Category: IGN

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has a sold an eye-watering 10 million copies in its first three days on the market, making it the fastest selling title in franchise history.

The early sales milestone also makes it the fastest selling Switch game ever in the Americas and the fastest selling Nintendo title on any system released in the region.

Nintendo also revealed that the Zelda series overall has sold 130 million units as of March this year, before Tears of the Kingdom’s ten million sales have been added at all.

The Legend of #Zelda: #TearsOfTheKingdom has sold over 10 million copies worldwide in its first three days, becoming the fastest-selling game in the history of the Legend of Zelda series.

Thanks to those already enjoying Link’s latest adventure! pic.twitter.com/XxRSLaiWrO

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) May 17, 2023

“Many players are returning to Hyrule with all its new mysteries and possibilities, and with the record-breaking launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for Nintendo Switch, we can’t wait to see what they’ll create in the game and the stories they’ll share next,” said Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales, marketing and communications Devon Pritchard.

“We’re grateful for all of our fans who’ve shown their passion for The Legend of Zelda over the years, and these sales numbers for the latest instalment continue to show the strong momentum for both the franchise and Nintendo Switch this year.”

In IGN’s 10/10 review we described Tears of the Kingdom as a “triumph” of a game, which raised the bar “ever higher into the clouds” while expanding and evolving a world “that already felt full beyond expectation”.

For everything else Tears of the Kingdom, be sure to take a look at our walkthrough and guide about making your way through Hyrule. In fact, you can start here:

• 16 Things to Do First in Tears of the Kingdom
• 14 Things Tears of the Kingdom Doesn’t Tell You
• How to Uncover the Full TOTK Map
• How to Expand Your Inventory in TOTK
• PSA: Your Old BOTW Save Unlocks Something Cool in TOTK

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

Online services for Pac-Man 99 will be discontinued later this year, though some game modes will continue to be available for some past the October 8 deadline.

Pac-Man 99 is currently available for free for those with a Nintendo Switch Online membership, with multiple paid themes and other DLC available to download from the digital console marketplace.

However, online services for Pac-Man 99, including its public and private battle royale modes are set to be delisted permanently in October, at which point Nintendo will also halt the distribution of free custom themes for the game, according to a new post on the Nintendo website.

Paid custom themes meanwhile will be removed from the store on the earlier date of August 8, while the game’s two major DLC offerings, the Mode Unlock and Deluxe Pack, will be delisted on September 8.

Players who downloaded either of the major DLCs will be able to continue playing the CPU battle, blind time attack, and score attack modes in offline mode after the online services have been discontinued. Any additional themes and paid DLC content claimed before the services were shuttered will be available to redownload for use in the offline game modes.

In IGN’s 7/10 review we described Pac-Man 99 as a “smart multiplayer twist on a classic”, which boasts fast-paced gameplay that rewards quick, strategic thinking. We just wish that there was a little added variety when it comes to the map.

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

Bandai Namco has announced that it will be rolling out Patch 1.2 for Tales of Symphonia Remastered on May 18, just over three months after its release. But fans are still angry over the issues that have been present in the game.

According to the patch notes the company released on its site Tuesday, the update will fix a variety of quality-of-life issues that players have reported since the game came out in February. These include:

• Fixed an issue that was causing significant processing slowdowns while moving through the sandstorm area of “Triet”.
• Fixed an issue where the game would freeze at the end of certain boss battles.
• Fixed an event where the screen would black out and become inoperable while navigating certain world maps and towns.
• Fixed an event where the background music would be interrupted when moving to the world map after a battle.
• Other minor bugs have been fixed.

However, those updates won’t be enough to satisfy players, especially those who own the Nintendo Switch version of Tales of Symphonia Remastered. In one Tales subreddit, when u/guccyjuicy asked if the game is a bad experience for new players, the majority of fans complained that the Switch version is a botched port of the original GameCube version due to severe performance issues, frequent crashes, long load times, and framerate drops.

U/tetsunokokorox1 even noted, “The battle system runs at the same speed as the original Gamecube version and the character responsiveness is also the same. Any sort of difference in controls or responsiveness is purely on the mind of the player. The Switch version does not have the same framerate stability [as] the other versions and it is pretty noticeable because of the drops.”

To make matters even worse, the patch doesn’t do anything to fix any of the major complaints, most notably issues with the frame-rate, missing text, transparency issues, and more.

Tales of Symphonia was first released on GameCube in 2004, and while it remains beloved in many quarters, it continues to be bedeviled by uneven ports across the PS2, PS3, and now the Switch. The patch is expected to go live on Thursday.

Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.

Blizzard has officially scrapped Overwatch 2’s long-awaited PvE Hero mode, but the game’s creative leads are assuring fans that PvE is still a focus for the game moving forward.

On a Twitch stream detailing Overwatch 2’s content roadmap, executive producer Jared Neuss explained the decision to cut the PvE content.

“Development on the PvE experience has not really hasn’t made the progress that we have hoped,” Neuss said. “The team has created a bunch of amazing content so there’s awesome missions that are really exciting. There’s brand new enemies that are super fun to fight and some truly great and ridiculous hero talents. But unfortunately, the effort required to pull all of that together into a Blizzard-quality experience that we can ship to you is huge, and there really is no end in sight or defined kind of end date where we can put that out into the world.

“And so we are left with another difficult choice. Do we continue to pour all that effort into PvE, hoping we can land it at some point in the future or do we stick with this set of values that we have aligned on and focus on the live game and focus on serving all of you? With everything we have learned about what it takes to operate this game at the level that you deserve, it’s clear that we can’t deliver on that original vision for PvE that was shown in 2019. What that means is that we won’t be delivering that dedicated hero mode with talent trees, that long-term talent power progression. Those things are just not in our plans anymore. And we know that this is going to be disappointing to many of you which is why we wanted to bring it up before we talk about the road map. And to be perfectly honest it’s been really difficult for many of us and a lot of folks on the team that pour their heart and soul into that stuff.”

Another big change to Overwatch 2

Overwatch 2’s PvE mode was supposed to be a big differentiating factor between the original game and its sequel. In 2019, we got to go hands-on with the PvE, which was set to have new hero abilities, co-op attacks, and a level progression system. But, when Overwatch 2 launched, the long-awaited PvE mode wasn’t a part of it. Instead, Blizzard promised that Overwatch 2’s PvE would come sometime in 2023 as seasonal content.

Even though the original vision for the PvE mode has been cut, there is still a lot of content in the Overwatch 2 pipeline. On Twitter, the Overwatch account shared an image detailing plans for Overwatch 2 Season 5, Season 6, Season 7, and beyond. It’s confirmed that story missions are coming to Overwatch 2 in Season 6, alongside a new support hero. So while the ambitious PvE mode isn’t a part of Overwatch’s future, maybe the story missions can help fill that void for players.

#Overwatch2: A Look Ahead ✨

Join us as we share more details about everything we have planned for 2023, including new events, PvE, new Heroes, new maps, & more.

? https://t.co/FEyTC2p7eL pic.twitter.com/lGd1uABbfN

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) May 16, 2023

In an interview with GameSpot, Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller explained some of the PvE additions coming to Overwatch 2 in lieu of the ambitious Hero mode.

“We have a lot coming out this year, and even if you look at Season 6, it’s the biggest season we’ve ever launched in the history of Overwatch,” Keller said. “We are running a PvE event that season. We have a whole new type of PvE content that we’re releasing with our single-player Hero mastery missions… So I hope that players can see that we are still committed to PvE and we are doing more with the story than we’ve ever done before. We’re just doing it in a different way than what we originally talked about.”

Neuss expanded on that, saying Blizzard isn’t walking away from Overwatch 2 PvE entirely.

“We know that if we get into the seasonal cadence, we can release things during seasons in a way that we can plan for effectively and that we think is going to be really exciting to players,” Neuss said. “That, more to the point, gives us time to adapt to the next thing for players before you release it, and I think moving away from that idea of this one big singular PvE release moment and into a, ‘No, we’re going to do PvE stuff all the time.’ We have all these plans. Season 6 has three different flavors of that, and we have a bunch of other versions of that coming up and seasons after that.”

We called Overwatch 2 great in our review, saying the sequel, “breathes new life into what was once the sharpest multiplayer shooter around, before it had its edges severely dulled by Blizzard’s attention shifting away.”

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

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom builds upon the groundbreaking open world design of 2017’s Breath of the Wild, and the creative leads behind the sequel have seemingly confirmed that the Zelda team will stick with this formula for future entries.

In an interview with Game Informer, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma and Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi discussed the future of the Zelda franchise, saying the open world format — or “open air” as Nintendo liked to call it in 2017 — is here to stay.

“With Ocarina of Time, I think it’s correct to say that it did kind of create a format for a number of titles in the franchise that came after it,” Aonuma said. “But in some ways, that was a little bit restricting for us. While we always aim to give the player freedoms of certain kinds, there were certain things that format didn’t really afford in giving people freedom. Of course, the series continued to evolve after Ocarina of Time, but I think it’s also fair to say now that we’ve arrived at Breath of the Wild and the new type of more open play and freedom that it affords. Yeah, I think it’s correct to say that it has created a new kind of format for the series to proceed from.”

Aonuma’s new comments mirror what the longtime Zelda producer said back in 2017. Just after Breath of the Wild’s launch, Aonuma said, “From now on, this will probably be the standard form.”

The open world standard doesn’t mean we’ll never see other types of Zelda games again. In the years between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom we saw a Musou-style Breath of the Wild prequel, a rhythm spinoff, a 2D Zelda remake, and a Skyward Sword remaster. Surely, Nintendo will continue to release other types of Zelda experiences while the next open world game is in the oven.

Nintendo has definitely struck gold with the open world Zelda format. We awarded Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom a pair of 10s, saying of Tears of the Kingdom, “Nintendo has followed up a triumph with a triumph, expanding and evolving a world that already felt full beyond expectation and raising the bar ever higher into the clouds.”

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

• 16 Things to Do First in Tears of the Kingdom
• 14 Things Tears of the Kingdom Doesn’t Tell You
• How to Uncover the Full TOTK Map
• How to Expand Your Inventory in TOTK
• PSA: Your Old BOTW Save Unlocks Something Cool in TOTK

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

Following a “challenging” year of losses and few releases, Ubisoft is preparing to pump resources into the Assassin’s Creed franchise to secure its future. It will include a restructure that will increase headcount on Assassin’s Creed title development by 40% in the coming years, following a rash of layoffs that reduced the company’s global headcount below 20,000.

In its full year earnings today, Ubisoft reported that in a fiscal year in which its only major releases were Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, Just Dance 2023, and Rocksmith+, its net sales were €1.81 billion ($1.97 billion) down 14.6% from last year, and it overall reported an operating loss of €500 million ($543 million). While Ubisoft has previously stated that Sparks of Hope and Just Dance specifically underperformed, other live service games kept money flowing in, with the Assassin’s Creed franchise in particular reaching a new “record active users” despite no new game releases. Ubisoft reports that not only does Assassin’s Creed Valhalla now have 44% more players life-to-date than Origins and 19% more than Odyssey, it’s bringing in more money per player than either game.

Ubisoft is going big on Assassin’s Creed

This likely explains why Ubisoft is gearing up to go hard on the Assassin’s Creed franchise in the coming years. Assassin’s Creed Mirage is still set for release in 2023, and three other major games are on the horizon alongside an additional VR game and a mobile game in the franchise.

Ubisoft has stated it intends to increase the number of people working on the franchise across the company by 40% in the coming years to “fuel its ambitious expansion”, though it seems likely much of this will come from promised “targeted restructurings” as ongoing cost-cutting measures have dropped the company’s global headcount below 20,000 from a September total of over 20,700. Ubisoft tells investors that it plans to continue “tight control on recruitments” and to divest “non-core assets,” meaning we’re likely to see Ubisoft continue to reduce the overall number of games it takes on at once (a process it has already begun in earnest) and spend more time, money, and person power on Assassin’s Creed.

That doesn’t mean that Assassin’ Creed is literally everything, though. Unlike a number of past earnings reports and announcements, this quarter’s announcements did not come with any game delays or cancellations. Ubisoft’s coming fiscal year (ending March 2024) still promises to include not just Mirage, but Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Tom Clancy’s The Division Resurgence, Rainbow Six Mobile, The Crew Motorfest, Skull and Bones (which has been delayed six times now), XDefiant, and “another large game” that has not yet been named. Ubisoft expects to say more about these games in an upcoming Ubisoft Forward event on June 12.

It’s also worth noting Ubisoft’s stated interest in generative AI. In its earnings report, Ubisoft calls itself “uniquely positioned to lead” the charge on a purported “transformation” of creative industries by generative AI, which it claims was demonstrated at the recent Game Developers Conference 2023 in March. “Internally, early adoption is fast, with creators and developers of all levels experimenting with the technology and taking advantage of the booming Generative AI landscape,” the press release states. “With them, Ubisoft is shaping a responsible framework with talent management and fair use at heart.”

While several major companies have come out in favor of experimenting with generative AI, this is a notably emphatic statement of interest from Ubisoft in generative AI integration with game development. The impacts of that use have yet to be seen, but Ubisoft has previously discussed potential uses, such as NPC pathfinding, through its R&D division Ubisoft La Forge. IGN has previously examined both the benefits and concerns around generative AI during our recent AI Week.

Ubisoft’s outlook for the coming year expects an income of €400 million ($435 million) – which would mark a significant jump from its €500 million loss over the past year.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been out in the wild for a weekend now, and fans are spotting all kinds of fun easter eggs and tidbits all over the place. One of our favorites? Link’s cooking animations have gotten the smallest, sweetest musical upgrade. Yes, Link sings now!

In Breath of the Wild, Link’s cooking animation was pretty wholesome on its own. He would toss the ingredients into a pot, hum a few abstract notes cheerfully as they stewed, and then express delight when the dish was done (assuming it wasn’t…dubious). But in Tears of the Kingdom, his cooking is even more adorable, because Link actually sings multiple recognizable songs from his own games while food is cooking.

We’ve caught our buddy Link singing his own main theme:

The Ballad of the Wind Fish:

Epona’s Theme:

and Saria’s Theme:

Others around the internet have reported hearing even more tunes from Link, so you’ll have to do a lot of cooking if you want to hear them all. It’s an adorable bit of almost fourth wall breaking behavior from our adorable protagonist. What’s more though, it’s part of a much larger and more defined personality that Nintendo has endeavored to give Link in recent games, from his dialogue options to smaller mannerisms like these. Just another reason we really love Link here.

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

• 16 Things to Do First in Tears of the Kingdom
• 14 Things Tears of the Kingdom Doesn’t Tell You
• How to Uncover the Full TOTK Map
• How to Expand Your Inventory in TOTK
• PSA: Your Old BOTW Save Unlocks Something Cool in TOTK

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.