The Xbox version of Final Fantasy 14 requires a Game Pass subscription on top of the massively multiplayer role-playing game’s own monthly cost.
Tucked into a blog post revealing the Xbox version’s open beta begins on February 21 at 12 midnight Pacific / 3am Eastern / 8am UK, Square Enix revealed that, unlike PlayStation, Xbox players will have to pay for two subscriptions to play Final Fantasy 14.
“The Free Trial version, including the open beta test, will not require an Xbox Game Pass (Core or Ultimate) plan to play,” Square Enix said. “However, the full Xbox Series X and S version will require an Xbox Game Pass (Core or Ultimate) plan to play.”
A 30 day subscription to the game costs $14.99, 90 days costs $41.97, and 180 days costs $77.94. Xbox Game Pass Core, which is the cheapest tier, costs $9.99, $24.99 for three months, or $59.99 for a year. The cheapest Xbox players could play Final Fantasy 14 for per month is therefore $17.98 if they commit to the longest possible subscription of each. Xbox players will otherwise pay $24.98 if they choose to pay for both on a monthly basis.
PlayStation players are not required to own a PlayStation Plus subscription to play Final Fantasy 14, leaving many fans confused over why the Xbox equivalent is required. PC players don’t require any additional subscriptions either.
“Mind boggling decision,” said Super on ResetEra. “Xbox will be the only platform where you need paid online and the game subscription to play.” Yam’s chimed in too: “Greedy move. Not like you have time to benefit from a Game Pass subscription while playing an MMO.”
The blog post also confirmed the game will fully release on Xbox immediately upon the open beta’s conclusion, though it didn’t offer any idea as to when this may be.
In our 9/10 review of the game’s latest expansion, IGN said: “Final Fantasy 14’s Endwalker expansion brings its longest story arc to a satisfying close and cements its place as one of the best Final Fantasy stories ever told.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora has dropped a significant $30 from its MSRP in a brand new sale at Best Buy. It’s down to just $39.99 for PS5 and Xbox, marking a serious saving on a game that came out just less than two months ago on December 7, 2023.
From what we can tell, this is the best price on the game at the moment, compared to the $50 pricepoint that is being offered at Amazon and Target. As they say, it can pay to be a patient gamer. If the $70 pricepoint was too steep for you, this new sale might just hit the sweet spot for many of us to pull the trigger on the latest entry into the famous franchise.
IGN reviewer Tristan Ogilvie gave the game a 7/10 in his review, stating: “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora features a stunning alien world to explore with a refreshingly uncluttered approach to navigation, countless enemy bases to destroy and Na’vi clan sidequests to complete, and no shortage of exotic flora and fauna to harvest and hunt.
“However, its combat is pretty one-dimensional, its mission design is a bit on the repetitive side, and its environment is generally lacking in any major surprises beyond visual splendor, meaning that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a solid shooting adventure that’s more inside the box than truly out of this world.
Who’s excited to dive back into the world of Gaia with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on PS5? We are as well, and what’s more, you can snag this rebooted adventure for a steal at Currys. By using code ‘REBIRTH20’, you can preorder the game for just £55.99—that’s 20% off and £14 off the RRP. That’s right, a saving that feels almost as good as summoning Bahamut in a boss fight.
This deal from Currys is giving us an offer that’s hard to resist. This is the best Final Fantasy VII Rebirth preorder deal in the UK right now, making it the perfect time to secure your copy and ensure you’re among the first to explore the expanded universe. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to save big and embark on an unforgettable adventure, as the game is set to release on February 29.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth promises to bring back the nostalgia, while adding layers of depth to the story and gameplay that we’ve been dreaming of since the original. The game is the highly anticipated second installment in the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, taking the iconic story into its next chapter.
The anticipation surrounding the release of the game is palpable, with fans eagerly discussing how good they expect the game to be. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or a curious newcomer, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is shaping up to be an unforgettable journey through one of gaming’s most cherished universes.
We’ll be able to get a much closer look at the game next week, because it looks like a demo is on the way, giving fans a chance to try out the game and hopefully get their nostalgic juices flowing.
In our first hands-on preview of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, we said: “Story-wise, Rebirth again feels very familiar, and yet also different. This is due in part to the tremendous difference in scale and presentation. Here, like with Remake, areas that were previously sparse or bare are expanded out into lush zones to explore. But there are also little changes that are mostly inconsequential, but they still play out in different ways than fans of the original FF7 are used to.”
Joe O’Neill-Parker is a freelance writer and audio producer. He is the owner of O’Neill Multimedia. He writes commerce, sports, and audio-related tech articles for IGN.
Video games can be great vehicles for mysteries. The idea of gathering clues, questioning witnesses, and giving dramatic speeches where you stun an array of suspects with your intellect makes for an exciting fantasy. But lots of games stumble trying to fit the inherently open-ended, red-string-connecting fantasy of the detective into traditionally linear story structures. The Inquisitor is a game like that — it starts with the compelling concept of playing as a medieval church cop hunting a vampire, but it always puts the strings on the board for you, and thus never really lives up to the potential of its premise.
It is quite a premise, though. As inquisitor Mordimer Madderdin, you’ve been dispatched to investigate the citizens of a European town called Koenigstein. What’s more, the story is based on the dark fantasy novels of Polish writer Jacek Piekara, imagining an alternate religious history of Christianity in which Jesus Christ wasn’t a martyr, but instead broke free of his crucifixion and led a vengeful army to conquer the Roman Empire.
It feels a bit like you’ve stepped into Star Trek’s Mirror Universe as you begin The Inquisitor, with characters describing how mercilessness, retribution, and the ends justifying the means are virtues of their religion. For a story-driven game that promises tough decisions to make in conversations and interrogations, it’s an excellent setup. Lots of games will put “moral” questions to you, but I’ve never seen another use its worldbuilding to change the rules underlying that morality. What you consider moral in our reality may not be what characters consider moral in this one, and you might need to worry about how others will interpret your actions in ways you don’t expect.
At least, that’s the underlying idea of The Inquisitor, but it doesn’t ever really land that feeling. The consequences of your actions shake out pretty much the way you’d expect them to whether you’re nice to people or mean to them — or at least, that’s how it seemed to me over two complete playthroughs, the first of which took me around eight hours. How and when your choices affect the story isn’t particularly clear in most cases in The Inquisitor, and its mostly linear, straightforward structure makes it really difficult to tell if and when you’re able to move things in different directions.
Having exactly what you’re looking for lit up is helpful, but removes any critical thinking.
That said, the story The Inquisitor tells is a fairly compelling one, at least for most of its runtime. The writing is largely solid, with interesting characters that are mostly portrayed pretty well by the large voice cast, although a few look at you with animatronic-like eyes that seem like they’re trying to escape their heads. But Koenigstein’s art direction successfully gives it a dirty, lived-in atmosphere. It’s generally bigger than it needs to be in a way that makes it feel like a town, not a gameplay space that only exists to hold your objectives. The drawback is that the town is so big that most of your time is spent sprinting from one end to the other as you chase the next plot point.
As an investigator, you’ll eavesdrop on conversations, examine murder victims, and scope out crime scenes from time to time, and these moments generally tell you exactly how many clues to gather before you can move on. Most of your clue-collecting ability comes from The Inquisitor’s version of Detective Vision; when Mordimer prays, the landscape goes gray and important elements like your destination, collectible notes, clues, or scent trails you can follow are all highlighted. Vision modes like The Inquisitor’s always seem like a necessary evil, since it can be tough to spot small details in a busy world, but that didn’t stop praying from feeling like a crutch whenever I used it. It’s difficult to tell what’s interactive and what isn’t or to see details like a blood trail leading to a suspect without highlighting them, but having exactly what you’re looking for lit up orange all the time removes any requirement for critical thinking.
You have more agency through your conversation choices, particularly in interviews and interrogations. People are often lying to you, so whether you’re nice or brusque can determine how forthcoming they’ll be. At the same time, it’s tough to see where the failure points are or if you’ve messed up. In one interrogation, in which Mordimer has a guy strapped to a torture chair, you can take the suspect at his word or increase the pain. I played this scene twice, varying my approach the second time knowing I’d gotten false information before. This time, I got some additional answers I could also vet with my knowledge of later scenes — but Mordimer gave up the interrogation basically right afterward, indicating I’d learned all I could, and he still treated information I knew was false as if it was a good lead. So the extra info didn’t actually lead to anything new, and I was still left chasing a lie.
The reason Mordimer always follows the wrong tack is that it pushes you into one of The Inquisitor’s more action-focused levels in a place called the Unworld. Mordimer can project himself into a sort of astral plane populated by monsters, where it’s possible to piece together visions of past events and learn what actually happened, free of the lies and confusions of the people you’re interrogating. These sequences give Mordimer a supernatural cheat code, providing information he shouldn’t otherwise have, but they also make a lot of those clue hunts and interrogations feel unnecessary. Why bother asking people for answers and wonder if they’re lying if you’re just going to use magic anyway?
Once I realized I could sprint through the Unworld, it ceased to be stressful.
The Unworld puts you in a twisted, dark reflection of Koenigstein where you’re constantly avoiding the detection of a flying eyeball called the Murk while you search for five pieces of a vision to trigger a cutscene. To avoid the Murk’s searching gaze, you’ll need to dip under overhangs and pick the right paths through the Unworld. More interesting aspects are added over time, such as sword-wielding enemies and black mist that slows you down while alerting the Murk to your presence, and you’ll even unlock useful abilities like a blast of light to temporarily blind it. But while the first one or two of these levels are tense and spooky, it quickly becomes apparent that enemies are predictable enough that you can pretty much just sprint straight to each objective. Once I figured out there was nothing stopping me from running full-speed around the Unworld, these segments ceased to be stressful.
Lack of challenge thanks to general clunkiness is a problem throughout The Inquisitor, weakening its otherwise decent ideas. There are several times when you’ll engage in sword fights, a system that includes standard things like light and heavy attacks, a quick dodge, the ability to block, and a parry that opens enemies up to counter-attacks. Theoretically, duels should be tense dances where you identify your opponent’s moves and react with the appropriate counter. But I won just about every fight by executing one or two perfect parries and then overwhelming my opponent with a flurry of strikes. The Inquisitor has a couple of more difficult boss fights against more interesting enemies, but most of the battles are easily won because enemies just can’t keep up with you.
Action sequences aren’t the main thrust of The Inquisitor, though. Easy fights and simplistic quick-time events could be forgiven, as could blobby faces and minor gaffes like characters clipping into one another, if the investigation and story were strong enough. But those don’t give you enough agency to feel satisfying; Mordimer always tells you exactly where to go and what to do next. When I hit my first (bad) ending after eight hours, a character chided me for allowing events to transpire that led to a bad outcome. But after a second playthrough, I’m still not sure where I messed up, except for a particular conversation where I was supposed to stall for time but didn’t stall enough; I had no way of knowing which choices would have stalled more than others, either. (Autosaves stop you from save-scumming in The Inquisitor, and after two attempts at this sequence, I wasn’t willing to play through the whole game a third time for another shot at it.)
Even when I made specific choices with the benefit of hindsight — like choosing to avoid a fight I knew would get one character killed, resulting in another character later trying to kill Mordimer as revenge — that later scene still played out as if that person had been killed. There are a few distinct choices that lead to different situations like this one, but they didn’t seem to materially affect the story, and I never saw opportunities to search for different clues or follow alternate leads.
There are occasional technical issues that undercut the experience as well. The Inquisitor’s best sequence takes you into a maze-like dungeon, where you confront a murderous jester who’s constantly rhyming and playing a flute. This guy is creepy, and when you find him dismembering a victim, he disappears among the jail cells, forcing you to follow his taunts emanating from the shadows. You can light torches as you search, but the jester will attack you if you wait in the shadows too long. The presentation of the scene is excellent, making it legitimately frightful. The dinginess of the dungeon under torchlight, the cackling couplets from the darkness, and the escalation of the moment as another character shows up for the jester to target instead, all made for something that was really fun, tense, and spooky — until I got lost in the maze.
For some reason, the prayer ability didn’t work throughout this sequence, so in a later portion when there are no sounds to follow, I was stuck just running around the dungeon, trying to figure out what The Inquisitor wanted me to do. Prompts even appeared to tell me to use the prayer ability to see where I should be going, but it just didn’t work. Eventually, I stumbled on the solution when I happened to pass an item that gave me a contextual button prompt, but by then, all the tension and fright had been drained out.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and possibly Starfield are reportedly being considered for PS5, and this may indicate a new multi-platform approach inside Microsoft for certain Xbox games going forward if it proves to be true.
As reported by The Verge, a source with knowledge of Microsoft’s plans have claimed the company is “weighing up which titles will remain exclusive and others that will appear on Switch or PS5 in the future.” Indiana Jones is seemingly part of this new plan and could be one of the first to kick off this new strategy if it ends up happening.
Assuming this plan goes forward, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle appears set to launch exclusively on Xbox and PC in December 2024 and would arrive on PS5 after a “rather short period” that could just be “some months later.”
That’s not all, however, as XboxERA is reporting that Starfield may be another game to make its way to PS5. According to XboxERA’s sources, Microsoft may be planning to launch Bethesda’s space RPG on PS5 after the already announced Shattered Space expansion that is slated to arrive later in 2024.
Furthermore, it has been claimed Microsoft is making even more of an investment into PS5 dev kits to support this supposed multi-platform strategy it may adopt.
Ahead of Starfield’s launch, the question of its exclusivity was one of the biggest out there. While it turned out Starfield was exclusive, at least at launch, these potential new developments will also surely bring back The Elder Scrolls 6 into view.
While it hasn’t been 100% confirmed, Microsoft’s own internal documents have claimed it will skip PS5 and will only launch on Xbox and PC. Once again, plans change all the time, as is possibly evidenced by these reports, so it’s important not to take anything as fact until it happens.
For years, many assumed Skull and Bones was a ghost ship; the Ubisoft pirate game that would never make it to harbour. Having suffered six public delays, it is one of the most frequently postponed games of all time. The near total silence that surrounded it year after year convinced people that it was either permanently anchored at the port of development hell, or that it had already sunk to the bottom of the ocean. But within the halls of Ubisoft Singapore, hundreds of developers were navigating a storm of design problems in hunt of their white whale.
Now, almost seven years since it was first revealed, Skull and Bones is ready to set sail. But this final version is very different to the game we first saw in 2017. Across its development journey the naval battler has changed forms multiple times, with its final design emerging from a major reboot that prolonged development and left several prototypes shipwrecked. This is the inside story of Skull and Bones’ many delays, and the challenges that caused them.
In Skull and Bones, the Indian Ocean is your playground. You’re free to explore its open world and hunt down the food and materials you need to survive in the golden age of piracy. You can take on contracts that build your infamy and push you towards the ultimate goal of becoming a fearsome pirate kingpin. Its story is minimalist, promoting your own adventures and the self-made tales of the other players that also sail these online seas.
But Skull and Bones wasn’t always this live-service, open-world survival game. In fact, Skull and Bones has been multiple different games – or at least ideas for games – before it became what it is today.
Our story starts in 2017, when Ubisoft revealed a brand new pirate game at its annual E3 conference. The presentation was led by creative director Justin Farren, a member of Ubisoft’s Singapore studio and a veteran producer of Assassin’s Creed since the days of Black Flag. On stage, Farren explained that “Skull and Bones takes place in a shared, systemic world where you can sail solo or form a gang of pirates with your friends, and together terrorise the trade routes of the Indian Ocean.” But that shared world was not what Ubisoft showed in its gameplay demonstration.
The stage demo showed off a 5v5 multiplayer mode called “Loot Hunt”, which seemed to be a naval-themed take on hero shooters like Rainbow Six Siege and Overwatch, rather than the sort of seafaring MMO Farren had described. But Ubisoft assured that Skull and Bones would be bigger than what we’d seen; it would have a shared world, seasonal content, and a narrative campaign that would flow into the multiplayer experience.
All of this, Ubisoft said, would launch in the fall of 2018. One year later, just weeks before E3 2018, Skull and Bones was pushed back until “at least 2019”. Despite the delay, it was still part of Ubisoft’s E3 conference, and it looked radically different to how it did in 2017. Rather than 5v5 multiplayer, the new demo showcased a cooperative game in which players teamed up to take down a powerful enemy warship. Was this the shared world that had been promised the previous year? Or had Skull and Bones morphed into a different game entirely?
“We like to see it as an evolution of the game, and not a different game necessarily,” says Kris Kirkpatrick, lead technical art director at Ubisoft Singapore and a long-serving veteran of Skull and Bones. “We knew we had something great. It was feeling great. It was looking great. But why don’t we offer more?
“We wanted to do the biggest pirate and Naval open-world game we could do,” he says.
As E3 2018 drew to a close, few people would have anticipated the four years they would have to wait until they saw Skull and Bones again. The following year it was delayed until sometime after March 2020, and Ubisoft’s E3 2019 conference went ahead without even a single new screenshot. Just months later a third delay was announced. In 2020, Ubisoft revealed that the studio had found a “new vision”, which subsequently led to a fourth delay. As the years and delays went by, not a single thing was seen of Skull and Bones.
In July 2021 the long silence was broken, but not by Ubisoft. A damning report from Kotaku painted a picture of a studio in chaos. It claimed that over the course of eight years Skull and Bones had been helmed by three different creative directors, each of which worked to different documents, meaning that many concepts – including an Assassin’s Creed spin-off and the modes we’d seen at E3 – had been scrapped in favour of building different designs. Anonymous interviews with current and former developers suggested that the project was a mismanaged nightmare lacking direction. It was a report that raised dozens of questions, but the biggest of them was the simplest: what on Earth was happening inside Ubisoft Singapore?
There’s nothing in the video game industry that’s harder than building a new IP.
Ubisoft Singapore started life in 2008 as a small support studio. Over the years it has grown from a handful of people to a few hundred staff, working on game franchises such as Prince of Persia and Ghost Recon. Its most famous creation, though, is Assassin’s Creed 3’s naval combat, which went on to form the foundations of AC4: Black Flag. With that series-defining success, the Singapore team saw a new and exciting future for themselves. They wanted to be more than a support studio. They wanted to take naval combat to the next level and create an original game of their own. But making a great game is far from an easy task, particularly when it’s your first time as a lead developer.
“There’s nothing in the video game industry that’s harder than building a new IP,” says Darryl Long, managing director of Ubisoft Singapore. “You think you know what the game is, but you’re really, in many ways, discovering as you go and finding out what resonates with your players. You need time to explore that.”
“You’re trying to find the recipe. You’re trying to find that core gameplay loop,” explains Kirkpatrick. “Not everything makes it, but you learn from all the things that don’t make it and hope that what’s left is the best it can be. It’s a journey.”
Creating a new game is difficult, but it’s even more of a challenge without leadership. In late 2018, creative director Justin Farren was making preparations to depart Ubisoft Singapore. He would leave the following summer. But the need for a new creative director raised questions about more than just leadership. What was this game’s identity? Was it a PvP multiplayer arena, or a co-op open-world? Was it a narrative campaign or a live-service game? If Skull and Bones was to survive this development storm, it needed help. The search was on for a new captain.
Ubisoft knew that Skull and Bones was in need of an experienced steady hand. That seniority was found in Elisabeth Pellen, a twenty-year plus Ubisoft veteran and Vice President of its Editorial Team. Pellen had significant experience in directing games with online features, and so it was believed she was ideally suited to a project attempting to work out its own multiplayer identity.
“[Ubisoft was] looking for someone to help them […] to turn the most promising prototypes and demos into a fuller game experience,” recalls Pellen.
Prototypes. Demos. Despite having initially planned for a 2018 release, Skull and Bones was still in the prototyping phase by the end of that year. And while the open world had been showcased at E3 that summer, internally Skull and Bones was still a small-scale multiplayer game.
“The five-versus-five was fun to play, but sometimes it was difficult for the player to manoeuvre inside an arena with such big ships,” Pellen says. “Because the ships didn’t have a lot of customizable options, it was difficult for us to project on the long term. With the open world, the game experience added more potential.”
But that potential was still in its early stages. Despite having been discussed as part of the initial reveal, the open world still didn’t exist beyond the demo built for E3 2018. So far, it was just a taste of what Ubisoft Singapore hoped Skull and Bones would one day become.
“The chunk of open world was a 15-minute demo that showcased different classes of ship. It was not yet an entire open world,” Pellen confirms. “[The development team] tried to develop the PvP arena and the open world in parallel, but it was a little bit challenging for the team because it was the first time that most of the talents had the opportunity to create their own IP.
“We thought that it would be safer and maybe more interesting for other players to fully focus on the open world,” she concludes.
Why has this game continued for so long? I think that in many other companies, maybe it wouldn’t have survived as long as it has.
If Skull and Bones was to succeed, the Ubisoft Singapore team would need to find its focus. On Pellen’s advice, all staff would move to the open world design and build that up from a demo into a full game. Any other idea the team wasn’t fully capable of building in parallel would be cancelled, and so the 5v5 mode was abandoned. A third mode – the previously promised narrative single-player campaign – was also in development, and that would also need to be scrapped.
“Building a solo campaign is really time-consuming,” Pellen admits. “We didn’t have the full team to deliver a full solo campaign.”
Beyond the issues with development of the game itself, Pellen observed that the Singapore studio was “isolated from the other studios and [Ubisoft] HQ”, and so believed that the team needed someone experienced in building and launching a complete, original game. Her long-term Ubisoft career put her in a good position to offer this expertise.
With Pellen as the ship’s new captain, Skull and Bones would finally find its true heading – the “new vision” that Ubisoft would later announce in 2020. But why a new vision? Why, after years of development, old visions, and little genuine progress, did Ubisoft not just cancel the entire project? Why were staff not reassigned to other games?
“That’s a question I’m sure many people have,” agrees Darryl Long. “Why has this game continued for so long? I think that in many other companies, maybe it wouldn’t have survived as long as it has.”
“Ubisoft supports projects they believe in, teams they believe in,” says Ryan Barnard, former senior game director on Skull and Bones. “This didn’t feel quite right, but they wanted to see what they could do and so they asked a very experienced creative to come in and take a look at how she could influence the project.”
There was, apparently, another factor, too. Kotaku’s report claimed that the studio made a deal with the local government that requires Ubisoft Singapore to launch an original game within the next few years. In short: the studio may be legally required to deliver Skull and Bones. When IGN asked if this is true, Ubisoft declined to comment.
Regardless of the details keeping it in development, one thing was clear: Skull and Bones needed reworking. It needed to leave its campaign and 5v5 mode behind and fully focus on the shared open-world that it had promised. And so Pellen moved to Singapore and took over as creative director, ready to rally the team around a new vision.
“I arrived on the project with one simple question: ‘How do you become a pirate?’” says Elisabeth Pellen. “What blew my mind was that, [during the age of piracy], all those legendary pirates in the Indian Ocean started with almost nothing. To become the rockstars of the 17th century they had to face unpredictable storms and survive mutinies, shark attacks, and sometimes starvation.
“Suddenly for me, it made this fantasy more relatable because it means that anyone could become a pirate.”
The idea of that journey became the foundation for Pellen’s vision: a live-service, open-world game all about survival. This new version of Skull and Bones would feature resource gathering, trading, and crafting. A deep progression system would chart your rise from a nobody to a notorious kingpin. If it was a key part of the dangerous life of a pirate, Pellen wanted it in the game.
We could not really reboot the game, because we could not run down the team. We had to continue to work with 500 people.
“We really wanted to give the opportunity to the player to write their own story,” says Pellen. “Instead of working on a solo campaign that would have prevented the team from creating a really deep open world, we built lore that can be consumed like a puzzle in the order you want.”
Pellen’s vision was effectively a reboot that refocussed the team back to its original promise of a shared, systemic world. But where a reboot at Ubisoft would typically see a team reduced down to its core creatives and then slowly built back up as the game took form, Ubisoft Singapore was unable to do that.
“All the new IPs at Ubisoft went through one or two reboots,” Pellen explains. “In the case of Skull and Bones, we could not really reboot the game, because we could not run down the team. We had to continue. We had to make some adjustments, but to continue to work with 500 people.”
But the development team faced that challenge head on. By building the new vision around the core naval combat systems that the studio had already crafted for 5v5 multiplayer, they ensured that Skull and Bones did not have to be started again from scratch. Much of the team’s previous hard work would not be lost.
“There’s always things that you can salvage,” says Barnard. “A reboot is never a total reboot. The navigation, how the ship felt, all of those things [that were] in the game you saw [at E3], they felt good. But how do we bring that into a progression system for the player? How do we add more depth to that combat, and not just more ‘arcadey cannons go boom’ type of gameplay? All of that needed to be introduced to the game.”
“It got a lot bigger and technically it got a lot more complex,” recalls Kris Kirkpatrick, lead technical art director. “It is part of the reason why we need more time.”
Rallied around this new survival vision, the Singapore team geared up into full development. And by July 2022, four years after its last public showing, Ubisoft was confident enough in Skull and Bones to reveal its new form to the world. But rather than being met by unanimous applause, this re-reveal was greeted by cautious scepticism and mixed feelings from the gaming community.
“We [were] a little bit sad that some players expected Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag 2,” Pellen admits. “Since the beginning of this reboot, we collaborated with players through our insider programs and we did a lot of playtest sessions to be sure that the processes of creation [would] follow players’ expectations.”
The best feedback, of course, comes when players have actually been able to play the game. And that was planned to be soon – the re-reveal came with the first solid release date: November 8, 2022. In less than half a year, the team’s work would finally be in players’ hands.
Six delays across six years. Few games have suffered as many publicly announced postponements as Skull and Bones. It’s a situation that’s damaged the game’s reputation, turning it into the butt of many internet jokes. But the re-reveal proved that Skull and Bones was still alive. Not just alive, but apparently on track. Almost ready, even. So what happened?
Skull and Bones’ early years saw the studio struggle to find the right design framework. That accounts for the first delay. But while the team was put on the right path when Elisabeth Pellen joined in 2019, the journey towards her survival-focused vision could not be finished within the initially planned timeline. The next four delays were the result of numerous design struggles, from technology shifts to simply ensuring the game was fun enough for players.
“The particularity of Skull and Bones is that our entire world is a social hub,” explains Pellen. “It’s a full seamless PvE and PvP experience supported by PvE servers. It required a lot of talent to work outside of their comfort zone.
“When you build a seamless world dedicated to generating emergent content, you have to accept that part of the content will escape your controller,” she continues. “It’s so difficult to control the player experience that it took us some while or so [to complete development].
“We had to involve partner studios as well, to gather different pieces of content and put them together and aggregate them into a world,” she adds. “It took some time. The more systemic a game is, the more bugs you have to fix as well.”
Further complicating things was the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. The increased power of these machines was naturally a boon for an open world filled to the horizon with technologically-advanced water technology, and so the decision was made to make Skull and Bones a new-generation exclusive. The process to convert the game from old to new-gen took almost six months, and put the brakes on other aspects of development.
“When you port your game [to] a new engine, part of the team can’t work,” explains Pellen. “[They] can’t interact during that time.”
But complex work and shifting timelines weren’t the only issues endured by development staff. In the summer of 2020, the Singapore studio was caught up in the wave of allegations facing Ubisoft regarding workplace toxicity, harassment, and misconduct. Following an investigation, managing director Hugues Ricour was removed from his position in November 2020 in response to unacceptable behaviour. Ricour was reassigned to Ubisoft’s Paris HQ and replaced by Darryl Long, who moved to Singapore in March 2021.
Ubisoft Singapore’s managerial issues appear to extend beyond just Ricour, though. Posting to company review website Glassdoor, former staff have criticised studio management for lack of direction and incompetence. Talking to Kotaku, one former developer said “The toxic culture permeating the Singapore studio is in no small part responsible for most of the production issues—reboots, rebrands and re-reboots—that have plagued Skull & Bones for a decade.”
We must continue to be agile in order to build a better work environment for our teams.
When asked if management had struggled to handle the project, a Ubisoft spokesperson said “The well-being of our teams is our first priority, and we are committed to continually improving our workplace and production policies and processes to ensure we’re offering a healthy work environment for all our teams. With regards to improving conditions during the rush to finalize a project, we have taken steps to manage this by implementing tools to facilitate more efficient project management, working closer with Quality Control teams early in development, and integrating more checkpoints during production to be better prepared for launch.
“In the Singapore studio, we have put in place flexible work policies and adapted benefits to support a healthy work life balance. We also have in place an employee wellness team, and are proud to have seen their work been recognized by several industry awards for their efforts in promoting mental and physical health. This is an ongoing process, and we must continue to be agile in order to build a better work environment for our teams.
“Our teams are fully focused and motivated to create great experiences for our players.”
With so many development complications and pressures, delays have become a fact of life for Ubisoft Singapore’s developers. To work for so many years on a seemingly never-ending project can sometimes be discouraging, and so looking after the team’s mental health has been important.
“There is an impact,” says Kris Kirkpatrick. “We’re working really hard and of course we want people to experience and play what we’re working on, but I think it’s important not to be so end goal driven. So we accept that the delay means more time to make a better game.”
“It’s a tough one, right?” says Ryan Barnard. “It’s really about making sure that the team sees it as not a negative thing, because it almost never is. So really, it’s about team health. How do we make sure that the team understands why and what we want to accomplish with that extra time?”
“A great example of a feature that did get added later on in the development is the Infamy system,” says Darryl Long, referring to the progression system that charts your rise to pirate kingpin, with each level unlocking new tools. “In many ways, that’s one of the central pillars of the game.”
When I showed up here, that was my goal immediately: ‘When are we going live?’
Alongside those delays, the project has also seen a rotation of senior staff. When it was announced in 2017, Bill Money was Skull and Bones’ game director, but he soon moved onto Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Associate game director Antoine Henry also moved onto AC: Valhalla in 2018, only to rejoin Skull and Bones in 2021 and then leave by the end of that December. Senior game director Ryan Barnard, who joined in 2021, would only stay with the studio until spring 2023. Creative director Justin Farren was replaced by Elisabeth Pellen, who has also since left the project, although Ubisoft says her creative duties are now complete. The result of these staff changes is that, in its final months of pre-release development, Skull and Bones has been captained by relative newcomers, with its senior producer and game director having joined the studio in 2022. Regardless of their experience, though, they’re still eager to deliver something special.
“I think the benefit for me coming in at the end was fresh eyes,” says Juen Yeow Mak, Skull and Bones’ current game director. “I had a lot of stuff that I could explore, I don’t have to be prototyping some things if it has been explored before.”
“There’s a lot of responsibility I think that we as a team have,” says senior producer Neven Dravinski. “The narrative is, ‘Hey, when is this game launching?’ When I showed up here, that was my goal immediately: ‘When are we going live?’”
Ubisoft has finally settled on a firm release date for Skull and Bones: February 16, 2024 – 15 months and two delays later than its previously planned November 2022 launch.
“At the end of the day, the game wasn’t where the company wanted it to be,” Dravinski reveals. “The last 12-18 months have been doubling down on the things that are great about this game, and so that required more time, that required more public-facing tests, more technical tests, more deep diving into the nuances of core naval combat.”
Over the past year, the team has made improvements to the ship classes, or ‘archetypes’, in an effort to better communicate which vessels are best fit for specific roles. As with many multiplayer games, there are DPS, tank, and support options, and the characteristics of each are now more pronounced and “pushed to the extremes”.
A closed beta test, held during the summer of 2023, helped shape a refreshed user interface, and ushered in a new character in the form of Asnah, your Singaporean first-mate, who acts as a living tutorial and guide. Additionally, one of the game’s most controversial mechanics has been reworked.
“One thing that came up a lot [in player feedback was the fact that] boarding is only a cutscene,” says Juen Yeow Mak. “So we acted upon it. Boarding is now [conducted] using grappling hooks. You need to aim, you need to have a feeling of range. It’s no longer as straightforward as just pressing a button.”
The past year has also seen Ubisoft Singapore reconsider Skull and Bones’ relationship with the supernatural elements that underpin popular seafaring stories like Pirates of the Caribbean and Monkey Island. While sea monsters have been hinted at in trailers since the initial reveal, when IGN visited the studio in 2022 the plan was to introduce mythical elements in future DLC. Those plans have since shifted, and the launch version of Skull and Bones will feature ocean beasts and ghost ships.
“Removing the constraints of historical accuracy really excited the team quite a bit,” says Dravinski. “We are investing in naval combat in a space that’s inspired by 17th century Indian Ocean piracy, but it’s really fun to be able to say, ‘What’s our next sea monster that we’re working on? How is the ghost ship moving forward from here?’”
“I think the more that we focused on the fun, the more that we focused on what was cool, I think the game then really took on a life of its own,” he adds. “And I think that’s put us now on the path to be able to, in a very public way, at the Game Awards say, ‘You know what? We are ready. We feel like we’ve accomplished what we were trying to do over the last couple of months. It’s time to get out there and go live.’”
For close to a decade, Ubisoft Singapore has been building and rebuilding Skull and Bones. The team, both long-serving veterans and recent recruits, have been through a lot. But they’ve finally made it to the harbour.
“It’s amazing the amount of resilience that they’ve shown,” says Darryl Long. “The changes in direction, these are things that the team has adjusted to as they go and said, ‘We’re not giving up. We’re going to ship this game and we’re going to make it great.’”
“It was not easy to create a great synergy between the navigation and the aiming system, but they succeeded,” says Pellen. “We developed it in a huge open world. I think it’s the biggest open world that Ubisoft has ever created. Now this open world offers a lot of opportunity to develop new activities, new narrative layers. We planted a lot of seeds that are exciting to grow.”
It’s our first lead triple-A [game] coming out of Singapore. I hope we don’t forget about that. We should be proud of that.
But the journey doesn’t end here. In many ways, it’s just the beginning. All of that hard work was in service of creating a live game that will continue to evolve. And so now development begins on DLC, seasonal content, and the future of Skull and Bones.
“The seasons will have themes,” reveals Ryan Barnard. “That’s where we may introduce new enemy types, new factions, some of the things we talked about, maybe more fantastical enemies. It’s also where we can react to the community and bring in new elements that maybe they’ve been asking for that we didn’t think of. But Ubisoft has already committed to this game for years in the future.”
With those seasonal ambitions, Ubisoft Singapore hopes that Skull and Bones is here to stay, and that players will find something to cherish among its lovingly created digital waves.
“I think players will find their own story in the game,” says Long. “If after they’ve played the game for five years, they’ll look back and they’ll say, ‘I was the one defining what it means to be an infamous pirate and I got to tell my own story’ – maybe at some point they’re ranked at the top of the world and they’d be able to look back and say, ‘I was the most infamous pirate in the world’ – I can’t think of anything cooler than that.”
Becoming the home for a passionate community of online pirates is the ultimate goal for Skull and Bones. But regardless of its eventual success, and despite the difficulties faced by staff, the journey to this point has been something important for Ubisoft Singapore.
“I do feel like Skull & Bones will be part of us for a long time,” says Kris Kirkpatrick. “It’s our first lead triple-A [game] coming out of Singapore. I hope we don’t forget about that. We should be proud of that.”
One huge reboot. Three release dates. Six delays. Skull and Bones’ journey across the development waters has been far from easy. Idea after idea had to be jettisoned and thrown away. High-profile departures and scandal rocked the studio. But the dedication of the development team helped see the project through even the darkest days.
Over many years Skull and Bones has been many things, but its final form is now ready to set sail. And that final form is, perhaps surprisingly, the one promised in its very first public appearance: a shared, systemic world in which players strive to become the ultimate pirate kingpin. But it’s a form that means that what Skull and Bones is today is likely not what it will be tomorrow. Its evolutionary cycle now begins anew, the design shifting and changing as Ubisoft Singapore reacts not just to the demands of its management, but its players, too. It’s a destiny that’s fitting of a game that’s constantly changed since its inception.
What will remain constant is the story. The story of a development team who endured everything in effort to bring their first complete, original game to life. Whatever that game was, whatever that game is, and whatever that game may be, the legend of Skull and Bones will long be as famous as the black and white flag its pirates fly.
The interviews in this article have been edited for length and clarity. Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.
The weekend is coming to a close, and lots of deals will leave with it. From video games to new tech, there is no shortage of deals you don’t want to miss out on. The best deals for Sunday, February 4, include Super Mario RPG, Meta Quest 2, Yoshi’s Crafted World, and more.
Save 25% Off this Pokémon TCG Elite Trainer Box
Best Buy currently has the Pokémon – Trading Card Game: Scarlet & Violet —Obsidian Flames Elite Trainer Box on sale for only $37.49. This set includes nine booster packs, one full-art foil card, 65 card sleeves, 45 Pokémon TCG Energy Cards, and so much more. If you’re in need of a card refresh or just looking to get into the Pokémon TCG, this is a great chance to do so at a discount!
Super Mario RPG for $44.95
The recently released remake of Super Mario RPG is 25% off at Walmart right now, which is the lowest we’ve seen it so far. If you’ve yet to either play the original or check out the remake, this is the perfect time to do so. Composer Yoko Shimimura returned to compose the remake’s original soundtrack, and each boss and environment has been expertly recrafted for the Nintendo Switch. It’s the perfect Mario title to check out if you’ve already beaten Super Mario Bros. Wonder!
Save $100 Off Apple Watch Series 9
Best Buy currently has every Apple Watch Series 9 45mm model on sale for $329 right now. This is the latest Apple Watch, with new features like Double Tap. The 41mm models are also on sale, listed at $299. If you’ve yet to buy an Apple Watch or use an older generation model, this is a great deal to take advantage of and upgrade with.
Save $20 Off The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD
The game that depicts the start of The Legend of Zelda timeline is now available at Walmart for just $39.99. Skyward Sword HD is an updated HD remaster of the original Wii title, with new control options and updated textures. If you’re a Zelda fan and haven’t experienced this game yet, now is a perfect opportunity to pick this up and see it for yourself.
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.
Yoshi’s Crafted World for $39.99
If you didn’t own a Nintendo Switch before 2020, you might not be aware that Yoshi got a game on the system in 2019! Yoshi’s Crafted World is a bright platformer where each stage has two different paths. Once you complete one run of the stage, the entire thing flips, and you’ll see the backside with all sorts of secrets and hidden items. There’s some suggestion that this title could be going out of print, so grab it while you can!
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 $187
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 $187 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.
ROG Ally for $399.99
If you’ve been waiting to pick up a handheld PC, the ROG Ally is now available at Best Buy for just $399.99. Running Windows 11, the Ally is perfect to play your Steam games, play Xbox Game Pass, or even Android apps. With a 120Hz screen, each game you play will be presented with fluidity. You can even connect the ROG Ally to any TV with the included HDMI adapter and play your titles on the big screen when you’re not traveling or playing on the go.
Splatoon 3 for $41
One of the most popular multiplayer titles you can find on Switch, Splatoon 3 is packed with all sorts of exciting modes you can spend dozens of hours in. The title improves a vast amount of features from Splatoon 2, while also bringing in some fresh new ideas too. You can find new classes, new weapons, and new maps immediately when hopping in. With the Side Order expansion set to release next month, now is the perfect time to hop in and get familiar with the world of Splatoon.
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.
Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe for $41.23
Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe is the latest Kirby game to hit the Switch, bringing updated graphics and new features to the Wii game. Widely considered as a great entry in the series, you’re getting a great deal with almost $19 of savings on a Nintendo title just about one year old. You can play with up to four friends and tackle each mission together. The fun doesn’t stop after the campaign, though! After you clear the main story, you can play as many subgames as you’d like in the Merry Magoland amusement park.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition for $40
Amazon has the Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition listed for $39.97. If you got a PlayStation 5 for the holidays, you should play the first two Spider-Man games before you jump into Spider-Man 2. This is an amazing deal since you’re essentially getting both Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Spider-Man Remastered for $20 each. Both rarely go on sale for that low, so this is your best option to pick up these games.
Lowest Price Yet for Persona 5 Tactica
Amazon has Persona 5 Tactica listed for $29.99, which is an even better deal than Black Friday and the lowest we’ve seen the title yet. This action-packed adventure takes the Phantom Thieves into a new adventure with tactical combat. If you enjoyed Persona 5 Royal or Persona 5 Strikers, P5 Tactica should be a game on your radar. Erina, a character new to the series, is a great addition to an already amazing cast of characters.
Save $21 Off Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Arguably one of the best platformers available on Nintendo Switch, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a must play for the platform. Created by Retro Studios, there are six different worlds you can traverse through as you fight against Lord Fredrik and his army of Snowmads. You can play with a friend and choose between Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, Cranky Kong, and even Funky Kong!
Save 52% Off the Razer Huntsman V2 Keyboard
The Razer Huntsman V2 keyboard is $130 off at Amazon for a limited time. This analog keyboard features analog optical switches with actuation at the speed of light, which you can adjust to fit your playstyle. Additionally, the keycaps are doubleshot PBT, making for a much more durable set of caps that won’t deteriorate over time. If you’re in the market for a new keyboard, this is a great option at a price we might not see again for a while.
The weekend is finally here, and plenty of deals have arrived alongside it. From video games to new tech, there is no shortage of deals you don’t want to miss out on. The best deals for Saturday, February 3, include Super Mario RPG, Meta Quest 2, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, an LG 32″ gaming monitor, and more.
Super Mario RPG for $44.95
The recently released remake of Super Mario RPG is 25% off at Walmart right now, which is the lowest we’ve seen it so far. If you’ve yet to either play the original or check out the remake, this is the perfect time to do so. Composer Yoko Shimimura returned to compose the remake’s original soundtrack, and each boss and environment has been expertly recrafted for the Nintendo Switch. It’s the perfect Mario title to check out if you’ve already beaten Super Mario Bros. Wonder!
Save $100 Off Apple Watch Series 9
Best Buy currently has every Apple Watch Series 9 45mm model on sale for $329 right now. This is the latest Apple Watch, with new features like Double Tap. The 41mm models are also on sale, listed at $299. If you’ve yet to buy an Apple Watch or use an older generation model, this is a great deal to take advantage of and upgrade with.
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.
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 $187
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 $187 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.
ROG Ally for $399.99
If you’ve been waiting to pick up a handheld PC, the ROG Ally is now available at Best Buy for just $399.99. Running Windows 11, the Ally is perfect to play your Steam games, play Xbox Game Pass, or even Android apps. With a 120Hz screen, each game you play will be presented with fluidity. You can even connect the ROG Ally to any TV with the included HDMI adapter and play your titles on the big screen when you’re not traveling or playing on the go.
Splatoon 3 for $41
One of the most popular multiplayer titles you can find on Switch, Splatoon 3 is packed with all sorts of exciting modes you can spend dozens of hours in. The title improves a vast amount of features from Splatoon 2, while also bringing in some fresh new ideas too. You can find new classes, new weapons, and new maps immediately when hopping in. With the Side Order expansion set to release next month, now is the perfect time to hop in and get familiar with the world of Splatoon.
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.
Lowest Price Yet for Persona 5 Tactica
Amazon has Persona 5 Tactica listed for $29.99, which is an even better deal than Black Friday and the lowest we’ve seen the title yet. This action-packed adventure takes the Phantom Thieves into a new adventure with tactical combat. If you enjoyed Persona 5 Royal or Persona 5 Strikers, P5 Tactica should be a game on your radar. Erina, a character new to the series, is a great addition to an already amazing cast of characters.
Save $21 Off Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Arguably one of the best platformers available on Nintendo Switch, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a must play for the platform. Created by Retro Studios, there are six different worlds you can traverse through as you fight against Lord Fredrik and his army of Snowmads. You can play with a friend and choose between Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong, Cranky Kong, and even Funky Kong!
Save 52% Off the Razer Huntsman V2 Keyboard
The Razer Huntsman V2 keyboard is $130 off at Amazon for a limited time. This analog keyboard features analog optical switches with actuation at the speed of light, which you can adjust to fit your playstyle. Additionally, the keycaps are doubleshot PBT, making for a much more durable set of caps that won’t deteriorate over time. If you’re in the market for a new keyboard, this is a great option at a price we might not see again for a while.
Warning: this article contains full spoilers for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League!
After a long series of delays, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is out in the world. And DC fans all want to know — do you actually kill the Justice League? How does this bloody adventure end?
Now that the game is out of early access and available to all players, we’re here to break down the ending to the new Suicide Squad game, how it impacts the Arkham-verse, and how it sets up future DLC campaigns. Because if there’s one thing clear by the time the credits roll, it’s that Harley Quinn and the gang still have a lot of killing ahead of them.
Do You Actually Kill the Justice League?
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League does indeed live up to its name. The entire Justice League is dead by the end of the game, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern. Most of these iconic heroes are brainwashed by Brainiac to aid in his conquest of Earth, leaving Amanda Waller only too happy to recruit Task Force X to assassinate them.
How does such a motley crew of incarcerated supervillains (only one of whom even has superhuman powers) manage to annihilate the world’s greatest super-team? It may seem like a stretch, but the game works to justify that major power gap. The team is aided by a number of fellow villains throughout the game, including Toyman, Lex Luthor, Penguin, and Gizmo, all of whom provide useful gadgets or anti-metahuman weaponry. For example, the team is decked out in anti-Speed Force tech, allowing them to take down the Fastest Man Alive. Later, they use Gold Kryptonite-laced weapons to level the playing field with Superman.
The game also positions Batman as a vital resource against the Justice League. The Squad discovers a recording Batman left behind intended for his sidekicks, one designed to help them take on the Justice League should the team ever go rogue. Batman has compiled a series of “Babel” files, contingency plans for each member of the League. That’s a reference to the comic book storyline JLA: Tower of Babel, where Ra’s al Ghul steals Batman’s contingency plans and uses them to take down the team himself.
It should be pointed out that Wonder Woman is the one Justice League member who isn’t compromised by Brainiac in the game. She plays a supporting role in the story, occasionally popping up to battle her fallen comrades. Wonder Woman eventually takes on Superman and manages to stab him with a shard of Kryptonite, but the Man of Steel kills her in the process.
As you’d expect, not all DC fans are thrilled with how the League is taken down in the game. Batman’s death in particular is a source of major contention, considering that this is the same version of the Dark Knight from Rocksteady’s Arkham games. These deaths also raise the question of how the world can move forward with a Justice League to protect it. Who fills that power vacuum? We don’t know if this is something that might be explored in future story content. Perhaps a team like the Justice Society will step in, or perhaps the League will be rebuilt with a more eclectic roster of heroes. Did someone say Justice League Detroit?
The Final Battle With Brainiac
As befits a game where the villains are forced to become the saviors of the world, Lex Luthor is one of your chief allies in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Two of them, in fact. Luthor is actually killed by the brainwashed Flash, but it’s later revealed that he was collaborating with his counterpart from Earth-2. Earth-2 Luthor crosses over to Earth-1 and becomes the Squad’s most valuable asset in the ramp-up to battling Brainiac. This multiverse will form the backbone of the future of the game going forward.
It’s this Luthor who discovers the dark truth behind Brainiac’s conquest. Brainiac has been colluding with 12 of his alternate selves from different universes. Their ultimate goal isn’t just to conquer Earths, but the entire multiverse. Luthor builds a device to extract information from Brainiac’s mind, hoping to uncover a way to stop this
As you’d expect, the game does culminate in a final boss battle with Brainiac. Harley and the team are decked out in tech that protects them from Brainiac’s mind-control powers, and they come bringing the finest anti-metahuman weaponry they’ve been able to scavenge in Metropolis. Brainiac modifies his own body for this final battle, allowing him to tap into the Speed Force like Flash and move across the battlefield at lightning speed.
After a long, frantic battle, the Suicide Squad finally prevails over Brainiac. He’s taken out — but not killed — and imprisoned inside a miniature storage device. Though the Squad very nearly succeeds in suffocating him in the process. Ultimately, Waller and Luthor are able to harvest the information they need from Brainiac’s mind, after which the villain does die and his body dematerializes. It’s at this point the team learns just how much work they have left ahead of them.
The Brainiac of the Elseworlds
As mentioned, Earth-2 Luthor discovers that Brainiac has been colluding with 12 of his alternate selves from other universes. The information harvested from Brainiac’s mind gives them a starting point, but only by hunting down and killing the remaining Brainiacs can the Suicide Squad truly end the threat to their world and the multiverse at large.
That’s effectively where the game ends. It’s a much more open-ended conclusion than we saw in the various Arkham games and that’s by design. Whereas Arkham Asylum and its sequels told finite stories with definitive endings, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is setting up future playable content with its ending.
The ending is basically a foundation for Rocksteady’s DLC road map, which will consist of at least four seasons of new content. Each season will add a playable character to the roster (the first being the Joker) and multiple versions of Brainiac to battle. The first season will be released in March 2024, with the rest to follow over the course of a year.
It’s unclear just how much new story content will be included in each season. However, we do know the DLC deals directly with the concept of Elseworlds, another name for the DC multiverse. That’s how Joker is being added to the cast despite the Clown Prince of Crime having died at the end of 2011’s Arkham City. The new levels will likely be set in other Earths in the multiverse, and may even feature alternate versions of the Justice Leaguers killed in the main story mode.
The real question is whether this is all building to a true ending for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. What happens when the 13th and final Brainiac is killed? Is there a special ending rewarding players for sticking with the game for a full year? We may have to wait a while yet before learning how this game truly ends.
What do you think of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s ending? Will you be playing all the DLC in the hope of unlocking the true ending to the game? Let us know in the comments. And be sure to check out IGN’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League review.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Monster capture games have certainly captured the attention of players for generations, with Pokemon being the most prominent and beloved series within the genre. Due to its popularity, it isn’t any surprise that games of a similar vein have popped up to occupy the same space. But that doesn’t mean all of these games are the same, despite sharing a similar foundation, or even considering several games that predate this wildly popular series. Either way, there’s a wide world of monster capture games for all you Pokemon fans out there.
Below are a list of games that reside within the vast monster capture genre, or dabble in the mechanic in some meaningful way.
Cassette Beasts
While it was a very busy year for major game releases, under-the-radar Cassette Beasts was one of the best games to release in 2023. A stylish blend of 2D and 3D art, Cassette Beasts is visually similar to some of the best Pokemon games in the series, but with some light traversal elements and large focus on the monster capture and fusion mechanics of the game.
Like most games that take heavy inspiration from Pokemon, Cassette Beasts stars a self-insert player character as they make their way through the island of New Wirral while they look for a way to return home. However, the game is a little more complex in the way that you interact with various major characters, as you can increase your affinity with them and even undertake their quests. What Cassette Beasts offers is a blend of Pokemon-esque monster capture mechanics, a character driven story, and a unique fusion mechanic that keeps them on their toes. Overall, it’s an inspired and fresh take on the genre, and one you should check out.
Monster Sanctuary
Monster Sanctuary is a mix of the monster capture genre and your par for the course Metroidvania. Players catch monsters to engage in 3-vs-3 battles as well as to open up exploration in gorgeous 2D pixel environments.
The game extends beyond the use of monster types as just a means to get an advantage on opponents, as attack types are just as important. But what really kept me glued to Monster Sanctuary was its traversal mechanics and really nailing those 2D platforming elements. Going back and uncovering new shortcuts and secrets made the game utterly addicting to me in addition to how battles were structured. This is a game I highly recommend for those who like monster capture games, 2D platformers, or both.
Digimon World: Next Order
The Digimon series is effectively the progenitor of the monster capture genre, even predating Pokemon — it just never rose to the same kind of success internationally. Digimon World: Next Order takes all of the fun from the first Digimon World game on the PlayStation (bar the scuffed localization) and makes it more approachable. The Digimon World series have functioned as more or less “open world” exploration games where players can raise a Digimon from birth to its eventual death, with how they’ve treated them playing into their evolutions, as they experience unique stories set within the Digimon universe.
These games have generally always been more story focused than Pokemon games as players befriend Digimon to fill out their cities and discover what plagues the digital world. Players can still train their Digimon and unlock unique Digivolutions but in a more story-focused experience. That said, you can still grind out and train your Digimon to your heart’s content, but Digimon World: Next Order definitely has one of the meatier stories of the games on this list thanks to its focus on its narrative and the wealth of various Digivolutions players can discover.
Monster Rancher
An oldie but a goodie, Monster Rancher is one of several monster capture games that was released in the 1990’s alongside the Pokemon series. Like other monster capture games, players will raise monsters and train them through a series of mini-games to compete in tournaments that will allow them to raise their ranks.
However, you aren’t really capturing monsters in Monster Rancher, as you more or less generate them through various methods depending on which versions of the game you were playing. Koei Tecmo re-released Monster Rancher 1 & 2 for the Nintendo Switch, making these games available to an entirely new audience. Unfortunately, these versions have done away with what made the monster capture mechanic so unique, and that was swapping out CDs on your Sony PlayStation to generate a random monster. What makes Monster Rancher so fun though is that there’s a big emphasis on bonding and training your monster outside of battling them in the arena. Monster Rancher is a great game for those looking to build up their monsters and really test their mettle in 1-vs-1 combat.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince
You may be wondering why a Dragon Quest game has any business being on this list. Well, the Dragon Quest Monsters sub-series, first introduced in 1998 to capitalize on the Pokemania, are all about capturing monsters to use in turn-based combat against your foes. Sound familiar? The Dark Prince is the latest entry in the series, and despite launching with some major technical issues that have since been patched on certain platforms, it carries this tradition onwards. However, capturing monsters is a little more intensive than in Pokemon and success rates are decided by some variables that players can turn in their favor, which makes it a little more in-depth than Pokemon games. Nevertheless this game will definitely satiate any cravings you may have for capturing some monsters. Fans of Dragon Quest and monster capture games, or even fans of both, will enjoy this entry in the series.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin
Ever wanted to raise monsters instead of hunting them in Monster Hunter? Monster Hunter Stories provides that exact experience. Instead of slaying monsters for valuable parts, players instead collect monsters by obtaining their eggs — which sounds bad in practice. But the narrative always makes it clear that these games are more or less about the conservation of monsters and cultural practices, so it sort of rubs off whatever reservations players might have.
You assume the role of a budding monster trainer who has been paired with one of the series most iconic monsters, a Rathalos. Things begin to go awry as monsters begin to rampage through areas surrounding your village. Combat is relegated to strategic turn-based battles that take into account the types of monsters you decide to make part of your team. You can also use your monsters as means to traverse various landscapes, similar to what modern Pokemon games have implemented. Monster Hunters Stories 2: Wings of Ruin provides a decently balanced experience in terms of narrative and gameplay, and will occupy a decent amount of time if you decide to collect all of the monsters in the game.
Palworld
While Palworld’s similarities to Pokemon begin and end with its colorful monster design, a monster capturing mechanic does exist within the game that more or less mirrors what you get in Pokemon Legends: Arceus. In Palworld you can capture and use Pals in interesting ways, either to help them automize construction, provide resources for your base, and even for traversal. You can do that in most Pokemon games, with it far more tangible in Scarlet and Violet as you use Koraidon or Miraidon to scale mountains, glide, and more. That is effectively where the similarities end, since Palworld is more or less about obtaining resources to build up your base like most survival games are.
While there are still a plethora of other monster capture games that exist, as the genre has expanded greatly since the release and subsequent popularity of Pokemon in the 1990’s, the ones included in this list build upon those foundations in some truly unique ways. Whether it be an engrossing story, a more fleshed out battle system, or even how you obtain monsters, these games are more than worth checking out.
