There’s a beautiful scene in the second half of Venba where Venba, a mother with an adult son, spends all day joyfully cooking a veritable feast of different foods. The scene is wonderfully executed in so many ways – the context, the timing of the cooking and the music, and the way Venba’s confidence in the kitchen comes across through gameplay. But what had me in tears well before the actual emotional turning point of the scene was how clearly the developers managed to convey food as an expression of relentless love.
When I went to meet my fiance’s family in Georgia for the first time in 2021, I too was loved in this way. I didn’t grow up in a household where cooking happened with any regularity, so it wasn’t until meeting Amma and Moni for the first time that I learned what it meant to be loved intensely through food. I was loved through hot chai pressed into my hands first thing in the morning, through gazing daunted at so many plates of singara, and through hauling a massive suitcase of biriyani and spinach and lamb home that we ate effortlessly for weeks after.
Venba is a story about what was happening on the other side of that kind of love. It follows a woman named Venba, her husband Paavalan, and their son Kavin through a number of key moments in their lives. These range from Venba finding out she’s pregnant with Kavin in the 1980s, shortly after the family has immigrated to Canada from India, through Kavin as a grown adult in the 2010s. In each chapter, Venba and Kavin explore their familial relationships through food, which plays out in puzzles where the player guides them through a smudged, half-remembered, incomplete family recipe. The first chapter, for instance, goes through the process of making idlis, while later chapters involve more complex recipes such as biriyani and dosas.
I spoke with the Venba developers, creative director Abhi and art director Sam Elkana, earlier this year at GDC. The two are fairly new to the games industry, having just started their development journeys in 2020 with an action game called Balloon Man about a depressed superhero who can only make Balloons. It’s a very different game from Venba, but one day in the process of making it, Abhi came up with a different idea for a story about immigrant parents. He texted it in detail to Elkana, whose own experience being supported by his mother to come to Canada from Indonesia resonated with Abhi’s pitch. The two deliberated for two weeks before setting aside Balloon Man and proceeding with Venba.
Abhi is careful to tell me that the story, while derived from some personal experiences, is not autobiographical. He says that while he’s very different from Kavin, he did grow up in a Tamil community and watched many of his peers struggle to fit in.
Immigrant media always focuses on the children’s perspective…But I wanted to focus on the parents for once.
“And slowly the gap between the parents and the kids starts to grow and grow,” he continues. “And the parents who came here hoping to give a better life for the kids, they start regretting. Especially the ones who came in the ’80s, their only friends essentially are each other and their child. And so they start to live a very lonely life as they start to grow older. And to me the immigrant media, it always focuses, I feel like, on the children’s perspective, or, ‘Oh, it’s hard for them to have two lives, one at home, one at school.’ But I wanted to focus on the parents for once because I feel like their story wasn’t told enough.”
Abhi himself isn’t a parent, which might be surprising to anyone who experiences the empathetic perspective taken in Venba. He says he’s struggled to connect with a perspective shown in a lot of media of children frustrated with their parents as they try to assimilate.
“I think I’ve seen the life that the kids are leading here and they’re making stories about, it’s still a pretty good life,” he explains. “It’s the life that many people in India are aspiring for, like to get here, to move here. And that’s why the parents take a risk and they move. And they’re 40, 50, not an ideal age to forget everybody they’ve lived with and move here.”
Specifically, Venba is told through the lens of cooking and food, a decision Abhi says he made because cultural cuisine is something that will largely stay constant over the long period of time Venba covers (from the 80s to the late 2010s). While the relationship between parents and children will change over the years, he says, food remains a steady bridge that the two can use to communicate. The team did plenty of research into South Indian and Tamil food for the game, but the work proved to be quite challenging both due to the sheer smorgasbord of food types out there, and the lack of readily available information online.
“In the beginning, Sam and I were struggling quite a bit because I wanted to showcase a wide range of South Indian cuisine and be like, ‘Oh, if you play Venba you’ll understand what South Indian cuisine is,’” Abhi says. “But I quickly realized that’s impossible because it’s super diverse. Every state in India, I would say, has more diversity in its cuisine than a country in the European Union. People think all of India is one, but it’s not. And if you travel, every 10 kilometers the cuisine changes in South India even.
“So it was really hard. And I realized that I’m approaching Venba like a tour guide for people who haven’t had that before and I shouldn’t worry about making Venba encompassing. Instead, Venba should just be an introduction. Or maybe it inspires players to look up stuff on their own.”
Every state in India, I would say, has more diversity in its cuisine than a country in the European Union.
From there, Abhi and Elkana thought through what recipes made sense as “puzzles” for gameplay purposes, as well as what ingredients Venba would have access to in Canada in the 1980s through the early 2000s. Biriyani, for instance, appears later in the game because certain spices wouldn’t have been as accessible in the earlier years before more South Asian stores popped up in the country.
All of the food is lovingly depicted thanks to Elkana’s art direction. Elkana is inspired by older Cartoon Network animations including Samurai Jack, Dexter’s Lab, and Powerpuff Girls, which comes through in his personal work, though he admits he tried to veer a bit further away from those aesthetics in Venba. Venba is softer, he says, and has its own personality. With the food especially, Elkana worked to find a balance between a realistic and a more stylized look that would effectively capture the shapes, colors, and textures of the food but still fit with Venba’s overall tone. Elkana and Abhi both cooked and visited restaurants to try a number of different foods for inspiration – when we speak at GDC, their most recent conquest was cooking biriyani. Even separately, during the pandemic, Abhi would cook food and send photos of it to Elkana to try and replicate.
“It was very important to cook it, because if we are making it into a puzzle, if I’m changing anything about it, I need to verify,” Abhi says. “And the only way I can figure it out is by cooking it. And I would find the puzzle as I’m cooking it.”
Elkana tells me that what he’s proudest of in working on Venba is that he was able to make something sincere that “paid respect to the things that we went through.” And that sincerity comes through. The individual resonant pieces of Venba – such as the details in its food, relationships, and incredible score of homages to popular Indian music over recent decades – are topics for other writers with other experiences to dig into, and I hope they do. But as someone who has recently been deeply loved through food in a way not unlike how Venba expresses her love for Kavin, Venba truly moved me. I hope I get to have some of Moni’s chai again soon.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
Over a month after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, players have finally spent enough time in Hyrule, above, and below, that they’ve begun to form some seriously complex theories about what’s going on with the game’s lore. And one element appears to be puzzling the community more than any other: the Depths.
We’ve written before about the most interesting mystery of Tears of the Kingdom’s Depths, which is that it’s a dark mirror image of Hyrule above – a “dark world,” if you will. But even with that understanding, there are still tons of questions plaguing the minds of Tears of the Kingdom community about what the Depths really is, how it came to be, how old it is, and what it all means.
A recent thread on r/zelda highlights many of these questions, most notably because the community can’t seem to come to any kind of agreement on an answer for most of them. And boy, do people have theories. Some of them have more holes in them than others, but all of them speak to the deep curiosity of the community around this mysterious, dark Hyrule.
Here are a few of our favorites. Be warned: serious spoilers ahead for what’s in the Depths and what it means for the plot of Tears of the Kingdom.
The Depths are a pseudo-afterlife
u/huggiesdsc has a cool theory that, while unlikely, is still fun to imagine. They suggest that the Depths are a “pseudo-afterlife” that can be visited by living people similar to how characters from Greek mythology can visit the underworld. Chasms serve as portals to the underworld that connect the two realms thanks to Ganon’s magic.
Farfetched? Maybe – there are some holes in this theory, such as what this means for the Goron city of Gorondia or why the Zonai were able to mine materials in the underworld and then use them above ground. But it’s a fun thought experiment when you consider the Poes – lost souls that need to be guided to the afterlife via Bargainer Statues – and the ghost warriors holding weapons. One cool (or creepy) element of this theory is that it suggests Kohga, the leader of the Yiga that Link cast into a pit in Breath of the Wild, is actually dead. Link fights his vengeful spirit in the Depths, and Kohga is able to communicate with his living followers who descend to visit him in this way.
There’s a lot more to this theory, and the subsequent replies both debunk elements of it as well as add potential further support, but the idea of the Depths as having some connection to death is certainly a strong one regardless of whether or not it’s literally a Hyrule Hades.
The Depths are OLD. Real old.
This is less a theory and more an understanding many community members have come to based on lore directly from the game. We know for certain the Depths have been around in some fashion since before the Zonai appeared in Hyrule, since the Zonai found them already there and were able to build mines and extract Zonaite. So they’re definitely older than 10,000 years, likely significantly more so.
It’s not fully clear whether or not the Depths had anything resembling civilization down there at the time, though. While Gorondia being in the Depths indicates the Gorons either came from the Depths originally or at least dwelled there for a time, it’s equally possible that Gorondia was on the surface and just sank into a volcano at some point. Whatever the case, though, it’s clear that either the Gorons emerging or Gorondia sinking happened so far out of Goron historical memory that the legend of it has all but faded by the time of Tears of the Kingdom – again, we’re talking really old here.
Of course, this opens up a number of other questions. For instance, why is there a mine exactly where Tarry Town is? Did the Zonai somehow know Tarry Town would be built by Link thousands of years later, or did Tarry Town come into existence, subconsciously or otherwise, because of the mine? If that’s the case, why isn’t there a mine under what used to be the Hyrule Castle Town? No one seems to have a good answer for these questions. One theory, suggested by u/lolIiollie and u/MiddleNightCowboy, is that the Depths are actually an “ancient” version of Hyrule that’s been long-since buried, implying that the Zonai built the mines where they did on the ruins of ancient versions of present-day towns. Maybe there was a Tarry Town more than 10,000 years ago!
The Depths are at least somewhat magical
Several community members, including Ryon21_ and Iguanaught, have suggested that the Depths are a little bit magical, while also being a physical phenomenon, and other community members have suggested similar ideas. The gist of them all put together is that while the Depths is a real place – not an Afterlife, but an actual part of Hyrule, it exists in a world where magic is absolutely a thing, magical beings created the world originally, and magic has an influence on what happens in it. In that context, it’s completely plausible that an underground world could exist full of magical rocks and wandering spirits that’s over 10,000 years old but also perfectly mirrors the present day world. Maybe there’s no explanation beyond that.
That ties in with another thread many community members have pulled on – that the Depths are a concept we’ve seen in other Zelda games repeatedly. Multiple games have dark worlds, mirror worlds, or otherwise reversed or aesthetically dark versions of the main Hyrule that Link can visit and explore, and we don’t always get a full lore explanation for why or how any of those exist in the first place. So in that respect, maybe there is no answer for the Depths.
But that’s no fun. So let’s get really wild with this last one.
Demise originated in the Depths
Okay, this is absolutely a stretch, but enough folks mentioned it we have to share it. Several community members are suggesting that the Depths are actually where Demise – the primary antagonist of Skyward Sword and the demon that repeatedly reincarnates at Ganon – came from.
The evidence for this is flimsy. Skyward Sword states that Demise is an eternal entity who came out of a fissure in the ground to find the Triforce, and was eventually sealed away by the Goddess Hylia. Community members such as u/OSCgal have noted a canyon on the Tears of the Kingdom/Breath of the Wild map called the “Breach of Demise”, implied to be where Demise first came out of. But if that were the case, he could have conceivably been hiding out in the Depths prior to that.
There’s nothing else really to suggest this is actually the case, though admittedly if it were true any evidence he had been down there would have been long gone by the time Tears of the Kingdom rolled around given the rather convoluted Zelda timeline. But it’s a fun thought experiment to imagine that the demon king himself, the spirit reincarnating as Ganondorf, was Hyrule’s feet the entire time before.
If you read all of this very spoilery stuff before finishing the game and still need help in 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:
Recently-announced Xbox game Clockwork Revolution is the “love child” of Arcanum and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.
That’s according to Clockwork Revolution game director Chad Moore, who worked on both cult-classic role-playing games before joining Microsoft-owned studio inXile Entertainment.
Arcanum is a much-loved 2001 steampunk RPG developed by the defunct Troika Games. Both Moore and Clockwork Revolution principal designer Jason Anderson worked on Arcanum before moving on to Troika’s cult-classic 2004 RPG Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. Now, over 20 years later, the pair are back together making Clockwork Revolution.
“With deep world building, compelling narrative, crunchy RPG systems, engaging gameplay, and massive reactivity, I’ve always described [Clockwork Revolution] as the love child of [Arcanum] and [Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines],” Moore tweeted.
“In 1998, I started working on [Arcanum] with Jason Anderson – a unique game that took place in a deep and immersive steampunk world,” Moore said last month. “To return to the genre and be reunited with Jason (and [inXile boss] Brian Fargo) on [Clockwork Revolution] almost 25 years has been one of the highlights of my career.”
Moore’s tweet does not mention inspiration from BioShock Infinite. When Microsoft unveiled Clockwork Revolution during June’s Xbox Games Showcase with a reveal trailer some said looked remarkably similar to Irrational Games’ 2013 shooter adventure, Microsoft insisted any similarities between inXile’s upcoming RPG and BioShock Infinite were “unintentional”.
Clockwork Revolution is described as a “time-bending steampunk first-person RPG”. “After stumbling across an incredible invention that allows you to travel into the past, you discover the city you call home — the vibrant steam-powered metropolis of Avalon — has been carefully crafted through the alteration of historical events,” reads the description.
“By traveling back to key moments, your interactions and choices will have a butterfly effect on the deep, narrative-driven world and characters of Avalon, causing them to change and react in unprecedented ways.”
The similarity with BioShock Infinite became the top talking point for Clockwork Revolution in the wake of its reveal at the Xbox Games Showcase. In response, a Microsoft spokesperson told IGN: “Any similarities are unintentional. Players will be able to fully customize their own main character in the game.”
Character customisation was one feature highlighted by inXile boss Brian Fargo in a series of tweets that stressed the RPG-ness of Clockwork Revolution. Fargo called Clockwork Revolution a “deep RPG” with “full character creation”, a “branching dialogue system”, “awesome” steampunk weapons and “dark humour”.
Important to know that Clockwork Revolution is a true RPG with all of the stats, crunchy details and deep reactivity that we’re known for.
These features are points of difference between Clockwork Revolution and BioShock Infinite, the latter of which is less a role-playing game, more a linear, story-based first-person shooter adventure. These features are also in-keeping with the types of games inXile has made in the past, including Wasteland 3, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and The Bard’s Tale 4.
Blizzard has told Diablo 4 players who have reached all their goals that it’s fine to take a break from the game ahead of the launch of Season 1, dubbed Season of the Malignant, on July 20.
During a recent livestream, Diablo 4 associate game director Joe Piepiora said Blizzard staff take their own advice, and pointed to the launch of new seasons as a great time to return to the action role-playing game because they offer a fresh start to all.
“When you’ve reached all the goals and done the things you think are important, and you want to go take a break to play something else for a little while, that’s fine,” Piepiora said. “We do the same thing. But when a season rolls and there are new things for you to come out, that’s a great time to come back, particularly if you had a good time playing before, that’s exactly when you should come back and check out Diablo 4 fresh.”
“I’ll be honest, when the next WoW [World of Warcraft] expansion comes out, there’s a non-zero chance that I’m going to be playing WoW for a while,” added lead game producer Tim Ismay. “But it’s great to know there’s a point that I can come back to Diablo 4, and everybody’s on an even footing.”
It’s worth pointing out you need to complete the Diablo 4 campaign in order to engage with Season 1, which makes sense given the Season 1 questline takes place after the events of the campaign. But, if you’ve completed the campaign once, all subsequent characters can skip the campaign, meaning you can get stuck into Season 1 straight away. Check out our interactive Diablo 4 map to start tracking your progress as you play.
EA Sports’ UFC game series is based on the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and kicked off with EA Sports UFC in June 2014. It was the first UFC game since THQ sold the licence to Electronic Arts.
EA Sports UFC 2 came out in March 2016, before EA Sports UFC 3 launched in February 2018. EA Sports UFC 4 then came out August 2020, leaving the series quiet for the last three years. IGN’s 8/10 review called UFC 4 “a largely iterative sequel that tightens up some looser parts, makes a few smart tweaks here and there, and doesn’t rock the boat all that much”.
Last month, EA underwent a major internal shakeup that split EA Games and EA Sports, with the former renamed “EA Entertainment” in a signal that EA intends to expand beyond games where possible. Cam Weber, who rose out of EA’s football games, continues to lead EA Sports.
The Xbox team just had an amazing Xbox Showcase that is bringing a lot of brand-new games to the table. We got a look at Clockwork Revolution, South of Midnight, and of course Starfield, but in addition to the brand new IP that will be hitting console and PC sooner rather than later, we’d love for Xbox to go back to the treasure trove and revive some of these classics. Here are a few of the games we’d love to see make a return.
1. Banjo-Kazooie
The wacky bear with a bird in his backpack made waves when the duo last appeared in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. But recently the headlines have been about how former developers like Grant Kirkhope don’t think the Banjo audience would be there if it tried to make a comeback in 2023 or beyond. Via VGC he said “I think Rare would be open to somebody if they found the right team, but I don’t feel like that team exists. Also, I’m not convinced the audience is there either.” With over 6.9 Million views on that Smash reveal alone I think the Banjo community would like to argue that this is one that Rare should not sleep on.
2. Conker
If Banjo isn’t your speed, how about a foul-mouthed furry rodent who goes by the name of Conker? He’s greedy, drinks too much, and was a perfect vessel for poking fun at the tropes of video game design back in 2001 in Conker’s Bad Fur Day. That same humor could obviously be translated to modern-day and would be a welcome shakeup to the games playing it safe like Super Lucky’s Tale. Last seen as a remake on Rare Replay in 2015, Conker is more than overdue for a return.
3. Killer Instinct
The revival of Killer Instinct on the Xbox One in 2013 had the Fighting Game community shouting praise from the rooftops. Not only did the game receive support in the form of new characters and regular updates, but even as recent as May 2023 the game is still getting backend support to ensure it stays up and running. That’s 10 years of support! All that said… where’s Killer Instinct 2 Xbox? There’s a voracious demand for more KI and as a fan since the arcade version was promised on the “Ultra 64” I’d love to see this game get even more tlc in the form of a sequel.
4. Mech Assault
MechWarrior 5 from 2019 is still getting mod support and Armord Core VI is right around the corner but you know what hasn’t gotten some love? Mech Assault! With the love for giant mech machines fighting each other sailing through the air, now seems like a time when we could be dawning our favorite Mech Assault was kind of a special entry into the Xbox list of games because not only was it a fantastic mech game, but it just… dissapeard and it’s kind of a mystery as to why. The sound design was superb. The gameplay worked on controller incredibly well. The story wasn’t half bad either. So where’s the love Xbox?
5. Quake
When the original Quake got a superb remaster last year, a few of us at IGN thought that meant something new was coming from the Quake team. Was a new game being built? Was this a tease for something bigger? Sadly, we haven’t heard anything about Quake since Quake Champions went free to play in 2018. However, with Quake Remaster getting almost universal praise it may be time to revisit this mostly dormant franchise. If ID can remake Doom into a masterpiece I for one would love to see what they did with a new take on the Quake story.
6. Shadowrun
Shadowrun came out for PC and the Xbox 360 way back in 2007 to mixed reviews and was never heard from again. But I do think there’s something great that could be built. In 2007 the Xbox game gave you access to magic, teleportation, and tech but the series was actually built around a table top that has an incredible set of lore a developer could dive into. Wikipedia says “It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy and crime, with occasional elements of conspiracy, horror and detective fiction.” Even as far back as 1993 when the first game was made it leaned more into these aspects on the SNES with a positively reviewed action RPG. To me it seems ripe with potential and if the Pillars of Eternity universe can be reimagined as Avowed, maybe Shadowrun still has the legs to make a comeback.
7. Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
Crimson Skies was a huge hit when it came out on the original Xbox and every time it’s mentioned people think back fondly with memories of blasting each other in the sky, or jumping into a turret to shoot down the enemy so you could steal the chick and gain a point. It feels like the game had a lot of fans, but for some reason it just never took off after High Road to Revenge. As Flight Simulator gets more and more into the “fun” aspects of flight with the new expansion adding things like the Dune vehicles, Aerial Firefighting, Skydiving, Seach and Rescue missions, and Cargo Transport… maybe there’s room for a mission or two that bring us back to the beloved Crimson Skies universe. Or if that doesn’t work, maybe the dream could be kept alive another way. It would be a shame to see this one fly off into the sunset.
And those were our 7 picks that we’d love to see Xbox bring back from the brink. Did we miss any? Let us know your picks in the comments below.
Having been at IGN for almost 10 years now, I’ve attended my fair share of unusual press events for upcoming games, movies, comics, and TV shows. I’ve floated in the air inside a Batman-themed skydiving wind tunnel at San Diego Comic-Con. I’ve watched a group of Diablo cosplayers perform a ritual to summon Zedd to DJ the D4 launch party. And I’ve been taught by Captain America’s stunt double how to fight Iron Man. But the invitation I received from The Pokémon Company International this week may be the most unusual of all.
Back in 2019, a curious new game called Pokémon Sleep was announced. It immediately raised numerous questions. Is this a Pokémon game you play in your sleep? How does one play a Pokémon game in their sleep? Do Porygon dream of Mareep? But years passed without another word about the game, leaving the gaming community to wonder if Pokémon Sleep was something we collectively dreamed up — and leaving those questions unanswered. Except for the last one. The answer is no, they dream of Mega Ampharos. (Who doesn’t?)
Now, four years later, Pokémon Sleep has emerged from its prolonged slumber, and I was invited to a media event where we’d get a hands-on demo of the game and spend the night at a hotel to try it out, all expenses paid. I didn’t quite understand at first. “Do I actually have to spend the night to try out the game?” I asked in an email. “Yes,” the publicist replied. Upon reflection, it was a stupid question. The game is called Pokémon Sleep, after all.
I ran the invite by IGN’s Senior Features Editor, Matt Kim, and he enthusiastically encouraged me to accept it, so long as I wrote about it in this travelog style. Hey, an unusual media event calls for an unusual article. (If you’re mad that I’ve already written 300 words and I still haven’t gotten to the game preview, send your frustrations to @LawofTD.)
I packed an overnight bag with all of the essentials – clothes, toiletries, a swimsuit in case there’s a pool, a flight suit in case there’s another wind tunnel, and a few Pokémon TCG decks in case anyone would dare challenge me to a battle.
Before I got in my car to head over, I had a moment of reflection to appreicate just how bizarre it was to drive to a hotel in Santa Monica not even 20 minutes from my apartment so I could attend a Pokémon Sleep-over. (Note: all expenses were paid for by The Pokémon Company International.)
The host hotel sounded fancy, which shouldn’t have been a surprise because the amount I’ve given The Pokémon Company in exchange for Pokémon cards alone could buy a small island, so, you know, they’ve got the money. It was located a PokéBall’s throw away from the beach, along the bustling Ocean Avenue, where I used to sit and talk with you. Turns out it was a “Hotel & Bungalow,” although I admit I didn’t know what a bungalow was. My brain suggested it was some kind of hammock.
Arriving at the Pokémon Sleep Event
5:30 pm – I roll up to the Hotel & Bungalow and see it is a fancy place indeed. I see a shiny Tesla and brand new BMW, and I immediately become self-conscious about my beat-up Honda Accord that hasn’t been washed in a month. When I came to a stop out front, a valet opened my door, took my keys, and tried to unload my luggage, but I insisted I do it, for some reason. When I was closing the trunk he grabbed my bag with an iron grip and offered to escort me to the front desk, and I felt it was in my best interest to stop resisting his polite service and let him do his job.
I check in with a lovely woman at the front desk. She tells me there’s a selection of fine dining options on-site, as well as a pool, but no wind tunnel, and I feel embarrassed for bringing the flight suit. I see two other guests checking in, one wearing a black hoodie with a white Pikachu on the back. I relax and realize I am among my people now.
5:45 pm – I unlock my room door using a neat wooden keycard and walk in to see a nicely decorated room with a big bed and a welcome basket waiting for me on the desk. No hammocks to be found. Disappointing.
I open it up to find a Kanto Gym Badge backpack, a Pikachu toiletries bag, a Pikachu holiday-themed blanket, and a cute little sleeping Snorlax plushie. Everything a Pokémon Trainer needs to catch Pokémon in their sleep, I assume.
I immediately bond with the tiny Snorlax and tears well in my eyes from its overbearing cuteness.
A few informational notecards bearing the Pokémon Sleep logo give a taste of what to expect from the game. I had already watched the Pokémon Sleep trailer released earlier that day, so I felt super smart already knowing everything on the cards. I spend the next hour feeling smug, unpacking my bag, answering a few work emails, and even manage to squeeze in 30 minutes of doom scrolling.
6:45 pm – I head downstairs to the event space and check in at the front with my PR contact Erich, who I’m meeting for the first time IRL. He gives me a warm greeting, hands me a black cardboard box containing a smartphone, and innocently asks if I brought any Pokémon decks. See? Always be prepared! He says he wants to play me with his Gardevoir deck, and I make a mental note to pack my deck full of Gardevoir counters and pretend like they were always in there. But our battle will have to wait, because the Pokémon Sleep presentation is about to begin.
7:00 pm – I enter the room and see it’s decorated with all manner of sleeping Pokémon. There’s an abundance of Snorlax, natch. While waiting for everyone else to finish checking in, I catch up with some old colleagues and make some new friends as we enjoy drinks and snacks. I accidentally spill my drink down my shirt. No one notices.
7:35 pm – The Pokémon PR team surprises us with what appears to be a person wearing a giant inflatable Snorlax costume. Squeals of joy can be heard throughout the room. I stop squealing and line up to take a picture.
How to Play Pokémon Sleep
7:43 pm – We gather into the presentation room and finally, after years of waiting, we are told exactly what Pokémon Sleep is. Doing the grand unveiling is Yuri Horie, App Product Marketing Manager from The Pokémon Company International, and joining her via Zoom is Kaname Kosugi, Pokémon Sleep Director from The Pokémon Company.
She explains that Pokémon Sleep is a different kind of game that uses a different kind of art style than other Pokémon games. (I’d describe it as having a children’s storybook quality.) The game will be released at the end of Summer 2023. (Hey, that’s soon!)
In the game, the player helps Professor Neroil research Snorlax’s mysterious ability to emit Drowsy Power, which causes Pokémon that gather around it to get drowsy. (A quick Google search reveals that “neroil” is the name of the oil extracted from orange blossoms to use in perfumes and food, and is, allegedly, one of the secret ingredients in Coca-Cola.)
The player assists by using the Pokémon Sleep app to track their sleep at night, and then that data is used to play the game when you wake up. There’s no actual gameplay at night. You just tap a button to signal to the app that you’re going to sleep, then place your phone or Pokémon GO Plus + on the bed near your pillow face down. Yuri noted that it’s best to have the device on the bed close to you, and not to put it on a hard surface. This best lets the device use its accelerometer to detect and record your sleep patterns. And don’t forget to plug your phone it so the battery doesn’t die halfway through the night.
When you wake up, you’ll see Pokémon gathered around Snorlax in different “Sleep Styles,” which you’ll log into your “Sleep Style Dex.” Which and how many Pokémon appear is determined by your Sleep Style and how much Drowsy Power you earn. Drowsy Power is calculated by adding Snorlax’s Strength to your Sleep Score. Your Sleep Score is based on the amount of time you’ve slept – adults who sleep 8.5 hours earn the maximum of 100 points, while kids must sleep 11 hours for a top score.
There are three Sleep Styles, which are determined by how deep your sleep was that night. Dozing Style is for light sleep, Snoozing Style is for medium sleep, and Slumbering Style is for heavy sleep. When you wake up, you’ll be shown a graph of how long you slept in each style and how much you moved during the night. The less you move, the heavier your sleep. The kinds of Pokémon that appear change depending on your Sleep Style, so as your sleeping changes, you’ll encounter more new Pokémon.
Upon waking you’ll also be given a graph showing how much noise you made while sleeping. You’ll be able to listen to a recording to hear what noises you made. (Sleep talkers, beware.)
During the day, there are several tasks you can perform. You can give Poké Biscuits to the new Pokémon, and when they get satisfied they’ll join your team and help raise Snorlax.
Every week, players will travel to a new island in the game and be given a new Snorlax, which will have different appetites for the various berries and cookable dishes you can feed it during the day. The new island will also have new kinds of Pokémon. On Saturday and Sunday, rarer species of Pokémon will appear.
You’ll be able to add friends and share certain info about your sleep with them, but there will be a way to hide certain parts you want to keep private. (Which is good, because the time I wake up and go to bed is frankly embarrassing.)
The game will be grading your sleep in two ways. It will rate you daily on the duration of your sleep, and over the course of a week it will be graded for consistency.
The Pokémon GO Plus + offers some extra features. When it’s time to go to bed, Pikachu will cry out. Pikachu will also sing a lullaby. (It sounds an awful lot like Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star but with “pika” replacing all the lyrics. It’s adorable.) Normally a team in Pokémon Sleep maxes out at 5, but players using Pokémon GO Plus + will get a sixth Pokémon – a Pikachu wearing a nightcap. And in Pokémon GO, you’ll be given a special Field Research task that awards a Snorlax wearing a nightcap.
8:15 pm – With the presentation concluded, the floor was opened up for questions, which I’ll lay out in an easy-to-read bullet point list for you.
What if I never get 8.5 hours of sleep? You won’t get a 100 point Sleep Score, but the app encourages you to get the doctor-recommended amount of sleep, so hopefully you’ll eventually get there. Even if you don’t get a perfect Sleep Score, you can help make up for it by getting a high Sleep Consistency score for the week.
What if I take a nap? The app will log up to two instances of sleep per day, which must be at least 90 minutes. But if you get enough sleep then ideally you won’t need a nap.
Will there be teams like in Pokémon GO? No. (Instinct 4 Lyfe)
Will there be a leaderboard to determine who is the best sleeper? No.
Did you work with real sleep researchers to develop this game? Yes. Accredited, well-known sleep researchers supervised the features of the game. However, Pokémon Sleep is not a medical device.
Will there be more Pokémon beyond Gen I? Yes. The game will launch with 100 Pokémon and more will be added in the future.
What are you doing with our data? Certain data will be collected but it will remain anonymous. The data might be used for statistics, such as the average time people in the US sleep. The recordings of your sleep noises will be automatically deleted after 24 hours.
Will there be Shiny and Legendary Pokémon? You’ll have to play to find out. (I took this as a YES but I respect her for maintaining the mystique.)
8:30 pm – With the presentation wrapped up, we were set free for the rest of the night, and were sent off with a smartphone to try out Pokémon Sleep for the first time.
9:00 pm – But before that, Eric Switzer from The Gamer and I played a best two-out-of-three match of Pokémon cards using the decks I brought. I piloted Gardevoir and he used Arceus/Giratina. Despite the fact that I’m a Pokémon TCG obsessive who (not to brag) qualified to play in the World Championship last year (just don’t ask how I did), Eric put up a good fight, taking a close Game 2 and putting on a lot of pressure on Game 3 before I was able to take the dub, which is impressive given he was using a deck he had never played before.
Playing Pokémon Sleep
10:45 pm – Now that I was crowned the Undisputed Pokémon Sleep Press Event TCG Champion, it was time to go to bed and try out Pokémon Sleep.
11:00 pm – 2:30 am – Doom scrolling.
2:30 am – With heavy sleepiness finally ready to take me off to Honk Shoo Honk Shoo Land, I plugged my phone in, pressed the sleep button on the app, and closed my eyes.
~4:00 am – In the middle of presenting my paper on Othello during high school English class all of my teeth fall out and they sprout arms and legs and grab spears and run up my leg to attack me and I try to shake them off but that gets the attention of the aliens in their flying saucer and they try to abduct me but I throw the teeth at them and they abduct them instead and leave. (This may have been a dream.)
7:00 am – The pleasant chiming of the Pokémon Sleep alarm wakes me up, and I’m surprised at how energized I feel. Normally I feel like death and it pains me to even open my eyes. I can tell it’s because I’m excited to see what awaits me in Pokémon Sleep.
I open up the app and learn I’ve earned 1,640,000 Drowsy Power, but cease to care when I see new Pokémon are sleeping next to my Snorlax! A Squirtle, a Pichu, and a Geodude.
I have a knee-jerk reaction where I feel the intense need to send out a Pokémon to battle so I can False Swipe them to within a pixel of their life and hurl an Ultra Ball at their head to make them mine forever and ever, but then the game prompts me to simply tap each Pokémon to register their Sleep Style and catalog them in my Sleep Style Dex. My Squirtle’s Sleep Style is Sheltered Sleep, while Pichu’s is Peaceful Sleep and Geodude’s is Biding Sleep (which reminds me of the move Bide).
I don’t really know what any of this means yet but I get a surge of glee watching this data get logged and seeing there’s many more blanks left to be filled in. The familiar itch to catch ’em all is quickly returning. I also notice each Pokémon is given a star rating, which I also don’t know the meaning of, but given my new Pokémon were either 1-star or 2-stars, I could tell this is yet another thing that would keep me coming back for more.
My new Squirtle was caught at level one, and I’m prompted to feed him tasty Poké Biscuits (designed to look like PokéBalls) until he grows to level two. This leveling system builds Friendship Points. Get enough of those and the Pokémon joins your team as a helper. Upon joining my team it’s identified that Squirtle has a Naughty nature (just like his new owner). Natures are a long-running mechanic in Pokémon games that help make each Pokémon more unique, and it’s back again for Pokémon Sleep.
I’m shown a spread of photos taken of each new Pokémon and told I can keep only one. I feel torn because I love all of my children, but Squirtle all tucked into his shell is too cute to resist so I choose that one (and to the shredder go the rest, I guess).
I’m notified I’ve leveled up to Research Rank 2 and I’m given some new currencies. Another Poké Biscuit, a Dorito, and what looks like an Incense.
I’m shown a map and told to choose a new area for this week, and when I do I’m given a new Snorlax. This one has a list of favorite berries and cooking requests for Curries/Stews. I live in Los Angeles where every other person is vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-intolerant, so I feel well-equipped to deal with this Snorlax’s dietary restrictions.
With all of my morning duties wrapped up, I’m now into the next phase of the daily cycle where I’m able to tap my helper Pokémon to make them drop berries and feed them to Snorlax. I notice that the Pokémon passively collect berries all day, so you’ll want to return every now and then to shake them down for more. There’s also the option to cook your berries into tasty dishes with bigger and better effects. I literally cannot be trusted to boil water let alone cook a berry-based curry for a giant balloon bear monster so I felt hesitant, but luckily there’s an Auto Cook button to take care of everything for me.
While the dish is auto-cooking, I notice a little factoid at the bottom of the screen explaining the “Slumbering” stage of sleep, which is apparently crucial for reinforcing and strengthening memory.
While the dish is auto-cooking, I notice a little factoid at the bottom of the screen explaining the “Slumbering” stage of sleep, which is apparently crucial for reinforcing and strengthening memory.
The resulting Fancy Apple Curry has a Dish Strength of 1,404 which I feed to Snorlax to boost its strength.
It’s here where the gameplay loop starts coming into focus. Go to sleep, wake up, recruit new Pokémon, gather berries and cook, increase your Snorlax’s strength, go to sleep, repeat. As your Snorlax gets stronger, it increases the amount of Drowsy Power you can rack up each night, which in turns gets you better rewards the following day. Then your Snorlax will reset at the end of the week and the cycle begins anew.
I continue to poke around the various menus in the app and come across the Shop. There’s a regular Sleep Pass and a Premium Sleep Pass for $9.99 per month or $49.99 for six months. Yup, that’s right. Even Pokémon Sleep has a Battle Pass.
There’s a section of the store where you can pay real cash in exchange for Diamonds. I noticed I earned a few small handfuls of Diamonds as I was going about my various in-game chores, so these can be obtained for free, but as is the case with many games these days, it looks like you can use your credit card to quickly advance in the game.
8:02 am – I wash up, get dressed, and take the elevator downstairs where breakfast is being served for all of the event attendees. I grab some eggs, bacon, potatoes, strawberries, a mini cinnamon roll, and a lot of coffee.
We excitedly talk about the different Pokémon we got, with others coming across the likes of Larvitar, Swablu, and Ghastly. We notice that your Sleep Style determines which of the three Kanto starter Pokémon appear for you. I had Slumbering Sleep Style which got me Squirtle, whereas Snoozing Style got Charmander and Dozing Style got Bulbasaur.
We went around sharing our sleep stats to get an idea of how it varies from person to person. One person got 6 hours and 43 minutes of sleep to earn a Sleep Score of 61, awarding them 2.4 million Drowsy Power. Another got 7 hours of sleep, a Sleep Score of 64, and 2.5 million Drowsy Power. When I shared I slept for 4 hours and 30 minutes, getting a Sleep Score of 41 and earning 1.6 million Drowsy Power, I got a few stares, so I chose in that moment to go get more coffee. Clearly I was going to need it because Pokémon Sleep just read me to filth for my bad sleeping habits. Only 1.6 million Drowsy Power? I’m a joke.
9:00 am – With one gameplay loop complete, it’s now time to return the smartphone to Erich. He tells me the data is going to be wiped, and I have a small moment of silence for Squirtle, Geodude, Pikasnooz, and my Curry/Stew-loving Snorlax before they’re released back into the wild.
Erich reminds me he wants to battle Pokémon cards the next time we meet and I tell him to bring it on. I already beat one Eric, what’s one more?
9:10 am – Finally, with my things packed up I head to the valet and get my car back. I reflect on how Pokémon has already gamified walking and brushing our teeth, so why not sleeping, too? The idea behind the game is to have fun and make you more aware of healthy sleeping habits, and in that regard it’s a success. It showed me how there’s a lot of room for improvement when it comes to my sleeping schedule, and it showed that the appeal of Pokémon can be translated to even a wellness app and still be fun. There’s no battling or dastardly teams to thwart, which makes sense because those activities tend to get the adrenaline pumping instead of relaxing you before bedtime. This is just a first impression, and I’ll need to play the game for longer than a single night to have a fully formed opinion, but from what I’ve seen, it looks promising.
I get into my car and leave the nice hotel behind. I keep the wooden keycard so I can run my fingers across it and remember what it was like to be fancy once. I head back home where I can write up what happened on this unusual yet illuminating game preview event four years in the making.
And once I’m done, I can’t wait to get some sleep.
Few companies have been able to sustain franchises through gaming’s unpredictable market shifts over the last five decades. As the medium moved from arcades to living rooms and tastes transitioned with technologies, only a fraction of a percentage of franchises from gaming’s nascent days has survived.
Below we’ve compiled the franchises that have stood the test of time longer than any others. These are the 11 longest-running* video game franchises of all time.
*To be considered for this list, a franchise must have content currently in development or content released within the last five years. This list captures only franchises that originated as games; long-running licensed franchises such as Spider-Man, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars are therefore excluded.
11. Microsoft Flight Simulator – 41 years
First release: Microsoft Flight Simulator (1982)
Latest release: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (2024)
20 years before Microsoft began its Xbox business, the company entered the gaming market as a software developer for early home computers. Among its first batch of games was Microsoft Flight Simulator, the first in its still-running series of aviation simulations.
After a dozen-plus releases, Flight Sim regained mainstream popularity in 2020 with Microsoft Flight Simulator, the series’ first game to be released on console. IGN’s reviewer Seth Macy awarded it a review score of 10 and called it “the most awe-inspiring simulation [he’s] ever experienced.”
Next up is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, announced during the recent Xbox Games Showcase.
10. Wolfenstein – 42 years
First release: Castle Wolfenstein (1981)
Latest release: Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot (2019)
Wolfenstein began as a stealth-focused arcade game in September 1981 with the release of Castle Wolfenstein. The series has moved through several development teams and publishers throughout its 42-year existence, including notable stops at id Software (1992’s Wolfenstein 3D) and Activision (2001’s Return to Castle Wolfenstein through 2009’s Wolfenstein).
For the last decade, audiences have known Wolfenstein as a WW2 first-person shooter series developed by Bethesda’s MachineGames. The studio has created five Wolfenstein games since 2014: The New Order (2014), The Old Blood (2015), The New Colossus (2017), Youngblood (2019), and the VR game Cyberpilot (2019).
Latest release: Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (2018)
While never reaching the heights of Mario or Zelda, Donkey Kong remains Nintendo’s longest-running video game franchise, debuting as an arcade game in July 1981.
Donkey Kong served as the antagonist in the original arcade game, throwing barrels down at the playable character from atop a construction site where he held Lady (Pauline) hostage. That playable character was Jumpman, who’d later become known as Mario.
The franchise has found most of its success with Donkey Kong Country, a series of 2D platform games, though it’s also explored the racing (Diddy Kong Racing), rhythm (Donkey Konga), and 3D platform (Donkey Kong 3D) genres.
8. Frogger – 42 years
First release: Frogger (1981)
Latest release: Frogger and the Rumbling Ruins (2022)
Frogger has made it across four decades of video games, surviving longer than all but seven franchises in video game history. Over three dozen Frogger games have been released since the franchise’s arcade debut in June 1981.
Konami created the original Frogger and continues to develop new games in the franchise, most recently 2022’s Apple Arcade exclusive Frogger and the Rumbling Ruins.
7. Missile Command – 43 years
First release: Missile Command (1980)
Latest release: Missile Command: Recharged (2022)
From the golden age of arcade gaming, Missile Command is a missile defense shooter developed by Atari. Like other arcade games on this list, Missile Command has received numerous re-releases, sequels, and spinoffs over the last four decades.
The latest version, Missile Command: Recharged, adds new power-ups and enemies, a new soundtrack, and co-op capability.
6. Pac-Man – 43 years
First release: Pac-Man (1980)
Latest release: Pac-Man World Re-Pac (2022)
Shortly before Missile Command, Pac-Man debuted in Japanese arcades as Puck Man. (The name is said to have been changed ahead of the U.S. release later in 1980 due to the vandalism opportunities presented by “Puck.”)
The original game’s loop — guide Pac-Man through a maze of dots while avoiding the Ghost Gang — has been tweaked and expanded upon in subsequent variations released over the last 43 years. Notable follow-ups include Ms. Pac-Man and Super Pac-Man in 1982, Pac-Land in 1984, Pac-Man World in 1999, Pac-Man Championship Edition DX in 2010, Pac-Man 256 in 2015, and Pac-Man 99 in 2021.
The franchise’s most recent release is Pac-Man World Re-Pac, a 2022 remake of the aforementioned 1999 3D platformer.
5. Asteroids – 44 years
First release: Asteroids (1979)
Latest release: Asteroids: Recharged (2021)
The first of three back-to-back-to-back arcade space shooters on this list, Asteroids was Atari’s response to Space Invaders, which was released a year earlier to extraordinary success in Japan. Asteroids, too, found near-immediate success upon its release, especially in the U.S.
Atari has since released several sequels, spinoffs, and ports. The most being Asteroids: Recharged, described as a modern reimagining of the original arcade game.
4. Galaxian/Galaga – 44 years
First release: Galaxian (1979)
Latest release: Galaga Wars+ (2021)
Namco’s first arcade shoot ‘em up was Galaxian, the precursor to its more-popular space shooter, Galaga. Galaxian, similarly a response to the popularity of Space Invaders, was released in Japan two months before Asteroids in the U.S. Its success led to the release of a sequel, Galaga, two years later.
Over 20 Galaxian/Galaga games have since been released across arcades, consoles, and phones. The most recent entry, Galaga Wars+, was released in 2021 for Apple Arcade.
3. Space Invaders – 45 years
First release: Space Invaders (1978)
Latest release: Space Invaders: World Defense (2023)
Before Asteroids and Galaxian, Tomohiro Nishikado ushered in the era of fixed shooters with his seminal shoot ‘em up Space Invaders. It was an instant hit in arcades, and its popularity boomed two years later when its console port became the killer app for the Atari 2600.
Space Invaders inspired countless arcade shooters that followed, while Japanese publisher Taito has released upwards of 30 spinoffs and sequels. The company most recently teamed with Google to create the AR game Space Invaders: World Defense, due out later this summer.
2. Pong – 51 years
First release: Pong (1972)
Latest release: Pong Quest (2020)
Atari’s first-ever video game has persisted to become the company’s longest-running franchise and one of only two gaming franchises to remain active for over 50 years.
The iconic table tennis-inspired game was among the first arcade games ever released. It’s considered the first commercially successful video game, and as such, is regarded as a catalyst for the video game industry at large.
Atari most recently released Pong Quest, which it describes as a “Pong-themed dungeon-crawling RPG.”
1. The Oregon Trail – 52 years
First release: The Oregon Trail (1971)
Latest release: The Oregon Trail: Boom Town (2023)
Gaming’s oldest active franchise, The Oregon Trail is a series of strategy-adventure games initially developed for educational purposes. While later iterations integrated graphics, the 1971 original was a strictly text-based game meant to simulate the experience of 19th-century pioneers traveling from Mississippi to Oregon.
Created as a supplement to a junior high history lesson, The Oregon Trail debuted in a single classroom in Minnesota. It was made available to additional Minnesota schools in 1975 and ported to Apple II computers in 1978, before being updated and released commercially in 1985. The franchise now includes over a dozen ports, sequels, reimaginings, and spinoffs.
The latest iteration is The Oregon Trail: Boom Town, a free-to-play Farmville-like mobile game. Fans of the original game, however, may be more interested in 2021’s The Oregon Trail, which transforms the original text adventure into a graphically vibrant choose-your-own-adventure. The reimagining is available on Switch, PC, and Apple Arcade.
Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.
Since Capcom announced Exoprimal in 2022, players have looked forward to the dinosaur action game’s focus on online multiplayer, which was later announced to support crossplay. However, Exoprimal only supports cross-platform matchmaking and not cross-platform party creation, meaning players won’t be able to invite their friends to parties if they’re playing on different platforms.
Today, Capcom clarified the restrictions around crossplay that will come with the game at launch in a Twitter thread.
On day 1, Exoprimal will support cross-platform matchmaking, but party creation will be specific to each platform ecosystem, as seen below in no particular order: Group 1: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows Group 2: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 Group 3: Steam
According to the team’s thread, crossplay for party creation will be limited within three platform ecosystems, which the tweet lists as:
Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows
PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
Steam
Exoprimal’s beta had the same limitations, and it looks like they’ll be sticking around for the full release’s foreseeable future. The thread does hint at the live service game eventually allowing cross-platform parties, although Capcom stated it “may take some time.” Capcom also noted that it will soon share a roadmap for its first large post-launch update soon.
Exoprimal is set to launch on July 14, and it received a new trailer showing off new enemies, exosuits, and a new mode during last month’s Capcom Showcase. We also previewed the game last year and called it a “a solid foundation for a PvPvE shooter,” but called its PvP gameplay “mediocre” and “paint-by-numbers.”
Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.
In case you missed our announcement, ID@Xbox will be partnering with IGN exclusively for their next gaming showcase! ID@Xbox follows the Xbox Games Showcase and Xbox Games Showcase Extended events from June, and is all about indie games. What’s more, this event marks the 10 year anniversary of ID@Xbox, so keep reading and see how to tune into this special July event.
What Is ID@Xbox Showcase?
ID@Xbox stands for Independent Developers @ Xbox, where its showcase is all about what’s coming next in the world of indie games. If you’re into indie-focused shows, you should absolutely tune in on Tuesday.
When Is the ID@Xbox Showcase?
The special ID@Xbox Showcase event takes place on Tuesday, July 11, 2023 at 10am PT/1pm ET (which is 6pm BST and 3am AEST on Wednesday for folks in Australia).
Date: July 11, 2023
Start Time: 10am PT/1pm ET
How to Watch ID@Xbox
IGN will be hosting this exclusive showcase on all of our channels (see below). Immediately following the showcase we will be doing a deeper dive into some of the games from the show, so don’t miss it!
Here’s the full list of places you can watch ID@Xbox Showcase 2023 with us:
Expect new announcements, teasers for future titles, and more than a couple of surprises as we bring the spotlight to the newest inductees at ID@Xbox.
While we can’t reveal what indie games will be part of the event, you can check out our recap of April 2023’s ID@Xbox Showcase to get an idea of what to expect. There were 11 total games featured in the show, including upcoming games available on both Xbox and PC. From a deeper look at Vampire Survivors’ second expansion and even more gameplay from The Last Case of Benedict Fox, there was excitement across a wide-range of independent games.
We hope you’ll join us for this exclusive IGN & Xbox event!
