Category: IGN

Anecdotally, it’s been said that in its native Japan, Dragon Quest is more popular than Final Fantasy, which is more popular abroad. This is most obvious for any fans of fantasy anime who will find Dragon Quest’s undeniable influence over the genre, from monster designs like Slimes to other fantasy tropes pioneered by the early Dragon Quest games.

As someone who grew up primarily in the United States, I’m in the camp of gamers more familiar with the Final Fantasy series, with only a passing familiarity with Dragon Quest. Plus, while newer entries like Dragon Quest 11 have been rapturously received by fans, it’s the older Dragon Quest games that hold that certain air of history and mystique for someone like me who’s more interested in the legacy of the series.

Which also means it’s been a pretty good couple of years for me as Square Enix is finally remaking these older, beloved, Dragon Quest games for modern systems – and with a fresh new look. Rather than a full, polygonal upgrade, Square Enix is utilizing the retro-modern fusion they call HD-2D from its Octopath series to revive games like Dragon Quest 3 for modern audiences. And that continues with its next remake, Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake, coming later this year.

Despite being released before Dragon Quest 3, Dragon Quest 1 and Dragon Quest 2 are actually sequels, so playing Dragon Quest 3, 1, and 2 in that order is chronologically correct within the game’s universe. I got a chance to play those next two recently on PlayStation 5, and I came away even more excited to finally discover these early Dragon Quest titles.

The Best Way to Play the Original Dragon Quest Games

The first three Dragon Quest games comprise the “Erdrick Trilogy” – named after the hero of Dragon Quest 3. It’s no spoiler to say that in Dragon Quest 3, Erdrick is successful in his mission to save the kingdom from evil. You will then play as Erdrick’s descendents in Dragon Quest 1 & 2. Thus, Square Enix is actually releasing these games in chronological order, which is nice of them.

Up until these remakes, these have only been released as ports on mobile and certain game consoles, but there’s no need to bother with those now, unless you want a truly classic experience.

How Square Enix is Modernizing Dragon Quest

Given the legendary status of these games, Square Enix has to walk a bit of a tightrope trying to maintain parts of them that fans already love while modernizing some of the more dated bits. These changes, aside from the art style, are typically related to gameplay and storytelling, I’m told. In Dragon Quest 1 for example, there was no party system in the series yet, so the whole campaign is played using a single character who fights one enemy at a time. This has been changed so that now the player, while still solo, faces multiple enemies at once.

The two games are also “shorter” compared to modern RPGs, with How Long to Beat clocking Dragon Quest 1 at around 10 hours, while Dragon Quest 2 dials it up to 16 hours of playtime. Square Enix says they’ve beefed up some of the content and cutscenes to try and push those numbers up a bit, but don’t expect to be suddenly playing a 100-hour RPG.

Even Better Looking Than Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D

Today’s Daily Deals are all about getting more bang for your buck, specifically for the most popular trading card games and Peacock TV. Missed out on your Final Fantasy and Marvel’s Spider-Man Magic: The Gathering preorders? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

TL;DR: Deals For Today

I’ve also had my eye on the Pokémon TCG collectors market, and I’ve found prices on sealed product cheaper than big box retailers such as Amazon. It’s been a big issue trying to get a fair price on stock for the past few weeks, but I’ve got the best prices on sealed and single cards. There’s even some absolute gems to pick up for your Pokémon binder with this week’s crashes and climbers. Let’s get into it:

MTG Marvel’s Spider-Man Preorders

Whilst there’s only the Play Booster Box and Scene Bundle for MTG: Marvel’s Spider-Man live on Amazon right now, TCG Player has every sealed product that will hit the market on launch day. I’ve even found some pricing on cases of sealed product for those looking to rip open a tonne of boosters, so get on it before the market value on these products shoot up.

MTG Spider-Man Single Cards

Unfortunatley there’s no listings for Spider-Man single cards right now considering we’re a few months out from release, but I’ve managed to round up the listings for cards currently sitting on TCG Player waiting for presale allocations, so keep your eyes peeled.

MTG Final Fantasy TCG Player Preorders

MTG: Final Fantasy is set to be the biggest Magic: The Gathering set ever, which is a shock to absolutley no-one. Preorders are drying up at retail, but there’s plenty of choice available on TCG Player right now. I’ve found all the preorders listed so far (including prerelease boxes) alongside massive cases on booster displays. Don’t sleep on these preorders, MTG FF is going to fly off the shelves on release.

MTG Final Fantasy Single Cards

The single card market for MTG Final Fantasy is flying right now, so I’ve included over 40 of (in my opinion) the most popular Final Fantasy cards collectors and players will be chasing once packs start getting ripped. Don’t want to spend money on boosters and hope? Secure your chase cards for release day instead.

Expedition 33 Merch

Pokémon TCG Stock Update

Long story short; things are looking bleak at retail for Pokémon TCG right now. Almost everything is way above MSRP and seems to becoming the new normal for big box retailers. I could write a whole article and why this is and what should be done to stop this practice, but here we are. If you have your heart set on opening booster packs, have at it, but you might want to check out the sections below to save money.

TCG Player Has The Same Products For Less

TCG Player and the Pokémon TCG secondary collectors market is significantly cheaper than big box retailers at the time of writing. This will likely be the case unless you can secure preorders on new sets such as Destined Rivals, Black Bolt and White Flare. Make no mistake products are still over MSRP, but If small businesses can undercut large retailers on TCG Player, there’s something fundamentally broken in the supplier-distributor-retail chain.

This Weeks Pokémon TCG Crashers and Climbers

The Single Pokémon TCG market on the other hand is going through a grand reset right now, which is down to a few factors. The crypto bro mentally to reselling products is dying down a little and more product is becoming available thanks to reprints. We’re not out of the woods yet by any means, but this weeks Crashers and Climbers show recent cards going down in price and cards from the X and Y era shooting up in value. We’re 100% moving in the right direction.

Javascript, Scripting And Web Development Book Bundle

Peacock TV

It’s amazing how quickly the Pokémon TCG collectors market changes. We’re seeing a ridiculous rise in value for three X and Y era promo cards, which is valid because they’ve always looked amazing. The thing is, Venusaur EX, Blastoise EX, and Charizard EX box promos have never been a highly-priced card. Looking at TCG Player, the market is flooded with lightly played and damaged condition cards, so perhaps the rarer near mint copies of these cards are worth the higher price tag?

In last week’s Crashers and Climbers, we saw signs of Prismatic Evolutions chase cards crashing hard, and for the most part, I was spot on. We’re seeing massive drops on Glaceon ex and Sylveon ex by 28% over the last few days, which is insane. Let’s get into it:

Pokémon Card Crashers

I wanted Journey Together to hit big. After Surging Sparks and Prismatic Evolutions delivered some real heat, it felt like we were on a roll.

But instead of a clean three-hit combo, this set tripped over itself on the way out the gate. Prices were inflated from the start, and now that the market has had time to breathe, this correction is aggressive.

It’s still a solid set. Great art, fun pulls, some nostalgic hits. But a lot of the single prices were built on hype that couldn’t hold.

Collectors thought we’d get another round of rapid value climbs. That didn’t happen. If you’re buying now, you’re catching cards on the way down instead of riding them on the way up.

Just go in knowing what’s worth grabbing and what’s still floating on leftover launch-day fumes.

Illustration Rares

Articuno had a strong start. Prices hit $55 back in late March, which made sense at the time—it’s a fan-favorite Legendary with great artwork.

Since then, it’s taken a 36% dip and now floats around $35. Honestly, that’s still a bit high. I’ve seen near-mint listings at $18.69, and that feels more in line with where this card belongs.

I think it’s a solid pickup if you just want a great-looking bird without the early adopter tax.

Wailord was one of those early hype Illustration Rares that got pumped fast, mostly because it’s Wailord and people have a soft spot for absurdly large water types.

It hit $60 at the end of March, which didn’t last long. It’s now dropped 63.66% to a market value of around $22.49, and I’ve seen copies listed for as low as $14.55. Personally, I think this one’s due for a soft bounce back to $30, but only once the panic listings clear out and the Wailord fans circle back.

My favorite Illustration Rare is N’s Reshiram. The artwork is top-tier, and the character pairing actually adds something meaningful to the card. It started at $39.43, which honestly didn’t feel too far off given the demand at launch.

Now it’s sitting around $17.44. Even the Journey Together stamped variant, which you’d think would carry some extra value, is undercutting the regular one at about $14. That’s a 79.51% drop, and in my opinion, a steal. If you want a chase card without paying chase prices, this is the one.

Special Illustration Rare And Hyper Rares

You ever wonder who the first person to put peanut butter and chocolate together was? Part of me feels like whoever it was must be loaded; I mean, you’ve combined two already great flavors into something that Reese’s would more or less build a whole brand on. And then part of me thinks it plays out like the hypothetical guy who invented the Chicken McNugget in The Wire. A pat on the back from a big shot, and then it’s back to the basement to figure out a way to make the fries taste better. I don’t know the answer; I hope it’s the former. But every now and then, you come across an idea, a combination of things, that’s so good that you wonder how nobody’s ever done it before. And every time my squad and I sprinted back to our time-traveling dropship, stopping only to deal with the Time Reapers that stood in our way, I wondered how the hell nobody had ever said “Hey, what if we combined Overcooked and Gears of War?” pre-Pizza Bandit.

Pizza Bandit’s setup is pretty simple. You’re Malik, a former bounty hunter with dreams of being a chef who is pulled back into the bounty game when he’s scammed out of his pizza shop and his former crew needs his help to get out of a jam. Pizza Bandit’s writing is pretty silly, but that’s part of the charm. I can’t get mad when Albert, the android that upgrades your weapons, tells me he doesn’t know how to apologize for what happened to my pizza shop because he’s just an android, or when my pilot waxes nostalgic about how he misses the fog, or when someone utters the odd nonsensical line. It’s too silly, and the whole setup is just there to, well… set up Pizza Bandit’s wackiness.

See, you’re not just any bounty-hunting crew. You’re a time-traveling bounty hunting crew, and that means you’ll be going all over space and time to get the job done. Don’t ask me how any of this works. All I know is that pizza heals and bullets kill, and that the Time Reapers — nasty little buggers that seem to be invading every timeline — don’t want this pizza shop owner to make any dough. And that’s not gonna fly.

What makes Pizza Bandit unique is that you’re not just shooting stuff. You’re also, well, kinda playing Overcooked. After squading up, my first mission saw my crew (you can play with up to three friends) heading to the Restaurant from N owhere, a hidden outpost run by another bandit crew. Our job: fulfill the pizza orders for other bounty hunting teams, and send them off in time-traveling rocket pods. That meant putting together the right type of pizza, getting it to the oven, making sure we were getting their drink orders right, and adding some extra bullets for when things got spicy, cramming it all into a pod, and doing it on time while fighting off the Time Reapers, who really, really don’t like supporting small businesses.

And that’s where the other part of the Overcooked/Gears of War marriage comes into play. See, the Time Reapers mean business, and you’re not going to talk them out of some time reaping. That’s their whole bag. The only solution, fellow bandit, is incredible violence. I’ve played several builds of Pizza Bandit at this point, and let me tell you, your arsenal is up to the task. You start with your choice of assau lt rifle, minigun, and sniper rifle, but the fun really begins when you start unlocking your secondary weapons by completing jobs. They start simple: landmines, grenades, that sort of thing, but once you unlock the disco ball that attracts enemies and gets them dancing before it explodes? Whew, buddy. And the sentry turret? Perfection. You could slice and dice them Time Reapers with a katana, but have you ever considered using a pizza slicer as big as a man? It’ll change your life.

And the Time Reapers will force you to use everything in your arsenal. You got your standard guys who will just run at you, but there are also Time Reapers that’ll crawl around on all fours, Terminator-looking ones that will leap at you, giant ones with hammers, guys who throw fireballs (these can really ruin your day), the works. You gotta prioritize.

Pizza Bandit is at its best when you’re with a good team, calling out orders. A good match should be shouts of “We need a pepperoni pie!” and “I’m on the Coke!” and “I’m down!” interspersed with lots and lots of gunfire. Simple choices, like when to call down your own, once-a-mission rocket pod full of pizza and supplies, and more complex ones, like where to put it (you can block off a stairway, for instance), spice things up, too.

And here’s the thing: so far, I’ve just talked about Restaurant from Nowhere, which is only the first level. Pizza Bandit isn’t a one-trick pony. One of my favorite levels has you taking over a sushi joint and making sure you have the right stuff on the delivery turntable for your customers. Sometimes that means running downstairs and grabbing a big ol’ tuna, taking that bad boy upstairs, and chopping him up before the Time Reapers whack you and you drop him. Other times that means frying an egg, or making a cucumber roll. You gotta stay ahead of the curve, because new customers are prioritized over old ones, and the Time Reapers aren’t gonna sit there and wait for you to plate your masterpiece.

Sometimes, you’re not even cooking food at all. Another favorite level, Wizard’s Tomb, has you exploring a magically booby-trapped tomb in search of a sarcophagus. You’ll have to navigate the tomb’s traps, solve basic puzzles to reveal the way forward, and take out the arcane heart powering the whole enterprise before getting to the sarcophagus itself, which you’ll naturally transport with jetpacks before booking it back to your ship. It isn’t enough to get any given job done; you gotta get home, too. Just another day in the life of a pizza bandit.

There are more, of course: in one, you’ll defend a cabin with Dr. Emmert Browne (Great Scott, Jofsoft, I see what you’re doing here, and I like it!) while he invents the time travel device that makes your whole business profitable. Winning it all means keeping him warm, satiating his hunger with rabbit or venison, and stopping all those nasty Time Reapers (and Wendigos?) who are trying to stop time travel from happening. You’d think that the Time Reapers would understand time paradoxes, but I guess not. Can’t reap time if there’s no time to reap, y’all.

Or maybe you’ll break into an enormous safe with a laser drill, like you’re roleplaying the opening scene of Michael Mann’s Thief with a drill that’s constantly exploding. That seems safe, right? But hey, apparently there’s a magical cookbook in that vault whose recipes can alter reality, and we’re being paid to get it, exploding drill or not. A Pizza Bandit always gets the job done.

And there’s always time to do your best Breaking Bad impersonation and help a couple of guys cook some “magic powder” and hide it inside some chicken. Oh, and you have to kill and cook the chickens. Only fresh, never frozen, baby. Pizza Bandit is always ludicrous, and its inspirations are obvious, but it’s never less than fun.

Between missions, it’s back to Pizza Bandit (your restaurant), where you can acquire and upgrade your weapons, decorate Pizza Bandit itself, use the ingredients you find during missions to bake and share a pie for some stat boosts on your next run, or get some spiffy new duds for your bounty hunter. The milk carton backpack is a classic choice, if I do say so myself, but I’m still saving up for one of the cat ones. The things we do for fashion, am I right? Then it’s right back to it. A bandit’s work is never done.

Sometimes, you don’t know you want something until you get it. I didn’t know I wanted Pizza Bandit until the first time I played it at PAX two years ago. It was one of those games that generated a lot of word of mouth, but it’s one of those concepts that doesn’t seem like it’ll work until you get a controller in your hands and everything makes sense. I don’t know why we’ve never gotten something like Pizza Bandit before, but once I played it, I knew I wanted more. Pizza heals, bullets kill, and Pizza Bandit rocks. If Jofsoft can stick the landing, we’re in for a tasty slice of New York pie.

Dragon Age star Alix Wilton Regan has given her personal response to the backlash faced by last year’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and blamed the “mixed reactions” on people who “wanted to see the game fail, or wanted to see [BioWare] fail.”

The actor, who plays the Female Inquisitor in both Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, told IGN that she was “absolutely devastated” to see BioWare’s latest game fail to find a larger audience, despite mostly positive review scores from critics.

Speaking during a new interview discussing her many iconic video game characters to date — as well as her role in Microsoft’s upcoming Perfect Dark reboot — Wilton Regan said she had loved her time as BioWare’s Inquisitor, though did not believe the character would now return.

“I feel absolutely devastated for BioWare as a studio that they got such mixed reactions to the game,” Wilton Regan said of the response to The Veilguard. “I personally thought it was a really strong game. I thought it was just BioWare being more BioWare.

“I also think a lot of people kind of wanted to see it fail, or wanted to see [BioWare] fail, either because they’re just really bad people on the internet — of which there are unfortunately many, as we have discovered.”

At launch, The Veilguard was review-bombed online. Criticism of the game being “woke” centred on its inclusion of a non-binary companion character, and the ability for the player to choose to be transgender. On Steam, Dragon Age: The Veilguard now sits with a ‘Mixed’ player respose, with user-defined tags for the game describing it under “LGBTQ+” and “politics” labels.

“People were attacking the game before it was released,” Wilton Regan continued. “It’s ridiculous. How can you judge a game, a book, a film, a TV show before it’s actually released? You can’t. It’s an idiotic stance to take.”

In January, publisher EA said Dragon Age: The Veilguard had “underperformed” versus its expectations by around 50%, just days after the game’s director Corrine Busche confirmed she was leaving the company. Meanwhile, other BioWare staff who worked on the game were laid off.

In the same month, BioWare signalled it had released its final update for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, with no further content announced or expected.

“I only ever want to see the folks from BioWare thrive, because I adore them,” Wilton Regan concluded. “And whatever they go on to do next I have no doubt their talents will be richly rewarded. We’re really lucky we’ll get more gold from them in the future.”

A slimmed-down BioWare is now working on Mass Effect 5, which currently does not have a release date.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Warner Bros. has confirmed what Mortal Kombat 1 fans feared after the recent launch of the Definitive Edition: no new DLC characters or story chapters will be released for the game.

Mortal Kombat 1 has sold 5 million copies, with the franchise now up to 100 million. Mortal Kombat 11 became the best-selling game in the franchise by passing Mortal Kombat X’s nearly 11 million units sold worldwide soon after launch. By 2022, Mortal Kombat 11 had sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. Clearly, Mortal Kombat 1 has underperformed compared to previous games in the series.

In a tweet on the official Mortal Kombat social media account, Warner Bros. acknowledged the disappointment the news will cause players, “but our team at NetherRealm needs to shift focus to the next project in order to make it as great as we possibly can.”

Warner Bros. failed to say what this new project is, but current speculation points to Injustice 3, a continuation of NetherRealm’s DC fighting game series.

Here’s the statement in full:

We are hearing players’ requests for continued game support of Mortal Kombat 1, and, while we will continue to support Mortal Kombat 1 through balance adjustments and fixes, there will not be additional DLC characters or story chapters released from this point on.

We understand this will be disappointing for fans, but our team at NetherRealm needs to shift focus to the next project in order to make it as great as we possibly can.

March 2025’s release of the T-1000 guest character, which came a year-and-a-half after the release of Mortal Kombat 1 itself, now goes down as the game’s final major content drop. For context, in July 2021, NetherRealm announced it had started work on its next project (Mortal Kombat 1) and, as a result, there would be no further DLC for Mortal Kombat 11. That announcement came two years and three months after the release of the game. Today’s announcement comes one year and eight months after the release of Mortal Kombat 1.

Players are already bringing up prior comments from NetherRealm development chief Ed Boon, who had promised fans years of support. Indeed, many are now pointing to a September 2024 tweet from Boon, who at the time moved to reassure fans already concerned that the studio had moved onto its next game by saying: “NetherRealm is still fully committed to supporting Mortal Kombat 1 for a long time to come.”

Mortal Kombat 1 enjoyed something of a resurgence in January with the secret fight with Floyd, the pink ninja developer Boon had been teasing for years. That sparked a fun community-wide effort that breathed new life into the game. But that was a rare bright spot for what has, overall, been a disappointing release for many core Mortal Kombat fans.

What now for Mortal Kombat? Parent company Warner Bros. Discovery has indicated that it still believes the gory fighting game franchise has a future. In November, CEO David Zaslav said that on the games side of things, the company plans to double down on just four titles, one of which was Mortal Kombat. Movie adaptation Mortal Kombat 2 is due out later this year.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Hot off the heels of Palia, a great life sim that just consumed dozens of hours of my life, I actually can’t believe I’ve been sucked into yet another one only a few days later. With its witty writing and seemingly endless supply of charm, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time has already stolen plenty of mine. The characters and story so far are both wonderfully goofy and much more substantial than I’m used to seeing in this genre, the RPG-like Life system of leveling up various jobs is really easy to get lost in, and it seems to have nailed the balance between day-in-the-life cozy activities and more action-packed exploration to the point where it’s really hard to predict what might happen next. I’m still pretty early on in what’s starting to look like quite a lengthy adventure, but I’m already head over heels for this delightfully light-hearted romp filled with talking birds and time-traveling dragons. There go my weekend plans.

Fantasy Life i is an interesting hodgepodge of chill game mechanics lovingly arranged into one killer mixtape that’s repeatedly surprised me thus far. One moment I’ll be mining for ore with a pickaxe to craft an iron ingot and think, “ah, okay. I get what this game is” – only to find myself walking through a time vortex moments later that leads to a prolonged open-world trek filled with combat against brightly colored monsters. Though that can be a little jarring at first, after a few hours I started to appreciate the way it keeps things fresh by enticing you to jump between its various attractions.

If I’m ever feeling a bit bored by helping villagers with their random requests, I can go run around a desert on the back of a camel in search of hidden treasure chests and fire-breathing lizards for a bit, or get myself chewed out by an entitled mimic. The thing that brings these disparate activities together is that they all have a low-impact vibe to them, one where I never felt the need to lean forward in my chair or worry about min-maxing my character’s loadout. It’s part life sim, part action-adventure RPG, all unified by its universally mellow tone.

I’m especially surprised by how quickly I started to care about its cast of characters, too. That could be Edward, the adventure-seeking archaeologist, Trip, the talking bird who loves to sass humans, or Rem, the musically-inclined princess who seems to enjoy slumming it up with us common folk. The humorous dialogue and larger-than-life personalities have made me chuckle a lot more than I usually do from life sims, and I am quite interested to learn more about the time-skipping plot I’ve found myself in the middle of.

It’s both surprising and impressive just how much this goofy life sim does, and how much of that is almost immediately super engaging. Of course, it’s totally possible that some of that charm will wear off as I become more familiar with its system and get further into the grind. It could be that Fantasy Life i just has an incredibly strong opening, but even if that does turn out to be the case, I’ve really been enjoying my time so far and am feeling pretty good at its chances of holding my attention.

I’m still early on in my adventure, and have yet to try out the multiplayer features (which include both online and local co-op for up to four people), get into the later stages with any of the job paths, or finish more than a few chapters in the story. After what will almost definitely be a sleepless weekend dominated by shanking wolves and helping a merchant bear heal his bee wounds, I’ll have much more to say – but for now I’ve gotta go help this cat with his personal problems.

When the original Parks released in 2019, it quickly became a modern classic, thanks in large part to its gorgeous artwork celebrating the U.S. National Parks. See our review for details on that first edition. But Keymaster Games didn’t just slap a fresh coat of paint on the 2nd Edition and call it a day. Instead, it thoughtfully combined the base game with its expansions, streamlining the gameplay, updating the visuals, and introducing new features, all while preserving that cozy game feel.

The result is something that feels like both a sequel and a revision. Either way, the 2nd Edition of Parks is a great excuse to hit the trails, snap some photos, and fill your canteen all over again.

What’s in the Box

Even though S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy – Enhanced Edition released on May 20 offering free “fully remastered and optimized” upgrades for all owners of the original trilogy, developer GSC Game World has been under siege by a review bomb campaign after players discovered the Russian voice acting and “Soviet-era” landmarks had been quietly removed.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy – Enhanced Edition includes remastered versions of Shadow of Chornobyl (2007), Clear Sky (2008), and Call of Prypiat (2009) with upgraded visuals, next-gen console optimizations, and expanded mod support. However, shortly after release, all games plummeted to a “mostly negative” rating on Steam as players flooded the review section to complain about blurry visuals and register their dismay that the games were now “blurry, censored, and revised, [with] added advertisements.”

“So I own the originals and played them to death. If I get an enhanced edition I want to be excited when I boot it up, to see something different that makes we want to re-engage with the game. This isn’t it,” explained one player. “The graphics aren’t upgraded enough to get excited about, I have mixed feelings about stripping out the Russian references – honestly I see the original games as products of their history and although I understand the sensitivities of the developers I’m not sure whats to be gained by retconning them.

“So it’s free so I’ve nothing to complain about, but it’s not a huge step up from the original and to be honest, if you want an enhanced edition you can just mod the thing to your hearts content or play anomaly. GSC needed to do much more here and some cosmetic tweaking doesn’t really cut it.”

GSC Game World is a Ukrainian video game studio based in Kyiv, although some staff are currently working out of Prague after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, temporarily halting the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 as a result. At least one former GSC developer, Volodymyr Yezhov, has been killed in action.

While not formally acknowledging the negative reviews, GSC has today posted an update and a patch that it says will fix crashes on unsupported PC hardware and some consoles, address save issues, and repair “missing geometry on several levels.”

“Stalkers, we care about your feedback and are working on fixing the most critical issues,” the team said. “We really want to make your comeback to the Zone special.” It then said it would “continue to work on improving the trilogy.”

The “missing geometry,” players believe, refers to the missing Soviet relics found across all three games. It’s not clear if GSC chose or was compelled to revise Soviet iconography, but PC Gamer was able to confirm that the monument/sign outside Chornobyl itself, which reads “ChAES in the name of VI Lenin,” had at least been deleted. All that was left was “the two concrete blocks it used to stand on.”

The update made no explicit mention of the missing audio or the blurry textures.

“THEY LISTENED! THEY LISTENED! THEY LISTENED!” cried one delighted player on Reddit. “EE still has some issues but goddamn it, so glad they actually work on fixing the game and do not ignore the feedback.”

One player said: “That’s a million time[s] better solution than just removing it without a trace. That’s both applauding the current decommunization efforts while not censoring anything that existed before it.”

“This is a good first step. Hopefully we see some other fixes to notable things like the popular blur issue and items not appearing in marked stashes,” added another.

Read more on how S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has changed everything for the studio amid the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.