish end-game goals. What makes Robinson Crusoe so difficult yet addicting is that it asks players to live in the moment and still plan for the future while also being aware that the next card could completely alter their strategy. Challenging games like this might put some perspective players off, but it only aids in Robinson Crusoe’s excellent theme of survival.

The first scenario is just beginning, too. Players can experience several stories within the initial box that involve volcanoes, cannibals, and even King Kong. Before moving on to other expansions, chances are you will be playing Robinson Crusoe for hours and hours between all of the built-in variability. Not to mention, actually beating one of the included scenarios will likely take most players multiple playthroughs.

Robinson Crusoe Expansions

Robinson Crusoe: Mystery Tales Expansion

MSRP: $50.00 USD

Components (REQUIRES THE BASE GAME)

Lost City of Z Campaign
2 Standalone Scenarios
9 New Characters
10 Double-Sided Terrain Tiles
New Santity Mechanic
New Event Cards, Adventure Cards, Beast Cards, and Mystery Cards

While the base game falls firmly in the action-adventure genre, Robinson Crusoe: Mystery Tales adds a bit of spookiness to the survival title. Mystery Tales doesn’t simply dip its toes in the uncharted waters of the horror genre; it dives in head first. Outside of the new campaign and additional scenarios, one of the biggest additions to Mystery Tales is the new sanity mechanic, a staple in other scarier games. That’s not to ignore the sizable campaign and scenarios, which are drenched in horror, from its storytelling to the addition of new beast cards featuring werewolves and other terrifying creatures.

Like the horror genre itself, Mystery Tales is a bit divisive among the fandom. It’s not just the foray into the spookier side of medium, but it’s also the added mechanics that insert even more rules into an already difficult game. Still, if a deserted island with horror monsters sounds like something you’d be interested in, Mystery Tales is an easy recommendation. Not to mention, the additional content also works with the base game, so you can add even more dynamic encounters to scenarios from the original box.

Robinson Crusoe: Treasure Chest

MSRP: $29.99 USD

Components (REQUIRES THE BASE GAME)

5 New Scenarios
2 New Characters
More Than a Half-Dozen Mini Expansions
Custom Wooden Food Markers
New Event Cards, Adventure Cards, Beast Cards, and Mystery Cards

While the fanbase is somewhat split on Mystery Tales, players across the board agree that Treasure Chest adds more Robinson Crusoe goodness. Essentially, the Treasure Box is a hodgepodge of previously released content through Kickstarter and various other platforms. Still, for fans who weren’t keeping up with the slow trickle of content over the years, the Treasure Box is a great way to catch up in one neat package.

While there isn’t one killer app in the box, so to speak, there are plenty of great additions that add even more replayability to the base game. The new sailor and gamer characters, five new scenarios, new beasts, and over 90 new cards offer plenty of variability to the previous releases.

Robinson Crusoe: Book of Adventures

MSRP: $29.99

The Robinson Crusoe: Book of Adventures expansion is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a book packed with 50 different scenarios with various difficulties for players to enjoy. Like other expansions, the Book of Adventures requires the base game to be playable.

Robinson Crusoe – Collector’s Edition

MSRP: $79.99

The Robinson Crusoe – Collector’s Edition makes a compelling case for first-time buyers with its various stunning miniatures and its tutorial book reminiscent of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. One of the knocks against the Robinson Crusoe series is that it features a ton of rules, but the tutorial book walks players through how to play the game step-by-step in what is arguably the best onboarding process for the series yet.

Bottom Line

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island is a deep and complex survival adventure game for solo gamers or groups looking to get cooperative. Mystery Tales brings the franchise into the horror genre, and the Treasure Box adds even more replayability through various scenarios and mini-expansions. That said, the base game should keep players busy for quite a while on its own.

Luckily, many of the games and expansions listed above can often be found well under MSRP. To stay up to date on the latest sales, make sure to bookmark our board game deals page. For more titles for one player, see our recommended picks for the best solo board games.

Bobby Anhalt is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering board games and LEGOs. He has more than 8 years of experience writing about the gaming industry with bylines at Game Rant, Screen Rant, TheXboxHub, and Ranker. You can follow him on Twitter.

Respawn Announces Changes to Apex Legends Battle Pass After Community Outcry

On July 8th, EA and Respawn Entertainment introduced a new Apex Legends Battle Pass system for Season 22. But after many of the new Battle Pass changes proved unpopular, Respawn is apologizing for its handling of the shift, and making some changes in response to criticism.

The initial Battle pass changes meant that instead of a single season Battle Pass, there would be two Battle Passes for each split of the season and neither would be able to be purchased with the premium in-game currency, Apex Coins. As a result, players could no longer spend Apex Coins from the previous Battle Pass on the next Season. EA did clarify that players could unlock the first half of Season 22’s Premium Battle Pass rewards by completing a set of challenges in the first two weeks of launch, but no further details were explained at the time.

Splitting the Battle Passes into two also meant doubling the cost of the total money spent for the full season adding up to $20 for both Premium and $40 for the Premium+. This was met with negative feedback from the community and Apex Legends’ Steam store page has been flooded with 76,872 mostly-negative reviews at the time of writing this article.

Today, July 24th, Respawn released an update changing the structure of Battle Passes, apologizing for poor handling of the previous announcement. The Battle Passes remain at two for each season but the latest changes restore the ability for players to purchase the Premium Battle Pass with 950 Apex Coins.

There are now two new Battle Pass tiers called Ultimate and Ultimate+. Ultimate is nearly the same as the Premium, but costs $9.99 USD and cannot be purchased with Apex Coins. It gives players all the Premium rewards and an additional instant unlock of eight Apex Packs and 1,200 Crafting Materials.

Ultimate+ is the highest tier of the Battle Pass including all the previous rewards seen in Ultimate and Premium but with double the Exotic Shards, two exclusive Legendary skin variants, eight Apex Packs, 1,200 Crafting Materials, ten Battle Pass Level unlocks, and the unlocking of every Legend in the game. It costs $19.99 and also cannot be purchased with Apex Coins.

Respawn also stated that with Season 22, through the first split, every player would be able to earn the Premium Battle Pass by completing a series of simple in-game challenges.

Battling Over Battle Pass

IGN was able to sit down with Steven Ferreira, Apex Legends Game Director, to speak about the amended Battle Pass plans and how decisions like these come to be internally and what Respawn’s plans are for the Apex community going forward. Responses have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

IGN: Why did you make the Battle Pass Changes?

Ferreira: Our Battle Pass has been the same for a long time. And for a while now we’ve seen and been able to track data on how many players are engaging with the Battle Pass, but also how the players value the content that’s in the Battle Pass.

Those were two areas that we wanted to address with a new design for Battle Pass. That was the motivation here in terms of updating the design. One of the things that we’re trying to do is make Apex more accessible. When we look at the Battle Pass that we had previously, a 90-day Battle Pass tuned for engagement in that timeframe, typically because of that long tail and wanting to balance it well for the entire spectrum of players and engage with the Battle Pass, meant that it was hard to grind through the Battle Pass over 90 days.

What we were seeing was that the majority of our players were not. They weren’t engaging with it in that time, and they were engaging for a lot shorter amount of time, which is reasonable, right? The idea that players are only playing Apex and nothing but, is not reality and it’s not how… You know? We don’t just play Apex and I don’t expect that the rest of our community does either.

The idea that players are only playing Apex and nothing but [Apex] is not reality.

Finding something that felt like it was better tuned again in a more accessible way to the majority of our players was kind of key. And so just like in season 20, we moved our ranked season from the full season back to a season split structure. The same thing with the Battle Pass was a natural progression for us to do that as well. And so the intention there is that you can still unlock the equivalent amount of cool content and stuff, but you can do it inside of 45 days. And you get a faster and a better pacing and cadence of engagement with the Battle Pass over 45 days versus 90. So that was the first thing. And like I said, what we saw in the data was that majority of players were not unlocking everything that we had in the Battle Pass in that time.

And so this is the hope of having more players engage fully with the entirety of the Battle Pass in 45 days. The second piece that I touched on was that the content, once players unlocked it, I would say the vast majority of it, players were not engaging with. In that we didn’t see players equipping that content. And so it was a bunch of things in the 90-day Battle Pass that players were unlocking, but then not really realizing the value of it. Or at least to them, they were telling us in their usage data that they weren’t getting of it. So one of the things we did was try to reconfigure the Battle Pass to focus on content that we were seeing players equip, or content types that we were seeing players equip, versus not equip.

Additionally around that goal, the other thing is that in terms of what we feel that players were getting value from, was the things that they were allowing them to make choice. And that’s why you’ve seen a shift focus towards currencies and things that’ll allow players to choose where do they want to spend that, what do they want to spend it on. As opposed to, we’ve made 110 levels versus bespoke content to unlock.

IGN: So with the Battle Pass changes, is that something that Respawn decided on or was that something that EA had pushed for?

Ferreira: No, that was something that we designed. Like I said, the primary challenge that we looked at was too few players are engaging with the Battle Pass in a meaningful way and getting the value out of it in terms of, like I said, what we were seeing in terms of equipping the content that was being unlocked. And we felt that it was almost creating a system where it was like, you engage with the Battle Pass designed this way because we’ve been doing it for so long. Having 20+ seasons of the system working, generally speaking, in this way, was a long time without actually addressing: is it working or is it not? And what we had seen for quite some time, was that it was increasingly so, not fulfilling in our definition what players were getting value from.

IGN: So then with looking at the analytics of people equipping things in the Battle Pass versus what they didn’t, is there going to be less of say, gun charms or maybe blue tier skins that people aren’t like super into for weapons or characters?

Ferreira: Yeah, that’s right. So what we found was that the majority of the rare items and the stuff that was like the trackers, and as you said, gun charms, et cetera, that we were just not seeing the pickup from the majority of players on equipping and using of those things. So they unlock them and they keep unlocking them, season over season, but nobody’s actually using those items. And so our focus was to shift development of that content over to content that players are actually equipping, and then do find valuable. And like I said, moving some of that over into unlocking currencies that’ll allow you to choose what are the things you want.

IGN: Do you know what kind of challenges we’ll see in the Battle Pass? Are they going to be like the dailies?

Ferreira: The challenges change and have changed, and so I don’t know what the specific challenges are. We’ll share more of that obviously when we get closer to season launch. But yes, the intention is that not that these aren’t really hard. Again, our goal here is to push towards a more accessible design for Apex. And so, same thing goes with this, is that the goal is that more people will try it. And the reason that we go, just to be fully transparent with this, is we’ve tried other kind of systems for letting people try it out and feel what it feels like. And sometimes we’ve done, is just log in and get this unlock immediately.

What we found is that sometimes people will just log in and get that unlock immediately, and then they won’t actually try it. And I really, really want our community to play the Battle Pass and feel what the new feel of the Battle Pass is and what the rewards are within the Battle Pass. And so in this way it won’t be difficult to accomplish the challenges. They’re going to be very basic to your point about how dailies are set up. But there will be a few basic challenges to encourage the community to actually try out the Battle Pass.

IGN: What about the other concerns about the state of Apex that players have aside from the Battle Pass?

Ferreira: So the other piece to this that I think has been a clear part of what we were seeing from the community feedback is this concern that because we’re doing this stuff that we’re not addressing other things that matter to players, right? Which obviously couldn’t be farther from the truth, whatever matters to players, matters to us by definition.

And we take that seriously, there’s obviously a part of crafting the experience that we as game developers care about and want to create something for players that they’ll enjoy. But this is a live game and we’ve always felt that part of that experience means that part of this game is not just our game, it’s not the devs game, it’s the community’s game. And so when there’s something that matters to the community, by definition matters to us.

And so there’s a couple of things that came up that I think were common threads in the feedback and a lot of the responses that I read through was “Why are we working on this instead of working on things like solving for cheaters, solving for the health of the game, solving for game stability, competitive integrity?”

We want to make a commitment to the community that we’re going to do better at sharing what is actually going on.

These are all things that honestly make up the majority of what we think about and work towards day in day out on Apex. But the reality is that a lot of these things are long-lead time initiatives. They are complex problems for us to address. And they’re not just like, oh, here’s a problem, here’s a band-aid solution. We actually look to implement solutions to this as part of the experience.

And so I think one of the things that we haven’t done well and again, going back to what I kicked the conversation off about is that we don’t really share what we are doing. And so we want to make a commitment to the community that we’re going to do better at sharing what is actually going on.

We have things that are coming out in the upcoming season and we have things that are a long lead time in our road map that span out multiple seasons. They are all focused exactly on the things that the community’s concerned about, but we never talk about them and we never acknowledge and have a conversation about the things that we’re trying and doing around those topics.

So I think as we get closer to the launch of the next season, we’re gonna make an effort to put a focus on that and actually share with the community what we’re actually doing across those things that I think, understandably so, the community feels we’re ignoring. But I just want an opportunity to reassure the community that that is not the case, that these are top priorities for us.

IGN: So then based on things that you have changed now (with the Battle Pass) and that you do want to be more transparent with players, how do you think that you would go about doing an announcement like this in the future if there were to be more battle past changes?

Ferreira: Yeah, that’s a fair question. I think this is the kind of thing where again, we went off of the data and something that we had been looking at for many months as to what was the right way to do this. But I think there are tools that we use regularly for things in our game, like focus groups and community conversations. We bring people in to give season previews and things like that.

And I think this is the kind of thing that we could have slowly rolled out and gotten more community engagement in and feedback through those kinds of channels that we’ve got in place.

We’re very careful about how we were doing this to make sure that we had what we believe to be a better experience for players. But just dropping this onto the community without engaging the community in the process of designing this, I think, for something that clearly the community cares about it as much as the Battle Pass, was a misstep on our side.

IGN: You speak about wanting to make Apex more accessible about wanting to give all players a great experience in Apex. And you did speak about obviously looking at hackers, but what can you say about if the team is looking at trying to appeal to a more casual audience because a lot of people do feel that the game has gotten more competitive and we have seen this issue before with Titanfall 2 where the skill gap just jumped and it kind of alienated a lot of people. But is there an internal discussion on how the general casual audience can be brought back in?

Ferreira: When I say accessibility, I think that I use that term as a pretty broad umbrella. And this is one of those when we break it down to how we actually solve for that in designing the game, they are two different things because it is a challenge.

It’s not an easy thing to solve by any means but I would describe it as probably one of our, if not our top priority in solving for the game right now. The reality is that Apex is a competitive experience and always will be that’ll never go away. It’s why Apex is fun, in my opinion, this is part of the DNA of the core experience that we have.

But some of it is that the on ramp to becoming good is too steep and too difficult and some of it is that the game is designed a little bit too much towards competition such that we do let that kind of run away and that skill gap, as you pointed out has become quite vast, over the last five years.

I have a bunch of ideas of how we’re going to address that and it’s going to touch on what I would describe as probably every part of our game. I’m actually excited to say it is coming up in the next season, that we’re gonna be talking about very soon.

It’s addressing some of that head on and it’s setting up some of the foundational pieces that I think will make apex innately more accessible to a casual player. I would say that probably the focal point of the next season is tackling a bunch of this and making the game more accessible to casual players.

Apex Legends Season 22 “Shockwave” launches August 6th, 2024 with detailed patch notes on upcoming changes releasing August 5th.

Stella is a Video Producer, Host, and Editor at IGN. Her gameplay focus is on competitive FPS games and she’s previously reviewed Apex Legends, Hyper Scape, Halo Infinite Multiplayer, and Battlefield 2042. She regularly hosts and shoutcasts competitive Apex Legends and Halo Infinite tournaments when she isn’t streaming on her Twitch channel after work outs. You can follow her on Twitter @ParallaxStella.

Hands On: Zelda, But With Mind-Bending Perspective Puzzles – We Take ‘Cassette Boy’ For A Spin

Giant cube-shaped cat fights and “The Schrödinger System”.

BitSummit, held in Kyoto every sweltering hot summer, plays host to an incredible amount of indie developers from across the globe. As you might expect, it can be rather hard to stand out – so much so that it was even difficult for us to curate a list of impressive Switch games down to only 10 titles this year. However, Cassette Boy, with its muted Game Boy-like color palette, exuded so much retro charm that we couldn’t help but play it more than once, chatting with the sole developer Kiyoshi Honda whenever he had a moment to spare from the hordes lining up to play his game.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Path of Exile 2: More Fun, More Flexible, More Evil

Category: Games

July 24, 2024

Path of Exile 2: More Fun, More Flexible, More Evil

Mike Nelson, Xbox Wire Editor

Summary

We go hands-on with a recent build of Path of Exile 2 and talk with Game Director Jonathan Rogers.
Unique for Xbox release will be a refined controller scheme, cross-platform progression, and couch co-op support.
Path of Exile 2 is currently planned for early access release in 2024.

Path of Exile 2’s character screen sets the mood early by featuring a variety of classes, each with a noose around their necks. Once I confirm my selection, the trap is sprung, and every neck is snapped save for mine as the rope gives way. My witch scurries away into the nearby brush and the adventure begins. The message is clear: this place is evil.

The original Path of Exile carved a path of innovation for the action role-playing genre when it was released on PC in 2013 (and in 2017 on Xbox). It was an instant classic that would go on to develop a fervent following, be hailed by critics, and establish a compelling new world to explore. Now, Grinding Gear Games is on the verge of sending us back to the world of Wraeclast with the upcoming Path of Exile 2. Originally planned as a massive expansion, PoE 2 has grown into its own beast with a slew of innovations while retaining what made the original so great to begin with — we got a feel for this recently during a hands-on session.

“For Path of Exile 2 we really want to make sure that we are keeping all the depth that PoE is known for, while removing a lot of unnecessary barriers that new players could easily stumble over. There were a lot of systems in PoE1 that added complexity without really adding any depth,” says Path of Exile 2 Game Director Jonathan Rogers.

“A great example was skill slots being tied to items in PoE1. Now your character just has skill slots for gems by default (more on this in a bit). In PoE2 we get to keep all the customization that itemized skills gave us, but without all the annoying details around having to change your items out whenever you want to try out a new skill combo. You can build your character with interesting combos between unique items, passive skills and abilities, but it should be a lot more accessible.”

The game is building not just on the mechanics of the original, but the story, too. Path of Exile 2 is set some 20 years after the events of the original game. Since the destruction of the first game’s big bad, the Beast, the world has been freed of its corruption and Wraeclast, your primary location from the original game, has been reclaimed; but that has created its own issues as well. The gods that were once kept in check by the Beast are now ravaging parts of the plagued continent, while others are controlled by tyrants seizing the opportunity for power. This is where you come in, as your character is dropped into a small area to the north called Ogham, where the land appears to be sickening once more. Again, it taps into the deliciously evil surroundings; dire and dread seem to be key tenants of Path of Exile 2’s world design.

Rogers details about what goes into building such an enticingly creepy world to explore within Path of Exile 2: “The first step of any world area design is working out what it was used for, and what kind of people were there — we need to make sure that this process starts with a dark fantasy theme and can mean designing cultures with “off” elements to them. This is true even for the cultures that are friendly to the player.

“From there we try to find references for some kind of look that we are after. Usually, we want to make sure that there is some kind of “creepy” element to the area to evoke. Even something as simple as a style of rock can produce uneasy feelings in players, but there are a lot of other details to achieving this. A great example is lighting. We try to light the game like a horror movie. That means having high contrast shadows, and not using too much ambient lighting. Even a bright area like a Jungle in daytime can appear ‘dark’ in tone if you give it a good amount of contrast.”

When I jumped in and started playing within this creepy hellscape during my hands-on session, I picked the Witch, whose skills like summoning minions and casting spells track to how I like to play most action-RPGs. What struck me immediately was how pleasingly fluid my character felt moving through the world, not to mention how well it mapped to the Xbox controller, especially with the analog sticks. It was like playing a twin-stick shooter, with the left analog stick controlling the witch, while right analog stick would attack in the direction I focused my spells. I also liked the level of control I had over my skeleton minions and how I could invest in having a variety of roles for them, like two warriors and two snipers, for example.

“The biggest improvement in my opinion is the combat feel,” says Rogers. “There are a large number of little details that go into improving combat, but it’s things like being able to move while using many abilities, special animations for getting into range, dodge rolling, and the ability to retarget during an attack that all come together to make combat feel much better.”

With so many character choices built in already, I asked Rogers what some of the factors the team takes into consideration to balance each of them in the game; what’s the mantra the team follows to ensure each class feels like a Path of Exile class?

“We have really tried to make sure that each class has unique mechanics and ideas, but at the end of the day the real purpose of each class is to deliver on a fantasy that players have. The design needs to make sure we are fulfilling that — if you pick a druid, you want to turn into a bear! Since Path of Exile doesn’t have class restrictions, you can go outside of that and do some really weird combinations. It’s not a question of balancing one class against another, it’s a matter of balancing every individual skill across the entire game with all the others. The reason that classes need to exist is to give you something to latch on to when you start the game to give you a template for how you might build your character, but you can branch out and do anything.”

During my brief hands-on time, I didn’t do much branching out or experimentation here – it was just a short 30-minute session. I was having too much fun spawning skeletons and casting spells to consider the wider implications of how to distribute skill points for my character — I can tinker with that another time when early access for Path of Exile 2 is projected to kick off later in 2024 – but it’s already clear just how flexible the game will be.

“Path of Exile is a game with a lot of skills, and for PoE2 specifically we want the focus to be around using a good variety of abilities in different ways,” Rogers explains. “This just means that we must be able to solve the problem of having a lot of different abilities easily accessible. At the same time, we have a lot of different character classes and build choices, and the best layout tended to be quite different depending on what you were doing.”

This feeds into the game’s new Skill Gem system that will allow you to take a skill and modify it with up to five additional support gems, rather than having abilities attached to these skills. With 9 skill slots on your character, and each skill having up to 5 supports, you can come up with all sorts of ideas.

“A classic example is Multiple Projectiles. Put it on the Sorceress spell Fireball and you get multiple Fireballs when you cast it. But when you put it on the Monk attack Falling Thunder, it will generate extra projectiles. We try to make it so that if the player thinks ‘Maybe this will work?’ then it should work.”

Also new for Path of Exile 2 will be its console support, with the Xbox version launching alongside the PC release. Rogers explained to me that one of the first things that was super important to the team was to make sure console was a first-class platform and would support cross-play, which in turn led to cross-progression support, as well as implementing couch co-op for the console version.

“We need to make sure that players on console feel like they are part of the same community, and I think that that was one issue that we had with PoE 1. It always felt separate. But we were also thinking about things that we can take advantage of on console platforms that are unique experiences to those platforms, and couch co-op is one of those,” says Rogers.

“You can technically play couch co-op on a PC of course, and I’m sure some people have their PCs hooked up in their living room, but really the experience of sitting on a couch with your friend is something that you get from consoles that you don’t usually get from PC play. It’s also something that I have just personally always enjoyed, and there was a lot of excitement in the studio about it too. We thought it would be a lot of fun, so we decided to go for it.”

By every measure, it seems Grinding Gear Games has found a way to outdo itself and is primed to deliver another compelling entry in their Path of Exile franchise. With the incredible level of character customization, a dark and sinister world that we’re just dying to explore further, and a slew of console friendly features, Path of Exile 2 is firmly on our radar to be a must-play in 2024.

Path of Exile 2

Grinding Gear Games

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

Get it now

Path of Exile 2 is a next generation free-to-play Action RPG created by Grinding Gear Games. Journey across the deadly continent of Wraeclast, meeting multiple immersive cultures while facing off against evil in many forms. Path of Exile 2 features twelve character classes, 240 Skill Gems, hundreds of equipment base types, a six-act campaign, more than a hundred unique boss fights, a deep endgame system and so much more. Play with your friends without losing any progress with couch co-op, cross-play and cross-progression on all available platforms.

The post Path of Exile 2: More Fun, More Flexible, More Evil appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure launches July 25, devs detail boss design

The world of Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure takes place on a sprawling, interconnected gameplay grid, on which characters, objects, puzzles, and exploration all follow the same logic: when player character Jemma moves, the world moves too. And when you step off the edge of the grid in any direction, you “loop” around to the other side. With these mechanics in mind, and being a game without a failstate, we certainly had our work cut out for us when it came to designing our boss fights!

We started by laying down some structural ground rules about the game world, to keep our scope in check and put a rough template in place to design around. Each town has two roughly delineated dungeon areas, which at some point introduces the elements required to solve a larger puzzle at the end of the town, which we frame as our boss fights. Though they may (and should!) feel intimidating, our bosses are ultimately just larger puzzles that have more at stake in the context of the story.

Some early sketches of the second boss by our artist David Hellman. Featuring eyes, monsters, water, and a small identity crisis.

In a more traditional game, you’d have to worry about losing health if you get hit, or even dying and having to restart the fight. That’s not the case in Arranger, but your progress will still be limited until you can find a way to solve the challenge.

The dangers – or rather, the obstacles – that Jemma has to face are always connected to a strange force we call “the static,” which we represent in the game with a glowing purple aura around objects. The static objects aren’t affected by Jemma’s powers, and stay in place when she moves. This is true for all puzzles in Arranger, but it’s expressed in the most explicit way in these boss battles: the raw form of the static becomes a static beast, and Jemma has to find creative ways to defeat them, using all sorts of strategies introduced in earlier puzzles throughout the game.

The final stage of the first boss may look complicated, but you’ll develop all the skills required to defeat that long static boy by the time you get there!

Finding different ways to represent these beasts was a real challenge. We really wanted to express how the scale of the bosses was getting larger and larger as you progressed through the story, to convey that the risks were larger and that you were getting closer to the source of the problem.

Given the nature of the design and our primary goal of keeping the game experience breezy, a lot of these elements are represented not by the difficulty of the puzzle, but instead emphasized through the story context and art.

One of our comic-style cutscenes that introduces the first boss!

The first boss is something Jemma can work out herself – a worm getting larger and larger, with more static debris appearing after each phase, making the usable grid smaller each time. Whereas the second and the third bosses are actually the opposite: the grid becomes larger, giving more room for movement, but the steps to damage the boss become more complex, so you have to use everything you’ve learned (and Jemma may even have to get some help from other characters!). So it’s always a balance between giving players the right amount of space to maneuver around, depending on how much complexity and constraint we want to introduce.

You’d better use those birds if you want to poke all those eyes at the same time..!

It’s been really interesting for us – and we hope for players as well – to see how these elements evolve throughout the game. It may feel like a natural evolution, but it took a lot of (exhaustive) iteration and (fun!) exploration to get it feeling like we wanted it to. Just like Jemma, we had to go through a lot of chaos and make a big mess, before the dust settled on the other end to reveal the game’s true nature.

Thanks so much for checking out Arranger. We hope it slides right into your heart!

Call of Duty Warzone Finally Ditches Annoying Gas Mask Animation After Years of Player Complaints

Ever since Warzone launched in 2020 players have complained about the Gas Mask animation getting in the way of actually seeing what’s going on. Now, with the launch of Season 5, Activision has finally done something about it.

Warzone Season 5 launches today, July 24, and brings with it this much-needed improvement. Developer Raven Software’s patch notes detail the ‘Dynamic Gas Mask Overlay Quality of Life’ change:

“The gas mask overlay will now fade in and out depending if you’re in gas or not,” Raven explained. “This way, players can equip the gas mask at any time without having their vision impacted.”

The battle royale’s gas mask, which, as you’d expect, lets players breathe within the damaging gas as the circle of play shrinks, had an equip/unequip animation that would trigger whenever the wearer would move in/out of the gas. It had the habit of getting in the way of the action at the worst possible moment (during a firefight), forcing players to store it in their inventory and manually equip it when needed.

Now, this issue should be a thing of the past, leaving those with the gas mask free to equip safe in the knowledge that doing so won’t harm their chances of victory. Players have reacted positively to the change, which comes over four years after Warzone’s record-breaking launch.

It only took 4 years and 3 months but it has finally happened in Warzone hahahaha
The Gas Mask Animation is Gone https://t.co/OI90iR0LRD
— James – JGOD (@JGODYT) July 24, 2024

Elsewhere, Season 5 makes big weapon balance changes and other user interface and user experience improvements. The update comes ahead of the launch of this year’s mainline Call of Duty game, Black Ops 6, and its integration into Warzone.

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.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered Sets Halloween Release Date

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered has a release date: October 31, 2024. Yep, that’s Halloween.

The action adventure remaster from Suda51 (No More Heroes, killer7) and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil, God Hand) launches then across PC via Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.

Shadows of the Damned launched first in 2011 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, developed by a Goichi “Suda51” Suda-led Grasshopper Manufacture. It stars demon hunter Garcia Hotspur, who, alongside sidekick Johnson the skull, battles through Hell to rescue his girlfriend from Fleming, the demon king of Hell.

Hella Remastered expands on the original with new costumes, a New Game+ Mode, and 60fps/4K support. A Grasshopper Direct showcase is set for July 31, and will feature producer Shinji Mikami and Suda51.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered new features:

New Costumes: In addition to Garcia’s iconic jacket, “Purple Reign”, there are now four new costumes to choose from:Placa Garcia, Ocho Corazones, Demonio Garcia and Kamikaze Garcia.
Now includes New Game+ Mode: A feature requested since the original release, the Hella Remastered edition includes a New Game+ mode! This mode carries your weapons and upgrades over from your last playthrough into a new game, jam-packing those replays with hella power.
60fps/4K Support: Hell has never looked so good. Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered lets you experience the game in silky-smooth 60 frames per second, as well as supporting resolutions up to 4K, allowing you to appreciate every bone fragment and blood splatter.

(Switch supports up to 30fps; 4K is supported on PS5 / Xbox Series X / Steam only.)

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.