Category: IGN

GameStop and Target may have leaked the release date for Sonic Superstars following the Sonic Central livestream.

As spotted by Wario64, GameStop and Target, where Sonic Superstars is up for pre-order, listed its release date as October 17 on their websites, a month earlier than most Sonic game releases. IGN, however, found that the release date was later switched to the placeholder date of December 31, 2023 on both retailers’ websites.

Sonic Superstars releases Oct 17th according to GameStop and Target https://t.co/W6sXUr6ARB

— Wario64 (@Wario64) June 23, 2023

Sega of America did not respond to IGN’s request for comment on the matter.

Sonic Superstars was revealed at Summer Game Fest earlier this month with a Fall 2023 release window. Given that the trailer for the game dropped so recently, it would mark a pretty quick turnaround to reveal its exact release date now.

General speculation, though, places the game somewhere between August and October. While August is techincally a summer month, Sonic Mania released at that time in 2017. And while November technically counts as a Fall month, typically, when Sega drops a new Sonic game trailer showing a Winter or Holiday release window such as Sonic Frontiers, the game gets a November release date several months later.

If Sonic Superstars is indeed slated to release on October 17, it would be in competition with Alan Wake 2, which comes out the same day. It would also be competing with Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which come out October 20.

Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.

The best way I can possibly describe what I’ve played of Testament: The Order of High Human is that it’s like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic directed by Tommy Wiseau. It’s bizarre, slightly unsettling, often unintentionally funny, but overall not very successful at what it sets out to do. It has some great character art and interesting environments to trek through, and there does seem to be a robust, physics-based magic system in the trailers that I only got a tiny taste of in the demo. But it’s difficult to find much to praise here.

As a writer and editor, I’ll get my biggest pet peeve out of the way quickly: This is not a game that was written by anyone with a strong grasp of the English language. Inconsistencies, even in how the title is styled, abound. Sometimes “High Human” is two words with no hyphen. Sometimes it’s hyphenated. Sometimes “Human” is capitalized in the subtitles and sometimes it’s not. The in-game encyclopedia that’s supposed to introduce you to important world concepts is full of high school English test errors in capitalization, punctuation, and basic grammar. There’s a notice when you first get to the main menu that this game was made by a very small team of 15 people. I wish one of them had been an editor.

And I definitely dig some small games made by scrappy, underground indie studios. I have over 300 hours in Stardew Valley, which was made by one guy. And if Testament was merely lacking in some technical polish, I could probably ignore that as long as there was worthwhile gameplay and a strong story underneath. Paradoxically, it’s kind of the opposite. Everything runs great and I didn’t encounter any major bugs. Not even in these tricky platforming areas, which are probably the most fun I had with the demo. But from the story to the basic combat mechanics, it simply doesn’t hold up. And having a small team can’t really excuse that.

Who Am I?

You play as Aran, a character who is not introduced to you at all until much later, who wakes up after being kidnapped by some kind of evil Treebeard. He’s a “High Human” – the very awkward and slightly eugenics-y name for this setting’s immortal, magically-gifted ruling class – and the former king of the land of Tessara. Somehow he’s ended up without his powers and only a cheap sword to defend himself. The reasons for this, again, are only explained later – usually through incredibly forced expositional monologues of Aran talking to himself about stuff he already knew, but I as the player did not.

Eventually we find out Aran’s brother turned to darkness, possibly because his wife died, and he pops out of a portal to mock you for being reduced to a “mortal,” give a quick evil villain speech, and vanish. I was still unclear what was actually going on until maybe an hour into the demo, and I don’t mean in the way where you’re excited to uncover a mystery. It’s more like picking up a novel that’s had the first four chapters ripped out and trying to piece together the story from there. Maybe the final version will have a more complete intro. Maybe this isn’t even the intended starting point. That would certainly help a lot.

But, okay. A kind of confusingly-presented story and sloppy localization work would probably not be the biggest deal in the world if the combat were great. Sadly, it is not. Real-time, first-person swordplay that looks sort of Elder Scrolls-ish boils down to mainly doing the same combo over and over, then dodging out of the way of a telegraphed power attack from… these guys are called “halflings” for some reason, and at this point I had just decided to stop questioning the stylistic worldbuilding choices so I didn’t lose my mind. Testament pretends to have a combo system, but it doesn’t really. Whether I precisely time my swings like the tutorial tells you to, or just spam the left mouse button as fast as I can, the animation and the amount of damage I do seems pretty identical.

Eye on the Prize

Archery is a bit more fun. Most enemies die to a single headshot, and I really like it when I’m rewarded for my Robin Hood accuracy that way. Stealth attacks, likewise, can one-shot goons and do a lot of damage to bosses, but the opportunities to use them are fairly limited. The couple of spells I got to play with – including a destructible barrier similar to Geralt’s Quen sign in The Witcher and a very, very slow life drain beam – are alright, but you have to put away your sword to use them. That made me miss Skyrim’s more flexible combat system.

And if you run out of arrows and mana potions, you’re back to the same old, boring melee routine. Ranged enemies will often just stand there dumbfounded and let you hack them apart if you close the distance with them. The AI is generally not very good. You can’t even block or parry. At least not with the weapons I got to try out.

There is a skill tree-based progression system as well, which lets you focus on melee, archery, or magic. It’s… it’s fine.

I hate to be a downer on something that seems like a real passion project from a small group of motivated developers, but I don’t really see Testament: The Order of High Human making a splash when it comes to first-person action RPGs. Some of these jumping and wallrunning puzzles were neat, and maybe this demo wasn’t a good representation of the release version. I’d be willing to give it another shot. But my hopes aren’t high for High Human.

While Microsoft has said before that it has no intentions to withhold Call of Duty from PlayStation consoles should its acquisition of Activision Blizzard go through, Xbox boss Phil Spencer doubled down on that today in strong terms during the company’s FTC trial.

During day two of the trial, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley pointedly reminded Spencer that he was under oath and asked him if Microsoft would indeed continue to ship Call of Duty to PlayStation.

“I would raise my hand. I will do whatever it takes,” he said in court. “We have no plan. I’m making a commitment standing here that we will not pull Call of Duty – it is my testimony – from PlayStation.”

“As you said, Sony obviously has to allow us to ship the game on their platform,” he went on. “But absent any of that, my commitment is, and my testimony is that we will continue to ship future versions of Call of Duty on Sony’s PlayStation 5.”

This is in line with Spencer’s previous statements on Call of Duty exclusivity, saying last year that Call of Duty will continue to ship to PlayStation “as long as there is a PlayStation to ship to.” And in an email revealed in court yesterday, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan wrote that “I’m pretty sure we will continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for many years to come” in response to the news that Microsoft was intending to acquire Activision Blizzard.

The issue of console exclusivity is one that has come up frequently in the first couple of days in the trial, with the FTC taking aim at Microsoft’s 2021 acquisition of Zenimax yesterday. And today, Spencer claimed that there was no PS5 version of Minecraft because Sony didn’t send dev kits to Microsoft.

For more from the trial, check out our roundup of everything you need to know so far.

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.

The serial ghoster, Xûr, is now live in Destiny 2 for the weekend until next week’s reset. If you’re looking to get you some shiny new Exotic armor or weapons for your Guardian, look no further.

Each week, Xûr has a random assortment of Exotic armor, one for each Guardian class, as well as a random Exotic Weapon and an Exotic Engram available for purchase. In addition to his Exotic wares, he’s got a random collection of Legendary weapons and armor to deck out your Guardians.

We’ve rounded up all the info on Xûr for the week including where to find Xûr, which Exotic weapons and armor are available, as well as which Legendary weapons you should pick up, either for PvE or PvP.

Where Is Xûr Located Today?

Xûr’s location can be found at Winding Cove in the EDZ on June 23 through June 27. To reach him, travel to the landing point at Winding Cove. When you arrive, make for the rock cliffs at the far end of the cove and look for a cave winding up to a platform next to some Fallen. There you’ll find the retail monster who inspires us all.

Starfield is coming this September as an Xbox console exclusive, but there was a time where things almost played out very differently.

During his cross examination as part of today’s trial between Microsoft/Activision Blizzard and the FTC, Xbox head Phil Spencer confirmed that there were discussions about Starfield potentially skipping Xbox consoles prior to Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax.

Back in 2020 — when Microsoft announced its plans to buy Bethesda — journalist Imran Khan first reported on Starfield’s potential PlayStation exclusivity, writing “Sony had been negotiating timed exclusivity on Starfield as recently as a few months ago. Going to guess either those talks are done or the price suddenly went way, way up.”

Developing…

Spoiler Warning: The following article features very mild spoilers for Final Fantasy 16, discussing a small element of its level design from around 10 hours into the game.

Final Fantasy 16 may be set in a completely fresh world, but that hasn’t stopped Square Enix including references to previous games in the franchise.

Fans playing through the long-awaited RPG have spotted one subtle reference to a beloved Final Fantasy character in the form of the Black Mage (or Vivi depending on your preference).

The throwback can be found in the Martha’s Rest area players will come across at around eight to 10 hours into Final Fantasy 16. By heading to the field around the back of the buildings, players can see a scarecrow that looks remarkably similar to the classic Black Mage character model.

Microsoft’s recent excellent Xbox Showcase laid bare something we’d already suspected: that the Xbox is about to become the go-to platform for role-playing games – particularly Western RPGs. It’s an interesting shift for a platform that, from its very inception on the back of the Halo franchise, was informally known as the “shooter box.”

None of this is a surprise – not when Microsoft purchased Obsidian, inXile, and then Bethesda Game Studios – but now all of Microsoft’s RPG cards have been laid out, and the hand they’re holding is mighty impressive. To wit: Xbox now has at least one major, exclusive, first-party RPG lined up for the next 3-4 years, if not more.

First up, of course, is Starfield, which will finally be released on September 6 (technically September 1 if you pony up for the pricier deluxe version) after roughly eight years in development. Game director Todd Howard told me he doesn’t want everything he works on from here on out to take that long, but after playing Starfield for an hour myself, I can confidently say that the time has not been wasted. What I mean by that – and the 45-minute Starfield Direct that immediately followed the Xbox Showcase went into more detail on – is that from what I have seen and played, absolutely nothing in Starfield is shallow. The skill trees, the character creator, the dialogue trees, the shipbuilding systems, the planetary exploration, and so much more all have genuine depth to them. Each is something you could spend hours enjoyably doing. Players are going to be plumbing the depths of Starfield’s massive in-game universe for many, many years to come.

Next year, meanwhile, the aforementioned RPG specialists at Obsidian have promised us Avowed, the first-person fantasy role-playing game set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. Unlike Starfield, Avowed won’t be gargantuan. Instead, Obsidian clarified that it’s more akin to the 20-40-hour quest that the studio’s own The Outer Worlds was. But if it’s got the quality of story, dialogue, and pure role-playing that Obsidian has made its name on, then I can’t imagine that anyone’s really going to complain.

Next we move to 2025, which seems like the most likely landing spot for Fable. Before you hit the Comments below saying that 2025 is crazy, think about this: Microsoft put “2024” on the games they are confident are coming out next year, like Avowed and Hellblade 2. Fable had no date on its debut gameplay trailer. Therefore, it’s likely not expected out next year, otherwise they’d have put 2024 on it. Playground has a truly immaculate track record, and if the snippets of gameplay we saw in that trailer are indicative of what we can expect in the full game, then Playground will strengthen its argument that it is among the most talented developers not just at Microsoft, but in the entire game industry.

Things get a bit murkier from there, release-wise, but if either or both of The Outer Worlds 2 and inXile’s steampunk-inspired, Unreal Engine 5-powered Clockwork Revolution slip to 2026 (an entirely possible if not probable scenario in the modern game industry), then you’re looking at four consecutive years of some serious RPG firepower.

And finally, of course, there’s one more RPG in Microsoft’s pocket – one that will probably outsell all of the other ones combined, and one that is arguably the single biggest property Microsoft owns (yes, bigger than Halo at this point) – The Elder Scrolls 6. That one is quite a bit further out, given the fact that Howard and his Bethesda Game Studios teams only work on one game at a time. The follow-up to Skyrim will be a juggernaut, but it’s still so far away that it might not even be released on the current Xbox console generation. If we take Howard to heart when he says he hopes his games don’t take eight years to make from now on, a five-year development cycle for a game as big and ambitious as TES6 is likely to be is probably the most reasonable guesstimate. Four years is unlikely, three is basically impossible. Five years would put us in holiday 2028 – possibly as a launch title for the next-generation Xbox, if the Series X lasts as long as the Xbox 360 did (the Xbox One was seven years, which would even more assuredly put TES6 on the next Xbox!).

The point is, the Xbox is absolutely loaded with exclusive, AAA role-playing games from accomplished game developers. If you love the genre, you’re going to have to start gaming in the Xbox ecosystem if you’re not already there. And you’re going to be eatin’ good for years to come.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Cardy, Dale, and Matt have played a ton of Final Fantasy 16 and have just as many thoughts on the latest in the RPG-turned-character action game series. After an extensive rundown of the things it does well and what it doesn’t, there’s time for a brief chat about Marvel’s Secret Invasion, as well as the new trailers for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Challengers, and Kraven The Hunter.

Want to let us know which games you’re most excited for later this year, or just want to tell us the weirdest thing you’ve had as a pizza topping? Drop us an email: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast 702: The Good and Bad of Final Fantasy 16

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Henry Cavill’s 007 audition was tremendous” according to Casino Royale director, Martin Campbell.

During an interview with The Express, the filmmaker revealed new details about Cavill’s 007 screen test.

“He looked great in the audition,” he said. “His acting was tremendous. And look, if Daniel didn’t exist Henry would have made an excellent Bond. He looked terrific, he was in great physical shape… very handsome, very chiseled. He just looked a little young at that time back then.”

Famously, Cavill just missed out on the role of 007 back when casting for the 2006 hit, Casino Royale, took place. The role, of course, went to Daniel Craig. However, Campbell thinks Cavill simply missed his time to play the iconic British superspy. At the time, Cavill was only 23, so his casting would have made him the youngest Bond yet.

“It was ultimately down to, and this is what I’ve been told, it was just down to me and Daniel, and I was the younger option,” said Cavill in an interview with Josh Horowitz. “They obviously went with Daniel and I think it was an amazing choice to go with Daniel. I probably wasn’t ready at the time and I think Daniel did an incredible job over the past movies, so I’m happy they made that choice.”

It’s no secret that 007 producers are now on the lookout for the next James Bond after Daniel Craig left the franchise behind with No Time to Die. Could Cavill now play Bond? “By the time Daniel got to [No Time To Die] really he was at an age where one more would have been too old for him,” said Campbell. “I think they sign on for three Bonds, I’m not absolutely 100% certain of that. I know with Pierce [Brosnan] he had to sign on to three when we did him. So, that’s going to take, what, six years of your life maybe? I suspect Daniel [had] the same deal. And the next guy’s going to have to do that.

“Henry’s 40, so by the time he’s done the third one he’s going to be 50. Anything beyond that’s two, three years per Bond. He’s in good shape Henry, he’s a good guy. He did very well in the audition, but ironically, he was too young.”

The next Bond movie is said to be a “complete reinvention” of the series and it’s reported that producers are looking for someone younger, ideally in their 30s.

IGN’s Casino Royale review gave it 9/10 and said: “The point of Fleming’s story was always about how Bond, after suffering at the hands of Le Chiffre and then facing even greater pain later, realizes his place in the world and that he must go after the threat behind the threat. In other words, James Bond literally and figuratively gets his balls back, and that testicular fortitude is exactly what this 44-year-old franchise has needed for many years now.”

Want to read more about James Bond? Find out why some 007 favorites might be too old to play James Bond, and why John Williams would love to score a Bond movie.

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