In the heyday of Sierra’s adventure game years, there was a series called Space Quest that featured an intergalactic janitor named Roger Wilco. The series was more satirical than King’s Quest, less preachy than Police Quest, and not quite as adult as Leisure Suit Larry. Spearheaded by Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe – a pair of devs who called themselves “Two Guys from Andromeda” – Space Quest was renowned for its humour, and there was a nice sense of progression throughout most of the series, with Roger Wilco leveling up from working class spaceman to the head of his own Star Trek ship.
Tachyon Dreams Anthology, a collection of three short games previously released on Itch.io, is clearly channeling Space Quest. Made by indie dev Cosmic Void, AKA Aviv Salinas, each episode of Tachyon Dreams puts you in the shoes of an intergalactic dishwasher named Dodger, who’s almost like an alternate Roger Wilco if you squint. Dodger’s just chilling on a spaceship clearing plates when all of the staff around him disappear, which is basically what happened to Roger at the start of Space Quest I. Guided by a sentient computer, Dodge has to travel through time and space, and his quest eventually leads him on the trail of the Margdonians, a mysterious race that once cultivated the galaxy.
The plot, which starts with time travel and ends with Dodger literally contemplating his past while sitting on the porcelain throne, doesn’t quite hit the mark set by any of the Space Quests. But the game’s visuals are 100% reminiscent of a lost Sierra adventure from 1987 made with the company’s then-famous AGI (Adventure Game Interpreter) engine. Even Dodger’s walk cycle channels Roger Wilco’s, though Dodger is several pixels larger than Roger ever was. I’m not sure if Tachyon Dreams Anthology was made in AGI Studio, gamemaking software that’s been widely used amongst Sierra fans, but it certainly looks it. Cosmic Void’s expert use of AGI’s 16 colours is especially impressive, and I really appreciate the pixelated depictions of the galactic sky, swathed in lovely shades of blue and magenta. (Anyone who wants to see similar visuals in something that resembles a ’90s game rather than an ’80s one should check out Twilight Oracle, one of Cosmic Void’s other projects. Alice B (RPS forever in peace) liked the demo!)
Red Art Games has announced that it has fallen victim to a significant cyberattack in which multiple customer details have been compromised.
The company confirms that all bank details are safe, but details including email addresses and shipping addresses have been affected. It has also confirmed that shipments, order changes, and refunds will be paused for the next few days while it investigates further.
We are excited to partner with Amazon Games and invite Xbox Insiders to sign up early for the New World: Aeternum – Closed Beta. The Closed Beta for this thrilling action RPG will begin July 25th and will run until July 31st! The Closed Beta will only be available for Xbox Insiders on Xbox Series X|S consoles and in the North America and Europe regions (full list of available regions below). Limited space is available so join now to secure your spot!
What is New World: Aeternum?
New World: Aeternum is an action RPG set on the supernatural island of Aeternum in the twilight of the Age of Exploration. As a shipwrecked explorer who washes ashore on the mysterious island, forge your destiny on an adventure filled with danger and opportunity.
There is a lot to discover on the island of Aeternum with endless opportunities to fight, forage, and forge. Play your way by fully customizing the look and abilities of your character with access to swords, guns, and sorcery. As a player that enjoys melee focused builds, I’ll be experimenting with swords but can’t wait to see other builds that everyone comes up with.
Start: Thursday July 25th, 9:00 AM PT (4:00 PM GMT)
End: Wednesday July 31st, 9:00 AM PT (4:00 PM GMT)
How to Participate:
Sign-in on your Xbox Series X|S console and launch the Xbox Insider Hub app (or install the Xbox Insider Hub from the Store first if necessary)
Navigate to Previews > New World: Aeternum
Select Join
Wait for the registration to complete and be directed to the Store and install New World: Aeternum Closed Beta
NOTE: New World: Aeternum – Closed Beta begins on July 25th. Joining now secures your spot for the playtest and allows you to install the game early. On July 25th, in game servers will open to allow you to play. You’ll also receive an Xbox Insider notification when the playtest begins.
NOTE: Limited space is available and offered first-come first-served.
NOTE: This playtest is only available on Xbox Series X|S consoles.
NOTE: This playtest is only available for Xbox Insiders in the regions below.
North America
United States
Canada
Europe
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Slovakia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
How to Provide Feedback:
If you experience any issues while playing New World: Aeternum – Closed Beta, don’t forget to use “Report a problem” so we can investigate:
Hold down the home button on your Xbox controller.
Select Report a problem.
Select the Games category and New World: Aeternum Closed Beta subcategory.
Fill out the form with the appropriate details to help our investigation.
For more information: follow us on X/Twitter at @XboxInsider and this blog for announcements and more. And feel free to interact with the community on the Xbox Insider SubReddit.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is set to arrive on Xbox Game Pass tomorrow, July 24.
As detailed by Xbox Wire, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will be available on Game Pass for Console, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Ultimate on July 24, and it includes the entire package – campaign, multiplayer, and Zombies.
Every time I think I’ve seen Magic: The Gathering’s most unexpected crossover yet – be that Hatsune Miku or the board game Clue – Wizards of the Coast figures out some way to surprise me yet again. This time it’s with a selection of cards set in the world of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Split across two Secret Lair drops, the latest Universes Beyond tie-in will have eight reprints and one token reskinned with references and jokes from the classic 1975 film. One drop will have five cards total, one of which is double-faced so you can choose if it’s either an African or European swallow, while the other will have three cards and a token.
You can flip through the gallery below to see all the cards in both Monty Python drops:
To find out how the heck a crossover like this even comes about, I spoke with Secret Lair Senior Product Designer Daniel Nguyen, who said the first step for many of their Universes Beyond projects is to simply reach out to the representatives for lots of different properties and see who might be interested in working together.
“This was a really fun one to get,” Nguyen says. ”It’s kind of a funny pairing. They seem like such different ideas, but I think the cards came together really nicely and it’s just very quaint to see on Magic cards.” He also explains that the business folk their outreach team initially gets in touch with don’t always know what Magic even is, but that it’s “fun if someone on the other side actually is a Magic fan, which does happen quite often.”
“We think deeply about everything that goes into these drops.” – Daniel Nguyen, WOTC
While this isn’t the first old movie to get a crossover drop, with The Evil Dead and The Princess Bride both getting Secret Lairs of their own, the jokes within it do feel tailored toward both Holy Grail and Magic in a particularly satisfying way. That’s both in seeing iconic scenes from the movie represented by notable cards that align perfectly (such as, the card Dismember depicting the Black Knight), but also in a few Magic jokes that use the language of Monty Python instead.
For example, John Cleese’s Tim the Enchanter is represented by the card Prodigal Sorcerer, which is lovingly referred to as “Tim” by much of the Magic community. “That’s just the top line on the document, right? You gotta have that one,” says Nguyen, who jokes “if we don’t do that we’re all fired, clearly.”
While the designs and thought behind the cards in these drops is impressive, the fact that Vol. 1 has five cards (one of which is double-faced) while Vol 2. only has three cards and token did make me curious about how Wizards of the Coast decides on the contents of each Secret Lair. Nguyen tells me that these decisions are generally more art than science, taking into account a card’s desirability in the playerbase, the bandwidth they have for coordinating artists and other resources, what each individual drop might call for thematically, and more.
“I take it very seriously,” Nguyen assures me. “We think deeply about everything that goes into these drops. Every aspect you can consider, I’m thinking about that all day long and losing sleep over it sometimes.” He says one part of that is hitting staple cards people are using a lot already, but also balancing that with some tastemaking picks that go off the beaten path when it makes sense, even if the appeal of the latter may be narrower as a result. “Every drop should [have] someone’s favorite card.”
“Every drop should [have] someone’s favorite card.” – Daniel Nguyen, WOTC
The Monty Python and the Holy Grail drops will be available in both foil and non-foil starting on July 29 as part of the next Superdrop. A limited number of foil drops will also be available to purchase in person at the Hasbro Pulse booth at San Diego Comic-Con this week.
Tom Marks is IGN’s Executive Reviews Editor. He loves card games, puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.
Between Against The Storms’ critters, Manor Lords’s perfect oxen, and now Cataclismo, Hooded Horse’s roster of strategy games share a common thread that many guard-the-village-em-ups can fatally overlook: they present a civilisation that’s worth protecting. Even if the fallen culture you’ll defend against waves of gribblies offers fascinatingly few concrete details on its origins, there’s a lithe and impressionistic otherworldliness and use of colour in Cataclismo’s art that evokes unearthed layers of history. Also, everyone is just so gosh darn likeable, with their foppish hats plopped atop stretched bodies, and dialogue that remains resolute, chirpy, and eager, even when you’re click-marching these poor folk straight to their deaths.
Still, none of this will stop me will sacrificing every last man, woman, and child of these beleaguered warriors if it means preserving a single one of my immaculately crafted staircases.
Some brand new amiibo are joining Nintendo’s collection. Right now, you can preorder two-packs of Callie and Marie and Pearl and Marina from Splatoon. These cost $30 each and will officially be released on September 5, so you don’t have too long of a wait for them. Like many amiibo, though, stock likely won’t stick around for long. So, if you really want to add these models to your amiibo collection, now’s your time to place an order.
New Splatoon Amiibo Available to Preorder, Out September 5
If you’re curious to see what’s going on for other platforms, we’ve got roundups of the best Xbox deals today and the best PlayStation deals today that are worth checking out. In these, you can find a wide variety of offers on everything from games to storage to headsets, but if you want an overall look at the best deals of the moment, check out our breakdown of the best video game deals today. This piece highlights the latest and greatest deals for each platform, including PC, so you can get a good look at the discounts that have stood out the most to us.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
Welcome to the Escalation of Freedom, Helldivers. We’ve taken the time to gather feedback from our players on the front lines, and we’re bringing greater variety to our content. From missions and objectives to enemies and planets, we’re delivering lots of new content for both our veteran players and brand-new Helldivers on the battlefield. Get ready for our biggest update yet!
Our community continues to show us how strong we all are when united against the mindless Automatons and the scourge of the Terminid. As we stand here, on the eve of the Escalation of Freedom, we reflect on the 6 months since launch. We could never have predicted how far this game would go and how many Citizens would answer Super Earth’s call to arms!
We’ve watched our forces expertly handle every conflict and challenge we’ve thrown their way, from flying enemies to the Terminid Control System, to saving the children of Super Citizen Anne’s Hospital. Now for this major update, it’s time for us to give back something big to the community and welcome in even more players to the Helldivers universe.
Helldivers, this is escalating quickly.
Go on a Super Helldive
Go up against the new supersized bot fortresses.
Something that continues to amaze us is our players’ insatiable desire for more bugs, more bots, more liberation, and more destruction. We thought nine levels of Helldiving difficulties would be enough, but in the Escalation of Freedom we’re turning it up to 10… Combat Rating 10 that is.
CR 10: Super Helldive is our most challenging, most relentless dive difficulty level yet, and we hope that this is going to give players the intensity they’re looking for on the battlefield. And with a great challenge comes greater rewards.
The larva retrieval mission has the Helldivers babysitting a bug.
But a new difficulty level isn’t the only thing the community wanted. We’ve also heard your desire for mission variation, which is why we’re bringing you new mission objectives and bigger enemy outposts for both bots and bugs that offer brand new Super Sample rewards. These outposts will be heavily fortified, and require players to coordinate and strategize in order to take them out.
And if you’re new to Helldivers 2, you don’t have to worry about missing out on all the fun until you unlock Super Helldive, because many of our new mission objectives will be playable on other difficulty levels.
New Enemies & Dangerous Swamps
The Impaler returns!
Escalation of Freedom is unleashing some new threats to our liberty that will take some serious strategizing from the Helldivers to take down.
Back by popular demand: the Impaler! This big guy from the original Helldivers creates some new challenges. No longer can you run from the bugs when the Impaler is around–big, imposing, and destructive, it demands to be dealt with.
Also new among the Terminid ranks is the Spore Charger. As if the regular old Charger wasn’t scary enough, the Spore Charger is shrouded in fog to obscure its location until it’s right up on you, Helldiver.
The new Spore Charger in the fog.
Lastly, the Terminid Alpha Commander, which is a supercharged Brood Commander that’s bigger, meaner, and doesn’t hesitate to call in other bugs for backup.
You thought the regular old Brood Commander was bad? Think again.
Don’t think we forgot about the Automatons. Their ranks are growing, too, with the addition of the formidable Rocket Tank, as well as some other bot surprises we’ll be throwing your way.
The Automaton uprising continues.
Explore the swamps but not as you know them, with rolling fog and the untamed flora, the blackened trees obscure the light and the air itself feels haunted. Keep your flashlight handy, as visibility is limited and light is key. The enemy could be hiding anywhere amongst the undergrowth.
Get spooked, Helldivers.
Under the Hood
The last addition I want to highlight about the Escalation of Freedom update is that we’re making changes to mitigate the problem of grief kicking in Helldivers 2. While it’s our hope that players engage with the game in good faith and sportsmanship, we do recognize that some players are using the team kicking to grief others.
To help improve this we have implemented a system where if a player is kicked, they will spawn into a new session as the host with all of the team’s loot from their previous session. All items can now be picked up by the player before extraction. The squad doing the kicking will see a message in the chat widget that a player has been kicked, yet their loot remains unchanged.
With these changes, all players have the opportunity to leave with all loot collected on mission, with no one Helldiver losing out. We’re committed to making changes that will improve the player experience and encourage healthy, cooperative gameplay.
Along with this, we’re also releasing other quality of life upgrades with Escalation of Freedom, including major fixes to the social menu to make diving with your friends easier.
Overall, we think this escalation is going to be packed full of awesome additions, long-awaited improvements, and a ton of surprises to discover! Helldivers 2: Escalation of Freedom is launching on August 6!
Ahead of the 2024 Pokémon World Championships this August, we’ve got an exclusive first look at the special plush, deck boxes, and more that will only be available at Worlds. Each year, the Pokémon World Championships are held in a different city, and with it comes a Pokémon Center pop-up with exclusive merch themed after it. This year, the Pokémon World Championships are taking place at the Hawai’i Convention Center in Honolulu, so of course, the product line is tropical, colorful, and beachy.
“This year’s unique items and motifs draw from the vibrant marine life and lush flora of Hawai’i, embodying the spirit and beauty of the islands,” explained Cindy Ruppenthal, senior director of Pokémon Center and e-commerce at The Pokémon Company International. “The pop-up store’s design as well as the Worlds product line reminds fans to make the most of this amazing location—whether they’re lounging on the beach in Waikiki, hiking the Wiliwilinui Ridge Trail, or catching waves on the North Shore.”
Check out a large selection of what will be available at the 2024 Pokémon World Championships in the slideshow above.
Ruppenthal expects a strong demand for the Hawaiian-themed Pokémon ukulele, which appears to be the most exclusive and unique item in the lineup. The ukulele’s MSRP is $59.99 USD. Ruppenthal also expects there to be a demand for other location-inspired products due to the Hawaiian theme, such as the Pokémon Aloha shirt.
Previously, The Pokémon Company International revealed a sneak peek of the Worlds-exclusive Pikachu plush in snorkeling gear and custom Pokémon Aloha shirt in a partnership with Reyn Spooner, a local Hawaiian company known for making top-quality Aloha wear since 1956. Ruppenthal said that makes the collaboration very special.
Everything revealed here will only be available August 14-18 at the Pokémon World Championships Pokémon Center pop up. Even if you have an event badge, you won’t be able to just walk-in—you must make a reservation to visit the 2024 Worlds Pokémon Center Store.
Casey DeFreitas is a deputy editor of guides at IGN. Catch her at the 2024 Pokémon World Championships, or on Twitter @ShinyCaseyD.
