If there’s one thing Bethesda is known for, it’s those “step-out” moments. That first foray out in the unknown – whether it’s the opening of a long-sealed Fallout vault or a soaring Skyrim dragon welcoming you to a whole new world of danger and wonder. Starfield is no different, wasting no time in introducing you to the vast beauty of its world to great effect. But we’ll get to exactly how it does that just a little later. Here’s a rundown of exactly what happens in the opening minutes of Starfield’s first mission, fittingly titled One Small Step, after seeing it at gamescom 2023.
The Sol date is May 7, 2330. You find yourself on the Argos Extractors Mining Outpost on the Moon of Vectera. The first voice heard is that of Supervisor Lin, the obvious leader around here who has one simple rule: Listen to Lin. She’s accompanied by fellow miner Heller who provides a sense of levity and charm. It’s clear from the outset that Starfield will be home to Bethesda’s typical mix of quirky characters supported by punchy writing.
That writing also does a great job at this very early stage of exposing you to in-universe language and lore. Slang such as “Dusties” is casually thrown around as you piece together what these new words mean. The well-worn industrial mining spacesuits only add to the sense of place created in these opening moments, as do the designs of the machinery being wielded – in particular a huge whirring drill that reminded me of Thunderbirds’ Mole.
The mine itself is one long cavern that you walk through as Lin and Heller remind you of the task at hand – more minerals, more money. The atmosphere isn’t breathable without a mask, an early example of this being a place humans aren’t meant to be. Stalagmites and stalactites frame the cavern, while red lasers slicing through the air cast a scarlet glow across the sand-coloured rocks.
The visuals here are a noticeable step up for Bethesda Game Studios.
The visuals here are a noticeable step up for Bethesda Game Studios, but maybe not quite comparable to recent graphical powerhouses. Environments look great, but character models still seem to possess that classic Bethesda stiffness – there doesn’t look like there’s a lot going on behind those eyes. One thing that doesn’t threaten to underwhelm, however, is the simply majestic-sounding music, with stirring and mystery-laden strings accompanying these early footsteps.
After a quick tour, you’re encouraged to pick up a laser Cutter for yourself. A red beam all of your own bores into Beryllium deposits before exploding them and sending them off into your inventory. Mining for ore may not be the most exciting way to start an adventure of such thrilling potential, but this is all a ruse for something far more valuable. You’re soon find yourself wander ing into a tunnel alone. What could possibly go wrong?
What meets you is at first a tranquil, oddly beautiful sight – a metallic blue deposit surrounded by sparkly floating residue. Before you know it, you’re dipping your hand into the strange artefact and experiencing 2001: A Space Odyssey-like mind warps and visions. In some ways, this is not too dissimilar from the opening of the original Mass Effect. Upon waking you appear to be suffering from the event, although there’s barely a moment to consider that before Heller and Lin place a tablet before you, signalling the beginning of character creation.
It starts with your choice of Biometric ID – essentially a preset to begin shaping your appearance from. You can then go on to change everything from body shape, walk style, and skin tone, to the peculiarities of your face. There are also tabs for background and traits from which you can pick three, each of which comes with its own pros and cons.
What follows is the moment you’ve been waiting for: Starfield’s first big “step out moment”.
Once created, you’re told a Constellation contact is about to arrive to buy the artefect you discovered – a sheet of weathered metal with circular markings on it. Constellation is a group of explorers that seem to carry an almost folklore status in this world. Heller remarks that “half of the crew probably don’t even think they exist”.
What follows is the moment you’ve been waiting for: Starfield’s first big “step out moment”. You leave behind the clinical walls of the medical facility you’ve been recovering in and step out onto a spaceport, framed by a vast moon vista. A yellow-tinged sky blasts out brightness, and a large spacecraft makes a noisy entrance. Again, this is a moment for the soundtrack to shine as it grandly swells, emphatically communicating the true start to this grand adventure.
You barely have time to soak up the view, however, before the serene sky is rudely interrupted by the approach of the new Constellation arrival. A large spaceship blasts into frame before settling down and lowering its doors. A man named Barrett emerges, accompanied by a long-limbed robot, who is later revealed to be a potential companion, Vasco. You chat and begin to make a deal before..surprise! Crimson Fleet pirates arrive, and they’ve been on the trail of Barrett.
Interestingly, the objective in the top right “Pick up a Weapon” is listed as optional, suggesting a pacifist path here is optional. On this occasion, however, a shoot-out follows involving the player equipping both a pistol and SMG. A small group of pirates, five or so, are held off thanks to your first taste of gunplay. With the muzzle flares silenced, the exchange of information and valuable objects can finally continue.
Barrett is impressed. He tells you that you’re part of this whole thing now, and you should go on your way to the city of New Atlantis to meet Constellation. A distant objective marker is set on a distant planet, but a smooth flight just isn’t written into the stars. Crimson Fleet Ghosts (an apparent class of fighter ship) appear and a dogfight ensues. One dealt with, we get our first look at Starfield’s galaxy map. We zoom out a couple of times to reveal planets within solar systems within the galaxy as a whole. A grav jump is initiated and looks quite stunning as blue and white fills the screen, swirling around as you make the leap.
We’re then given a very brief tour of the bustling and seemingly sprawling city of New Atlantis. A montage fades between glimpses of coffee shops, gardens, and sci-fi skyscrapers before we’re lead into the much more modest and classy wood decorated surroundings of the Constellation headquarters. You’re welcomed by the explorer group as the demo ends. The adventure has truly begun.
Simon Cardy would like to go to space. Follow him on Twitter at @CardySimon.
The cost of Game Pass Ultimate, the all-inclusive package, has seen a $2 hike, landing at $16.99 per month for new members. Meanwhile, the standard Xbox Game Pass sees a $1 increase, making it $10.99 monthly. It’s also worth noting that the price for PC Game Pass will remain unchanged, holding steady at $9.99 a month. The new pricing officially took effect on July 6 for newcomers and has since been applicable from August 13 for those already part of the Game Pass family.
Update, August 23: At the time of writing you can still secure the below deal on Xbox Game Pass, but there’s no telling when Amazon will adjust the price or remove the deal to maintain parity with Xbox’s new pricing, so it’s best to take advantage of it while you still can. At $39.99 for three months, that’s reasonably better compared to the new price of $50.97 for three months.
If you want to avoid the price hike, we’re still recommending securing your current subscription for as long as possible. You can stack up to a maximum of 36 months of Game Pass, meaning you have the option to accumulate 3-month subscriptions up to 12 times.
Admittedly, this approach might put a strain on your wallet, totaling $479.88 if you purchase the 3-month codes via the deal we uncovered on Amazon. However, when you compare it to the new cost of Game Pass Ultimate for 36 months at $16.99 per month, amounting to $611.64, you’ll realize you’re saving a substantial $111.72 on your subscription for the next three years.
This is also just an example of the maximum savings available here, as it’s unlikely many of us have got a spare $500 to burn on Game Pass right this second. But it’s still food for thought, and you could even just buy 12 months’ worth of codes for $166.64 (vs it costing $203.88 per year from August 13) if you don’t want to stomach the cost of buying three years of Game Pass at once.
Even if you just buy a couple of extra Game Pass codes for safekeeping, you’re doing your future self a massive favor. Plus, if you’re new to Xbox Game Pass, you can also just buy a 12-month Xbox Live Gold membership and then join Game Pass. As it converts 1:1, you’re getting an excellent headstart on the price hike there as well.
We hope this arms you with the necessary knowledge to make an informed decision about your Xbox Game Pass subscription. So, consider your options wisely, plan accordingly, and keep on gaming. Otherwise, there’s also nothing wrong with canceling your subscription altogether as well.
With how expensive everything is getting in 2023, we’re trying to save you as much money as possible on the games and other tech you actually want to buy. We’ve got great deal roundups available for all major platforms such as PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch and keep these updated daily with brand new offers. If you’re trying to keep costs down while maintaining your favorite hobby, stay tuned for more incredible discounts or follow @IGNDeals on Twitter for even more updates before Prime Day.
More Great Deals Before Prime Day
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
At Gamescom 2023, we were able to sit down with Netherrealm Studios’ story and voiceover director Dominic Cianciolo. During our interview, we asked Cianciolo a ton of questions about Mortal Kombat 1, specifically the lore side of things.
As previously confirmed by the developer, the upcoming installment in this popular fighting game franchise serves as a soft reboot for the series.
IGN: So I guess the first thing that I wanted to talk about was, was it always in the cards and the plan to do this grand reset of the timeline as far back as Mortal Kombat 11 and then Aftermath? Because I remember I watched the ending of Aftermath and I actually took it as, oh, we’re going back to the era of Great Kung Lao and we’re going to tell that story. Was it always in the cards for this?
Dominic Cianciolo, Story and Voiceover Director: I think when Ed chose the direction for Mortal Kombat 11’s story with the various pitches that we gave him, and we sort of ended up with this chronica and the time reset, I think we all knew at that point there was going to be a reboot in the cards. The exact nature of that reboot was not determined at that time. That was kind of later. As we went into Aftermath and we came out that, Ed’s and I had ideas like, you know what? We’ve been doing this same story or same vein of stories for the last 30 years. We’re just in this anniversary. We’ve got this chance to start fresh, let’s see what we can do and how to change it. And from there it became a discussion of what kind of a reboot did he want?
And so there was this discussion of, okay, is it a really crazy reboot? Is it the Kelvin timeline reboot, where it’s like, it’s kind of a reboot, but it’s not? And finding that level of just how much we wanted to change and how different we wanted to make it. And then as we developed the story for this, it was the process of teasing that out and figuring out what stories we wanted to play with and then what stories needed to stay more close to what we know as we went through it.
As someone who’s been part of creating Mortal Kombat’s story for so long, can you talk a little bit about what it’s been like to almost have this blank canvas to paint on and create this new timeline for Mortal Kombat?
DC: It was a lot of fun to work on this and to reboot it in this way because it allowed us to do a lot of the things that we kind of wanted to do in the past, but really couldn’t squeeze in and make sense with what we were handed, with what the narrative had grown. There were ideas from the very early days of Mortal Kombat that were thought about and discarded well before I got here, and so we’re able to implement some of those things and make those work. We were able to pay off a lot of the what ifs that are in the various latter endings that have come, that are what’s can and what’s not. We’re able to pluck some of those ideas and weave them into the narrative.
I think the other benefit that it gives us is because we are sort of starting fresh, we have a much bigger canvas than we can paint on because we’re doing full on stories now as opposed to only having the bios and endings, which had to do all this storytelling in these little tiny amounts. And because of that, we could do something that was… Everything was able to tie together in a more cohesive way just because we now have bigger budgets, better tools, and we can be more cinematic in presentation and how we bring things to it.
I think one of the more talked about, and not so much controversial, but definitely more talked about changes is the identity of Scorpion and it now being quietly aimed; Can you talk a little bit about why you decided to make that change?
DC: A couple of reasons. One is we were looking at, okay, how do we refresh this relationship that everybody knows? And how do we amp up the drama between the two characters? And so the notion of Scorpion and Sub-Zero being brothers, which I think go way back in the day, that was somebody, even [co-reactor John Tobias]… it was his ideas early on, it was a way sort of wrapping up the tension. And the sort decision of do we continue with Hanzo and make it a blood brother or an adopted brother or blood brother Kuai Liang? There were opportunities that are presented in having it be Bi-Han and Kuai Liang as Scorpion, and something wouldn’t be available to us if it was the same traditional place. We wouldn’t be big enough of a change if it was the guy that we knew.
I think something that people have to keep in mind as we’re playing through this story is that this reboot is different than the 9 reboot in that the Mortal Kombat 9 reboot was sort of speed run through the story of the first three games. This Mortal Kombat 1 is the jumping off point for a whole new universe. I’m seeing fan reaction to things and that kind of stuff, they’re expecting people to sort of complete their arcs in this one story. No, we’re just getting started with stuff. So there are going to be people maybe on their way to certain places that people are familiar with, but they’re not necessarily going to get there in this point because we’re just getting started.
Speaking of Scorpion, I know you probably can’t tell me, but I have to ask, what’s going on with Hanzo?
DC: Spoilers.
Can’t say anything?
DC: Can’t say.
You talked a little bit about the refresh relationship of Sub-Zero and Scorpion. What are some other relationships that you’re really proud of the new dynamic of in the story of Mortal Kombat 1? DC: Oh, sure. A lot of relationships have been reset, of course. Kitana Mileena relationship obviously had been completely rethought because we actually had them being sisters in this go round, with one with the disease. We sort of flipped the power dynamic between the two of them, so that Mileena’s going to be the one that’s in charge; Kitana is her loyal friend and help her with that. So I think it opens up avenues for that that we haven’t been able to see before. Certainly humanizes Mileena in a way that she hasn’t been able to be because of the nature of the character in the past. This new relationship between the human Raiden and Kung Lao is a lot of fun and how they deal with it. It has shades of the Liu Kang Kung Lao relationship that we know, but it’s not quite the same. So that’s pretty cool. Let’s see.
The other characters haven’t been announced yet. I can’t talk about it, but pretty much every set of relationships has been reframed in a way that we haven’t seen before. As we’re going through it, there are going to be a lot of surprises because things just aren’t going to go the way that you expect if you’re thinking only about sort of what MK has been. We’re taking a lot of new directions.
Talk to me a little bit about Liu Kang, because this is obviously the figurehead of Mortal Kombat’s story for a very long time, the hero, and now he’s kind of in this position where he is got godly power and he’s creating this whole timeline on his own. What’s it like writing that character that has this history, but also this new kind of role that he’s playing in the story? DC: Well, Liu Kang was really an interesting challenge because obviously he was immortal before he becomes a god. He has this power and he’s dealing with the responsibility of having this power, and what is he going to do with that power? And so what we see in him is a character that is not struggling under the weight of it, but trying to do his best and trying to execute things in a humble way. He’s approaching it in a very Liu Kang way, which is, “I’ve got this power, it’s not going to go to my head. I have to wield this responsibly.” If you’re going to give anybody godly power, you want it to be Liu Kang, because then he’s going to be mature about it peacefully.
This Mortal Kombat 1 is the jumping off point for a whole new universe
And then again, going back to those relationships, Liu Kang obviously has a relationship kind of with all these characters, especially with Kitana. How does that relationship between him and Kitana play out in Mortal Kombat 1?
DC: Let’s see. You see the first chapter, not many folks are aware of Liu Kang. There are layers that are going to be revealed as we get into the story, and I think we pay off the Liu Kang and Kitana relationship in a way that people may not expect. But I think it’s really satisfying based on all the other stories that have come before.
One notable omission that I’ve seen so far in the playable roster has been the Special Forces characters. Jax and Sonya. Do they have a role in the new universe for Mortal Kombat 1? DC: Well, obviously we’ve got Jax and Sonya as Kameo Characters. I mean, Laura Wise… I can’t speculate on what you haven’t seen already. I know some people are worried in this new universe that, oh my gosh, these characters no longer exist. They’re gone forever. It’s totally not the case. Whether they appear in this game or in future games, obviously that’s TBD, depending on where the studio wants to go and everyone wants to do, but they’re around. And as you play through, you sort of see where they are and where they’re coming from.
Mortal Kombat 1 has kind of been a return to the 3D era of Mortal Kombat. Can you talk a little bit about what it’s been like revisiting characters Li Mei, like Ashrah, like Havik and all those other characters that are coming back for the first time in a very long time? DC: It is funny because when we were first talking about including them, or Ed was talking about including the roster way back when, I was like, okay, we have these pebble back and, well, for a whole legion of MK fans, they’re basically the characters. People just jumped in as in MK 9, aren’t familiar with the earlier games. They’re going to be totally new. It’s like, okay, how do we take these characters and make them 21st century versions of themselves? And so with Li Mei and sort of adding this role that she has as this first constable, it’s taking as she was the protector of her village before. It’s just taking that role and then integrating it more into how Outworld is developed.
I mean, what you’ll see as you play into the story is that one of the benefits of this big canvas that we have is that we can really flesh out what is Outworld’s structure, what are the layers, what groups are there, that kind of thing, and build that out. I think that helps a lot with her. And then with Havik, it’s a slightly different take on him, but it’s a mashup of other sort of chaos realm elements we’ve seen before, which I think is cool. And obviously the gameplay, it is horrific and beautiful at the same time. I am just really impressed with what the designers have been able to do with him to take what… If you look back the old stuff, it’s a different version of it. It’s really just leaning into all the best elements of what he has and making it work for these new concepts.
Nightdive Studios has announced a Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion remaster due out later this year.
Nightdive Studios has already released remasters of the first two games in the cult-classic Nintendo 64 first-person shooter franchise. Now it’s the turn of Acclaim’s Turok 3, which launched in September 2000 on Nintendo’s console.
The Turok 3 remaster comes out on PC, PlayStation and Xbox consoles, and Nintendo Switch during the fourth quarter of 2023 (October to December). Steam Deck support is also planned. The announcement trailer is below:
In an interview with IGN, Samuel Villarreal, Lead Kex Engine developer at Nightdive said a significant amount of manual work was done to make the original Turok 3 textures look crisper.
“A lot of the textures in Turok 3 were 32 x 64 images, so they were small and blurry,” Villarreal said. “And of course a lot of them were used on wide and large surfaces, so they would appear extremely blurry. So the artists did a lot of work on up-rezzing those assets.”
Artists added more detail to the Turok 3 models, making the animations more fluid by adding additional frames. “Some of the frames were jerky in the original game,” Villarreal added. “So the artists went in and inserted more in-between frames to make them appear a lot smoother.”
Fans of the original Turok 3 will notice the up-rezzed assets immediately. The remaster has a new lighting system, too. The game still uses the original logic of the original game, so it should feel familiar, but with a new “skin”.
Elsewhere, the characters in the opening cinematic now have facial expressions that make them look more lively. The character cinematics in the original were stiff and uncanny, with some characters not even blinking, or talking just with their lips moving as their body sits completely still. Nightdive’s artists touched up these animations to make the remaster’s cinematics look better.
Interestingly, Nightdive’s Turok 3 remaster adds some cut content. Assets that were only found in an alpha build of the game that leaked a few years ago are included. This includes a cafeteria area in the starting room that was eliminated for the original game. Now, when you start that level in the remaster, all that cut content is in.
You can also toggle the alpha version of the player’s heads-up display (HUD). The player’s HUD in the alpha version had a silhouette of the character, which was used as the health bar. In the remaster you can play with this alpha HUD, or use the classic HUD.
Nightdive also addressed any gameplay logic considered buggy or not fun. For example, the player movement in the original game feels extremely sluggish in 2023, so Nightdive made minor tweaks to make player movement more responsive.
The Turok 3 remaster likely closes the book on Nightdive’s work on the franchise. “We’re considering this at this time the conclusion of the Turok trilogy,” Larry Kuperman, Director of Business Development Nightdive Studios, told IGN. “That said, Nightdive’s avowed purpose is to bring back every lost classic, so who knows? But we also have a pretty full calendar for next year. We’ve had an incredible pace of releases this year, but next year it gets really busy.”
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.
Madden NFL 24 reminds me of the Marvin Lewis-coached Bengals. Lewis led Cincinnati’s football team to the most wins of any coach in the history of the franchise, and they made the playoffs seven times during his tenure, including a stretch where they made the playoffs for five straight years. They never won any of those playoff games, though. Not one. Some of the losses were close. Some were heartbreakers that the Bengals gave away. Lewis’ teams were almost always good, or at least decent, but they were never good enough – and after a while it became clear that they never would be. Three years after his departure the Bengals would play in the Super Bowl, led by a new head coach in Zac Taylor and the recently drafted Joe Burrow. It’s amazing how quickly things can change in the NFL when organizations decide to try something new.
Like Lewis’ Bengals, Madden NFL 24 is good, or at least decent, but never quite good enough to make it feel like a winning year for this series. After something of a soft reboot last year, Madden NFL 24 is focused mostly on refinement, while attempting to address several sore spots among fans in what has been widely referred to as a “make or break year.” And while several notable improvements have been made, it still feels like what the series has been known for in recent years: a great on-field experience desperately searching for a way to make everything else work. Unfortunately, while can see flashes of greatness and the play is usually passable, it’s hard to shake the feeling that things won’t get meaningfully better until somebody at EA gives EA Tiburon the time and money to make some serious, meaningful changes.
Let’s start with the good stuff. One of the biggest improvements is to FieldSENSE, where the existing Hit Everything system has been combined with new animations that take player size and strength into account. EA Tiburon claims it has added or adjusted more than 1,700 tackle animations, and I believe it, because the new animations look fantastic. There are new contested-catch animations, wrap-up tackles, and my personal favorite, scoops, where large defensive players will pick up offensive players by the legs before slamming them back down to the field. Football is a violent sport, and the new animations depict that in ways that feel realistic. When a big hit happens on the field you feel it, just like you do when you see it during a game – just, you know, without the weird guilt about whether you should enjoy watching it or not.
You get fewer of those “Oh, come on! You could have caught that!” moments.
This year also brings improvements to the Skill-Based Passing system, adding new animations that better represent the scenarios players are in when catching passes. My favorites are the new diving catches, which look spectacular and make those seemingly out-of-reach balls more likely to be caught. It also means Madden NFL 24 is better at tracking player momentum, so hitting your receivers at the right point in their routes is more important – they need to have enough time to turn upfield or juke defenders. These are great changes; you get fewer of those “Oh, come on! You could have caught that!” moments, and plays just look and feel more authenticwhen you see them executed.
As an added bonus, more improvisational QBs – like cover star Josh Allen and everyone’s favorite Kermit the Frog impersonator, Patrick Mahomes – are more likely to use jumping and diving passes to make plays when the situation calls for it. Combine all of this with the redone player skeletons and player models that (almost, sorry Cam Heyward) always look like they’re stepped off the gridiron and onto your TV screen, and Madden NFL 24 is easily the best-looking and best-animated the series has ever been. It’s a genuinely impressive accomplishment, and it feels like you’re always on the verge of seeing something incredibly cool go down – just like the real NFL.
This year’s edition also refines post-play reactions from players, and once again, they look excellent. You’ll see them do kamehamehas, recreate the Spider-Man pointing meme, cheer, hang their heads, the whole nine yards. I’ve put nearly 40 hours into Madden NFL 24 since its release, and I’m still seeing new reactions. Refs are even back on the field this year (after being bizarrely absent for the last few) and we’ve got both male and female officials this time. Yes, there’s the odd janky animation when players collide, but they’re pretty rare. Madden NFL 24 absolutely nails the on-field presentation.
EA has made noticeable improvements to the AI.
EA has also made noticeable improvements to the AI, with the biggest probably being to AI blocking. Part of this is because of the expansion of the FieldSENSE animation system, which is being applied to blockers for the first time. Now, blockers are differentiated from one another and will make better decisions when blocking. That means more double-teams, more chip blocking, and more working together to push the pile, which in turn means a better experience in the run and passing game. This is one of those inside baseball (football?), under-the-hood changes that new and more casual players probably won’t notice, but if playing previous Madden games has ever had you screaming “why would you do that?” at your offensive line like I have, it’s an immediate improvement.
It’s just one of the many revamps to Madden’s AI across the board. Another place you’re likely to notice it is against the AI quarterbacks, who will use more audibles and hot routes and play more like their real-life counterparts. That means that players like Patrick Mahomes are more likely to dial up big, highlight-reel-worthy plays in stressful situations, running QBs like Lamar Jackson will try to escape the pocket under pressure, and more cautious quarterbacks like Kirk Cousins will check the ball down. But it’s not just quarterbacks: run defenders will recognize if you call the same play several times and hit their gaps more quickly, secondaries will play short crosses and slants more aggressively and responsively, and running backs are better at finding holes, using cutback lanes, and navigating space.
All of this adds up to a Madden where AI players are simultaneously much smarter, but also more capable of making plausible mistakes if that’s what their real-world counterparts would do. You’re more likely to see clutch big players, goal line stands, breakout runs, and everything in between. It makes for a more exciting, more realistic game, and the best on-field experience I’ve had with Madden in several years. Note, though, these upgrades are almost all tied to the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC versions. If you’re playing on last-generation consoles, you’re out of luck.
And then you get off the field, and that’s where things start to fall apart.
And then you get off the field, and that’s where things start to fall apart. The first place you’ll notice this is in the menus, which are some of the laggiest I’ve ever seen in a video game. It’s not a problem everywhere – the main menu tends to work pretty well – but get into Ultimate Team or Superstar and things take absolutely forever to load. Even exiting a mode and choosing another one can take several seconds, which seems like way too long for this kind of thing.
Madden NFL 24’s menus also have an input lag problem. Sometimes it takes several seconds for your selections to register… if they do at all. This means selecting the option you want multiple times, and in several cases, selecting something you don’t want by accident. This is a minor problem if you go into Ultimate Team when you wanted Franchise Mode, but it’s a real issue when it happens in-game and you call a play you didn’t mean to. It’s rarer when you’re on the field, but it does happen. Even if you’re just playing solo, it makes changing your lineup or opening packs in Ultimate Team a chore, and choosing your options in Superstar or Franchise mode take much longer than they should.
The problems persist when you finally get into the mode you want. One of the most touted additions to Madden NFL 24 is the return of minigames, which have been absent since Madden NFL 13. There are 26 minigames in total and they’re… fine. Some of them, like Rushing Attack, which charges you with taking control of a running back and scoring as many touchdowns as possible, are a lot of fun, and it’s easy to see why fans wanted it back. Others, like Backfield Survival, which adds obstacles on the field and asks you to run around the field for as long as possible without getting sacked, are goofy fun that help you build Stick skills. But a lot of them just feel pointless.
Yeah, Passing Skeleton will teach you how to quickly identify the open receiver, but since the best way to win is to build your multiplier by completing passes, it quickly devolves into just throwing short passes. Target Passing, on the other hand, teaches you absolutely nothing and is absolutely maddening (no pun intended). The goal is to use your receivers to line up your throws to break targets scattered across the field, but even with the precision pass mechanic added last year, it feels more like a crapshoot than a test of actual skill. Worse, many of them are just variants that do things like add more defenders or put you at a different place on the field. Cull the variants and you’re down to just 15 unique minigames, and several of them wear out their welcome very quickly.
I never wanted to play it again, but I didn’t have much choice.
The real problem is that these min-games are now how you build player skills in Franchise, Training Camp, and Superstar modes. That would be fine if you could do them once and then keep re-using your highest score, as you could with older training options, but you can’t. If you want the full benefits you’ll have to play them every time. By the time I finished Superstar, I could do the Passing Skeleton mini-game in my sleep. I never wanted to play it again, but since the other options to level up my created QB were variants of Target Passing, a mini-game I hated, I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to level up at a decent rate. It sucked.
Speaking of Superstar, it’s back as the replacement for Face of the Franchise and it’s also…fine. You can create a QB, HB, WR, LB, or CB, and guide them from the Combine – fairly generic mini-games you’ll play once and never see again – interview with teams, and get drafted. There’s a very simple storyline here, but nothing about it is as interesting as what Longshot or even Face of the Franchise did a few years ago.
The Combine is kind of fun, but it’s a one-off, and once you’re into the season it plays out as a fairly standard career mode where your character, the Madden Chosen One, tries to guide their franchise to the Super Bowl and earn the coveted Madden 99 Overall rating. It’s uninspired but fine, though it has its share of problems. Playing anything other than a QB means your career is often out of your control, and the whole thing is pretty generic.
The most interesting thing in Superstar is Superstar Showdown, which replaces The Yard. Here, you can take your avatar online and compete in 3v3 and 6v6 games in an arena. It’s a neat novelty, but like all but a few of the minigames, it wears off fairly quickly.
Other modes have seen updates, too. Franchise sees the return of Training Camp, which uses the minigames and lets you prep your team for the season. It’s a nice addition, but you only spend a little time in it each season. Otherwise, the additions are mostly quality-of-life changes – more trade slots, commissioner settings, coach talent trees, new relocation options, and so on – that don’t do much to address Franchise’s biggest problem: how barebones all of it feels due to the lack options enjoyed by the franchise modes in sports sims.
Madden NFL 24 is much like Madden always is.
Beyond that, Madden NFL 24 is much like Madden always is. There’s Ultimate Team, of course, and the combination of challenges, online play, and team building can be fun even if you don’t open your wallet the way you’re pushed to, quick play, the Pro Bowl (which is buried in quick play and easily missed), Madden’s excellent Skill Trainer, and so on. If you’ve played Madden in the past few years, you’ve seen it all before.
And that’s Madden 24’s biggest flaw, really. Once you step off the field, it’s just plain dull. There’s a lot of good on-field additions this year, and the cross-platform implementation EA has added works wonderfully, as does the game’s netcode (I played a near-flawless game with someone on the other side of the US), but unless you’re in love with the act of playing Madden, there’s just not much here to reinvigorate it. Madden desperately, desperately needs a ground-up refresh, and you can tell EA Tiburon is trying, but the yearly nature of the series, and the sheer dominance of the money-printing Ultimate Team over everything else, means a lot of these changes are like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound, especially when the UI is this painful to navigate.
Bungie officially revealed the details for its upcoming Destiny 2 DLC The Final Shape today, the conclusion of its “Light and Darkness” saga that started all the way back in 2014. The Final Shape will debut on Feb. 27.
During today’s The Final Shape showcase event, Bungie unveiled more about the storyline of The Final Shape, which will focus heavily on The Traveler. The massive, mysterious, spherical entity has always been present in Destiny. The Final Shape, however, will take that a step further, with The Traveler asking for help as The Witness uses its light to do terrible things.
Players will explore a new destination called The Pale Heart, located inside The Traveler. Per Bungie, The Pale Heart “will feature nostalgic callbacks from throughout the history of the Light and Darkness Saga, including a version of the original Tower from Destiny. As the first linear destination in Destiny history, The Pale Heart will also gradually evolve.” (that nostalgia, it should be noted, it include a “mysteriously returned” Cayde-6.)
The Pale Heart will also feature a new enemy type called Subjugators, who are able to use Stasis and Strand powers. Additionally, The Final Shape will offer players three new Super abilities and Aspects – Void for Titans, Solar for Warlocks, and Arc for Hunters – as well as new exotic weapons, including the return of some classic weapons from Destiny 1.
The Final Shape will be available in three editions, all of which are now available for pre-order.
A Change in Format
In addition to revealing more about The Final Shape, Bungie also delved into other aspects that will affect the future of Destiny 2 elsewhere. For one, it’s ditching its previous format of releasing four seasons per year in favor of episodes, which will begin in March 2024 shortly after the launch of The Final Shape. Bungie says the episodes format will represent “an entirely new approach to storytelling and content.”
There will be three separate episodes in 2024, Bungie announced, respectively titled Echoes, Revenant, and Heresy. Each episode will be a standalone story told in three acts, and each one will explore the “aftermath and fallout of the events of the conclusion of the Light and Darkness saga.” Bungie also notes that the episodes will introduce additional content and rewards “more often than previous Destiny 2 Seasons.”
The change in format seems to be a direct reaction to player feedback, as Destiny 2 game director Joe Blackburn recently apologized for Bungie’s poorly received August State of the Game post.
Season of the Witch
But before Destiny 2 officially says goodbye to seasons, its latest, Season of the Witch, debuts today. In it, Guardians will continue to pursue The Witness, confronting old allies and enemies along the way.
Per Bungie’s official synopsis: “Savathûn’s ghost Immaru proposes a deal: aid in the resurrection of The Witch Queen and help defeat her sister, Xivu Arath. In exchange, Savathûn will reveal the key to the portal through the Traveler where The Witness is preparing to enact The Final Shape. Guardians will harness arcane Hive magic as they help their ally Eris Morn prepare for the showdown against the Hive god of war by transforming into a Hive god herself.”
Season of the Witch will also introduce a new method of player progression called The Deck of Whispers, which will allow Guardians to customize their loadouts and powers in new ways. As players complete seasonal activities, they’ll earn cards that can be used for a customized deck of buffs and perks.
Check out Bungie’s full recap of today’s event here.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
While we all wait in anticipation for Starfield, Bethesda released an actually pretty epic live-action trailer for its first new IP in 25 years during today’s gamescom Opening Night Live – and if you didn’t know any better, you’d maybe just think it was the first look at a big-budget sci-fi feature film.
The trailer, appropriately soundtracked by an orchestral cover of Elton John’s Rocket Man, shows the latest look at Starfield’s intergalactic setting, complete with starships, gorgeous planetary landscapes, and more. It’s a clear spotlight on the world-building that Bethesda is doing with Starfield, following in the footsteps of the vast worlds built by series like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout.
You can watch the trailer below.
That wasn’t the only appearance Starfield made at gamescom; Bethesda’s Todd Howard also took the stage alongside Opening Night Live host Geoff Keighley to say a few words about the game, revealing more details about the faction of The Constellation and calling it “NASA meets Indiana Jones.” There was also a stunning piano performance by Starfield composer Inon Zur.
All this comes just as we’re in the home stretch for Starfield, which will debut in early access on Sept. 1 and then release wider to PC and Xbox Series X/S on Sept. 6. Critics already have their hands on the game, with reviews set to debut Aug. 31, but be careful: spoilers have already leaked online.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
Tekken 8’s director promised to improve online play following feedback from the closed network test last month.
In an interview with IGN, Katsuhiro Harada told us what the development team learned from Tekken 8’s closed network test: “We were foreseeing some problems that we wanted to actually test out in this environment, and we did encounter those problems,” Harada explained.
He also pointed out that the development team was “surprised that the feedback was better than we expected” in regards to the participating player’s online connection.
“But on the flip side,” he continued, “we were surprised that the feedback was better than we expected regarding the players’ experience on the online connection, that they actually felt that the game felt pretty good over pretty substantial distances, I guess you could say.”
Harada added that there was a “great disparity” between those using a LAN cable and those that were on Wi-Fi, vowing to “fine-tune” the experience just a bit for those that are playing over a wireless connection online.
Tekken 8 does not have a release date as of yet, but hopefully will get one soon. What we do know is that when it launches it will be available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more, check out our first impressions piece by IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman.
“Hopefully they can iron out the network issues, and if they do, I’m confident we’ll have a great new combatant for the King of Iron Fist Tournament,” Saltzman wrote.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Quantic Dream announced Dustborn, a narrative-driven action-adventure game set in an alternate version of America.
We got the first trailer for Dustborn at Gamescom Opening Night Live, which shows players will have the opportunity to venture across a Neo-Western America as they build relationships with their crew. Dustborn is described as “a single-player, story-driven action-adventure game about hope, love, friendships, robots…and the power of words.”
Important to note that Quantic Dream is not developing this game. Instead, they will serve as the publisher, while indie studio Red Thread Games is behind the development of Dustborn. Red Thread Games previously developed 2019’s Draugen, a mystery adventure game released on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
No release date for Dustborn yet. But we do know that it will be available on PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), PS5, PS4, and Xbox.
At Gamescom Opening Night Live, it was revealed that a free content update is coming to Sonic Frontiers later this year. The Final Horizon update will include new story, new playable characters, and new challenges.
In the cinematic trailer, Sonic and team face off against a large ominous enemy before Sonic harnesses the power of the Chaos Emeralds and transforms into Super Sonic.
In our 7/10 review of Sonic Frontiers, we called the game “an ambitious open-world adventure that mostly succeeds at mixing up the Sonic formula, even when some of its ideas fall flat.”
Sonic Frontiers The Final Horizon will arrive as a free content update on September 28.
