Believe it or not, the early signs of the holiday shopping season have already arrived. To that effect, like clockwork, Nintendo has brought back the annual Black Friday bundle it has released each year for what seems like all of human history. However, this time there’s a new edition! You can now purchase a Nintendo Switch: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Bundle for $299.99 (see it at Best Buy), or a version with the Switch OLED for $349.99 (see it at Best Buy). For those keeping track, the OLED bundle is new for Black Friday 2024. Let’s look at the details.
Where to Buy the Nintendo Switch: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Bundles
These bundles offer a $79.98 discount versus buying all of the items individually at regular price. That’s a great deal for anyone in the market for a Switch.
What Comes in the Switch Bundles?
Nintendo Switch or Switch OLED Model
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (digital code)
12-Month Individual Nintendo Switch Online Membership
Buy either of the bundles, and you’ll get a Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch OLED console. You’ll also get a digital download code for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which, despite its age (the original version came out on the Wii U in 2014), remains one of the best racing games ever made in my opinion.
What’s the Difference Between the Standard Switch and Switch OLED?
The only difference between the bundles is the model of Switch that’s included. If you’re wondering which one to get, the quick and easy advice is this: if you plan to play games in handheld mode often, get the OLED. If not, go with the standard Switch.
The OLED model is better in a number of ways, but they’re all related to playing games in handheld mode. At 7 inches, it has a larger display than the standard model’s 6.2 inch screen. The OLED display is noticeably brighter and offers much richer colors than the standard model. It also has true blacks, with no backlight shining through. And the kickstand on the OLED model is much sturdier.
What About the Nintendo Switch 2?
If you’re hesitant to buy a Switch while rumors of the next Nintendo console swirl, you have good reason to hold off. It’s possible the Switch successor will be backwards compatible, letting you play all of your original Switch games. However, Nintendo has signaled the Switch 2 won’t come out until April 2025 at the earliest.
So if you want to play Nintendo games before then, you’ll need a Switch. And these bundles are the best deals you’re likely to find on current-generation hardware.
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Threads.
After ten years, we’re now just a little over a month away from playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I played a hefty seven hours of BioWare’s first original game since Anthem in 2019 and fourth mainline installment in the Dragon Age series, starting with the prologue and later loaded into several different saves. As a longtime fan, what I’ll say is ten years is a very long time but so far, The Veilguard hasn’t disappointed.
Getting Into Character
Now, I could talk to you about the combat (and I will) or the gorgeous locales (that’s coming too) or the way it felt to see Varric and Solas again. Or I could skip straight to the character creator and start with: There’s. So. Much. Hair. Look, I loved Dragon Age: Inquisition, but fans have long acknowledged the limitations of its character creator. The Veilguard blew me away in that regard. After the lackluster options of the last entry, it’s wild to see what we’ve got to look forward to. Thirty hair options for Qunari and 88 for non-Qunari, complete with gorgeous physics as Rook scurries through Northern Thedas. So many different hair textures are represented, whether you’d like totally straight hair, 2B waves or 4C curls. In making my character, I was drawn immediately to a long braid that whipped around as quickly as I did.
Qunari horns also see a massive improvement. With 49 unique styles, options range from large and imposing to decorative or even asymmetrical. That said, yes, their foreheads can look pretty jarring. I played as a Qunari mage during most of my preview and will say I got used to the look pretty quickly. Drago n Age: The Veilguard actually only marks the second game of the series where you can play as a Qunari, so the odd imbalance of forehead versus face feels like stylistic growing pains. I remain curious about whether more time with the character creator might help. The Arishok of Dragon Age 2 is, in my opinion, such a beautifully crafted model and I would love to be able to create a Qunari Rook that feels as memorable.
Every aspect of your Rook is editable, even allowing for facial asymmetry if you choose.
Customization certainly doesn’t stop at hair (or horns) of course. Every aspect of your Rook is editable, even allowing for facial asymmetry if you choose. Sliders allow you to change everything from head shape to the melanin in your skin to the presence of vitiligo. Perhaps my favorite addition, however, is the introduction of body diversity. Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 had whiffs of this, but nowhere near what you’re capable of in The Veilguard, which is much more similar to the breadth of the character creator in Dragon’s Dogma 2. For each of the four races, there are plenty of presets to choose from, all with varying heights and muscle/fat distribution. Once you’ve chosen your preset, however, you can build further upon those elements as much as you’d like.
First is a triangulation of coordinates allowing for many unique combinations of body types that are thinner, larger, or more muscular. Height sliders are fun – especially when it means watching my particularly short elf ruin years of Solas’ ritual planning by pushing over a statue. The options feel almost endless. There’s even a glute slider and, yes, I gave my Rook one hell of an ass. All of this is only scratching the surface. I haven’t even gotten into facial hair, makeup, scars or tattoos. As an elf, my Rook sported` some vallaslin, but there are so many different designs for both the face and the body to experiment with.
While I didn’t spend very much time exploring customization for the Inquisitor, I just know we’ll all get the chance to make them in the way we’ve always imagined. Also, it may be a relief to some of you to know that Veilguard abandons the awful green lighting of Inquisition’s character creator and instead allows you to cycle through several lighting options in service of creating Rooks that look just as good in gameplay as they do when you create them.
Fighting Chance
Combat, meanwhile, was a refreshing change from DA:I. My go-to class has always been mage, and even as a Knight-Enchanter I often felt like I was standing in one place holding down the left trigger. This felt like a return to the pace of DA2, with innovations that improve upon the experience of battle overall. The Veilguard introduces a new fighting style for mages featuring an orb and dagger tailored for close-quarters combat. It’s tailor-made for players like me who love magic but, also, really like to stab.
Combat was a refreshing change from Dragon Age: Inquisition.
During my preview, I played through the prologue and then dropped forward into various points of Act 1, so I really got to quickly experience the progression Rook and their companions can go through as fighters. We may not be able to take control of our companions this time around, but The Veilguard really encourages strategizing with them. They’ll call out to you when they’ve rebuilt their mana or stamina, and the ability wheel even suggests combos. My focus during the event was mission-driven so I didn’t get as much of a chance to interact with the characters as I would have liked, but even the brief moments of banter endeared me to them pretty quickly.
Each class gets its own ultimate ability (think the Focus ability) along with a ranged attack – for warriors that means yeeting your shield like a giant metal boomerang. I’ve always played Dragon Age for story and not combat, but with this new system I had so much fun. I felt present during every encounter and truly accomplished after every boss battle. That said, there’s definitely a bit of a learning curve. I still found myself confusing controls a few hours in. It’s a departure from all three previous installments, but luckily The Veilguard offers five different difficulty levels that you can change at will if you want to ease yourself in.
The Dragon Age-Free Decade Ends Soon
As a longtime fan, The Veilguard felt like a homecoming of sorts. Just as much as seeing familiar faces in Solas and Varric, I was overjoyed to be back in the world of Thedas itself. Moving us north allows for that sense of discovery I got in Inquisition, and if I’d encourage anything it’s to really look at your surroundings. Not only are there small environmental puzzles to untangle along with small and effective moments of visual storytelling, but the horizon is full of breathtaking scenery that drives home the scale of these locations I’ve personally always wondered about. One new locale, for instance, is a gorgeous underwater prison called the Ossuary. I won’t spoil what you’re there to do, but the design alone makes it one of the most memorable moments I’ve had in any Dragon Age game.
Even after hours of gameplay, I still felt like I could have played for many hours more. I’m optimistic about The Veilguard and excited for it in a way I haven’t quite felt about another game in quite some time. If you’d like to see even more of the game, check out our exclusive IGN First coverage, which features even more gameplay and deep dives on Rook’s companions.
The Dragon Ball Tenkaichi series is one that meant a lot to me as a teenager and young adult – which was about the peak of my obsession with Dragon Ball Z – but it’s also one that I haven’t really thought about or touched in the last 15 or so years. Fast forward to the present, and after about three hours of hands-on time with Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, it felt like I was hit with a spirit bomb of nostalgia as I once again got back in there, chaining together rapid movement teleports, bouncing my foes like ping pong balls between multiple vanishing attacks, and kicking them away with so much force that they destroy mountains. It was like reuniting with a dear old friend, and yet, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero feels like much more than just a nostalgia play. It’s packed with new mechanics, a brand new approach to story mode, and a host of other exciting features that I only got a taste of, but I’m excited to dig more into once it comes out next month.
The first two hours of my hands-on time was spent on freeplay. I used a large chunk of this time to refamiliarize myself with the Tenkaichi style of gameplay by hitting up Sparking Zero’s exhaustive tutorial mode, which covers all of the many many mechanics present here. There are Vanishing Assaults, Vanishing Attacks, Lightning Attacks, Burst Smashes, Dragon Smashes, high guards, low guards, high speed evasion counters, perception counters, super counters, z-counters, and so on. It’s a lot to take in for sure, but it all serves to enhance the depth of the combat, and most importantly, deliver on the power trip of controlling some of the most powerful characters throughout all of anime. Sure, I might not NEED to know how to knock an enemy away, vanish behind them, drill them into the ground, and then pick them back up and hurl them away like a ragdoll – there are other, simpler ways to get just as much damage, if not more – but doing stuff like that feels so incredibly cool, and to me, that’s what the Tenkaichi series is all about.
Once I was back up to speed on the combat and mechanics, I decided to check out one of Sparking Zero’s big new modes outside of its story mode: Custom Battles. It lets you create, share, and play out your own fantasy Dragon Ball fight scenarios – complete with options to create an intro cutscene, a title card, mid-match triggers, and outro cutscenes that cover what happens when you win, and when you lose. There’s even a Mario Maker-style rule to it, where in order to share your Custom Battle with other players, you need to be able to prove that it’s possible by beating it yourself.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to craft my own battle to the degree that I would have wanted, so I opted instead to see what the mode was capable of by trying out some pre-made battles that were prepped by the developers. And to my delight, they were a lot of fun, with a great variety of different types of fights. Some were simply based around the idea of pitting certain characters against each other: like a battle of speed demons that had you controlling Burter as you faced off against Kakunsa and Hit. Another had you as Kid Goku going up against Master Roshi to relive one of their training sessions, and forcingforced you to win the fight specifically with whatever move Roshi calls out.by using a Kamehameha.
Custom Battles have great potential as a sandbox for creative players to come up with and share exciting fights that go far beyond the limits of Dragon Ball’s canon.
My favorite, though, had me playing as a weak and underpowered Captain Ginyu against an appropriately overpowered Frieza. My only hope for victory was using Ginyu’s ultimate technique, the body-change beam, to swap bodies with Frieza and then easily finish the fight. Easier said than done, as whenever I tried to power up to be able to use the move, Frieza would hit me with an instant-kill death beam. So I had to engage with Frieza in combat just enough to be able to charge my meter, knock him away, and then use that time to charge up into Sparking Mode so I could look for an opening to land the attack. It was a surprisingly tense and refreshingly unique battle, and a great showing of the potential that this mode has as a sandbox for creative players to come up with and share exciting fights that go far beyond the limits of Dragon Ball’s canon.
On the Next Episode of Dragon Ball Z
After the time for freeplay was up, I got a chance to check out a handful of Episode Battles, which collectively make up Sparking Zero’s story mode. Dragon Ball’s story has been told an ungodly number of times at this point across pretty much all forms of media, but what makes Sparking Zero’s interpretation especially cool is how it gives you multiple opportunities to do things differently from how they’re supposed to go. Right from the start of Goku’s episode battle, when Raditz takes Gohan away and Goku and Piccolo give chase, you actually don’t have to join forces with Piccolo. You’re given the option to instead go it alone, and if you do that, then you’ll be joined by Krillin and fight Raditz in a battle with a completely different outcome.
That’s not all either. Even if you decide to play it by the canon and team up with Piccolo, if you manage to defeat Raditz before Piccolo is able to charge his attack, you’ll be met with a special fully animated and voiced “Sparking Episode” that plays out this “what if” scenario of Goku surviving his encounter with Raditz, getting to train Gohan himself, and being there right when the Saiyans arrive on Earth.
Producer Jun Furutani told me that when selecting the battles that they wanted to highlight in Episode Mode, they wanted to focus on the battles that highlighted the playable characters the best in the story, but they also wanted to put a focus on battles that could potentially lead to branching outcomes.
I followed up and asked Furutani about how substantial these branches could be, to which he replied, “It’s a really hard question to answer because depending on which branch we’re talking about, it could skew very in a completely different direction. But some branches might just go back to the actual canonical route again. For example, when you fight Raditz, there’s some smaller branches that have been there, but it takes you back to the canonical route. And obviously after Raditz is Vegeta and after Vegeta is Frieza. Some of them are just blips, some of them kind of take you in a very drastically different direction.”
And while there are eight characters that make up Sparking Zero’s Episode Battle mode, they do seem to vary wildly in terms of length. I played 30 minutes of Goku’s and only got through the Saiyan saga; 30 minutes of Frieza’s only got me to the final battle against Super Saiyan Goku; and then 30-45 minutes of Future Trunks’ story from Dragon Ball Super pretty much finished it all up right there. Still, I’m very much looking forward to diving into all of these at launch and seeing if I can find all of the hidden “what if” moments myself. It’s worth mentioning too that they’re not easy to trigger. The fights themselves are already pretty tough, and to try and accomplish specific added challenges on top of that makes it seem like these are meant as rewards for the most dedicated players – doubly so because you can’t actually trigger these scenes if you lower the difficulty.
Beyond the Custom and Episode Battle modes, I also messed around with the tournament mode, which allows you to participate in one of many different types of tournaments, each with different rule sets. The Tournament of Power, for example, has you competing on the Tournament of Power stage with flight turned off and ringouts as an alternate win condition; Cell Games is a strictly 1v1 affair with no rules, but you only regain 20% of your life between fights; and Yamcha Games is straight chaos with random rules and random character selection. You can also create your own tournament and customize your very own set of rules as well.
And then finally there’s the encyclopedia mode, which I got to exclusively check out for a few minutes. It’s a returning feature from Tenkaichi 3, but instead of just having Chichi giving commentary on a character, this time you get Chichi, Bulma, and Videl all gossiping about the cast and giving their own little insights. The little bits I got to listen to were all very amusing, like the girls commentating on how ugly Goku becomes when he transforms into his Super Saiyan 3 form, or how Garlic Jr. looks like a roided-out Emperor Pilaf.
My relatively short time with Sparking Zero rekindled my love for the Budokai Tenkaichi games and was a much needed reminder that arena fighters can excite and thrill just as much as traditional 2D and 3D fighters can. The attention to detail here is phenomenal; the combat definitely has a learning curve, but is packed full of depth that is very satisfying to learn and engage with; and its story looks to provide a ton of flexibility in how it tells the tale of Dragon Ball. We’ll see how its final form turns out when Dragon Ball Sparking Zero releases next month on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
In 2020, Microsoft Flight Simulator gave us the world. In 2024, Microsoft Flight Simulator is letting us live in it. I was at the preview event for MSFS 2020 back in September 2019 and I couldn’t believe what I had seen, and after playing it for several hundred hours over the last four years, I was having a hard time imagining what a new version could add that would bring the same sense of awe I had the first time I experienced the world at my fingertips. After my first time playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, though, I’m honestly more excited for MSFS 2024 than I was after my initial hands-on with the 2020 game five years ago.
Everything MSFS currently does well has been improved for 2024. Load times, weather effects, the physics of your aircraft – there’s just so much more now. Even the ground, which you are very much not supposed to see a lot of, has had its realism cranked up massively. MSFS 2024 took the literal globe-spanning scope of its predecessor and zeroed in on making it feel closer to the actual planet upon which we all live and breathe.
Not Just a Job: A Career
Career mode is easily the biggest addition to MSFS 2024, and it arose directly from community feedback. Simmers asked for structured challenges in MSFS, and career mode was a natural fit.
“Very soon after the launch, we did several surveys,” Asobo Studio Chief Creative Office David Dedeine said, “and what was amazing about them is everyone across the board, from super hard-core simmers to what we call digital tourists” were asking for “more purpose and goals.”
The defining mode of the new MSFS 2024 experience was originally proposed for MSFS 2020, but for a slew of reasons, it never made it into the final sim. But the seed of career mode goes back even further. Deidene said he recently found a development document from 2017 that was one of the earliest mentions of the concept.
“But we had to focus on 2020 first,” he said, noting that the early survey gave the team the proof they needed to move forward with career mode. “Everybody wants to do this. We wanted to do it. Let’s go for it.”
Career mode is much more open than I had anticipated.
Career mode is much more open than I had anticipated. There’s no pinned coordinate on the map to start your journey. You build your avatar and start at any airport in the entire world. You meet your mentor and take off on a familiarization flight. Deidene promised the openness of the mode means you can “basically play an infinite number of times.”
The interface itself is familiar to anyone who’s been gaming for any period of time: it looks like the traditional skill-tree you might find in a Spider-Man game, for example, but it tracks your aviation certifications. You’re not spending skill points to unlock a super power, but you are spending in-game credits you earn while doing jobs as an aviator. Getting your certification requires proving yourself before you’re eligible to take an exam. That examination costs “money,” earned doing jobs for your chosen career path and getting evaluated.
For example, you might be a private pilot tasked with taking a mother and her son from Aspen to LAX. A smooth flight and subsequent landing will impress your customers, and how much you earn is based on your abilities and evaluations from the simulated customers. Not only is that in-game currency system tied to your exam fees, but you can also use it to buy your own airplanes and hangars, hire your own staff, and move from apprentice to master. I’m already planning out my world-spanning commercial airline, and so far I haven’t taken a single flight in career mode. And that’s just one option! There are options for air rescue careers, racing, agriculture, and more.
It was a lot of fun and dammit if I can’t wait to race in the final game.
If you’d rather gamify the sim experience without pouring yourself into career mode, there’s a new challenge league. Challenges are something that’s not entirely new to MSFS: since the launch of 2020, there have been landing challenges as well as challenges tied into Top Gun: Maverick and Dune: Part Two. What’s new in 2024 is the specific challenge league. Every week, three new challenges are introduced, and you compete against the rest of the community for clout on the leaderboards. Scores designate what level you compete at, from bronze to gold, and each is designed to last between two and three minutes.
I tried the F/A-18 Hornet race through the Grand Canyon during my hands-on with MSFS 2024, and what I really loved about it was how, in spite of the challenge itself being somewhat fanciful (I don’t think the DoD or the National Park Service would appreciate the noise and danger posed), the flight model remains the same. The simulation of the aircraft hasn’t been tuned for a more “arcade-like” experience. You have to complete the challenges given all the aerodynamics, handling, and physics found in the greater sim. I was unable to unseat the winner from his world-record pace, but to be fair, he had an aircraft-appropriate flight stick and I was racing with a yoke. Regardless, it was a lot of fun and dammit if I can’t wait to race in the final game with my Thrustmaster flight stick and throttle.
New Airplanes Galore
As was the case with MSFS 2020, there multiple versions with different levels of content that will be available when MSFS 2024 releases: standard, deluxe, premium deluxe and aviator. The standard version alone will have 30 new aircraft, from helicopters to a personal VTOL, hot air balloons, helicopters, and more. The high-end aviator edition ships with 125 new aircraft and 160 new aiports. And all versions have upgraded versions of MSFS 2020 airplanes and airports.
One of my all-time favorites, the A-10 Warthog, is coming to the standard edition. I took some time to fly one from its home base at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona and was really impressed with how it feels and flies, as well as the level of detail in Davis-Monthan’s famous aircraft boneyard, a monstrous graveyard of decommissioned airplanes inside the base.
I pumped my fist and said “yes!” when they revealed the C-17 is coming to MSFS 2024.
The deluxe and premium deluxe editions include more planes and more airports, and are totally optional, but I pumped my fist and said “yes!” audibly during the presentation when they revealed the C-17 Globemaster is coming to MSFS 2024. I’ve never flown one before, but I’ve been inside of them during my time in the Air Force and they’ve always held a special place in my heart, so I’m really looking forward to finally sitting in the cockpit and recreating my 2001 flight from Bahrain to the Azores and then from the Azores back to US shores. The one plane I had hoped to see, the Lockheed C-130, was not shown, but I’m extremely hopeful that Lockheed-Martin will eventually realize how beneficial it is to me, personally, to have their plane available as an official sim asset.
From the Ground, Up
When I say everything has been improved upon, it doesn’t really do justice to the scale at which MSFS 2024 builds on its predecessor. For one thing, as I mentioned earlier, the ground has been massively overhauled for MSFS 2024. The detail on the ground in any given area has increased 4,000 times over 2020. What that means for you and I is basically a lot of places we can land in now in MSFS 2020 aren’t going to, uh… fly… in MSFS 2024.
Detail on the ground in any given area has increased 4,000 times.
As an example of just how much of a difference the new ground modeling makes, Asobo Studio CEO and co-founder Sebastian Wloch showed us a small hill at the end of a runway as it currently appears in MSFS 2020. It has the contours of a skate ramp, something you could almost certainly roll up fairly easily if one were so inclined. He then showed us the same location in MSFS 2024. That gentle bowl shape was now littered with uneven knobs and protrusions, looking more like a partially-covered rock formation than a smooth and even surface. In other words, if you tried to roll over it, you’d almost certainly do a whole lot of damage to your aircraft.
Because of the new level of detail afforded by the MSFS 2024 engine, landings now need to be more purposeful. Soon the days of landing the Boeing 747 in a random field will be but a memory, because in addition to the surface modeling bringing rougher and more realistic terrain to MSFS 2024, the ground itself will react more realistically.
Snow, mud, even grass will show wheel marks if you roll through it, and if you try and land a massive aircraft on a muddy river bank, it’s going to react in the way you’d probably expect it to: not well. This rougher terrain will even affect your aircraft. We saw a brief glimpse of a bush plane with its over-sized tires caked with mud. I wanted to know if that was just an illustration or an expected behavior, so I asked Wlong if mud really sticks to your tires. “Oh yes,” he confirmed.
“The planes will wear and tear. They’ll get dirty.”
“The planes will wear and tear. They’ll get dirty,” Wlong continued. “The way you fly or hard landings, the way you brake, these things will impact the systems and instantly affect performance.” As an example, Wlong explained the braking system in MSFS 2024: “We simulate carbon or metal brakes. They both react completely differently to braking.
Carbon is more efficient hot, metal brakes are less efficient hot.” Depending on which your plane has, you need to brake differently. “Basically, the temperature is going to build up during your braking,” Wlong continued, and the more they’re used, “the more they wear, the less efficient they get.”
This means there are both short and long-term impacts to your aircraft, and not just on the brakes. “We have that for tires, for engines, for many things,” in MSFS 2024. “Over time, the quality of your flying, hard landings, stuff like that is going to affect the aircraft.” But fear not, you won’t have to watch your favorite plane deteriorate over the next several years. You can repair the problems. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to ask if this feature can be toggled on or off, but given how attentive the team at Asobo has been to satisfying the needs of the hardcore simmers and the “digital tourists,” I’d be surprised if shutting it off wasn’t an option. We’ll see when the final sim comes out in November.
The Winds of Change
Another massive overhaul in 2024 is the physics system. To demonstrate, the team showed us the effects of rotor wash and wake turbulence. In real life, when an airplane takes off, it moves a lot of air. That air doesn’t magically return to normal once the plane lifts off, it leaves a trail of rough air behind it known as wake turbulence. If you’ve ever wondered why planes don’t just take off one right after another in rapid succession, wake turbulence is the answer. That unstable air can, and sadly has, led to disaster. In Flight Sim 2024, every aircraft has a path of wake turbulence behind it, and not only that, the wake turbulence is affected by the ambient weather. At an airport with two runways parallel to one another, for example, a cross-wind can push the turbulence from one runway to the other, and in MSFS 2024 that behavior is also present.
Helicopters suffer from an enormous downrush of air known as rotor wash – fast moving turbulent air generated from the lift of the helicopter’s spinning blades. We were shown a demonstration of this effect in the sim using simulated smoke and a hovering helicopter. It swirled and bellowed realistically, sometimes enveloping the helicopter almost entirely before unpredictably whooshing away and coming back. This, and the wake turbulence of a helicopter underway, are part of the updated simulation engine in MSFS 2024.
“Someone suggested that we plug the wake turbulence onto big boats,” Wloch said, meaning chasing down a container ship or cruise liner in a helicopter would introduce a new and realistically challenging condition. That feature won’t be in MSFS 2024 when it releases “but it’s coming,” he said.
Which is awesome because the team has integrated real-world ship tracking into MSFS 2024 using readily-available transponder data. I took a flight around my home airport in Maine and had forgotten that a rather large cruise ship was anchored in the harbor nearest to my house. I remembered once I saw it sitting in the exact location in the sim as it was in real life at that very moment. The ship transponder data is updated in the sim every 30 seconds, which meant I was able to fly over the Maine State Ferry Service ferry from the island on which I used to live. Right on time.
Water physics have also been improved.
Water physics have also been improved, which will affect take-off and landing distances for seaplanes and other craft capable of landing on the water. The MSFS 2024 team doesn’t yet have a solution to realistically pitch big ships, so you won’t be able to practice your carrier landings in the F/A-18 Hornet in pitching seas quite yet, but given how much and how often MSFS is updated, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.
How It All Ties Together
Every helipad on the planet is now in MSFS 2024. That’s over 80,000, a number that includes all 941 off-shore oil rigs. The team also called, or wrote, to every glider airport in the entire world and created the first database to track them. Tall structures that pose an aviation hazard have what’s known as an “OB”, “obstruction light” on the top. You know those red lights you see on radio towers? Those are OB lights. MSFS 2024 has modeled over a million of them now, all across the planet.
Every helipad on the planet is now in MSFS 2024. That’s over 80,000.
“Flight Sim always wanted to have all of Earth as real as it gets,” head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jörg Neumann told me during the event.
The quest for realism in MSFS 2024 and its predecessor has not only been one of the defining features of the franchise since 2020, but its vast data is making an impact internally, within Microsoft itself.
“It’s just knowledge that gets shared” around the company. I asked him if this means something like the Forza team.
“Absolutely,” he replied.
“I think we reinvigorated Bing.”
“I think we reinvigorated Bing,” he said of how the MSFS commitment to realism has most paid off for the company as a whole.
“I had an interesting phone call with Bill Gates where he said, ‘you took two franchises that were sort of on the downtrend,'” –Microsoft Flight Simulator and Bing search– “‘and you put them both back up on the uptrend.'”
“When we make trees, Bing gets our trees,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m flying to Brazil. Do you want those cities?’ OK, here’s the Brazilian cities. What else do you want?” Neumann said every piece of data they get, they share back with the Bing team, or at least what the Bing team will accept. “Obstacles like power lines…do they need that in Bing? No, but it’s not bad for Bing. It’s actually kind of good because it’s a richer experience.”
It’s not just the aircraft and the physical world they inhabit that’s had its realism ratcheted up from MSFS 2020. People and animals, too, have been revisited and improved with an eye towards recreating the world as accurately as possible.
People are dressed in clothes and styles matching their countries of origin.
People are dressed in clothes and styles matching their countries of origin. They speak in the language of their home countries. Flying from the US to Finland on a commercial plane? Walk through the cabin: you’ll hear both English and Finnish being spoken by the passengers.
Neumann, who has a supervising producer credit on 2013’s Zoo Tycoon and a degree in biology, has a soft-spot for animals and wants to make sure they’re also being more realistically simulated in MSFS 2024. “I really didn’t like the implementation of the animal flights in 2020,” he admitted. “It really bothered me, it was like, ‘Hey, find the elephants!’ and there’s a stick in the UI and there’s three sad-looking elephants.
“There’s an open source database that has all wild species, extinct and living, and it has distribution maps with density over time,” Neumann continued. Asobo is drawing from that database to make sure animals are exactly where they’re supposed to be, and that they have the correct population densities. In different locations throughout the year, “you will find different stuff, but also they’re migrating,” so where you spot a herd of wildebeests or caribou one day might not be the same place you find them the next.
Animal behavior is also closer to reality, not just where to find them. Hovering over rural Australia in a helicopter and you spot a herd of sheep? Go ahead and herd them with your helicopter. That’s just old-fashioned Aussie fun, mate. Neumann stopped short of saying exactly how many animal species are coming to MSFS 2024 when it releases in November, but he did say it will be “a lot.”
“I want to do butterflies. I wanted people to get out of the plane and do butterfly collections and stuff.”
“I want to do butterflies. I wanted people to get out of the plane and do butterfly collections and stuff,” he said. While that isn’t yet an official part of the MSFS 2024 experience, “something like that people can do with SDK,” or the software development kit.
A Learning Experience
Of course, animals and virtual people are amazing additions to bolster the realism, but MSFS 2024 in all its modes is ultimately about the experience of aviation. When MSFS 2020 came out, there was a worldwide shortage of 800,000 pilots.
“I can really tell you that the aviation industry is in an open crisis,” Neumann said. “It’s not that well discussed.
“They need pilots to be trained up from a younger age,” he added, and building the real-deal simulators can cost as much as $40 million. But thanks to the popularity of MSFS 2020–Asobo said they have over 15 million simmers–people are able to approach aviation from their living rooms on their Xbox and then move up from there. This ease at which people can get acquainted with flying, and the detail at which they can experience it, means aircraft companies are more than happy to work with Asobo and the Flight Simulator team.
“All of them with one exception has called us and said, ‘Please help us with recruitment,’ like we need to get people in.” Neumann said. This two-way relationship helps not only with an industry struggling to meet the demand for pilots, but it also helps MSFS become a better and more realistic experience. “When I say, ‘Hey, I need help from you guys,’ they’re like ‘You got it.'”
This constant improvement to the simulation from the aircraft manufacturers coupled with the community feedback means tutorials are out.
“This whole thing of tutorials going bye-bye? I kind of love it,” he admitted, saying he wasn’t a fan of the tutorials in MSFS 2020. “I fly a fair bit, but not like jets and stuff in the real world. So I had to take those tutorials and I didn’t really retain any of it.” The philosophy now is rather than rote tutorials, MSFS 2024 “is a way to really plug you into a path that is a real world path of aviation.” Career mode in particular will teach people a lot through the experience of doing, rather than through the traditional check-list-like system already in place with MSFS 2020’s tutorials. “I took them, I did them, I don’t remember it,” Neumann said about the original tutorials.
“I think we’re doing a better job helping people become aviators in the real world. I think that’s cool because it’s the only game I ever made any kind of real world connection [with].”
I was able to take on some of this training on piloting a helicopter. I’ve never really gotten the hang of it in MSFS2020, but Microsoft had a complete control set-up in place at the preview, accurate to what you’d find in an actual helicopter training class. Now, as was the case with 2020, you don’t NEED to have all the gear to learn to fly. I personally recommend getting whatever you can and building up, but if you have nothing more than an Xbox controller or just a mouse and keyboard, you can jump right into the lessons. It’s a very traditional route to learn to fly, but the new career mode gives stakes to this experience. “Why am I learning to hover? Oh right, because I need to swing a scaffolding into place with my sky crane later on in my career.”
Heavy Loads
Even with all the upgrades to the graphics and physics, MSFS 2024 promises to be a lighter experience on your hard drive than MSFS 2020 currently is. If you’ve ever changed the drive location of MSFS, or had to re-download it, you know the pain of pulling down hundreds of gigs of data. Even the major updates are 20-30 gigs, and sometimes it feels like half the hours I’ve spent in MSFS have been either updates or load times.
MSFS 2024 promises to be a lighter experience on your hard drive than MSFS 2020.
Thankfully, MSFS 2024 addresses these problems with cloud streaming. If you’re not going to fly around the whole world, why do you need to download it all? Same with airplanes: if you tend to only fly one or two, there’s no reason to have the entire fleet living on your drive. The updated cloud system means you only download the data you need. The rolling cache, as well as the physics, are on your local client, so the lift on your data is much lower. Great news for people with slow internet speeds, bandwidth caps, or anyone who might be running low on storage space.
Graphically, it’s really hard to say authoritatively just how much of an improvement it will be on my personal computer, but I can say, on the monster machines at the preview event, the level of realism massively exceeds MSFS 2020. I flew the Grand Canyon races multiple times chasing that world record, and the level of detail is astounding. I’ve flown biplanes into the Canyon in MSFS 2020 and the difference between the two is almost like the difference between PS1 and PS4. Whereas before there were smooth walls with textures approximating the rocky cliff walls, in MSFS 2024 those cliff walls look like actual rocks. The details, the shadows, the way it all moves and changes in the lighting, it’s fantastic. Even though I’m not running a top-end gaming rig, I’m really looking forward to seeing how it runs for 2024.
Is It November Yet?
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 officially releases in November, and for me, a person who spent a lot of the pandemic (and the years since) obsessed with Flight Simulator and aviation as a whole, it cannot come soon enough. I am suitably impressed with what I saw, and I didn’t think they’d be able to improve on MSFS 2020 much more than an iterative update, but this is a reimagining of the entire franchise. Everything good… is better now, and everything new looks awesome and fun. I can’t wait to build my fleet of world-dominating commercial aircraft, rescue hikers stranded on the sides of mountains, and just fly the same flight path off the coast of Maine I’ve flown a million times before. I’m more excited about 2024 than I was about 2020, and from me, the guy who gave Flight Simulator 2020 a 10 out of 10 review score, that’s saying something.
New Xbox Series X and S Models Are Up For Preorder
Two new variants of Xbox Series X are currently up for preorder alongside a new 1TB Series S. If you’re interested in picking one of these up, the fancy 2TB Galaxy Black Series X will set you back $599.99, the 1TB All-Digital Robot White Xbox Series X can be preordered for $449.99, and the 1TB Robot White Xbox Series S goes for $349.99. They’re all set to release on October 15.
Best Xbox Game Pass Deals
One of our favorite Xbox Game Pass Ultimate deals has returned at Woot, providing another opportunity for users to stack their membership at a discounted rate. You can get three months of the service for just $36.49, which is a great price on its own, but by using the code ‘ULTIMATE‘ at checkout you can knock off an extra $3 to bring it to $33.49. This price won’t stick around for long, so act fast to secure your membership.
Xbox’s summer showcase was a home run, with one of the best presentations of upcoming games on the Xbox ecosystem in quite some time. This included titles like Black Ops 6, Doom: The Dark Ages, Perfect Dark, Fable, Gears of War: E-Day, and plenty more that will be coming to Game Pass in the future. As for September, here’s what’s in the Xbox Game Pass September Wave 2 lineup:
Wargroove 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – September 19 Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
Frostpunk 2 (PC) – September 20 Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
Save On Select Xbox Controllers at Lenovo and Amazon
If you’re looking to save on an Xbox controller, there are quite a few deals worth checking out right now. Our favorite at the moment is at Lenovo, where you can score the Carbon Black Xbox controller for just $39, about 30% off its MSRP. That’s not the only deal going on right now, though. Below, you can find a few more of our favorite Xbox controller deals.
Looking to pick up some extra storage? Amazon is here to help with an excellent deal on the WD_Black 1TB C50 Expansion Card. At the moment, its price has dropped down to $127, 21% off its MSRP of $159.99. This is a deal that likely won’t stick around for long, so take advantage of it while you can! We also consider it one of the best SSDs for Xbox, so there’s no better time to grab it.
Get 45% Off the Razer Kaira Pro Wireless Headset & More Deals
Does your family complain when you stay up playing loud shooters late into the night? They’ll stop complaining if you pick up anXbox headset that lets no one but you hear the delightful explosions you cause on the screen. Right now, you can get 28% off the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 MAX wireless headset and 45% off the Razer Kaira Pro wireless headset at Amazon. To see even more gaming headsets on sale, visit our roundup of the best gaming headset deals.
What is Xbox’s Recent Controversy?
The recent discomfored surrounding Xbox can be isolated to a recent round of brutal layoffs. Microsoft is closing a number of Bethesda studios, including Redfall maker Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush and The Evil Within developer Tango Gameworks, and more in devastating cuts at Bethesda. Alpha Dog Games, maker of mobile game Mighty Doom, will also close. Roundhouse Studios will be absorbed by The Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios. Microsoft, currently valued at over $3 trillion, did not say how many staff will lose their jobs, but significant layoffs are inevitable.
Is Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Coming to Xbox Game Pass?
Microsoft has confirmed the arrival of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 day-one on Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft made the announcement alongside the release of a live-action reveal trailer called ‘The Truth Lies’. In it we see world leaders including Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, George H. W. Bush, Colin Powell, and Saddam Hussein, delivering cryptic speeches. Black Ops 6 will be set during the events of the Gulf War during the early ’90s.
Is Call of Duty Black Ops 6 300GB?
Activision has also clarified that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 won’t actually require a 300 GB download despite previous messaging. Players began to panic about the size of this year’s Call of Duty after noticing its Xbox store page.
At the time, the page listed that the game would require a 309.85 GB download for those hoping to hop into the post-Cold War first-person shooter when it launches this fall. That’ll put a pretty big dent in the hard drive of most PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S consoles, so players were, understandably, very concerned.
When Should I Buy an Xbox?
In general, it is advisable to keep an eye out for sales and restocks throughout the year, as availability has improved since the initial launch of the console. Unlike the Nintendo Switch, there is no specific recommendation to wait for a sale regardless of the time of year. Instead, it’s a good idea to monitor various retailers and online platforms for restock announcements and promotional offers.
However, certain events like Black Friday or other holiday seasons may bring about unique bundles, discounts, or promotional deals specifically for the Xbox Series X. These bundles may include additional games, accessories, or exclusive limited editions. While quantities for such promotions might be limited, they can provide an opportunity to get more value for your purchase. See our guide to Xbox Series X prices for more info.
Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S?
Choosing between the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S ultimately depends on your gaming preferences, budget, and specific requirements. Let’s compare the two consoles to help you make an informed decision:
1. Performance: The Xbox Series X is the more powerful option, offering native 4K gaming, higher graphical fidelity, and faster loading times. It has more advanced hardware, including a larger storage capacity. On the other hand, the Xbox Series S targets a lower price point and offers a less powerful performance, targeting 1440p resolution gaming and upscaling to 4K.
2. Price: The Xbox Series S is more affordable compared to the Xbox Series X. If budget is a significant factor for you, the Xbox Series S provides a cost-effective option while still delivering a next-generation gaming experience. For example, the Series S can play Starfield at 1440p 30fps (vs 4K 30fps on Series X).
3. Storage: The Xbox Series X comes with a larger internal storage capacity, allowing you to store more games directly on the console. The Xbox Series S, however, has a smaller storage capacity, which means you may need to manage your game library more actively or rely on external storage solutions.
4. Disc Drive: The Xbox Series X includes a disc drive, enabling you to play physical game discs and enjoy a wider range of media options, including Blu-ray and DVD playback. The Xbox Series S, in contrast, is a digital-only console, meaning you can only play games downloaded from the digital store.
5. Graphics and Performance: While both consoles support ray tracing, the Xbox Series X provides a more immersive and visually impressive experience due to its superior hardware capabilities. If you prioritize cutting-edge graphics and want the best performance available, the Xbox Series X is the preferable choice.
Consider your gaming preferences, budget, and whether you prioritize top-of-the-line performance or cost-effectiveness. If you have a 4K TV, want the most powerful console, and are willing to invest more, the Xbox Series X is the recommended option. If you have a lower budget, a 1080p or 1440p TV, and don’t mind sacrificing some performance, the Xbox Series S offers excellent value for money.
With how expensive gaming is getting in 2024, we’re trying to save you as much money as possible on the games and other tech you actually want to buy. We’ve got great deal roundups available for all major platforms such as Switch and Xbox, and keep these updated daily with brand new offers. If you’re trying to keep costs down while maintaining your favorite hobby, stay tuned for more incredible discounts.
Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.
Shambling out of the seventh-generation graveyard for its second remaster, Capcom at least deserves credit for bringing Dead Rising itself in line with accepted zombie lore. That is, it too is now officially a stubborn corpse that refuses to stay dead. However, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster earns credit for more than just that. Capcom has injected a series of smart tweaks to the gameplay that make surviving a zombie-infested mall less frustrating than it was 20 years ago, but it does so while still preserving the feel of the original’s challenging, time-limited experience. Combined with a fresh visual overhaul, the result is easily the best way to play what’s still the best Dead Rising game – even if the occasionally creaky combat is certainly showing its age through a modern lens.
Remasters and remakes of already strong video games can be a little hard to appraise. They can be fantastic yet inescapably inessential, like The Last of Us Part 1 – a remake of an existing, excellent remaster that was already hard to fault on a console just a single generation old. Alternatively, they can be literally nothing more than a small resolution bump, like the 2019 remaster of 2009’s Ghostbusters: The Video Game. I adore Ghostbusters but, aside from saving it from being marooned on PS3 on Sony’s side of the fence, what did re-publishing it as a bespoke product achieve that the ‘Enhanced’ 4K updates delivered to dozens of Xbox 360 games for free did not?
In fairness, Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster makes a far clearer case for itself, because it isn’t just slightly better looking. Crucially, it’s also a better game to play.
Kill ’em Mall
For clarity, this is not a ground-up do-over in the same spirit as its undead Capcom cousins, though it is driven by the same RE Engine that powers all recent Resident Evil remakes. Cutscenes and conversations are all running on the same rigging, and it does largely feel like the 2006 classic is chugging away under the glossy surface most of the time.
It is a vast visual improvement, but that’s hardly a shocking revelation considering the 18-year-old source material. The increase in fidelity boosts the facial animations to a level that was virtually non-existent before. I don’t really have a position on Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster’s older and wearier Frank West. More dad bod, less heartthrob; it makes no meaningful difference to me. I am jealous of his shoulders, though, which seem slightly more immense this time around. Seriously, the bloke is built like a 4:3 man in a world of widescreen.
At any rate, it’s the world of Willamette Parkview Mall that remains the real star here. Exploring the detailed stores, each with their distinct themes and ranges of weaponisable products, was deeply nostalgic – doubly so considering how much I desperately miss CD and DVD shops, and Willamette has four of ’em.
It’s the world of Willamette Parkview Mall that remains the real star here.
It’s not without defects, though. Pop-in is particularly prevalent in the outdoor Leisure Park area, which is disappointing. There are also occasional textures that are consistently late to sharpen up, and some literal signs of AI-upscaled nonsense (on a door plaque that’s overtly closed in our faces during an early cutscene, no less) do make me wonder about how many human eyeballs passed over these assets on their way into the finished product.
However, the more important tweaks in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster concern how it feels rather than how it looks. While the original control scheme is still included, I warmed to the new controls instantly. I certainly couldn’t go back now.
The ability to move while aiming is a sizeable shift. Even though it makes cheesing some of the dopier bosses a lot easier, it’s a big part of what makes the new controls feel far less clunky. Special moves have been shifted to button presses rather than requiring expert manipulation of the right stick. On the flip side, answering radio calls and issuing commands to the survivors you have in tow has been moved to analogue stick presses, meaning we can continue moving in any direction without being interrupted. I found I could jog, carve a path through zombies, and bark commands at the moronic mallrats I’d mustered together without skipping a beat. It also helps that survivors are noticeably smarter than they were in the original. They’re not completely immune from pathfinding problems, and things begin to look quite janky when herding large groups, but it’s a tidy improvement overall.
Weapon durability is now illustrated, and navigation is also improved markedly. The original’s nebulous arrow has been replaced with a working compass and distance indicators, which help distinguish when objective locations are on different floors and make it clearer when fresh objectives are close by. It makes it a lot easier to see whether a newly noticed survivor is worth diverting for on, say, your current trip back to the security room. Combined with the new auto-save mechanic, it’s a real timesaver. I’ve picked up far larger groups of survivors in Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster than I ever dared to back in 2006.
The constant loading times between areas are admittedly a bit draining in 2024, but the auto-saves that trigger upon passing between them are a game changer. Yes, it’s true a certain degree of frustration is part of the original Dead Rising’s DNA. It asked players to make difficult and timely decisions, settle on sometimes-unfortunate compromises, and improvise when things went wrong. That said, I think the new auto-save system is a fair and modern middle ground. Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster is easier because of it, but it does remain a rigidly time-sensitive experience that demands a considerable amount of plate spinning. If you do want to schlep all the way back from a save point as a matter of principle, there are now 20 save slots and you’re certainly free to play it that way. Personally, I’m okay with the challenge without the tedium.
Wrecking Mall
In contrast, there are some changes that don’t work, including portions of the re-recorded voice acting. It’s good that all the survivor and radio dialogue is fully voiced now (although there are times where the survivor chatter sounds like a completely different person than you initially spoke to). However, some of the replacement performances for central characters are a little more stilted, which only tends to highlight the awkwardness of the script’s clumsiest lines.
Speaking of the script, there are also some slightly baffling changes in that regard, too – but none more so than the scrubbing of Cliff’s history as a Vietnam War veteran. To refresh, Cliff is the “psychopath” found in Crislip’s Home Saloon who’s suffered a complete break from reality; the horrors of the zombie outbreak have sent him directly back to the war. If there was a genuine concern here regarding trivialising PTSD amongst combat veterans, I’d get it, but Cliff is still overtly a military man. It just comes across like someone didn’t want Cliff to call Frank a “filthy communist.” That’s pretty inane censorship in a game that saw fit to leave, say, its hugely horny hostage-taking cop otherwise intact.
Of course, it’s hardly game breaking, but it’s a shame something so small has been prioritised over things that would’ve made Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster genuinely better. For instance, the prisoner psychopaths in the Humvee still respawn after a few hours. That always felt like a mistake (or, at a minimum, a cheap trick to pull on players) and it doesn’t make any sense. No other unique psychopaths respawn like that.
The elevator to the roof is eventually always still full of zombies. That was dumb then, and it’s still dumb. Having it filled with zombies occasionally would be a shock. As it is, it’s just tiresome, especially when all you need to do is dart in and spam interact to trigger the elevator anyway. As long as your survivors were close enough to the lift to begin with, you’ll all still appear safe on the empty roof regardless of how many zombies were in the lift. Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster could’ve massaged that.
Then again, maybe it couldn’t have. Maybe some of that jank is too deeply baked into the original gameplay to be removed without breaking something else. I also guess it isn’t the only stuff that comes across as a little shonky by contemporary standards. We are talking about a game where you need to shoot a woman in the face with a sniper rifle until she calms down, or fill a man’s body with bullets until he runs away healthy, leaving your ally totally crippled with the one shot in the entire shootout that seemed to matter. Hey, it’s old. It’s how we used to do things.
It’s official: Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are taking legal action against Palworld’s developer, Pocketpair.
The companies filed a lawsuit against the developer today, September 18, seeking “an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that Palworld, a game developed and released by the Defendant, infringes multiple patent rights.”
We posted the News Release “Filing Lawsuit for Infringement of Patent Rights against Pocketpair, Inc.”https://t.co/76ttENZXtv
“Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years,” Nintendo’s statement reads.
The filing is absolutely massive news and follows months of speculation that Nintendo would take legal action over the indie survival game that’s been referred to as “Pokémon with guns.” Nintendo previously released a statement about Palworld in January, vowing that intended “to investigate and take appropriate measures” against any potentially infringing content. A modder also claimed that “Nintendo has come for me” after posting a clip with Pokémon’s Ash Ketchum in Palworld.
But six months later, in June, Pocketpair insisted that Nintendo had yet to make a complaint in response to the “Pokémon rip-off” claims. “Nintendo and the Pokémon Company didn’t say anything to us,” Pocketpair boss Takuro Mizobe told Game File at the time. “Of course I love Pokémon and respect it. I grew up with it, in my generation.”
Palworld launched in early access form in January 2024 on PC via Steam and on Xbox as a day-one Game Pass title and catapulted to tremendous overnight success, but also controversy. Pokémon fans were quick to call out the similarities in Palworld, although the indie developer insisted that Palworld is more akin to survival crafting games such as Ark Survival Evolved and Valheim than Pokémon. Pocketpair’s community manager even said the team has received death threats over the backlash.
IGN has reached out to Pocketpair for comment.
In our early access review, we acknowledged that Palworld “may crib quite a bit from Pokémon’s homework, but deep survival mechanics and a hilarious attitude make it hard to put down.”
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
On Tuesday, Electronic Arts (EA) held its annual Investor Day — a three-hour presentation intended for its investors to learn more about the company’s direction and promises to make them money in the coming year. But you’d be forgiven if you thought this was some sort of AI tech conference given how effusively the technology was brought up and touted as a key component of EA’s future.
While we’ve known for a while that EA and a number of other gaming companies are experimenting with and investing heavily in AI, it was nonetheless a bit overwhelming just how often AI came up throughout the entire presentation. It was mentioned it just about every single segment in some capacity, had its own dedicated segment near the end, and was described during CEO Andrew Wilson’s introductory speech as “the very core of our business” — a rather shocking new mission statement for a company that ostensibly makes and publishes video games.
We watched the entirety of the three-hour Investor Day presentation, and did our best to round up all the AI “highlights” in an effort to paint a picture of what, exactly, EA is doing with AI and what we can expect to see in the coming years if its investments and interest in the tech pan out.
Core of the Business
The first mention of AI in the presentation took place right at the top, in Andrew Wilson’s opening speech. In addition to referring to AI as “the very core of our business” and “not merely a buzzword,” he announced that EA apparently has over 100 active “novel AI projects” in the works right now, ranging from the practical to the very experimental. Wilson divvied these up into three categories: efficiency, expansion, and transformation.
Wilson describes the “efficiency” projects as not just cost-saving, but related to doing things faster, cheaper, and at “higher quality.” Specifically, he cites College Football 25, saying the developers could not have made the game’s 150 different stadiums and over 11,000 player likenesses without AI.
Wilson elaborated by saying he believes AI can give developers “richer colors” to paint “more brilliant worlds” and make characters with “more depth and intelligence” while offering “more authenticity and deeper immersion” to the company’s sports games. And for transformation, Wilson describes this as looking into the future and finding entirely new kinds of experiences that don’t currently exist in games, especially around user-generated content.
Chief strategy officer Mihir Vaidya went into more depth about what the “transformation” element will mean for EA in a later section, but Wilson’s opener made it clear that he’s more than bullish on the technology.
AI Examples
In the talks that followed, a number of EA leads highlighted ways in which EA was already working with AI tech in its existing games. Laura Miele, president of EA entertainment, technology, and central development, talked about something called The Sims Hub, the first AI features coming to The Sims universe. EA plans to release a platform with “supercharged discovery tools” that use AI to allow players to find user-generated content more easily. She showed off an AI application that uses a photo search feature, allowing users to drop in photos of real life houses and then find user-generated houses that look similar to them. Miele also highlighted how the AI can be used for character creation, with users able to drop in an image of a celebrity or person in a certain outfit and then generate a Sim that matches up. Miele says The Sims Hub will be released “soon.”
On the internal tech side, Miele talked about EA’s asset library, which she described as “like the Smithsonian of game assets.” Essentially, EA has a massive database of assets from all of its games and work behind the scenes over the years, and it’s using it to train its machine learning capabilities and large language models. Those capabilities are then being used by the company’s “SEED” innovation lab, aka “Search for Extraordinary Experiences Division”, for things like EA’s “Script to Scene” tool.
Script to Scene lets developers “create characters, direct performances, and define worlds all from text.” Miele shows an example on screen, prompting an AI chat assistant to “build me a Parisian-style residential building.” She then asks to make it taller, changes it to a modern high rise, and expands it into a larger neighborhood. With Script to Scene, Miele claims EA developers could eventually make an entire scene in a game using simple text prompts.
After Miele, president of EA Sports Cam Weber took the stage to talk about, well, EA Sports. He showed off the already announced FC IQ, which uses “tactical AI” and real-world data to more accurately simulate how players and teams play together in EA Sports FC 25. And he highlighted Wilson’s prior statements about using AI in College Football 25, noting that the stadium creator AI tools in particular reduced creation time “by about 70%” and allowed developers to focus on building the “pageantry” and unique traditions of each school instead. “The investment in these tools and tech will benefit the rest of our portfolio in the months and years ahead,” he said.
And finally, chief experience officer David Tinson briefly talked about an early prototype of a predictive simulation tool EA is working on. He claims the tool will combine EA game data, AI, and IQ ratings to allow users to run more accurate simulations and answer questions of which team would win in a match, who would have won in a hypothetical match, and which team is the best.
Cardboard boxes and AI soccer stars
If all that somehow wasn’t enough AI chatter for you, chief strategy officer Mihir Vaidya took the stage next to talk about AI and nothing but. He opened by comparing the technology to the advent of makeup tutorial videos and cat videos, which he says people initially dismissed as trivial or niche, but now are ubiquitous and wildly popular. He says EA’s experimental AI efforts should be viewed the same way as “early YouTube videos”, and that while what he shows might feel rudimentary, it will naturally get better as AI improves.
Vaidya was specifically brought onstage to talk about the “transformation” portion of AI that Wilson mentioned earlier. He says the experiences he shows onstage are “not intended to replace AAA games, but instead unlock new and adjacent categories that add as opposed to take away from the existing gaming market.”
Those “new and adjacent categories” Vaidya wanted to show off largely seem to involve apps of some sort that let people use AI to shuffle around EA proprietary assets and spit out minigames of a sort. One example he shows involves two people asking an AI to “make a maze out of cardboard boxes.” They then ask the AI to make it more complex, then multi-level. Then they ask the AI to “make two characters with weapons,” allowing them to select from a gallery of existing EA characters before settling on two that purport to be community-designed, then equip them with guns from a library of weapons. They then select from a handful of game modes and start chasing each other around the cardboard maze. The video ends with one of them asking the AI to “make it more epic,” resulting in a giant cardboard box pyramid seemingly appearing in real-time to the astonishment of the two players.
In a second demonstration, Vaidya wants to demonstrate how AI can be used to create “more believable characters” that players care about even more. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see much of that in action, as Vaidya encourages investors to check out the demo at the investor event after the presentation is over. But we do see a few seconds of what he’s talking about: an AI version of soccer star Jude Bellingham is apparently available to answer questions posed by investors using AI to simulate his likeness, voice, and likely responses. Vaidya demonstrates by asking him what it was like to play at Bernabéu “in front of millions of screaming fans.” Bellingham briefly explains the indescribable thrill of the experience in a flat monotone, expressionless.
Finally, Vaidya demonstrates how EA wants to use AI for “social ecosystems”, specifically something codenamed Project AIR. Project AIR seems to be a way to use short text prompts to generate characters, have text-based interactions with them, and then share those conversations with friends. In his example, he creates a “legendary investor” character using the prompt, “A high-stakes VC who swims in the deep waters of innovation.”
He then decides the “game” will be to pitch business ideas to him. In an interface that looks suspiciously like Tik-Tok, the user pitches “self-tying shoes” only to be slapped down. He then invites a friend to help him pitch, but lost for any ideas on how to make self-tying shoes more interesting, he uses an AI co-pilot to write the pitch for him, which ultimately succeeds.
What does it all mean?
That’s a lot of noise about AI, almost an astonishing amount even from a company we knew was pushing the tech hard. And it’s a lot of noise specifically about generative AI. Artificial intelligence, broadly, has been used in games for decades. But generative AI, which is involved in most of the things EA shared yesterday, is different. Generative AI effectively spits out brand new images, text, sound, or other content based on data it’s fed, which has led to numerous ethical questions regarding its use. Some of those EA has managed to answer effectively. For instance, EA is training its AI on its own proprietary material, so there’s seemingly no concern about it stealing copyrighted work (we’ve reached out to EA for comment).
But other concerns remain. There’s the environmental impact, for one, which we’ve also asked EA about. And then there’s issues of using personal likenesses. EA says Jude Bellingham agreed to let EA train an AI on his likeness and voice for the model we saw yesterday, but will EA ensure it has permission from every single individual it uses in the future? What about voice actors for beloved characters, who are still at this moment on strike from companies including AI over these exact protections? We’ve asked EA for comment on all this, too.
On the game development side, how does this implementation of AI impact individual creatives at the company? It’s easy to say that tools such as Script to Scene are intended to free up developers to work on other things. But it’s a practical reality that the games industry has seen two years of unprecedented layoffs just as AI is beginning to creep into the mainstream, and EA has been a part of that. There are no guarantees that this tech might not eventually be used to replace developers eventually. Developers have said over and over that they are rightfully nervous about this possibility, but neither EA nor its investors seem to be especially interested in addressing that. Nor does it seem apparent to them the difference between the intentional, creative work of designers assembling a thoughtful map for a shoorter, and anyone at all prompting an AI to spit out a random array of cardboard boxes. It’s all content to be sold in the end.
As some have pointed out online, EA is no stranger to pushing hard on new tech before immediately backing off the second the wind changed. But this feels different. EA leadership made it abundantly clear at the Investor Day that the company is already very, very deep in on AI even if the experiments themselves are still in their infancy. Investors might be kept happy by these experiments, but perhaps fans of EA’s 40-year history as a video game company ought to be asking why AI, not games, has suddenly become the “core” of its business.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Amazon is currently offering a Baseus 10,000mAh USB Type-C power bank with 20W USB Power Delivery for a mere $10.44 after you clip a 20% off coupon and apply 25% off code “HM8WNMGD“. That’s a great price for a 10K power bank that’s equipped with a USB Type-C output with up to 20W of Power Delivery. It’s an excellent battery backup for your Nintendo Switch since it can charge the console at its maximum rate of 18W.
Baseus 10,000mAh 20W Power Bank for Just Over $10
The 10,000mAH power bank is the perfect compromise between battery capacity and size, especially if you’re looking for a battery backup for something as small as the Nintendo Switch. This Baseus model measures 6″ long and 2.7″ wide, about the same size as an iPhone 14 Pro, and only 0.7″ thin. It weighs in at about 9 ounces. The 10,000mAh capacity is no slouch either. Factoring in charging inefficiencies, you should still expect this power bank to charge a Switch about 1.5 times. If we go by Nintendo’s official claim of 4.5-9 hours from the battery, you’re essentially extending that to 11-22 hours.
There are three ports for versatility: a USB Type-C port, USB Type-A port, and Micro USB port. The USB Type-C port is both output and input, which means you can charge the power bank OR charge your devices from that same port. This is the port you want to use to get the 20W charging rate. Since the Nintendo Switch can charge at a cap of 18W, the Type-C port will max out the Switch’s charging speed.
The Baseus power bank is UL certified and comes with built-in safety protections you’d expect from a decent quality power bank. It also has an LED battery indicator that you can check with a press of a button. Although not as well known as Anker, Baseus is still a popular brand on Amazon and has plenty of positive reviews. I have a Baseus power bank myself and it hasn’t given me any problems.
The Baseus Power Bank is TSA-Approved
Spare lithium ion and lithium metal batteries, including power banks and cell phone battery charging cases, must be carried in carry-on baggage only. Power banks must be under either 27,000mAh or 100Whr in capacity. This Baseus power bank’s 10,000mAh battery capacity is well below TSA’s 27,000mAh limit, so it can be brought onto airplanes without worry. This power bank is small and discreet enough that it’s hard to imagine TSA even noticing the power bank in the first place.
Woot! (which is owned by Amazon) is offering the best deal on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Right now you can get a 3 month code for only $36.49. Earlier this year, Microsoft raised the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $19.99 per month, so now you’re saving 40% off a 3 month membership. Note that you can purchase multiple codes and apply them to your account, up to a maximum of 36 months. If you’re an Xbox gamer, this is a great way to save a lot of money in the long run since you won’t have to buy new release games individually to play them.
Note: There is a new coupon “ULTIMATE” that takes $3 off one order, dropping the 3 month code price down to $33.49. If you purchase multiple codes, this coupon will only work on one code. The rest of the 3 month codes will be $36.49 each.
3 Months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $33.49
Use code: ULTIMATE
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gives you access to a library of hundreds of Xbox games, including day one releases. You can play them for the entirety of your membership without any restrictions. You do lose access to them once your membership is over, but if you ever decide to renew, all your past achievements and progress will be saved. You’ll also have access to Xbox Game Pass for PC. Although there aren’t nearly as many games as there are on Xbox, there are still plenty of AAA titles to keep you sated. Other perks include exclusive membership discounts, the ability to play your games across multiple devices with cloud gaming, free access to EA Play membership, as well as bonus in-game content and rewards. It is an exceptionally good – almost essential – membership for Xbox gamers. New release games are not cheap, and being able to play them without buying them will save you a lot of money and easily recoup the cost of the membership.
