Category: IGN

Welcome to the inaugural issue of our new, weekly Nintendo Voice Chat column. We’re kicking things off by tackling a user-submitted question for our Question Block segment. Listeners of the show are no doubt familiar with the fact we will run into… time constraints… where we can’t give your questions the time they deserve. What better way to tackle this problem than to pick one of our favorite user-submitted questions of the week and answer it here?

Super Ninfriendo Tracy Vincent asked: “Is there a game that came out in your youth, but you didn’t get around to it until much much later? Why did it take you so long to play it – and what are your thoughts when you finally did. Do you think you would’ve enjoyed it more or less had you played it around when it was originally released?”

Kat Bailey

It wasn’t always easy getting hold of NES games during Nintendo’s 8-bit heyday. Castlevania was one of many popular games from that era that never seemed to be on store shelves – not even the gas station where I rented Battletoads and Batman over and over again (Beetlejuice was also there, but not Konami’s equally spooky and far superior platformer). One of the few hints I saw that Castlevania even existed was through my dog-eared copy of the Ultimate Unauthorized Nintendo Game Strategies, which barely even included screenshots. Still, Castlevania was to be one of the best NES games among my circle of friends, with Simon’s Quest being particularly popular. Castlevania continued to bounce around in the back of my head until I headed off to college a decade later, where I discovered a copy of Symphony of the Night in a random record store. I picked it up for $25 (a steal!) and decided to see if Castlevania indeed lived up to the playground hype.

Short answer: Obviously, it did. Of course, what I didn’t know was that Symphony of the Night was a radical reinvention of the Castlevania series, thereafter splitting fans between those who preferred “Metroidvanias.” Years later, I sat in a Japanese hotel room with Jeremy Parish – ironically one of the people to popularize the term “Metroidvania” – and watched as he blew through a Famicom Disc System version of the original game, pointing out all the unique details that made it special as he went. Would I have loved the original Castlevania if I had played it growing up? Almost certainly. It remains a striking achievement on the NES, with its soundtrack being a particular highlight. I may have even finished it, which is a feat I’ve yet to accomplish as an adult. One way or another, though, Castlevania remains a classic. Maybe one day Konami will bring it back.

Reb Valentine

Growing up, I pretty much only owned and played Nintendo devices – GameCube, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, etc. So I missed a lot of the classic games that came out on other hardware. But my senior year of college, I finally purchased a beat-up, outdated, used PlayStation 2 on Amazon, and that’s how I was finally exposed to a lot of classic RPGs (that have since made it to Switch) like Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Cross, and most importantly – the Final Fantasy series. I played Final Fantasy 7 for the first time over a decade after it came out, and honestly, I didn’t love it. By 2012 it was seriously dated – movement was clunky, it wasn’t nice to look at most of the time (have you seen Cloud’s goofy arms?), and ugh, the writing! I didn’t understand why people raved about it!

I did eventually get into other Final Fantasy games, playing Final Fantasy X that same year and liking it much better, and then I picked up Final Fantasy 6 a few years after and loved that one. But FF7 never landed, and I never even finished it. That said, after hearing about the big twist of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, I played that all the way through last year, and I think I get it now. Had I played FF7 when it first came out, before people had hyped it up as one of the greatest games of all time and before thousands of other games figured out how to make characters move in 3D environments infinitely better, I think I would have fallen in love just as everyone else did. I’m glad Remake exists both as a challenge to the very idea of a Remake, but also as a gateway to help me understand what made that original so special in the first place.

Seth Macy

This will sound like crazy talk, but I never played Metroid in a serious capacity until adulthood. Which is kind of weird because I distinctly remember playing it on a demo kiosk at a JC Penney sometime in the 1980s, making it one of the first NES games I ever played. Being a Nintendo kid in the ’80s also meant it was almost impossible to overlook anything made by Nintendo. I knew about the ‘JUSTIN BAILEY’ password, and even knew Metroid was a girl! (note: I actually knew the main character’s spoiler ending but didn’t know until much later her name was actually Samus).

So as to why I didn’t play it in the heyday of the Nintendo Entertainment System, I just don’t know. It was an earlier game, which probably led me to pass it over when picking out games to rent for a weekend, and to the best of my recollection, none of my friends close enough to loan me a game owned a copy for themselves. I actually played Super Metroid and Metroids Prime 1 and 2 before I got around to the original, and I gotta say, I’m glad I waited. It’s still a solid game, one that holds up today. It’s not the flawless user experience of modern games of the genre, but with a good guide and a few free hours in the day, you can make your way through it fairly easily.

I was pretty excited to discover it still held up when I finally did get around to playing it, and I’ve played through it several times since then. Full disclosure, I still haven’t gotten the best ending. As to whether or not I would have enjoyed it more or less as a kid, I can say its setting and art style definitely appealed to me as a kid, but the game itself probably wouldn’t have.

As I said before, it’s pretty easy to get through now, but back then, I would have found it much more difficult. Not only because of my crappy kid reflexes, either, but because access to game help was nowhere near as easy as it is today. Back then there wasn’t a gaming vocabulary for a “Metroidvania.” The concept of impassable areas, ones you could only traverse with later upgrades, just wouldn’t have clicked with me and I would likely have become frustrated with the game series and never experienced the glory of Super Metroid and the first Metroid Prime.

Peer Schneider

I’m a kid of the ’70s, so I literally grew up with video games. From the Fairchild Channel F’s blocky magic to Atari 2600 and then home computers like Commodore 64 and Atari 800, I devoured – this time, not literally – thousands of games in the ’70s and ’80s. But my big blind spot happened in my late teens, when everyone was going nuts over console gaming’s second coming: the NES.

The Legend of Zelda is my favorite video game franchise of all time. Yet somehow I missed both the original game and Zelda II when they first came out. My first steps with Nintendo were definitely in the arcades – Donkey Kong in particular delighted and pissed me off at the same time – yet I somehow never felt the need to go and buy a Nintendo Entertainment System. It honestly wasn’t even on my radar, and that entire era of gaming initially passed me by. I think I was still playing Winter Games and The Eidolon when the Zelda craze kicked off.

It wasn’t until a few years later when I picked up the Japanese version of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for my Super Famicom that I discovered the greatness of Link’s adventures. My mind was blown. I had hit pause on gaming for a few years and I couldn’t believe how good games at home looked and sounded… and they PULLED ME BACK IN. Now, I had played games like Ultima that let you explore expansive worlds freely, but it never came with such great visuals and tight controls. It was the combo of (seemingly) free, open world exploration and the use of tools and weapons that made me instantly fall in love.

I would eventually go back and play the many NES games that preceded my SNES favorites. In hindsight, I bet if I had played The Legend of Zelda when it first came out, I would’ve figured out a way to get a NES or even a Famicom Disk System and spent way, way too many hours exploring its world. Going back years later just isn’t the same, as you already understand the language of the game, know the use of many of its items, and even attack patterns of recurring enemies. I’m sure it would’ve been love at first sight, but I don’t have any regrets. A few years without games meant that I was able to focus on college applications, figure out my life, and actually get to where I am now.

Matt P and Dale have played a huge chunk of the new Dead Space and they’re very excited to tell you all about it and whether it’s a worthwhile remake. Speaking of remakes, we also go down the rabbit hole of what makes a good one, what their value is and games that we’d love to get the remake treatment. Mat J is also on the podcast and he tells us all about the latest horror film M3GAN.

Got a game for us to play or some feedback you’d like read out on the show? Why not email us: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast #680: Dead Space and Other Games We Want Remade

• IGN UK Podcast 679: The Last of Us is Very Good
• IGN UK Podcast #678: Wot We Did Over Christmas
• IGN UK Podcast 677: The Big 2023 Preview
• IGN UK Podcast 676: Alternative Game Awards 2022
• IGN UK Podcast 675: Alternative Movie & TV Awards 2022

Nintendo is planning to ramp up Switch production in the next fiscal year ahead of the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Nintendo has told suppliers and assembly partners that it plans to increase production in financial year 2023/2024, meaning from the beginning of April.

The increase in production is also a result of component shortages subsiding after two years, according to the sources, which finally lets Nintendo overcome supply constraints and produce as many consoles as the market demands.

The company admitted in August last year that these shortages were hurting sales, and while it is apparently open to revising its new production plans if they prove too ambitious, the previously reduced sales are largely attributed to the component shortages.

The increased production plans are somewhat unusual given how long the Switch has been on the market, however, as it’s now approaching its sixth year having originally launched in March 2017.

Tears of the Kingdom will likely create a spike in sales, however, given the success of its predecessor Breath of the Wild alongside Nintendo’s teasing of it since 2019.

In our 10/10 review of the original, IGN said: “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is evocative, exhilarating, and a masterclass in open-world design.”

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

Riot Games has laid off 46 employees amidst an ongoing wave of industry mass layoffs.

The League of Legends developer confirmed to journalist Jacob Wolf that it had eliminated the positions, which were largely concentrated in the company’s talent acquisition, recruiting, and publishing departments as well as a few roles in esports and support. Riot employs roughly 4,500 people globally.

As commonplace as it’s become to see big, bold speculations about a futuristic metaverse in games industry discussions, game developers themselves don’t seem too hot on the concept.

The 2023 State of the Game Industry survey has just been published, canvassing over 2,300 game developers for their situations and opinions on topics such as platform development, working conditions, and interest in technology. One of its more interesting questions this year was specifically about the metaverse:

“Which of these companies/platforms do you think is best placed to deliver on the promise of the metaverse concept?”

The platform that ultimately got the most votes was Epic Games’ Fornite with 14%, followed by Meta (Horizon Worlds) at 7% and Microsoft (Minecraft) also at 7%. Five percent of developers said Roblox, and even fewer brought up options like Google, Apple, Second Life, Sony, Tencent, Amazon, and VR Chat.

But nothing got anywhere near as many votes as an answer that isn’t a platform at all: “None – The metaverse concept will never deliver on its promise,” which took away 45% of the vote, up from 33% last year. So almost half of all game developers surveyed don’t think the metaverse promise is worth much at all.

Why?

While IGN doesn’t have access to all the survey answers, GDC and Game Developer did publish a handful of comments submitted by respondents that can help shed some light. In particular, the question “What does the metaverse need to become sustainable?” included a lengthy response from one survey taker that, per GDC, “seemed to represent the voices of a significant majority of respondents.” The response focused on the metaverse as a VR experience, noting that VR environments were currently missing levels of interactivity, affordability, control standardization, and hardware quality necessary to make the metaverse a reality.

The respondent also pointed out that even with all that, there still wasn’t a clear definition of what the metaverse was supposed to be.

“The ‘metaverse promise,’ as it stands, is nothing,” they wrote. “The people trying to sell it have no idea what it is, and neither do the consumers. Remember what happened, and keeps happening, with cloud gaming a decade ago?”

Other respondents’ comments noted that the metaverse already existed effectively, and companies just kept rebranding it, and one comment suggested it simply shouldn’t exist at all.

The metaverse has been discussed a great deal, certainly, and plenty of money has flowed in to make it happen in recent years. But companies like Meta have also lost a lot of that money as their bets have failed to pay off, leading even industry leaders to question whether or not the cost is worth it.

Alongside the metaverse question, the survey also asked developers about interests in other technology, such as blockchain. Seventy-five percent of respondents said they weren’t interested in it at all, and 56% were outright opposed to its use.

Additionally, developers were asked about workplace culture and policies. Sixteen percent said that their companies had facilitated changes to healthcare policies related to reproductive care in the last year in a question asked in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and nine percent said their companies had improved their trans-inclusive healthcare policies.

Working hours has always been a big topic in these surveys, too. In this year’s survey, 29% of respondents said they worked an average of 36-40 hours per week. 33% worked less on average, while 38% worked more. But when asked about the maximum hours per week they had worked in a single week, 46% said they had worked over 50, and 16% had worked over 70 hours in a single week.

Among reasons cited were self-pressure (74%), management pressure (14%), and peer pressure (11%), while 36% said they didn’t feel they worked excessively (54% of respondents did not report ever working more than 50 hours in a single week).

The full report is downloadable here and includes responses on other topics such as platform interest, and industry opinions on unionization and consolidation.

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

From its weapons to its bosses, stages to systems, January’s IGN First has been all about Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. So far, all of our footage has been from earlier stages of the game – but how does developer Team Ninja shake things up later in the game? What kind of weapons and Wizardry Spells can be learned and obtained? How can you evolve your character build? Do the stages become more difficult?

To answer such questions, let’s take a look at a playthrough by one of Team Ninja’s developers of mid-game stage Hulaoguan Pass.

Hulaoguan Pass is a site of many historical battles, in this case the clash between　dissidents led by Yuan Shao and Dong Zhuo, who had occupied China’s ancient capital Luoyang. Team Ninja has implemented this in Wo Long as a huge battle site with siege weapons that can be utilized by the player. Hulaoguan Pass is much wider than earlier stages and can be tackled in multiple ways. Break the front line and fight hordes of fierce enemies to reach General Hua Xiong, or make a detour and find your way in through the castle’s walls.

Both routes ultimately lead to an epic boss fight with mighty warlord Lu Bu. Will this high-spec player find their way to Lu Bu, and if so, will they be able to defeat the powerful Three Kingdoms warlord? Be sure to check it out.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is set to release on March 3 for PS5/PS4/Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One/PC and will be available on Xbox Game Pass day one. Be sure to check out our final preview, a gameplay video of the Tianzhushan area and our Aoye boss fight video, as well as a detailed article on the game’s weapons and an interview with the developer about designing the game’s bosses.

A few days ahead of visiting EA Motive for our Dead Space-focused IGN First, I played the original game for the first time since 2008. I only intended to play the first hour or so, but seven hours later I found myself still battling through the rusted corpse of the USG Ishimura. I always knew Dead Space was a modern classic, but I was surprised just how well it stood up all these years later. And so I headed to meet the developers with a slightly cynical mindset: what was the point of remaking something that remains so brilliant?

After playing the same seven hours of the remake, I think I may have been convinced. In many ways Dead Space is a purist’s remake; I’d estimate that around 85% of what I experienced was identical to the original game, just with vastly superior visuals. But it’s the other 15% that has me quietly wondering… could this remake genuinely be better than its progenitor?

Many of these changes are gameplay improvements, several of which are drawn directly from Dead Space 2. The zero gravity sequences now allow you to move freely in all directions, rather than hop from surface to surface. This obviously allows for a better sense of freedom, but segments redesigned around this ability are notably more interesting than their original counterpart. The centrifuge generator puzzle in chapter three is now a genuine spectacle, while the ADS cannon repair job has been completely changed to be a dangerous space walk that amps up the tension.

The 2011 sequel’s influence can be found in your weapons, too, which can now be fitted with a variety of special upgrades that alter their function. The Plasma Cutter, for instance, can be modded with an extended magazine and the ability to set foes alight for damage-over-time. The Ripper, meanwhile, can fire blades that ricochet around the room, allowing for trick shots.

Such modifications are found hidden around the ship, and so they act as encouragement to explore every room and store cupboard. But thanks to a new Security Clearance system, you’re initially locked out of many side locations you discover. As the story progresses you’re granted increasing levels of clearance, and so you can then backtrack through the now-seamless spaceship to open doors that were once forbidden. This interconnected design and backtracking turns the Ishimura into something closer to the Talos-1 station from Prey; a huge structure that feels like a genuine place rather than a series of video game levels. It’s an admirable direction, but I’ve yet to see exactly how well it’s used across the full campaign. My hope is that Motive has smartly weaved backtracking into the main missions and the newly-added side quests to allow for organic revisits of prior areas, rather than making backtracking a segregated chore.

Regardless of if you’re backtracking or making forward progress, Dead Space is full of horrifying necromorphs that threaten to rip you limb from limb. Much has already been made of the new ‘peeling system’ that rips the skin, fat, and muscle layers away from enemies with each new wound, but there’s more to this grotesque idea than just visceral visuals. Much like how protagonist Isaac Clarke has a health bar built directly into his suit, the necromorphs’ own bodies are now a visual representation of their health. This is never more obvious than when using the Force Gun, a weapon that has been completely overhauled for the remake. What was once simply a push-back weapon now rips the flesh off of enemies with a thunderous blast. The stripped down necromorphs can then be finished off with a more conventional weapon; their exposed bones ready to be snapped with just a round or two.

Talking of weapons, each one of Isaac’s lethally repurposed tools has been redesigned to encourage a new level of strategy. Dismemberment is still the main aim of every skirmish, but the flamethrower’s new alternate fire creates a wall of searing flame that can cordon off areas and manage crowds, while the Pulse Rifle’s new proximity mine works as both a trap and a makeshift grenade launcher. These are small changes, but I found the new secondary abilities to be much more useful than those in the original game, and they soon became a regular part of my combat routine.

My favourite change I’ve seen so far, though, are the Circuit Breakers. These occasional puzzles require you to reroute power to different machines, typically to open up locked doors. Each breaker box has a limited number of fuses and so powering up a door is done at the expense of powering down something else. In an early example this involved turning off an elevator I no longer needed, but in chapter three I was confronted with a much more intriguing sacrifice: to power up a refuel station I had to divert energy away from either the engineering deck’s lights or life support systems. It was a choice: should I stumble onwards in pitch-darkness and risk being ambushed by unseen threats, or navigate well-lit corridors while my air supply rapidly ran dry? It’s a smart way to combine challenge with player choice, and I hope this example is the first of many fiendish scenarios rather than a one-off occurrence.

Graphics aside, the most notable change right from minute one is the alterations to the script and storytelling. Once-silent protagonist Isaac can now speak, and while I do think this is largely unnecessary, he thankfully hasn’t been turned into an overly-chatty Sony character. Rather than quipping at everything, Isaac’s ability to respond anchors him into the horrifying situation in a realistic manner. Gunner Wright, the voice actor who brought Isaac to life in the sequels, reprises the role, and so once again there’s the sense that elements of Dead Space 2 are being retrofitted into the original.

Isaac’s new scripting is pretty good, but the best changes have been made to Kendra Daniels. Once an incredibly thorny character, she’s been transformed into a much more empathetic, friendly colleague for Isaac. For anyone who knows the final direction of Dead Space’s story, I think Daniels’ revised personality will work much better with her character arc (provided, of course, the story’s main plot beats remain intact.)

Talking of the story’s pathway, the church of Unitology – a religious sect and major player in the Dead Space universe – is introduced much earlier in this remake and in a far more organic manner. These characters know the church’s reputation and casually discuss it, even before they are aware that it will change their lives forever. It’s an approach I really appreciate, and I think the eventual plot reveals will be much more meaningful because of it.

Motive has made many smart changes to Dead Space, but it never shakes things up to the point of being unrecognisable. The result, at least across the first several chapters, is something that feels similar in philosophy to a director’s cut (albeit a director’s cut that’s completely re-filmed on brand new sets). This experience appears largely the same as the 2008 original, but honed and polished to a beautiful, gory finish. As such, this remake will likely work best for brand new players or the most dedicated Dead Space fans. As someone who loves the original game, I found what I played an absolute thrill. But for less invested fans the value is of a more questionable quantity, since even with the changes this is an incredibly similar experience. As such I don’t think Dead Space will be as essential and transformative as the Resident Evil 2 remake was. As the best possible way to play this landmark survival horror, though? I have near enough no doubt that Dead Space will succeed in that mission.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.

Trophies may not be for everyone, but for me and many others Trophy hunting is fun method of achieving that sweet, sweet 100% completion on a game. A much-deserved prize for doing everything there is to do. Lots of games have easy requirements for Platinum Trophies, and often certain quests or challenges associated with them will reward you with cool stuff for going the extra mile. But while collecting Trophies is mostly a lot of fun, sometimes one comes along that makes us question our choices in life. To those we say, “F This Trophy”.

This week’s ‘F this Trophy’ is the DMW Master Trophy from Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion. The DMW is a strange slot machine-style mechanic that constantly ticks over during battles, its three reels displaying the faces of characters you have met across the story. When those reels align and display three of the same character, it triggers a Limit Break; a powerful ability associated with that character.

The DMW Master Trophy requires you to achieve 100% completion for each of the 18 Limit Breaks in the game. Now you might be saying ‘Hey, Jada, that doesn’t sound so bad – Limit Breaks are awesome! Channeling Sephiroth’s Octaslash, Aerith’s Healing Wave, and all the other character’s special abilities in battle can help turn the tide, so you want to use them whenever possible.’

Yes, this is true. But in the case of this Trophy, I’m not chasing the actual limit breaks. I already have all 18 of them. Instead, I need to unlock each and every flashback memory associated with each Limit Break. These are cutscenes that trigger in the middle of the battle and call back to prior moments in the story. They’re kind of annoying as they slow down the action in a battle, which is a sin on its own, but that’s not what we are talking about today. The issue with this Trophy is that progress, rather than being awarded based on skill, time, or effort, is awarded based on random LUCK.

Each of the 18 Limit Breaks have six unique memories, but there’s no way of triggering specific ones. These memories are pulled from the story you have already witnessed, so you first must put in the work and complete the whole game to ensure that the DMW system can call on every single memory. But after that, it’s entirely out of your hands: the DMW rolls Limit Breaks at random, and then it will choose one of the memories at random. So to hit 100% completion on the DMW, you… just have to keep playing until it happens.

You can improve your odds to some degree. The Limit Break system is based on Luck; not just the real-world concept, but the in-game stat, too. Specialized materia and equipment you can equip to boost your Luck does help, but you are still ultimately at the mercy of unpredictable RNG.

Now I know there are a lot of people who may have better luck than me when it comes to this Trophy, but it took me 12 hours (12 hours!) to get it. I hit a point where I only needed two more flashback memories to get the Trophy, and so I left my game running in a level one mission, letting enemies shoot me in the face, in the hope that the right Limit Breaks and the right memories would roll up on the DMW. I left for a birthday party, went out for dinner, came home, played a couple of missions of Mario Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, and then picked Crisis Core back up. I still hadn’t gotten the two final flashbacks I needed. Like, what the hell?

You may ask what made this Trophy worth getting. Well, aside from being one more Trophy closer to the Platinum, DMW Master also unlocks the Genji Armor, which happens to be one of the best pieces of gear ever dispensed by a glorified slot machine.

Before any of you in the comments come for me saying that you got this Trophy faster or easier, I’m happy that you didn’t have as many issues as I did. I love Final Fantasy games and have been asking for a Crisis Core remake since the PS4 released. It is still one of my favorite PSP games of all times. And I’m sure some in the comments will say I just didnt know what I was doing. But this is my second time going through the game, I had maxed out Luck, was optimized with two mastered materias for Cissnei to increase the chances of my slots lining up, and had mastered materias to improve the odds of getting the character Limit Breaks I needed to show up. Just keep in mind the real kicker is that even if the DMW triggers a Limit Break, there is no guarantee you get a flashback, and then if you do get a flashback, there’s no guarantee it’s the one you need.

So F This Trophy, Crisis Core, and F random number generators.