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Pathfinder Is Challenging Diablo 4 With Its Own Hack and Slash Action RPG

BKOM Studios and Paizo have launched a Kickstarter campaign for a co-op hack-and-slash action RPG based on the Pathfinder tabletop game.

Titled Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults, the Kickstarter says this is the first-ever hack-and-slash RPG based on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. If funded, the title is set to come to PC via Steam.

Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults will support up to four players at a time, as they lead Pathfinder heroes through Gauntlight Keep in a mission to defeat the evil sorceress Belcorra Haruvex. The game will take place in a mega-dungeon beneath Gauntlight Keep that’s separated into different biomes. Players can choose between four Pathfinder champions: Amiri the Barbarian, Harsk the Ranger, Kyra the Cleric, and Ezren the Wizard.

Kickstarter backers will be eligible for rewards like an artbook, early access, a custom dice set, and more. The project has a goal of CA$410,000 with 30 days to go.

While this is the Pathfinder franchise’s first Diablo-like, the series is no stranger to video game adaptations. Just last year, we got Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, an isometric RPG that we called great in our review.

Speaking of Diablo, we’re just a week away from Blizzard’s Diablo 4. We called the upcoming game amazing in our Diablo 4 review, saying “Diablo 4 is a stunning sequel with near perfect endgame and progression design that makes it absolutely excruciating to put down.”

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over seven years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game Hands-On Preview

The Dead Cells board game isn’t the first tabletop title to be inspired by a video game, nor is it the first to try and mimic the feel of a rogue-like game. There’s even one – Sanctum – which is so clearly indebted to the Diablo franchise that it makes you wonder they weren’t served with a copyright infringement. But it does look to be the first official adaptation of a rogue-like and it’s an interesting choice. The Dead Cells video game won plaudits for its fast, demanding combat which isn’t something a board game can easily replicate. So the designers – including Antoine Bauza of 7 Wonders fame – will have had to look for something else to focus on.

See Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game on Kickstarter.

What’s in the Box

We played a prototype of the Dead Cells board game which wasn’t complete, but it contained everything needed to play through the first two levels and a boss. Each level has its own board and tuckbox of goodies, which includes tiles to place on the board, two decks of monster cards – regular and elite – and smallers decks for treasure and blueprints. The boss has a reference sheet and a deck of cards.

There are also several boards used to track game state. One is for combat, another, the annexe board, for treasure and the third is the interbiome board where players can purchase upgrades between biomes. This is notable for having sleeves actually affixed to the board so it’s easy to store your upgrades between games. There’s a variety of tokens to track things like health and loot such as cells and gold teeth earned during your run.

Each player gets a Beheaded board which features unique upgrade paths for the three game stats, brutality, tactics and survival. They also get a deck of combat cards. Players move as a group so there’s only a single miniature in the game to track their progress on the board, an impressive tableux of Beheaded. It’s worth noting that the player board and cards feature some pretty impressive cartoon-style art of the Beheaded characters in action.

Rules and How it Plays

Again, this being a prototype, the rules are subject to change. But as it stands this is a fast-playing cooperative game where the group has to work together to get through as many biomes as possible. Players make a collaborative decision over where to move the figure through branching paths on the biome board, encountering treasure, monsters, merchants and other features represented by shaped, face-down tiles. Some paths require the group to have access to particular runes before they can be traversed.

Reaching a consensus on group decisions in cooperative games can be awkward and the genre as a whole is plagued by a problem known as quarterbacking, where the group is inclined to let itself be bossed around by the most experienced, or perhaps the loudest, player. To combat this, Dead Cells gives one player the First Player crown and they get to be the final arbiter of all decisions. The crown is rotated at intervals by an icon you can flip on some tiles. The First Player also gets to be the recipient of particular treasures and can be a damage magnet in monster encounters.

Combat features another innovation to keep cooperative play interesting. It takes place over three rounds. Monster cards are placed in different slots around the players and each features three action bars indicating what the monster will do on that round. Mostly this is straight up damage, but they can also do things like shield other monsters or inflict conditions like poison or bleed on players. Player combat cards feature the same, three bars with different actions but in addition to the monster combat icons they can also use equipment or loot, which is the only way to pick up loot promised by the encounter tile. But here’s the kicker: players select their combat cards independently and they can only discuss one of the three actions on the card.

This gives what would otherwise be a rote, mechanical combat round a delicious frisson of uncertainty, as well as preventing a quarterback dominating the situaiton. It’s a pretty neat, clever system on the whole. In addition to the nuance of what icon to discuss when you’re selecting actions, some encounters also need a plan to overcome. Bleed and poison are especially vicious so you’ll want to take down those monsters early, ideally before they rech the round with the unwanted icon, but some attacks are range limited against particular slots, muddying the waters. Using found equipment and abilities gained as your three stats increase also expand the range of tactical options available.

There is however, a bizarre design quirk in combat connected to player count. The players have to play three cards, total. That’s fine if there are three players. It’s also fine playing solitaire where your selection intertwines in interesting ways with random cards from a solo deck representing a sentient sword companion. But with two, one player has to play two combat cards which is simply less interesting because you can cover more bases and the reveal is less of a surprise. And with four, one player doesn’t play at all but rather gets a little gamble to see if they get an ability boost instead. These wrinkles might get smoothed out as the game is revised in the run-up to release, but right now it’s far better with one or three players than two or four.

You’ll note that even when the combat works well with the correct player counts, it’s no substitute for the fast hack and slash of the video game — although, like the original it does force you to work with what’s available. Instead, Dead Cells wisely opts to perform homage to its parent title in the long form, using the interbiome board. Just like the video game your starting characters simply aren’t powerful enough to make it through many biomes. If any one of the characters dies, you have to discard your equipment, reset your abilities and start over. But before you do, you can spend cells and blueprints you’ve found.

Blueprints are powerful items that get added to the treasure deck for the appropriate biome, giving you a chance to find them on subsequent runs. Cells, meanwhile, can be spent on useful things like permanent mutations which offer ongoing buffs at the start of, or during a run. They can also buy more powerful combat cards to incorporate into your player’s decks or even tossed into a well for a random, not always welcome effect. In this way the group will unlock new abilities over time, making combat more interesting and boosting their chances of making it deeper through the various biomes.

While this is a great way to give a board game a roguelike feel, with slow improvements both in your abilities and your understanding of how to best use them accumulating over repeat runs, it does come with a downside. Setting up each biome board is a little fiddly, a minor annoyance that would be no problem if you only had to do it once. But you may have to do it several times over a single run and then the game wants you to reset and do it all again and it feels quite a lot of work for a relatively lightweight game. The admin overhead is a speed bump that detracts from that addictive feeling of wanting to jump straight in and try again that powers all the hours you can sink into the original.

Where to Back?

Dead Cells deserves plaudits for trying something new in terms of video to board adaptations. The concept of pushing players down repeat runs with a slow drip of rewards is novel and it works pretty well: it’s just a shame that the analogue need to reset decks and tiles each time trips it up. It’s take on cooperative play is less innovative but still very welcome, as far too many games seem content to just let a quarterback run the show if they want. As a package it’s very light which aids the sense of speed but also feels repetetive: it relies very hard on the lure of unlocking new baubles for another run to generate a perception of variety. Still, in many ways that’s the essence of the rogue-like experience and Dead Cells conjures it very well.

Lord of the Rings’ Most Iconic Characters Showcased in Upcoming Magic: The Gathering Card Set

In an advance showcasing of their upcoming The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth card set, Magic: The Gathering game maker Wizards of the Coast presented an extensive roster of cards featuring characters from the well-known Tolkien setting.

Among the more than 100 cards shown, were numerous depictions of the terrifying Nazgûl, recognizable locations from Middle-earth in the form of land cards, and the corrupting One Ring itself, as well as huge cast of characters beloved by Tolkienites everywhere.

From Aragorn to Frodo, Boromir to Peregrin Took, and even the terrifying Balrog, all the notable characters you’d hope for can be found — and often more than once, too!

Flip through the gallery below to see for yourself:

Many of the cards revealed make use of “The Ring Tempts You” mechanics, which empowers the player’s Ring-bearer the longer you make use of its terrible might. One of those abilities makes your Ring-bearer a legendary and prevents creatures with greater power from blocking their attacks, while another saps all opponents of life when the Ring-bearer deals damage to any player.

WotC also discussed the digital version of their game, Magic: The Gathering Arena, which will be receiving the set in its entirety. For those hoping to bring Middle-Earth to their arena battles, they’re offering a Hobbit-themed digital playmat for you to sling cards against your friends.

Tales from Middle-earth adds to a growing number of MTG crossovers in recent years, which previously included Transformers, Street Fighter, Stranger Things, and Fortnite, though The Lord of the Rings will be the first crossover to receive a full set of cards that includes four commander decks, a starter kit, Jumpstart themes, and more.

For more, check out the Doctor Who crossover that went live for pre-orders a few weeks ago.

Travis Northup is a freelance writer at IGN.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart Comes to PC in July

PlayStation announced that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will come to PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on July 27. The PC port was a collaboration between Insomniac Games and Nixxes Software.

This version features ray-traced reflections with varying quality levels, as well as ray-traced shadows for natural light in outdoor areas in the game. Additionally, there are different aspect ratios to support ultra-wide and triple monitor set-ups such as 21:9, 32:9, and up to 48:9 resolutions.

There are also unlocked framerates and players will be able to choose from different upscaling options, including NVIDIA DLSS 3, AMD FSR2, Intel XeSS, and Insomniac’s own Temporal Injection. Both NVIDIA Reflex and NVIDIA DLAA are supported too.

As for the controller aspects, the game supports full mouse and keyboard support along with customizable controls. Controllers are also supported and the DualSense’s haptic feedback can be felt when hooked up with a wired connection.

Those who preorder will get early access to in-game Carbonox armor and Pixelizer weapon items. The five armors from the Digital Deluxe Edition and 20th-anniversary armor pack are included in the PC version too, as well as five additional armors based on the previous games in the franchise.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was first released on June 11, 2021, for PlayStation 5. In IGN’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart review, we said: “Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a stunner. It not only gives the latest generation of consoles a game that looks as beautiful as the improved tech promised, but it’s also a fantastic experience to play.”

Tears of the Kingdom Players Are Once Again Elaborately Murdering the Yiga Clan

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players are using the game’s new Ultrahand ability to create some ridiculously elaborate traps to stay one step ahead of the pesky Yiga Clan.

These sneaky baddies roam the map dressed up as normal NPCs before launching an attack on Link out of the blue. Thanks to the power of respawning, however, the player is able to get one step ahead of the undercover attacker.

Though this was also a trend in predecessor Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom players like Fareeha on Twitter (below) are using the new mechanics to essentially create death traps for the poor Yiga Clan members.

Fareeha put together a remotely detonated lava shower, triggered by a bomb when the Yiga Clan member jumps out to attack. This enclosed the NPC in a box before lava spewed down from above, making short work of the enemy (though Fareeha admitted they “spent way too long on this thing”).

“I’m going to kill Ganon with a shower,” they added. All’s fair in love and war, of course, and the Yiga Clan definitely started this fight. Tears of the Kingdom players are also taken by the clan’s obsession with Link, as their hideout holds unflattering drawings of the Hyrulian.

Tears of the Kingdom seems to include tons of tiny details like these to keep players intrigued, with someone recently discovering that Hyrule’s citizens have unique dialogue if Link skips the opening area.

Players are also using the new powers to shortcut their way through Korok puzzles and straight up bully the forest dwellers.

In our 10/10 review of the game, IGN said: “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is an unfathomable follow-up, expanding a world that already felt full beyond expectation and raising the bar ever higher into the clouds.”

And for help with everything Tears of the Kingdom, take a look at our Tears of the Kingdom Walkthrough and Guide about making your way through Hyrule. In fact, you can start here:

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Tears of the Kingdom Players Are Cleverly Cheating Korok Rock Puzzles With Fuse

The Tears of the Kingdom community has discovered a new time saving trick that allows players to solve select Korok puzzles in a matter of seconds using Link’s weapon fuse ability.

Pointed out by Twitter user aquatic_ambi (below), the Korok puzzles that have Link find a missing rock to complete a pattern on the ground can be completed using a rock-fused weapon. By performing a jump attack at the location of the missing pebble using said weapon, or by otherwise positioning the rock end in the gap, the puzzle will be considered complete.

“You have done us all a great service today. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to recover from my mind getting blow by this,” said one of the many Twitter users responding to the video highlighting the trick.

“Excuse me what? I swear this game just has way too many things that I haven’t discovered yet,” commented another excited player. “It counts?!,” digitally shrieked another, “What the heck have I been doing”.

Regardless, it’s a timesaver in a game packed with exciting things to do, and represents yet another way that players are making use of Link’s new abilities to get one over on and generally torment the woodland folk.

Take a look at our Tears of the Kingdom Walkthrough and Guide for more tips and tricks to help you make the most of your adventure through Hyrule. In fact, you can start right here:

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer

Street Fighter 6 Review

Remember when Street Fighter 5 came out and a lot of people were disappointed by its distinct lack of meat on its bones? Street Fighter 6 is the polar opposite. Complete with an excellent 18-character roster of both new and returning fighters rendered in a killer new art style, an incredibly ambitious online Battle Hub that puts all other online fighting game lobby systems to shame, and just about everything you could ever ask for when it comes to training tools and systems to help you get better at fighting games, it’s a spectacularly feature-rich fighting game. Street Fighter 6 takes many swings in many different directions, and though not every blow connects, the ones that do are absolute knockouts.

The gameplay of every Street Fighter game since Street Fighter 2 can generally be defined by a unique mechanic. Street Fighter 3 had parries, 4 had focus attacks, 5 had the V-System, and now Street Fighter 6 has the Drive System. And for my money, it’s the best the series has ever seen.

Every character gains access to five powerful abilities that are all governed by their Drive Gauge: Overdrive special moves, Drive Rush, Drive Parry, Drive Reversals, and Drive Impact. Overdrives are essentially the new EX Special Moves and cost two bars, Drive Rush allows you to quickly close the distance between you and your opponent at the cost of one bar (or cancel out of specific normal attacks at the cost of three bars), Drive Reversals allow you to get an opponent off of you while you’re blocking their attack at the cost of two bars, and Drive Impacts… well we’ll get into those in a bit.

I love this system for a lot of reasons, but chief among them is that it opens up so many options, and at the start of every round you have a full meter and have access to all of them. There’s no building this meter up, or worrying about the amount you’ll have left over for the next round. I could start aggressively by using a Drive Rush right out of the gate to put on pressure; I could save my meter for Overdrive special moves to increase the damage of my combos; or I could fish for a crouching medium kick and then Drive Rush cancel it to convert big damage off of a single hit. Those are just a few of the options, and managing them makes the already extremely cerebral fighting of Street Fighter 6 even more enjoyable.

Managing your Drive Meter makes the already cerebral fighting even more enjoyable.

The way it’s handled when you run out of Drive Meter is also excellent: your character enters a Burnout state where you’re completely unable to use any Drive Meter-related techniques; your opponent’s attacks become more advantageous on both block and hit; you take chip damage, and Drive Impacts are even scarier than before (I swear, we’ll get to Drive Impacts in just a bit).

Being in Burnout is a terrible position, but it is far from an unwinnable situation. You still move at the same speed, your attacks do the same damage, you still have access to all of your super moves, and while your opponent’s Drive Impacts are a huge threat, you know that they’ll be looking to do them, which can lead to some interesting mind games on both sides. Some of the most tense and fun matches I’ve had in Street Fighter 6 have been when I managed to pull out a victory even while in Burnout.

Now let’s talk about Drive Impact, because I have a feeling that for a lot of people, whether or not they enjoy Street Fighter 6 is largely going to come down to their feelings on this one move. Drive Impact only costs one bar of drive meter to use, it has super armor that can absorb up to two hits, and if it hits while your opponent is in the middle of their own attack they will be knocked into a crumpled state, giving you a full combo. And that’s not at all! Even if they block it they get blown back and lose half a bar of Drive Meter, and if they get backed into the corner you get to follow it up with a combo. That’s not all either! Remember how I said that they’re even more scary when you’re in Burnout? Well, if you block a Drive Impact and you’re close to the wall you get stunned and you’ll eat a full combo in the corner, even though you blocked their attack. It’s one of the most powerful universal mechanics I’ve ever seen in a fighting game, and if you don’t respect it, you will get crushed by it.

And yet, I love Drive Impacts, because they’re tuned so that they’re just reactable enough to be defended against if you’re looking out for them, but also still fast enough to catch you by surprise if you’re not. All you have to do is Drive Impact them right back: you’ll absorb their attack, hit with yours, and now the roles have reversed so that you get the opportunity for a full combo. Countering Drive Impacts is just so incredibly satisfying, especially when it’s the key to you turning the tables and winning a tight round.

The New World Warriors

Street Fighter 6’s roster of 18 characters is mostly familiar, with 12 returning characters and six being entirely new, but even the returning characters feel fresh thanks to new quirks added to their move sets. Ken’s command run, for example, now changes up the properties of several of his special moves when he uses them out of it, giving them EX-like properties without having to spend Drive Meter on them; Cammy can now charge her special moves and give them V-Trigger like qualities; and Dee Jay has a ton of new feints that make him an extremely tricky character to use and play against.

The new blood, meanwhile, are some of the best additions Street Fighter has seen. Kimberly is a clear standout, with a ninja-inspired moveset that has her closing the distance with quick teleports, piledriving you into the ground with Izuna drop-like air throws, and mixing you up with tricky leaps from half a screen away. Jamie, meanwhile, is a drunken melee powerhouse who is able to buff himself by taking swigs of his flask, and once he takes four drinks pretty much all of his moves become extremely dangerous with multi-hitting attacks that left me totally clueless on when it was actually my turn to try and fight back until I labbed against him in training mode.

Pretty much every Street Fighter character archetype has representation here. You’ve got your grapplers in Zangief and Manon; your rushdown fighters in Ken, Jamie, and Cammy; your zoners with Guile, Dhalsim, and JP; and your powerhouse bruisers in Marissa and Honda. It’s everything I want out of a roster.

Gonna Take You For a Ride

World Tour is an ambitious single-player mode, and while it is a big step up from Street Fighter 5’s attempt at a cinematic story mode (and anything else Street Fighter has done before) it’s certainly the weakest part of Street Fighter 6. It’s at least a great idea: It’s a surprisingly enormous RPG that allows you to take a created character into the world of Street Fighter, interacting with the playable roster by becoming their disciple and learning their moves, and then building them up from scratch by leveling up, equipping various types of stat-altering gear, and selecting powerful skills. It also does a good job of teaching new players the fundamentals of Street Fighter 6 by including lessons as sidequests, with steadily increasing difficulty over the course of about 20 hours.

However, RPGs live and die by their stories, and the story of World Tour is unbelievably dull. With paper-thin characters, predictable plot twists, and a mute protagonist whose main purpose is just to be an errand boy for various gangs and factions, there’s nothing to get excited about. It feels like it was written with the primary purpose of having your character jump around to various countries to meet the roster characters, and yet it never really bothers to justify those trips. In one chapter, a random gangster all of sudden tells me that I need to get her bag back that my buddy stole. And so without any objection, the most reasonable solution is for me to make a global trip to Rome in order to fashion a counterfeit bag that I can hopefully use to fool the gangster into thinking I got her bag back. In another chapter I had to go to Jamaica and Brazil because my original mentor, Luke, wanted souvenirs from those places and doesn’t know how to shop online I guess?

At least the tone is goofy and fun, which is a great fit for Street Fighter. You can fight just about anyone on the street, regardless of whether they deserve a Rising Uppercut to the face or not; it’s fun to use ridiculous-looking moves like the Spinning Bird Kick to cross gaps like you’re a human helicopter, and there’s a surprising amount of enemy variety, many of which do an admirable job of teaching newer players how to deal with specific situations that will come up outside of story mode. Some enemies will favor blocking high, making them vulnerable to low attacks; others will stay permanently in the air and must be brought down by anti-air techniques; and others still will try to hang back and pepper you with projectiles, forcing you to fight them like you would a zoner-type character. And then you can also fight refrigerators… And Roombas. It’s weird, but in a very amusing, Yakuza-esque kind of way.

There’s also a variety of fun minigames that do a great job of “gamifying” techniques that you actually would use in a typical fight. In one of them you have to chop bottles by holding back for a second and then quickly moving the stick in the opposite direction and pressing a button, which is how you’d perform charge-type special moves on a character like Guile or Blanka; another has you making pizza by quickly performing special move inputs as they appear on screen; and another still has you using your combos to quickly destroy a big rig in a nod to the original car-busting minigame from Street Fighter 2.

The best thing about World Tour is outfitting your character with moves from every fighter.

The best thing about World Tour, though, and the thing that really serves as the carrot at the end of the stick, is the promise of being able to outfit your character with moves from every other fighter. By the end of the campaign I could use Dhalsim’s teleport to instantly appear behind an opponent, hit them with Zangief’s Spinning Piledriver, and then use Ken’s Dragonlash Kick to get right back up in their face. Being able to customize my character in ways that would make them absolutely broken in the real game is a lot of fun.

The issue is that it takes forever to level up a character’s style to the point where you learn new moves from them. You do this simply by using them, but even though I only used Luke’s and Ken’s throughout the entire mode, I still didn’t max out either of them. Those who love a good grind may enjoy having plenty left over to unlock after the 20 or so hours it takes to complete World Tour, but I would’ve liked the drip feed of new unlocks to be substantially faster considering the sheer amount of rewards there are to unlock by maxing out the ranks of each character.

I have many more issues with World Tour, but even despite them, I still had a fun time with it in the end. It’s a mode that’s more directly aimed toward people without a lot of fighting game experience, and I think those people will get a ton more out of it than I did. The character customization elements are great, the way it incentivizes fundamental lessons of how to play Street Fighter 6 by dressing them up as side missions and minigames is extremely well done, and there’s just an overwhelming amount of content to discover with two very large open worlds to explore (both of which have day and nighttime versions that each have their own set of side-missions to discover).

I Got Next

Another reason why you might want to go through World Tour mode is that you’re able to take your character and all the gear they’ve earned into the online Battle Hub, which is an online social space where you queue into both ranked and unranked matchmaking, or pull up on a cabinet much like you would in a local arcade and await challengers.

Online lobbies are not a new thing in the world of fighting games, and truthfully, I’ve never been the biggest fan of them, but Street Fighter 6’s implementation of the Battle Hub has won me over. For one, it’s super cool to look at because Street Fighter 6’s character creator is absolutely wild, and gives you the freedom to make beautiful creations with finely tuned features or unspeakable monsters with out of this world bodily proportions, and it’s fun to just wander around the hub and see what people have come up with.

There’s also a lot of things to do beyond just parking at a cabinet playing with either friends or random players. There’s a section of the hub where you can play a rotating selection of classic Capcom games like Final Fight and Street Fighter 2; another section where you can play Extreme Battles with party-like rule sets and gimmicks; a store where you can purchase more customizable clothes for your avatar with in-game currency; and you can even pit your created character against others in Avatar Battles.

But the most important thing about Battle Hub is that it’s all optional. If you don’t want to deal with it, you don’t have to. You can simply queue up for ranked or casual matches via a menu, go into training mode while you wait, or create a custom room for multiple friends without ever having to go through the Battle Hub – which is exactly how it should be.

The Little Things

What really pushes Street Fighter 6 over the edge is how it completely nails virtually everything outside of its main modes that you could ask for in a fighting game. Based on my experience playing pre-launch and in all three betas, including the open beta, its netcode is excellent; it’s got the best training mode I’ve ever seen in a fighting game, complete with frame data and cancel window data; it’s got extremely helpful character guides that make it very easy to learn a new character from scratch; combo trials that teach you practical combos for a variety of situations; load times are extremely quick and rematches are nearly instantaneous; you can search for replays with a ton of different filters to help you learn matchups; there’s crossplay across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC; you can create and join clubs; and so on. Many fighting games also have these features, but very few have all of them, and especially not right out of the gate.

Street Fighter 6 also deserves credit for really making an effort to welcome newcomers in innovative ways. On top of the World Tour mode, there’s also a new Modern control scheme that allows you to play without having to worry about character-specific command inputs or combo routes. Special moves are mapped to a button and a direction, much like Smash Brothers – there’s one button each for light, medium, and heavy attacks, you can execute combos by holding down an assist button and mashing one of the three attack buttons, and you can use super moves just by pressing two buttons at the same time.

The playing field is kept even by the fact that those using Modern Controls don’t have access to a character’s full repertoire of normal moves, but being able to perform special moves with just the press of a button is a tradeoff that makes the Modern Control style appealing even for those who aren’t beginners.

And for those who just want to hold forward and mash on one button to execute special moves and combos, there’s a new Dynamic control scheme that’s only usable offline and essentially lets the AI choose the attacks for you. Capcom’s really covered all the bases here.

Final Fantasy 16 Endgame Activities Include New Game+ and Its Most Difficult Challenges

Square Enix has begun detailing the endgame activities that Final Fantasy 16 players will be able to look forward to after they finish the main story, and they include New Game+ and the game’s most difficult challenges.

As reported by Game Informer, one of the biggest draws of New Game+ is the addition of a new harder difficulty setting called Final Fantasy Mode. Alongside allowing you to bring over all of your abilities and gear from your first playthrough like most New Game+ modes, this new difficulty setting will also change monster placement and will see them showing up in different parts of the game to keep you on your toes.

“The main design philosophy is that the first playthrough is about learning Clive, learning the controls, and then enjoying the story,” Final Fantasy 16 combat director Ryota Suzuki says. “The second playthrough, we want to shift that focus – because the story hasn’t changed – to the action. For example, in Story Mode, while players may encounter waves of enemies, a lot of times, enemies don’t attack at once to allow players to be able to handle everything. In the harder modes of the game, we have removed these limitations so that you have multiple enemies all attacking Clive at the same time.

“Basically, what we’ve done with [Final Fantasy] Mode is give players controlling Clive the sense that they’re always in danger, that death is around the corner, and that you’ll need to really, really pay attention to be able to clear the content.”

The Most Difficult Challenges in Final Fantasy 16 Wait for Players in the Chronolith Trials and Ultimaniac Mode

Final Fantasy Mode will also let players upgrade their weapons beyond what was possible in the first run through the story, will let them upgrade accessories for the first time, and will let them try out the Final Chronolith Trials.

As for what these Chronolith Trials are, they are the “most difficult challenge in FFXVI,” according to Final Fantasy 16 creative director Hiroshi Takai. Players will need to make it through multiple stages that feature four waves of enemies that will each be harder than the last. The final round will pit a terrifying boss against the player.

If that wasn’t enough, these trials are timed and will see players attempting to earn more time by performing certain moves and combos and completing objectives. Oh, and there is no healing in these trials besides the healing that comes with activating a Limit Break.

Continuing with the big focus that Final Fantasy 16 places on Eikons, these Chronolith Trials will each be based on one. Game Informer got to see Phoenix’s Trial by Fire, and it only gave players access to Phoenix’s Eikonic abilities. This obviously makes things more tricky as normal battles let you mix and match abilities from all those you’ve gained from the Eikons you’ve encountered.

Arcade Mode will also get a difficulty bump in New Game+’s Final Fantasy Mode. For those unfamiliar, Arcade Mode allows for previous stages to be replayed with an on-screen score calculator and combat grader. If Final Fantasy Mode’s challenge isn’t enough for you, there will also be an Ultimaniac Mode that is even tougher.

Arcade Mode’s global leaderboard will only be active in either Final Fantasy Mode or Ultimaniac Mode, and the global leaderboard for the Chronolith Trials will only be active in Final Fantasy Mode.

If a harder difficulty isn’t your cup noodles, you’ll be happy to know you can simply play Final Fantasy 16’s New Game+ in the standard Story or Action modes for a less stressful experience.

Final Fantasy 16 will be released on PlayStation 5 on June 22, 2023. For more, check out our most recent hands-on preview, our breakdown of the Final Fantasy 16 Showcase, and how Final Fantasy could potentially get rid of numbers from its titles.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

The Witcher 3 Sales Officially Cross 50 Million

CD Projekt Red has revealed that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has sold over 50 million copies worldwide.

Furthermore, CD Projekt Red also confirmed that the series as a whole has surpassed 75 million copies sold. This includes 2007’s The Witcher, 2011’s The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, and 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

CD Projekt Red is currently working on several games in The Witcher series, including Project Polaris, which is presumably The Witcher 4. It likely won’t be released until 2025 at the earliest as it only entered pre-production in March 2022. The studio is also working on a remake of the first Witcher game and has confirmed that it will feature an open world.

The Flame in the Flood developer Molasses Flood is also working on a separate game in the franchise called Project Sirius. However, its development was recently reset and has a new multiplayer framework.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was first released in 2015 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions recently launched in December 2022.

In IGN’s The Witcher 3 review, we said, “Even if the plot isn’t terribly interesting, the many characters who play a part in it are, and along with the excellent combat and RPG gameplay, they elevate The Witcher 3 to a plane few other RPGs inhabit.”

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.

When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey

The First 1,000 Diablo 4 Players to Hit Level 100 on Hardcore Will Be Immortalised on a Giant Demon Statue

Diablo IV’s Hardcore mode now has even higher stakes – immortalizing the first 1,000 players to reach level 100 by adding their names to a statue of Lillith.

“Think you can cheat death?” asked Blizzard in a tweet (below). “Reach level 100 on hardcore mode and tweet #Diablo4Hardcore with proof to have your username immortalized on a statue of Lilith.”

Diablo’s infamous hardcore mode has the highest stakes of all – a single character death will permanently delete that character. But if you can rush through without succumbing to any of Diablo IV’s monstrous bosses, you could have your BattleTag immortalized forever.

As well as reaching Level 100 in hardcore mode, players will also need to submit proof, in the form of a photo or video, to Blizzard.

The terms and conditions also state that you’ll need to tweet at the official Diablo account about your accomplishment using #Diablo4Hardcore while also mentioning your Battle.net BattleTag. Of course, you’ll also have to have the Tempered Champion in-game title, but that’s awarded automatically when you reach level 100 in hardcore mode.

The contest begins when Diablo V early access launches on June 1 and ends when the first 1,000 names are gathered or by September 1 if fewer than 1,000 players reach this point.

IGN’s Diablo IV beta impressions said: “Having focused on the Druid and Necromancer classes during the second beta weekend, this one open to more than just those willing to buy an appropriately unholy chicken sandwich, I’m more convinced than ever that this hellish action RPG is on track to deliver something truly special.”

Want to read more about Diablo IV? Check out how Diablo IV’s gothic style reclaims the franchise identity as well as the accessibility features you can find in the upcoming sequel.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.