Category: IGN

The Team Fortress 2 comic has just released its newest update, seven years since the last issue and seemingly the finale to this long journey.

Team Fortress 2 Issue 7 “The Days Have Worn Away” is the first update to the online digital comic series since January 10, 2017, and it looks like it might just be the comic’s finale based on this tweet from Valve writer Erik Wolpaw.

Pic from the last tf comics meeting ever. (not pictured: Ira Crosby) pic.twitter.com/snfI2KiM27

— Erik Wolpaw (@Wolpaw) December 20, 2024

“Did you know the construction of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was one hundred and ninety nine years late? Literally everyone alive when construction started was dead by the time it finished,” The Team Fortress 2 team writes in a blog post announcing the new issue. A perhaps more extreme example of something taking a long time to complete than this comic, but an apt analogy.

For fans of Team Fortress 2, you’ll find the gang all here including a newly married Soldier and even a maskless Spy. The issue also has a dedication to Rick May, the voice of Soldier who died in 2020 at the age of 79. The story itself concludes a long, winding journey that TF2 fans have been waiting a long time to see updated, so I won’t spoil the rest of the comic here.

The comics have served as an invaluable tome to find out more about the different TF2 characters, especially background characters like Miss Pauling and The Administrator. The comics are very much worth a full read if you haven’t checked them out already.

Valve is continuing the trend of emerging from what seems like some kind of gaming hibernation, first with the release of the Steam Deck and the testing of its new hero shooter, Deadlock. This new comic issue serves that Valve creatives are still tinkering in the background, working on new stories for our favorite games.

Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

There’s less than a week left before Christmas, but Best Buy is still pushing out more gaming deals for December. Right now, you can pick up the professional-grade Xbox Series X Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller for only $119.99 after a 33% off instant discount. Better yet, you can still get it delivered by 12/25. That’s a great deal for the original Elite Series 2 controller that includes the component pack, unlike the Elite Series “Core” controllers. The component pack retails for $60.

Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 for $119.99

Includes component pack

The Xbox Elite Series 2 Core controller features better build quality and lots more customizability than the stock controller that comes with the Xbox Series X console. Some of the more significant pro gaming features include adjustable-tension thumbsticks, wrap-around rubberized grip, and shorter hair trigger locks. The component pack, which is bundled with this controller, includes an extra sets of paddles, thumbsticks, D-pad, and case.

The original Xbox Elite Series 2 controller is rarely discounted. I usually see more deals on the Elite Series “Core” models, which don’t include the component pack. However, one of the biggest advantages of getting this controller over the standard controller is the customizability. Without those extra accessories in the component pack to modify the controller to your liking, there’s less of a reason to spend so much more than the already excellent non-Elite controller.

Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

Anime-inspired tower defense Roblox experience Anime Defenders just got its Christmas Update, and with it comes holiday maps, a new battle pass, units, and more.

Developer Small World Games published the latest patch for its popular take on tower dense strategy for fans across all devices to help celebrate the season. Although December is quickly coming to a close, the update adds more than enough winter-themed distractions to keep players preoccupied for weeks to come. Highlights include various Christmas decorations and maps, hidden presents to find, a new Gold Shop, and Leaderboard Season 5.

Those hopping into Anime Defenders after the Christmas Update will first notice the snow, presents, and trees that now pollute the lobby. These are more than just festive trinkets, though, as the added clutter has been used to carefully hide presents that, once acquired, unlock some of those new maps. Completing additional Santa Claus quests can unlock even more goodies, with daily quests also gifting players with rewards should they continue to log in between now and December 26. There’s also a limited Christmas Banner, which contains six new units to collect.

Tower Defense Simulator is sending in a wave of winter presents for Roblox players with its gargantuan 1.46.0 patch a.k.a. the Frost Invasion update, including the new Outpost 32 map, two new event towers, a new battle pass, and so much more.

Developer Paradoxum Games has spent the last week teasing a massive update, and patch notes for today’s update suggest Frost Invasion may have been worth the hype. There are plenty of rewards for both free and premium players in the event’s chilly battle pass, with some highlights for the latter including a Double Chunk Chocolate Cookie emote, the Dark Frost Electroshocker, and a Frost Legion Mercenary Base. Tower Defense Simulator update 1.46.0 also comes with the long-awaited Sandbox Mode for those looking to experiment as well as an Enemy Index, which can be used to keep track of and learn more about your foes.

We’re only weeks away from the February 4 release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and you may still find yourself a bit lost as to what all the fuss is about. All month long, we’ve been covering different aspects of this medieval action RPG in detail as part of IGN First. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. This digital treatise is here to cover all the basics, and tell you where you can go next to find out more about any given topic.

What is Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2?

To put it as simply as possible, it’s a first-person, open-world action RPG based on real medieval history, and the very direct sequel to 2018’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which I gave an 8/10. You play as Henry, a young villager who lost his home and his parents to the ravages of war. While exploring the open countryside, you’ll use stealth, persuasion, and swordplay to overcome your enemies and complete diverse side quests that generally have multiple endings.

The real highlight for me is the combat system, which is based on real European martial arts and looks to evolve and streamline the mechanics of the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It’s highly technical and skill-centric, but it doesn’t require amazing twitch reflexes. Attacking from one of four cardinal directions, timing parries and counters, and a combo system similar to fighting games that rely on a specific sequence of directional inputs, are at the heart of it.

It may sound intimidating, but KCD2 is making an effort to help new players get up to snuff. You can check out our developer-aided survival tips, or an explanation of how combat has evolved from the first game.

What is the setting of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2?

The year is 1403, right in the middle of what are often called the Late Middle Ages. The venue is central Bohemia, in the vicinity of Prague, and what is today the heart of the modern Czech Republic. It’s been about 50 years since the Black Plague – recent enough that there are still people alive who remember it – and 50 years before the fall of Constantinople. Europe, including Bohemia, is watching one age coming to a close and a new one just starting to take shape.

While KCD presents a fictional and dramatized version of history – many of its characters are based on historical ones, but their actions and personalities have been tweaked and embellished – it doesn’t contain any outright fantasy elements. No trolls, dragons, or magic – although the people living at the time certainly believed in them. You can do alchemy, which is the one place where this series feels the most like a fantasy RPG. I’m not aware of any herbs or nectars that can make you better at sword fighting. But even these require you to pick real plants and cook them up using period-accurate technology.

To be more specific, KCD2 picks up almost immediately where the first game left off. Which brings us to our next question…

Do I need to play the first Kingdom Come: Deliverance before I play the sequel?

In my opinion, not really. It’s kind of a soft reset in terms of your character progression, and it will introduce you to all of its systems as if you’ve never touched them before. The extended intro sequence even catches you up to speed on the events of the first game, which aren’t overly intricate. If you want to see for yourself and decide if you need more context, you can watch our first 43 minutes of gameplay.

I certainly wouldn’t discourage you from playing the first one, though. I replayed it earlier this year and found that it holds up really well. Some of the technical issues that were present during my original review have even been fixed.

Who are the major characters in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2?

Well, well, well… we happened to put together a whole article about the major characters. But to put it simply: You play as Henry, a young man who has gone from some random nobody to a trusted retainer in the service of Sir Radzig Kobyla. Kobyla and his buddies support King Wenceslaus IV, who has been kidnapped by Wenceslaus’ half-brother, the pretender Sigismund. Our pal Sigismund has been riding around the country dealing harshly with anyone he sees as a supporter of Wenceslaus, including burning down Henry’s hometown and killing his parents.

Now, Henry is part of the conspiracy to free Wenceslaus and restore him to the throne. At the start of KCD2, he’s off on the road with his spoiled, womanizing best “friend,” Sir Hans Capon, to try and figure out who else among the nobility is willing to help the cause. The two young men frequently butt heads, since Henry was raised as a commoner and sees Hans as sort of stuck-up man-child, and Hans feels Henry doesn’t treat him with the respect a noble deserves.

When is Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 coming out?

February 4, 2024 on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 5. The original also received a Switch port earlier this year, six years after the original release, but we don’t know yet whether or not the sequel might eventually be on Switch 2.

What about the PC system requirements?

The Steam page recommends a Core i7-13700K or AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32 GB RAM, and a GeForce RTX 4070 or Radeon RX 7800 XT. Thankfully, from what I’ve played, it’s much better optimized than the first game, which I still can’t play on max settings to this day even with a rig that meets all of the recommended specs for KCD2.

Can you pet the dog?

Yes! Your trusty Mutt can even help you out in combat.

Anything else I should know?

The devs were nice enough to highlight 8 Little Things Not to Miss in KCD2 for us. If you want to hear my in-depth impressions of the 12+ hours I’ve played so far, you can check out my hands-on preview. We also got a guided in-game tour of Kuttenburg, the biggest city Warhorse has ever created. It’s mostly based on a real city that’s still standing, too, and we also got to go walk around it in real life! So take a peek at our comparison of in-game and real-world locations.

I can’t prepare you for everything. The forests of 1403 Bohemia are vast and full of surprises. But at least now you have some idea of what you’re dealing with. Thanks for riding along with us on our journey through Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 as the final IGN First of 2024!

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian has opened registrations to stress test Patch 8 ahead of its release in 2025.

Patch 8 adds the long-awaited crossplay feature, photo mode, and 12 new subclasses. Larian has said Patch 8 is Baldur’s Gate 3’s last major update, with the developer moving on to brand new games away from the Dungeons & Dragons universe.

The Patch 8 stress test build is set to go live in January, Larian said in a post on Steam. It will be available to players on PC via Steam, and on console via Xbox and PlayStation. GOG and Mac players do not have access. The form for registering interest is live now.

Larian said it wants to “rigorously” test Patch 8 for instability or gameplay issues before it comes out. “With your help, we’ll be able to keep an eye on any funny business,” the developer said.

Part of this is testing crossplay. “Bringing crossplay to a game the size of Baldur’s Gate 3 has been no easy task,” Larian explained, “and we want your help to test-drive this new functionality.

“Share the stress test registration link to summon your friends and settle in for a crossplay campaign, or head to the Larian Studios Discord Server to look for a group to play with.”

Supported mods “should” remain free of issues, but the stress test will hopefully turn up any issues mods might have interacting with Patch 8 features.

While Patch 8 is Baldur’s Gate 3’s last major update, Larian has promised to continue to support the game’s modders, with “big updates still to come,” including more functionality “to let you tell your own stories.” Official mod tools were released in September, and since then players have uploaded more than 3,000 mods and downloaded over 70 million.

Meanwhile, Larian said it’s winding down mod curation for consoles during the holiday season. It’ll pick back up again in the new year.

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.

Star Citizen has finally hit alpha 4.0 after what its chief developer, Chris Roberts, admitted was “a much longer than anticipated development process.”

Cloud Imperium Games’ space sim is considered one of the most controversial projects in all video games. Over the 12 years since its crowdfunding drive began, Star Citizen has been called many things including a scam by those who wonder whether it will ever properly launch. Its virtual space ships, some of which cost hundreds of dollars, are often the focus of criticism.

Indeed, Star Citizen has now raised an eye-watering $767 million, according to figures from CIG. The developer makes revenue publicly available on its website. CIG calls this money “funds raised.”

In March this year, CIG began talking about Star Citizen’s 1.0 launch being within sight, although there’s still no release window for it. 1.0, Roberts has said, “is what we consider the features and content set to represent ‘commercial’ release.”

In a letter from the Chairman post, Roberts said: “Long ago, lost in the mists of time before COVID, at CitizenCon 2949, we showcased the first in-game prototype of traveling from the Stanton System to the Pyro System via a Jump Point.

“After a much longer than anticipated development process, what was teased in 2019 becomes a reality for all players when we launch Star Citizen Alpha 4.0 to the live servers, as part of what we are calling the 4.0 Preview.”

Star Citizen Alpha 4.0 brings with it a full wipe and reset to all accounts. All players start fresh with their account hangars and wallets +20,000 aUEC (Alpha United Earth Credits, Star Citizen’s virtual currency used during the alpha stage). Headline additions include Pyro, the second Star System added to the Star Citizen Universe, the first jump point in the persistent universe, connecting the Stanton and Pyro systems together, an economy overhaul, and much more. Check out the patch notes over on the Roberts Space Industries website.

In October, CIG said that Squadron 42, the standalone, single-player story game set in the Star Citizen universe, launches at some point in 2026, which, if it makes that release window, would be an incredible 14 years after CIG first launched Star Citizen’s crowdfunding drive.

Roberts, known for creating the Wing Commander series, has said Squadron 42 will offer 30-40 hours of gameplay. It stars Gillian Anderson, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, and Mark Strong.

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.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has released its third player-versus-player event today, December 20, which awards Emblems based on the Mythical Island expansion.

The Mythical Island Emblem Event follows the same format as the first PvP event released for the digital trading card game, simply challenging players with racking up 45 total wins over three weeks to obtain the best rewards. The event ends on January 10.

Players can obtain Pack Hourglasses just for competing in the event, however. Three are rewarded for participating in one battle and three battles, six are rewarded for participating in five, and 12 are rewarded for participating in 10.

Shinedust is on offer for those who win battles: one win rewards 50, three rewards 100, five rewards 200, 10 rewards 500, 25 rewards 1,000, and 50 rewards 2,000. Players will also obtain Emblems for winning, earning a white emblem for one win, a bronze emblem for five wins, a silver emblem for 25 wins, and a gold emblem for 45 wins.

Mythical Island arrived as the first major expansion for Pokémon TCG Pocket and with it came a meta shake up. Pikachu ex appears to have fallen off a little thanks to a number of cards being added which appear designed specifically to take it down, while Mewtwo ex received a subtle boost.

Celebi ex has also emerged as a new threat to the meta, but now the initially overlooked Mew ex is also entering the spotlight.

Pokémon TCG Pocket arrived October 30 and is a certified hit for developer Creatures Inc. and The Pokémon Company, having earned an estimated $200 million in its first month across more than 60 million downloads.

This huge amount of money comes as Pokémon TCG Pocket follows the standard mobile and free to play game model, flooding players with rewards in the first few days before soon drying up, with spending real world money the only real way to re-experience that early thrill outside of the occasional set drop like Mythical Island.

Completing Genetic Apex, the first set of cards which totals 226 officially but also contains 60 rare alternate art cards, will take players not spending money around two years according to one estimate, while those looking to make it rain can wrap up the collection after dropping around $1,500.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

The dreaded and feared Skibidi Toilet has reared its truly ugly head in Fortnite at last. The rumored update officially dropped in the game last night, and so far it’s prompting reactions of skepticism, confusion, and delight from the Fortnite community.

First off, let’s talk about the crossover itself. We first learned about it earlier this week via leakers, followed up by a confirmation from the official Fortnite X account of a toilet, plunger, and camera emoji in succession and a date: December 18, 2024. The actual update went live last night, and includes a Skibidi Toilet bundle on the item shop (discounted to 2,200 V-bucks at the time this piece was written) consisting of plunger pickaxes, a Plungerhead character skin, and two backpacks: one that goes with the Plungerhead outfit, and another that is the iconic Skibidi Toilet himself. There’s also a lego version of the Plungerman skin.

You know it. Now you can wear it!
Skibidi Toilet & Plungerman. Available now in the Shop.https://t.co/DXMUbYvQLk pic.twitter.com/P8VUaJorLe

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) December 19, 2024

That’s it for the collaboration, though with the recent return of the original map and the Flush Factory, there’s already a conveniently toilet-themed location just waiting to be flooded with Skibidi nonsense:

The addition of Skibidi Toilet to Fortnite is being met with some mixed feelings from the community. There are some naysayers who feel that Fortnite has gone too far incorporating the popular meme, suggesting it’s juvenile and indicative of a slide into total absurdity for what’s deemed worthy of a collaboration:

That said, the vast majority of folks seem to range from mildly amused to chaotically delighted, even the ones who have no idea what Skibidi Toilet is.

All in all, the verdict of the Fortnite community seems to be that the Skibidi Toilet addition to Fortnite is a good time, at minimum because the Plungerman skin is pretty cool.

If you, like some members of the Fortnite community, have absolutely no idea what this toilet thing is, here’s the quick rundown: Skibidi Toilet is a series of web shorts by Alxey Gerasimov published on YouTube via Gerasimov’s channel, DaFuq!?Boom!. And by shorts, we do mean very short – early episodes are only a handful of seconds long, and were created with Garry’s Mod using assets from games like Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike. The series features a toilet with a man’s head coming out of it set to a mashup of the songs Give It to Me by Timbaland and Dom Dom Yes Yes by Biser King. While early episodes are somewhat nonsensical, as the series progresses a plot emerges about an arms race between the Skibidi Toilets (of which there are many of varying sizes and with different heads popping out) and a race of people with video cameras for heads. The plot progresses from there, more recently centering on a cameraman named Plungerman and involving alien Skibidi Toilets.

The whole thing, while absurdist, is far more complex than you might imagine just from seeing the image of the head in the toilet. In fact, it’s got enough going on (and is popular enough) that there’s reportedly a film and TV adaptation effort underway from Michael Bay.

If you love Fortnite but Skibidi Toilet is still a bit much for you, don’t worry. The game gets so many constant collaborations, the toilet-fest will quickly be drowned out by the next big thing, which happens to be Mariah Carey emerging from a giant block of ice to ring in the holidays. It’s almost time!