Forza Horizon may soon have some competition. Amazon Games announced today that it has struck a deal with Maverick Games for a “narrative-led open-world driving game,” which is set to release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
“We founded Maverick Games with a clear vision: to build a developer-first studio that would foster an environment of creativity and risk-taking,” Brown said in a statement. “This approach empowers our team to produce the most exceptional work of their careers. And ultimately, that means we are creating a game that our players are going to fall in love with.
“As we got to know the team at Amazon Games it quickly became clear that we had a shared ethos – a commitment to giving developers the space to really innovate in service of crafting experiences that players will find truly special. Without giving too much away, I will share that the team here is buzzing with excitement about our game and we can’t wait to share it with the world.”
Billed as a AAA project, the untitled game may be more story-driven than the Forza Horizon games. Its lead writer is Jamie Brittain, whose work includes the British teen drama Skins. In a 2023 interview with RPS, Brittain talked about bringing a TV writing process to the studio.
“Narrative and storytelling is fundamental to being a human being, and people who are good writers are just a little bit better at expressing that,” he said. “If you talk to anyone for long enough, they’ve got a story. And if you tell someone a story, people have got opinions on it. For me, that’s always been the magic of a writers’ room. Ninety percent of all the best TV shows you’ve ever seen are made that way. And it’s a gloriously fun way of doing things.”
Amazon Games has not announced a release date or a title for the new game. Its other upcoming projects include Tomb Raider, a new Lord of the Rings MMO, and NCSoft’s Throne and Liberty. Expect more news from Amazon Games when Summer Game Fest and IGN Live kick off next week.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
In the aftermath of the release of Call of Duty Black Ops 6’s live-action reveal trailer, fans have unearthed a number of secrets, Easter eggs, and hidden details — and perhaps even a pointer to the game’s first Zombies map.
Activision’s marketing so far has revolved around teasing fans with cryptic nods to the Gulf War of the early ‘90s, and the trailer, below, continues the conspiracy theories with a few words of wisdom from world leaders central to the military action that took place in Iraq during the decade. Former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, as well as ex-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Iraq leader Saddam Hussein, combine to utter words from the shadows that allude to some grand conspiracy the player will presumably unravel over the course of Black Ops 6’s campaign.
To accompany the release of the trailer, Activision released a single piece of key art for Black Ops 6. On the face of it, this image, below, rekindles memories of Black Ops 1’s iconic box art, with a soldier in a familiar pose while holding handguns. But fans have spotted various clues and Easter eggs in the image that have certainly set the cat among the pigeons within the community.
First off, at the 35-second mark the trailer shows a set of numbers that are the real-life coordinates to Saddam Hussein’s palace. This makes sense in the context of the trailer itself, which features Hussein, but fans are also wondering if Black Ops 6 features a mission that takes players inside the palace itself, or perhaps there’s a multiplayer map set within it.
Dig deeper and there are even more hidden details, and this is where Call of Duty YouTuber MrRoflWaffles comes in. The video summarizing his findings less than 24 hours after the publication of the reveal trailer is a quite incredible journey to what ends up being a well-argued suggestion that Tranzit from Black Ops 2 has inspired the first Zombies map for Black Ops 6.
MrRoflWaffles demonstrates some remarkable detective skills as he analyzes the various clues in the trailer, including hard-to-read lines of text, seemingly innocuous images, as well as etchings on weapons, then cross-references them with real-world places and events to work ouit potential locations in which Black Ops 6 takes place. There are power plant accidents, old Black Ops lore, images of churches and bridges, and it all leads to a theory that a Tranzit-inspired map called Liberty Falls is the first Black Ops 6 Zombies map.
MrRoflWaffles is in full Pepe Silvia meme mode here as he either veers off in a completely wrong direction or solves a Zombies Easter egg months before Black Ops 6 comes out. “Am I crazy, or am I cooking?” MrRoflWaffles asks viewers. Either way, if you have even a vague interest in Call of Duty, the video is worth a watch.
More glaringly obvious is Activision’s clear tease relating to ‘Sally.’ Activision has released handgun variants into Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone with ‘Sally VI’ etched into one of them. At the 39-second mark in the teaser trailer, we see a one-frame visual for ‘Sally VIII.’ Sally VIII is etched into one of the handguns on the Black Ops 1 key art. And, completing the set, the Black Ops 6 key art includes the text: ‘Codename Sally VII.’ Whatever it means, Sally looks set to play a key role in Black Ops 6.
Activision has expertly laid these breadcrumbs for fans to follow, and they’re having a lot of fun doing just that. Expect a Black Ops 6 gameplay reveal, and plenty more breadcrumbs to follow, during the Xbox showcase and subsequent Call of Duty Direct in June.
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.
A high-profile video game cheat maker has been ordered to pay Activision over $14 million in damages and hand over its domain name.
The United States District Court of the Central District of California granted Activision’s motion for default judgement in the civil case against EngineOwning, which sells cheats for a number of Call of Duty games as well as Counter-Strike, Battlefield, and Titanfall. Activision is awarded $14,465,600 in statutory damages and $292,912 in attorneys’ fees, and the court issued a permanent injunction to enjoin EngineOwning’s “unlawful conduct” and to transfer its domain name, www.EngineOwning.to, to Activision.
Activision successfully argued that EngineOwning continued to circumvent its security systems and sell the cheating software in violation of the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). It called for the minimum statutory damages of $200 under the DMCA multiplied by the general approximation of the number of downloads of the cheating software in the United States (72,328), for a total of $14,465,600. The Court found the request “reasonable” under the circumstances.
In February 2023, a judge ruled that EngineOwning must pay Activision $3 million in damages after a lawsuit in which Activision claimed high-profile streamers used Warzone cheats. But EngineOwning continued its operation, selling cheats for 2023’s Call of Duty game Modern Warfare 3 as well as Warzone. Activision then continued its long-running battle with the cheat maker, resulting in this ruling.
There are now questions about whether Activision will see any of the money it is owed by EngineOwning, or its ability to claim ownership of the website. At the time of this article’s publication, cheats and HWID spoofers remain available to buy from EngineOwning, which seemingly operates outside the U.S.
Of course, competitive multiplayer video games have endured a cheating problem for decades, and Call of Duty in particular is seen as having a cheating and hacking problem, most prominently on the free-to-download battle royale Warzone on PC. Activision and other video game publishers face an uphill battle in the war against cheat makers, but the Call of Duty company will be hoping rulings such as these act as a meaningful deterrent as it prepares to release Black Ops 6 later this year.
Overnight, Activision tweeted to say that all accounts found to have participated in any form of boosting behavior in Multiplayer or Warzone Ranked Play would have their SR reset and be removed from the Leaderboard ahead of the Season 4 launch. Activision continued: “Additionally, as previously announced, accounts that boosted their progression in Ranked Play will be permanently restricted from accessing Ranked Play modes in Modern Warfare 3 and 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.
League of Legends fans are having a hard time wrapping their heads around a new bundle that costs roughly $450.
The content is themed after prolific League of Legends player Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok and arrives alongside news that he has been inducted into Riot’s hall of fame, the Hall of Legends. In a post on its website, the studio explains that it worked with the eSports legend to create an event pass celebrating his legacy. Festivities include three new Ahri Collections with prices that are turning heads.
Each bundle is more expensive than the last, beginning with the Risen Legend Collection at 5430 RP or around $40. It includes the Hall of Legends Pass, a Takedown Counter Taunt, an icon, an emote, a banner, and Ahri with a unique, orange and white skin. Next up is the substantially more expensive Immortalized Legend Collection, which costs 32430 RP or around $250, and packs in the Risen Collection along with a selection of exclusive skin transformations, finishers, the Immortalized Ahri skin, and more.
Finally, at 59260 RP, or around $450, there’s the Signature Immortalized Legend Collection that includes the Immortalized Collection as well as a “Final Boss Faker” title, a Faker-themed signature move and structure finisher, an exclusive border, banner, 100 pass levels, and more. It’s a lot of content with a uniquely high price tag, so it was no surprise to see players commenting on the pricing upon its reveal.
“It’s crazy that Faker, known for his generosity and taking less salary over the years so he could stay in Korea, is going to be associated with these crazy packages where the base skin isn’t able to transform,” one Reddit user said. “I looked at the 2 whales packages and pretty much expected like a physical Ahri statue to be included in them, but they were just a couple of finishers and signature emotes. Absolute bonkers.”
“The way I thought 59k rp was a typo lmfaooo,” another Reddit user said.
Riot provided a statement regarding how it chose pricing information for the new bundles in an FAQ on its website:
Whether you’re a new fan, a long-term diehard, or just want to join the celebration, we thought it essential for there to be something for you—and for everyone—as we celebrate our first Hall of Legends inductee.
For the more casual fan, we have some of our most generous bundles to date. The Hall of Legends Pass includes multiple skins (including Risen Legend LeBlanc), emotes, and more, while the Risen Legend Collection adds the new Risen Legend Ahri skin for collectors to enjoy. For those looking to flex their fandom, the Immortalized Legend Collection and Signature Immortalized Legend Collection include spectacular additions, headlined by the evolving Immortalized Legend Ahri skin. While more expensive, these versions are meant to be highly commemorative, with never-before-implemented features that we can’t wait to see hit the Rift.
The Collections arrive as part of the League of Legends Hall of Legends event. It runs from June 12 to July 8, and it’s unclear if the Collections will be made available again in the future. Additional Hall of Legends events are planned to commorate other star players in the community annually.
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.
Modern board games are replete with titles where players compete in isolation to optimize their own approach to strategy, or even work together to beat a goal set by the game itself. And it’s great we have that kind of diversity to enjoy. But there are times when all you really want to do is sit down with a friend and tear metaphorical chunks out of each other through the medium of board gaming. And, thankfully, the genre of duelling games which perfectly serves this desire is thriving just as well as its cooperative siblings, with dozens of great examples to choose from. Here’s a dozen of the top tiles.
Magic: the Gathering
Let’s start with the Thorn Mammoth in the room, the biggest duelling game on the planet in the form of Magic: The Gathering. Despite being 30 years old, it’s still going from strength to strength. And why wouldn’t it, when it has such a gripping central set of mechanics: hoping for the right cards to come off the top of your deck, working to make the best of what you’ve got and engaging in blow and counterblow with your opponent and their minions. Getting into Magic is easier than ever thanks to the range of starter decks, like the one linked here. And if collecting and deck-building isn’t for you, you can still enjoy the game using prebuilt decks from one of its fantastic “universes beyond” incarnations, such as the excellent Lord of the Rings tie-in.
Warhammer Underworlds
Underworlds is the unsung hero of the Games Workshop family, where teams of the company’s superb miniatures duke it out on a hex board in half-hour slugfests of surprising strategic depth. While there are plenty of dice to roll and thrills to be had, a clever support and objectives system ensures that on-board planning and manoeuvre win the day. Each warband also needs a supporting deck of cards which you can either build yourself, like you do in Magic, or for faster, more casual play you can use the game’s pre-built rivals decks, trying to figure out which decks work best with which characters. With tons of decks and figures to choose from, this is fast, fun and full of variety, a real hidden gem. And if you want to venture out a little further, check out these Warhammer alternatives.
Radlands
Radlands is a post-apocalyptic lane battler, a term that might seem better suited to MOBA play than duelling games. But there’s no doubt that’s what this is: each player must protect three structures, ranging from reactors and cannons to tribal totems, by placing units in front of them which can also, in turn, attack units in their opposing lane or the building, if it’s undefended. The game economy is incredibly tight, forcing you into agonizing choices every turn over what to play, what to protect and what to sacrifice for water to power your existing units. It’s also peopled with an incredible variety of effects from a simple rule framework, and its wasted world is bought to life with some vivid cartoon artwork. Add in a clever event system that ups the tension as you watch powerful cards move towards their conclusion, and this is a ton of fun in a tiny package.
Unmatched: Cobble & Fog
The key marketing point of the Unmatched series is that it lets you take characters from across mythology and mass media and pit them in fights against one another, whether that’s Medusa facing off against Jurassic Park’s raptors or Bigfoot staring down Bruce Lee. That it offers this delightful variety using a simple three-step rules system which it mines brilliantly to differentiate all the fighters in its various sets is just the icing on the cake. It puts you in a constant bind between both attack and defence, and keeping your hand stocked with action cards while taking the fight to the enemy. Cobble & Fog is the best box in the whole line-up, featuring titans of gothic literature from Dracula to Sherlock Holmes to ensure some truly memorable match-ups.
Star Realms
We’ve covered a couple of games, like Magic, where you have to create a deck of cards from your collection before you play. But Star Realms is a deck-building game, which means you create your deck while you play, instead. You start out with a feeble deck of eight income and two attack cards, the latter of which you play to reduce your opponent’s “authority” – read, health – to try and win the game. But your income cards can be used to bolster your deck from a market of much more powerful alternatives. Many of these can be added to your tableau, providing ongoing bonuses from turn to turn, but also making them a potential target for enemy attacks. Easy to learn, fast to play but surprisingly hard to master, Star Realms takes the sometimes staid genre of deck-building and turns it into an aggressive duelling experience.
Summoner Wars
You can broadly separate duelling games into head-to-head card games like Magic, and on the board miniature games, like Unmatched. Summoner Wars tries to be both by having players play their cards directly onto the board, where they become units to command. Each player will have their own faction to play with a unique style – the linked master set comes with six such factions, from the angelic Vanguards to the deranged Cave Goblins. To win you must try and defeat your opponent’s summoner card with a mix of rank and file units, powerful heroes and one-shot spells from your deck. But there are no reshuffles, so games often come down to the wire as the last dregs of your forces duke it out for supremacy.
Mage Wars Arena
Mage Wars has one of the coolest gimmicks you’re likely to find in a duelling board game: an actual spellbook. Okay, so in reality it’s just a fancy binder with poly-pockets to hold your spell cards, but it still feels pretty special to flip through the pages while you’re decided what devastating magics you’re going to unleash to blow your opponent out of the arena. And you’d better choose wisely: you only get two spells per turn, chosen in advance, although your mage and summoned creatures can still all move and fight. It’s a fairly complex game with a lot of strategic meat to enjoy, plus a variety of mages and spells to experiment with and more available via expansions. What initially looks like a brawl will, with experience, turn into a much more strategic affair of scouting and probing as you learn to mix offensive and defensive effects alongside complementary summoned creatures in the ultimate magical duel.
Yomi
Yomi takes the concept of a duelling game to the extreme by attempting to simulate the feel of a fighting video game. While it wisely doesn’t attempt to riff on the reflexes required for such a game, it instead focuses on the way they reward combos and anticipation. Each player gets a deck unique to their fighting character and attempts to start a chain of moves using a simple rock, paper, scissors system where attacks beat throws, throws beat blocks and blocks beat attacks. Once you’ve landed a blow, you can then attempt to chain it into a powerful combo, but only if you’ve got the right cards. With special powers on both cards and characters and a wealth of additional fighters to add to the linked starter set, Yomi is both a simulation and a stand-alone genre in its own right.
Smash Up
Like our earlier entry Unmatched, Smash Up is a genre blender where you pick two disparate deck from a wide selection, say Pirates and Dinosaurs, and use them together to smash your opponents off the map. On your turn, you play action and minion cards from your hand, with each minion being assigned to a base. When there are enough minions on a base, it gets scored, with players getting points depending on how much minion power they’ve accumulated at that base. Of course, most cards have additional effects to enliven the game, with plenty of chaos, confusion and take that as befits a game where half the fun comes from the ridiculous team-ups you can create from the different factions. There are eight in the starter set plus many more you can pick up in expansions and, unlike most of the other games on this list, it will play with more than two.
Onitama
While Onitama is said to depict a clash between two martial arts schools, in reality it’s a head-to-head abstract with all the direct interaction and meaty strategy that supplies. It’s very simple: each player has a master and four students on a five by five grid. To win, you must either capture your opponent’s master or move yours into the middle space at their board end. You start with two random cards that depict moves for your pieces, and you choose a piece, move as the card depicts and then swap it with one in the middle, which your opponent will pick up next turn. This gives it both a variable starting setup to stop it getting stale, but also means it’s rich in strategy due to non-randomness. That makes victory all the sweeter and defeat all the more galling because it’s all on your skills and choices, cranking up the tension for each quick exchange of moves.
Godtear
Despite its amazing miniatures, Godtear looks a lot like a typical skirmish game if you just glance at the board with its hex spaces and objective markers. However, it has an unusual mechanical structure that makes it fascinating to play. First, it has a peculiar turn structure where each player gets to activate all their models in a scrum for position and claim objectives, followed by a more typical model by model activation where you dish out the pain. This rewards advance planning and risk-taking as you have to take objectives before you can be sure to hold them. Second, each turn of the game offers more points to the winning faction, meaning you can strategically time your plays across the whole course of the encounter, either trying to close it out early or save your firepower for a big swing turn at the end. In common with many other games on the list there are lots of expansions available, adding more of those sweet models to your collection.
Blitzkrieg!
Promising to let you re-fight World War 2 in 20 minutes is a bold claim, but Blitzkrieg manages to fulfill its promise admirably. The board is a series of tracks, each representing a different theatre of the conflict. Players take turns placing armies, navies and air force tokens from a randomly-drawn selection into appropriate spaces, shifting that theatre’s track toward their advantage. Force placement also nets you cool bonuses like special weapons or the ability to shift other tracks to your advantage. Win enough campaigns across the different theatres, and you’ll win the war, sometimes in even less than 20 minutes! It’s a smart design that gives you the very basics of combined arms conflict is a simple, enjoyable and surprisingly replayable package.
Matt Thrower is a contributing freelance board game and video game writer for IGN. (Board, video games, all sorts of games!)
AAPI Month coverage continues with an interview with Polychroma Games about their Phillipines-set story game, Until Then, coming out on June 25.
Even in its demo, Until Then rang plenty of bells for me as a Filipino-American. It reminded me of summer breaks when I would visit Manila, but with a fondness that outdid any discomfort I would have from walking under the sweltering heat and dodging cockroaches on the sidewalk. From colored chicks to bits of Tagalog, Filipino culture deepened the immersiveness of the story between the playful characterization and mini games.
This is the setting that Mickole Klein Nulud, founder of Polychroma Games and game director of Until Then, and his team sought to capture. Mark Borja is seemingly just another Filipino high schooler going through shenanigans like cramming for class and keeping up with the local rumor mill. However, magical realism starts to seep into the slice of life setting, hinting at the emotionally compelling story to come.
A Setting By Any Other Name
The Philippines isn’t a glamorous city with robot toilets and vending machines at every corner. Until Then doesn’t tout fantasy gimmicks or child soldiers, yet Polychroma still decided to base its setting on Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Nulud tells IGN that the Philippines was integral to the story they wanted to tell, and it was a non-negotiable from the start. They initially had concerns on whether or not a global audience would find the Philippines relatable. However, the developers quickly abandoned their doubts.
“We wanted to write a story where we could apply the experiences of growing up here,” Nulud says. “Right from the start, the idea behind this game was to represent the Philippines and share the experiences we went through living here growing up here. It’s fundamental to the game, so there were no other settings on the table.”
The plan was to create a universally relatable story with the Philippines as a backdrop. That way, it could appeal to global audiences as well as fellow Filipinos. “If we wanted to write a story in a game where you could reach into people’s hearts, of course it has to be universal,” Nulud says. “But the setting, the context, the mannerisms that the story integrates–some of them are uniquely Filipino. So, we sprinkle in some references here and there, but not too much that will make the story confusing for other audiences.”
“We learned how to strike a balance between sprinkling in some references that players here would appreciate, but still [making it so] everyone would appreciate the main story itself.”
Most of the Philippine references appear in the settings, like the trash-littered streets and roaming stray dogs. However, Nulud and fellow developers found a way to gamify their experiences through mini-games and interactive parts of the game, even if it isn’t exactly how you would experience it in real life.
For example, in the demo, Mark and Sofia take turns stabbing fish balls with skewers. However, they don’t just take the fish balls from the vendor and leave. You have to skewer the fish balls yourself by timing exactly where the stick stops above the frying balls, and then again for when exactly to stab it so that it actually sticks. That’s not actually how you buy or even eat fish balls in the Philippines, but it was a fun way for Nulud and his fellow developers to gamify a cultural experience.
Until Then also serves as one of the most recent and significant examples of Filipino representation. My Filipino friends and I have a hard time recalling Filipino representation in recent games. Josie Rizal from Tekken 7 is one of the most popular examples that still pops up, but that game came out nearly a decade ago. Nulud also recalled Rizal, but noted her inclusion in Tekken is only a small part of the game. In that sense, Until Then is a more fully fleshed out example.
“It’s not just an element. It’s not just like 10% Filipino representation. It’s 100% Filipino representation,” says Nulud. “And I don’t think there are–if there ever is–a game that has 100% representation. Maybe there’s just one or two.”
“I think [in] that way, it is a strength. This is a game where you could really say that. That’s really representative, first of its kind.”
Filipino Time Capsule
Cultural time capsules also exist, like the train station Mark uses early in the game to get to school where you need to buy the ticket from the machine. Nulud admits that it’s not that exciting because you’re just buying a train ticket. However, for him and others who used to commute using the Manila subway, it’s a fun reminder of their local transportation.
“It was really fun because I copied the interface almost 100% in the train station that we have here,” Nulud said. “That was just really fun for me because it’s going to be a time capsule.”
“There have been changes to the train station that we have in the game from real life. Like, some of the design, some of the architecture of the train station…When you visit it now, it’s slightly different from what it is in the game.”
Besides the train station that Nulud mentioned, it’s also a time capsule for technology and social media. Until Then takes place in 2014, even though the team started development in 2020. Facebook, which is still popular in the Philippines, is the main social media used in the story. You scroll through your timeline, liking and commenting on your friends’ posts, or even learn more about the world through the news stories and ads that pop up on your timeline.
“Back in something like 2010, we were only able to access it from a computer shop or internet cafe,” says Nulud. “But, starting in 2014, that’s when Filipinos became more active or online. So that makes a lot of sense for the smartphone mechanics that we have where there’s basically a Facebook clone in the game where you can like, share, and stuff.”
Even now, Facebook is the Philippines’ most popular social media platform. According to DataReportal, the Philippines ranks in Facebook’s top 10 most active countries with 91.9 million active Facebook users. For context, the last Philippine census counted 115.56 million people. The United States, second in the rankings, has 186.4 million active Facebook users, but about 333.29 million people. The ratios are skewed.
“Facebook is not dead here at all. It’s the main platform. I know it’s not big in the US right now, but here, it’s synonymous to social media,” says Nulud.
Inspirations for Until Then
Besides Filipino culture, Polychroma Games prioritized innovative storytelling to strengthen Until Then’s narrative. Nulud described it as closer to a “cinematic experience,” but one where it was more like a visual novel with interactive elements. Instead of just clicking through options of dialogue, I mashed buttons to wake up our main character, bought a train ticket, plugged in a USB, scrolled through Facebook messages, and more. In that sense, it felt a lot more interactive than a traditional relationship-based visual novel where you might select options that cater towards specific love interests and eventually form a relationship with them.
Nulud’s main inspirations includes Night in the Woods, Infinite Fall’s narrative adventure game based on western Pennsylvania. I used to live in Pittsburgh, a setting that heavily inspired Night in the Woods. In that story, the mining town history, hilly suburban setting, and other environmentally unique pieces about it really made it feel like Pittsburgh and, as an extension, other western Pennsylvania towns. Until Then works similarly, painting a picture of Manila through its setting, even without exposition.
“When you look at Night in the Woods and this game, there’s a lot of similarity in how we present dialogue where you can see the world,” Nulud says. “When I played [NITW], I was really amazed that you can present a story like this. Like, you can present it in a way that you’re just exploring the world because, in very conventional visual novels, you only have backgrounds for settings and then characters just fade in and fade out. And, since so far in my career, I have always been interested in narrative in games. I take a lot of inspiration from how Night in the Woods presents its story. It’s just so immersive, having it presented this way.”
“I’m interested to push the boundaries and explore different ways we can tell stories in games. And one way of doing that, I thought, was presenting it in a cinematic experience.”
Nulud also highlighted a few other inspirations including The Last Night and, for Mark’s interest in piano, the anime Your Lie in April. When asked about The Last Night, Nulud said, “It’s pixel art, but it’s not fully two-dimensional. It’s 2D sprites, but set in a 3D space. And they take it even further by using modern graphics, the type that you would see in AAA games like reflection shaders and stuff like that. I got really inspired by that as well.”
Something That Can’t Be Said
Until Then taps into high school nostalgia with its high school setting. However, Nulud highlights that Until Then isn’t just about that. His favorite theme was “understanding communication,” something that’s emphasized throughout the game and something he enjoyed examining the nuances of. Other words for it include human understanding or human condition in general.
“The theme here is human condition,” says Nulud, “but that’s very general. We don’t talk about that. That is obvious, but if there’s anything specific about the human condition that we highlight here, it’s understanding [that] and its complexity. We really wanted to opt for a story that’s really emotional, something, as I said earlier, something that will reach into people’s hearts and strike a chord with them.”
“Maybe, yeah, sure, high school days can strike a chord with the audience. But I think we were really aiming for something bigger than that. Something that’s outside of school. Something that is truly universal in the human condition or experience. We were really just aiming for something bigger. But definitely, yeah, there are elements of high school days that would make you wanna relive it.”
Nulud recalls how he read a comment from one player about how the demo made them feel “nostalgic,” even though they didn’t come from the same background as he and his colleagues. Even though Until then is based in the Philippines, it seemed to succeed in relating to players overseas with its message.
“Even though they didn’t really live through any of this, they’re not from the Philippines, their schools do not look like that in the game…By aiming for something bigger than school life, something more general than that, we were able to achieve that. Like, just being universal, and even people getting nostalgia for things that they didn’t personally go through.”
Ultimately, Nulud hopes that players connect with the emotional story that his team worked to convey in Until Then. If you learn about the Philippines, cool, but the most important part is the story.
“We just really hope that, whoever plays this, for all the players that will go through the entire game–like, especially for me–I really hope that this game strikes a chord the same way all my inspirations did to me,” he says. “That’s what we’re really hoping for once this comes out.”
To Filipino players, he says, “As I said before, this is universal, but we sprinkled in some references here and there. So we really hope that you point these out when you talk about the game, and we’d really appreciate mentions of it because we put our heart into those references and just overall had fun, you know, putting references here that our fellow countrymen will get.”
Until Then is coming to PC and PlayStation 5. You can play the demo now on Steam.
Microsoft has released the Call of Duty Black Ops 6 live-action reveal trailer, and in it we hear from a few familiar faces.
Activision’s marketing so far has revolved around teasing fans with cryptic nods to the Gulf War of the early ‘90s, and this trailer continues the conspiracy theories with a few words of wisdom from world leaders central to the military action that took place in Iraq during the decade.
Former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, as well as ex-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Iraq leader Saddam Hussein, combine to utter words from the shadows that allude to some grand conspiracy the player will presumably unravel over the course of Black Ops 6’s campaign.
“The truth is, your whole life is a lie,” Clinton said, with a smirk. “Nothing is what it seems,” Saddam Hussein concluded. “But if it’s truth you seek… look in the dark.”
Activision’s messaging on Black Ops 6 calls it “the dark new chapter” of the Call of Duty franchise. But just how dark? Will players fight within Saddam Hussein’s palace, touching directly on the real-world events of the Gulf War? Will Black Ops 6 actually feature the likes of Bill Clinton and Saddam Hussein in-game, as Ronald Reagan featured in Black Ops Cold War?
One character we do know set to appear in Black Ops 6 is Russell Adler from Black Ops Cold War, as spotted by Call of Duty fan account CharlieIntel on X/Twitter.
Breaking: First look at Adler in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
The Call of Duty website has the “Reveal Trailer” thumbnail up (instead of the teaser trailer’s thumbnail) pic.twitter.com/Rca9ikM8ce
Microsoft pointed fans to its Xbox Games Showcase event as well as its Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Direct set to take place on June 9, 2024, from 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK. Then it will share a first in-depth look at Black Ops 6 gameplay.
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.
Microsoft has confirmed the arrival of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 day-one on Xbox Game Pass.
In a post on Xbox Wire, Microsoft pointed fans to its Xbox Games Showcase event as well as its Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Direct on June 9, 2024, from 10am PT. There it will share more details on the game, with a first in-depth look at gameplay “in this dark new chapter” of the Black Ops series.
Microsoft made the announcement alongside the release of a live-action reveal trailer called ‘The Truth Lies’. In it we see world leaders including Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, George H. W. Bush, and Saddam Hussein, delivering cryptic speeches. Black Ops 6 is reported to be set during the events of the Gulf War during the early ’90s.
News of Black Ops 6’s release into Game Pass doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Xbox president Sarah Bond recently indicated all Microsoft games, including those developed by the recently acquired Activision, would launch straight into Game Pass.
Microsoft has faced tough questions around the potential cannibalization effect of Game Pass, particularly on games that launch on the service day-one. While Xbox executives have insisted sales can be boosted by a game’s presence on Game Pass, some publishers remain unconvinced. Former Activision boss Bobby Kotick, for example, was always against putting Call of Duty into subscription services. Unlike Microsoft, console rival Sony does not release its new exclusives straight into its subscription service.
In an interview with IGN last year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer was asked how he’d handle his and Kotick’s different ideologies after the deal to buy Activision Blizzard closed. “Well, there’s a different person making the decisions,” Spencer laughed.
New Call of Duty games sell for $70 and usually shift around 25 million copies, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. By releasing this year’s Call of Duty straight into Game Pass, Microsoft potentially risks cannibalizing those sales. Of course, Activision will also launch Call of Duty across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC as a game that can be bought outright. But with Game Pass subscriber numbers failing to grow meaningfully Microsoft is under pressure to attract new customers. Adding a mainline Call of Duty game at launch will no doubt help with that. The Verge has reported Microsoft is considering raising the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate again.
Microsoft is yet to announce a release date, pricing, or platforms for Black Ops 6, but it will reportedly launch across PC, last-gen and current-gen consoles.
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.
Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate is still in development despite myriad cancellations at Square Enix, series creator Yuji Horii has confirmed.
As reported by GamesRadar, Horii posted on X/Twitter about the game in what’s essentially the first update since its announcement in May 2021. He didn’t provide any new details on Dragon Quest 12 despite it being the series’ anniversary on May 27, but at least confirmed Square Enix was still working on it.
“Everyone, thank you for all the congratulations,” Horii said of the 38th anniversary celebrations. “I’m hoping it will be a fitting posthumous work for the two people who have passed away.”
It’s unclear who these two developers are (though one could be series character designer and Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, who passed away in March 2024), but the post will at least alleviate fans’ concerns that the game was cancelled altogether.
Dragon Quest 12 was announced as part of the series’ 35th anniversary celebration and will be the first mainline entry since 2017’s Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age. No release window, platforms, or gameplay was shared, just the game’s logo.
Also this week, Square Enix said Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, which will recreate the classic role-playing game in the graphical style of Square Enix’s Octopath Traveller series, now “draws near” as it’s confirmed to be a multiplatform title.
A post on X/Twitter teasing the game, which was announced in May 2021 but has gone practically unheard of since, confirmed it will come to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam and the Windows Store.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Stellar Blade developer Shift Up is considering making a sequel to the PlayStation 5 exclusive.
Speaking to Famitsu, and translated by Genki on X/Twitter, studio founder and Stellar Blade director Kim Hyung Tae alongside technical director Lee Dong Gi discussed Shift Up’s current plans for the game and a potential sequel.
The pair said Shift Up plans to add a photo mode and additional outfits to Stellar Blade, and beyond that has a long-term plan for the game which includes more fun updates. As for the sequel, neither Kim nor Lee said much, but they’re reviewing what fans liked about the first game in their considerations for a second game.
While light, these comments follow word from Gematsu that a public filing on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index confirmed Shift Up was “considering a PC version of Stellar Blade and a sequel.” Fans who enjoyed the game can therefore look ahead with some hope, though an official announcement is likely still far away since Stellar Blade only launched on April 26, 2024.
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.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
