Today, workers at Sega of America union AEGIS-CWA have announced they have ratified their first contract with Sega, less than a year after their recognition as a legal union.
In a press release, AEGIS-CWA revealed that the worker vote to ratify the contract passed, allowing the contract to go into effect. The contract includes a number of worker protections, including raises for all unit members (roughly 150 full-time and temporary employees), Just Cause protections, layoff protections including a recall list and severance, commitment to crediting all workers on games they work on, and a number of other benefits.
“One of our most notable items is our grievance process,” said Sega localization editor and AEGIS-CWA member Em Geiger. “There’s extra security knowing we have in place a system for bringing issues to the table, such as arguing Just Cause in a potential layoff. If the company wants to do something that the unit doesn’t like, we can grieve it, bargain over it, have our say before anything is finalized. And concerning Just Cause, we’re now the second unit in this industry in North America to have protections against arbitrary discipline and discharge.”
Sega of America workers first announced their desire to unionize in April of last year, citing desires for better pay, improved benefits, and workload balance. The union received legal recognition the following July following a vote, making it the largest multi-department union of organized industry workers, encompassing Brand Marketing, Games as a Service, Localization, Marketing, Product Development Ops, Sales, Quality Assurance, and other divisions.
However, in January of this year, Sega of America laid off 61 staff as it moved to outsource QA and localization, a move which impacted AEGIS-CWA members. At the time, the union said it was able to negotiate to double the number of saved jobs, and offer severance to temporary workers.
“The mass layoffs SOA implemented were an enormous hit to our numbers, and to our overall morale,” Geiger said. “We negotiated severance packages and some employee retention, but there was an undeniable shift once the grief of those losses settled in. But in spite of this, after months of work, we have our contract.”
“We are by no means the very first video game company to do what we’ve done,” Geiger concluded. “However, we are among the first, and we know there are others who will unionize and get their contracts in the coming years. Sega is a household name, and what we can do is encourage anyone else who might be thinking about unionizing, or are in the process and haven’t gone public yet, to do so with enthusiasm and pride. You can only benefit from unionizing. We truly, madly, deeply wish for a better standard of work and wage within this industry. And hopefully, our contract can help serve as an example for those who will one day write their own.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
There are times when Open Roads hits alarmingly close to home. Early on in this interactive road trip, your 16-year-old protagonist Tess turns around to reach for a bag perched in the back of her mom’s vintage station wagon – without skipping a beat, she’s accosted by her mother, Opal, from behind the wheel. The altercation flooded my brain with memories of family road trips in the early 2000s: “You can’t just turn around. It’s unsafe,” my dad would say from his vehicular throne, despite how frustratingly close I was to grabbing my Game Boy. Parental authority and nostalgia are just a few of the powerful tools Open Roads harnesses to deliver a playful and relatable story about coming of age in the early aughts, however, hastily resolved problems and the lack of an engaging mystery also make this adventure a little too predictable to leave a lasting impression.
Set in the wake of her grandmother’s passing, Tess and her mother are forced to navigate grief and economic uncertainty as they cope with the breakdown of their nuclear family. Tess’s father is distant, in touch via text alone, while her mother maintains a tough exterior for her daughter’s sake. Stuck in the middle, Tess’s optimistic outlook shines through but hides a trove of complex emotions. Open Roads’ exceptional Hollywood leads, Keri Russell and Kaitlyn Dever, amplify their uncomfortably raw exchanges – Russell’s Opal is believably guarded but capable of arresting warmth, whereas Dever’s Tess balances youthful naivete with spirited angst. Tonal subtext abounds as emotions run high, and I felt connected to these characters as early as the opening back-and-forth.
Open Roads’ art style leaves a lasting first impression as well. Hand-drawn 2D characters are layered on top of meticulously detailed 3D environments, giving this world a unique, dreamlike quality. Imperfections augment scribbled notes, juxtaposing them against the angular digital backdrop – and I couldn’t help but inspect the scratches and flecks of dust on a chunky iMac lookalike I came across at one point. While this trip is mostly isolating by design, the touches of life, like soot particles and trees swaying in the wind, make you feel more at peace in the solitude.
Open Roads’ art style leaves a lasting first impression.
In the process of sorting through her late grandmother’s belongings, Tess uncovers a curious briefcase of relics, complete with a cryptic postcard from an unknown sender beckoning her grandma to join them. Keen to escape the immediate burdens of loss, Tess convinces a reluctant Opal to cross the country and unravel a generational family mystery. Melancholic but strangely engrossing, Open Roads almost entirely consists of rummaging through dioramas lost to time. From derelict summer houses to musty hotel rooms, each new location contains sprinklings of forgotten belongings to interact with alongside precious tidbits of environmental storytelling I relished in examining with a fine-tooth comb. An admittedly repetitive process, standout items like charming childhood drawings that mask coping mechanisms with superheroes and classic rented DVDs managed to keep me on the hook while effectively time-stamping each hazy era they were from.
A light smattering of systems allow you to engage your inner holistic detective to piece together the past – but don’t expect deep puzzles or critical thinking. Across its roughly three-and-a-half-hour run time, Open Roads didn’t get more complicated than finding an odd opening to another room or searching out a partially hidden letter. The more you scour, the more you’ll confront Open Roads’ past-meets-present storytelling that revolves around Opal’s own childhood traumas, which are finding new life in the issues now plaguing her daughter. Like phantom wounds passed down through the generations, their happy-go-lucky veneer masks troubling truths that are, for the most part, intriguing to unfurl.
The pieces of this quilt never quite stitched together for me.
Interacting with items can prompt Tess’s inner monologue and offer a window into her developing psyche, while plot-forwarding objects trigger eye-opening conversations with her mother. Seeking out as many of these touchy scenes as possible helped ground me in Open Roads story and compelled me to tinker with all the toys I could find in search of more emotive exposition. Unfortunately, such loaded artifacts were few and far between, but the conversations surrounding them felt sincere and created a nervous atmosphere that kept me guessing as the family’s secrets started to surface.
Environmental inspections are spliced between highway drives where Tess and Opal process the latest day while coasting to the next spot. Where static locations focus on Opal’s murky upbringing and faulty memory, the car conversations center around Tess’s present issues with her mom. Initially, the mysterious man’s letters and postcards appear to be the hook, but the persistent interpersonal turmoil is by far Open Roads’ defining asset.
It was disappointing then that as the player-come-passenger in this journey, I began to feel like a ghost in the machine, privy to all the surrounding context but unable to engage with it meaningfully. Even though I could radio surf, flick door locks, and text as the autumnal foliage passed me by, I felt distant from Tess as the story soldiered on. Despite the amount of time I’d spent in her head, Tess’s actions felt unusually measured for a teenager dealing with such traumatic events. I often wished that Open Roads would stop pulling its punches until, surprisingly quickly, the credits rolled. A few breezy puzzles offered fleeting resistance, but the twists and turns of the story didn’t provoke the emotion I expected when they finally arrived. The pieces of this quilt never quite stitched together for me.
This feeling is most frustrating when you’re offered options in dialogue. I was often keen to chase certain plot threads, but my choices always tended to lead to the same place, and the inconsequentiality of what I thought was important subtext became disheartening when I realized this in my second playthrough. The investigative spirit in its early-game explorations was never nurtured during Open Road’s conversations. Heavy discussions about mental health felt like an opportunity to level the playing field between Tess and her mother, but such moments aren’t allowed to breathe in a believable way. A safe and disappointing climax only confirmed my fears, providing an easy answer that felt like a messily applied band-aid over a far more complex wound. I was left longing for more of the ugly, believable humanity we all partake in, but Open Roads decidedly orbits.
As a massive fan of survival games and Dune, I’ll admit to being a bit skeptical about an open-world survival game that takes place on the famously barren planet of Arrakis, but after an hour-long presentation of the upcoming Dune: Awakening, those concerns have disappeared entirely. Based on the hands-off showcasing of what’s to come when this MMO survival game hits early access later this year, it certainly appears that developer Funcom has taken their hard-won learnings from the underrated Conan Exiles and applied it to this ambitious multiplayer world set in one of sci-fi’s most beloved galaxies. Whether it was the impressively detailed character creation options, the intricate RPG systems filled with skill trees and craftables, or the absolute insanity of trying to outrun a Shai-Hulud or escape a massive sandstorm, Dune: Awakening appears to be on track to become the sci-fi survival game I’ve always dreamt of, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it.
How do you make a survival game set in an utterly desolate wasteland of sand? Well, according to Funcom, the answer lies in the “hidden spaces” of Arrakis. Described in Frank Herbert’s novels, these hidden pockets of shade and refuge are home to life and micro-biomes that will be altogether unfamiliar to those who have only seen the movies, but Dune: Awakening hopes to lean pretty heavily on their existence to fill the massive desert with things for players to do – whether that be finding a pocket of shelter to build a base in, delving into a cave that’s home to hostile creatures, or taking down remote enemy bases in search of loot and resources. In fact, the wide-open empty spaces filled with hot sand might be more of an asset than a hindrance, as it allows for a heat stroke mechanic where players are punished for spending time in direct sunlight with some pretty devastating debuffs, meaning players will instead need to dart from shelter-to-shelter, battling the elements as they explore the world and its many hidden spaces.
Combined with the forever game of “the floor is lava” that is dodging sandworms on Arrakis, players will need to remain on the move constantly, and develop strategies for managing their water reserves, protecting against the heat, and, of course, engaging in the never-ending struggle for all-important spice. In one leg of the demo, players worked together to claim a massive deposit of spice while keeping an eye out for the ever-looming threat of the Shai-Hulud, drawn to their activity in the desert…only to be unexpectedly overwhelmed by a sandstorm instead, which swallowed them and their precious cargo along with them. In another section, a group of players worked together to infiltrate a high-level facility filled with rare materials and dangerous enemies, making sure to harvest the blood of fallen baddies to replenish their rapidly depleting water reserves. Before the demo, I had a lot of questions about how a Dune survival game would even work without becoming extremely monotonous in short order, but by the end I found myself wondering why in the heck someone hadn’t made one sooner – seeing all the clever ways Dune: Awakening plans to make brilliant use of Dune’s unique lore made me a believer.
Seeing all the clever ways Dune: Awakening plans to make brilliant use of Dune’s unique lore made me a believer.
Beyond the major things Dune: Awakening aims to get right, the demo also included all these little details that took my hype to the next level, like how they showed off an incredibly detailed character creation engine that included things like choosing your home planet and origin to decide some of your starting traits and aspects of your appearance, or how the in-depth skill trees and crafting system allowed you to drastically augment your playstyle from a telekinetic mentalist with a bag of supernatural tricks to run-and-gun soldiers with a bag of high explosives. As someone who has spent a good deal of time with the Dune tabletop RPG, dreaming up the characters I’d like to portray in that universe, this looks like it’ll scratch an itch I’ve had for decades, and I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on it when it hits early access later this year.
No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games has unveiled its 27th major update, dubbed Orbital.
Hot on the heels of the release of the Omega expedition, the Orbital update brings a complete overhaul to Space Stations. Until now these have been perhaps the only part of No Man’s Sky that wasn’t procedurally generated, Hello Games said. “Engine improvements have allowed us to create vast interior spaces and exterior spaces, with improved reflection and metallic surfaces.”
Outside, Space Station exteriors are said to be “at a scale never seen before, and are hugely varied.” Inside, Stations have been “transformed, and are now vast, procedurally generated, and incredibly diverse.” They feature new shops, gameplay, and activities, and are now customized based on system, race and locale.
Stations also contain a ship editor, which lets players customize their ships and create new starship types. Hello Games said a ship editor was “perhaps our most requested feature of all time.”
“We haven’t introduced customisation previously, because so many players love exploring to find the perfect ship already out there to purchase,” Hello Games explained. “In keeping with exploration, to customize their ship, travelers gather and trade parts for their ships as they explore, salvaging the best components from wrecks and ruins.”
Elsewhere, Orbital adds a new Guild system, making joining Guilds and increasing reputation a much larger part of the game. You can own a freighter and even build up a fleet of frigates in No Man’s Sky. “Now you can send that frigate fleet on away missions where if they get into trouble, as frigate captain, you can perform daring rescues,” Hello Games teased. “Players can scramble your squadron of fighters, and warp to battles and engage your attackers.”
And finally, there are engine improvements, a user interface refresh, and more. “It’s a huge update with several major features that have been on player’s wishlists for a long time,” Hello Games said. “We have a lot more planned this year as our journey continues.”
It’s a busy time for Hello Games, which is working on its next game, Light No Fire. It’s a game about adventure, building, survival and exploration together, set on a fantasy planet the size of Earth.
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.
If stylishly wielding a sword as an anime-style female warrior traversing a post-apocalyptic world left behind by its inhabitants sounds anything like NieR: Automata, well, that’s because Stellar Blade director Kim Hyung Tae was directly inspired by Square Enix’s 2017 hit.
I’m probably not the only one who imagined Stellar Blade would play similarly to NieR: Automata, too: a stylish but casual action game that allows you to beat the crap out of your enemies without too much stress. However, from the moment I got the hold of the controller, I realized that I was going to have a much more nerve-wracking experience than I expected, in the best possible way.
That doesn’t mean Stellar Blade doesn’t feel stylish or exhilarating. As soon as you start mixing up heavy and light attacks with the square and triangle button, it feels good to play.
But Stellar Blade puts a much bigger emphasis on defensive skills than I was expecting. Reading the timing of enemy attacks for well-timed parries and dodges is almost as important as it was in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Parrying multiple attacks to disrupt your enemy’s balance allows you to perform a special attack called Retribution. With so many recent games inspired by Sekiro’s gameplay structure, this alone doesn’t come off as anything particularly original anymore, but Stellar Blade takes things one step further.
Stellar Blade puts a much bigger emphasis on defensive skills than I was expecting.
Besides your regular dodge mechanic, Stellar Blade introduces Blink and Repulse. Both are dodging skills that counter the enemy’s attack, but they can only be used against specific attacks. Blink is utilized by pressing the Circle button and moving the analog stick forward simultaneously, while Repulse requires you to press Circle and move backwards. At first, it can be challenging to instantly know and react to an enemy attack that can be countered by Blink or Repulse, but once you get the hang of it, parrying and dodging a series of attacks only to deliver a devastating counterattack at the end feels incredible. It makes you realize just how much Stellar Blade rewards the time you take to learn attack patterns.
In games that put a high emphasis on parrying and dodging, I often find myself playing a bit too defensively. Thanks to a great set of offensive tools, I didn’t have the same problem with Stellar Blade. Beta Skills – which can be utilized once your gauge is full – can cancel an enemy’s attack if the timing is right. There is also an attack that allows you to quickly get close to the enemy after dodging from a distance. Delivering a series of attacks with the Square and Triangle buttons, canceling your enemy’s attack with a well-timed Beta Skill only to finish them off with yet another combo can feel just as great as the parrying and dodging. Stellar Blade provides the player with both great defensive and offensive skills, which makes it feel balanced and deep. Being able to take different strategies depending on the enemy type is great in itself, but it feels like Stellar Blade has enough depth and variety for players to find their own unique style to tackle the challenging combat.
Stellar Blade’s wide array of gear can complement that playstyle. You can find and equip gear that decreases the damage you take in melee combat, gear that speeds up your attacks, gear that increases the damage of combo attacks, and much more. Luckily, the gear you equip for these stat boosts is not related to the appearance of Eve, Stellar Blade’s protagonist. Players will be able to unlock and wear a multitude of costumes which do not affect your character build.
At a certain point in the game, Eve will become able to use a long-range gun-type weapon as well. Shooting projectiles from an over-the-shoulder camera perspective makes it feel like a typical third-person shooter. While melee combat remains the main focus, some instances require the use of your gun in order to advance, and apparently some stages are designed for this weapon, but I didn’t get to play any of those stages.
I did get to use the gun in a fight against Stalker, one of Stellar Blade’s creepy bosses. By successfully countering a specific attack with Repulse, a weak spot is unveiled next to Stalker’s head. Heavy damage can be dealt if you are quick enough to fire at this weak spot. I also found myself relying on the gun whenever I was out of potions, as attacking from a distance wasn’t nearly as risky as attacking with my blade. At the very least, the gun should function as yet another option in Stellar Blade’s already robust combat.
The bosses I got to fight all had a wide array of attack patterns that fundamentally changed once they headed into a different phase. While overwhelming at first, after a few tries I realized how their attacks were designed for me to utilize the parrying, dodging and other skills that Stellar Blade had taught me at that point.
Stellar Blade has two difficulty settings: Normal Mode and Story Mode. While calling it a Soulslike would make it sound more difficult than it actually is, in Normal Mode regular enemies can kill you if you let your guard down. On my first few attempts, bosses felt quite challenging as well.
From a game design perspective, Stellar Blade does draw a lot of inspiration from the Soulsborne genre. Camps feel just like Bonfire checkpoints, you can unlock shortcuts that lead you back to those checkpoints, and be prepared for surprise attacks from enemies placed just around a corner
When playing in Story Mode, the game feels a lot more forgiving, and you can turn on an accessibility option called Action Assist that tells you the right timing for parrying and dodging in QTE fashion.
I liked that camps don’t just function as a place that restores your health and refills your potions, but provides some actual relaxation for Eve and the player. Watching Eve kick back on her chair while playing your choice of song on the record player is a good way to take a break. At these camps, Eve occasionally has conversations with her friends, and the game can reward you with flashbacks and other events. Some events only occur at specific camps, so finding all the camps functions as a nice extra for completionists or those who want to dig deeper into Stellar Blade’s world and characters.
You can buy items and learn new skills at camps as well. Newly obtained skills can be tried out in the game’s training room, but even if you don’t, Stellar Blade will remind you of that skill during the first combat session in the main game. Stellar Blade has many small details like this that made me feel like I was being taken great care of. For example, whenever the Beta Skill gauge is full, the game’s UI will notify you of this. While it may sound like an afterthought, for someone who often gets caught up in the action and forgets to look at the gauge like me, it goes a long way.
While Stellar Blade is combat focused, I experienced some simple puzzles and platforming as well. Entering a code in order to open a door was so straightforward that I didn’t even feel bad to refer to the hint feature.
While not particularly spectacular, platforming sessions like moving wooden boards on a water surface by swimming to then climb on them and jump to a nearby ladder were decent enough to provide some welcome variety. Speaking of swimming, Eve can swim underwater as well, which I found somewhat rare for a combat-focused action game like Stellar Blade. In typical videogame fashion, swimming to the bottom of the water rewarded me with a treasure chest. What else would you expect?
While mostly linear, the stage I got to play was wide enough for a few detours with other hidden treasure chests and optional enemies. I got the impression that Stellar Blade takes exploration seriously as well, at least for an action game. In the main game, players can explore a city called Xion as well as some less linear areas. While the depth of its exploration remains to be seen, Stellar Blade’s action alone was more than enough to get me excited for its April 26 release on PlayStation 5.
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The Game Boy Advance – Nintendo Switch Online library gets another classic this week: F-Zero Maximum Velocity.
F-Zero Maximum Velocity makes its debut on Nintendo Switch on March 29 for anyone with a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership.
F-Zero Maximum Velocity, developed by NDcube and published by Nintendo, was a 2001 launch game for the Game Boy Advance. It takes place 25 years after F-Zero, in another F-Zero Grand Prix, and so is without the likes of Captain Falcon, Samurai Goroh, Pico, or Dr. Stewart.
Here’s the official blurb from Nintendo:
There’s only one sport that has enough thrills, spills and potential for calamity to keep an entire galaxy on the edge of its seat, and it’s known as the F-Zero Grand Prix. F-Zero Maximum Velocity is set 25 years after the original F-Zero game, with a new generation of racers piloting their plasma-powered machines and using speed bursts (and some strategic vehicle-to-vehicle bumping) in a white-knuckle race to stay ahead of the competition… and stay alive.
Climb the Grand Prix standings to unlock tracks and vehicles while you speed around 20 different courses across four difficulty levels to prove you’ve got what it takes to rank among the galaxy’s most elite racers.
Meanwhile, Nintendo launches a new update for F-ZERO 99, its multiplayer racer available on the eShop to everyone with a paid Nintendo Switch Online membership, on February 28. The update lets you take on the new Mirror Grand Prix, Mirror Tracks for Knight League, and the Classic Mini Prix. Plus, you can try Steer Assist to help guide your machine around turns and barriers, and hone your skills in an expanded Practice Mode. Timed Challenges offer limited time in-game rewards, Recommended Challenges give tips on what to tackle next, and there are newly added Achievements. In the future, Mirror Tracks for King League and Queen League will become available, Nintendo said.
The arrival of F-Zero Maximum Velocity to Nintendo Switch Online follows the January addition of two of the Game Boy Advance’s best RPGs: Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Other Game Boy Advance games on the service include Mario Kart: Super Circuit, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, and Metroid Fusion.
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.
Feudal Japan is likely the most influential historic period in Japan, with many books, movies, and games, inspired by the long running conflict and change the country underwent. Team Ninja has been at the forefront of that passion, and with its latest game it goes full open world in the PS5 exclusive Rise of the Ronin. Let’s cut to the chase and see just how well it runs.
Modes of Play and Performance
Upon boot up we have a choice to make: Graphics mode, which confusingly focuses on resolution. This mode has a dynamically scaling 1440p that does show signs of reconstruction from TAA, or a checkerboard resolve with a counted 1080p low. The second option is Ray Tracing mode, which is remarkably similar in its visual quality, aside from ray-traced reflections. These appear on a select number of surfaces such as small water bodies and non dynamic reflective objects such as glazed terracotta pots or tiled floors. Ambient occlusion also looks slightly improved, which may be ray traced or simply better screen space ambient occlusion. Here resolution now appears to target a dynamic or possibly reconstructed 1080p from a 1600x900p base. Third, we have the Prioritize Frame Rate mode which is pretty much just the Graphics mode at the same reconstructed 1080p of the Ray Tracing mode, but without the ray tracing. Last but not least, an unlocked 60fps option can be toggled on or off for the Graphics and Ray Tracing mode, while Frame Rate mode is fixed at 60fps. All modes run a 4K UI, and the game is scaled to 4K in each mode, all tests were with launch day patch 1.02 applied.
Ray Tracing mode is surprisingly good, often being well within the Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) range. Frame Rates often stay in the mid to upper 50s and frame times are always 16 or 33ms making them perfect for that technology. The heavier battles with snowflakes, fire embers and multiple enemies can maintain a good 50ish rate of performance, and without any big spikes it feels responsive and far superior to a fixed 30fps. This brings me back to the point I made in our Dragon’s Dogma 2 performance review: unlocked frame rates can be better when consistent frame delivery issues can cause erratic frame delivery when a half refresh V-sync is enforced.
Using the Graphics mode as an example, once the frame time is capped the game struggles to deliver evenly paced frames, which will cause the game to drop a frame, causing a missed delivery and making the frame time jump up to 50ms. But due to the engine not needing the full 33ms that it has to wait for, on the next refresh cycle it now has two frames ready in close succession. So, it flips both in fast sequence giving us a 16ms run and then back to 33ms. When the engine is under load this can happen frequently, which means we get the enemy of game performance: irregular cadence. As you can see on the frame time graph, we have an uneven frame cadence of 16, 50, and 33ms, causing judder which feels worse than a 38-45fps range, as at least here frames are closer together and thus feel smoother and more consistent, as noted by no 50ms spikes appearing now. It again highlights why I have never been a fan of locked frame rates – as you will see, it locks to 30fps very well, but it feels far from it in play. In a sad twist, all modes run the real-time cutscenes at the capped 30fps, which results in incorrect frame pacing issues, an area I hope will be fixed later to run unlocked if the player so wishes.
This Graphics mode is pixel-bound due to the hike in resolution, bandwidth, and fill rate. As such when unlocked we are often in the high 30s to low 40s, which is better than capped in my view, but not as smooth as the Ray Tracing mode or indeed the final mode of the three, Frame Rate mode, which can be more than 50% faster in like for like sections. However, all three modes can struggle most with traversal and streaming, which even in the frame rate mode we get bouts of stutter and juddering when streaming in new objects and clearing space within memory.
This “performance mode” is largely identical to the Ray Tracing mode, showing how these two modes do not differ much aside from when ray tracing is on screen. Here performance can be smoother with it often hitting the 16ms target, highlighting that RT reflections can cost something, possibly 2ms or more of frame time when active, which is big for a 16ms frame time target. However, no mode locks to a clean or stable 60fps, and although the performance mode comes the closest it is still an issue at times with obvious dropped frames and judder. This means those with a VRR screen will get a much more consistent performance rate.
Graphical Quality and Technology
Visually the game is good but not a standout. Art is clean, bright and in-keeping with the period and designs of Japan. A variety of locations, buildings, swaying grass, trees, and dank caves splay out from your gaze. Texture details are good, but not great; shadow cascade and filtering are particularly impressive for such a dense world, with soft contact hardening use from the sun and some other area lights. Long shadows stretch out with high precision and good cascade – light and shadow are a key tool in the design, and with the game’s full time of day and weather system you are treated to burnt orange sunsets, deep blue nights, dark torch-lit caves, and even snow-filled, flame-ravaged scenes. Screen space reflections are used on water bodies and floors, and ray traced ones are limited to smaller sections making this mode a nice but minimal boost.
The biggest and best visual quality the game has is its excellent use of alpha, particle, and geometry effects. Snow deformation is not new, but it adds a great deal to the organic and interactive nature within the world. It crumples and tessellates under your and enemies’ movement, and snowflakes fall in battle via the engine’s robust GPU-accelerated particles. A decal system blends within a pixel shader pass as you contact it, which includes clothes and physics-based motion on objects and hair. The game’s superb and incredibly versatile character builder allows you to customise your hero or heroine to perfection. Character rendering is good, with strong archetypes being visual guides by design along with detailed and well-animated faces and cloth in the games real-time cutscenes. These are often the best-looking moments due to the art, lighting and director of photography teams being in full control.
Comparisons to Ghost of Tsushima are obvious due to the setting, but this game is not as strikingly beautiful or dreamlike as that stunning game. Contrast is darker, colors more muted, and even brighter sections can be an issue with characters and backgrounds blending due to insufficient lighting quality and a lack of real-time global illumination or more robust ambient occlusion in the game. Resolution is low for a current-generation game and can leave shimmer and soft image quality often, with the graphics mode being by far the best. Pop-in is another issue, with obvious shifts in all modes from higher geometry. Sprites, trees, or even NPCs can appear within feet of you. Blends are often dithered, but they can be jarring as the world draws in close at times.
On horseback this also highlights another two-sided compliment, animation. The horse animations are very wooden, with a long and straight gait, Simple key frames and little physics on the horse make this an odd choice to cut back on as you spend so much time staring at it. In comparison the characters themselves move exceptionally well, as per previous Team Ninja games. The range and timing of the game’s excellent combat is the highlight of the animation system and here I was impressed with the range it offers. Both velocity and power are seen and felt through each swipe, stagger, slice, and parry. Including dismemberment during such a violent time makes sense and adds to the authenticity, even if it is more comic book than Kurasawa.
Sound and Loading
Loading is fast into games and between the real-time cutscenes, but this is not a game that leans into the modern SSD super speeds. Loading a save takes around 8 seconds, which is more than fast enough. But going into the menu ahead of the fixed missions or coming out of the bigger story sequences the game can fade to black for a few seconds causing small delays, making it feel like a legacy of the last gen Team Ninja engine underneath. This is one area, along with the good physics but incredibly short life span objects have before fading out, that could do with some technology focus placed on them.
Music is suitably used in the game with a Hans Zimmer-like acoustic style with string arrangements, pipes and other suitably Japanese themed tunes that add a great deal to both the tranquillity and serenity of the quieter moments and the tension in the heavy battles. Voice acting and mixing is good with the cinematics again being the highlight, while in-battle cries of enemies, the metal clank and scrape of swords or the flames of arrows as they whizz past all create a deep audio experience with a good level of surround. This all works together to help you to pinpoint the location of the source, which helps in some of the bigger enemy count battles. It is far from a showcase on audio quality or 3D sound, but what is here is accomplished, fitting and adds a great deal to the atmosphere of the game.
Summary
Team Ninja was once a leader in the fast-paced action genre with Dead or Alive and the Ninja Gaiden series. Rise of the Ronin is its most ambitious game to date, but the expansive landscape here does not offer a great deal to enjoy or admire over its previous, more focused games such as Nioh. It comes at the cost of consistency and quality throughout, something common in open world games. Locations can be of a variety of quality levels depending on the time spent on each. The opening and more linear sections are often the best from a visual quality and artistic sense, while cinematics are the best example of the team and engine’s highest highs. I applaud the choice of performance modes and frame capped options as it certainly helps the choice for those that prefer resolution over performance. That said, I feel the focus on a bigger map and more modes has come at the cost of a diluted experience and quality throughout. With a single performance focused mode that locks to 60fps, and a smaller, more focused story would have stripped away many of the issues here as when it works, it looks, feels and plays great. It is just that the trimmings on the side can sour the taste somewhat of the great game than lies within.
Red Dead Redemption is now playable for “free” (with an active subscription) via Rockstar Games’ GTA+ service on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.
The development was first spotted by X/Twitter accounts like @videotechuk_, and was later announced more formally by Rockstar Games. This includes the Undead Nightmare expansion as well. IGN has also verified that the version of Red Dead Redemption on GTA+ on PlayStation 5 includes the toggle for 60 frames-per-second.
Red Dead Redemption and Undead Nightmare have been added to the Games Included With GTA+ library, and are available for GTA+ Members to play on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S with their active Membership: https://t.co/G2BbgZT6yUpic.twitter.com/boFyDXkcj0
Last year, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption Update 1.03 quietly gave players a new 60fps toggle option on PS5 via backward compatibility. Although the news was exciting for PS5 owners, Xbox owners felt like they were left in a lurch because their versions of Red Dead Redemption — while running in 4K resolution — were limited to 30fps.
Unfortunately, Xbox owners still won’t be able to experience a “free” souped-up next-gen upgraded version of Red Dead Redemption with their $5.99 GTA+ subscriptions. Still, it’s a better situation than fans who are on PC, considering GTA+ is only on Xbox Series X/S and Playstation 5 and Red Dead Redemption still doesn’t have a port on PC.
Red Dead Redemption was originally released on Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 in 2004. In our review, we wrote, “Red Dead Redemption is a complete game in every sense — both the single player and multiplayer modes are excellent — and still manages to offer an attention to detail you rarely see from a game of this scope.”
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
Today Amazon is offering the recently released Crucial T500 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD for only $72.99. The Crucial T500 is currently one of the top performing PCIe 4.0 SSDs on the market, and no other SSD that can match its speed is even close to this 1TB price right now. The T500 works equally well as additional storage for your PS5 console or as a blazing fast boot drive for your gaming rig.
1TB Crucial T500 PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 SSD for $72.49
The T500 is Crucial’s newest flagship PCIe 4.0 SSD and replaces the P5 Plus. It has proven to be one of the fastest SSDs on the market with sequential speeds of 7,300/6,800MB/s and random speeds of 1.15M/1.44M IOPs. There are only a few SSDs out right now that can match its speed, like the WD Black SN850X, the Samsung 990 Pro, and the SK Hynix P41 Platinum. The T500 utilizes a Phison E25 controller with 232-layer Micron TLC NAND flash memory. It’s backed by a 5 year warranty.
The Crucial T500 also makes for an excellent PS5 SSD.It fulfills all of Sony’s requirements, like a minimum read speed of 5,500MB/s and a PCI-Express Gen4x4 interface. The only caveat is that it doesn’t include a built-in heatsink. That is easily remedied by picking up a inexpensive PS5 heatsink off Amazon.
If you’re looking for more SSD storage upgrade options for your PS5 console, check out our best PS5 SSD deals of 2023. There are even less expensive options if you’re not married to any brand.
