Category: IGN

Sometimes it’s fun to match wits in a board game with other players in competitive matches. But many of the best board games go the other way and embrace the spirit of cooperation. Co-op board games come in a wide variety of themes, with varying levels of complexity so you can find one for players of all ages. Below, we’ve selected our favorites on the market. For more game night ideas, check out our other roundups, including the best board games for kids and the best two-player board games.

TLDR: Best Co-op Board Games

Have no time to read blurbs? The links above lead directly to retailer pages where you can buy the games in question.

Nemesis: Lockdown

Lots of board games have tried to replicate the success of the Alien franchise, but it took this unlicensed homage to perfect it. Players must work together to survive a terrifying incursion of hostile life-forms into a Martian base. You’re on a constant high-wire between staying slow and quiet or getting things done fast but attracting alien attention. It’s full of detailed mechanics that can spin the game out in crazy directions, from literal firefighting to a gung-ho battle against the extraterrestrial foe. The challenge is tough, the narrative detailed and the tension always escalating. But the real kicker is that it’s possible for your friends not to be friends at all thanks to hidden goal cards that could be supportive or could be murderous, or the corporate military wing could be coming to take you all out to ensure your silence.

Sleeping Gods

Narrative-heavy board games have always faced a content problem: there’s only so much variety you can achieve with boards and cards. Sleeping Gods belongs to a family of adventure games that bypassed this problem by putting everything into a huge flip-book, featuring a mix of maps for different quests. Sleeping Gods stands head and shoulders above its peers thanks to two things. First, it’s outstandingly rich storytelling, as you run through a rich mixture of encounters, characters and side-quests as you attempt to guide the lost ship, The Manticore, and her crew home from the strange dimension in which it finds itself. Second, is the detail with which the ship is brought to life, both in terms of strategic resource management to keep her going and her presence in the game world. Such is the wealth of content available that you can easily see a whole different story on a second play through, and such is the fun of doing so that you’ll surely want to try.

Marvel Champions: The Card Game

This is a “Living Card Game”, which means it’s kind of collectable, like Magic: The Gathering, but there’s no random element. You just buy sets and expansions knowing what cards are in each. And unlike a lot of LCG’s, deck building is easy because it’s modular, seeing players pick fixed sets of cards to create decks for their hero and the villain you’re all working against. The meat of play features some classic concepts like dual-use cards alongside novel ideas like each player being able to flip from their hero to their alter-ego, with different abilities and hand sizes. This sets up some really interesting combo-based play where you pull off cinematic moves as you work together to thwart the villain’s schemes and save the day.

Frosthaven / Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

To call Gloomhaven a fantasy adventure game is technically accurate, but a bit reductive. It tells the story of mercenaries chasing different goals in a changing world, and the legacy they leave behind. Gloomhaven takes the legacy system from Pandemic Legacy and weaves it into an epic fantasy campaign that takes place over generations. Each hero comes with a personal goal that, when completed, sends the hero into retirement and unlocks new classes and story elements. Upon retiring a hero, you will take control of another, which results in an impressive sense of time progression. The game includes several sealed boxes that are only opened upon reaching certain milestones, which makes Gloomhaven a game with a grand scale that is unmatched in the board game medium.

This epic game now has a sequel, Frosthaven, with an all-new narrative and fresh subsystems which see you expending and guarding the titular town. And if the price and length of either of the big-box titles turns you off, the excellent prequel Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion has most of the gameplay value at a fraction of the price.

Exit: The Game (Series)

An escape room in a box, the Exit series of games does a surprisingly good job of simulating the real thing. Players work together to find clues and solve riddles in real time in an effort to complete the scenario. Each scenario tells you to bring some pens and a pair of scissors because you’ll be permanently modifying your game throughout the session, making these games a one-and-done experience.

There are many different scenarios available for purchase, with titles like The Secret Lab, The Abandoned Cabin, The Sinister Mansion, The Forgotten Island, The Mysterious Museum, and a lot more. Priced at around $15 each (and usually cheaper on Amazon), the Exit series is an ideal replacement for a night at the movies and one of the best escape room board games.

Paleo

At first glance, this game of stone-age survival doesn’t look anything special. You create a deck of cards for the scenario you want to play and distribute them between the players. Then you take it in turns to flip a card from your pile and face the challenges thereon with the skills and stone tools available to your tiny tribe. The magic happens when tribes come together, pooling their resources to overcome one tough encounter, but doing so loses them the chance to interact with the other tribe’s card. All at once, this mirrors a real slice of stone-age life, agonizing over passing up opportunities in order to secure an important prize, while giving players real emergent cooperation in how much they choose to aid each other. The survival narrative and variety of scenarios are just the icing on the rock cake.

Pandemic Legacy

Pandemic put cooperative games on the map, and for good reason. Much of the genre’s hallmark mechanics originated here, from action point allocation to player roles with unique abilities. It also spawned a bevy of expansions and spinoffs, but Pandemic Legacy is the best and more revolutionary take on the virus-eradicating co-op game.

It takes the core rules of Pandemic and stretches them into a campaign-length adventure played out over several sessions as you race to cure disease and prevent epidemics. This version introduces permanence as a mechanic, as the rules force you to rip up cards, sticker the board and alter the physical components in other ways as things (inevitably) don’t go your way. The only potential drawback is that you must play with the same players each session, but because the game is so good everyone will be eager to jump back in.

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island is a daunting and dark game, but players willing to wade through the sea of iconography, hefty rulebook and stifling theme will be rewarded with a satisfying survival simulation that rewards communication and teamwork. Based on the 1719 novel, players take on the role of survivors of a shipwreck that are must work together to gather food, build shelters, stave off attacks and explore the island. The combination of different scenarios and player characters ensure good replayability, while the survival mechanics do a fantastic job of selling the theme.

Just One

A lot of games on this list are, to a greater or lesser extent, strategy affairs. But cooperation is a great mechanic to use in party games too, and Just One tops the list. All the players bar one get to see a clue, and they have to write down a word related to that clue. Then all the clues get revealed to the remaining player who has to guess the original word. Sounds too simple, except the catch is that if any of the clues are the same they get wiped, leaving the guesser far less to work with. It’s an ingenious idea that leaves players caught in an uncertain vice over just how obscure they cant get away with being, while still being worried they might be the victim of doublethink.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

You likely know trick-taking games from long time classics like Whist and Bridge. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea cleverly repurposes the concept into a cooperative game through the use of missions, demanding that certain players win tricks of particular types. So you might have to win a trick containing a yellow one, for example, or two consecutive tricks or even no tricks at all. This would be easy if you could show each other your cards, so your communication is limited to one card for the entire hand, recasting the game as a strategic puzzle with plenty of tension as you wait to see whether having to follow suit will tease out a critical card or fail the mission. Fast, fun and with fifty varied undersea missions, this is a pearl of a design. This game earned a spot on our best family board games list as well.

Return to Dark Tower

Some of you may have childhood memories of the original Dark Tower, an extraordinary 1981 fantasy board game powered by an electronic gizmo that gave it a real sense of magic and wonder. Most copies of that original no longer work, but it’s been resurrected and revamped in this new edition, which features an all-new, all-tech tower that connects to a mobile app via bluetooth. It allows you to select from a far wider variety of characters and quests, villains and monsters than the original. The board layout and major concepts of the original, such as collecting warriors, are retained, but between the app and a raft of new mechanics, the game is transformed into a narratively rich, strategic challenge where you must prioritise and deal with a series of ever-growing threats: it can also be played cooperatively as well as the competitive setup of the original. The app provides detail such as dungeon exploration, while the tower lights up and rotates of its own accord, spilling deadly skulls out into the kingdoms below.

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective

Sherlock Holmes is one of the most enduring fictional characters of all time, and for good reason. Watching him solve a seemingly impossible mystery with all the confidence and bravado of a stage actor has been a favorite pastime of generations of book readers and television watchers.

With Consulting Detective, you finally get the chance to step into the shoes of Holmes and test your own deduction skills in a series of nonlinear mysteries. What makes the game great is how it refuses to hold your hand; each mystery presents a short setup and then sets you loose on London, leaving you to visit notable locations, interview suspects, and make educated accusations. Be warned, however, that these mysteries are tough, and may make you question your intelligence on more than one occasion.

If you like these types of games, you can also check out our guide to murder mystery board games for similar options.

Arkham Horror: The Card Game

If your co-op group could use an eldritch touch, get Arkham Horror: The Card Game to the table. In this cooperative card game, players take on the role of detectives who are investigating various supernatural occurrences within HP Lovecraft’s world of cosmic horror. It’s a scenario-based experience with each mission at the mercy of an arcane Mythos, a set of conditions that must be met lest the investigators succumb to insanity.

Arkham Horror features customizable decks that are built around each investigator’s special abilities, and most scenarios can play out over a handful of sessions, lending a feeling of progression to the game. As you investigate new location cards, gather clues, and fight monsters, your detective will amass weaknesses that can hinder future games which, thematically, illustrate the mental toll of dealing with arcane horrors. It’s a great horror board game you can play with loved ones.

Spirit Island

Protect your island from a vicious mob of colonizers in this heavy co-op experience. Players are spirits of the land, and must use their unique powers to fend off settlers. Every turn, you’ll play a card from your deck of powers. Matching a card’s element with the element of the spirit usually grants a bonus effect, meaning that careful planning is necessary.

As the game goes on, the colonists will inevitably spread and ravage the land, making Spirit Island a race against the clock. They’re predictable, though, and if you plan efficiently you can head them off before they do too much damage. Players’ cards combo off of each other nicely, too, and there are few things in tabletop gaming as satisfying as eliminating a host of settlers in one fell swoop. Spirit Island is substantially more complex than other games of this style (Pandemic, Forbidden Island, etc.), making it an ideal choice for those seeking a meatier co-op experience. This game can also be found on our list of the best board games for adults.

Zombicide: Black Plague

Who doesn’t like to bond over some good old fashioned zombie slaying? Zombicide is a cooperative survival game where players work together to complete scenarios. The Black Plague version puts a fantastical spin on the original game, and drops players into the role of paladins, magicians, and knights to take down the evil necromancers responsible for the zombie outbreak.

You’ll pick up new weapons like crossbows and swords, explore a citadel crawling with the undead, and take on several missions in this dungeon-crawling adventure. It’s a tense and thematically-refreshing take on the tried and true zombie formula with surprisingly easy-to-learn rules.

Cthulhu: Death May Die

Cooperative games where you try and save the world from some deranged monstrosity out of the work of arch-racist HP Lovecraft are ten a penny. What makes Cthulhu: Death May Die stand out isn’t just the beautifully horrible miniatures in the box but the way it integrates help and harm. In order to gain new skills, your characters have to also lose some of their sanity, resulting in a clever balance of tactical trade-offs while encouraging you to come up with daring gameplay plans that deliberately expose yourselves to danger. The resulting reel of cinematic action-horror moments doesn’t feel much like Lovecraft but it is a ton of fun.

For more ideas, check out our roundups of the best board games for adults and the best trivia board games.

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

EA has joined Square Enix in failing to see the leap year coming, as just like Theatrhythm Final Fantasy on Nintendo Switch, EA Sports WRC isn’t working because it’s February 29.

Fans of the rally racer took to social media to complain about the game crashing upon launch today, and EA soon published a statement explaining it was looking into it. “We are aware of an issue on console in which the game may crash on startup,” it said on X/Twitter. “This is currently being investigated and will be fixed as soon as possible.”

Guidance for PlayStation players:

1⃣ On your console, go to Settings > System > Date and Time > Set Date and Time > Set Manually.

2⃣ Change the date to March 1, 2024.

3⃣ Once this change has been done, the game should function normally.

— EA Help (@EAHelp) February 29, 2024

The fix isn’t complicated despite involving a little bit of time travel, as EA returned soon after telling players to change their hardware to March 1. This isn’t just an in-game solution, however, as players have to change their entire console’s date in the system settings.

Not including functionality to have a game work on February 29, which of course arrives every four years, may seem a tad ridiculous, but EA Sports WRC developer Codemasters isn’t the only studio to make the mistake.

Fans also flagged that rhythm Final Fantasy spin-off Theatrhythm Final Fantasy remained on an infinite loading screen until system settings were changed away from the date. Time will tell if another studio makes the same blunder.

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

When No Rest for the Wicked was first revealed at The Game Awards last year, its painterly art style was unsurprisingly a big topic of discussion. Simply put, it was the most striking trailer of the show. While it looked akin to Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook artwork in motion, the gorgeous art also made it somewhat obvious as to who was behind the images.

“This is almost like our DNA,” says Gennadiy Korol, co-founder of Moon Studios and its director of technology. “That’s the trademark of Moon, we want our games to look timeless. We want them to look like a painting that is animated.”

That much was obvious to anyone who played Moon’s Ori games, but No Rest for the Wicked seems to take that idea and push it into the next dimension. By transitioning to 3D, Moon has left the ‘illustrated’ vibe of Ori behind for something that looks like a painted reality. It’s hard not to draw parallels to projects like Netflix’s Arcane or the Spider-Verse films, which make their 3D animation appear like 2D, hand-drawn artwork. Those projects will likely prove timeless, and Moon Studios hopes the same for No Rest for the Wicked.

Achieving art design immortality requires an approach that bucks many industry trends. Aiming for higher visual metrics than that used in other games simply won’t cut it. “I think it’s always about art direction and art style more than just ray tracing and polygons,” says Thomas Mahler, Moon co-founder and No Rest for the Wicked’s creative director.

“We definitely make a conscious choice to always go against the trend, because the trend right now is doing physical-based rendering and all of this stuff,” he explains. “My problem is that a lot of these games that do that start looking the same.”

Mahler also notes games that chased huge technical innovations a decade ago haven’t all stood the test of time. Technology continues to evolve, and what was astonishing back then can look old today. “But, if I go into a museum and I look at these paintings that are literally 500 years old, I still think, ‘Oh, my God, that looks amazing,’” he says. “That’s the path that we are going down.”

On one hand, abandoning the tech race is liberating. You don’t need dozens of people solely focused on squeezing the most polygons out of your engine, or implementing photo realistic ray tracing. But freedom from those problems creates another equal challenge. Korol notes that there’s no “handbook” for a painted art style. Where developers chasing photorealism can turn to literal science for the answers on how to recreate light and reflections, No Rest for the Wicked’s art direction is entirely based on Moon’s own creativity. That can be somewhat mentally exhausting, but it allows the team complete control over the game’s look and feel.

“With the way we approach it, it really doesn’t matter what the physics is if the end result is boring, if the end result is not exciting,” says Korol. “Because physics doesn’t matter, it’s what people feel when they play that matters.”

While Moon had learned a huge amount about crafting a painted art style while creating Ori, the shift to three dimensions for Wicked required a whole new way of thinking. “I think the big challenge was to find something that works in 3D, that works with all of these 3D pipelines,” explains Korol, “but that still gives you this really direct artistic control and allows our artists to really create something that feels like a painting, as opposed to more of this ray-traced or normal-mapped 3D look.”

Creating a set of rules and principles for this art direction ensures that No Rest for the Wicked looks striking in every shot. But the direction ultimately fails if the characters, creatures, and world are bland and forgettable. As such, the project relies as much on its design as it does the digital brush strokes they’re painted with. That’s why Moon has tried to craft a fantasy setting that feels believable and relatable, while also being fresh and unusual.

“We don’t want our games to look like stuff that you’ve seen before,” says Mahler. “Obviously we take inspiration from historical stuff, and so on. We look at armor designs, like crazy stuff that was done hundreds of years ago, but then we always try to give it our own touch.” The result of this can be seen in the golden suits of armour featured in the trailer, with their bizarre coin-like headpieces and an unnerving lack of eyes.

“I think it goes back to world building,” adds Korol. “It’s exciting to build a world that people have never seen before, that we have never seen before, and go through that creative process of exploring and imagining it, and see what it can be.”

Part of Moon Studio’s approach to creating this exciting new world is a strict attention to detail. Like the paintings that inspired it, each frame of No Rest for the Wicked is filled to the edges with flourishes and carefully placed elements.

“Despite it not being photorealistic, we do like detail,” says Korol. “We didn’t go for this more simplistic, cell-shaded look. You will see a lot of detail in the reflection and the specular, in the way the materials react, because we did want this game to feel immersive.”

While it had to be adapted and evolved for 3D, much of this philosophy is the same as what powered the Ori games. Unsurprisingly, Moon hopes for similar results. “A lot of people would say that Ori [and the Blind Forest] still feels and looks great to play, and it’s eight, nine years later,” says Korol. “We hope the same thing happens with No Rest for the Wicked.”

That hope doesn’t just come from looking inwards, though. “I think it’s very interesting how people react now to games like Zelda: Wind Waker,” says Mahler. “Here’s cell shading, and even 20 years after, it still looks pretty good.”

“As technology evolves and we could potentially do photorealism, I still hope there’s going to be a part of the industry that does not just do that,” he continues. “That actually also just makes sure that, ‘Here’s this really unique looking game that looks unlike anything else in the market.’”

Of course, it goes without saying that Moon Studios will likely always be a part of that industry segment that holds the torch for unique art design. But as for the here and now, I look forward to seeing even more of No Rest for the Wicked’s strange creatures and beautiful landscapes in action, both as part of Wicked Inside on March 1, and when the game releases in early access later this year.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.

Like many video games, ones from Nintendo don’t come cheap. This was especially true when The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was revealed to be $69.99 on release, a whole $10 more expensive than other Switch titles. However, this doesn’t mean there aren’t deals to be had for Nintendo fans. In fact, there are plenty of sales on games, Switch consoles, and various accessories that are worth checking out throughout the year, and we’ve made sure to gather the very best going on at the moment below.

TL;DR – Best Switch Deals

You can also follow @IGNDeals on Twitter or Threads for even more updates on the latest discounts, or check out all our handpicked Switch deals just below.

The Best Nintendo Switch Deals – Navigate to:

• Switch OLED Model Deals
• Pokémon Game Deals
• Switch Video Game Deals
• Switch SD Card Deals
• Nintendo Switch: Budget to Best
• Zelda Official Guides
• When Should You Buy a Nintendo Switch?

Save On Nintendo Switch OLED Models at Walmart

Walmart’s offering some great discounts on Nintendo Switch OLED models. Right now, you can save on the Mario Red OLED model, the White OLED model, the OLED model with Neon Red and Neon Blue Joy-Cons, and on a White OLED model that comes bundled with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Keep in mind, though, that the bundle is an imported model, so make sure to check the shipping time. This model also ships with a US plug and Switches aren’t region locked, so it’ll boot up your games just fine, including your brand-new copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe!

Celebrate International Pokémon Day with These Game Deals

International Pokémon Day landed on February 27, but there’s still plenty of deals leftover that are worth checking out. In particular, in the world of Pokémon video games, there are a few marked down to $40 at Walmart. You can check out these excellent game deals below, and to see even more Pokémon deals outside of games, check out our roundup of the best Pokémon deals today.

The Best Nintendo Switch Game Deals

Outside of the Pokémon game deals listed above, there are still quite a few Switch games discounted right now that are worth adding to your collection. Our favorite deal is on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which you can get for $20 off at Walmart right now for $49.90. You can save on other big hits from last year as well, like Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Super Mario RPG, which we’ve listed below alongside some more game deals.

More Switch Video Game Deals

• Super Mario Bros. Wonder for $48.45 (Save $11.54)
• Super Mario RPG for $47.99 (Save $12)
• Super Mario Maker 2 for $44.99 (Save $15)
• Yoshi’s Crafted World for $42.99 (Save $17)
• Sonic Origins Plus for $29.49 (Save $10.50)
• Shin Megami Tensei V: Standard Edition for $27.00 (Save $32.99)
• Metroid Dread (Preowned) for $44.99 (Save $10)
• Zelda: Skyward Sword HD (Preowned) for $49.99 (Save $10)

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Perfect Switch SD Card for $25.99 (and More Deals)

The best Switch SD card should be fast, reliable, and as future-proof as possible. That last one is important, as it’s quite likely we’ll be getting a Switch successor / the next Nintendo console within the next year or so (if rumors are to be believed). Therefore, you’re going to want to opt for the latest in SD card tech, which is a micro SDXC UHS-I U3 A2 V30 memory card. That’s a lot of random letters, so to save you a bit of time we’ve left our top suggestions and deals just below for your convenience. To see even more SD card deals, make sure to check out our roundup of the best SD card deals.

More Switch Micro SD Card Deals

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Nintendo Switch: Budget to Best

While an outstanding deal might not always be available at the time of searching, there are still some incredibly affordable Switch-related products out there if you look hard enough. You can see our favorite budget to best items here, including deals on the best Switch micro SD Card, power banks, and an affordable Switch Pro controller alternative.

More Switch Budget to Best Picks

• Official Switch OLED Carrying Case & Screen Protector for $19.99
• dbrand Switch OLED Tempered Glass Screen Protector for $19.95
• Anker 335 Power Bank for $39.99
• Switch Pro Controller for $69.99

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Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Official Guide for $27 (Save $18)

With these, you’ll have a detailed overview of Hyrule, a helpful walkthrough to get you through the game, and much more. Not only that, but they have gorgeous covers as well, especially the Collector’s Edition. The Standard Edition has an MSRP of $29.99 but is on sale for $18.74, and the Collector’s Edition normally runs for $44.99, but you can get it for $26.85. Plus, if you want to complete the set, the Breath of the Wild guidebook is also down to $22.38 right now as well.

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When Should You Buy a Nintendo Switch?

The short answer is that you should buy a Nintendo Switch whenever there’s any kind of sale, regardless of the time of year. Amazon will likely offer the same console bundles on any other sale as it will on Black Friday, so there’s no real reason to wait if you’re in need of a Nintendo Switch.

That being said, there are sometimes some unique bundles and promotions during Black Friday that you won’t find any other time of the year. They usually includes additional games (like the infamous Mario Kart 8 bundle) or accessories for free, but quantities tend to be limited. As always, do your research into the seller before you make a purchase.

Where to Buy a Nintendo Switch in 2024

• Nintendo Switch Console for $299.00
• Nintendo Switch Lite Console for $199.00

With how expensive gaming is getting in 2024, we’re trying to save you as much money as possible on the games and other tech you actually want to buy. We’ve got great deal roundups available for all major platforms such as PlayStation and Xbox, and keep these updated daily with brand-new offers. If you’re trying to keep costs down while maintaining your favorite hobby, stay tuned for more incredible discounts.

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Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Days before the release of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, Square Enix unveiled an update making several tweaks to its predecessor, Final Fantasy 7: Remake. The change most noticeably impacts one of Tifa’s outfits, though there are a few other tweaks. But one other major change we haven’t written about yet is the change to Aerith’s final line in the script of Final Fantasy 7: Remake in the English translation of the game.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of people got upset about the line change. Without digging into the specifics of it, on the surface, the change appears to turn a line that previously hit a very specific emotional beat for the character into something a little less…poetic. It also seemed like a weird change to make now, of all times. The game’s been out for several years at this point! What gives!

Well, we think we have a pretty good idea why the change was made. The most I can say right off the bat is that it has to do with some plot events that take place in Rebirth, so if you’re planning to play Rebirth, just go do that and then come back later.

Because in order to talk about what’s going on here, we’re going to have to spoil the heck out of both Final Fantasy 7: Remake and Rebirth.

ONE MORE TIME: MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE ENDINGS OF FINAL FANTASY 7 REMAKE AND REBIRTH ARE AHEAD. Read onward at your own risk! We’re talking about the LAST SCENES OF BOTH GAMES! The endings! Don’t say I didn’t warn you! I’m even putting a video in the way of the spoilers!

Okay, phew. That’s out of the way.

The line in question in Final Fantasy 7: Remake previously read “I miss it. The steel sky.” It’s said by Aerith after the group flees Midgar and finds themselves no longer under a giant metal plate, but under an open sky. It’s a beautiful line, referencing Aerith’s genuine love for the complicated, imperfect place she calls home and her grief in the wake of the Sector 7 plate falling. The new line read is far less emotive: “This sky…I don’t like it.” Yeah! I can see why people think that’s a worse version.

Notably, though, the original Japanese version of the line (which resembles the new English translation) hasn’t changed in the update. That’s almost certainly because the line was always intended to be closer to the new version. Why? Because Aerith is, from this moment in the story onward, looking at a very different sky than everyone else in the party. And she’s not too thrilled about what it means.

Okay really and truly, one final time, I am about to just spoil the bejeezus out of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, including literally the last scene. Please go away if you don’t want to read that!!!

In Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, we eventually see what Aerith is looking at above her head through a series of strange, dream-like interstitial scenes that appear to take place in an alternate universe where Aerith’s old boyfriend and Cloud’s old best friend, Zack Fair, never died. We see Zack waiting in Aerith’s house, presiding over a comatose Aerith and Cloud, and interacting with Biggs, who in the original FF7 dies when the Sector 7 plate collapses but whose fate seems a little more ambiguous in the FF7 Remake trilogy. And when Zack goes outside, the sky is noticeably messed up – there’s a giant rift running through the whole thing.

Much later in the game, following the events at Temple of the Ancients, Aerith and Cloud find themselves falling together from a great height. Cloud appears to pass out, and we once again see a scene from this strange, alternate world. Except now, Cloud and Aerith have both woken up. Zack is out, so the two go out on a date, during which Aerith warns Cloud not to look up. He does, and lo and behold, the sky rift. Cloud has little time to ponder the meaning of this as Aerith drags him around town, and eventually, he snaps back out of it and into the “real” world, where the sky isn’t messed up and the party has found him, gravely injured but alive after his fall.

The torn apart sky comes back in the final chapter of the game, present throughout a series of battles where the idea of alternate realities is explored and confused even further. And it’s brought home in the final scene of the game, where the party seems to believe Aerith died at Sephiroth’s hands. But Cloud can see her, and even speak with her, implying he’s crossed over into a reality where he saved her. In a poignant moment, he tells his teammates not to look up – referencing Aerith’s advice from the date before. We, the player, see the sky blue and normal, but it’s clear in this moment that Cloud now sees the same torn sky he saw in the alternate reality – the same torn sky it’s now apparent Aerith saw at the end of Final Fantasy 7: Remake, when she remarked, “This sky…I don’t like it.”

Having only just digesting all of this, I’m still at a bit of a loss as to what all this actually means. It’s apparent that the torn sky comes packaged in with the weird, alternate reality stuff Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth are playing with, and that characters get pulled into these weird, converging planes of existence with messed up skies every time they defy fate. Aerith sees it at the end of Remake, and Cloud is looped in at the end of Rebirth. And as my colleague and reviewer Nick Limon pointed out, it’s possible the rift is connected to something called the “universe of death” mentioned in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Materials Ultimania book.

What likely happened with the line change is that the localizers didn’t know the context of Rebirth at the time Remake was released, and interpreted Aerith’s line in Japanese as grief about the events that had just taken place. Nomura even validated this reading of the line in an interview. And Aerith, canonically, seems to hate the sky just generally – she brings it up repeatedly in Crisis Core. But the reflective “I miss it. The steel sky” line, beautiful as it is, is only able to hold the one meaning, that of grief. The new version, even if it is a bit more straightforward, is quietly carrying a double meaning. The sky is both symbolic of Aerith’s sorrow, and it’s also quite literally messed the heck up. In that light, the line change makes a whole lot more sense.

With Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth out today, I cannot wait for lore experts to dig into all this deeper and explain what it means, because that entire game was a wild ride. If you for some reason read to the end of this without having finished it, get yourself back to our Wiki guide for some helping wrapping it all up (or doing the tens of hours of extra side content).

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Developers at Rockstar Games have hit out at the company’s decision to force staff to return to the office five days a week to close out work on GTA 6.

This week, Rockstar notified staff of its return-to-office order, due to start in April, which it said had to do with completing development on GTA 6 “at the level of quality and polish we know it requires”, and to mitigate security breaches. GTA 6 is developed primarily at Rockstar North in Edinburgh, Scotland, although support comes from a number of other Rockstar studios across the UK and the world.

Now, the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain, which represents video game developers in the UK, has publicly criticized Rockstar for the move, and published testimony from current developers who warn it will significantly affect their well-being.

According to the IWGB, last year 170 Rockstar Games workers in the UK signed a petition opposing mandatory three-day office work. Now, workers accuse Rockstar of “broken promises”, and have expressed concern about health, caring responsibilities, living arrangements, and a heightened risk of overwork (crunch). Some workers have said they moved their lives further away from studio locations that would now need to be reversed in under six weeks to comply with Rockstar’s demands. Rockstar is yet to comment.

The IWGB also alleges Rockstar had insisted flexible work options would remain available in an employee-wide email that said: “This isn’t our first step to five days a week. No one wants to go back to the old way of working.” The IWGB went on to claim Rockstar management has so-far refused to engage with workers on the issue, and will “pull the plug” on remote access to technology on April 15.

An anonymous Rockstar worker is quoted as saying: “Working from home has been a lifeline for many of us at Rockstar, allowing us to balance care responsibilities, manage disabilities, and relocate as we need. Now, Rockstar is snatching away that lifeline without a second thought for the workers who’ll be impacted most. After so many broken promises we now fear management may even be paving the way for a return to toxic ‘crunch’ practices. Senior leadership need to rethink their reckless decision making and engage with their staff to find an arrangement that works for everyone.”

Another said: “As usual, there has been zero consultation with us: the people who these policy changes most affect. Just one of my concerns is being forced to work late hours in the office to maintain contact with global teams when before we could log on from home to attend late meetings. This will mean missing out on spending time with our families. I am also aware of colleagues who have health issues preventing full time office work who are now left in limbo.”

And here’s another member of staff: “We the staff care greatly about the games we make and our passion, skill, and talent should never be taken for granted by studio management. It is together, through collaboration and a healthy work life balance and workplace culture that we continue making some of the most beloved and spectacular games in our industry.”

For years, Rockstar had a notorious reputation within the video game industry for brutal crunch in the making of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead games. However, following the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018 and the shocking stories about the human cost of its development, media reports suggested changes were made to the company’s culture to avoid the same thing happening during the development of GTA 6.

Austin Kelmore, IWGB Game Workers Chair also hit out at Rockstar: “The workers in the IWGB Game Workers Union at Rockstar are pushing for transparency over pay and promotions, a healthy and inclusive workplace culture, and work life balance centred around what each worker needs. It is unacceptable that Rockstar leadership have gone back on their word time and time again and have ignored the workers’ requests for basic working conditions.

“Workers across the industry are done with letting executives make reckless and harmful decisions and the Rockstar workers are showing us the start of what’s to come if they’re continually ignored. There’s no better time than now to join our union and push for this to be the healthy and sustainable games industry we know it can be.”

The video game development industry has wrestled with an increasing call from executives to return to the office following the sea-change sparked by the pandemic. Last year, IGN revealed Ubisoft Montreal employees were left fuming over what they called broken promises in regards to the studio’s return-to-office mandate. And, more recently, Star Citizen developers criticized a relocation plan at developer Cloud Imperium Games.

GTA 6, meanwhile, is expected to launch at some point in 2025 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. Some predict it will become the best-selling video game of all time after its debut trailer set viewership records.

Image credit: Ken Jack/Getty Images

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 series of Helldivers 2 gameplay leaks have revealed a look at the upcoming mech vehicle type.

One snippet of gameplay, revealed by redditor fozzye18, shows a player exit and then enter a mech before stomping around a battlefield firing what looks like an auto cannon.

Take a look at this leaked mech gameplay from helldivers 2 @HelldiversAlert #HELLDIVER2 #mech #leak pic.twitter.com/Fz2KQxeZY1

— Kyudiepie (@Kyudiepie_) February 28, 2024

Since that initial post, more mech gameplay has emerged showing what looks like a datamined stratagem explainer video. In the clip we see a dropship set the mech down on the battlefield for the Helldiver to jump into. This mech, though, fires what looks like a machine gun on one side and a rocket launcher on the other.

And, even more recently, Helldivers 2 mech gameplay is popping across social media, giving us another look at the mechs.

More mech gameplay starting to show up on social media. #helldivers2 pic.twitter.com/2Wz2D3iglv

— Ulongtea 🇳🇬 (@ulongteagaming) February 29, 2024

The addition of mechs to Helldivers 2 would come as little surprise, and not just because of these leaks. Mechs were shown in an official Helldivers 2 trailer released on the PlayStation YouTube channel a month ago. Alongside the first look, mechs were said to be coming “soon after launch”.

The best PS5 deal we’ve ever seen has just got a lot better. PS5’s latest slim model bundle with Spider-Man 2 is now down to just $449.99 at Best Buy (see here). That’s huge, and well worth considering alongside all the other top PlayStation offers right now.

Now that PS5 consoles are regularly available to buy, it’s also an excellent time to start picking up games, SSDs, accessories, and more for it. Below, you can find a variety of different sales on everything from games to SSDs and even information on where to buy a PS5 now. We’ve also included links to where you can preorder Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth ahead of its release on February 29 for PS5.

TL;DR – Best PS5 Deals Right Now

Navigate to:

• PS5 Slim Spider-Man 2 Deal
• Best PS5 SSD Deals
• Best PS5 Headset Deals
• Preorder Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
• Budget to Best: PS5 Deals
• Best PS5 Video Game Deals
• When Should I Buy a PS5?

PS5 Slim Spider-Man 2 Bundle Drops to Just $449.99 (Save $50)

This previous Black Friday quality deal has managed to get even better. Now down to just $449.99, you can get both the PS5 (slim model) and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 at a big discount. Plus, considering the cost of buying each of these separately ($69.99 + $499.99 = $569.98), your savings are significantly more than at first glance. This is the best PS5 deal we’ve seen in months, and it should be snapped up ASAP to avoid the disappointment of it inevitably going out of stock.

Preorder Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth – Exclusively for PS5

The highly-anticipated second game in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy is officially up for preorder with a release date of February 29. It comes in a variety of editions, which you can see in our Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth preorder guide, but if you’re just looking to get your hands on the game, we’ve included links to preorder it just below. If you’re still on the fence about purchasing, you can also jump into the free demo that recently released, which is available on the PlayStation Store!

• Get it at Amazon – $69.99
• Get it at Best Buy – $69.99
• Get it at GameStop – $69.99
• Get it at Walmart – $69.99
• Get it at Target – $69.99
• Get it at PS Store (digital) – $69.99

PlayStation Deals: Budget to Best

It doesn’t need to have a massive discount to be a good deal, so we thought it would be a great idea to pick out our absolute favorite PS5 and PlayStation offerings that would be relevant to buy no matter the time of year, or the sales going on. From the latest DualSense controllers, to the very best PS5 SSDs on the market, we’ve got it all right here.

More PS5 Budget to Best Picks

• Pulse 3D Wireless Headset for $98.99
• DualSense Charging Station for $29.99
• PowerA Twin Charging Station DualSense for $24.88

Back to Top

Best PlayStation 5 Game Deals Right Now

There are quite a few game deals worth checking out right now. One of our absolute favorite deals at the moment is on Armored Core VI, which you can find discounted in its physical format on Amazon for just $37.99 (after clipping the 5% off coupon), 37% off its MSRP of $59.99! We have several more physical game deals listed below, and if you want to check out some digital game deals, make sure to have a look through the PlayStation Store’s digital game sales.

More PS5 Video Game Deals (Physical):

• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for $34.99
• Assassin’s Creed Mirage – Standard Edition for $39.49
• Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol.1 for $39.99
• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition for $53.90
• Stray for $24.50
• Dying Light 2 Stay Human for $28.05
• A Plague Tale: Requiem (PS5) for $39.49

Best PS5 SSD Deals: Silicon Power 2TB XS70 SSD with Built-in PS5 Heatsink for $145.99

Could your PS5 use more storage? Prices have been plummeting since Sony started letting people upgrade their SSDs. Right now, you can get a Silicon Power 2TB XS70 SSD with Built-in PS5 Heatsink at Amazon for $145.99. Now’s a great time, in general, to pick up a PS5-compatible SSD and you can see more of our favorite deals below.

More PS5 SSD Deals:

• Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD with Heatsink for $179.99
• Silicon Power 4TB PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 SSD for $217.99
• Lexar NM790 1TB SSD with Heatsink for $75.99 (clip 5% Off Coupon)
• Nextorage Japan 2TB Internal SSD with Heatsink for $149.99
• XPG 2TB GAMMIX S70 Blade for $129.99 (Clip $20 Coupon)
• ADATA 2TB Premium SSD for $129.99
• Silicon Power 4TB XS70 for $279.99
• XPG GAMMIX S70 Blade 1TB SSD for $99.99
• Corsair MP600 PRO LPX 2TB for $169.99

Best PS5 Headset Deals: 25% Off the Razer Kaira Pro & More Headset Deals

There’s no shortage of PS5-compatible headsets. If you’re constantly having to turn down the volume when you play, you might want to pick up one of these, then you can listen to your games as loud as you darn well please. And if you’d like to see even more options that are worth buying, check out our collection of the best gaming headsets.

More PS5 Gaming Headset Deals:

• SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7P Wireless Gaming Headset for $149.99

Best Time to Buy a PS5

Generally, the best time to buy a PS5 console is during major yearly shopping events such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the various Amazon Prime Day sales. Although PlayStation consoles rarely go on sale, you can often scoop up limited-time bundles that include additional an additional game or two, and more.

How to Trade in Your Old PlayStation Consoles

If you’re looking to trade in your old PlayStation consoles, you can do so at select retailers in-store and online. Often, the most widely available retailers are GameStop and Best Buy. However, you can also trade your used devices online at retailers such as Amazon and Microsoft.

Some retailers will offer you cash for your used goods, while others may provide you with a gift card that can be used in-store and online. This is a great way to offload your old gaming gear and get some money that you can put towards a newer console and games.

While trading devices in at retailers will often net you the lowest amount for your used consoles, there are also online marketplaces such as eBay, Craigslist, and OfferUp that may fetch higher prices, but you’ll often be responsible for packing and shipping costs, or be required to meet someone in person for the transaction, the latter of which poses its own risks.

With how expensive gaming is getting in 2024, we’re trying to save you as much money as possible on the games and other tech you actually want to buy. We’ve got great deal roundups available for all major platforms such as Switch and Xbox, and keep these updated daily with brand new offers. If you’re trying to keep costs down while maintaining your favorite hobby, stay tuned for more incredible discounts.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Another day, another Palworld patch. Update v0.1.5.1 is available now for the Steam version of the ‘Pokémon with guns’ survival game, and out soon for the Xbox version.

This one makes a number of fixes across the board, makes a small number of changes to balance, and improves the servers. In the patch notes, developer Pocketpair said it was still working on an issue where auto-save fails on the Xbox and Xbox Game Pass versions. “We expect that this will be resolved in an upcoming update,” the developer said.

There’s no word yet on the much-needed addition of dedicated servers for the Xbox version of the game, which continues to lag behind the PC version when it comes to features. Palworld on Steam lets players create and join dedicated servers that enable up to 32 players to play in the same world and create guilds together. On Xbox however, co-op is limited to 2-4 players.

Last month, Microsoft said it would work directly with Pocketpair to assist development. “On Xbox’s part, we’re working with Pocketpair to help provide support for Xbox versions of the game,” Microsoft said at the time. “We’re providing support to enable dedicated servers, offering engineering resources to help with GPU and memory optimization, speeding up the process to make Palworld updates available for players, and working with the team to optimize the title for our platform.”

Palworld has seen more than 25 million players since going on sale in January. Pocketpair said the Steam version has sold an incredible 15 million copies, whereas on Xbox it’s seen 10 million players. But while Palworld is one of the biggest game launches ever, it’s also one of the most controversial.

Pocketpair has said its staff have received death threats amid Pokémon “rip-off” claims, which it has denied. Soon after launch, Nintendo moved quickly to remove an eye-catching Pokémon mod, then The Pokemon Company issued a statement, saying: “We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to Pokémon.” IGN asked lawyers whether Nintendo could successfully sue.

Here are the Palworld update 0.1.5.1 patch notes in full:

Major Fixes

・Fixed various game crashes

Balance Adjustment

・Fixed a bug where breeding Pals always had fixed passives

・Fixed an issue where the increase in condensation progress was incorrect when using Pal of rank 2 or higher as a condensation material (it will increase by the number of Pals used in previous condensation)

Dungeon Issues

・Fixed an issue where the innermost door would not open after defeating the boss of a random dungeon

Pals

・Fixed an issue where the name of a Pal would not change even after renaming them

Server Issues

・Fixed an issue where it was not possible to search for spaces or Japanese/Chinese characters in the server list

・Fixed so that if the server is no longer registered on the server list, it will be re-registered without needing to restart the server

・Fixed an issue where the settings to enable RCON were not loaded from the configuration file

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.

Some of the coolest bits in the Terminator series, and definitely the source of its best video games, are the future war parts. Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance is an RTS that tries to follow in those robotic footsteps, spinning off of the most recent movie to put you in the boots of a military officer facing down the killer machines in the months after the nukes fall. Unfortunately, trying to combine that future war fantasy with a gritty real-time tactics formula falls short here, largely because the way your units fight and the campaign built around them feel like they were designed for two entirely different games.

The meat of Defiance is a series of story-driven battles, with army management in between, set in the post-Judgment Day United States and Northern Mexico that has you fighting against Legion, the Dark Fate timeline’s equivalent of Skynet. The characters are mostly stereotypes with a few entertainingly hammy voices, while the story of your cut-off unit of military “Founders” attempting to fight alongside a local paramilitary resistance – hindered by local warlords and robotic collaborationists along the way – does the job well enough in that it (mostly) doesn’t get in the way of the cool RTS battles you’re really here for.

The battles themselves are realistic, detailed, and deadly. Soldiers can and do get picked off by stray bullets or explosions, or barely survive what should have killed them. It’s definitely modern warfare, so large numbers and logistics rule the battlefield. Every unit tracks and requires specific types of ammunition, as well as fuel and spare parts for vehicles, all of which is depleted as you fight and has to be rearmed by supply trucks. It’s the kind of realism that a good real-time tactics game is built on.

Battling the machines can be great, too. They fight like you expect: plodding, aggressive enemies that charge into danger with no heed for their own survival. But they’re tough, and numerous, so you have to deploy your units wisely and outmaneuver them to win. Most of Legion’s forces are low-grade homunculus soldiers or armored vehicles, but when proper Terminators show up it’s always pretty exciting as things quickly get hairy.

The infantry combat is neat, but it’s made odd because of one badly-balanced detail: Fighting in buildings is super cool, with units moving through the interiors to use windows and roofs as firing points, but cover outside of buildings is very hard to judge and finicky to use. Though you can manually pick when your troops go prone, you can’t tell them to take up positions behind walls or barricades other than by moving them close and hoping they automatically take the hint. There are no visual indicators for what kind of cover they are getting or what their line of sight is like, either, which is vital stuff in this kind of tactics game.

Leading infantry can still be amusing when you’re on up-close assaults of occupied structures at least, but armored combat doesn’t fare quite as well, sadly. Vehicles are admittedly fun to use, with chunky movement and minute interactions: They can be disabled in a variety of ways, from crew loss and armor degradation to destroyed weapons or mobility kills from losing tracks and wheels – they can even catch on fire, requiring the crew to bail out and then recover them later. That punishing detail could have been awesome in a game where the enemy is playing by the same rules as you, but Defiance’s battles aren’t actually built that way.

Even when I tested the lowest difficulty, the damage reduction it provided my troops wasn’t enough to let an RTS veteran like me win with ease. That’s because the battles aren’t strategic military exercises as much as they are trial and error puzzles, where everything has to go precisely your way in order to succeed. You rarely have enough troops to get the job done, and mid-mission replacements for your soldiers don’t exist: You lose a guy because you were anything less than perfectly attentive with your micromanagement? He’s gone, period.

That’s an interesting limitation to work around in the abstract, but the mission design just doesn’t support it. If that lost guy was the one rocket trooper you needed to destroy an enemy tank at the end of the level, well, I hope you quicksaved some time before he died. You have to hit those important few shots, you have to move in just the right way, and you have to go fast enough or you will run out of ammunition against the waves of bad guys coming at you, because those rules are only for you. The enemy has fresh guys – and therefore bullets – forever.

I think I would feel better about that if Legion were actually the ones deploying absurd amounts of troops and forcing you into grinding, brutal battles against overwhelming numbers – at least that would be on point thematically. Except it’s not Legion. The hardest and most frustrating missions are against other human factions, whose infantry are better at taking cover and therefore far harder to kill than the actual Terminators, and whose units come in the same seemingly-infinite stream.

Finishing Defiance on higher difficulties requires either silly luck or constant save scumming as you figure out the precise tricks and order of operations developer Slitherine intended you to do in its levels, which only seem open in their designs. Many of them have several routes through, but there are no strategic tradeoffs to decide between: One of those routes is always the optimal one.

I can understand, even enjoy, when an RTS mission is so hard I have to reload it a few times. But when the mission time is an hour and I’ve instead spent two or three because I’ve had to reload a save so many times thanks to pure random numbers? That’s no fun. Stuff like whether or not a unit decided to throw a grenade or bothered to get into cover shouldn’t be what the entire mission hinges on, and it’s vile to realize you lost 30 minutes ago without knowing because you wasted ammunition in what was apparently an unnecessary skirmish – let alone because you took losses from spawned-in traps that are impossible to see, or preprogrammed fights that teleport your units into an uncontrollable position because you moved one guy a little too close to an invisible trigger.

Defiance wants to be a real-time tactics wargame in the vein of Men of War or Ground Control, and at its best it absolutely did remind me of those series, but remind me is all it did. Remind me that, yes, this genre can be excellent and, no, this isn’t it. The moment to moment tactics here can and do feel fun sometimes – this is, for example, the only game I know of where you can obliterate a bunch of Terminators with a HIMARS strike. That’s just ruined when you have to reload and repeat it four or five times.

Between missions you can tweak, upgrade, replenish, and refit your units at the cost of a few different currencies. This would be a cool system if there were much more than the straightforward story missions on offer, such as procedural missions or side missions to let you bulk up and resupply between the main bouts. But there’s nothing like that, making it feel like it was meant for a structure more like XCOM’s, not a nearly-linear campaign that took me around 30 hours to complete.

In this context, army-building and management is a waste of your time full of false choices. I say that because not only are there obvious best units to use, but you also have to meet a certain supply requirement to move from mission to mission, which means that no matter how many cool new guys you recruit or vehicles you steal mid-mission you’ll end up disbanding most of them so that you have enough resources to make it to the next one. Not only that, when you do make it to a mission, you have a set number of deployment slots to put your units in. There’s no reason not to dump every resource you have into upgrading a smaller force because there’s no guarantee you could even bring a bigger one along if you somehow got it where you were going.

That’s not to mention that this campaign has hands-down one of the absolute worst, highly-scripted, extremely boxed-in “story-driven” missions I have ever played in an RTS campaign. Seriously. Screw Nuevo Tortuga: It literally contains a vital fight sequence where you’re not allowed to control your units.

Defiance also has multiplayer and single-player skirmishes, which are serviceable enough modes dedicated to point capture and hold. They use a nice little point-based system to call in your units that lets you customize your army as it gradually scales up over time, letting you bring in heavier and heavier units. It also rules that you can play as Legion, deploying plodding Terminators and hunter-killer machines that use very different tactics than the human factions. Unfortunately these skirmishes have a huge flaw: There are only four maps. RTS multiplayer lives or dies on map variety, and four just ain’t enough to keep me coming back.