Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a hit, selling over one million copies since going on sale early February 2024.
Cygames’ action RPG hit the million milestone worldwide across PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam just 11 days after it came out on February 1. It’s been a particularly big hit on Steam, where it remains one of the most-played games with a concurrent player peak of 114,054.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink joins a growing list of successful Japanese role-playing games that launched early 2024 and hit one million sales. RGG Studio’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Atlus’ Persona 3: Reload have each sold one million copies, breaking records for each franchise.
IGN’s Granblue Fantasy: Relink review returned an 8/10. We said: “Granblue Fantasy: Relink has a succinct story, fantastic battle system, and fun multiplayer options that help it stand out.”
Announcing the sales, Cygames said Granblue Fantasy: Relink players can look forward to a new quest, new playable characters, and other surprises featured in planned updates starting from March.
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.
Diablo 4’s troubled history with microtransactions has grown more grim after Blizzard began selling class-locked portal reskins.
“Portal through Sanctuary in style,” begins the description for the $29.99 Dark Pathways pack, as noted by PC Gamer. The pack includes the Hell and Back bundle containing the Tempest Gate Sorcerer Town Portal, Transit Artery Rogue Town Portal, Netherworld Threshold Necromancer Town Portal, Wildroot Way Druid Town Portal, Warpath Barbarian Town Portal, and 1000 Platinum (which is itself worth $9.99). There is currently no way to buy the portals individually.
As you’d expect, players have reacted negatively to the existence of the cosmetic pack, and not just because the price of the thing is equivalent to some other hugely popular PC games, such as Palworld, but that the price of the bundle is needlessly raised by the inclusion of premium currency, a standard tactic to make virtual bundles appear more valuable in customers’ eyes. but
It’s the fact the portals can only be used by the applicable character class that’s really sent Diablo 4’s community into a furore. Each portal is unique with a theme that matches the class, so it’s not possible to swap freely between the portals while using the same class. Don’t have a Druid on the go? Then you can’t use the Wildroot Way Druid Town Portal.
It’s worth noting that Diablo 4 is a full-price action role-playing game, and while these portal skins are purely cosmetic and do not affect gameplay, they join a long list of controversial microtransactions that have hit the game since its record-breaking launch in June.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Dungeons & Dragons has announced the release dates for its new Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual, though they won’t all arrive in 2024 despite that expectation set by publisher Wizards of the Coast.
The Dungeon Master’s Guide will arrive a little later on November 12, 2024, but despite Wizards of the Coast itself suggesting the One D&D refresh would kick off fully in 2024, the Monster Manual has slipped into 2025, launching on February 18.
“The new core rulebooks are expected to be released in 2024,” reads a frequently asked questions post still available on the Dungeons & Dragons website.
The publisher didn’t share much about the contents of these new core rulebooks, but as previously announced they will revamp core elements of the current fifth edition without making it redundant to address player feedback.
While some fans will be frustrated with the delay, especially as One D&D was expected to launch fully as a celebration of the game’s 50th anniversary, which is in 2024, Wizards of the Coast still announced a handful of other events to tide players over.
An adventure campaign called Vecna: Eve of Ruin will be released on May 11, letting players engage in “a high-stakes adventure in which the fate of the entire multiverse hangs in the balance.” The heroes begin in the Forgotten Realms and travel to Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk as they race to save existence from obliteration by the notorious lich Vecna who is weaving a ritual to eliminate good, obliterate the gods, and subjugate all worlds.
A book called The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970 – 1977 is being released on June 18 too. Wizards of the Coast described it as “the ultimate book showcasing D&D’s inception, including Gary Gygax’s never-before-seen first draft of D&D written in 1973.”
The Quests from the Infinite Staircase adventure anthology will be released on July 16, weaving together six classic D&D adventures while updating them for the game’s current edition (which will be compatible with One D&D). Exactly which adventures these will be hasn’t been announced, but it will be targeted at characters between levels one and 13.
While co-op third-person shooter Helldivers 2 has gone down well with players and become Sony’s biggest ever PC game launch, it has continued to struggle with login issues and rewards not tracking, even forcing its developer to roll back a patch due to performance problems.
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios released patch 01.000.005 for the game on Steam yesterday, January 12. The update was designed to tackle the main issues impacting players’ ability to log in, but it caused performance problems, which in turn caused Arrowhead to roll the patch back.
“We have rolled back the patch due to some users experiencing significant degradation in performance,” Arrowhead said in a note on the Helldivers Discord. “The mission reward fix will not be affected by this.”
In the patch notes for update 01.000.005, Arrowhead promised to compensate players for lost rewards via an increased reward event. Much of Helldivers 2’s progression is gained from mission rewards, which makes this a particularly bad problem for players trying to grow their avatars more powerful.
Meanwhile, today, February 13, Arrowhead rolled out a patch for the PS5 version that addresses server capacity, login capacity progression, and mission rewards. It’s the same as the PC patch, but Arrowhead said it does not anticipate performance problems on PS5. “We are currently investigating that issue with the PC build from yesterday,” the developer said.
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.
Atomic Heart’s Trapped in Limbo DLC is colourful and eye-catching, and I hated every minute of it. I certainly felt trapped; trapped in a mobile game-inspired expansion that’s repetitive, frustrating, and a chore to complete. As someone who enjoyed Atomic Heart itself a great deal last year and found several things to like about the previous DLC, I am genuinely baffled at how actively I do not want to play Trapped in Limbo ever again.
While Atomic Heart’s first dose of DLC, Annihilation Instinct, explores what happens after the shorter of the main game’s two unfulfilling endings, Trapped in Limbo picks up in the aftermath of the longer one. Respecting and expanding upon both endings is an interesting and commendable approach, even if having these add-on DLC chapters flip-flopping from one ending to the other before anything is resolved makes playing through them feel like reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book from front to back.
In this conclusion, P-3 is left in limbo – a dream world for the subconscious that P-3 was previously sent to during the main campaign while the Kollektive network controlled his body. Unfortunately, unlike the visits to limbo during the core campaign – which were creepy, quirky, and used in brief bursts – Trapped in Limbo drastically overstays its welcome and goes all in on just a couple of gameplay mechanics that are repeated ad nauseam until I was thoroughly nauseated. For clarity, it only goes for a few hours – which is entirely fair for a low-priced add-on. The levels are just not enjoyable, so they drag. Everything here really could’ve been edited into a short prologue level to illustrate P-3’s return to the real-world. The majority of what’s here is just padding.
The first – and worst – are the sliding levels, which function similarly to Counter-Strike’s “surfing” (which, if you’re not familiar with it, is a long-running mod scene for Counter-Strike that embraces a physics quirk and is based around sliding down sloped platforms). Trapped in Limbo’s sliding levels are finicky, trial-and-error affairs, and they go on and on and on. I can see no other reason for the “percentage complete” bar at the top of the screen other than to reassure us that there is, indeed, an end to this torment – if we can persevere to it.
There’s just something off about the way it feels, and I was never able to get a good gauge on how to consistently get the right amount of air off the end of each slide segment. It has nothing to do with jumping, because you can’t. It’s all about the angle – and yet getting it right is not always possible thanks to the huge spiky obstacles. It’s like playing Tony Hawk with a broken ollie button, and the half-pipe is mined. I didn’t feel a sense of satisfaction getting to the end of these sliding levels – only relief that they were done and I wouldn’t have to do them again. That’s not a sensation I associate with having a good time.
Accompanying the two sliding levels are a pair of climbing ones, which focus on first-person platforming (although they also include aggravating sliding sections of their own). These levels are a lot more in line with the moments of first-person puzzle-platforming present in the main game, and they’re certainly a little more straightforward. For instance, it’s quite forgiving when it comes to landing on tiny cubes and detecting clambering opportunities. That said, I still had times where I was cursing the sloppiness of the jumping on a timing-based trap, or reloading my last save after falling into an area it didn’t appear I was supposed to have been able to get into. Like the sliding levels, I have no desire to play these again, either.
If you’re wondering why we haven’t discussed combat yet, it’s because there really isn’t much of it beyond a few arenas. Enemies are largely edible reskins of the ones in the main game but, despite the small cache of sugar-coated candy cannons at your disposal, the combat is anything but sweet. I get P-3 is living in a dreamland here, but it just has none of the punch or metal-rending mayhem of the main campaign. It’s plain.
The fifth and final level of Trapped in Limbo is the weirdest of all, and that’s saying something in a universe where the main character’s dead wife is actually two eight-foot-tall ballerina robots. It’s… an endless runner. The level actually does have an end, but it’s long enough to feel like it doesn’t – and not in a good way. I get that this version of Limbo is a weird place where anything’s possible, but an endless runner as Atomic Heart DLC is a little like having a band you like coming out for their encore and humming a nursery rhyme.
Not quite what you’d expect – and you’d probably walk out.
Nintendo is attributing the financial success of Super Mario Bros. Wonder to its multiplayer mode, as Mario’s latest outing becomes the latest Nintendo game to offer another way for one to make memories with their friends and loved ones.
In a Q&A with investors following its recent earnings report, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa explained some of the likely contributing factors to Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s success. Furukawa explained how the multiplayer feature in Wonder was vital in that it “suited the need for a game many people can enjoy with family and friends” as the game was released ahead of the holiday season and was likely a gift for many during that period.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder offers local and online multiplayer. The latter allows four players to play on one Nintendo Switch and run through the game’s levels; in contrast, the latter allows up to 12 players to gather in a private lobby before breaking off into groups of four to run through the levels. According to Furukawa, “around half” of Mario Wonder’s users played in multiplayer.
More interestingly, Furukawa noted that The Super Mario Bros. Movie, released in theatres and is available to stream on Peacock and Netflix, was also an influential factor in Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s sales.
“So even though the theatrical release is over, the number of people who have seen the movie for the first time continues to increase, and we believe this has also helped drive the good sales of Super Mario Bros. Wonder,” Furukawa explained.
Nintendo has previously been vocal about Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s success. In early November, the company revealed that it was the fastest-selling Mario game to date, selling 4,3 million units within the first two weeks of its release with the company anticipating the number would continue to grow.
In our review of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, IGN said: “Super Mario Bros. Wonder looks and plays like the true next step for 2D Mario platformers. Wonder effects change each stage in both surprising and delightful ways, the Flower Kingdom makes for a vibrant and refreshing change of pace, and Elephant Mario steals the show.”
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Like spotting the first sign of shore after years adrift, Skull and Bones has finally, actually found its way to launch. Six separate delays and several different concepts that were forced to walk the plank might’ve made you understandably apprehensive about Ubisoft’s long-brewing pirate game, but I’ve already found a yo-ho-whole lot to be excited about after spending nearly 30 hours with its surprisingly unconstrained open beta this past weekend. The 17th-century Indian Ocean works well as avast open world to be explored and plundered, the RPG mechanics are (briny) deep with opportunities for buildcrafting alongside your fellow scurvy dogs, and the naval combat you’ll spend bucca-nearly all your time on the high seas engaging with is tactical and consistently entertaining. Aside from the expected instability one usually encounters with a beta for an online game, the only red flags so far are the lackluster story and a list of endgame activities that feel like they could become repetitive in short oar-der. I won’t be able to complete my voyage until the full version sets sail later this week, but I’m already excited to sea more.
Skull and Bones is fairly unique in the grand scheme of open-world RPGs in that it gives you direct control of a ship and lets you sail the ocean as you pillage ports and send enemy ships to Davy Jones’ locker in search of loot and infamy during the Golden Age of Piracy. Alone or alongside the ships of up to two friends as a fleet, you’ll gather resources and complete action-packed heists to feed your greed and climb Jacob’s progression ladder as you power up your vessel, which is usually a blast. Though it might be tempting to compare this live-service, pirate-filled RPG to Sea of Thieves, they really couldn’t be more different – Skull and Bones focuses entirely on wonderfully intricate maritime gameplay and commodities/economy simulation, not running around on foot as you get into sword fights and eat unpeeled bananas stem-first.
The focus on navals fights works a lot better than I thought it would.
While it’s a bit odd at first that you only ever get to explore the world by controlling your ship (aside from brief intermissions at the social hub), it took just a few hours for me to not feel like I was missing out on much. That’s primarily thanks to how good the ship-to-ship combat quickly becomes. After a fairly underwhelming opening meant to help you get your sea legs with the glorified hunk of driftwood as a starting ship, things really open up. Once you start to upgrade and customize your vessel to fit your playstyle, then tackle some of the more challenging areas and activities that require you to seriously up your game, Ubisoft’s strict focus on navals fights works a lot better than I thought it would.
Skull and Bones appears to have only the faintest whiff of a story, which has so far amounted to a handful of conversations with pirate legend John Scurlock (who keeps insisting I should kill the French). That’s not to say there aren’t a few likable rogues and skallywags to meet along the way – like Yanita, who introduces you to the world of black market trading with all the enthusiasm and pomp of a circus ringmaster – but NPCs are little more than vendors and quest dispensers with no substantial story connecting them. It’s especially weird that meatier pieces of the story seem to have been lopped off since I saw them in the closed beta last year, like an early part where you meet a dying pirate named Abel Rassler, who you now just find dead instead. My guess is these changes were made to keep you out on the ocean waves as long as possible rather than lingering in the social spaces, and I certainly found myself spending a lot more time doing just that – which isn’t such a bad thing. Still, I expect my pirate games to have a bit of drama, infighting, and betrayal, and it doesn’t look like Skull and Bones will deliver on that front based on this initial taste I’ve gotten. There’s still a chance more of that could get turned on when the final version is out, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Skull and Bones appears to have only the faintest whiff of a story so far.
Instead, your attention is directed toward the compelling treadmill of blasting through increasingly lethal enemy ships and then using your loot to craft better instruments of piracy. Ship-to-ship PvE combat is the star of the show, and it requires strategy, cooperation with other player-controlled vessels, and good aim to pull off at higher levels. For example, when taking on powerful fleets found in later areas, you might want to reconfigure your ship to a tank build optimized for withstanding cannonfire and dealing close-range damage, while your friends focus on DPS or even support options capable of healing allies by peppering them with nonsensically medicinal cannonballs. (How would that even work?) It’s also awesome how great naval combat and sailing the open ocean look, as a lot of effort clearly went into giving elements like waves and cannonfire an extra layer of visual polish – although, on the flip side, NPCs often look animatronic, with dead eyes and robotic mouths.
Crafting new ships and trying out different builds is extremely compelling. Just when I thought I’d built my ideal vessel, I’d see a special cannon or a unique piece of ship armor I just couldn’t live without, then gleefully jump through surprisingly rewarding hoops by attacking certain factions and seeking out rare resources to buy a schematic and craft it. Taking those new toys out to lay the beatdown on any blaggards foolish enough to oppose me is especially thrilling. For example, I spent hours and tons of resources to craft my first mortar, which unlocked the ability to rain fire from the sky on my enemies like I was calling in an airstrike. Sure, doing so forced me to spend every last scrap of my ill-gotten riches, but can you really put a price on turning your foes into pulled pork?
Crafting new ships and trying out builds is extremely compelling.
Once you’ve established yourself on the high seas a bit, you’ll also begin to understand both trade routes and the supply and demand they influence in different parts of the world. You’ll even gain access to the black market via The Helm, a mechanic that allows you to build and manage underworld businesses by creating and delivering embargoed goods, like opium. This opens up a whole new way to line your pockets on your quest, as you can ferry legitimate and illegitimate goods to and fro, buying low in one place and selling high in another. Later on you can even conquer areas and turn them into automated revenue generators to help you obtain the most powerful equipment, and I’m excited to push the limits of this economy system in the final version.
Though I went pretty hard during this latest beta and even got a sneak peek of the endgame activities last month, I still have plenty of questions about what else Skull and Bones has in store beyond what I played this past weekend. I still don’t know if there are any dedicated PvP options or other activities beyond the single Legendary Heist public event in the beta, which sends you to take down an NPC ship, then fight over the loot with anyone else in the area. And I still have no idea how the planned microtransactions and season model fit into things, since they’ve not been present in any version of Skull and Bones I’ve seen so far. But I have really enjoyed what I’ve played, and since progress in the beta carries over to launch, I’m looking forward to setting sail right where I left off and becoming a proper pirate legend later this week.
If there’s any Marvel hero who can challenge Deadpool or Spider-Man in the popularity department these days, it’s Wolverine. That’s why it’s fitting that the ol’ Canucklehead is joining Spidey in getting a big-budget action game from the folks at Insomniac.
That’s right — things are looking up for Wolverine in games and movies again. Aside from the Insomniac Wolvie game that’s in the works, Hugh Jackman is also returning to the character, joining Ryan Reynolds for Deadpool & Wolverine, which will finally properly unite the two heroes. In the MCU to boot! We just got our first official trailer for Deadpool 3 during the Super Bowl, and man, are we excited.
Wolverine has a fascinating history in the video game realm. It took years for developers to figure out how to translate both his distinctive look and his unique powers from page to screen. Let’s take a look back at Wolverine’s clawful evolution in video games.
The Early X-Men Games
The X-Men may have been around since 1963, but it would be decades before they grew to become Marvel’s dominant franchise (thanks in no small part to Wolverine himself). The franchise didn’t appear in video game form until 1989’s Uncanny X-Men on the NES. We suspect many fans wish they hadn’t, as this is generally regarded to be one of the worst superhero games ever made.
Wolverine himself was spun out into his own NES game in 1991. This overhead action game earned equally scathing reviews, and it embodies many of the problems developers faced in trying to accurately depict the hero. The iconic Marc Silvestri cover art is a far cry from the generic, pixelated blob gamers actually control. The game’s biggest sin is tying Wolverine’s trademark claws to his health meter, forcing gamers to hunt down hamburgers and soda to replenish his steadily depleting energy. That would become an unfortunate trope in many early X-Men games.
In this early period, it would fall on Konami to give gamers a taste of what a good X-Men game looks like. Konami’s X-Men arcade game follows the same beat-em-up formula as classics like The Simpsons and TMNT. It’s based on the animated pilot Pryde of the X-Men, so it features Wolverine in the classic brown costume he wore throughout the 1980’s. It was visually a huge leap from its X-Men predecessors, with colorful, large sprites that channeled the energy of the early ‘90s comics. Sadly, it still made the mistake of limiting how often players could tap into each character’s mutant power. That would continue to be a trend for a while to come.
The 16-Bit Era
The early to mid ‘90s marked a golden age of X-Men games, though perhaps more in quantity than quality. 1992’s multiplatform title Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge set the tone for this era, offering fans a side-scrolling action gameplay that looked and sounded better than it actually played.
1993’s X-Men on the Sega Genesis might be the most popular game from this era. The game’s sharp, colorful look and killer soundtrack appealed to fans, even if the generic and often frustrating gameplay didn’t. The Genesis game is also notable for being the first to feature Wolverine’s classic yellow and black costume, which was back in vogue at the time thanks to both Jim Lee’s X-Men comics and X-Men: The Animated Series.
Sadly, the Genesis game was also guilty of that fundamental Wolverine faux pas – limiting how much players could unleash his adamantium claws.
The Super Nintendo, meanwhile, got its own mutant adventure in 1994’s X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse. This game also took its visual cues straight from the contemporary X-Men comics, including a roster of playable characters pulled from the monthly X-Men series. It was an early taste of things to come from developer Capcom.
Wolverine finally got a chance to fly solo again in 1994’s Wolverine: Adamantium Rage. Our hero’s yellow costume was again on display, with the SNES version doing an especially good job of adapting the dynamic, colorful look of the comics. While it debuted to mixed reviews, Adamantium Rage did a better job than most of tapping into Wolverine’s mutant abilities. It even included his healing factor in the form of a regenerating health meter. The catch, however, is that stopping and waiting too long would result in the android Elsie Dee showing up and killing Wolverine herself.
Capcom’s Berserker Barrage
If Konami’s X-Men arcade game gave fans a glimpse of what the franchise could look like with powerful hardware behind it, Capcom blew the doors down with 1994’s X-Men: Children of the Atom. While basically a Street Fighter clone with a playable cast of mutant heroes and villains, the game immediately won a fan following thanks to its dynamic visuals and over-the-top special moves.
The large, detailed sprites in Children of the Atom became the new gold standard for X-Men games, merging the style of the early ‘90s X-Men comics with a more stylized, manga-esque approach. In that sense, the game’s graphics mirrored the trend of the comics themselves, with up-and-coming artists like Joe Madureira bringing a heavy manga influence to the American comics scene.
Children of the Atom also featured many voice actors from X-Men: The Animated Series, including Cal Dodd as Wolverine. The result was a best of all worlds approach, where Wolverine finally looked as good as he sounded.
Children of the Atom and various follow-ups like X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom also showed fans a Wolverine completely unleashed, with no limitations on his deadly fighting abilities. If anything, Wolverine was so badly overpowered in X-Men vs. Street Fighter that he had to be nerfed for Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
While you couldn’t play as Wolverine in every level, at least you weren’t limited in how often you could unsheathe his claws.
Wolverine would make one final appearance on the SNES in 1995’s Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems. Here, Capcom repurposed the eye-popping sprites from the fighting games to create a more traditional side-scrolling action game. While you couldn’t play as Wolverine in every level, at least you weren’t limited in how often you could unsheathe his claws.
The X-Men Go 3D
With the X-Men arcade games nailing the look of the Marvel Universe in 2D form, the next challenge was translating that look to 3D. It wasn’t easy.
First up was X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse, which was essentially a mod of the original Quake released as a retail game. While the game boasted a wider color palette than Quake ever did, the crudely animated, blocky character models didn’t exactly scream “X-Men.” It didn’t help that the single player mode had gamers control a generic grunt mowing down endless waves of X-Men clones, rather than controlling Wolverine and friends directly.
Things went quiet on the Wolverine front for a few years, but the arrival of the first X-Men movie helped reinvigorate the franchise’s gaming prospects. 2000’s X-Men: Mutant Academy became the first 3D X-Men fighting game, and naturally, Wolverine was one of the playable fighters. Considering the limitations of the aging Playstation hardware, the game did a reasonable job of replicating the look and feel of the late-’90s X-Men comics. Dodd even returned to voice Wolverine again.
Mutant Academy spawned a direct sequel on the Playstation 1, as well as a more ambitious followup called X-Men: Next Dimension on the Playstation 2, Gamecube and Xbox. Next Dimension offered fans an unusual blend of comic and movie-inspired elements. Rather than feature the X-Men in their traditional spandex costumes, the game opted for the modern black leather uniforms introduced in the comic book series New X-Men. Patrick Stewart also narrated the game’s story mode, though the plot itself was set within Marvel’s comic book universe.
That same hybrid approach carried over to Wolverine’s next solo game in 2003. Titled X2: Wolverine’s Revenge, the game was clearly intended to lure in moviegoers fresh out of seeing X2: X-Men United. But despite Hugh Jackman’s face on the cover, the game was mostly comic-inspired (apart from again bringing in Patrick Stewart as Professor X). Wolverine once again wears his black leather New X-Men uniform, and Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, provided the hero’s voice.
Wolverine’s Revenge didn’t entirely succeed in putting gamers in Wolverine’s boots, sadly. The punishing difficulty, combined with a strange reliance on stealth mechanics over hacking and slashing, made them feel like anything but an immortal superhero. Wolverine’s hunched, animalistic animations may have looked great for the time, but the controls left much to be desired.
Wolverine’s Revenge didn’t entirely succeed in putting gamers in Wolverine’s boots, sadly.
The Rise of X-Men Legends
For many X-Men fans, the franchise hit its gaming peak with 2004’s X-Men Legends. This action RPG allowed players to control a team of four heroes, battling the Brotherhood and leveling up.
Visually, two elements set legends apart from the crowd. The game drew inspiration from Marvel’s Ultimate X-Men comic rather than the traditional X-books, meaning the X-Men were decked out in sleek, modern black and gold costumes. The characters were also cel-shaded, echoing the comic book-inspired approach of the Ultimate Spider-Man game. Wolverine himself was voiced by Steve Blum, who would go on to reprise the role in the animated series Wolverine and the X-Men.
Legends also did a better job than most of its predecessors when it came to making players actually feel like Wolverine. Gone were the simplistic platforming elements and special claw meters, replaced by a wide array of moves that could be upgraded over time.
Legends inspired a direct sequel in 2005’s X-Men Legends II: The Rise of Apocalypse. The franchise then expanded to encompass the wider Marvel Universe in 2006’s Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Ultimate Alliance abandoned the cel-shaded look in favor of a more realistic art style still heavily inspired by the Ultimate Universe comics. Its sequel veered in a different direction, with more traditional comic book designs.
Wolverine’s Movie Adventures
Surprisingly, it wasn’t until 2006 that gamers were treated to an X-Men game based specifically on the movie series. X-Men: The Official Game acted as a prequel to X-Men: The Last Stand, with the story mode introducing villains like Silver Samurai and the Sentinels and explaining why Nightcrawler suddenly vanished after X2.
Naturally, the game featured both the voice and likeness of Hugh Jackman, along with several other movie mainstays. The game also made some notable attempts at depicting Wolverine’s powers, including a regenerating health meter and a berserker rage mode that activates whenever Wolverine takes too much damage.
That game wound up serving as a rough prototype for Wolverine’s next – and easily best – solo game. 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine served as an adaptation of the movie, albeit with a greatly expanded plot that added in major characters and subplots.
More importantly, X-Men Origins: Wolverine finally hit on the perfect formula for making players feel like Wolverine. The ferocious combat was heavily inspired by God of War, taking full advantage of Logan’s unbreakable claws and healing factor and ensuring players were never limited in how often they used them. Thanks to the processing power of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, players could even see Wolverine’s battered body deform and tear apart in real time.
While the main character model in X-Men Origins is based directly on Jackman, the game also included several alternate costumes drawn directly from the comics. If not for Deadpool & Wolverine, this might have been the clsoest we ever got to seeing Jackman don the classic comic book costume.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine finally hit on the perfect formula for making players feel like Wolverine.
The Modern Wolverine Games
Sadly, X-Men Origins: Wolverine sets up a sequel Activision never delivered, and things have been fairly quiet on the X-Men front in recent years. Unless you count Silicon Knights’ disastrous 2011 game X-Men: Destiny, and we’d rather not.
Wolverine has appeared in a number of Marvel games following his last solo outing, often voiced by Steve Blum. 2011’s Marvel vs Capcom 3 and 2019’s Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 both stand out because of their attempts to pair detailed, modern graphics with a comic book aesthetic. While not strictly cel-shaded, the art styles in both games emphasize heavy black lines and shadows. The now-defunct online RPG Marvel Heroes also deserves a nod thanks to its sheer number of alternate costumes available for Wolverine and his fellow heroes.
But if things have gone quiet on the X-Men front of late, Wolverine himself is due for a big comeback. He’s set to return in Marvel’s Wolverine, a Playstation 5-exclusive action game developed by Insomniac. We don’t know much about the scope of the game just yet, but the teaser trailer showcases a gritty, blood-soaked version of Wolverine enjoying himself in a seedy Madripoor bar. If Marvel’s Spider-Man is any indication, we can probably expect a brand new interpretation of Wolverine’s classic costume alongside dozens of familiar suits.
Which of Wolverine’s many video game appearances is your favorite? What costumes do you want to see in Marvel’s Wolverine? Claw your way down to the comments and let us know, bub.
One Palworld player has fully cranked up their ingenuity by creating a massive city, and they didn’t even need to use a single mod to make a virtual urban base.
Reddit user Commercial_Neck8986 has posted a screenshot and a video of their Palworld base showcasing how they made an entire urban-esque base called Palcity. Commercial_Neck8986 notes that it took them two weeks to finish their base and that it used no mods to create Palcity.
IGN has reached out to the user for additional comment.
“No mods carried enough stone to not overweight,” the Redditor replied when a user accused them of using a mod to create Palcity. “Good thing trees are present everywhere, so I just chop off some wood for the roofing.” As you can see from the many videos posted by Commercial_Neck8986, Palcity is quite massive, from stone gates to multiple buildings and homes and an entire wall that borders all of Palcity into a self-contained haven.
In another reply, Commercial_Neck8986 mentioned that it made storage near a palbox easier to transport all the materials needed to make Palcity the giant fortress.
The lack of mods Commercial_Neck8986 used to create Palcity is incredible. In contrast, some modders have created save files for starter bases. But there is also a mod called Duck’s Progressive Bases, which allows players to easily have more Palworld bases.
In our PC early access review of Palworld, we said: “Palworld may crib quite a bit from Pokémon’s homework, but deep survival mechanics and a hilarious attitude make it hard to put down – even in Early Access.”
Palworld is out now on PC and Xbox. If you are playing this widely popular open-world survival game right now, consider checking out IGN’s interactive Palworld map to help you navigate this vast virtual world. Or check out our guide on base progression in case you need assistance building a solid base that could one-day rival Palcity.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
The official announcement reads, “Please join us for a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast. Hear from Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty as they share updates on the Xbox business.”
Please join us for a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast.
Hear from Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty as they share updates on the Xbox business. pic.twitter.com/TxwWJVUbgx
The podcast is expected to address questions about Xbox’s first-party releases including Starfield, Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Indiana Jones and the Great Cicle, which have been rumored to be heading to PlayStation and other platforms soon. Spencer reportedly reassured employees that Microsoft plans to continue making consoles amid questions surrounding Xbox’s third-party strategy going forward.
Reports that Xbox plans to release first-party exclusives on platforms such as PlayStation have had the community in a frenzy for at least a month now. In January, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the company can be a “good publisher on Sony and Nintendo and PCs and Xbox.”
“We love gaming. In fact, Flight Simulator was created before even Windows. But, we were number three, number four. And now with Activision, I think we have a chance of being a good publisher — quite frankly — on Sony and Nintendo and PCs and Xbox. We’re excited about that acquisition closing and I’m glad we’ve got it through,” Nadella said.
In a recent piece published on IGN, Unlocked host Ryan McCaffrey wrote, “The future of Xbox is likely to look very different from both its past and its present. But in this present, we are watching a monolith of a company attempt to rewrite the rules of engagement in real time. It might work – but will Microsoft throw away 20 years of hard-earned brand loyalty in the process? Stay tuned next week.”
