Category: IGN

Hot on the heels of the release of PlayStation 2 games Tomb Raider Legend, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 via the PlayStation Plus Classics Catalog comes word of the next potential addition to the list: TimeSplitters.

Gematsu spotted a rating for TimeSplitters on PS5 and PS4 in Taiwan, indicating Free Radical Design’s much-loved shooter is coming to the Classics Catalog soon.

TimeSplitters has been rated for PS5 and PS4 in Taiwan. 99 percent likely it’s the PS2 version for the PlayStation Plus Classics Catalog, considering the platforms. Search “TimeSplitters” here to see the rating yourself: https://t.co/kSQ7a9X1P4 pic.twitter.com/InFED7ihTx

— Gematsu (@gematsu) June 18, 2024

TimeSplitters first released in 2000 as a launch game for the PlayStation 2 and a spiritual successor to Rare’s GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. Indeed TimeSplitters was made by some of the people who worked on those iconic N64 shooters. It took place across multiple different time periods with 18 separate characters battling against the titular foe, creatures who can travel through time and wreck history using special crystals.

It got a sequel in TimeSplitters 2 in 2002, and a further entry in 2005 called TimeSplitters: Future Perfect. After Free Radical struggled to find a publisher for a fourth game, the rights languished at Crysis developer Crytek for years before Deep Silver parent Koch Media bought them up in 2018. Eventually, as with so much video game intellectual property, TimeSplitters ended up in Embracer’s vault.

In 2021, publisher Deep Silver finally announced the return of TimeSplitters alongside key original members of Free Radical Design, including founders Steve Ellis and David Doak, at a new studio set up in Nottingham, UK. However, in December 2023, Free Radical shut down amid the devastating restructure at embattled games company Embracer. Gameplay footage of the canceled project showed similarities to battle royale Fortnite. Reportedly, TimeSplitters Next, as it was called, began as something of a Fortnite clone before it was shifted to more closely resemble TimeSplitters 2.

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.

The official Elden Ring manga has been put on hiatus as its creator has taken time off work to play expansion Shadow of the Erdtree.

As reported by Automaton, Nikiichi Tobita, the author of comedy manga Elden Ring: The Road to the Erdtree, announced on X/Twitter he’s skipping the July 19, 2024 release of the series so he can spend time playing Shadow of the Erdtree upon its June 21 release.

Tobita shared a drawing of himself sleeping alongside the announcement, showing him dreaming of the “glowy worm boy” — a new beastie in the expansion that became an instant hit upon its reveal by developer FromSoftware.

He’s likely not the only Elden Ring fan taking time off work to play the expansion, which has been more than two years in the making.

Just like previous FromSoftware games Dark Souls and Bloodborne, however, accessing the DLC isn’t as simple as selecting it on a menu, as players must tick off a handful of obscure feats beforehand, including beating an optional boss. Thankfully, IGN has a guide on how to prepare for the Shadow of Erdtree DLC if you need to scramble ahead of the expansion’s release. And make sure to check out our Elden Ring interactive map to ensure you’re not missing any important collectibles.

You can also check out IGN’s “How Long to Beat” for Shadow of the Erdtree and kill some time ahead of its imminent release by reading our extensive 10/10 review.

“Like the base game did before it, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree raises the bar for single player expansions,” we said. “It takes everything that made the base game such a landmark RPG, condenses it into a relatively compact 20-25 hour campaign, and provides fantastic new challenges for heavily invested fans to chew on.”

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

The Roll and Write genre has exploded in recent years. This accessible style of games is derived from the classic board game Yahtzee. Players roll dice or flip cards, and then use the revealed numbers or symbols to mark up a private sheet. It’s a simple concept, but it’s a genre that’s ripe for exploration, and more surprisingly, sophisticated gameplay.

This type of game is highly appealing as it’s straightforward and immediately rewarding. You are afforded creativity in personalizing your own sheet or board, but the accompanying rules structure is typically straightforward. With this winning combination, Roll and Writes find a great deal of success across a wide range of players as the barriers to entry are relatively miniscule. The following group represents the best this genre has to offer.

TL;DR: Best Roll and Write Games

• Twilight Inscription
• Lost Cities: Roll & Write
• Super Skill Pinball: Ramp It Up
• Welcome To… Your Perfect Home
• My City: Roll & Build
• Railroad Ink
• Next Station: London
• Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write
• Cartographers
• Long Shot: The Dice Game
• Vengeance: Roll and Fight
• Three Sisters
• Fleet: The Dice Game
• Bargain Basement Bathysphere
• Sagrada Artisans
• Motor City

Twilight Inscription

The most unique title on this list, Twilight Inscription combines the huge excess of board game giant Twilight Imperium with the Roll & Write format. This sprawling experience seeks to emulate the 4X genre of video games, where players establish their space empires through exploration, exploitation, expansion, and extermination. It accomplishes this in roughly 90 minutes, which is brief in comparison to its forefather’s epic playtime of several hours.

Each aspect is represented with a separate sheet. Each of these sheets forms an entire sub-section of the game, one that can be explored and mastered over many plays. The challenge here is in focus, as each turn you must choose one sheet to perform actions upon. This creates a significant series of tradeoffs and opens up the game to many different approaches. The resulting experience is relatively large in scope, and in this way Twilight Inscription feels more akin to a full-fledged strategic board game than the typical breezy Roll and Write.

Lost Cities: Roll & Write

Another adaptation of an existing game, this one translates the enticing card play of Lost Cities to the Roll and Write genre. Here, players are attempting to explore the jungle by heading down separate colored paths. There is a core strategic aspect where you must optimize your expedition and carefully decide which dice to select from a larger pool.

One of the more delightful qualities is the bridge bonus. The first player to make it to the seventh space on a particular color receives a boost of 20 points. This establishes a race element to the game which works hand in hand with the pulp adventure setting to provide some character and personality to play. This is a lighter experience, one that’s easily internalized, but it’s a satisfying endeavor that is absolutely worth the brief time commitment.

Super Skill Pinball: Ramp It Up

Most roll and write games don’t do much in the way of conjuring up a theme, but Super Skill Pinball replicates a pinball table with nothing more than a pen and some dice. You choose one of four supplied tables to play, enter at the top, and then drop down by choosing to hit various bumpers and targets depending on your roll. It’s the same deal when it drops to the flippers but the kicker is that you can’t re-use a box twice, so your ball will eventually run out of targets and drop. It’s up to you to use the specific combo and special play rules of your table to maximize your score, making for a puzzle that’s fascinating and thrilling in equal measure. There are a number of sets available including a Star Trek–themed one, but Ramp It Up is the pick of the bunch and even includes a cooperative table.

Welcome To

Welcome To isn’t strictly a roll and write game: it belongs to a closely related genre called flip and write, which replaces the dice with cards. This gives you a lot more options to work with. Here, they’re pressed into the service of town planning as you choose pairs of house numbers and building effect cards to create three suburban streets. It’s a tricky ask as you have to get houses in number order while balancing your score across various bonuses such as pools, parks and racing to be the first to meet city plans that require specific layouts. It’s super satisfying when you pull it off and there’s a surprising amount of strategy, but gamers who want even more could choose its more complex sci-fi cousin Welcome To The Moon.

My City: Roll & Build

Based on the popular board game My City from famed designer Reiner Knizia (see on Amazon), this dice game employs a similar structure of campaign play that is wholly rewarding. Play takes place across multiple episodes, with each 30 minute session adding a small amount of new rules and wrinkles to play. This layered approach allows for a gradual increase of complexity without being overwhelming, and it succeeds admirably in this method.

Thankfully, the game is also quite flexible and allows you to play each of these episodes as a one-off session if you desire. It works well in this format, particularly once you’ve completed the campaign and are somewhat familiar with what each chapter has to offer. Either way, this is an entertaining little gem that will stand up to many plays.

Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition

• Also at Target

Rather than filling in a score sheet, Railroad Ink asks you to draw a transport network on a grid, based on tracks and junctions thrown up by its custom dice. You’re rewarded by linking as many exits as possible to the same network which rapidly becomes a tricky task as you balance the need to minimise dead ends with the desire to leave things open in the hope of linking them later. Combining risk versus reward gameplay with spatial thinking makes this roll and write quite unusual, but there are various editions to add to the variety. Deep Blue, which allows you to add rivers and lakes to your map along with potential ferry routes, is the pick of the bunch but you can go for volcanos with Blazing Red, forests in Lush Green or deserts in Shining Yellow.

Next Station: London

Another train-based game but this time a flip and write, Next Station: London offers the novel twist of making pencil colors a key part of the game. Each color ties into a starting station on the player’s map, which is where you begin to draw your network based on the station symbol of the drawn card. You can extend in either direction and even branch your line as you try to cross as many districts as possible, taking in tourist sites, joining other lines and crossing the river on the way. But beware as you can’t cross lines except as stations, meaning that a sprawling, high-scoring first turn may box in your expansion for later lines. Then all the players swap pencils and start anew. It’s a simple concept that reveals surprising nuance over repeat plays, giving it an edge of additive puzzling while resulting in fun multicoloured maps.

Dinosaur Island: Rawr N Write

Part of the appeal of roll and write games is their speed and simplicity, but Rawr N Write was the first of a new breed in the genre that uses the concept as a springboard to more complexity and depth. The dice roll gives players a choice of resources such as money and DNA that they need to build their own Jurassic World style dinosaur theme park. You’ll need to sketch out your park with both attractions and concessions stands on a mini-grid, while also bringing in staff, special buildings and taking care of security. Then, at the end of each of the three turns, you run an actual tour route through your facility to score points while hoping no-one gets eaten. With so many different aspects to juggle, planning your park is a rich, brain-burning challenge while running the tour brings the numbers to life with a thematic kick. Read our Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write review for more details.

Cartographers

• Also at Target

Games in this genre often play well with large groups because there’s a central roll or flip and everyone tries to make the best use of the results. That means a lack of player interaction, which Cartographers came along to challenge. This is a flip and write where the idea is to use the cards to map out the terrain of a fantasy kingdom, trying to fulfil some variable scoring challenges. The fun twist is that every so often there’s a monster card, at which point you pass your map to your neighbour and they have to figure out the most annoying place to draw the negative monster icons in your kingdom. Not only does this make Cartographers feel much more personal, but the maps you’re left with at the end have an engaging sense of world-building about them, conjuring up some theme. The sequel, Cartographers: Heroes, added more dynamic monsters and new hero cards to ride in and save your kingdom from their depredations.

Long Shot: The Dice Game

Horse racing game Long Shot was fine, but this derivation into a roll and write has proved a smash hit with players. Unusually for the genre, there’s an actual board for the track around which the horses race, based on a dice roll, but some horses are more likely to move than others. Your job is to watch the unfolding race and bet sensibly on the odds as proceedings come to a head. However, you can also use your cash to buy horses to access a special power and a hefty bonus if it wins, as well as take various options to fiddle the odds in favour of your chosen steeds. Since everyone is free to bet on any horse, this creates a fascinating web of dependencies between players as the race progresses, since horses you’ve backed may pay out better for your opponents. With interaction, excitement and a hefty dose of theme, Long Shot: The Dice Game satisfies in areas other roll and writes cannot.

Vengeance: Roll and Fight

Most games in this genre fit a certain, relatively staid, pattern of having a random seed to offer all the players a choice, which they mark on their sheet. In trying to recreate the hectic pace of a martial arts movie, Vengeance: Roll and Fight turns these expectations upside down. This is a frantic real-time game where players generate actions for their turn by trying to grab dice and roll combos faster than the other players. Once the pool of dice is empty you can use your actions to draw a route through a warehouse full of goons, moving, fighting and looting your way to a showdown with the boss. With variable characters, each with a unique roster of abilities and items, plus lots of maps to work through, the fast play time and variety mean you can keep rolling and fighting over and over into the small hours.

Three Sisters

It’s common for roll and write games to reward players who achieve particular combination of rolls or scores, but Three Sisters takes this concept to the extreme. Your score sheet here is a garden in which you grow a variety of crops and flowers and purchase various tools based on the results of dice rolls making a rondel of actions available. However, when you complete certain actions the reward is often a bonus action which you can then, in turn, use to gain another bonus action and so on. Indeed, the action chaining gets so intense that the score sheet has a special space to record and rub out your bonuses as you accrue and use them during a turn. Making full use of these chains requires more strategic planning than most games in this genre offer, making this a tactical treat. See our Three Sisters board game review for more info.

Fleet: The Dice Game

This is another combo-tastic game which tries to snare players more with a plethora of interconnected options. As the owner of a fishing fleet, you’ll need to decide whether to use the dice to buy licences for the depicted type of seafood or to launch a boat to catch it. The further you go down each tree, the bigger the rewards. Boats will later return to the harbor where you can sell your catch and construct buildings that offer additional benefits over the 10 rounds of play. It’s all about using the dice as random seeds and working out the best set of interconnected benefits you can glean from each tree of potential options. Fast, fun and with a thematic set of mock mother of peal dice, Fleet: The Dice Game is a lot less dangerous and a lot less smelly than real high-seas fishing.

Bargain Basement Bathysphere

While roll and write games can often accommodate large numbers of players, they’re also fast and fun to play solo. So the logical next design step for the genre is a solo-only game: enter the delightfully named Bargain Basement Bathysphere, originally conceived as a fan project to print and play, but which proved popular enough to get picked up by a major publisher. Over the course of a multi-challenge campaign, you’ll pilot your makeshift craft into the deep and back, trying to use your dice pool to hit the spaces you need to achieve your goals before you run out of oxygen or structural integrity. Things start simple but build rapidly into a real challenge with lots of long-term mini-games to balance and jokes to enjoy.

Sagrada Artisans

The original Sagrada was quite a chill game of arranging gem dice to mimic stained-glass windows. This version takes it a step further in multiple ways. From a roll-and-write perspective, you now get to actually colour in your window as you build, and to maintain that sense of calm there’s even additional decorative colouring in to complete for fun while you wait for slower players to finish their turns. The other fresh aspect is that it’s now a campaign game in which you complete your beautiful windows over a series of ten sessions, each adding fresh tools and challenges to the mix without compromising the game’s simplicity or Zen-like feel, making for a smooth ride up to an exciting finish.

Motor City

Coming from the same designers responsible for two previous entries on this list, Three Sisters and Fleet, this is the culmination of their roll-and-write experience. It turns the genre into a mirror for car production lines, where you’re controlling four different aspects of vehicle design, engineering, testing, production and sales. So you’ll need to use its dice-drafting mechanic, supported by the novel blueprint board that offers potential bonuses alongside the dice itself, to try and coordinate the actions you need to take your muscle car all the way to market. Eschewing the explosive combos that typified their previous games and aiming instead for a more joined-up strategic challenge, this is the most innovative offering of the three.

For more ideas, be sure to check out our list of the best board games of all time and the best puzzle tables featuring a great multi-purpose table (by Bits and Pieces) for playing cards and board games on, too.

Matt Thrower is a contributing freelance board game and video game writer for IGN. (Board, video, all sorts of games!)

Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail studio HoYoverse’s newest upcoming title, Zenless Zone Zero, is a fusion of what you’d expect from HoYoverse games with totally new ideas. The game studio’s development processes are largely a mystery, but in an interview with Zenless Zone Zero producer Zhenyu Li at a media event, IGN learned a little more about what goes into kicking off an entirely new game at HoYoverse, Zenless Zone Zero’s future, and at least this particular team’s position on generative AI.

Zenless Zone Zero (also known as ZZZ) is an action game with a heavy emphasis on its flashy urban landscape set in an apocalyptic world. Players take their team of three into monster-infested roguelike zones, then bounce back to the city landscape to complete side quests, get to know characters better, and maybe grab a cup of coffee or bowl of ramen.

Like the other HoYoverse games, its variety of stylish characters with combat specializations is arguably its biggest focal point. As the entertainment landscape has been in a tumult with the rush in the development of generative AI, we couldn’t help but ask: is the Zenless Zone Zero team using generative AI in development, or is it planning to?

“Today, no,” Li said. “For the art part, we have not tried it, but we have tried a part of it to touch on the programming. As for the art aspect, I think that the human touch is more meaningful right now and this is what our team is pursuing.”

This approach seems to be in line with what the Honkai: Star Rail team explored in using AI for development as of last year.

Li also explained that when developing ZZZ’s characters, the aesthetics came first early on. However, that changed as development progressed. The planning team responsible for character mechanics and the art team now work closely together to create new characters.

With the blurb “Gear up, get in, and get out”, Exoborne elegantly sets out its stall as an extraction shooter. But they left out the most important part: “Get blown around by a massive tornado”. While Exoborne bears all the features you’d expect from the likes of Escape from Tarkov and Call of Duty: Warzone’s DMZ, the most exciting part of a presentation I saw at Play Days was when developer Sharkmob talked about the weather.

Exoborne’s setting is not postapocalyptic, but rather midapocalyptic, with the world falling apart all around you – the result of mankind’s meddling with the climate. Project Rebirth’s attempts to provide limitless clean energy have backfired somewhat, and now Mother Nature is taking her revenge.

Extraction shooters live or die on emergent gameplay, and there’s nothing as emergent as a twister, flood or tsunami. The weather during a session of Exoborne can change from clement to hellscape in minutes – all of which has profound effects on gameplay, according to Sharkmob.

A 10-minute walkthrough video based on a pre-Alpha build of the game began with a short cutscene where a group of teammates known as The Reborn assemble in a dropship and prepare to jump. The character models are based on whatever skins and loadouts each player has selected, so this is a nice chance to show off your flair before the action starts.

The players then skydived from the dropship, parachuting in to the map below. Action kicked off immediately, as this area of Colton County in the Southeast USA was infested with killer robotic machines and human enemies.

Kill, loot, equip – so far, so extraction shooter. Entering a base located nearby required some teamwork, and the destruction of some AT-ST-like enemy walkers, while at another point the squad clambered aboard a Warthog-style armored vehicle with open top/sides/back for ease of blasting. Maps are as vertical as they are wide, with towers connected by huge Rebirth Cables that snake through the environment, placed by the architects at Rebirth without regard for the scenery or the human residents; these industrial eyesores allow players to ascend with grappling hooks and fight on higher ground. Burned-out school buses and a busted motel sign litter the deserted streets of what might long ago have been an idyllic rural town. Sinkholes offer the chance to explore underground.

And then came the tornado warning. Once the weather hit, the squad cut their mission short, calling in the dropship and climbing aboard with the loot before things got hairy. But a Sharkmob developer explained that over a longer play session, you can expect a dynamic range of climates to impede your progress. The rain apparently gets so heavy you can no longer hear your teammates, their comms drowned out by the deluge, forcing players to rethink their strategies.

While the risk may be high in any given session, Sharkmob has designed Exoborne to be more forgiving in the longer term. That is, extraction is not always guaranteed, and you may lose items in a given session if you don’t make it out alive – but the game makes it possible to rebuild your arsenal over future games, improving your character from game to game as you loot and progress. The idea is to make the game as approachable as possible for newcomers, who may find the high risk of other extraction shooters off-putting.

Throw in a bunch of cool near-future weapons, tech gear and Exo-Rigs, and of course a mix of PVP and PVE scavenging action, and Exoborne is shaping up to be a cool addition to the genre.

Skate Story’s vibe gripped me right away. Its liminal, Vaporwave-inspired levels mix hyper-realistic concrete textures, lighting effects, and objects like a chain-link fence or The Moon with engrossingly impressionistic flourishes like The Skater’s body, which is made of kaleidoscopic glass, or the on-looking, ever-judgemental eyes whose disembodied voices screech in unison in disdain for your quest. It’s a lot to take in, but never too overwhelming. These levels felt just wild enough to imbue each moment with its own distinct sense of cool without distracting me from the mission at hand: skating.

Skating might be the most normal thing about Skate Story. That’s not to say it’s bad or uninteresting, but it does feel exactly how you’d want a skating game to feel. It has a great sense of speed as you accelerate by holding down or mashing the A button to go as quickly as humanly possible. This game’s tight camera really emphasized that sense of speed too, focusing on your crystalline avatar as they lean into any momentum they can get a hold of.

I saw a pretty early section of the game, so tricks and jumps—while fun—were pretty simple. Holding down a specific button controls one of The Skater’s feet, and hitting another button initiates the trick itself. Each trick and jump works on a timer, with a little notch sliding around the outline of an organic shape. Releasing the button for a trick or jump while the notch is floating around in the thicker part of said outline will execute it perfectly, and reward you with better air time. Doing a trick with imperfect timing didn’t seem to cause that much of an issue, but I’m certain it will become increasingly important later on in Skate Story.

The levels I played had me zooming down tight corridors, exploring a courtyard, jumping over deadly neon red nettles, and visiting museum gift shops at the behest of verbose statues. Although that speed demonic camera worked wonders for Skate Story’s feel, it sometimes betrayed its flexibility of movement and occasionally even fought against its own sense of speed and pace as it obscured certain objectives or obstacles in some levels. Obstacles are usually easy enough to vault over, even with a split-second’s notice. But The Skater is made out of glass, so even the slightest error can set you back a spell, making the camera problem a tad more frustrating than it would be otherwise.

Unreliable camera aside, each level presented a satisfyingly diverse approach to design and pacing with repetition cleverly punctuating important moments while twisting what I’d already seen into something new and fresh thanks to its unexpectedly charming writing. Developer Sam Eng told me that this semi-autobiographical story is inspired by true events, but didn’t go much deeper than that. The chunk I saw was so strange and impressionistic that I can’t wait to see where Sam takes the story next. In my half hour with the demo, I watched as The Skater set out on their quest to shatter the moon. Culminating in a trial to prove their worth—and their skating chops—Skate Story’s writing and sense of humor stand in a league of their own. This isn’t just because its metaphorical approach is weird, but because it had me chuckling all the way through.

With a promising story, absorbing vibe, and responsive skating controls, Skate Story has so much potential as both a distinct story and a damn cool skating game. It shot up to the top of my Steam wishlist after my hands-on demo at Summer Game Fest this year, and I can’t wait to see the weird places this wildly expressive skating game goes.

The first of Blumhouse Games’ newly announced slate, Fear The Spotlight promises throwback horror with a more approachable take on PS1-era horror gameplay designed for non-horror fans to enjoy. Set on the night of a break-in gone wrong, this story follows two high schoolers on a night they won’t soon forget as they unravel their school’s dark past.

Fear The Spotlight follows a trend that has yet to get old in that it looks a lot like an updated PS1 game. Chunky character models wearing low-resolution textures and a CRT filter might have you believe that this is a lost game from the late ‘90s. But don’t let its homage for bygone games like Silent Hill or Resident Evil mislead you – Fear The Spotlight is no hollow nostalgia trip. Wandering around the school’s dim halls reveals a free camera, modern lighting systems, and most importantly, modernized controls.

Sunnyside High can get pretty spooky after hours. The high-pitched whir of security cameras and exaggerated creak of every door make everything just a bit more tense; you never know who or what could be around the next corner, with almost certain detention threatening any misstep. Ducking below desks to avoid the watchful eye of a rotating security camera or running from room to room exploring empty halls feels smooth and responsive. Overall, Fear The Spotlight seems intent on avoiding a lot of the pitfalls that hold its predecessors today, instead letting its story and mechanics shine in their own right.

That story shows immense promise. The half-hour demo I played followed two girls: Vivian and Amy. The picture of a perfect student, Vivian’s hesitant approach to their quest to break into the school’s library and perform a seance using a Ouija Board-like Spirit Board paints her as the goody-two-shoes foil to the rebellious and morose Amy. This punky goth kid is constantly pushing Vivian outside of her comfort zone. Meanwhile, something’s not quite right with Amy, but it’s hard to care… Her dynamic with Vivian was so compelling during the first half-hour of the game that all I wanted to do was see what happened next, no matter what the consequences were.

We learn that decades prior, Sunnyside High had a fire that claimed dozens of students’ lives. The ghost of these victims loomed over the school’s library as I found my way into the librarian’s office, fished the key for a display case out of their desk, and eventually freed the ‘Spirit Board’ from its glass prison. Small interactions like moving the Spirit Board’s planchette myself revealed just how much love and care has gone into building this experience with multiple dialog trees and responses to my trickery before ending the seance with an abrupt shock as Amy was seemingly possessed. Suddenly, the school started shifting, turning the familiar library into something else entirely as the hallway emitted a bright light, creating a concerning silhouette.

A mysterious letter for Amy sits in Vivian’s inventory. Its vague description, which hints at the hopes of giving it to her at the end of their adventure that night, adds an extra layer of tension of another kind; one that’s the perfect blend of teenage pining and fear of what might come between Vivian and making her confession.

Interestingly, this first project from husband and wife duo Cozy Game Pals already released on Steam in 2023 before the pair pulled it from storefronts following their deal with Blumhouse Games in order to add more into the game. Cozy Game Pals promised me that this updated version of Fear The Spotlight is getting about two more hours’ worth of content, according to their estimates. Given how detailed the first section was, I’m confident that the new additions to this short-but-sweet-seeming experience will be just as detailed as the original release when it comes out on PC and consoles sometime later this year.

Fear The Spotlight sets up a great premise for a horror game. With well-realized characters in a fun, trope-y premise, Cozy Game Pals teased something with lots of potential in this demo. Although I wish I had the opportunity to see more of the puzzle and exploration mechanics, its story has me really excited—and scared—to see what happens next.

With a focus on ecological restoration and a cool approach to exploration and crafting, Aloft shows a lot of promise as a feel-good survival-crafting game. This cozy take on the genre encourages players to glide between floating islands in the sky and fight corruption to restore their ecosystems while discovering the ruins of an ancient civilization. Notably, its first-person town-building and crafting systems seemed exceptionally deep based on my hands-off demo of the game.

In just half an hour, one of Aloft’s developers walked me through the beginning of the game and showed me in-depth tutorials for its myriad systems; so many that I’m glad I went hands-off to watch an expert at work. Nearly everything I saw seemed clever and engaging at the very least and was always framed around Aloft’s core conceit of creating a survival game with a positive, restorative message and vibe.

Off the bat, Aloft’s setup is immediately cool: you start out on a floating island in the sky with nothing. As you work your way through the starting area, you’ll eventually get a glider (think somewhere between Avatar: The Last Airbender and Breath of the Wild), and take flight to another island. Zooming from island to island looked really freeing, and developer Astrolabe Interactive made a point to incorporate systems to keep it engaging and interesting rather than just a hollow jump from one floating rock to another.

Aloft’s momentum systems fuel a lot of its moving parts. It’s crucial for successfully navigating the sky, and certain environmental bits like updrafts can help you gain some extra momentum—and height—as you make your way to the next island. Once you build enough momentum and land on another island, you might find yourself in a corrupted ecosystem.

Overrun with mushrooms and a dense, gray-brown fog, it’s immediately clear that something’s not right here. You can’t even harvest or mine anything from these out-of-whack biomes until you stave off the fungal corruption. Based on what I’ve seen, this is the only place where Aloft has combat. Using timing-based real-time systems (kind of like active reload in Gears of War) to gain small bonuses to boost your attack rate, you’ll fight off small waves of goblin-like mushrooms as you attack the root of the corruption.

Clearing these tree-like fungal structures from the biome will allow you to begin restoring it. Aloft more or less tells you exactly what you need to do to help bring it back to life, which will usually involve diversifying the flora on the island by planting new plants to help improve that microcosm’s sustainability. Once it’s flourishing, you can finally harvest plants from the island and you might even chance upon a helpful critter like a sheep to help produce wool.

With the right materials, you can even pitch a sail on your island. All you need is a rudder, a wheel, and a few sails to catch the wind that’s constantly blowing thanks to the massive hurricane at the heart of Aloft’s map. Crafting in general might be the most interesting system Aloft has going for it, in fact – especially in how you unlock new recipes.

The first is tied to the game’s story. Stumbling upon stone frescoes left by an ancient civilization will reveal new ideas to you, teaching you how to make stuff that’s important to Aloft’s story and progression. This is going to be how you unlock critical pieces like the Glider Stand or the aforementioned rudders and sails.

Next is the more traditional route, which strikes the perfect balance between leaving it up to you as the player to discover a new recipe and showing you how to make it outright. Instead of just showing you everything you can craft with an item from the get-go, small indicators will tell you whether or not you’ve explored every possible combination of materials without explicitly saying what those combinations will make. This seems like the perfect balance of mystery and encouragement and plays well into Aloft’s overall sense of discovery and mystery.

The last crafting method might be the coolest thing I saw in the demo. You can fill out the empty pages of a notebook by drawing things you see in the world around you. Let’s say you stumble on an abandoned house with some cool furniture you haven’t seen. By drawing that piece of furniture, you’ve suddenly unlocked its crafting recipe for your own home.

Like a delicate ecosystem, seemingly every system in Aloft feeds into another. Momentum from gliding can affect combat, succeeding in combat can earn you helpful crafting materials, those crafting materials can then enable you to raise sails on your island and fly it into a storm to help water your crops. With so many systems at play, all coming together with impressive cohesion, it’s hard to believe that Aloft is still in Early Access. I’m really interested to see how this interconnecting web of systems and ideas continues to evolve as the game expands beyond its current state.

Both Amazon and Walmart have dropped the prices on official Microsoft Xbox Series X Wireless Controllers to under $50. This includes the Arctic Camo White color released last year as well as Pulse Red, Shock Blue, Electric Volt, and Velocity Green. For those of you who like to keep it simple, the original Cargbon Black and Robot White colors are discounted as well.

Xbox Core Wireless Controller for Under $50 Each

Aside from a different color scheme, these controllers are identical to the one that’s bundled with the Xbox Series X and S consoles. They feature textured grips, hybrid D-pad, button mapping with the Xbox app, a 3.5mm audio jack that works with any wired headset, and a Share button to send your screenshots and video out into the world. They charge via universal USB Type-C cable.

The Xbox Core controller also features both Xbox wireless and Bluetooth connectivity. That means you can also use it for your PC or mobile device as long as it supports Bluetooth. In fact, the Core controller is considered one of the best PC controllers you can get. If your PC doesn’t have Bluetooth, then you can connect your controller via a USB Type-C cable or with the Xbox wireless adapter.

Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 for $95.99

Target offers the fancier professional-grade Xbox Series X Elite Series 2 Core Wireless Controller in Red/Black for $95.99. Note that Target RedCard members get an extra 5% discount.

The Xbox Elite Series 2 Core wireless controller is a nice upgrade from the standard Xbox Core controller with pro-gaming features like adjustable-tension thumbsticks, wrap-around rubberized grip, and shorter hair trigger locks. Unlike the original Xbox Elite controller, the new verison doesn’t come with any accessories The Elite Series 2 Core doesn’t come with any of those accessories. If you end up deciding you want more customizability, you can pick up a component pack , which includes an extra sets of paddles, thumbsticks, D-pad, and a travel case, for $59.99.

Check out the best Xbox deals today for more discounts on Xbox accessories.

Whether you’re looking for a more immersive experience or fast high frame rate multiplayer gaming , pairing your Xbox Series X with a new gaming monitor will get you there.

Gaming monitors have all the same picture offerings as a TV, but with features more suited to enhance your gaming experience – such as high or variable refresh rate, low input lag, or wider color range. With the Xbox Series X being capable of 4K gaming at 120 frames per second, and the Series S capable of 1440p resolution, also at 120 fps, your TV may not make the most out of your console, while its size leaves you stuck playing from the couch.

TL;DR – The Best Monitors for Xbox Series X/S:

• LG 27GP850-B – Best Monitor for Xbox Series X/S
• AOC 24G15N – Best Budget-friendly Monitor
• Acer Predator XB283K – Best 4K Monitor
• Alienware AW3225QF – Best OLED Monitor
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG279QM – Best Competitive Gaming Monitor
• Cooler Master GP27Q – Best Mini-LED Monitor
• Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 – Best Curved Monitor

A new monitor is the simple solution to our sofa-gaming woes, but not all are built the same. The hardware limitations of the Xbox Series X/S add some complications as well, and you may be stuck figuring out what features you need and which ones your system will even use. For example, while most monitors are HDR (high dynamic range) compatible – the Series X/S is only able to display HDR on a compatible 4K monitor, any other resolution is out of luck.

It’s important to be picky when choosing your gaming monitor. Not only do you have to dig into the details of each display – but also see how they will interact with your game system, and play into your personal gaming preferences.

With that said, if you’re new to gaming monitors or looking for an upgrade, I’ve done the shopping for you with this guide that’ll fetch your Xbox Series X/S the level-up you’ve been after.

1. LG 27GP850-B

The Best Monitor For Series X/S

It may be tempting for Series X owners to gloss over 1440p monitors like the LG 27GP850-B for the coveted 4k, but this monitor still has a lot to offer regardless of which system you use. With a 27” Nano IPS panel, this Ultragear monitor has excellent viewing angles, presented in a crisp 1440p resolution.

It may not be a 4K monitor, but don’t underestimate the LG27GP850-B. With variable refresh rate active on your Xbox, this monitor is capable of running both Series X and S at 120fps (frames per-second) in QHD, provided that your game is compatible. While it isn’t capable of using the Series X’ HDR gaming feature (only 4k monitors can do that) its 400-nit peak brightness makes for a vivid display with colors that pop.

It also comes seated on a large, fully-adjustable stand that can raise and lower the monitor with ease. Stands with a lot of movement like this one can make some people nervous when it comes to durability, however this monitor’s build is heavy and sturdy, allowing for easy adjustments that won’t make you afraid to damage the screen. The back of the monitor itself has a large onboard speaker, and a sharp design that will fit right in with your gaming setup.

2. AOC 24G15N

Best Budget Xbox Series X/S Monitor

A firm entry-level option, this monitor is highly accessible for those that want to dive right into desktop console gaming, without waiting around for a deal on a high-end monitor. For those willing to pay slightly more for extra immersion, it also comes in a larger 27-inch variety (AOC 27G15N) with identical specs. If you’re looking to take the plunge into gaming monitors sooner than later, this one will get you there while being enough of a deal to justify a future upgrade.

Other than price-point this gaming monitor’s other main appeal is its refresh rate: At 180hz the AOC 24G15N can handle Xbox Series X games running at maximum speed. For a low price you also get Adaptive Sync, that’ll keep your head in the game during any pesky frame rate drops. While this is a step below QHD the 1080p Full HD resolution still looks fantastic for next-gen consoles, especially on a 24-inch display.

The VA panel is one of the few drawbacks of this monitor, though, as this panel technology is known for color shifting when viewed from side angles, and ghosting (when previous frames overlap with your current frame). The ghosting on this monitor is tolerable, however, and shouldn’t impact high motion gameplay, and the VA panel does come with some advantages. This monitor has quality color depth and contrast without the need for a painfully bright screen. This monitor’s panel is no different, with really dark shadows and rich colors; next-gen lighting effects look great on this display.

Keep in mind, though, this monitor doesn’t have built-in speakers. But it does have a 3.5mm audio jack so headphones or speakers can easily be plugged in to remedy this. Hardly a trade off for gamers that prefer to play with a gaming headset anyway.

3. Acer Predator XB283K

Best 4K Xbox Series X/S Monitor

The Acer Predator XB283K has an extra bright IPS panel that projects upward of 400-nits of brightness when HDR is active. The monitor is only rated at DisplayHDR 400, which isn’t the most encompassing HDR, but combined with the monitor covering 90% of the DCI-P3 color gamut colors on this display are still incredibly accurate and vibrant..

Now, while the monitor is limited to a 144Hz refresh rate, that’s still fast enough to get the smoothest gameplay the Series X can manage. And even when the monitor isn’t running at its maximum frame rate, FreeSync Premium eliminates screen tearing. Beyond poor button placement that gives the onboard menu a bit of a learning curve, the overall design is well up to par. The display mount is highly adjustable, while built in cable management and headphone rack keeps things tidy.

This monitor has the potential to run Xbox games at maximum resolution, frame rate and with HDR – but don’t forget to double check what settings are actually going to work with your gaming library.

4. Alienware AW3225QF

Best OLED Monitor for Series X/S

The Alienware AW3225QF is an extra-large 4K monitor that’s probably only worth it if you have the Xbox Series X. The Quantum Dot OLED back panel beefs up the 4K resolution, by giving each pixel its own individual brightness adjustment for tremendous clarity and depth. In SDR, the monitor has access to over 200 nits of brightness that explodes up to 1000 nits of peak brightness when HDR is enabled.

The very slight curvature radius is immersive and approachable, and makes for a great experience, whether you’re watching movies or playing games, and allows you to sit closer without the size of the display being completely overwhelming. This 32-inch display is also perfect for longer splitscreen sessions, especially if you don’t want the eye-strain from squinting at a smaller monitor.

The Xbox Series X can’t use the full 240hz refresh rate, but it does mean the monitor has all the bandwidth it needs for playing games at 120 fps, and if you upgrade to a gaming PC down the road, this will still be one hell of a gaming monitor. You also get an extremely low 0.3ms response time, which should all but eliminate input lagThe stand is just as appealing to look at itself with a simple but cool design, and two built-in RGB lights on the back for added flair you can set straight from the menu.

Thanks to the OLED panel, though its possible that over time the monitor may develop some burn-in from fixed HUD elements in games. If you play a variety of games, make smart use of brightness settings and also use the monitor’s built-in pixel/panel refresh settings – you can mitigate this issue and get the longest lifespan possible out of your monitor.

5. Asus TUF Gaming VG279QM

Best Monitor for Competitive Gaming

You may be curious why a 1080p monitor would be best for online and competitive gamers. 1080p monitors, while not offering the highest visual fidelity, are capable of higher refresh rates at a lower cost. So, if you’re the type that’s always playing esports games like XDefiant, a high frame rate will always outweigh a higher resolution.

Not only is the Asus TUF VG279QM with an exceptionally fast refresh rate of 240hz, but it also has Asus’ Extreme Low Motion Blur Sync onboard. ELMB Sync works alongside Adaptive-Sync, making for lightning fast refresh rates with minimal smearing ensuring you won’t miss a millisecond of the action.

The IPS panel allows for an on-average 400 nits of brightness, which helps make up for its lack of HDR compatibility with the Xbox Series X because, at peak brightness, every pixelshines, even in sunny rooms. With this dazzlingly bright display we also have a large 27-inch screen that builds your immersion even more in first-person shooters and gives a comfortably wide viewing area for fighting and racing games. This is also a large enough display to hook up two Xbox Series X/S controllers and go at it in splitscreen, provided you don’t mind sitting a little close together. It also has two built-in 2W speakers which, while unimpressive in sound quality, saves the headache of purchasing and setting up any more equipment.

Asus also includes a fully adjustable and weighty stand you can tweak to your heart’s content. For a great monitor, specialized for performance gaming, this sits at a relatively low barrier-to-entry price; typically listing for just under $300 on Amazon.

6. Cooler Master Tempest GP27Q

Best Mini-LED Xbox Series X/S Monitor

Mini-LED is a relatively new panel technology that offers extreme shadow and color depth, brightness and a true HDR experience. Similar to OLED monitors, the Cooler Master Tempest GP27Q relies on 576 Mini-LED dimming zones and a Quantum Dot layer that automatically brightens and dims depending on what is happening on the screen. Thanks to these dimming zones, this is a fantastically well lit monitor, with none of the burn-in risk of an OLED display. Even though it’s super bright at max settings, colors don’t appear desaturated and black levels stay inky-dark.

While there’s still the hiccup of Xbox Series X/S not allowing HDR on anything less than a 4k monitor this is still a gleaming display without HDR enabled. The Tempest also provides more than enough performance to run your Series X/S games at 120 fps, thanks to its native 165Hz refresh rate and FreeSync Premium.

If you’re falling in love with the idea of Mini-LED, have a Series X and want an even better HDR experience it also comes in a 4K variety, but you’re going to have to shell out the extra dollars to access that higher resolution.

7. Samsung Odyssey G7

Best Curved Xbox Series X/S Monitor

One of the biggest draws of gaming monitors is the ability to use multiple monitors in order to create a highly immersive battle station. Xbox Series X/S aren’t able to support multiple monitors in the same way a PC can,but curved monitors, like the Odyssey G7, can bring console gamers a similar experience.

The 16:9 aspect ratio and 27” screen fits perfectly with the display’s curvature, which comes in at a nice radius that doesn’t stretch or squash the image. It’s easy to get absorbed into high quality graphics with the handsome 1440p resolution, and 240Hz refresh rate

Samsung added an SVA panel with Quantum Dot LED backlighting to this generation of Odyssey monitors. This is a type of VA panel enhanced for stellar viewing angles, with the same intense contrast and color depth that are usually found in IPS panels.

I can’t shrug off the design sensibilities of this monitor either: The Samsung Odyssey G7 is a sharp and futuristic monitor, thanks to eye-catching Infinity Core lighting built into the back and front of the monitor’s chassis. This monitor is what we consider mid to high-end and so it’s proportionally priced – you can net a Samsung Odyssey G7 for around $700 from Amazon or Walmart.

How to Pick the Best Monitor for Xbox Series X/S

When choosing a monitor it’s best to know the limitations of your system and your game library. While the Xbox Series X’s big selling point is that it supports 4K and is capable of 120 frames per second, not every game natively supports these benchmarks.

Make sure that your monitor supports HDMI 2.1 and that you’re using the correct cable, as this is the only way to achieve 4k at 120fps with the Series X. It’s very important for Series S users to note that the S only supports a native resolution up to 1440p, so it makes little sense to shell out for a more expensive 4K monitor.

Do you prefer competitive online games like racing simulators and first person shooters? If that’s the case, a monitor with a high refresh rate and low ghosting is a must-have to give you an edge over the competition. Some hardcore esports fans prefer 1080p monitors for this reason, as they’re capable of higher frame rates and low input lag at a lower price.

Or are you a story driven gamer that wants to get lost in another world and be absorbed by gorgeous next-gen graphics? This is where finding the balance between screen resolution and refresh rate comes into play. While a 4K monitor would be the clear winner when it comes to delivering the best graphics for next gen games, it often comes at the cost of smoothness in gameplay. Keep in mind that when you enable ‘performance mode’ in your games, you’re usually lowering the resolution to 1440p or 1080p anyways.

Monitors for Xbox Series X/S FAQ

Is it better to play Xbox Series X/S on a TV or a monitor?

If going purely spec-by-spec, you could argue monitors are technically better for gaming, period. But this doesn’t account for personal preference or use of space. Using a gaming monitor is attractive but requires a bit of dedication to make it worth getting into – after all, without a proper desk setup where would you put your new monitor? Gaming monitors are great, but that isn’t to say you won’t still get a good gaming experience with a TV. Gaming monitors simply provide an edge that leaves it up to the player to decide whether to take advantage of them or not.

Can I use multiple or ultrawide monitors with Xbox Series X/S?

Unfortunately, ultrawide monitors like the Odyssey G9 are not compatible with the Xbox Series X, or any of the other consoles for that matter. We will have to simply wait and see if ultrawide monitors become more widely adopted in the future, hopefully leading to less compatibility issues. Ultrawide displays are solely the territory of PC gaming – at least for now.

Which screen resolution is the best?

The best resolution isn’t always simply the newest or the most pixels. 4K is creeping its way into being more affordable, while 1440p seems more poised to become the “standard” screen definition many gamers are clamoring for now. Don’t count 1080p out though, good old ‘High Definition’ still comes with its perks that has helped it maintain a firm place in the hearts of competitive gamers going for pure frame rates.

Plus, many 4K games are locked at 60 fps for Series X and require downscaling to 1440p in order to hit those top frame rates. You may have to double check your Xbox display settings sometimes when using 4K monitors, especially if you play older backwards compatible titles, so you’re always getting the best picture possible.

Elayna Willoughby is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering tech and gadgets. She has a lifelong love of gear from gaming consoles to smart phones and keyboards. She has a background writing poetry, fiction and non-fiction. When they aren’t writing, you can find them playing Cyberpunk 2077 or catching up on Star Trek in their free time. “Elle” also likes making music on her keyboard, and relaxing with her dog, Pippy. You can follow her on Instagram @starofthefire!