In the bag.
Donkey Kong Country Returns HD‘s 16th January 2025 release date might still feel like a long way off, but the new year is rapidly approaching and Nintendo is getting the hype train a-moving with a first look at some pre-order bonuses.
My Nintendo Store UK has today provided a peek at some of the merch that will come bundled with DKCRHD (nobody’s abbreviating it to that, right?) pre-orders and it looks really rather sweet.
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The post The Call of Duty Endowment Celebrates 15 Years of Veteran Impact with Anniversary Bundle appeared first on Xbox Wire.
From on-track Ray Tracing to unprecedented detail with 8K, discover how EA Sports and Codemasters utilize the groundbreaking PS5 Pro technology to make F1 24 look and play better. Si Lumb, Technical Producer at Codemasters, shares insight into what players can expect when playing F1 24 on PS5 Pro — plus, more details about Season 4 and an upcoming Free-Play trial.
Enhanced for PS5 Pro, F1 24 takes full advantage of the console’s exclusive technologies and improved graphical capabilities depending on the display option players choose in the settings menu.
“PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) allows us to push a Ray Traced image to 4K without sacrificing image quality in Quality Mode,” says Si. “The increased power in the PS5 Pro’s GPU gives us the ability to double the 120Hz resolution in Performance Mode, and with some clever re-ordering of the frame, we have even managed to put the 32 Million pixels of 8K at 60Hz in Resolution Mode.”
Whilst Ray Tracing is available on PS5 in F1 24 race replays, the power of the PS5 Pro enables this technology during on-track racing when selecting Quality Mode.
“Ray Tracing allows us to simulate light to enhance realism, making reflections, shadows, and lighting more lifelike. These enhancements result in a more photorealistic experience, especially on the glossy and mirror-like chassis of the cars, the undulating and detailed track terrain, or the varied circuit surroundings. This is even more prominent in wet conditions, where reflections from puddles or shiny surfaces play a significant role in the immersion.”
In a first for EA Sports, the PS5 Pro F1 24 enhancements enable 8K/60Hz support when using a compatible display in Resolution Mode. All 25 circuits in the game are improved both on and off the track, and with variable weather and time of day options for each, players are bound to discover a new favorite in 8K/60Hz.
“For the ultimate showcase of 8K visuals, I’d recommend Spa Francorchamps at sunset in clear weather. The elevation changes and dense foliage at Spa, combined with the incredible detail and depth offered by 8K, make for a visually stunning experience. The track’s sweeping corners and long straights will show off the high pixel count, while the dynamic lighting and shadows give you a real sense of immersion as the light shifts across the circuit.”
By leveraging the power of the PS5 Pro to work in harmony with F1 24’s EGO Engine, the development team plans to push the limits of graphical performance for future releases.
“We’ve learned a lot from this release, and the groundwork laid in F1 24 will help us take even greater advantage of the PS5 Pro’s power in the future. We’re especially interested in expanding our use of technologies like PSSR across more modes and further optimizing our Ray Tracing and high frame rate features. As we continue to push the limits of the EGO engine, we look forward to delivering even more groundbreaking advancements in upcoming F1 titles.”
No matter which graphical mode players choose, the PS5 Pro enhancements result in noticeable differences throughout the game when you load up F1 24 for the first time.
“Whether it’s increased clarity in the Performance Mode, the sharper details and more immersive visuals of our new 8K Resolution Mode, or the dramatic improvements to lighting and reflections—thanks to Ray Tracing—in Quality Mode, each adds to the realism, immersion, and scale in bringing the sport of F1 to life on your screen.”
For F1 24’s Season 4, players across all PlayStation platforms can race to unlock a number of new customization items, with one such item being fit for a champion. Plus, a new Pro Challenge at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas featuring Oscar Piastri, and a selection of Race Scenarios, including a pair from Abu Dhabi 2021, each with rewards usable throughout the game. Keep an eye out for the full reveal on November 19.
For those yet to pick up F1 24, there’s no better time, as from November 21-24, F1 24 will be free to download and play, with the opportunity to test drive the entire game, including its PS5 Pro features alongside a double XP period for Podium Pass. Everything from the revamped Career mode through to the thrilling multiplayer will be available, with all progress made carrying over to the full game.
Stellar Blade gets its highly anticipated Nier: Automata downloadable content on November 20 as part of a larger update that also includes a photo mode.
A PlayStation Blog post from Stellar Blade developer Shift Up said “Nier: Automata significantly inspired Stellar Blade” and the DLC is “marked by mutual respect and creativity” between the games’ directors: Yoko Taro and Kim Hyung Tae respectively.
A handful of screenshots showed Nier: Automata protagonist 2B in the world of Stellar Blade alongside the iconic but bizarre Emil. “Emil’s Shop makes a surprise appearance in the world of Stellar Blade where 11 different collaboration-special items will be available,” the post said. “Items that intertwine the best of both games, leading you to a more enriched world.”
Also coming in the November 20 update is the aforementioned photo mode, which lets players pose the characters of Stellar Blade and dress them in different clothes to capture the perfect snap. Four new costumes and one new accessory (the Symbol of Legacy) are also coming in the update, alongside the ability to remove Eve’s ponytail altogether.
On the audio front, players can soon choose what song to listen to from the camp turntable and lip-sync support for French, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Italian, German, and Portuguese, is also coming.
As well as Nier: Automata, action game Stellar Blade drew inspiration from Alita: Battle Angel, 80s and 90s science fiction, and a taxi driver strike according to director Hyung Tae. Its already enjoyed a handful of other post-launch updates too, including one which added a boss challenge and new outfits.
In our 7/10 review, IGN said: “Stellar Blade is great in all of the most important ways for an action game, but dull characters, a lackluster story, and several frustrating elements of its role playing game mechanics prevent it from soaring along with the best of the genre.”
In July, Shift Up raised 435 billion won ($320 million) in its first day of trade after an initial public offering. According to Bloomberg, that was the largest in the country for a gaming company since 2021, when PUBG maker Krafton Inc. raised $3.8 billion from its own IPO.
The company’s success came off the back of the launch of PS5 exclusive Stellar Blade, which has sold more than one million copies and may spawn a sequel as well as a PC version, and its popular mobile game, Goddess of Victory: Nikke.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket players have voted Charizard ex the best card in the game, with his meta game rival Mewtwo ex coming in a close second.
An IGN poll asked players which of 10 popular cards was the most popular and, with 20.8% of more than 1,000 votes, Charizard ex took the crown. This Stage 2 Pokémon has the highest damage attack in the game, with Crimson Storm’s 200 power able to take down any other card in a single shot.
Charizard ex is extra powerful because of fellow fire type Moltres ex though. This card lets the player flip three coins and add a fire energy to a bench Pokémon for every heads, so players use it to overload a Charmander, Charmeleon, and eventually Charizard on the bench so it’s not impacted by the loss of two energy when using Crimson Storm.
The second best card in Pokémon TCG Pocket, as per our player poll, is the biggest rival of Charizard ex at the top of the meta: Mewtwo ex. It came in at just a touch below with 20.1% of votes, so the two are practically neck and neck.
Mewtwo ex works in a similar way as Charizard ex, though as a basic Pokémon itself, players will often put it directly into the active Pokémon slot. It also has a two energy, 50 damage attack, and 150 hit points to keep it around and doing damage, meaning players have enough time to set up a Gardevoir on the bench.
This Stage 2 Pokémon takes some time to set up, with Ralts and Kirlia coming before it, but once it’s on the bench, players can use its Psy Shadow ability to add one energy to the active Pokémon. This again counters the discard two energy cost of Mewtwo’s 150 damage attack, as the standard energy joins the Gardevoir energy each turn to add two at a time.
Following Charizard ex and Mewtwo ex came Pikachu ex in third place, with 17% of votes, and in fourth place, but way below, came Starmie ex. Both of these have high damage, low cost attacks, meaning if players can deploy them quick enough it’s hard for opponents to build a strong board.
Next in the poll came the infamous Trainer card Misty at 7.3%, followed by Professor’s Research at 5.2%, Farfetch’d at 5%, Sabrina at 4.5%, and Dragonite at 4.1%. Only the last of these is the leader of its own deck and not a supplementary card, and seemingly the only non-ex Pokémon to stand a chance against the meta leaders.
All of this could change when another set comes out, of course, and while developer Creatures Inc. hasn’t revealed when this will be, a datamine of Pokémon TCG Pocket alluded to an expansion set in December and the next full release in January.
Pokémon TCG Pocket arrived in October on iOS and Android as a digital version of the beloved trading card game. It lets players open packs, collect cards, build decks, and battle others, a simple formula that has already proved popular given it made $12 million in just four days and was downloaded more than 30 million times in just nine.
Creatures Inc. is keeping interest high by releasing myriad events catered to different playstyles. The first offered players freebies in the form of Wonder Picks, and to entertain more than just collectors, Creatures Inc. soon launched battle events both in single player and player versus player.
The Lapras ex Drop Event lets players take on a handful of water decks for a chance of winning the beloved Pokémon, while the PvP event embraces Pokémon tradition by putting badges on the line.
On the collecting front, some players are focused on a conspiracy theory about crinkled corners while most are swooning over mythical god packs that award five alternate art cards in one go. There’s also a secret Mew card hidden in the game that’s not super difficult to get.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
November is an excellent time to track down deals in the lead-up to Black Friday. Numerous retailers usually offer a variety of discounts for shoppers to check out, and Woot is one spot that’s had several great game deals catch our eye recently. In particular, as part of its ongoing ‘Fall In Love With Video Games’ sale event, you can score Mario & Luigi: Brothership there for $49.99.
This is $10 off its list price of $59.99 and marks its first-ever price drop. As with many game deals from Woot, though, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s probably not the North American version with ESRB rating. However, since the Switch is region-free, it’ll play just fine regardless. Check it out at the link below.
Woot’s got a couple more game deals that are definitely worth checking out right now alongside Mario & Luigi: Brothership. Sonic X Shadow Generations for the Switch has a great discount there to $39.99, while the Silent Hill 2 Remake for PS5 is also enjoying a discount that brings it down to $59.99. There’s plenty more available as part of Woot’s ‘Fall In Love With Video Games’ sale event as well, but there are soon to be even more video game deals with Black Friday coming up.
We consider this sale event one of the best times of year to buy video games, and for good reason. Considering how many retailers participate in the sale event, there are several different locations to turn to for discounts. And while we don’t know what exactly will be in the sale, we’ve made some predictions of games and items we’d like to see on sale from PlayStation and Xbox this year.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
“A lot of puzzle games can leave you staring at the same static screen for ages, but here, I’m always pushing you forward,” says Mark Brown of Game Maker’s Toolkit. For a decade now, Brown has been releasing accessible deep dives on game design for his popular YouTube channel, like “How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves” and “The Two Types of Random in Game Design.” This week, he’s releasing his own for the first time.
The building blocks of history.
How many times do you think we can say the word ‘Tetris’ in a single review? Well, since Tetris Forever contains a total of 18 games based on the original 1985 title, you’d best strap yourselves in, because we’re going to be saying it a lot. Well, okay, we might mix things up a bit with the odd sprinkling of ‘tetromino’, just to be nice.
Anyway, Tetris. It’s often been described as one of, if not the greatest game of all time thanks to its unrivalled approachability and remarkable staying power. Yet we wouldn’t be surprised if you perhaps weren’t overly familiar with the game’s origin, release, and subsequent proliferation across the video game industry.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The post Watch the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Gameplay Deep-Dive appeared first on Xbox Wire.
LEGO Horizon Adventures, launching on PS5 and PC November 14, brings about a new take on Aloy’s story from her first adventure. Guerrilla and Studio Gobo met with The LEGO Group at their headquarters in Billund, and shared a few behind-the-scenes insights on creating the game. Watch the full video here and continue reading to find out how they built Aloy’s world, one brick at a time!
Senior Producer at Studio Gobo, Kat Woolley, talks about what it’s like to work on a LEGO game and how the story was adapted to fit this playful adventure. “There’s a layering of talent, passion, creativity and just joy – there’s such joy in working on a LEGO game, and especially something like Horizon where there is an effort to bring something quite serious from the world of Horizon over to LEGO Horizon Adventures. We needed to give it that element of funny, of light-hearted, of silly, of play.”
“Horizon is all about the mystery of the origins, especially for Aloy. It’s something we tried to replicate in LEGO Horizon Adventures where every character is on their quest for finding a family, building a home and making connections with each other in the story of LEGO Horizon Adventures,” Guerrilla’s Design Director, Stephane Varrault, explains.
Everything you come across in LEGO Horizon Adventures is made entirely out of real LEGO bricks, so if you have the right pieces at home, you could rebuild anything from the world, including the machines, the treasure chests, and Mother’s Heart!
Guerrilla’s Senior World Artist, Lucas Bolt explained, “The world of Horizon Zero Dawn is filled with incredible natural landscapes; it’s one of the core pillars of the game so that’s something that we also had to create for LEGO Horizon Adventures.”
“You can see how everything is made, all the little details, all the little LEGO elements that were used to bring things to life,” Joe Kyde, Senior Model Designer at The LEGO Group, adds.
Roy Postma, Art Director at Guerrilla, goes on to explain the process of visualizing and developing the Horizon world in LEGO form, “We started out in a very realistic way, by rebuilding the original Old World buildings from the Horizon games… Then someone sneaked in an official LEGO set in the background, I believe it was the LEGO gas station, and we were looking at it like ‘ah this can work, this is fun!’ It totally made sense for the Old World to be our LEGO world.”
“My favorite part of the machine design process is seeing the builds just develop,” says Joe. “How they naturally evolve from early versions, teams working together to figure out how to solve specific problems, how to get the movement we want, how to get the specific look we want.”
“Throughout development, we started by imagining what a LEGO version of each machine would actually look like,” says Studio Gobo’s Game Design Lead, Toño Gonzalaz, with Stephane adding, “For every machine, we looked at the traits of the machine, how it would behave in the game, and how can we make it work best with all the LEGO bricks?”
One of the machines featured in LEGO Horizon Adventures is the Shell-Walker, a crab-like machine responsible for carrying cargo to various cauldrons found in the world. “With the Shell-Walker it really came down to its personality,” says Toño. “It’s always trying to defend its cargo, so at the end of the day, the Shell-Walker feels like a mean, defensive machine, but at the same time in a funny way.”
Designing machines with LEGO bricks did not differ too much from how Guerrilla created them originally, as The LEGO Group’s Creative Lead, Frédéric Andre, explains, “We wanted to recreate the machine as detailed as possible, so you start with the skeleton of the machine and then you add all the details into it. That’s also how Guerrilla creates their own machines: they have the skeleton and then they add all the armor plating and everything on top of that.”
“All machines have their own unique, particular personalities and attacks that they do. They’re very different from one another, so when players are fighting combinations of them it creates really interesting, wacky, fun and creative combat,” Toño smiles.
The customization is a way for players to express themselves in a fun and charming way, including outfits from Aloy’s first adventure in LEGO form, or from existing LEGO sets that you may have at home!
Stephane explains: “One of our main pillars in the game is player freedom, which is why we built systems where no combat is the same, but also why we wanted to provide really open ways to customize your characters and the world. For example, we really wanted Mother’s Heart to be a reflection of players’ creativity to recreate the village of their dreams.”
Kat gives her view on how some of the outfits found in LEGO Horizon Adventures can completely change the vibe of a cutscene or conversation between characters. “It takes what can sometimes be quite serious conversations and just makes them ridiculous if you’re dressed as a pig or as a llama.”
“As soon as we realized that the customization options still felt like a quintessential Horizon experience, and that it worked within the game world, it made it feel more free and more fun.”
It was pivotal that the co-op experience of LEGO Horizon Adventures worked well to allow players to bounce off each other’s actions and work together to tackle the wilds.
“We wanted players to play together and to get in trouble together,” shares Toño, and Stephane continues, “being able to get together, either on the same tv or online, you are now two players, two actors in the same world and that one is responding to your inputs and your actions, so it was the perfect addition to make the experience shine.”
Whether you’re already familiar with Aloy’s journey, or if this is the first time you’re jumping into the franchise; we can’t wait for everyone’s fun character combinations and combat sequences once LEGO Horizon Adventures releases on November 14.
