Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden Review

In a sea of sequels, Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden has a wonderfully fresh story to tell. I didn’t know I wanted to play as a ghost-hunting detective in a supernatural, alternate reality version of 1600s America, but developer Don’t Nod provides such a compelling mix of death, drama, and romance it made me wonder why no one had tried this sooner. It mostly sticks the landing with the things it tries beyond that story as well, from the excellent concept of swapping between your living and spectral protagonists, to its absolutely stellar investigation mechanics. That said, other parts of Banishers aren’t as original, borrowing the bulk of its structure from plenty of action-adventure games before it, but with stiff and repetitive combat that can’t stand up to those inspirations. Even still, for those in favor of weird games brimming with heartbreak and ectoplasm alike, there’s a lot to enjoy here.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is the latest entry in a genre I’ve inadvisably taken to calling “crevice crawlers.” Y’know, those third-person games with a serious story and slow pacing, where two people walk around and talk to one another in hushed tones in between combat encounters, and for some reason you spend a lot of time squeezing through crevices to get from place-to-place? I’m talking God of War, A Plague Tale, The Last of Us – classic crevice crawlers. Anyway, while I quite enjoy the occasional sad whispering duo sidling through rubble, at this point the formula is also pretty played out. In the case of Banishers, it made the adventure feel more familiar than I cared for (despite a refreshingly original setting), owing to its steadfast adherence to that trendy template.

Though it certainly doesn’t win points for innovation, Banishers executes on this blueprint quite well, with strong writing, likable characters, and a few good twists and turns in the story to make for an enjoyable cross country odyssey. Playing as Red, the overly-emotional Scotsman with hair that’s way too cool for the time period, and Antea, the ill-tempered master ghost hunter who is a ghost herself, you’ll travel around talking to all kinds of pilgrims in order to solve their hauntings. As occult experts called Banishers in a mystical 17th century alternate reality, it’s your job to seek out ghosts, help them resolve their unfinished business, then send them to the afterlife, and that ends up being exactly as fun as it sounds. Seriously, who doesn’t want to be a dope slayer of specters and run around banishing spirits like an “Oops, All Ghosts” Geralt of Rivia?

As with a lot of games like it, Banishers does suffer from some pacing issues. There’s lots of repeated story beats where our heroes retread the same ground as they process their grief and discuss their dilemma, and you’ll be asked to crawl through dark places, climb mountain sides, and wait in extremely slow elevators while your characters talk about how much of a bummer death is. Thankfully, most of the time the writing is good enough to justify that pace, but I’ll admit I started to zone out by the eleventh or twelfth time I had to hear them chat about spectral webs. There are also lots of little unnecessary pauses that become tiresome, like how after every time you rest at a campfire to level up or use a fast travel point, your characters stare at one another lovingly for a few seconds before finally rising to their feet. There were several occasions where I’d sit through that only to realize I’d fast traveled to the wrong campfire and have to go back and watch it again.

Pacing problems aside, the story has strong writing and likable characters.

Beyond taking on haunting cases and working to save the town of New Eden from its nightmarish fate, you’ll also be free to roam the map in search of optional combat encounters, puzzles to be solved, and side quests to tackle, all of which are fairly solid. Special combat scenarios offer an extra level of challenge for those who would seek it by throwing in modifiers that require you to change up your playstyle, like one where only certain types of attacks do any real damage, and puzzles offer some extra loot to help you upgrade your equipment by solving fairly straightforward environmental logic problems (simple “move this minecart here” or “shoot this magical target” type stuff). Side quests allow you to dive a little deeper into characters you meet throughout the main quest, with some really quality writing and smaller stories to engage with, though you aren’t given a ton of incentive to tackle these aside from learning a bit more about the world.

The supernatural reimagining of colonial America is a fantastic backdrop for the tale of love and loss at the center of things, with death and the afterlife constantly looming over our paranormal heroes. When Antea is killed in the story’s opening moments and becomes a ghost, Red finds himself working in tandem with the very thing he’s supposed to combat, which creates a really cool dilemma where you’ll need to decide to stay the course and work toward your partner’s ultimate banishment or forsake your duties in an attempt to bring her back to life. Wandering around the countryside to help others resolve their own losses in your role as a Banisher and uncovering the sordid history of New Eden gives you plenty of opportunities to decide what kind of ghost hunter you want to be, with lots of morally gray situations you’ll be asked to weigh in on.

However, it is a little disappointing that, with all the interesting supernatural mysteries they set up, you only get three nuance-free options to choose from at the end of each case. You can either give the ghost its ascent, which is a friendly way of sending it to the afterlife, banish the ghost, which is basically just an aggressive way of doing the same thing, or you can blame the living, killing them and absorbing their essence in your quest for power. The only way to bring your love back from the dead is by sacrificing as many people as possible, so blaming the living is mostly presented as the “evil” choice, even when some of these humans totally deserve to get got. Meanwhile, banishing or ascending the dead are usually framed as two flavors of the right thing to do, even in cases where a living person is clearly in the wrong.

In many scenarios, having to choose just one of those conclusions feels like you’re being unnecessarily forced to pick a side – or worse yet, you’re just choosing the option that’s going to get you to whichever ending you’re shooting for. For example, in one case I encountered two equally guilty twins, one who had been killed and while the other was still alive, and had to choose to get rid of the ghost or kill the living twin. It would have been nice to have the option to banish the ghost and turn the human into the authorities, or engage with that situation in any number of more nuanced ways.

I was eager to tackle every new haunting that popped up on my map.

That doesn’t stop it from being extremely cool to step into the boots of two ghost investigators though, as you swap between your living and dead characters to make use of their unique abilities as you hunt for clues, track your quarry through the woods, and interview suspects. As Red, you’re able to perform dope rituals to do things like see visions from the past via psychometry or compel spirits to show themselves to you, while as Antea you can see invisible objects hidden in the world and use your awesome and kinda terrifying spectral powers to manipulate the environment, like letting out a banshee shriek to destroy barriers. Swapping between the two perspectives to uncover clues, overcome simple logic puzzles, and solve mysteries is without question the best part of Banishers, and made me eager to tackle every new haunting case that popped up on my map.

The instant character swapping carries over into combat too, where you’ll either be fighting with sword and rifle as Red or throwing phantom haymakers and using ghost powers as Antea, and the concept mostly succeeds there as well. What starts out as a fairly barebones system of dodge rolling, parrying, and light or heavy attacks gradually evolves into something much more compelling as you unlock abilities throughout the adventure. For example, I absolutely love the unlockable perks that let you time your swapping between characters in the middle of a hit combo in order to trigger a special attack, which also provides a window of invulnerability as one character is replaced with the other. By the end, I was able to swap back and forth between the two without a break in my assault, triggering special maneuvers along the way, like Antea’s ability to leap across the map to smack someone in the face.

Similarly, there are lots of interesting opportunities to customize your equipment loadout and skill tree perks to fit your playstyle, like how I would take all the powers that granted me buffs at the cost of longer ability cooldowns, but then complimented them with equipment that made me stronger for each power that was currently waiting on a cooldown. And since you’re given the ability to switch out all your abilities and equipment every time you rest at a campfire, there’s plenty of freedom to completely change up your playstyle as you go without getting locked into a specific build or having to pay some obscene skill tree reset fee.

Combat definitely has some hiccups, though, as controlling your characters often feels pretty clunky. Movement can be sluggish or downright unresponsive as you get caught on the smallest things when you roll around. Sometimes the camera can also move in erratic ways, especially when it’s trying to focus on something with Banishers’ hit-or-miss lock-on system. I was playing on the hardest difficulty, and died on more than one occasion when the lock-on system wouldn’t do its thing or would bizarrely point the camera in the opposite direction of the enemy. It’s still enjoyable to take on armies of apparitions, but combat is definitely missing a certain level of polish that can be pretty frustrating.

Enemy variety also became painfully scarce less than halfway through the roughly 30 hours it took me to complete the story, as there’s only a handful of enemy types that are added far too slowly to keep combat fresh. Wolves, which are introduced right at the beginning, became especially tiresome when I was still seeing them 20 hours later, and I cannot even begin to describe to you how many of those poor, furry beasts I sent whimpering into the afterlife. That said, most of the monsters in the mix are at least interesting to fight, from specters that dive into the corpses of other enemies to reanimate them, to skeletal marksmen who keep their distance and try to take you out with a rifle. I just wish I didn’t have to see the same undead faces so often, because by the end even my favorites had become irritations.

The Best PS5 SSD Deals (February 2024)

2023 and 2024 have shown that 2TB PS5 SSD upgrades are actually worth the price. In 2022, prices for 1TB PS5 SSDs averaged around $150, whereas 2TB SSDs hovered closer to $300. Now, we’re seeing 1TB SSDs trickle below the $70 price point and 2TB SSDs can drop to around $100 or sometimes even lower if there’s a good sale. It’s worth noting, though, that you can’t use any old SSD and expect it to perform well on the PS5 console. You’ll want to pick up a PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 solid-state drive with at least a 5,500MB/s read speed to match the PS5’s internal drive.

TL;DR – The Best PS5 SSD Deals Right Now

Note that Sony recommends a heatsink attached to your SSD and not all SSDs listed here have pre-installed heatsinks. For the ones that do, we’ll be sure to mention it. For the ones that don’t, all you have to do is purchase your own heatsink (like this one for $9) and install it yourself. For our top recommended picks for 2024, check out our full breakdown for the Best PS5 SSDs.

XPG 2TB GAMMIX S70 Blade PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 SSD for $149.99

For those looking to jump from a 1TB SSD, you can’t go wrong with this excellent deal on a 2TB SSD from XPG. Its price has dropped 28%, from $209.99 to $149.99, but you’ll have to grab a heatsink to go with it (which you can do here for $9). This SSD also has read and write speeds of 7400/6800MB/s.

Adata Legend Max 2TB PS5 SSD with Heatsink for $149.99

Much like the SSD listed above, this is one of the faster SSDs on the market with read speeds of up to 7400MBps and write speeds of up to 6800MBps. Alongside 2TB of storage, it also has a very slim preinstalled heatsink that can slot perfectly into your PS5. Right now, it’s discounted 25% to $149.99.

Samsung 980 Pro 2TB M.2 SSD for $163.11

Samsung SSDs need no introduction. They’ve made some of the most popular and reliable PS5 SSDs on the market. The 980 Pro has been out for a long time, way back in January of 2020. A testament to its reliability is the fact that Samsung didn’t feel any need to release any newer flagship model until 2022. In terms of performance, it’s no longer the fastest SSD on the market (the 990 Pro is), but it’s still a very fast drive. It certainly more than meets the minimum 5600MB/s speed requirement to be used as a PS5 storage upgrade, with speeds of up to 7,100MB/s.

Samsung 990 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 SSD for $169.99

The Samsung 990 Pro is an excellent SSD for your PS5. From a purely performance perspective, it’s overkill; the stock SSD in your PS5 will be the limiting factor. You’ll want to pick up a PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 solid state drive with a rated 5,500MB/s read speed to match the PS5’s internal drive and the 990 Pro is much faster. This one does not come with a heatsink, though, so you’ll need to invest in one.

Silicon Power XS70 4TB SSD with Built-in PS5 Heatsink for $223.96

Looking for even more storage to have in your PS5? Look no further than this incredible deal on a 4TB SSD from Silicon Power. It’s currently discounted 25% to $223.96, so well worth taking advantage of before it goes back up to its $299.99 MSRP. It also comes with a built-in heatsink, so it’ll be ready to go right away, and has excellent read and write speeds of 7,200MB/s and 6,800MB/s, respectively.

What if the SSD Doesn’t Include a Heatsink?

Sony recommends you install an SSD that has an attached heatsink. If the SSD you purchase doesn’t include one, it’s simple enough to buy one for $9 on Amazon and add it yourself. Most of these heatsinks are just attached using an adhesive like thermal tape.

Budget to Best: PS5 SSDs

There may be other SSD deals out there, but these are the PS5 SSDs we’ve tried ourselves and highly recommend. They also double up as outstanding boot drives for your gaming PC, in case you don’t need additional storage for your PS5 console.

How To Install a New PS5 SSD

It’s extremely easy! Removing the case cover is completely toolless. In fact, the only screw you have to remove is the one that keeps the cover for the SSD bay in place. You don’t even put it back when you’re done. Sony has a quick and easy YouTube video guide.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

Earth Defense Force 6 Western Launch Delayed to the Summer

Earth Defense Force 6 now launches in the West this summer, D3Publisher has announced.

The third-person action shooter, already out in Japan, was set for launch in the West this spring but will now release this summer. That’s for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam. There is no launch planned for Xbox or Nintendo Switch.

“Developer Sandlot and publisher D3Publisher have decided to extend the launch window to add finishing touches and finalize preparations for its Western launch,” reads a joint statement.

Here’s the official blurb:

“In the year 2025, humanity won the war against the unknown invaders known as Primers, and peace returned to the planet. As a result of the conflict, 90% of Earth’s population was destroyed, and civilization was on the brink of collapse. Earth Defense Force 6 picks up three years after the events of Earth Defense Force 5 in the year 2027. The survivors continue their efforts to rebuild but threats to the world’s safety remain persistent. The Primers left behind many alien colonists and the two species have become increasingly hostile toward one another. The number of invasive organisms nesting in the depths of the earth and its ruins continues to increase. The Earth Defense Force (EDF) is once again called upon to protect the planet from the aggressive extraterrestrial invaders and determine the true purpose of the giant ring-shaped object that has recently appeared in the sky. Will the EDF be able to pull humanity from the edge of defeat, or will this be the species’ last stand?”

IGN’s Earth Defense Force 5 review returned an 8.3. We said: “Even with dated graphics, EDF 5 is an energetic essay on action game design that is way too much fun to miss – especially with friends.”

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.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Dev Rocksteady Creating Entirely New Leaderboard Due to Burn Bug

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League dev Rocksteady has announced plans to create an entirely new leaderboard due to a Burn bug.

In a post on the game’s Discord, Rocksteady discussed the looter shooter’s upcoming patch, and in doing so said that it had noticed “some of our more dedicated players started reaching Mastery Levels beyond our wildest expectations.”

The root cause of this is a bug with the Burn status effect. This was supposed to scale across the Mastery Levels so it remains viable for damage dealing, but a “major” unintended bug made it scale incorrectly. “As Mastery levels increased, Burn’s damage also increased, which basically meant that if you used a Burn build, every Mastery Level had the same difficulty,” Rocksteady explained.

The developer said the bug “left us with somewhat of a conundrum.” “Our most dedicated players had now reached a Mastery Level far beyond what the game was balanced for at launch due to this bug, and weren’t getting the challenge or variety we wanted our End Game to provide. We had to ask ourselves, what can we do to fix this, and more importantly, should we fix it at all?”

In the end, Rocksteady decided the Burn bug had to go. Explaining its decision, the studio said: “While there is no doubt that the Burn build is a really powerful and fun build – it should be! – we didn’t intend for it to be the only viable End Game build for launch and beyond.”

So, the bug will be fixed so that it scales correctly with damage taken effects on enemies, as originally intended. But Burn’s ability to scale infinitely is not long for this world.

Unfortunately, the knock-on effect of this bug is that Rocksteady has been forced to reset the game’s leaderboards. “Since this change will be pretty fundamental to the leaderboards and your continued progression on them, we are committed to creating a new leaderboard for you all, so you can continue to explore the different builds in the game.

“All the entries on the current leaderboard will exist in perpetuity and will be a permanent record of all your achievements. We want to applaud you all for both your dedication on getting this high in the Mastery Levels (and also breaking the game). Kudos!”

Elsewhere, Rocksteady plans to stop combat Mastery levels 50 and beyond increasing enemy health too much, too quickly. “We’ve seen some comments suggesting that enemy health at later Mastery Levels was too high, which makes the climb too steep past Mastery Level 50,” Rocksteady explained. “For that reason, we’re adjusting our approach to Mastery Level balancing. Enemy health will now increase in a much less aggressive way, with the intent that more builds will crop up as viable options.”

The Heat Wave’s Molten Skin and The Turtle’s Shell will also be adjusted, so that they reduce damage taken by 90% rather than give immunity. Rocksteady, again: “At the moment, these items were too easy to trigger and it is simply a bit too easy to keep the buff up, especially at higher Mastery Levels, and we wanted skilled players to need to use their mastery of their characters’ traversal and the mastery of combat mechanics and mastery of build construction to survive.”

Looking further ahead, Rocksteady said it will provide players with a look into Season 1 in the coming weeks, and longer-term changes it’s thinking about.

There’s much we don’t know about Rocksteady’s long-term plan for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, although we do know Joker is set to appear as a playable character. Last week, we reported on how a Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League player had unearthed a hidden message that looked like a strong hint at the return of Batman. Datamining has shown strong hints that Flash and Green Lantern are set to return in some form. Other playable characters suspected to be on their way include Mrs Freeze (Nora Fries), Lawless, and Deathstroke.

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.

Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T. Davies Calls Heavily Rumored Fortnite Collaboration ‘A Complete Myth’

The boss of Doctor Who has moved to debunk various rumors that indicated the popular show would soon launch a collaboration with Fortnite.

As reported by Eurogamer, Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies replied to a user on Instagram who asked about the reported Fortnite collaboration to say: “There isn’t one! It’s a complete myth, I’m afraid.”

The comment comes despite evidence pointing to the existence of a Doctor Who x Fortnite event, which was assumed to go live alongside the upcoming new season in May. There’s even a list of datamined Doctor Who content that may or may not have been scrapped, including skins for David Tennant v2 and Ncuti Gatwa.

Despite Russell T. Davies’ definitive statement, some still believe Doctor Who is coming to Fortnite in some capacity. Perhaps that stems from how long the Doctor Who rumours have floated around the internet. Nearly a year ago there were rumblings of a crossover to coincide with Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary episode. Those rumours then emerged into reports of a delay, and then a switch to coincide with the new season.

As Eurogamer points out, the reports of Doctor Who in Fortnite come from credible Fortnite leakers with proven track records of dishing the dirt on Epic’s battle royale ahead of time, which makes it all the more surprising that a collaboration is supposedly not happening.

It’s busy times in the world of Fortnite, of course, with the release of games Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival within the game itself. Last week, Disney announced it had bought a $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games to create an “expansive” universe inside Fortnite. In September, Epic let go of 830 employees, or about 16% of its workforce, with boss Tim Sweeney saying: “We’ve been spending way more money than we earn.”

Image credit: BBC STUDIOS 2023

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.

Helldivers 2 Players Establish ‘Unspoken’ Co-Op Etiquette

Helldivers 2 has only been out for a handful of days, but already its community is working to establish the “unspoken” rules of engagement, with an etiquette for good co-op play.

For the uninitiated, Helldivers 2 is a co-op focused shooter in which players team up to defeat giant alien bugs and terrifying automatons. It’s a dangerous game, and I don’t just mean just because of the bad guys. In Helldivers 2, you’re as much a danger to your teammates as the big bugs you face. With friendly fire very much a part of the gameplay, Helldivers 2 is a game in which you need to watch where you’re shooting – and where you’re landing in a drop pod.

And so, across the Helldivers subreddit, Discord, and social media, players are setting down best practice for co-op play. There’s a great thread by redditor RhuanSqx in which the Helldivers 2 is essentially crowdsourcing this early-days rule list. There’s some obvious stuff in there, such as do not walk in the way of your teammate when they’re shooting and be careful where you place your strategems (that area of effect!). But there’s some less obvious stuff that’s really helpful for promoting positive play, too. For example, when someone calls in a resupply, share the ammo by only grabbing one cache. The more ammo everyone has, the merrier a time you’ll have. Oh, and reload your weapons before snagging that resupply.

Here’s a nice suggestion: don’t loot your teammates’ equipment without their permission, but feel free to loot their samples (extracted samples are shared equally at the end of a mission). In Helldivers 2, turrets are particularly useful, but they can also hit your teammates hard (friendly fire, remember!). Combat this by placing them on high ground, making the low ground as safe as possible.

Some of this etiquette is as much about avoiding griefing as it is promoting effective play. Helldivers 2, as I’ve said, is a dangerous game, and so it’s as much about what you don’t shoot as it is about what you do shoot. So, firing at an enemy off in the distance while the rest of your squad is focused on something else probably isn’t the wisest course of action. Lobbing a teammates respawn right at a titan isn’t smart, either.

Speaking of griefing, I’ve already seen some players report that they’ve encountered players who’ve engaged in a spot of teamkilling. Some are even orbital-striking the entire group as soon as they spawn onto the map, only to do it again seemingly just for a laugh. And teamkilling during an extraction, or kicking a teammate during extraction after a 40-minute mission? Yikes!

But in Helldivers 2, it’s not always clear when teamkilling is accidental or deliberate. Redditor PassageLongjumping24 shared an interesting experience in which they dropped the carpet bomb at their feet knowing they and a teammate were about to die, taking at least 40 bugs with them. “It was a success and saved the team,” they said. But the other two players in the squad were less than impressed.

“Friendly fire is part of the game, embrace it,” PassageLongjumping24 said. “Teamkilling is a different beast altogether. After being insulted for saving the mission, I blew the dissident away with my shotgun, which led to a brief but bloody teamfight in which no-one won.

“Know the difference. Don’t cry like a baby when you get nailed by a strat and happen to be in the blast zone. Or if you weren’t even in the area of effect, just laugh and move on.”

Griefing is of course as old as online gaming, and, tonally, it might even fit Helldivers 2. This is a game inspired by Starship Troopers, a game in which you really do need to learn to embrace the chaos. You will die. Over and over again. So will your teammates! Sometimes random silliness is just that. But, as Helldivers 2’s co-op etiquette shows, there’s a fine line between slapstick and frustration.

The most important thing, though, is to have fun, and Helldivers 2 is all about that fun. According to Arrowhead boss Johan Pilestedt, Helldivers 2 has already sold one million copies across PlayStation 5 and PC, smashing all expectations in the process. And despite various matchmaking issues, Helldivers 2 shows no sign of slowing down. Check out IGN’s Helldivers 2 tips and tricks for getting started if you’re jumping in.

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.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Sparks ‘Yellow Paint’ Debate Once Again

With the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo in full swing, players are enjoying getting to grips with Cloud, Tifa, Aerith and co in this PlayStation 5 remake of one of the most beloved role-playing games of all time. But it has also sparked yet another debate about the ways video games help players work out where to go — this time via yellow paint.

If you’ve been playing Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth you’ll have seen it: colour-coded paint that signals the parts of the environment that can be used for platforming.

The debate in summary: some people don’t like how in-your-face this hand-holding is in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and indeed modern video games. Others, however, point out that it can be helpful, and is an important accessibility feature.

Developers, too, are weighing in, with some highlighting how in playtests and focus groups, players sometimes struggle to work out where to go, get frustrated, and quit playing altogether. Because of this, somewhat obvious, and sometimes unrealistic, visual clues are needed to help point players in the right direction.

Others say that video games have featured visual clues for exploration and progression for decades now. Indeed, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman pointed out that the original Final Fantasy 7 included visual aids of its own.

If all this sounds familiar, that’s because we’ve been here before, perhaps most notably with the Resident Evil 4 remake last year. When Capcom’s superb remake came out, a similar debate was had about the rights and wrongs of yellow paint plastered over climbable ladders.

While the debate continues, and will no-doubt resurface again in the future when the next big game that includes obvious visual clues for platforming comes out, let us know where you stand on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s yellow paint.

For more, check out IGN’s Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Demo PS5 Performance Review, and find out how Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players are already using Tifa’s piano to show off.

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.

Helldivers 2 Dev Apologises for Login Issues as Hundreds of Thousands Flood Servers

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios has issued an apology to players for login and progression issues that have blighted the game’s launch.

Helldivers 2 launched on PlayStation 5 and PC last week and soon saw a concurrent peak in the hundreds of thousands, blowing past Arrowhead’s expectations for the Sony Interactive Entertainment-published co-op shooter. In fact, Helldivers 2 is Sony’s biggest Steam launch ever, with a peak concurrent player count of 155,926 on Valve’s platform.

But as the player count hit greater heights, so did the servers struggle, with login problems compounded by progression failing to track. For a game that lacks offline play and in which progression is tied to your ability to succeed on the battlefield, Helldivers 2 endured a tough weekend.

Now, Arrowhead boss Johan Pilestedt has issued a statement explaining what went wrong. The long and short of it is that as Arrowhead worked to increase Helldivers 2’s rate limiter for its servers, the number of players logging on surpassed the limit. Even when the total capacity was increased from 250,000 to 360,000 total, the player count jumped to 360,000 after just five and a half minutes, Pilestedt said.

Pilestedt issued an apology, and said Arrowhead was working as hard as it could to sort the server problems out. Here’s his statement in full, posted to the Helldivers 2 Discord:

Hey Everyone,

Thank you for your patience during the server maintenance. With it we deployed three “rapid-fixes” aimed at improving the situation with rewards often not being handed out properly, login-issues, and server capacity.

To speak in technical terms, our services as well as our partner services have a rate limiter that denies connections beyond a volume per minute to prevent the entire system from failing. We managed to increase the rate limit from 10,000/min to 20,000/min and the total capacity of concurrent players was increased from 250,000 total to 360,000 total. This was however still not enough as the player count jumped to 360k after 5 1⁄2 minutes.

As such, the issue with login remains. If for any reason you get the “Failed to connect to server”issue it means that the maximum number of login requests for that particular minute is exceeded and/or that the servers are full and will require someone to log out before allowing new players in. As mentioned above, the increased capacity should require less retries to get in.

As for the reward issue, the fix was mitigated but not resolved. And without additional server maintenance this will still not work as intended. If you get the issue you can try rebooting the game to increase the chances of it being reset. This is due to the high traffic on the servers leading to rewards not being tracked correctly by our servers.

I know the progression issue is frustrating, especially for newer divers that want to unlock sweet gear. For now, please once again accept our sincere apologies for the issues you’re facing and rest assured, we’re doing our utmost to make it right. In order to do so, right now it is crucial that our team gets some sleep and we will be back at this again in a few hours.

Regards,

Johan

Despite the server issues, Helldivers 2 is going down well with players. After an initial ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, Helldivers 2 is now up to ‘mostly positive’. IGN’s Helldivers 2 Review in Progress was equally enthusiastic. Check out IGN’s Helldivers 2 tips and tricks for getting started if you’re jumping in.

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.

Daily Deals: Armored Core 6, HP OMEN 45L Desktop, Splatoon 3

We’ve finally arrived at the weekend, which means it is time to score on this weekend’s deals! A solid variety is available this weekend, including hardware, video games, and accessories. The best deals for Sunday, February 11, include Armored Core 6, an HP Omen 45L Desktop, Splatoon 3, 10th Gen iPads, the Anker Prime Power Bank, and more.

Armored Core 6 for $39.99

Kicking things off, Amazon has both the PS4 and PS5 versions of Armored Core 6 on sale for just $39.99. The latest title by FromSoftware is a return to the Armored Core series, with plenty of blitzing action to discover. We gave the game an 8/10 in our review, stating it “lands direct hits where it counts.” This price matches the previous low, so it’s a great time to pick up the title if you haven’t already.

HP OMEN 45L Desktop for $1497.99

This HP OMEN prebuilt desktop is an excellent deal if you’re in the market for a new PC. You can play any of the latest titles with the included AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. Additionally, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB solid state drive are both included in this build. With over $1200 worth of savings, this is a deal that won’t be around for much longer.

Splatoon 3 for $39.99

Target has a great deal on Splatoon 3 this weekend, with $20 worth of savings on the physical edition. Splatoon 3 features loads of multiplayer content in addition to a story mode to play through. Its expansion, Side Order, is set to release later this month, so it’s a perfect time to grab this title while it’s on sale. If you liked Splatoon 2, Splatoon 3 brings more weapons, more maps, and more fun.

Lowest Price Yet for 10th Generation iPads

Amazon has the 10th Gen iPad for $349 right now, which is the lowest we’ve seen the device since it was launched. Powered by the A14 Bionic, this iPad packs a 10.9-inch display, 64GB of storage, Touch ID, and a long battery life. If you’re interested in purchasing an iPad but don’t want to jump to the iPad Air or iPad Pro, this is an excellent option.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land for $39.99

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is still one of the most overlooked Nintendo Switch titles. Forgotten Land marks the first full 3D game in the entire series, with a massive amount of new gameplay mechanics and offerings compared to its 2D counterparts. If you’ve yet to play Kirby and the Forgotten Land, pick the title up for a discount this weekend!

Save 31% Off This Anker Prime Power Bank

You can use the Anker Prime Power Bank to charge any of your standard devices, including your phone, wireless headphones, etc. However, this power bank can also be used to charge bigger electronics such as the Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, and ASUS ROG Ally. This makes it the perfect companion on any trip you might find yourself on. At 20,000mAh, you can charge all of your devices multiple times and still have some juice left.

Eternights for $19.99

If you haven’t had the chance to check out Eternights yet, this is a great opportunity to pick the game up at a discount! A blend between a visual novel and an action game, Eternights released last Fall to plenty of love from fans and critics alike. The gameplay progression is often compared to Persona. Both the PS4 and PS5 copies are on sale for $19.99.

Meta Quest 2 for $229

If you haven’t yet purchased a VR headset, this deal on the Quest 2 is one of the lowest prices we’ve seen for the headset. The Meta Quest 2 is an excellent VR headset that works great standalone or hooked up to a PC. You’ll be able to access your entire Steam library with Steam Link, either wired or wirelessly. The screen provides an 1832 x 1920 resolution per eye, with up to a 90Hz refresh rate.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns for $19.99

You can grab one of the best tactical RPGs of 2022 on Amazon at a discount right now. Marvel’s Midnight Suns features a unique cast of Marvel characters with plenty of fan favorites, such as Iron Man, Wolverine, and more. We gave the game an 8/10 in our review, stating the game “makes excellent use of card game mechanics to keep battles fresh, evolving, and unpredictable over the course of an epic-length campaign.”

HORI Split Pad Compact for $31.99

The HORI Split Pad Compact is one of the best ergonomic controllers you can buy for the Nintendo Switch. Attaching like standard Joy-Con, the Split Pad Compact slides onto each side of your Switch and immediately widens the console. This makes longer handheld play sessions much more comfortable and bearable over time, especially if you have larger hands. The Pac-Man model features all sorts of fun details to personalize your system.

Save $10 Off Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is available on Amazon with a $10 discount! It’s rare to see the latest Nintendo Switch titles go on sale this early, especially big series like Mario. Wonder offers loads of exciting content you can play through, such as eight different worlds, three new powerups, and endless surprises with the Wonder Flower.

Apple AirPods Pro with USB Type-C for $189.99

Walmart has dropped the price of the 2nd gen Apple AirPods Pro truly wireless noise cancelling earbuds with the universal USB Type-C connector by $60, now only $189. With this current gen AirPods Pro, Apple has replaced the proprietary Lightning port with the more universal USB Type-C. For people who want to bring along a single charging cable for all of their mobile devices, this is a godsend.

LG 32″ Ultra-Gear QHD 165Hz Gaming Monitor for $209

This LG Monitor has a steep discount you won’t want to miss out on. Originally priced at $349.99, you can pick this QHD 165Hz monitor up for just $209 from Walmart right now. At 32″, this is a big screen with all kinds of features to ensure you get the best playing experience possible. This monitor has SRGB 95% color gamut with HDR10 support, AMD FreeSync Premium, and a 1ms response time.

Daily Deals: HP OMEN 45L Desktop, 10th Gen iPad, Anker Prime Power Bank

We’ve finally arrived at the weekend, which means it is time to score on this weekend’s deals! A solid variety is available this weekend, including hardware, video games, and accessories. The best deals for Saturday, February 10, include an HP Omen 45L Desktop, 10th Gen iPads, the Anker Prime Power Bank, and more.

HP OMEN 45L Desktop for $1497.99

This HP OMEN prebuilt desktop is an excellent deal if you’re in the market for a new PC. You can play any of the latest titles with the included AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. Additionally, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB solid state drive are both included in this build. With over $1200 worth of savings, this is a deal that won’t be around for much longer.

Lowest Price Yet for 10th Generation iPads

Amazon has the 10th Gen iPad for $349 right now, which is the lowest we’ve seen the device since it was launched. Powered by the A14 Bionic, this iPad packs a 10.9-inch display, 64GB of storage, Touch ID, and a long battery life. If you’re interested in purchasing an iPad but don’t want to jump to the iPad Air or iPad Pro, this is an excellent option.

Save 31% Off This Anker Prime Power Bank

You can use the Anker Prime Power Bank to charge any of your standard devices, including your phone, wireless headphones, etc. However, this power bank can also be used to charge bigger electronics such as the Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, and ASUS ROG Ally. This makes it the perfect companion on any trip you might find yourself on. At 20,000mAh, you can charge all of your devices multiple times and still have some juice left.

Eternights for $19.99

If you haven’t had the chance to check out Eternights yet, this is a great opportunity to pick the game up at a discount! A blend between a visual novel and an action game, Eternights released last Fall to plenty of love from fans and critics alike. The gameplay progression is often compared to Persona. Both the PS4 and PS5 copies are on sale for $19.99.

Meta Quest 2 for $229

If you haven’t yet purchased a VR headset, this deal on the Quest 2 is one of the lowest prices we’ve seen for the headset. The Meta Quest 2 is an excellent VR headset that works great standalone or hooked up to a PC. You’ll be able to access your entire Steam library with Steam Link, either wired or wirelessly. The screen provides an 1832 x 1920 resolution per eye, with up to a 90Hz refresh rate.

HORI Split Pad Compact for $31.99

The HORI Split Pad Compact is one of the best ergonomic controllers you can buy for the Nintendo Switch. Attaching like standard Joy-Con, the Split Pad Compact slides onto each side of your Switch and immediately widens the console. This makes longer handheld play sessions much more comfortable and bearable over time, especially if you have larger hands. The Pac-Man model features all sorts of fun details to personalize your system.

Save $10 Off Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is available on Amazon with a $10 discount! It’s rare to see the latest Nintendo Switch titles go on sale this early, especially big series like Mario. Wonder offers loads of exciting content you can play through, such as eight different worlds, three new powerups, and endless surprises with the Wonder Flower.

LG 32″ Ultra-Gear QHD 165Hz Gaming Monitor for $209

This LG Monitor has a steep discount you won’t want to miss out on. Originally priced at $349.99, you can pick this QHD 165Hz monitor up for just $209 from Walmart right now. At 32″, this is a big screen with all kinds of features to ensure you get the best playing experience possible. This monitor has SRGB 95% color gamut with HDR10 support, AMD FreeSync Premium, and a 1ms response time.