Wuthering Waves is a multi-platform free-to-play action RPG by Kuro Game. Wuthering Waves emphasizes freedom and exploration in its fast-paced Player-versus-Enemy (PvE) combat. If you’re a fan of free-to-play games that offer deep gameplay mechanics, you should keep an eye on Wuthering Waves’ upcoming closed beta.
A Story of Catastrophe and Recovery (and Catastrophe)
The world of Wuthering Waves was bombarded by an apocalyptic event called the “Calament” over a century ago. Strange beings arrived and sowed havoc and violence across the lands, leaving the dregs of civilization to tremble on the edge of annihilation.
But peace was forged between the surviving peoples, all of whom pitched in to rebuild cities, homes, and factories from the ruins left behind by the violent invasion. There’s a dreamlike serenity hovering over Wuthering Waves, but it’s deceptive; some unnamed threat still lurks in the shadows. Your sudden, mysterious arrival to the land where you’re only known as “Rover” inexplicably lines up with the growing unease. Expect the Resonators of Wuthering Waves to keep a close eye on you–but the upside is they’ll stay close by your side and watch your back as you fight a host of strange, twisted monsters.
Easy to Play, Easy to Look At
Wuthering Waves‘ graphics aren’t yet developed fully, but already feature large cities and settlements nestled amongst overgrown structures and towering, lush hills and mountains. Both characters and enemies alike are animated while in combat, with dashes, hits, and dodges all showing off as many details as possible while each one dives in and out of each other’s attacks.
Wuthering Waves is a full-bodied RPG that emphasizes interaction in the world. Additionally, you and your Rover will have several battle styles at your disposal via the varied Resonators. With plenty of skills to learn and weapons to master, gameplay might sound intimidating but
Wuthering Waves‘ onboarding process is engineered to make newcomers comfortable. This is good news if you’re rusty at action RPGs because you shouldn’t have trouble finding your footing. If you’re an old hand at action RPGs however, there are plenty of fierce opponents and meaty quests for you to seek out in Wuthering Waves‘ wide world.
Running Up that Hill
Thankfully, cliff faces and heights aren’t blockades or mere hazards in Wuthering Waves. You can scramble up a sheer rock wall by simply running up it–provided your stores of stamina will hold instead of sending you tumbling back to the ground for another try. Climbing these hazardous sentinels is worth it when you’re rewarded with the view of the landscape, not to mention a perfect jumping-off point for your glider.
Exploring and fighting occasionally rewards you with Echoes, spirits of felled monsters that can be summoned to aid in battle or exploration. Mixing-and-matching these monster skills adds new layers to Wuthering Winds‘ combat. Plus, chasing after monsters for collection purposes is always a draw!
Closed Beta
If sprinting directly up cliff faces after executing big sword combos sounds like your kind of fun, sign up for the closed beta test of Wuthering Waves that starts on April 25. Wuthering Waves is slated for PC and mobile, and multi-platform testing will be conducted during the beta.
Naughty Dog has finally released The Last of Us Part I onto PC. The launch did not go without a hitch, but is this really as bad of a port as the internet would lead you to believe?
Crashing onto PC
Context first: the game & engine were designed around the unique architecture of the PlayStation 3, a powerful yet complex piece of hardware with unique requirements. Although it was ported to the PS4, the core engine underneath was a modified version of that same PS3 design, based on mass Asynchronous work. Even Naughty Dog itself had severe issues getting the game to run at 60fps, which required maximizing the CPU and GPU with a triple buffered rendering pipeline, and suffice it to say that porting to PC is an even greater challenge than that PS4 port.
Many of the problems at launch would cause crashes – often. I counted 12 separate crashes from starting the game until meeting Ellie, and this was on an AMD GPU which, unsurprisingly, this game favors. Nvidia players had it worse, or at least based on my testing with an RTX 2070. The main cause stems from memory limitations as you exceed the VRAM requirements, which then bleeds out into the shared graphics memory within your system RAM, causing hard page faults, reduced performance, and increased CPU demands alongside other memory related issues. This effectively leads to the modern day equivalent of the BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death), killing the executable mid execution.
The Good, the Bad and the Demanding
The options Menu is exceptional, offering a clear breakdown of each setting from a dynamic visual perspective, demonstrating what the setting will change and/or a clear split of the impact on CPU, GPU and VRAM. As we get further into the performance section, keep in mind that the PS5 relies on a key architectural element: shared pools of data between the CPU and GPU, which is highlighted as a moving bar that shows the impact on VRAM when you draw close. This is a key differentiator and challenge for PCs, which also rely on system RAM. The game reserves approximately 20% of total VRAM space, which is a standard requirement for all games, as some space is needed for OS and driver operations in addition to the game’s demands. The visual settings offered by this game far exceed those of most PC games, with features such as reflection resolution, frustum range, raymarch range, and animation quality.
If you have the hardware, a PC can scale above the PS5, but it’s a big if.
The visual quality and presentation of the game is also up with the best of this generation, and if you have the hardware, a PC can scale above the PS5. Visual clarity, effect quality, and even framerate can all exceed the PS5, but it’s a big if – and not just the GPU. This is a very data-driven, dynamic engine and game, and this can affect demands across your entire build, with the CPU likely the most obvious wall that you hit, closely followed by VRAM and then system RAM.
The scalability within the engine means you can achieve a locked 60fps, and even higher on a range of hardware, even scaling down to the Steam Deck and my older RX 580 GPU. So the options all allow a broad spectrum of hardware, well below and above the PS5, to run the game at 30+fps frame-rates. This is bolstered further with both FSR2 and DLSS offering increased visual and performance choices across a huge swath of GPUs, and even at 1080p both solutions offer better image quality, by and large, over the native choice on PC. This is something the PS5 does not have, as it uses native 1440p or 4K rendering in both of its modes.
While the game unfortunately launched with some major issues that negatively impacted its reception, many of those issues have since been alleviated via patches. Most of this analysis is based on the second of those two updates, Ver1.0.1.6, which resolved many of the most egregious problems. We did test Ver1.0.1.7 just as this review was complete, which mainly improved some UI/UX bugs, alongside an Nvidia Hotfix driver to resolve crashes on RTX 3000 cards, and performance and visual quality is unchanged since patch 1.0.1.6. The biggest issue at launch was crashing, and this is now resolved for AMD and Nvidia players for the most part, so long as you remain within your VRAM memory limits based on the menu UI bar. Nvidia does still present more bugs than AMD players, which highlights the split quality that each GPU player will get. By and large, even on my RX 580 GPU, the game scales well, has very minimal visual bugs, and runs well within the expectation of the hardware (CPU and RAM notwithstanding).
Losing My Memory
As you increase resolution, all other aspects scale accordingly, which can have an extreme impact on performance. The PS5 shows this, with it likely being GPU-bound most often in its 4K Fidelity mode when unlocked to 40fps+. The same is true on all my GPUs here with the RX 6800 at 4K FSR2 Quality Ultra settings running between 40 and 60fps. You can reduce CPU cost by reducing animation quality, object detail, shadow cascade and real time reflections to Medium or Low. On this machine at 4K FSR2 Quality, we are fully GPU-bound and struggling to stay north of 50fps in action. Dropping resolution by 30% to 1800p, still using FSR2, we now shift to the CPU being the bottleneck, but we gain 25% higher performance. With my Zen 3 5600X CPU becoming the main anchor once we reach around 75-85 fps, similar to the PS5 in unlocked performance mode. The parallelism within the engine I mentioned at the start is incredible, being one of the best I have tested, though I am not sure it would scale so well over 16 threads and beyond.
Most of the bugs doing the rounds are a result of simply exceeding the limits of your VRAM.
Most of the bugs doing the rounds, and even ones I have had, are a result of simply exceeding the limits of your VRAM, causing page faults along with the API and driver changes. This can result in missing textures, assets, and other data-related problems. The engine uses a deferred render pass with a fat G-buffer and uber shader for all materials, decals and more. Meaning on PC the distance to the data, through the PICe channels, split pools of Ram, DX12 API, split vendors, add up to a ton of complexity mirroring some of the visual bugs we saw in the early Spiderman and Uncharted review code. This is an area the team needs to and I am sure will be working to improve. But a brand new memory management and data allocation code for PC will take time, as Nixxes did for its Spider-Man port on PC. As such the solution now is to lower the Memory requirements and resolution to mitigate these high demands. That said, don’t expect your 8GB GPU to run the same textures and quality as the 16GB PS5, as memory allocations will always be higher on PC than console. Simply put you cannot fit 10 gallons of water into a five gallon tank.
Scalability & Performance
High End Machine
The RX 6800 can exceed the PS5, with better-than-PS5 fidelity mode at Ultra settings, but these are minor. Volumetrics, image sharpness and texture details can see clear but small increases over the PS5. But, the game does not scale significantly, visually, beyond the PS5 version. The 16GB of VRAM my RX 6800 has is needed here though, with a 12GB card likely being worse than the PS5, and backs up what we have stated here for a while. 16GB of VRAM is going to be required to match or exceed the PS5 this generation and The Last of Us only reinforces that. We have seen these demands grow in recent games such as Uncharted, Spider-Man and even Forspoken.
What about performance then? Using my RX 6800 paired with 32GBs of DDR4-3600 RAM and a Zen 3 5600X at 4.8Ghz, setting the game at 3840x2160P using FSR2 Quality at Ultra settings, the PC cannot lock to 60fps but it can flip flop between GPU-, data-, and CPU-bound, meaning a faster GPU and/or CPU would likely get us to a locked 60fps and beyond. But that would require top-end hardware that I do not have to test. As such, I recommend dropping to the High preset (including textures) at 1800P FSR2 Quality. We can then cap the game at 60fps if needed and gain as close to a lock on that throughout play with better image quality and similar performance over the PS5 in its Performance mode. Both machines will be CPU/Data-bound at this point, which really shows how well balanced the engine is for CPU/GPU targets.
Medium Range Machine(s)
My overclocked RTX 2070, with 32GBs of DDR4-2666 with a Zen 2700X at 3.8Ghz, cannot achieve 1800p, even using DLSS, without dropping textures to medium, which degrades image quality severely. The best choice is to run 1440p via DLSS Quality with a mixture of High and Medium settings, but setting environment or character textures to High and FX and minor objects to Medium/Low. This manages to stay within the 8GB VRAM space and reduce if not stop crashes and bugs, as these are caused or exacerbated by running out of heap space. Using these recommended settings for machines around this specification you can achieve a variable 40-60fps at lower than PS5 Performance image quality and frame-rates, but still good enough to cap at 40fps. We can and do become more CPU-bound at these settings on this Zen 2700X but tests in fully GPU-bound moments set expectations once further patches reduce the CPU/RAM cost.
My RX 580 8GB GPU (other machine specs the same as my RX 6800 test) still runs the game well, achieving a variable 60fps with High textures on characters and environments, and others a mix of Medium and High. The big reduction here is resolution, relying on FSR2 at its Quality preset at 1080p presents a better image than native 1080p due to increased sharpening and temporal reconstruction, though shadows and reflections can show more dithering due to this. The overall image quality is better and you gain approximately 20% better performance over native 1080p. Once you remain within these VRAM limits and settings the image quality is very good, with sharp, detailed textures in most areas – but still expect some low quality and sub-60fps gameplay due to the GPU limits on such a machine. Still, this is a more than viable way to play the game at a capped 30 or 40fps rate.
Low End & Portable
Bringing up the lowest rung is the Steam Deck. The engine can scale, and I am sure the team has a focus on getting the game certified for Steam Deck, which it currently is not, but right now even if we drop to the lowest settings, 800P FSR2, we cannot lock to a stable performance level, even 30fps. The same issues covered above impact the Steam Deck, particularly CPU load. During gameplay, you may experience 100ms stutters that can become fully memory bound, causing 50ms limits per frame.
This issue can also occur on the RX 580 in certain sections of the game, which may be due to a bug within the engine. The engine uses many sector points to load in enemies, assets, set-pieces, and other elements, and this process can cause the entire machine to lock up at 20fps. However, once the process completes or you force the engine state model to shift to attack, the loop is broken and the game resumes at a variable performance rate. As you can imagine, with the current build all of these issues are significantly worse and more impactful. Yes, the Steam Deck will run the entire game, but I simply cannot recommend doing so right now. Visually it still looks good on the Deck’s screen, but performance simply isn’t there.
Summary
At launch, The Last of Us Part I was a bad and broken release on PC, and had we reviewed it before then my recommendation would have been to avoid it. The issues that plagued it, including crashing, game breaking bugs, and general quality, were far below the quality PC players should accept or that Naughty Dog should have delivered. But with subsequent patches and some sensible settings changes, the game is in a much better state. But as the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression and it may be a tough mountain to climb for the great Naughty Dog studio to claw back the trust from the PC market.
I can’t think of a worse environment for Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle to exist in than firmly in the long shadow cast by its inspiration, the Resident Evil series. Everything about the demo I played, from its bland corridor crawling exploration to its trivial run and gun action, feels like a cheap imitation of some of the greatest survival horror games of all time, maybe even more so these days in a post-Resident Evil 4 Remake world. What’s worse, there’s almost nothing differentiating it from Capcom’s zombie-horror masterpieces save for the setting, which is understandably undercooked as my 20-minute demo was not nearly enough time to build a world or establish likable characters. Nothing about my time with this slice left me with much motivation to see more.
Which is wild because when IGN had a first-look preview of this game a year ago, it still seemed like a Resident Evil clone in a F.E.A.R. costume, doing all of the item inspection, puzzle solving and creep shooting you’d expect. Except it was dressed up with more sci-fi inspired government paramilitary fare, complete with unique secret tech like a freeze gauntlet. In this build, I got none of that. Instead, I solved rudimentary door puzzles, rooted around for a forgettable lore item, and used bog-standard third-person shooter weapons to take down foes. The demo does not put Daymare’s best foot forward.
Stepping into the shoes of Reyes, a member of a Homeland Security strike team called H.A.D.E.S., you’re tasked with slinking through the dark halls of a compromised government facility in search for lost members of Section 8. The building itself is very generic, sterile, and science-y, with only one standout piece of personality in a very easy door puzzle styled like a ‘90s computer program. Towards the end of the demo, things start to show promise, with a giant tanker mysteriously dry-docked in a massive basement, or a shining conduit to God-knows-where gaping out of the wall. But there’s no satisfying interaction with any of it.
When IGN had a first-look preview of this game a year ago, it still seemed like a Resident Evil clone in a F.E.A.R. costume.
In fact, there’s not a lot of interaction with anything at all besides scattered ammo and the occasional button that unlocks the next section of the map. Early on you pickup an item that you have to examine in your inventory to reveal a key, but there’s nothing else you encounter that requires such inspection. Reyes’ glove comes with a scanner that can pull data out of computers without having to physically interact with them, but there’s only one occasion where you can use it and it’s a tutorial. If Daymare: 1994 wants to compete with the titans of the genre in terms of dense environments and lots of reasons to explore them, it’s not off to a great start.
As things start to heat up, monsters appear, with the twist being that the menace isn’t the reanimated corpses of slain soldiers and scientists, but the sentient balls of energy that electrify them back to life. Putting one of the slobbering ghouls down releases the ball lighting from its body, freeing it to find another corpse to possess. This was admittedly very cool in theory, but in practice it was only ever a factor the first time I encountered bad guys. The only other sections, where a handful ran down a hallway to get easily dispatched and at the end where I was encouraged not to fight a group that chased me to the a door, showed little potential for the dynamic race against the light that the first encounter suggests. It also doesn’t help that these were the only enemy type.
If this was my first impression of Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle, I don’t think I’d be very interested in another one. Knowing that this game has more to offer outside of the boundaries of this sneak peek has me willing to keep my optimism somewhat alive, despite how underwhelming almost all of what I played was. Even with the conspicuous absence of some interesting looking abilities shown elsewhere, there was very little opportunity to play with the tools you do have in this 20-minute slice. Here’s hoping that the just-released Resident Evil 4 Remake can inspire Daymare to dig a bit deeper before it’s finally released.
Dark and Darker developer Irongate is being been sued by Nexon for copyright infringement following a DMCA takedown in March.
As reported by Eurogamer, Nexon’s lawsuit highlighted similarities between its own P3 and Dark and Darker, and also claimed some of Irongate’s employees, who previously worked for Nexon, had signed a one-year-non-compete clause that stopped them from taking “Nexon’s trade secrets” straight to a new developer.
The lawsuit added that “condoning the defendants’ conduct would threaten Nexon, the video game industry, and all of the consumers who enjoy playing sophisticated video games. Video game developers would not be able to invest years’ worth of person-hours in developing video games if their employees could simply transfer their employer’s project files to their own personal servers and start a new company.”
Nearly half of Irongate employees are made up of former Nexon staff, though the lawsuit only names two (Ju-Hyun Choi and Terence Seungha Park) as former staff who signed the one-year-non-competitive clause in their contracts.
In terms of similarities raised, Nexon highlights that both games feature chests opened by the player character moving their hand in a circular motion and that both games feature glowing potions worn on belts around the player character’s waist.
The situation escalated as one Dark and Darker development team member shared a GoFundMe page asking for $500,000 to pay for legal fees, which was initially thought to be a scam but later uncovered as genuine. Irongate had planned a fundraising drive to launch at a later time if needed, but the one developer had prematurely released it.
Update 04/17/2023: Sega has confirmed it is set to purchase Angry Birds developer Rovio for $775 million following reports of a potential deal earlier in April.
As reported by Polygon, the Sonic the Hedgehog publisher confirmed the deal on April 17, and Rovio’s board and shareholders have already approved it too.
The acquisition is expected to go through by the end of September, with Rovio’s mobile game expertise intended to help boost Sega’s own position in that market.
Original Story 04/14/2023: Sega is reportedly close to acquiring Angry Birds developer Rovio Entertainment for about $1 billion.
According to Wall Street Journal, the deal between Sega and Rovio Entertainment is expected to finish early next week, provided that discussions between the two companies don’t fall apart or prolong.
Neither Sega nor Rovio has made an official announcement yet. Rovio was previously in talks to be acquired by Israeli mobile company Playtika for $800 million, but those negotiations ended last month. Sega has acquired a few companies over the past few years, including Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment, Two Point Campus developer Two Point Studios, and most notably Persona developer Atlus.
Angry Birds was first released in 2009 and is one of the most popular mobile games ever. Rovio Classics: Angry Birds was released in March 2022, which includes the original Angry Birds game with all chapters alongside all Easter eggs and extras at the time.
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
Following complaints by the community of it being too cluttered, Microsoft has said it is going to change course on the planned changes to the Xbox Home dashboard.
In September 2022, Microsoft announced that Xbox Insiders were to be invited to “help shape the new Xbox Home experience.” This test was a “multi-month series of experiments to learn how to create a more personalized home screen experience and address some of the top trends and fan requests.”
Unfortunately, the changes haven’t been as well received as Microsoft had hoped and the company, in a blog post, said it is pausing those experiments and will work to “balance the experience, accessibility, function, and the needs of our community and bring you a great and refreshed Home experience.”
One of the biggest issues the community had was with how crowded everything felt and how the new UI blocked the backgrounds that users could choose. As you can see in the image below from Microsoft, the Halo image is mostly blocked by all the tiles, and the community would like to see a bit more balance between items to interact with and the backgrounds that make their home theirs.
As Microsoft works to address the complaints, Alpha and Alpha-Skip Xbox Insiders will be reverted back to the original Xbox Home experience they were using and their previous settings and backgrounds from before the test will be activiated. The “new Home” settings will be saved for the future.
“Thank you for all the feedback you’ve shared. It’s a key part of our process, and our team is working hard to incorporate it into the experience and get it to you to use,” Ivy Krislov, senior product manager lead, Xbox experiences, said. “We are excited to share even more details with you soon!”
Minecraft is a game that has been taking the world by storm for well over a decade now, yet it feels as though it has been a part of our lives and our gaming histories for as long as we can remember. With the new release of Minecraft Legends, the latest action strategy spinoff from Mojang, it’s worth taking a trip down memory lane to take a look at exactly where this industry-changing saga began. How did this sandbox game become one of the best-selling games of all time?
Who Created Minecraft?
Minecraft was initially created by Markus “Notch” Persson, a Swedish game programmer. Markus Persson had worked for King for over four years until 2009, when he began full-time development on Minecraft. His idea brewed from a game he was developing titled “RubyDung”, an isometric base-building game, and from Markus seeing Infiniminer, a block-based mining game. With the first-person perspective, blocky visuals, and building elements from Infiniminer, and the RPG elements/base building from RubyDung, Minecraft was born.
Markus stayed with the growing team at Mojang (of which he was the founding member) until September 2014, when Microsoft announced a $2.5 billion acquisition deal to purchase the company. From there, he decided to step away from game development.
The lead designer of Minecraft since 2011 has been Jens “Jeb” Bergensten, who had been co-developing Minecraft with Persson since 2010, took the lead designer role in 2011, and assumed full creative control in 2014 upon Persson’s departure.
How Old is Minecraft?
The original version of Minecraft, which is the Java Edition of the game, began development in 2009 with various Alphas and Betas leading through 2010 to the beginning of 2011. The full version, titled “1.0 – Adventure Update” released on November 18th, 2011. This makes Minecraft 14 years old from its initial conception, and 12 years old from its full public release.
A Trip Through Minecraft’s Major Updates
What major milestones have happened since Minecraft began in terms of large content drops that add new items and gameplay mechanics? Let’s take a look at some of the more ground-breaking updates for the game.
2012
The first major update arrived in 2012, with the 1.4 Pretty Scary Update. This update introduced both Wither Skeletons and the Wither boss, alongside Witches, Bats, and Zombie Villagers. It also brought in command blocks, and other useful items like the Anvil, Potatoes, and Carrots. Released in October, this update was thematically perfect for the spooky season!
Immediately following this update came the 1.5 Redstone Update which as the name implies added a slew of redstone-related blocks into the game, including the Hopper, Daylight Sensor, Comparator, and more! The Minecraft Realms subscription service was also introduced in this update, allowing players to create and manage their own private servers in the game for the first time.
2013
In 2013 came the Update that Changed the World, which focused almost entirely on revamping the world generation systems, and introduced 11 new biomes in the process, including the Savanna, Mesa, various Forests, Extreme Hills+, and more! Biomes that already existed in-game also received an overhaul to ensure each felt distinct from one another.
2016
At the beginning of 2016 came the Combat Update. This introduced the off-hand slot so players could dual wield, implemented a cooldown mechanic for attacks, added the Shield item and the Elytra, which enabled flying/gliding within Survival Mode. This update also revamped The End, so that the outer islands of the area were populated by end city structures and the new Shulker mob to defeat.
2017
An update centred around color and player expression, aptly titled the World of Color Update, arrived in 2017. Adding a large number of colored blocks to the game, including Concrete, Terracotta, and dyeable Beds, this version enabled players to brighten up their builds like never before. Parrots also debuted, adding their own flair to the skies.
2018
In 2018 came the Update Aquatic, which totally overhauled the oceans in-game, introducing colorful Coral reefs, mobs like the Turtle, Dolphin, Cod, Salmon, and Pufferfish, and water-based items like the Trident and the Heart of the Sea. Completely changing an aspect of the game long overlooked, the oceans, this update was more than welcome when it arrived.
2019
2019 brought the Village and Pillage Update to players, altering the way villages spawned in-game, and the purposes that they could serve. With up to 14 new stair, slab, and wall variations, each village you stumbled upon could now look visually distinct depending on the biome you found it in. With useful items like Scaffolding, the Campfire, Blast Furnace, Cartography Table, Stonecutter and Grindstone, this update made finding a village even more of a monumental moment than it was before, with each building brimming with new opportunities.
2020
The Nether Update in 2020, as you can probably guess, included an overhaul for the Nether. Introducing new biomes within the Nether as well as the addition of the Netherite items (including a new tool and armor set) gave players all the more reason to delve deep into the underworld, though the additions of the Piglins made this venture even more of a dangerous one.
2021
Caves and Cliffs was a two-part mega update for Minecraft in 2021. The first update, 1.17, introduced the Axolotl, Glow Squid, and Goat mobs, as well as some unique plant life such as the Glow Lichen and the Dripleaf. Heading underground, you could now find Copper Ore and Amethyst Geodes to mine, crafting things like the Lightning Rod and the Spyglass from these new materials.
Part 2 of the Caves and Cliffs update fundamentally altered the way world generation works in-game, adding not only overworld biomes like the Grove and the Meadow, but overhaul of mountains and cave systems. Both were blown up to mega proportions with this update, resulting in huge obstacles when traversing above ground (whilst also creating excellent vistas in the process), as well as unique areas underground like the Lush or Dripstone Cave biomes.
2023
For 2023, the Trails and Tales Update is the next major update set for launch in the near future. An update fully focused on creativity and self-expression, it includes a huge number of vibrant decorative blocks such as Bamboo, the Cherry wood set, Decorated Pots, and a total of 11 sign variants (including the ability to hang signs). Mechanics like archeology are debuting thanks to items like the Brush, which can be used on Suspicious Sand to unearth goodies, Smithing Templates allow you to add trims to your armor for unprecedented personalisation, and unique mobs like the Camel and Sniffer present brand new gameplay opportunities.
The Future of Minecraft?
With Minecraft evolving in so many unexpected and unique ways over the years, there’s no telling where the game will be in 5 years time. All we can expect is that the developers at Mojang as well as Minecraft players around the world will continue to surprise and impress us with their talent and ingenuity, building new memories and friendships for the foreseeable future.
We’re now only a few weeks away from release, and if you haven’t yet secured your Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom preorder, then you’re in luck. All preorders for the highly anticipated Switch exclusive are currently down to £44.99 at Currys, just use code ZELDA25 at checkout. This is the absolute best deal on Tears of the Kingdom preorders in the UK.
This is a £15 saving compared to the Amazon listing, and £5 better than the previous best deal ShopTo. This is well worth considering if you don’t have any leftover extra credit at Amazon, or you won’t be trying for the Tears of the Kingdom Collector’s Edition (that’s out of stock right now as well). We’ve left some handy links to the preorder deal just below, and make sure you’re following @IGNUKDeals on Twitter for more updates.
TL;DR – Best UK Deals Right Now
Best Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Preorder Deal (Use Code ZELDA25)
Bonus: Where to Preorder Tears of the Kingdom – Switch OLED Model
If you’re looking to add the special Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Switch OLED model to your collection, then look no further. Preorders for this special edition console are still available and will launch on April 28, just a few weeks before the new game.
3-Months of Audible for 99p (was £23.97)
This is a great deal on Audible. For 99p you’re essentially getting three audiobooks of your choosing (one per month), alongside the whole Audible podcast catalogue. Some of my favourites I’ve listened to on Audible this year include Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino, Strong Female Character by Fern Brady, and I Am Not Nicholas by Jane MacSorley.
But there’s plenty else to choose from as well, such as The Sandman, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Dune, Lord of the Rings, and more. For 99p, you’re getting plenty of value out of Audible, so I defintiely recommened giving it a go. (This is for new and returning subscribers only)
Latest 4K UHD Preorders and Deals: Mario Movie, The Last of Us and More
There’s some pretty awesome 4K UHD and Blu-ray preorders that the IGN UK audience have been loving recently. At the top of these is The Last of Us Season 1 steelbook, but we’ve had a couple of new popular preorders announced recently as well. Both John Wick 4 and the Mario movie are getting the special edition or steelbook treatment, and you can check out the preorders for both just below as well.
Incredible LEGO Discounts on Amazon
Whether you’re looking to build your collection or buying a gift for someone else, Amazon has plenty of LEGO deals that are worth checking out. From new sets like the Star Wars BD-1 Posable Droid to even more obsecure sets like the Harry Potter Hungarian Horntail Dragon, there’s something for everyone.
Latest UK Random Deals: My Top Picks Right Now
It’s a roll of the dice. These are my absolute favourite deals that are available right now, but don’t necessarily fit anywhere else, making them a little bit more random compared to everything else in Daily Deals.
Check Out These PS5 and PlayStation Spring Sale Deals
PlayStation’s Spring Sale has brought with it a number of excellent deals on PS5 consoles and bundles, alongside some wonderful physical and digital PS5 video game deals. This includes the likes of The Last of Us Part 2 for £8.74, Dead Space for £44.99, Hogwarts Legacy for £44.99, Ratchet and Clank for £29.99, and plenty alongside. You can also save even more on digital purchases if you invest in some discounted PlayStation gift cards from ShopTo.
PS5 and PS4 Digital Spring Sale Deals
Save Big on Digital Purchases with These Discounted Gift Cards
If you’re buying anything in the PlayStation Digital sale, then here’s how you can save a little extra money along the way. UK online retailer ShopTo has currently got a brilliant selection of PlayStation Gift Cards at discounted prices; for example a £50 card for £42.85 instead. Not only do these make great gifts, but they’re also perfect for topping up your own PSN account as well.
The only catch with these is that the best value comes from spending £50 or above, so only do this if you’re planning on make lots of digital purchases, or a couple of big ones. For example, if you buy two £50 cards, gaining £100 in total, you’re only paying £85.70, which is a £14.30 saving right out the gate. There’s more gift cards available, so I’ve left some handy links just below. And don’t worry, ShopTo is a trusted seller, and we feature deals from them all the time so you’re absolutely in safe hands when purchasing.
PS5 and PS4 Physical Video Game Sale
Best PS5 and Xbox Series X Console Deals in the UK
This is the first big PS5 bundle deal we’re getting in the UK, with £40 off the original list price of £540. With PS5 consoles costing £479.99 right now, this essentially means you’re getting God of War Ragnarok for £20. It’s a great deal, but there are a few others to check out below as well.
Best Blanket Hoodie Deals in The UK Right Now
You love these, we love these. And to be fair, a blanket that you can wear, what’s not to love about that? These usually end up confined to the random deals section but we want to give you a nice selection today. Spring time in the UK means endless rain, get comfy and chill out in front of the telly.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s latest Tera Raid has trainers around the world very excited as it is the first time Typhlosion – the third evolution of Pokemon Gold and Silver’s Cyndaquil – is able to be caught in the games. However, the chance to add Typhlosion to your party won’t last long.
The Pokemon Company announced that Typhlosion with the Mightiest Mark will appear in black crystal Tera Raid Battles from Thursday, April 14 at 5pm PT/8pm ET to Sunday, April 16 at 4:59pm PT/7:59pm ET.
Typhlosion with the Mightiest Mark will be appearing in black crystal Tera Raids throughout #PokemonScarletViolet later this week! Work together with friends to topple this powerful Tera Pokémon!
If you don’t have time to catch Typhlosion, there will be another chance from Thursday, April 21 at 5pm PT/8pm ET to Sunday, April 23 at 4:59pm PT/7:59pm ET.
While obtaining a Typhlosion sounds like a wonderful thing, it won’t be a walk in the PokePark as the battle will be a 7-Star raid and will see the Pokemon at level 100 with a Ghost Tera Type. Trainers are encouraged to “work together with your friends to topple this powerful Tera Pokemon!”
It’s important to not you can only catch one Typhlosion per save data, but you can continue to battle other Typhloshions for rewards. The Pokemon Company also notes that Typhlosion may return in “future events or become obtainable through other methods.”
The Typhlosion Tera Raid has been one of the biggest ones in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and many online have been sharing their excitement over the chance to battle and catch this Pokemon alongside tips for others trying to do the same.
Advice for Online Raids vs Typhlosion:
Run a bulky Toxapex with Wide Guard! It neutralizes both Eruption and Earthquake like Protect for ALL! Just spam it over and over again and let the others COOK!
this is such a small thing to be excited about, but i’m SO happy Pokemon updated Typhlosion’s battle model to show its fire again ?
6 yr old me basically solo’d Crystal with Typhlosion because she looked so cool! The model w/o fire in X&Y and Sun & Moon was really disappointing pic.twitter.com/PmxAKNb9yK
Some gaming gems get forgotten over time, some never get the chance to be discovered in the first place. Out of all of the games that instantly impressed me when I first played them and frustratingly faded into obscurity, Split/Second surely takes the pole position. Welcome to the third installment of my ongoing column, Forgotten Gems!
Black Rock Rocked
If you’ve never played Split/Second and you’re into arcade racers, know that it’s not too late. Largely forgotten — or rather, unknown — it may be, but it’s still easy to find and play (see bottom of this article). Split/Second was the brainchild of Black Rock Studio, a company formerly known as Pixel Planet, then Black Rock Studio, then Climax Brighton, then Climax Racing, then… Black Rock Studio again.
And as you may have guessed, the studio’s story doesn’t have a happy ending. Acquired by Disney in 2006, Black Rock had established itself as a racing game specialist with the MotoGP and ATV Offroad Fury series for THQ and Sony, respectively. Added to Disney Interactive’s growing portfolio of developers, Black Rock was going to be a cornerstone of a new Disney gaming initiative that went beyond kids and family entertainment. Disney’s ambitious plans also included bringing Avalanche Studios, Wideload, Propaganda Games, and Warren Spector’s Junction Point Studios into the fold – with Black Rock doing what it’s done best and laser-focused on developing great racing games.
And that it did. While Black Rock was shut down in 2011 and its talented team scattered to other development studios, it managed to create two racing games under Disney that didn’t just impress our reviewers back then, but hold up perfectly well to modern scrutiny. Its first game, Pure, is an excellent ATV racer released in 2008, but it’s the second game, Split/Second, that still holds a special place in my heart today and doesn’t have a worthy successor – actual or spiritual – to date.
Michael Bay Adventure Racing
Released for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC in 2010, Split/Second is a rare breed of “disaster racer”. A game where the environment – and its gradual destruction – is every bit as important as the four-wheeled opposition. It’s a bit as if Roland Emmerich made a Need for Speed game, crossed with Michael Bay’s take on Beetle Adventure Racing. Nearly every race is doused in spectacular, perpetual sunsets, only to serve as the backdrop for over-the-top pyrotechnics and Avengers-level urban destruction. Towers topple, dams burst, airplanes crash, and entire railroad bridges buckle under onslaughts of explosions that send train cars flying everywhere. Two console generations later, it’s still visually impressive, even if the entire affair runs at 30 frames per second. Take a look:
The gameplay centers around a TV competition show that has racers square off in 12 seasons of races amidst carefully orchestrated destruction. Cars build up a “power play” meter by drifting and drafting and can then use that precious energy to trigger environmental hazards to take out the other drivers. These range from having helicopters drop bombs, construction equipment swinging into the road, to major chain reactions that can alter the course of the tracks entirely. For example, a toppled tower may become a ramp to rooftop shortcuts, an ocean liner can be knocked off its drydock into the raceway, or an entire city block can be detonated to bury the racing leaders under falling rubble.
Watching this destruction unfold onscreen is a little bit like seeing a kid with overactive imagination play with their favorite toys. Cars will fly.
On top of that, there’s multiplayer, a kicking disaster movie soundtrack by Marc Canham, a campaign structure that invites replays to unlock new cars, elimination races, and even challenge missions that have you try and dodge missile attacks from a helicopter or survive a chase with giant trucks dropping explosive barrels.
So what went wrong? Everything seemed lined up for Split/Second’s inevitable success. When we first played Split/Second at the Game Developers Conference in 2009, we were already smitten, and covered the game’s progress over the months that followed. Disney Interactive seemed to have high confidence in the game as well, providing our team with lots of opportunities to play the game – and even delaying its launch to grant the development team a few extra months to polish the game. The game shipped to positive reviews and players quickly discovered that the ending of Split/Second directly teased a sequel and promised: “to be continued…”
There was no sequel. A year later, MotorStorm: Apocalypse arrived from racing-focused Black Rock competitor Evolution Studios, which had been acquired by Sony in 2007. Though not as well-received, the game likewise combined racing with screen-shaking disasters. Like Black Rock, Evolution is no more, shut down and disbanded after it shipped its final racing game, Driveclub. Some former Black Rock staff worked on Electric Square’s mobile game Detonation Racing, which clearly shows some Split/Second DNA. Today, the closest thing to Split/Second is likely the Forza Horizon series, though its brand of racing action is a tad more rooted in realism – while many pinatas have been hurt in FH5, even the Hot Wheels expansion and the Eliminator races don’t end with smoking husks of cars smashed by a wrecking ball. In the end, there’s certainly no major racer that produces sweaty palms and blows up its stages quite so beautifully as the original.
Swampy the Alligator was a better bet for Disney than investing in AAA racing games with $20 million budgets
Split/Second’s ultimate undoing was likely a shift in strategy for Disney to focus on “smaller” and a return to character-based games. While Michael Bay was still blowing up things on the big screen, the decade’s mobile gaming frenzy ensured that Swampy the Alligator was a better bet for Disney than investing in AAA racing games with $20 million budgets and two-year development cycles. Split/Second reportedly sold 100,000 units in its first month – not bad for a brand-new racing brand, but no doubt way below the publisher’s expectations. Where’s My Water?, on the other hand, was downloaded more than a million times in that same timeframe that same year. In hindsight, it is and remains way more “Disney”.
Where can you play Split/Second Today?
Split/Second was denied the lasting success of arcade racing series like Need for Speed or Forza Horizon, but it wasn’t for lack of a great idea and strong execution. If you missed it the first time around, you should absolutely play it today. I fired it up last week and was surprised how well it holds up visually – and how challenging and tense the entire experience is compared to many contemporary racers.
Skip the PSP and iPhone versions (not that you can still find the latter), they are different – and vastly inferior – games developed by other studios. Stick with the console and PC original from Black Rock. It’s available for $20 (and on sale right now for just $5) on the Xbox Game Store. It’s also on Steam, and it’s even included with PlayStation Plus Classic. The latter is no doubt a decent option if you’re already a subscriber with a fast network connection, though playing the game natively is still a vastly superior experience. There are some mild issues with the power play icons flickering on Xbox Series X/S that I don’t remember seeing on Xbox 360/PS3, but it’s still wonderful to have the ability to easily play the game as it was intended.
Peer Schneider (@PeerIGN on Twitter) is one of IGN Entertainment’s founders and has spent thousands of hours playing racing games over the last four decades. And he tells himself every week that she should probably stop playing Forza Horizon 5… next week.
