Category: IGN

It’s never a bad time to play a horror board game. There’s something about zombies, ghosts, werewolves, and other nightmares that are a great fit for huddling around a table with your friends. The horror genre is filled to the brim with great games, and below we’ve assembled some of the best.

Each game represents different mechanics, but since jump scares are nearly impossible in a board game, atmosphere is king in the horror genre. So gather your friends, dim the lights, and get ready to experience terror like only a good board game can deliver. These are the best horror-themed board games to play in 2023.

TL;DR: The Best Horror Board Games

• Unmatched: Cobble and Fog
• The Bloody Inn
• AuZtralia
• Unfathomable
• Zombicide: Black Plague
• Horrified: Universal Monsters
• Arkham Horror: The Card Game
• Dead of Winter
• One Night Ultimate Werewolf
• Last Night on Earth
• Mansions of Madness
• Betrayal Legacy
• The Fury of Dracula

Unmatched: Cobble and Fog

• Number of Players: 3-6
• Play Time: 2-4 hours
• Also at Target

Unmatched, a game series in which you can mix and match figures from myth and pop culture to go head to head in a tactical fight, might not seem like much of a horror game. But Cobble and Fog takes the action to the streets of Victorian London with figures like Dracula, the Invisible Man, and Jekyll & Hyde. Each has its own deck of cards that leverages the simple rules framework with flavourful and fun special effects: Dracula, for example, can lure and hypnotise his opponents as well as drain their blood. Between them the four characters here weave a real atmosphere of gothic horror. Cobble and Fog is about the best set in the entire Unmatched series, and so is also a great introduction to its wider charms. See our Unmatched: Cobble and Fog review for more details.

The Bloody Inn

• Number of Players: 1-4
• Play Time: 45-60 min

This Bloody Inn boasts one of the most bizarre themes in all of board gaming: players take the role of innkeepers trying to boost their profits by robbing and murdering their guests. In practical terms, this is done by paying with other cards from your hand to recruit or kill guests, or to build annexes to your inn under which to bury bodies. It’s a classic case of competing priorities, with everything needing a prerequisite to do something else, enlivened considerably by the ghoulish concept and sinister art. And there’s more strategy than may first be apparent, with some annexes and recruited guests giving you discounts on paying for future actions.

AuZtralia

• Number of Players: 1-4
• Play Time: 30-120 min

Real-world Australians may be outraged by the portrayal of their home as a monster-infested island, but it makes a compelling horror game. Players spend the early part of the game building a train network across the continent, defeating Lovecraftian monsters on the way to reach valuable resources and build farms. About halfway through, the pace kicks up a notch as the monsters start to hit back, destroying your infrastructure and potentially wiping humanity out completely, resulting in a loss for all players. It’s a weird combination but it works well, providing a fun theme, exciting combat and strategic route and combo building all at the same time and making the game widely appealing.

Unfathomable

• Number of Players: 3-6
• Play Time: 2-4 hours

Some years ago there was a quite brilliant board game based on the Battlestar Galactica TV show, in which players had a hidden role and the group had to try and out traitors while guiding the starship back to earth. Now it’s been reborn with a horror theme, with a steamship under attack by Lovecraftian monsters as it crosses the ocean. Players are either passengers who need to work together to save the ship or secret cultists who must quietly sabotage any efforts to avert the crises that unfold each turn. The star of the show is the way players put cards face-down into a pile that can either boost or undermine attempts to stave off disaster, leaving the group slivers of information to guess who might be the cuckoo in the nest. The stellar production values we’ve come to expect from publisher Fantasy Flight help a lot, too. See our Unfathomable review for more info.

Zombicide: Black Plague

• Number of Players: 1-6
• Play Time: 60-180 min
• Also at Target

In the original Zombicide released in 2012, you play as a survivor hoping to live through a modern-day zombie apocalypse. Black Plague changes up the formula by transporting you a fantastical medieval world of magic, dragons, and… well, more zombies. You control a paladin, or a knight, or a magician, among other character types as you look to combat the death magic of an evil necromancer. This fantasy version of a typical zombie story is refreshing and novel, and there are a ton of expansions available that add new scenarios, player characters, locations, items, and more. If you want more similar options, check out our picks for the best cooperative board games.

Horrified: Universal Monsters

• Number of Players: 1-5
• Play Time: 60 min
• Also at Target

It’s the monsters’ world, we’re just living in it. In Horrified, it’s your job to thwart the nefarious plans of the most famous movie monsters of all time. Take on Frankenstein and his bride, the Wolf Man, Dracula, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon in this easy-to-learn cooperative game. You’ll take to the streets of a small village under duress from the monsters, and must take on the role of one of several heroes. Each one comes with their own strengths and weakness when it comes to fight off the monsters. If you’re looking for a showdown with horror’s most iconic monsters, Horrified is the game for you.

Arkham Horror: The Card Game

• Number of Players: 1-2 (1-4 with two copies of core set)
• Play Time: 10-120 min

If you’re looking for more Lovecraftian flavor, Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a no-brainer. The base game comes with a small handful of scenarios that sends you directly into the jaws of cosmic mystery. You can use the suggested starter decks, or build a custom one centered around your chosen investigator’s special abilities. Gameplay sees you hopping from location to location to search for clues in order to advance the story while attempting to impede the deadly Mythos deck. Your investigator will inevitably take damage and acquire weaknesses over time that can affect future games in the campaign, making Arkham Horror: The Card Game one of the most thematic games on this list. Also check out our list of the best deck-building games.

Dead of Winter

• Number of Players: 2-5
• Play Time: 45-210 min

Dead of Winter is kind of like a board game version of The Walking Dead. The game is described as a “meta-cooperative psychological survival game,” which means that, while it is cooperative, there are elements of competition that carry through the game. Each player controls a group survivors during the zombie apocalypse, and all must work together in order to meet the shared goal. In addition, you’ll be working towards your own hidden goal as well. Sometimes that means hoarding the most medicine, or stockpiling the most ammo. Other times, you might simply want to betray the team and ruin group morale. No matter what, though, there’s no way to trust anyone at the table thanks to the group politics and interpersonal drama Dead of Winter brings.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf

• Number of Players: 3-10
• Play Time: 10 min
• Also at Target

The game that popularized the whole “secret roles” mechanic now common to the party game scene, One Night Ultimate Werewolf will have your group flinging accusations and insults around the table. The goal is to learn who the werewolves are and expose them, but that’s easier said than done. There are other characters who can switch roles around, and even see which roles are not in play for the round. Because nobody can be sure who the werewolves are (including the werewolves themselves), each game is a chaotic flurry of accusations and desperate defenses that always end in a good time. Rounds are short, and the free phone app makes setup a breeze, which makes One Night an ideal party game.

Last Night on Earth

• Number of Players: 2-6
• Play Time: 60-90 min

An homage to campy b-movie horror, Last Night on Earth plays out like an early Romero flick. You and your friends control characters that fall into the typical horror archetypes like the cool high school jock or the weird nerdy kid. Each scenario presents different goals that range from escaping town in a truck to killing a certain number of zombies. You can scavenge for items and weapons used to mow down enemies as you explore buildings. Last Night on Earth has proved to be so popular that is has spawned other genre parodies such as old school sci fi and high adventure. If you’re a fan of campy horror, Last Night on Earth is hard to pass up.

Mansions of Madness

• Number of Players: 2-5
• Play Time: 120 min

Mansions of Madness takes the dungeon crawling and asymmetrical gameplay of Descent and Star Wars: Imperial Assault and transports its to the macabre world of H.P. Lovecraft. One player takes on the role of the Keeper and guides the others through one of several pre-written scenarios. As players make their way through the mansion, their actions and choices may affect the monsters they encounter. There are several expansion scenarios available, which helps to make your investment more worthwhile. Set aside a hefty chunk of time, however, as Mansions demands no small amount of attention, making it a perfect game for a dedicated group of horror fans.

Betrayal Legacy

• Number of Players: 3-5
• Play Time: 45-90 min

In the original Betrayal at House on the Hill, players explore a haunted house, room by room, until they trigger the titular betrayal, when an unsuspecting player turns on the rest of the party. In Betrayal Legacy, this formula is stretched out into a campaign-length legacy game that plays out over a prologue and 13 chapters. The story spans decades, and has players playing several generations of families that all fall victim to the hauntings of a house. Haunted house simulator in every sense of the concept, Betray Legacy is as spooky as it is novel.

The Fury of Dracula

• Number of Players: 2-5
• Play Time: 120-180 min

The Fury of Dracula is an asymmetrical game where one player takes on the role of Dracula, and everyone else is a hunter looking to end his reign of terror. The Dracula player secretly moves around Europe each turn, exerting their influence and building up an army of new vampires. The hunters must deduce Dracula’s location and take him out before his army grows too large. While there is combat involved, The Fury of Dracula is mostly a battle of wits; how long can Dracula evade the hunters? How well can the hunters decode Dracula’s whereabouts? It’s a thrilling cat-and-mouse game that is endlessly replayable.

This story contains spoilers for The Bad Batch. If you’re not caught up yet, check out our spoiler-free The Bad Batch Season 2 review.

There’s a blast from the past in the latest episode of The Bad Batch Season 2. Diving into the history of the Jedi Order and those that came before, fans are rightly asking who the “Ancients” are and what they could mean for the wider mythos of the galaxy far, far away.

“Entombed” wasted no time making Wanda Sykes’ Phee Genoa the star of the show, with this treasure-hunting pirate filling that Doctor Aphra-shaped hole in our lives. Much like that morally ambiguous archaeologist, Phee gives us some insight into the state of the galaxy in years gone by. Alongside mentions of the Grand Pearl of Novak and Blade of Zakata Par, one of Phee’s stories stood out more than the others.

Are The Ancients Connected to the Jedi?

Under the guidance of Phee, the Bad Batch journeys to the uncharted Kaldar Trinary and searches for the mythical Heart of the Mountain in Skara Nal. Skara Nal is eventually revealed as a walker-esque weapon of mass destruction, and although nothing about its creators is confirmed, Phee says the “Ancients” predate the Jedi Order itself.

It’s possible the Ancients are the Je’daii Order, who hailed from the planet Tython and eventually evolved into the modern Jedi Order. Remembering that Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) took Grogu to Tython in The Mandalorian Season 2, there’s already a foundation to build on in mainline Star Wars canon. However, this seems unlikely when comparing The Bad Batch’s glimpse of Skara Nal and the dark side creatures of the Kaldar Trinary to the Je’daii’s motives of bringing balance to the Force.

Instead, the Ancients could be tied to Tony Gilroy’s Andor and a throwaway reference to the Rakata species. Here, Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) gave Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) a downpayment of a Kuati signet embedded with a blue and white sky kyber crystal. As well as saying it comes from an “ancient world,” he confirms it “celebrated the uprising against the Rakatan invaders.”

Rakata? Like, Knights of the Old Republic Rakata?

Introduced in BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic video game back in 2003, the Rakata are a fish-like species that first mastered hyperspace travel. More than this, the Rakata were a sometimes villainous race that used the dark side to mix their technological prowess with spiritual evil.

As Knights of the Old Republic is set some 4,000 years before Lucas’ movies — and the Rakata existed 30,000 years before that — the timelines marry up with them being the Ancients that Phee refers to. For those who still aren’t convinced, a portion of the 2003 game takes place in a location called the Temple of the Ancients on the planet Lehon.

Notably, the Rakata developed a devastating weapon known as the Star Forge. The Rakata enslaved Force-sensitive creatures and used the dark side emotions of their victims to power machines. Others were used to help build the Star Forge as an automated shipyard that constantly churned out vehicles and soldiers to man the Rakata’s “Infinite Empire.” Knights of the Old Republic ended as players picked between destroying the Star Forge to embrace the light side or taking control of it for themselves on the dark side.

As for the Rakata, the Star Forge corrupted the species and led to a brutal civil war which, alongside a deadly plague that shattered their connection to the Force, brought the empire crumbling down. The Bad Batch shows something has decimated the Kaldar Trinary, and with the Rakata known for stripping planets for their resources, it adds credibility to the theory that they are, in fact, the Ancients.

What the Ancients Mean for the Future of Star Wars

The Jedi Order we know was founded by the shadowy Prime Jedi in the year 25,000 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), so we know The Bad Batch isn’t setting up the much-hyped The Acolyte that’s set around 100 years before The Phantom Menace. Still, that doesn’t mean the Ancients can’t lead to more live-action or animated projects.

It’s speculatory, but because The Bad Batch is set around 19 BBY and coincides with the start of construction on the Death Star, the destructive power of Skara Nal and the Ancients could have a much bigger part than we know. Even though Skara Nal is all but destroyed by the time the credits roll, Phee’s tease of the Ancients is a neat segue into these relics of the Expanded Universe.

Star Wars Rebels Season 2’s “Twilight of the Apprentice” previously teased the Star Forge with an Easter egg inside the Sith temple that looked a lot like the Rakatan’s space factory. There’s been a lot of talk about a live-action Knights of the Old Republic adaptation, and with two potential nods to the Rakata in Andor and now The Bad Batch, it’s a little coincidental.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi might’ve skimmed over Luke Skywalker inhabiting the first Jedi Temple on Ahch-To, but way back when, Lucas gave author Terry Brooks an extensive history of the Sith and Jedi for his novelization of The Phantom Menace. Much like the sometimes fanciful stories of Phee, there tends to be a little truth in these forgotten fables. We’ll just have to wait and see whether The Bad Batch’s tease of the Ancients pays off further down the line.

Today’s daily deals include the Pokemon TCG Sword & Shield Charizard Collection, a magnificent Apple Studio Display, the gargantuan 85″ Sony X85K TV bundled with an Atmos ready soundbar, a powerful Dell G15 laptop with an RTX 3070 TI GPU, and more below.

Pokemon TCG Sword & Shield Ultra-Premium Collection Charizard for $99.99

The set includes three etched foil promo cards: Charizard V, Charizard VMAX, and Charizard VSTAR, sixteen Pokemon TCG booster packs from the Sword & Shield series, a playmat, 65 card sleeves, metal coin, six metal damage-counter dice, 2 metal condition markers, an acrylic VSTAR marker, a player’s guide to the entire Sword & Shield series, and a code card for Pokemon TCG Live.

Dell G15 15″ QHD Intel Core i9 RTX 3070 Ti Gaming Laptop for Only $1367.09

Dell has been going all out with their gaming deals lately. Right now you can get a Dell G15 gaming laptop equipped with a 15″ QHD (2560×1440) display, 12th gen Intel Core i9-12900H 14-core Alder Lake CPU, and a powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU for a mere $1367.09 after $300 in instant savings and stackable coupon codes “AWSMITE09” and “ARMMPPS“. Pair that with 16GB of DDR5-4800MHz RAM and a 1TB SSD and you have yourself a lean, mean gaming machine out of the box at a really good price.

85″ Sony X85K 4K TV with Sony HT-A7000 Soundbar Bundle for $1698

Normally the TV itself costs $1698 (check it out for yourself), but Amazon is essentially throwing in the soundbar for free. The HT-A7000 is actually a really nice soundbar; it actually retails for $1400. The X85X is a great gaming TV. It has a 120Hz native refresh rate, which means it supports 4K @ 120Hz over HDMI 2.1 when connected to the PS5 or Xbox Series X consoles. The HT-A7000 soundbar features a near 7.1.2 channel setup for Dolby Atmos support.

27″ Apple Studio Display with Higher-Than-4K Resolution for $1299

When it comes to color fidelity, Apple Studio monitors are the cream of the crop. Unfortunately, they’re also very expensive. Today, you can get the 27″ variant for $1299.99 thanks to a rare $300 price drop from its original $1600 MSRP. The Apple display features a higher-than-4K resolution of 5120×2880, 600 nits of brightness, support for one billion colors, and P3 wide color. It also has a built-in webcam and mic as well as a Thunderbolt 3 port with up to 96W of Power Delivery. If you connect a MacBook to this monitor, it can be used as an external display AND charge your laptop at the same time.

Dell G15 15″ Core i7 RTX 3060 Gaming Laptop for $1058

Dell is also offering this Dell G15 gaming laptop equipped with a 12th gen Intel Core i7-12700H 14-core Alder Lake CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 GPU for only $1058.39 after $150 in instant savings and stackable coupon codes “AWSMITE09” and “ARMMPPS“. The RTX 3060 is more powerful than the previous generation’s RTX 2070 and will be able to power through any game on the laptop’s 1080p display.

75″ Hisense U7H 4K QLED ULED Google TV for $948

The U7H is Hisense’s lowest priced TV model with a native 120Hz refresh rate. That’s right, this TV supports 4K @ 120Hz for PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles. That, along with VRR and ALLM makes this an excellent gaming TV. The U7H boasts a quantum dot panel with full-array LED backlighting (120 local dimming zones) and wide color gamut. It also pumps out an impressive 1000nits of peak brightness so you can easily use this TV in rooms where light control might normally be an issue.

Alienware m17 17″ 4K AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX Radeon RX 6850M XT Gaming Laptop for Only $1675.79

Equivalent to Intel Core i9-12900H with RTX 3080

Expiring today, Dell is offering its Alienware m17 17″ gaming laptop equipped with AMD’s most powerful CPU and GPU for $1675.79 after $700 in instant savings and stackable coupon codes “AWSMITE09” and “ARMMPPS“. That’s a phenomenal price for one of the most powerful gaming laptops available at the moment. Please note that dual stacking coupon codes are extremely rare at Dell.

This Alienware m17 config spares absolutely no expense to make the perfect gaming laptop. The newest 6000-series CPU is designed to compete with Intel’s latest Alder Lake CPUs. The AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX is the most powerful CPU in the 6000-series lineup, and it performs almost as well as Intel’s own Core i9-12900H. That is to say, it’s a monster of a processor in terms of both workstation and gaming performance.

Likewise, the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT is currently AMD’s most powerful mobile GPU and its performance is comparable to NVIDIA’s mobile RTX 3080/Ti. It will hold its own in any game you throw at it, and you’ll certainly need the power in order to run games smoothly on the laptop’s native 4K display.

Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R14 RTX 3080 Ti Gaming PC for Only $1587.59

Dell is offering the Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R14 gaming PC equipped with a powerful GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU for under $1600. That’s right, you can get it for $1587.59 after $580 in instant savings and stackable coupon codes “AWSMITE09” and “ARMMPPS“. There are newer (and far pricier) 4000 series of GeForce cards out, nevertheless this is still a very powerful and very relevant gaming rig.

This Alienware gaming PC is equipped with a liquid cooled AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-core CPU, GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU, 8GB of DDR4-3200MHz RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The RTX 3080 Ti is one of the most powerful cards in the RTX 30 series linup, features DLSS and ray tracing, and is an excellent GPU for 4K gaming. It’s about 10% more powerful than the RTX 3080 at 4K. It’s on par with the RTX 3090 in gaming prowess (the RTX 3090 has more VRAM which is better for graphics workstation builds but not for gaming). This PC will be able to push just about any game at 60fps+ speeds, even at 4K resolution. The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU is an excellent all-around processor and won’t bottleneck your gaming.

48″ LG 48GP900-B 4K OLED Gaming Monitor

The 48GP900-B is the first Ultragear gaming monitor that uses an OLED panel. This is a simliar WOLED panel to the one that you find in the 48″ LG C1 OLED TV but there are a few key differences. Instead of the semi glossy coating found on the OLED TV, the 48GP900 features an anti-glare low reflective coating that is undoubtedly a better fit for close up monitor usage. It also has DisplayPort connectivity and lacks the built-in Smart TV interface. It does carry over the HDMI 2.1 ports with 4K @ 120Hz compatiblity for PS5 and Xbox Series X owners, as well as VRR and G-SYNC support. Additionally, the 120Hz refresh rate can be overclocked to 138Hz when used as a PC monitor. Lastly, if aesthetics matter for you, there is subtle RGB backlighting on the rear of the monitor that isn’t present on the OLED TVs.

The Best Deals of the Week

These deals are definitely worth your attention.

The Day Before developer Fntastic has said it was planning a delay even before a trademark dispute pushed the game back eight months.

Speaking to IGN, Fntastic co-founders Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev decried any allegations of scamming after several The Day Before community members grew concerned that the game was delayed for so long just a few weeks ahead of its planned launch date on March 1.

Fntastic released a statement on January 25 (below) claiming that a trademark dispute had forced the delay of both the game and its first major gameplay trailer in over a year.

“We planned to move the game’s release before and plan to announce it with [publisher] Mytona in a 10-minute gameplay video,” Fntastic told IGN. “And then you all know what happened. So to be on the safe side, to ensure there are no more transfers, we, along with the publisher, chose November 10. That is a safe date, given the trademark dispute.”

Despite having now been delayed twice (with the first caused by a switch to Unreal Engine 5), Fntastic is still confident it will have its trademark dispute solved by the new release date, and plans to use the extra time for improving the game in the meantime.

“We’re very confident that this issue will be resolved since we have strong legal partners,” it said. “The extra time will allow us to better prepare for the release and make the overall improvements for the game. It will become even more polished, optimized, and content-filled.”

pic.twitter.com/tlvk0ryNKo

— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) January 25, 2023

As for complaints and allegations that The Day Before isn’t actually in development – which have been erupting on its Reddit page and Discord sever – Fntastic maintained that its game will definitely be released despite the chaotic conversation at the moment.

“The storm will calm down eventually, and time will put everything in its place. When the game comes out, people will finally see the truth,” it said. “But while we’re here, we’re grateful for such a fantastic journey and for you being with us.”

Fntastic also provided the following statement regarding current conversations and the state of the game: “For us and millions of people, The Day Before is a childhood dream come true. It’s a game with zombies and other people in a huge postapocalyptic skyscraper city.

“We understand that some players, not seeing the whole picture, might have doubts about the game. Our whole focus has always been on the product itself. We’ve been creating the game for four years. All these years have been full of sweat and blood to make this game, and for many members of our team, it is unpleasant to hear such accusations.

“We didn’t take a penny from people: no crowdfunding, no pre-orders, no donations. The game is fully funded by Mytona, one of the largest mobile publishers in the world, who checked the game’s build at every milestone per our contract.

“We made a real inner breakthrough when we decided to go for big challenges from the bottom—so big that some people would consider them impossible.

“Making a fantastic journey from the very ends of the earth, we feel like that simple guy from 90s action movies. You probably remember him as the hero who breaks through the veil of disbelief when no one believes in him, but he finds the inner strength to win and prove to everyone what he is worth in the end.

“We only believe in the final product. No matter what anyone says, you’ll see for yourself on November 10 this year. We hope that after the game’s success, we’ll give people faith that in this life, if you persevere toward a dream, it will come true, despite all the obstacles and doubts.”

The Day Before is an open world zombie MMO that was first announced in January 2021. This isn’t the first time the game has faced controversy in the past three years, however, as Fntastic was also forced to defend its use of unpaid workers in June last year.

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

Elden Ring, God of War: Ragnarok, Stray, and Pentiment are leading the finalists for 2023’s Game Developers Choice Awards, the video game awards voted for by developers.

All four of these games feature in the Game of the Year category, alongside Sam Barlow’s Immortality and Tunic. Elden Ring and Stray have a total of six nominations each while God of War: Ragnarok has five.

The results of the awards will be announced at 2023’s Game Developers Conference on March 22, held alongside the Independent Games Festival Awards – the nominations for which were announced yesterday.

The full list of nominees can be seen below:

Best Audio

• Elden Ring
• God of War Ragnarok
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Metal: Hellsinger
• Stray

Best Debut

• Neon White
• Norco
• Stray
• Tunic
• Vampire Survivors

Best Design

• Elden Ring
• Marvel Snap
• Neon White
• Stray
• Tunic

Innovation Award

• Elden Ring
• Immortality
• Neon White
• Pentiment
• Stray

Best Narrative

• God of War Ragnarok
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
• Immortality
• Pentiment
• Return to Monkey Island

Social Impact Award

• As Dusk Falls
• Citizen Sleeper
• Endling – Extinction Is Forever
• I Was A Teenage Exocolonist
• OlliOlli World
• We Are OFK

Best Technology

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II
• Elden Ring
• God of War: Ragnarok
• Horizon Forbidden West

Best Visual Art

• Elden Ring
• God of War: Ragnarok
• Horizon: Forbidden West
• Pentiment
• Stray

Game of the Year

• Elden Ring
• God of War: Ragnarok
• Immortality
• Pentiment
• Stray
• Tunic

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

Imagine Fire Emblem went through kind of a moody, emo phase and started reading a lot of dark fantasy novels and you’ll have some idea what to expect from Redemption Reapers. This turn-based tactical RPG, from the developers of the excellent and unsung side-scrolling 2021 Soulslike Ender Lilies, puts you in command of the moody Ashen Hawk Brigade. Your task is to fight back against the Mort, an army of mysterious and murderous humanoid fiends who seem to care for nothing but the constant slaughter of innocent people. So, you know, you should probably do something about that.

Admittedly, I didn’t get too much of a sense for the shape of the world or what the larger arc of the story is going to be after playing through the first seven chapters. We still don’t know where the Mort came from or if there is any greater purpose to their terrifying rampage. That served as an interesting question that pushed me to seek answers, but it can also lead to the plot feeling a bit aimless. My band of beleaguered fighters was simply traveling from village to village trying to solve smaller problems in the wake of a seemingly all-consuming invasion, which left me asking if we were really making a difference at all. And maybe that’s intentional. But I longed for some clearer, long-term goals.

The characters mostly come across like anime archetypes who rarely showed any hidden facets or surprised me by playing against their surface-level traits. Lugh is an edgy spear-wielder who enjoys the thrill of battle and bloodshed. Urs is a beefy barbarian type with a stony demeanor. We do get a few hints that our protagonist, Sarah, blames herself for some past failure in the war against the Mort that still haunts her. But in this small slice, it’s merely alluded to.

All of these characters are elevated, however, by a great English voice cast. Allegra Clark (aka Dorothea from Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Bloodhound from Apex Legends) voices the plucky archer Karren, and David Lodge (Three Houses’ Jeralt and Persona 5’s Igor) lends his gruff tone to the aforementioned big boi, Urs. The direction is pretty strong across the board as well. It sounds like a well-done, big budget anime dub, even when some of the lines are so tortured and melodramatic that they read as almost goofy.

Road to Redemption

The tactical combat takes a while to come together, but I ended up really enjoying it once the proper pieces were in place. Melee attacks, whether against you or an enemy, almost always provoke the risk of a counterattack. Thus, maximizing the chances you’ll be able to strike back and preventing your enemies from doing the same is a major concern. Party members in range of an enemy you just attacked also have a chance to perform a follow-up attack, which can be chained together if you have the foe completely surrounded. These are triggered by a timed button prompt, which adds just a dash of reflex-based tension to the normally methodical battles. I honestly enjoyed that.

In addition, characters can gain Determination from certain situations, such as taking damage, that gives them extra action points on their turn. Putting this all together, Redemption Reapers really rewards thinking carefully through each turn and figuring out how you can do the most damage while taking little or none yourself. Attacking with characters who are immune to counter attacks first, then finishing off the enemy with a chain of follow-up attacks is far more effective than simply trying to grind out a win. And all of the Ashen Hawks are quite fragile, so reckless tactics can lead to a full party wipe. This bleak world is somewhat forgiving in those situations, though. There is no perma-death, and as long as you can get to the end of a mission with one Reaper standing, it still counts as a win.

Art of War

In between missions, you can stock up on and upgrade gear, and spend skill points. The weapon system is fairly similar to Fire Emblem: every sword, bow, and spear has a durability rating, and repairs can get expensive, so you’ll feel the squeeze of keeping up your equipment even if you’re acing every mission. Starter weapons tend to have high accuracy and high durability, but low damage. The more advanced a weapon is, it will gain damage while losing accuracy and durability. So progression mainly follows a routine of upgrading someone’s weapon when they level up enough to use it without missing all the time. But even then, you’re signing up for higher repair costs if you want everyone wielding the deadliest gear available. It’s a simple but effective layer of strategic trade-offs that adds just the right amount of pressure.

Each character’s skill tree is specialized toward filling a specific role in combat, which often plays off one or more other characters to create deadly combos. Urs is an incredible tank who can shrug off blows and punish aggressive enemies, while Sarah’s talents focus on getting lots of hits in without risking counterattacks. It took me some time to really get a grasp on how all of these characters can be used together to overcome the most difficult challenges, but it felt awesome when I did.

While I may not be entirely sold on Redemption Reapers’ fairly generic dark fantasy setting or brooding stock characters yet, the interesting and challenging tactical combat speaks for itself. I’ve only scratched the surface of the unfolding story, and I’m intrigued enough to want to know what else lies below the grimy surface. And the superb voice cast goes a long way toward selling the overall mood and vibe, when it would have been easy to slip into edgelord territory. We’ll all be able to catch up with the Ashen Hawks and continue their journey next month.

I went at Microsoft pretty hard for the company’s baffling no-show at December’s massive Game Awards event. As such, it’s only fair I give them credit where credit is due: its first-ever Developer_Direct – aka Xbox Direct for those of us who don’t have the patience to type that damn underscore every single time – was a success. The 40-minute broadcast wisely mimicked the hostless format that Nintendo pioneered and Sony smartly stole, and as a result we saw five games, got four release dates, and perhaps most of all, took away some optimism for the months to come.

Microsoft managed to pleasantly surprise everyone by dropping a new Tango Gameworks rhythm-action game on us called Hi-Fi Rush. It immediately looked like a delightful mashup of Sunset Overdrive, Ninja Gaiden, and Guitar Hero. Even better, Tango released it right after the Direct ended, making this one of the first same-day announcement+release combos in quite some time. It’s not a stretch to say that such a surprise would not have been possible without Xbox Game Pass, where word-of-mouth can build up over time, and a game’s success is not as heavily dependent on a pre-order campaign and months of marketing hype.

Meanwhile, Redfall was the headliner, closing things out with a deeper look at Arkane’s vampire-themed FPS. It still clearly retains Arkane DNA, but it’s also decidedly different from the studio’s previous emergent-gameplay offerings like Dishonored and Prey. Instead, you’ll do a lot of shooting with a lot of cool weapons and against a lot of wild enemies, from vampires that shroud the battle arena in darkness to huge bosses that almost resemble Strikes from Destiny. It’ll be out on May 2 – which should be just enough of a head start before multi-decade-old franchise juggernauts like Zelda, Diablo, Street Fighter, and Final Fantasy clog up the Summer (not to mention Rocksteady’s long-awaited Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League).

In fact, the only real disappointment of the day was from Forza Motorsport. Not the game, mind you. Once again, it looks incredible. The Forza series has never been lacking visually and the rebuilt-for-next-gen-only reboot (i.e. there will not be an Xbox One version) wowed us with its paint reflections, dynamic day/night cycle, and realistic dirt accumulations on its 500 cars. And that was just in the compressed 1080p livestream. It’ll look even more glorious in its native 4K/60fps. Instead, the letdown took the form of Forza Motorsport’s release date, or, more accurately, the lack of one. Given that Microsoft made it clear up front it would be focusing on four games for this Direct, and that all four of them were expected in the first half of the year as per the company’s decree at last Summer’s Xbox Showcase, it was fair play to expect to learn exactly when we’d get to play each of them. But unfortunately we didn’t even get a season to expect Forza in – a generic “2023” was all we got, all but confirming that the next-gen racer will slip to the second half of the year.

In summary, if Microsoft takes away anything from its first Direct, it should be these two things:

1) Keep using this format for non-E3 showcases. It works. Never break out the overproduced, overly long Inside Xbox format again.

2) Keep underpromising and overdelivering. It was made clear that Starfield would get its own Direct later and not be a part of this one. That helped calibrate audience expectations going in, and those expectations were exceeded when Hi-Fi Rush hit the screen, and then again when it released on the same day.

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.

We recorded Unlocked immediately after Microsoft’s Xbox Developer Direct presentation this week, so these are our in-the-moment reactions to the excellent presentation, from the deep-dive on Redfall (including a May 2 release date to look forward to) to another look at the gorgeous Forza Motorsport (though it came without any release date attached) to the surprise new game from Tango Gameworks, Hi-Fi Rush, that’s available right now! And in our final segment, we spent some time discussing the current uncertain state of Halo in the wake of the layoffs at 343 Industries.

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out our interview with Todd Howard, who answered all of our Starfield questions after the big reveal at the Xbox Showcase:

For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.

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.