Cardy, Matt, and Jesse are here to deliver a week full of misery. That isn’t always a bad thing, though. Case in point: Silent Hill 2, a fantastic remake of a horror classic. It can, however, definitely be a bad thing. Just like the incredibly boring Joker: Folie à Deux. We have reviews of both this week, as well as thoughts of Hell Is Us, the Until Dawn remaster (remake?), and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Remember to send us your thoughts about all the new games, TV shows, and films you’re enjoying or looking forward to: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.
Sony’s controversial PlayStation Network requirement for its PC games is once again in the spotlight after the company delisted the original Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam and the Epic Games Store and added the PSN requirement to the upcoming single-player remaster.
This week, fans noticed the original Horizon Zero Dawn, previously available to buy in all countries where Steam is accessible, was delisted from the Epic Games Store and then from Steam itself. The Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition Steam page remains live, but the game itself is unavailable for purchase. In its place is the option to pre-purchase Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered or buy its sequel, Forbidden West.
The Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Steam page signals the PSN account requirement in the small print of the game’s features. Again, the original game did not have this requirement on PC.
Already negative user reviews are mentioning Sony’s actions here. “Delisted the original game just to add the remaster with PSN account forced into the game,” reads one recent Steam review for the Complete Edition of Zero Dawn. “Now countries unsupported by PSN can’t buy this game anymore whether it’s the non remastered version (which doesn’t require PSN) or remastered version.”
It seems likely, then, that Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered will suffer from review bombing when it goes on sale on Steam on October 31. It seems unlikely that Sony will reverse course here, having suffered a backlash from PC gamers to pretty much all its Steam releases since Helldivers 2 went on sale.
It has so far failed to comment on its PC PSN policy, although during the Helldivers 2 backlash it offered reasoning that was widely ridiculed by Steam gamers. “We’re still learning what is best for PC players and your feedback has been invaluable,” Sony said at the time. Unlike Helldivers 2, Horizon Zero Dawn is a purely single-player only game.
It’s worth noting that Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition is still available on GOG. There it is DRM-free, with no activation or online connection required to play.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Diablo 4 and its upcoming expansion Vessel of Hatred will be PS5 Pro Enhanced, Blizzard has confirmed. It is the first Microsoft game with confirmed Enhanced support for Sony’s $700 mid-gen upgrade.
Microsoft owns all Activision Blizzard’s franchises following its $69 billion acquisition of the company in 2023, and since then has added a number of the company’s games to its subscription service, Game Pass. Diablo 4 is in Game Pass, although not in its Standard tier.
Diablo boss Rod Fergusson confirmed the support in a tweet, without adding any details such as when the game will be updated or what players can expect on PS5 Pro. “Very proud of our hardworking team to make this happen,” Fergusson added. “More details at a later date.” PS5 Pro itself launches on November 7, with the Vessel of Hatred expansion out next week.
PS5 Pro has an AI-powered upscaling feature called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) that can automatically improve the image clarity of games, but PS5 Pro Enhanced games take particular advantage of the beefier console’s features.
PS5 Pro customers are now wondering whether more Activision Blizzard games will get the Enhanced treatment, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 of particular interest.
At a recent PS5 Pro preview event, we spoke with the technical leads of some of PlayStation’s biggest games, including Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and The Last of Us Part 2, to discuss the improvements we can expect to see now there’s a more powerful PS5 on the market.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Palworld has launched on PS5 in Japan even as its developer battles a lawsuit with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company in the country.
Palworld’s long-awaited PS5 release shadow-dropped on September 24 after an announcement during Sony’s State of Play broadcast, but while gamers in 68 countries worldwide were downloading the survival and crafting game dubbed ‘Pokémon with guns’ on PlayStation, Japanese gamers had to wait.
The Japanese PS5 release comes hot on the heels of Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s shock joint lawsuit against Pocketpair for alleged patent infringement, which was filed in Japan.
After Palworld’s huge launch earlier this year on PC and Xbox, comparisons were made between Palworld’s Pals and Pokémon, with some accusing Pocketpair of “ripping off” Pokémon designs. But rather than file a copyright infringement lawsuit, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have gone down the patent route.
It is worth noting that Palworld does include a mechanic that involves throwing a ball-like object (called a Pal Sphere) at monsters out in a field to capture them, similar to the mechanic seen in the 2022 Nintendo Switch exclusive Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and this may prove the key to the lawsuit.
Palworld launched on Steam priced $30 and straight into Game Pass on Xbox and PC earlier this year, breaking sales and concurrent player number records in the process. Pocketpair boss Takuro Mizobe has said Palworld’s launch was so big that the developer couldn’t handle the massive profits the game generated.
Still, Pocketpair acted swiftly to capitalize on Palworld’s breakout success, signing a deal with Sony to form a new business called Palworld Entertainment that’s tasked with expanding the IP.
Tweeting the announcement of Palworld’s PS5 launch in Japan, Pocketpair apologized for the delay and promised to “continue to provide exciting and large-scale updates to the PS5 version so that everyone can enjoy the game even more.”
Pocketpair has said it will begrudgingly investigate the patent infringement claims while continuing to update Palworld despite the lawsuit, and apologized to players left concerned about the future of the game.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Always the bridesmaid but never the bride, SpongeBob’s sleepy sidekick, Patrick Star, has often been overlooked in favour of his over-the-top neighbour – at least in the world of video games. That hasn’t stopped him from making a home in our hearts, though, so I was riding high when I learned the enigmatic starfish was finally being thrust into the limelight… but then the emotional rollercoaster dipped back down as I discovered SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game is little more than a sea of uninspired minigames and repetitive activities that waste almost all of its obvious potential, outside of a boatload of cute references to the show.
Stepping into the flowery shorts of Patrick himself, you embark on a six-hour sandbox platforming expedition through a thoughtfully recreated Bikini Bottom. In addition to having a dedicated burp button, Patrick can pick up items with either hand and fall asleep on command, turning the invertebrate into a possessed bowling ball that you can send hurtling across the sea floor. Due to the underwater setting, gravity is kinder than in most physics-based puzzlers, meaning there’s added time to plot your jumps and fix mistakes when you’re off the ground. This forgiving, familiar control scheme is applied to a mixed bag of activities dotted around the map, like skydiving or smashing up crates in the local Rage Room. Succeeding in these tasks rewards you with precious Sand Dollars that will eventually afford Patrick a slot to compete against his porous bestie in the prestigious Fry Cook Games. It’s an approachable setup buffeted by charming but eventually repetitious conversations with beloved characters like Mr. Krabs, Plankton and Sandy Cheeks.
The surrounding cartoon world is a blend of solid and breakable structures and allowed me to engage my inner chaos merchant as I took out any aggression on glass panes and metal walls alike. It isn’t all down to Patrick’s spiny appendages, though, as you can also take advantage of equippable tools littered around the vibrant underwater wonderland which bolster his platforming abilities. Whether I was sailing across a valley with the help of a paraglider or taking out a false wall with a comically oversized hammer it was easy to get caught in a chaotic feedback loop, bounding around the suburbs and bothering the Bottom-ites. But while it all sounds very freeing on paper, it’s also paper-thin, and I soon saw the limits of this reasonably sized world. When you push the haphazard reactivity too far the mask starts to slip, with clipping issues and unusual NPC behavior that illuminates the frayed technical seams that eventually come apart and leave an otherwise good first impression in tatters.
Perhaps the saving grace here is that Bikini Bottom as a whole is such a joy to explore, for the short time the novelty lasts at least. It’s an interactive diorama, decorated with hallowed locations like Mrs Puff’s Boating School and Glove World, and it speaks to the power of SpongeBob SquarePants that I was so enchanted by the referential signage, food items, and flower clouds scattered across the sky. The nostalgia is compounded by Patrick’s unlockable outfits, too – while the promise of entering the Fry Cook Games didn’t prompt much passion, grinding for iconic outfits like The Elastic Waistband and Patrick’s ‘Sweet Victory’ suit certainly did.
That magic eventually runs out, though, and a broader shallowness rears its head. While this is felt across The Patrick Star Game as a whole, it’s most apparent in its inconsistent array of minigames, which range from well-meaning imitations of pre-existing ideas to thankless busywork. I most enjoyed the Chum Bucket, an Overcooked clone that had me scrambling to make gooey buckets of eyeballs and bones under a time limit for paying customers. Elsewhere, I found myself clearing out lounging locals from Squidward’s favourite sunbathing spot, which both felt on-point thematically and leveraged the wacky physics to great effect. In these moments, I was reminded of The Simpsons Game‘s hilarious and moreish slate of tasks, which similarly combined its show’s unique humour with appropriately comical jobs.
Unfortunately, these moments of clarity were soon overshadowed by a glut of laboriousness. That includes seeking out endless golden gloves across a pint-sized amusement park or trawling the dump in search of an ever-increasing number of treasure chests. In the latter, I soon resolved to tear the place apart with an enormous magnet, but that approach only made my search more challenging as fished-up cars and other detritus got caught in the environment, trapping spoiled mattresses in a state of annoying eternal squeaking. Ultimately, I abandoned all hope and moved on, searching for alternate means of earning the Sand Dollars necessary to enter the Fry Cook Games. And, even when I did reach that coveted finale, I was met with more of the same clunky interactions I was already familiar with – it felt fitting that Patrick fell asleep during the closing ceremony.
It’s a shame that The Patrick Star Game resorts to simplistic collect-and-clear tasks when there’s such a deep well of SpongeBob lore to pull from. There are shades of this in the Bikini Bottom University segment, where you take on Squidward in an art contest, but its on-rails, oversimplified nature makes it hard to feel too invested. It would have been nice to see a more cohesive story play out instead of dealing with so many disconnected and lacklustre cameos.
It’s small consolation, but at least when I did get bored of the repetitive minigames, I could switch gears and tackle a list of more specific Feats, earning Sand Dollars for serving up burnt Krabby Patties or completing my childhood dream: pulling a full-blown 360 on the neighbourhood swing set. The light-hearted requirements of these Feats provided focus when I was losing interest, and the collectable Mayo Jars placed throughout Bikini Bottom broke up the post-game monotony with some proper platforming challenges.
After a string of Resident Evil remakes, the resurrection of Dead Space, and even genre granddaddy Alone in the Dark stepping back into the spotlight earlier this year, it feels long overdue that seminal survival horror classic Silent Hill 2 should emerge from the fog and be given a modern makeover. Enter Bloober Team, the psychological horror specialists best known for Layers of Fear and Observer, who’ve been given the task of taking the morbid masterpiece from the PlayStation 2 era and making the fetid flesh of its many demonic ghouls seem fresh. As a big fan of the original, I’m happy to report that this resulting Silent Hill 2 remake is an exceptionally grim and grimy horrorscape that’s consistently compelling to explore, packed with new puzzles and beefed-up boss encounters, and enhanced with modernised combat that made my return to the small town of Silent Hill a regularly violent thrill.
Given it was released more than two decades ago, there’s every chance you don’t have the foggiest idea what made the original Silent Hill 2 so impactful. Aside from its sinister small town setting that felt like stepping into the pages of a Stephen King novel, Silent Hill 2 stood apart from other survival horror stories of its era by putting just as much focus on the battle with personal demons as it did regular scraps with the snarling physical kind. Protagonist James Sunderland, who’s lured to a remote mining town by the promise of making contact with his deceased wife Mary, is not a battle hardened member of a zombie-killing special unit – he’s an ordinary man forced to confront some truly extraordinary things. The struggles with his own guilt and trauma both humanise him and add believable heft to the horrors that unfold around him.
Silent Hill 2’s festering environment is at once both off-putting and alluring, like a scab you can’t stop picking.
While the roles of James and the handful of other lost souls he meets along the way have been recast with voice actors of a noticeably higher standard in this remake, the campy dialogue they deliver remains mostly unchanged. This does preserve the off-kilter, David Lynchian feel of the original character interactions, but comes across as a little bit jarring at times given the vastly improved standards of storytelling we’ve seen in more recent horror landmarks. I was no less entertained by Silent Hill 2’s quirky characters this time around, even if I never became emotionally invested in their plights to the same extent I did with the supporting casts in The Last of Us or Alan Wake II. Regardless, I found the mystery surrounding the fate of Mary was still more than intriguing enough to drag me through the darkest depths of Silent Hill 2’s story.
Hell Comes to Fogtown
The difference in look and feel between this Silent Hill 2 remake and the 2001 original is night and day – or perhaps that should be nightmare and daydream given the surreal nature of its small town’s continually altering state. The streets are blanketed by believably heavy fog and rich with detail, right down to the missing persons posters taped to telephone poles that flutter in the breeze. Dimly lit dwellings are overrun with discernable signs of decay, and drywall and cinder block splinter off in shards from startling shockwaves felt in hurried hallway chase scenes. Hordes of cockroaches startle and scatter in the beam of your flashlight as you make your way down each putrid path that winds you through an increasingly hellish otherworld. Silent Hill 2’s festering environment is at once both off-putting and alluring, like a scab you can’t stop picking.
The enemies too have been dressed up in far more disturbing and disgusting designs. The most common type, the Lying Figure, which appears to have its arms wrapped up in a straightjacket made of its own skin, seems slick with a decidedly icky sheen and more smoothly shifts from two-legged stagger to writhing prone along the ground in preparation for a surprise attack. There’s also the twitchy, Bubble Head Nurses introduced during the Brookhaven Hospital section (who now come in both pipe and knife-toting forms), and of course Pyramid Head, who’s sharply pointed skull once again brings a more literal meaning to the term apex predator. This lumbering death-dealer remains one of the most terrifying presences in the horror genre, only now he seems somehow even more sinister thanks to extra details like the realistic rust on his jagged head and the ghastly inky goop that coats his powerful frame.
Of course, that’s when you can actually see the enhanced enemies and environments around you, since Silent Hill 2 is also oppressively dark for significantly long periods at a time. James’ chest-mounted flashlight has a shorter throw than Mr. Burns, meaning it’s regularly the case that you can only see a few feet in front of his nose – testing your television’s black levels, tightening the unrelenting sense of claustrophobia, and leaving you vulnerable to ambushes from the creepy Mannequin enemies that stand eerily still in the corners of rooms like they’re floor lamps purchased from Hell’s Home Depot.
It’s during these moments, when your peripheral vision shrinks down to a pinhole, that Silent Hill 2’s incredibly unsettling audio design really comes to the fore. The signature radio static hisses that intensify around imminent dangers, the shrieks in the distance and whispers that are uncomfortably close, and the accompanying discordant drones maintain an ongoing and ominous sense of dread. Stalking through Silent Hill 2 left my nerves more shredded than a guitar solo played by a shirtless Hugh Jackman.
Cloudy with a Chance of Street Brawls
Thankfully when things get loud in Silent Hill 2, we’re much better equipped to fight back this time. Gone is the stiff, auto-targeted shooting and cumbersome pause menu-based weapon-swapping of the original, Silent Hill 2’s combat feels much more like what you’d expect from a survival horror adventure post-Resident Evil 4. Enemies can be manually targeted from an over-the-shoulder viewpoint, weapons can be quickly shuffled between at the tap of a d-pad button, and James is also able to perform quick dodges to nimbly sidestep around lurching enemies or the streams of acidic bile they spew. Additionally, melee attacks can be used to smash through glass in order to gather health drinks and ammunition from cabinets or locked cars, and even to crash through weakened sections of walls to gain access to secret areas hidden amongst its expanded environments.
Stalking through Silent Hill 2 left my nerves more shredded than a guitar solo played by a shirtless Hugh Jackman.
That said, although Silent Hill 2 gives you far more control over each shot fired, it remains staunchly true to the original in terms of its noticeably limited arsenal of weapons – James is an underpowered everyman by design, after all. There are two types of melee weapons plus a handgun, shotgun, and rifle, and that’s your lot. There are no weapon upgrades or mods to expand the capabilities of your arsenal further, and ultimately I didn’t particularly favour one weapon over the other – I pretty much just switched to whichever gun I had the most ammo for at any one time. Actually that’s not entirely true – according to the story completion stats page, I did prefer one weapon more than most: the lead pipe. Partly since ammo was so scarce, but mainly because it just feels amazingly satisfying to relieve Silent Hill 2’s near-constant tension by clubbing a hellborn beast to the ground and continuing to pound their slimy skulls in until they’ve long since expired.
Yet while Silent Hill 2 lags behind the likes of Resident Evil 4 or Dead Space as far as the flexibility of its firepower goes, the developers – in collaboration with original Silent Hill 2 creature designer Masahiro Ito – have thrown a few new enemy types into the mix to keep the combat consistently engaging despite its relative mechanical simplicity. When I first entered the Toluca Prison section in the story’s second half only to find a freaky new breed of Mannequin that could scramble up and down walls and along the ceiling like a spider made of discarded doll parts, I couldn’t hit the new 180-degree turn button fast enough. However, once I’d composed myself, I set about trying to pick them off from afar with my rifle as they shuffled in and out of the shadows above, which gave Silent Hill 2’s combat a challenging new edge.
Where the overhauled combat really shines, however, is in the boss battles. Some fights, like the first encounter with the iconic Pyramid Head, play out largely the same way they did before – they just feel more muscular and menacing thanks to the immediacy of the over-the-shoulder viewpoint and the vastly more detailed visuals. However, other action sequences have been enhanced to far more comprehensive degrees. Without spoiling too much, there’s one particular late game fight in the original Silent Hill 2 that amounted to little more than an attritional head-to-head stand-off, but here it’s been reworked into an intense game of cat and mouse amidst the frigid air and dangling carcasses inside a meat locker – effectively transforming one of the story’s weakest boss fights into one of its very best.
Similarly, many of the original game’s puzzles have been preserved here, whether it’s the eccentric, point-and-click adventure kind like using a specific tool in order to retrieve an item from an apartment suite garbage chute, or the more ingenious form like swiveling an ornate box on its axis in order to manipulate the towering, MC Escher-inspired room of impossible staircases inside a late-game labyrinth. Meanwhile, other brainteasers like the coin puzzle early on have been given additional steps to complete, which prevented their solutions from ever becoming too predictable as someone who played the original all those years ago. With the exception of some obligatory valve-turning here and there, puzzle types are largely unique and consistently stimulating, and there are plenty of them to solve. (Like combat, you can also vary the difficulty of puzzles via the in-game menu in order to best suit your tastes).
However, some of the simpler puzzles have been expanded upon a touch too much. Take one early obstacle in the original that effectively required you to solve a fairly straightforward riddle in order to wind a grandfather clock to a specific time. In this remake, I had to undergo a sequence of multi-part treasure hunts to gather up each of the three hands for the clock face – fending off enemy hordes and completing additional puzzles along the way – which ultimately meant that close to an hour of my playthrough was spent simply attempting to make the clock chime and unlock the way forward. This is just one example of a number of instances where the new Silent Hill 2 bogs down slightly in terms of story progression, and I have to admit that as I jumped through yet another elaborate series of hoops just trying to get my hands on the key to a locked door in the Wood Side Apartments, I did catch myself wishing the owner had simply left a spare under their welcome mat.
To Cut a Short Story Long
It’s because of the expanded puzzles and combat sections, that the new Silent Hill 2 is considerably longer than the original despite the fact it seems to stick to all the same story beats. The main campaign of the 2001 Silent Hill 2 can be completed in around eight hours, but my playthrough of this 2024 remake hit the credits at just over 15. While it’s almost twice as long, I don’t really feel it’s doubly as good. This remake is genuinely excellent for large stretches at a time, particularly during the escalating stakes of its climactic final third, but there are definitely moments throughout the early parts of the journey that are lined with more padding than the walls of the Brookhaven Hospital psychiatric ward.
It also means that although Silent Hill 2 features eight different endings to unlock – two more than the original’s six – I can’t see myself investing the time for any repeat playthroughs because I’m slightly put-off by the protracted length. Although admittedly alternate endings aren’t the only incentive to return in Silent Hill 2’s New Game+ – there are also extra weapons to find, additional graphics modes with CRT scanlines and the like to try, plus numerous secrets and easter eggs to comb for in the town’s increased number of interiors – I don’t feel a huge pull to step face-first back into the fog anytime soon.
Even so, although it might not completely trump the original in the same way that the Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 remakes did, Silent Hill 2 is still an incredibly high quality reimagining that improves on its source material in more ways than not. I really like the way it uses distinct hues of light and distant audio cues to subtly steer you along the right path, allowing the HUD to stay free of any immersion-breaking objective markers. It’s great how James automatically marks his map with any puzzles or locked doors you find, vastly reducing the amount of aimless backtracking that occasionally plagued the original game. Developer Bloober Team has also really emptied its full bag of tricks as far as taking tense situations and bringing them to near-nervous breakdowns. The timer-based light switches in the Toluca Prison, for example, are an extremely effective device for creating panic – the intensifying countdown beeps echoed my own escalating heartrate as I hurried to complete my search of each cell before the whole block was plunged back into darkness. It’s fantastically fear-inducing stuff.
After the fast-travel extravaganza that was Starfield’s base campaign, I very much approve of the way its Shattered Space DLC course-corrects to make the new Va’ruun homeworld location feel much more like Bethesda’s previous open worlds. This planet is host to a substantial chunk of new quest content revolving around a long-winded but not uninteresting story about a futuristic theocracy that dangerously mingles science and religion despite their obvious conflict. That said, this first expansion is not terribly ambitious, either. It doesn’t introduce any significant new features that refresh anything you’ll do once you hop in your ship and leave this planet in a way similar to, say, the Dragonborn expansion did for Skyrim. Not every expansion can be so bold, of course, but those that aren’t miss an opportunity to leave a lasting, revitalizing mark on a replay of a big RPG like this, and limit themselves to a flash in the pan.
After dusting off my save, my level 46 Starborn passed through the Unity, grabbed Sarah from the Constellation Lodge, ran through the Mantis mission to score a ship, did a couple of temples, and then dove into the DLC – which turned out to be easy to find because it shows up the next time you go artifact hunting. The ominously spooky space station you begin on makes some good use of zero-G combat by adding glowing blue walls that, if you’re propelled backwards into them by gunfire, both deal damage and disorientingly teleport you, so you’ve got to be aware of what’s behind you when you open fire.
That’s where we’re introduced to the Phantom menace: these new enemies aren’t ghosts, but their spooky blue energy field and glowing eyes sure makes them look the part (and easy to spot from a distance) until it dissipates when you kill them, which is a notably cool effect. They can be both novel and annoying to fight: Not only are they often high level and thus pretty bullet spongey, they can teleport at will to both reposition when you’ve drawn a bead on them and also land right behind you with a big honkin’ knife. Listening for the whoosh sound effect of one popping into and out of existence can be your only warning before your health bar takes a big hit (especially a little later on when you might turn around and see the local equivalent of a Terrormorph tapping on your shoulder).
That’s where we’re introduced to the Phantom menace.
The floaty part doesn’t overstay its welcome, and when you get your boots back on the ground it’s not long before you’re whisked to the Va’ruun homeworld, which was kept conspicuously mysterious in Starfield’s campaign at launch. I did have to laugh when the notoriously reclusive and xenophobic group immediately invited me to not only walk freely among them, but fully convert to their religion. That’s very much a Bethesda thing, where everybody lets you sign up and no faction affiliations are mutually exclusive, but after playing the main campaign it was a little silly to find them so welcoming, even given the extraordinary circumstances presented.
You would not mistake their city, Dazra, for any of the others in Starfield. For one thing, the purple-tinged architecture is completely different and much more alien looking, even though the Va’ruun themselves are still human under all their face ink, and they only talk like they’re vampires on What We Do in the Shadows. (Completing the main quest lets you use their buildings in your own settlements.) Also, half of the city was destroyed in a catastrophic accident that left a weird and twisted crater so massive you can only really get a sense of it by looking at the map (they have maps now!), and the inhabitants are still recovering from what sounds like a Thanos snap-like loss of life. It’s a compelling setting, though I will say that the surviving half of Dazra looks a little too clean and orderly to really sell this as a disaster zone, even though it’s all anybody’s talking about.
None of this lore will be on the test, and it’s no match for a good blaster at your side.
Getting to know the Va’ruun and the factions within its weird space theocracy obviously means listening to a high dose of religious lore involving a large serpent. It’s all written and delivered up to Bethesda’s standards, but it can be a lot when you’re staying immersed in it for this long. Don’t worry, though – none of this will be on the test, and in the long run it’s no match for a good blaster at your side.
Your quest to bring the three factions together to solve the ongoing crisis takes place entirely in Dazra’s surrounding region, which is notably different from the other main faction quest cities. Rather than sending you to your ship to zip off to errands on other planets, once you reach the Va’ruun homeworld you’re never required to travel anywhere else – not even flying to another landing zone on the same planet – to complete every single quest you can find there. The only time I left in the 12 hours it took to beat the main story and every major sidequest I came across was when I hopped in my Razorleaf to go shopping in the Settled Systems for healing items, which are hard to come by on this planet without sleeping for days at a time waiting for the local doctor to restock. (Ironically, if you took the Serpent’s Embrace trait that says you grew up practicing the Va’ruun religion, your character will suffer a stat penalty for not doing grav jumps frequently enough.)
We see multiple meaningful locations on the same chunk of extraterrestrial real estate.
Instead, you either drive the recently patched-in rover car to each quest location around the Dazra or just hoof it the old-fashioned way, which I found refreshing. Most of the main Starfield quests felt detached and disjointed because of all the planet-hopping and fast-traveling to new locations, but here we get a more traditional Bethesda sense of place and continuity. We see multiple meaningful locations existing on the same near-seamless chunk of extraterrestrial real estate instead of one important thing and a bunch of procedurally generated filler. I also like how the crater is filled with gravity distortion bubbles, which I actually wish were used more often to really distinguish this planet from others and let you float to otherwise unreachable areas.
On the other hand, this down-to-earth approach makes Shattered Space extremely focused in the way it expands on Starfield, to the point where there is zero use of interstellar travel or space combat. As far as I can tell there’s absolutely nothing added for spacefarers other than now you have a way to legitimately acquire Va’ruun ships instead of stealing them from Zealots who attack you in space. That’s fine, as an expansion doesn’t always have to meaningfully expand every aspect of a game – but I was surprised that there wasn’t at least a token feature thrown in for space jockeys in an expansion with “space” in the title.
There’s nothing wrong with a celebrated band playing the hits.
Sure, the majority of these quests feel like Starfield-flavored rewrites of things I’ve done before in Fallout or Elder Scrolls games, but there’s nothing wrong with a celebrated band playing the hits. Track down the fugitive and decide whether to kill him or help him fake his death? Check. Root out the traitor diverting emergency supplies to the Zealots and decide whether to turn them in or take a bribe? Check. Rescue the hostages and decide whether to double-cross someone? Check.
As far as loot goes, there are a handful of new weapons to get your hands on, and although they’re mostly just the Va’ruun’s take on weapon types we already have, there’s nothing to dislike about more variety, both in their bulky visual design and their splashy energy effects. There are also some craftable grenades you can make out of pieces of defeated Phantoms. Again, though, it’s a little disappointing that they’re unlikely to change much about the way you’ll play when you leave this planet.
Since the mainstream Va’ruun themselves turn out to be generally alright folks, just as Andreja promised, you don’t spend much time shooting at them. Instead, there are a fair number of Zealots (including a very beefy new armored melee type) and the occasional generic spacers to fight in order to mix things up from tangling with Phantoms. I usually play on hard difficulty because normal is a cakewalk, and nearly everything was very manageable in Shattered Space. I say “nearly” because I did end up turning it back down to normal for the final battle – but that was mostly so I didn’t have to buy every health pack in the Settled Systems before attempting it again, because not taking damage in that firefight is quite tricky.
Finally, I have to give Shattered Space a little credit for giving me a good reason to return to Starfield and get a feel for how it works with all of the improvements Bethesda’s made in the past year. The maps and the car really do make a substantial difference in inconveniences I had to overcome to enjoy the main campaign, and even though the inventory is still bad and the temples remain maddeningly repetitive (and with a Bethesda game, it should go without saying there are still plenty of bugs, new and old) those improvements have gone a long way toward making this a game I’m glad I took the time to revisit.
Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment have deployed Star Wars Outlaws update 1.2, bringing a host of performance and gameplay enhancements on console and PC.
The publisher laid out everything new in title update 2 in a post on its website. It’s the latest in a series of title updates that includes a long list of tweaks to the visuals as well as some squashed bugs. Ubisoft says the batch of additions to its open-world sci-fi video game were included with fan feedback in mind, adding that it is “dedicated to listening closely” as post-launch support for Star Wars Outlaws continues.
Topping the list of more notable changes is that the stealth experience has been ironed out. That means adjusted AI detection, tweaked NPC locations and positioning, and more are here to ensure sneaky smugglers have a more enjoyable experience. Players will also notice that it’s easier to control Kay Vess when she’s on a speeder thanks to an improved camera and speeder response time. The update also lists stability improvements that should help with dropped frames for certain users, improved animations for Kay, and better lip-syncing.
Star Wars Outlaws solidified Ubisoft’s place in a galaxy far, far away when it released for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S on August 26. It launched to “generally favorable” critic reviews and “mixed or average” user reviews, as defined by Metacritic, and underperformed sales-wise by the publisher’s standards. The company said last week that its development teams were “fully mobilized to swiftly implement a series of updates to polish and improve the player experience.”
Patch 1.2 is a sign of Ubisoft’s continued interest in addressing fan feedback, and there is more on the way, too. To start, title update 3 is still scheduled to bring quality-of-life improvements later this month. Then, in November, players can look forward to the Star Wars Outlaws Steam release as well as the launch of its Wild Card story DLC.
Today’s Star Wars Outlaws update 1.2 patch notes can be seen in full below.
PATCH DETAILS (version 7063935.TU2):
PlayStation®5: 3.80 GB (version 01.002.000)
Xbox Series X|S: 4.71 GB (version 1.0.2.0)
PC: 5.60 GB (version 1.0.2.0)
NOTABLE CHANGES:
Tweaked the overall stealth experience by adjusting AI detection, the number of NPCs and their positioning, patrol pathing, camera detection and highlighting environmental opportunities to reduce player friction
Fixed an issue where players would get stuck in the hyperjump sequence towards Kijimi
Fixed an issue where the ‘Takeoff’ button prompt wouldn’t be shown after ‘The Wreck’ mission
Improved the position of the speeder camera when the FOV was increased
Improved the speeder’s response and reaction when called
Improved speeder collision with the environment to reduce being knocked off the speeder
Kerro’s Speakeasy – fixed an issue where the energy barrier was not disabled after successfully slicing the panel on Mirogana
Fixed an issue where players could not interact with the triangulation stone in Jet Kordo’s quest line on Toshara, and where the holotracker would not spawn in the Trailblazer
FULL PATCH NOTES:
Performance & Stability
Improved stability and performance across all platforms
Fixed FPS drops with Intel ARC GPUs
Added VRAM impact to RTXDI usage
General Gameplay
Improved animation of Kay’s movements
Scaled AI reaction to environmental actions from investigation to combat (e.g. when Nix detonates an NPC’s grenade more than once)
Reduced adrenaline gain when using melee
Added a quick throw button for using grenades
Improved conflicts when crouching near ledges when camera is facing the opposite direction
Reduced detection chances when using cover
Improved the speeder controls when using a mouse
Added a tutorial reminder for the blaster’s Stun module
Improved elements of the Death Trooper event
Improved sniper rifle sensitivity
Improved speeder collision with the environment to reduce being knocked off the speeder
Added the ability to press jump twice when near a grapple point to activate it
Improved animations after takedowns
Improved melee animation after punching an enemy wearing a helmet
Fixed an issue where Kay wouldn’t receive any damage from enemy blasters
Fixed an issue where Nix accessories and treats were not showing in the menu when in space
Fixed an issue where controller presets weren’t saved when playing on different consoles of the same platform
Fixed an issue where Kay would get stuck in out-of-bound areas
Fixed an issue where the grappling hook wouldn’t snap to the correct position
Fixed an issue where Kay would incorrectly lose reputation when trespassing in Syndicate districts
Fixed an issue where some NPCs could not be distracted by Nix
Fixed an issue where Kay’s reputation wouldn’t be impacted properly when detected completing actions such as stealing or being caught in Syndicate districts
Fixed an issue where player input wouldn’t be registered during slicing if pressed quickly
Fixed an issue where the speeder racing NPC wouldn’t move when starting the race
Fixed an issue where the speeder racing NPC would despawn on Toshara
Fixed an issue where Nix Sense wouldn’t highlight NPCs that can be pickpocketed
Fixed an issue where Kay would teleport to the nearest shoreline when fast travelling if the speeder was on deep water
Fixed an issue where open world events would deactivate after getting close to the location
Fixed an issue where some syndicate events would not grant rewards when completed
Fixed an issue with the Death Trooper event not triggering when reaching Wanted Level 6
Fixed an issue where “Defeat the wanted level 6” objective does not complete after finishing the event in space
UI, HUD and Settings
Added Syndicate names to individual contracts
Improved the flow on individual expert screens to view abilities as they become ready to unlock
Updated the description of gear sets to match their effects
Changed the default setting for the speeder to keyboard (WASD) rather than mouse on PC
Improved in-game menus and scrolling
Improved descriptive text when interacting with vendors that require certain Syndicate reputation
Fixed an issue where the cinematic volume setting was not registering properly
Fixed an issue where FOV was not working correctly when in 21:9 mode on consoles
Fixed an issue where the speeder icon was not present on the map and compass when fast travelling from one planet to another
Graphics
Improved the performance of VRAM, RTXDI, Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction
Fixed various graphical corruptions during takeoff and landing sequences and when in space
Fixed an issue with specific gearsets flickering when Frame Generation is on
Improved NPC visuals
Fixed an issue where some ground texture rendered in low quality after rebooting, loading, or fast travelling
Fixed an issue where some object lighting was not appearing correctly
Improved environmental terrain and foliage
Improved lighting during nighttime planetary takeoffs
Audio
Added additional background dialogue to improve immersion
Adjusted audio levels of environmental objects and player/NPC reactions
Fixed an issue where cantina music stopped after speaking to a contract giver
Fixed an issue where a sound effect would get stuck after using Nix pulse
Fixed multiple issues with objects not making sound upon physical impact with Kay or environment
Fixed multiple missing UI sounds in menus
Improved multiple music and ambience transitions in Quests and Open World
Cinematics
Improved narration, dialogue scenes, voice overs and lip syncing
Camera
Improved camera positioning when Kay is in low cover, shooting, and climbing
Improved the position of the speeder camera when the FOV was increased
Worlds, Fauna and Flora
Improved Kay’s hair animations during different rain types
Fixed vendor idle animations that were missing for some locations
Improved Kay’s awareness around waterfalls and rain
Sabacc:
Fixed an issue where Mehdo played the ‘Cook The Books’ shift token, and the effect would exist for the remainder of the game, when it should only be for the next reveal
Fixed an issue where a deck with selected shift tokens was not saved when quitting the game
Fixed an issue during the Sabacc tutorial where the game could be blocked if opening the rules menu
Fixed an issue where gameplay would get stuck if leaving the game during the Double Discard confirmation screen
Fixed an issue where NPCs would not react accordingly during the reveal phase
Fixed an issue where the opponent’s cards wouldn’t show in the header when the Nix cheat was disabled
Photo Mode:
Fixed an issue where players were unable to rotate the camera while Adrenaline Rush was active
Fixed an issue where settings would reset when switching presets
Fixed an issue where photo mode couldn’t be selected while Kay was using binoculars
Accessibility:
Added large font option for subtitles
Added a bold font option for subtitles
Moved overheard subtitles directional arrow to the right side of the container
Added auto accelerate/brake to the auto walk button
A prompt was added to the first-time user experience to enable large fonts
Added the option to auto mantle/vault over small objects
Menu narration order was updated to provide information in a more logical order
Added additional increments for the speeder mouse sensitivity
Added Adrenaline Rush timer setting to allow double or triple time for picking targets
Updated the tutorial text regarding accessibility options for Sabacc
Fixed an issue with missing closed captions for some weapon type explosions
Fixed an issue with audio description being cut off in a cinematic
Miscellaneous
Fixed an issue where Kay closed the wrong eye when aiming down sights
Fixed localization text in dialogue sequences
Fixed some incorrect text during dialogue options
Improved Kay’s gun holster animation
Added a warning when spending a large amount of credits to avoid doing so by mistake
Fixed an issue where purchased items reappeared in the vendor’s menu after saving/loading
Fixed an issue where players could throw unlimited grenades
Fixed an issue where Imperial speeders were missing parts
Fixed an issue where a data pad could not be interacted with during ‘Selo’s People’
MAIN & SIDE QUESTS(beware of spoilers)
Canto Bight
‘Beginnings’ – adjusted number of credits needed to steal with Nix and added an extra keycard opportunity in the Sixth Kin Club
‘The Heist’ – fixed an issue where players could get stuck in an infinite loading loop after dying
Toshara
‘Underworld’ – adjusted enemy amount, AI detection, patrols, and scalable environment to better the stealth experience
‘New Tricks’ – Fixed an issue where Danka’s call could be triggered while in the blaster upgrade menu, resulting in the Ion blast not working on the required door
‘False Flag’ – Fixed an issue where progress could be lost when quitting an active quest
‘The Wreck’
Fixed an issue where the quest marker was not pointing to the correct objective
Fixed an issue where a player could get stuck if saving/loading during the escape sequence
Fixed an issue where the takeoff button prompt would not trigger
Tatooine
‘The Hotfixer’ – Fixed an issue where Kay would dismount the speeder at the start of the chase sequence
Akiva
‘Viper’ – Fixed an issue where the quest marker was not pointing to the correct objective
‘Revelator’
Fixed an issue where players would get a ‘Return to Area’ message, resulting in the mission being failed
Fixed an issue where the player could get stuck if the Trailblazer was destroyed when a certain cinematic triggered
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
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World of Warcraft’s latest expansion, The War Within, has been out for over a month now, and things are going great. Critics and players are largely happy with all the new content additions, the new Delve feature appears to finally be appropriately balanced, and the Race to World First was a real fun nail-biter.
But there’s been one major, glaring issue with The War Within simmering since a pre-launch patch that’s frustrated hundreds of players, with seemingly no fix in sight: the disappearance of thousands of items from guild banks, seemingly never to be returned.
The Great Guild Bank Caper
Issues began on August 13 with Patch 11.0.2, which dropped a number of updates to the game ahead of the release of the latest expansion, The War Within. In the following days, players began flocking to the official community forums, Reddit, and other community spaces to report a strange and upsetting issue: tons of items seemed to be missing from their guild banks.
While initially some players suspected thieving guild members or some sort of visual bug, as more reports came in, the reality became increasingly clear. Without warning, hundreds of guilds had seen massive amounts of items sitting inside their banks wiped out by the 11.0.2 patch with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Not every guild was impacted, nor did every impacted guild lose every item, but many reported half, two-thirds, or even the entire contents of their banks vanishing. Individuals who used guild banks as personal storage reported losing the accumulated riches of several years playing WoW.
For some guilds, the extent of the damage was difficult to track at all. According to player reports, the in-game “logs” of guild bank withdrawals and deposits did not reflect massive amounts of items being taken out, leaving those who were less active stewards of their guild banks struggling to remember what had even been in there in the first place.
Blizzard Responds
As reports flooded in over several weeks, players became increasingly frustrated by Blizzard’s lack of public response to the issue. Informal player surveys found that it was impacting hundreds of players and guilds, with likely far more going unreported, so it seemed unusual for the developer to remain silent for so long on what seemed to be such a massive problem.
Finally, after over a month, Blizzard issued a response explaining what had occurred. Per Blizzard, “a technical update that was made to support cross-realm guilds” encountered an unexpected bug that “caused one of our maintenance processes to make some items disappear.” Blizzard claims this mainly impacted items “related to professions materials from prior expansions” but acknowledged other items had disappeared as well.
The result will be an incomplete restoration for some guilds, and we do not have a way to restore the remaining missing items.
In response, Blizzard said that it had been “packing up the missing items that we’re able to identify as lost by this process, and we will soon mail those to the guild leader character for each affected guild.” But there was a catch. “Due to how some of the data was lost, we’ve reached a point where the result will be an incomplete restoration for some guilds, and we do not have a way to restore the remaining missing items for them.” The developer apologized for both the incomplete restoration and the long wait.
While on its face this seemed to be a positive resolution to a frustrating situation, relief quickly turned to anger as players realized exactly how “incomplete” the “incomplete restoration” would be.
Incomplete Restoration
In the weeks since, players have been sharing the results of the “incomplete restoration” of their guild banks, and it doesn’t look good. Some guild leaders are showing offbefore and afterscreenshots of their banks, claiming to still be missing hundreds of items worth thousands of in-game gold. Some are reporting restorations that are insulting or even humorous, such as one person claiming they received a single piece of silk in the mail, or another who only got a bunch of Halloween-themed items back. Some are sharing stories of collections they spent years building being completely wiped out with nothing restored. One player claims their friend, a 72-year-old woman, lost an entire guild bank’s worth of pets, toys, mounts, and other items she was giving out as gifts to new players. Others have noted that since Blizzard’s item restoration is sending items to guild leaders via in-game mail, any guild whose leader is inactive won’t receive any of its items back.
Still others are bringing up the fact that since the introduction of the WoW Token, in-game items essentially have an equivalent value in real-world money. “Would you accept your bank to “whoopsie” your savings account, replace it with a fraction of what it had, and have the end all be called an “incomplete restoration”?” they wrote.
There are some players who are coming to Blizzard’s defense. Several commenters have pointed out the sheer scale of what went missing makes it very likely that Blizzard is telling the truth about its own ability to restore missing items, and there’s really no good way to determine who is owed what even with data backups. But even players who acknowledge Blizzard’s in an impossible spot are still frustrated by the loss of sometimes years’ worth of progress, savings, and work, and concerned that further mass item deletions may happen in the future. It’s an unfortunate black mark on what is otherwise a very well-received expansion, and an unfortunate weird side effect of the addition of a long-asked for feature (cross-realm guilds).
“It’s heart crushing, and it’s hard to play the game, even though this was stuff we could play without technically, it was about getting others what they need and would enjoy,” said one player. “It took a lot of the enjoyment out of the expansion for leadership of my guild.”
IGN reached out to Blizzard for further comment as to how this happened or if the company plans to take any further actions to restore lost items, but did not receive a reply in time for publication. We will update if and when we receive a response.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
LEGO Horizon Adventures is set to release for PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC on November 14. It takes the story, characters, and environments of the PlayStation Horizon games and gives them the full LEGO treatment. That means it’s sillier than the original, family-friendly, and it supports couch co-op as Aloy and friends fight off robotic dinosaurs.
The game is available to preorder now from a number of retailers, in both physical and digital editions (see it at Amazon). Read on to see where to get it, how much it costs, what comes with it, and more.
The digital-only deluxe edition comes with the game itself, plus the following in-game items:
Roller Coaster Customization
Banuk Armor outfit
Shadow Stalwart outfit
“Alloy” Aloy outfit
Ratchet outfit
Rivet outfit
Sackboy outfit
What Is LEGO Horizon Adventures?
If you’ve played any of the manyother LEGO games before, you probably have an idea of what it means to LEGO-fy a game. These games always inject a large dose of goofiness to the goings on, while generally telling the same story as the source material. But the LEGO-fication is always a delight, and these games are easy enough to play with kids, which is great for any parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, babysitters, or basically anyone looking to entertain a kid or two, couch co-op style.
This particular game gives us LEGO minifigure versions of Aloy, Varl, Teersa, and Erend, and drops them in the overgrown prehistoric-looking world you’ll be familiar with if you’ve played the originals. In addition to battling robotic dinosaurs, you can also customize your characters with various outfits and create a home for them out of LEGO blocks.
Other Preorder Guides
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Threads.
