Category: IGN

Microsoft has announced that a new Xbox Games Showcase will be livestreamed this June, and will once again include reveals of upcoming Xbox games from both first and third-party studios. In addition there will also be a Starfield Direct; a whole show dedicated to a deep-dive on Bethesda’s upcoming space-faring RPG.

As detailed on the Xbox Wire blog, the Xbox Games Showcase will be livestreamed on Sunday, June 11 at 10am PT (6pm UK, 5am AEST). No specific developers or games have been teased, but naturally whatever is shown will be our first look at what’s coming to Xbox, PC, and Game Pass in the future.

Spoiler Alert: we’ll be talking about games ​
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Tune into the Xbox Games Showcase followed by Starfield Direct on Sunday, June 11 @ 10am PT: https://t.co/3mhkAsswII | #Starfield #XboxShowcase pic.twitter.com/4uFHPmqLyK

— Xbox (@Xbox) May 3, 2023

Starfield Direct, which will be aired immediately following the Xbox Games Showcase, will feature “tons of new gameplay, developer interviews, and behind-the-scenes insider information.”

Just a couple of days later, on June 13 at 10am PT, Microsoft will also be live streaming Xbox Games Showcase Extended. Much like last year, this will be a follow-up show that provides more context and interviews based on the reveals dropped during the main Xbox Games Showcase.

This summer Xbox Games Showcase is part of the games industry’s tradition of making announcements in the month of June. Historically that was always done as part of or adjacent to E3, the mammoth games event taking place in Los Angeles. But with E3 2023 now canceled, it will be up to individual companies to make their own announcements either independently or via new events like Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest or IGN’s own Summer of Gaming.

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

2.5D Metroidvanias are hardly thin on the ground, but The Last Case of Benedict Fox has a striking sense of style and some truly stimulating puzzle solving to help it stand out from the side-scrolling platforming pack. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite have all the fundamentals covered, with sluggish controls that weigh heavily on combat and platforming, and a lack of story objective signposting that makes navigating its expanding rabbit warren of wonders far more mystifying than it should be. As a result, it’s a disappointingly uneven adventure that’s just as likely to engage as it is to enrage, and there were lengthy stretches in its back half where Benedict’s last case started to feel worryingly like a lost cause.

The case in question revolves around the recent death of Benedict’s father – so recent, in fact, that his fresh corpse is still warming the basement floor of the Fox family manor at the outset of the story. Since dusting for fingerprints and gathering witness testimonies wouldn’t make for the most compelling of platforming adventures, Benedict is partnered with a demonic companion – not unlike Mike Patton’s shotgun-riding presence in The Darkness – that can whisk him in and out of ‘limbo’. This is a representation of his father’s memories and inner demons, manifested into a physical realm to be scoured for clues that explain the senior Fox’s demise. The various different regions of this Lovecraftian realm parallel the different rooms of the family house, only the opulence of the real-world setting has been twisted and torn into wonderfully gnarly, nightmarish interpretations that reflect the inner torment the father felt during his final hours, and they’re genuinely captivating to behold.

Certainly one of Benedict Fox’s biggest strengths is its consistently outstanding art direction, contrasting disgusting, tendril-filled swamps with shards of stunning stained glass, and the way its engrossing otherworld eventually spills over into the psyche of a second victim brings an interesting new perspective on the old Fox’s fate that maintained my interest in the unfolding mystery. However, there are unfortunate occasions where the form overwhelms the function, and I regularly found myself ambushed by enemy attacks that I couldn’t see coming since my view of them was blocked by some beautiful yet impractical piece of scenery obnoxiously jutting out in the foreground.

A Flare for the Dramatic

Even when you do have a clear view of the action, Benedict Fox’s combat is noticeably hit and miss. Faced with a modest variety of demonic enemies, the basic routine consists of unleashing three-hit combos and charged attacks with Benedict’s blade to fill up his flare gun meter, before dodging your way to a safe distance in order to blast a finishing round into their phantasmic faces. The problem is that the rhythm of combat is hard to maintain due to the stilted attack animations and annoyingly unresponsive inputs; although most enemy attacks are clearly telegraphed, my attempts to counter them frequently failed because the block button seemingly didn’t register (playing on PC), which often led to a swift death in the early hours when Benedict is blessed with a very limited amount of health.

Although ink collected from fallen foes over the course of the journey can be traded to a mysterious tattoo artist back in the manor for enhanced supernatural powers (in a neat flourish, each upgrade is tattooed directly onto Benedict’s arms to show the growing number of tricks up his sleeve), I never felt completely at ease. By the story’s end I was able to use demonic tentacles to drag enemies towards me, and bodyslam flying bad guys out of the air, but my lingering mistrust of the controls and the lack of settings to tweak them with meant that I usually found Benedict Fox’s combat something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Almost like a tacit admission that its combat system isn’t really up to snuff, Benedict Fox features a surprisingly slight number of boss fights. I tackled a towering tentacle monster within the opening half hour, which set an expectation that I was in for regular showdowns with plus-sized demons throughout the course of the adventure. Yet I wasn’t actually forced to confront another big bad again until the multi-phased fight against the main antagonist at the story’s climax, some 13 hours later. Both battles weren’t without their issues: the first boss gives very little visual feedback that you’re actually damaging it which makes for a face off that feels somewhat feeble until it’s suddenly finished; while the final boss has the aggravating tendency to attack you during the transition between phases, which is the short time that you’re unable to dodge or counter. That’s just straight-up unfair.

There are admittedly a handful of other major beasts to encounter along the way too, but instead of fighting them they must each be evaded in twitchy, trial-and-error-based platforming chases or irritating, sudden-death stealth sequences. Precisely none of them left me with any feelings of triumph upon completing them, which is in stark contrast to the kind of highs I’ve experienced overcoming oversized enemies in Metroid Dread or Hollow Knight; instead of punching the air I was left pulling my hair.

Brainiac Mansion

In contrast with its combat, Benedict Fox’s puzzles are generally of a very high standard. Oftentimes gaining access to locked areas in other Metroidvanias effectively amounts to working out which special ammunition type corresponds to which coloured door to blast open, but Benedict Fox’s brain teasers are closer to the kinds of riddles you typically find in point-and-click adventure games, making for a surprisingly cerebral challenge that’s refreshingly atypical for the genre.

There are chessboard puzzles, mathematical riddles, music and rhythm-based conundrums, and countless coded symbols to pore over and decipher using a combination of the notes in Benedict’s logbook and a mechanical decryption device. I particularly like how finding solutions to some of the puzzles in the real-world mansion requires exploration of the limbo realm; gaining access to the locked drawer in Benedict’s father’s study involves infiltrating and analyzing the old man’s memories, for example, as though you’re just a few Hans Zimmer braaams away from inhabiting a playable version of Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

That said, there are some optional puzzles that I found too confounding to complete, such as the handful of doors that require specific placement of collectible tarot cards in order to unlock. There is an option in the menu to lower the difficulty of puzzles that can be toggled at any point during the adventure if you get completely stuck, but that just means that they’re auto-solved for you. I wish there had been a hint system included instead, like there was in Return to Monkey Island, to gently steer me towards the solution when I needed to ask for help, rather than just snatching my homework out of my hands and doing it for me like an impatient parent.

Navigation Aggravation

The puzzle system isn’t the only aspect of Benedict Fox that’s reluctant to give hints. Both the main story and side objectives are painfully obtuse, rarely making it even the slightest bit clear as to where you should head next or what you should be looking for. Admittedly, a healthy amount of mystery and backtracking is to be expected in any Metroidvania, but generally you’d hope for at least a gentle indication of the direction you need to follow in order to advance the story. Instead, you just get vague directives like ‘Find a way to finish the ritual’ or ‘Learn more about your father’s past,’ with no real way of finding the answers other than to stumble upon them by accident. For the most part, I spent so much time needlessly retreading ground and hoping for the best, that certain stretches of the terrain became familiar to the point that they may as well have been inked onto the inside of my eyelids by the in-game tattooist.

It doesn’t help that merely getting around is a bit of a chore in and of itself. There are fast-travel points to unlock along the way, but the complete absence of a mini-map means that navigating the lengthy spaces in between is a relentlessly stop-start affair, as you hop in and out of the pause menu to study the full map at each of the many branching paths in the terrain. I’d have appreciated the ability to at least pin a waypoint marker so that I didn’t have to constantly stop every few steps to ponder the map like some sort of tentacle-powered tourist (and worse still, you remain vulnerable to enemy attacks while you’re in this not-really-paused state).

Speaking of tentacle powers, the fact that Benedict is reliant on the reach of his inky appendages in order to perform a double jump means that otherwise-simple platforming sections often become an exercise in frustration. Having to time your second press of the jump button with the appearance of a purple reticle on the ceiling above you or on the edge of the platform you’re trying to reach feels clumsy at best, but at its worst the reticle either fails to show or your input doesn’t register, at which point Benedict trades his tentacles for a pair of clipped wings and drops like a stone. Double jumps have been a pretty reliable feature in the platforming genre since video game console power was still measured in bits, so it’s somewhat shocking to play a Metroidvania in 2023 that somehow makes a hash of such a stock-standard ability.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns won’t be coming to Nintendo Switch after all.

2K and Firaxis Games have officially confirmed that Midnight Suns won’t be released on Nintendo Switch, despite the game’s impending PS4 and Xbox One release.

“We’re excited to announce that digital versions of Marvel’s Midnight Suns on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are scheduled to launch on Thursday, May 11,” they confirmed. “Note that a Nintendo Switch version of Marvel’s Midnight Suns is no longer planned.”

Obviously, that’s bad news for Nintendo Switch fans. But thankfully, it’s not a long wait for PS4 AND Xbox One players, with Midnight Suns heading to digital on both platforms in just over a week – that includes all 4 DLC instalments, too.

“This coincides with the release of the fourth post-launch DLC for Marvel’s Midnight Suns: Blood Storm, which introduces Storm as a playable hero and new missions in the DLC-spanning vampyre storyline.”

Completing all DLC missions for Deadpool, Venom, Morbius, and Storm will apparently trigger a final showdown against an “age-old monster”. Whoever that might be…

Note that all the current DLC will be available on launch day to PS4 and Xbox One players who buy either the game’s legendary edition or the Midnight Suns season pass.

IGN’s Midnight Suns review gave the game 8/10 and said: “With Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Firaxis has put itself in the league of RPG developers like BioWare, Obsidian, Bethesda, and Larian. Its innovative turn-based hero combat system takes a bit of time to get going, but once it does it makes excellent use of card game mechanics to keep battles fresh, evolving, and unpredictable over the course of an epic-length campaign.”

Want to read more about Midnight Suns? Find out why Midnight Suns isn’t just XCOM with superheroes and get a glimpse of the upcoming Blood Storm DLC in a new trailer.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Titanfall and Titanfall 2 director Steve Fukuda is working on “something new” for Respawn Entertainment.

During an interview with Axios Gaming, Respawn director Vince Zampella revealed that Fukuda is currently leading a “very small” team that’s exploring new IP.

“The mission is to find the fun in something new,” said Zampella.

A small team led by Steve Fukuda (Titanfall series director) is in the early stages of developing an original IP

“The mission is to find the fun in something new”, says Vince Zampella.

Via: https://t.co/8fbUtEi1mt pic.twitter.com/yw07uVYwn0

— Shinobi602 (@shinobi602) May 2, 2023

Fukuda is perhaps best known for his work on the Titanfall series, as director of the popular FPS franchise. Titanfall began as an online multiplayer game, with Titanfall 2 building upon this with a thoroughly enjoyable solo campaign.

Since the sequel’s release in 2016, fans have been dying to see another installment in the Titanfall franchise. Although, there are apparently no plans to make Titanfall 3 right now.

“It has to be the right thing,” said Zampella in a recent interview. “It’s such a beloved franchise for the fans and also for us. If it is not the right moment in time, the right idea, then it just doesn’t make sense.”

Of course, Titanfall and Titanfall 2 aren’t the only games set in this universe – Respawn’s own battle royale Apex Legends exists there, too. And that might just make things that little more complicated.

“Apex [Legends] is the Titanfall universe, right?” said Zampella. “There’s how do you do something that doesn’t confuse people that are Apex fans, but not necessarily Titanfall fans yet. It’s a hard question to answer, but ultimately I would love to see something.”

Right now, it looks as though Titanfall’s series director is otherwise occupied… but whether or not Fukuda will end up creating a whole new franchise based on his current mission to “find the fun in something new” remains to be seen.

But for now, at least, it looks as though you’ll have to wait for your next titan fix.

Want to read more about Titanfall? Check out the secret Titanfall game that was canceled by EA as well as how Titanfall 2 reimagined movement in first-person shooters.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

With AI technology increasingly in the news, more and more game developers have been examining how much, if at all, they want to integrate artificial intelligence into their development pipelines. And while much of this discussion is taking place amid real fears that AI will replace real human beings in developer jobs, World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas isn’t concerned about that happening to him after a recent encounter with ChatGPT.

Speaking to IGN ahead of the launch of the latest major patch, Embers of Neltharion, Hazzikostas says that one of the first things he did when he first gained access to AI chatbot ChatGPT was ask it what the next World of Warcraft expansion should be. And its answer was uniquely terrible on multiple levels:

“I kid you not, the number one prompt it returned to me…was ‘Return to the Shadowlands.’ So I feel like I have pretty good job security, not too worried about ChatGPT replacing me anytime soon.”

While Hazzikostas is possibly aiming his quip at the fact that Shadowlands was the expansion that directly preceded the current one, thus making it a poor candidate to immediately turn around and go back to, Shadowlands was also quite unpopular with the WoW community. Players disliked the slow cadence of content rollout, multiple time-gated endgame grinds, and above all, its deeply controversial treatment of one of its most beloved characters: Sylvanas Windrunner. So it feels doubly silly that ChatGPT would suggest going back to one of World of Warcraft’s least-loved expansions in recent memory, even though it’s possible it’s only doing so because the internet it’s trained on is stuffed with recent mentions of Shadowlands.

Goofy as that is, Hazzikostas and World of Warcraft executive producer Holly Longdale also offered a more serious explanation of the team’s thoughts on AI. Hazzikostas confirmed that some parts of WoW’s art pipeline use machine learning, but they’ve been doing that for years. It’s “just automating really arduous, painful tasks like fitting helms around Blood Elf ears and so forth, where it’s more just, let’s free up some time so that our really talented artists can make more amazing creative art instead of doing that fiddly work.” It’s nothing new.

Longdale, meanwhile, is looking ahead:

“When we’re talking about living in a world that we want to feel alive, there’s a lot of opportunity there. We are so focused on excellence in the craft in our design that we want to make sure that everything has our human touch. But I do think there’s a lot of opportunity in an interactive space to see what the opportunities are. And we have for quite some time now. AI is…not new to us in our day-to-day. And evolution in AI is certainly going to help us, but it’s always been here.”

We also spoke to Hazzikostas and Longdale about the current World of Warcraft content cadence and future content roadmaps, and threw in some questions about player toxicity and group loot while we were at it – check out our full interview tomorrow. In the meantime, we recently wrapped up a week of articles and video content about AI and how it will impact games, entertainment, and more.

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

There are plenty of solo board games and two-player board games, plus and many more that can seat up to four or five people, but a group of three can be an odd number in every sense of the word. Luckily there are board games that play very well with three people and sometimes are even best with that number.

There are cooperative board games that benefit from having a tiebreaker when debating what to do, or where three players will allow you to cover more key roles, and worker-placement games where three players provide more options on each turn than a full table, but stronger competition than a head-to-head match. No one will have to feel like a third wheel when you play these board games.

TL;DR The Best 3-Player Board Games

• Anachrony
• Azul
• Cascadia
• Cthulhu: Death May Die
• Lords of Waterdeep
• Lost Ruins of Arnak
• Raiders of the North Sea
• Splendor
• Vienna Connection
• Viticulture

Anachrony

An asteroid is going to hit the Earth and you have a limited amount of time to prepare to save humanity — but you want to be the one who’s in charge when the dust settles. The complex game lets you gather resources by deploying workers with their own abilities, including some that will be piloting mechs. You can also speed up your progress by using Time Rifts to grab resources from the future so long as you pay them back before time anomalies form. With many paths to victory and different factions to try, there’s plenty of replayability. If you want to add more complexity, you can pick up the Future Imperfect and Fractures of Time expansions.

Azul

Quick and easy to learn, Azul is a great board game to play with your kid or someone you’re introducing to board gaming. Each player is working to form the most beautiful mosaic by drafting tiles from the central market to place on their board, scoring points based on how many you can connect. Full rows, columns and sets of the same type of tile earn big bonus rewards. The beautifully detailed pieces are satisfying to play with as you slide them into place, carefully considering the best move of the moment but also what other players are likely to pick so you don’t lose points from getting stuck with tiles you can’t use.

Cascadia

This soothing family board game challenges players to build a thriving ecosystem based on the Pacific Northwest. Each session is different thanks to the variety of scoring goals, which reward points based on the relative placement of animal tokens. In one game you may try to ensure red tailed hawks are flying solo and in another that they have an unobstructed view to their potential mate. The tiles you draft not only represent where each type of animal can live but different terrain types, and building unbroken expanses of mountains, wetlands and forests can be worth just as much points at the end of the game as having the right animal patterns. Add in pinecones that can be used to mix up the token and tile pairs during drafting and you’ll have plenty to think about each turn.

Cthulhu: Death May Die

Most games based on Lovecraftian horror are about preventing Elder Gods from setting foot on Earth, but it’s already too late for that in Cthulhu: Death May Die. Instead your goal is to arm yourself well enough to be able to shoot the monster in the face. There’s a high level of replayability to the cooperative game thanks to the variety of investigators players can control and the threats of the different Elder Gods and their minions, who are represented through impressively detailed miniatures. Three players gives you a nice variety of character archetypes without making the game take too long, which can happen when there are five people choosing the best way to take their actions. You still need to be careful though, since the game ends if a single investigator is eliminated before the Elder is summoned.

Lords of Waterdeep

Lords of Waterdeep provides an excellent introduction to the worker placement genre and is especially fun for D&D players who will recognize the references to the Forgotten Realms. Players take on the roles of secret Lords of Waterdeep, each with their own strengths, and will try to establish influence over the City of Splendors by recruiting various types of adventurers to send on quests. Some quests provide powerful boosts that will make it easier for you to gain more resources throughout the game while others are worth a huge amount of points, so you’ll have to think carefully about your priorities as the rounds progress. Players can also build new locations on the map that they can use themselves and they’ll rake in rewards when a rival takes advantage of them. If you prefer a more competitive experience or want to play with a bigger group, pick up the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion.

Lost Ruins of Arnak

Fusing worker placement and deckbuilding, Lost Ruins of Arnak tasks each player with learning the secrets of a mysterious island. There are so many ways to earn points that it’s a real challenge to figure out which is best to pursue, especially since you’re directly competing with your opponents to be the first to nab bigger rewards. You can focus on exploring new areas and fighting fearsome guardians, conduct research, try to improve your deck, or recruit assistants that will make your work easier. The game board is tailored based on the number of players so it’s as well balanced for three as it is for two or four. There’s a solo variant if you want to play alone or are looking for a good way to practice strategies.

Raiders of the North Sea

Be a Viking with this worker placement game, where you’ll need to put together a crew and gather enough resources to successfully raid increasingly well-protected settlements. You’ll collect silver to hire crew members, who will help determine your strategy since they can give you bonuses when attacking specific targets. They can also die and become Valkyrie that will earn points you need to win. You also have to take the time to convert your plunder into offerings for the chieftain, though the amount of favor you’ve earned is kept a secret until the end of the game. Choose your actions wisely as the game can end quickly as players rush to make offerings and launch their boats deeper into the territories at the bottom of the board.

Splendor

This fast game is easy enough for kids to learn but satisfying for players of all ages, making it a good board game for families. Compete to build a thriving jewelry business by gathering gem tokens which can be used to purchase developments and win the favor of nobles. You’ll want to try to take actions as efficiently as possible, keeping track of what resources your opponents are gathering and when they are likely to purchase a development so you don’t miss the opportunity or get stuck waiting for them to stop hoarding a key resource. You also should plan long term, looking at the bonus gems needed to attract each noble since you can only pick up one per turn and their high point values can be the difference between winning or losing.

Vienna Connection

Feel like a spy with Vienna Connection, where players work together to uncover a mystery in Cold War Europe. While the game can be played solo or with two players, the difficulty is meant for three or more people putting their heads together to solve puzzles, which can involve cracking codes, remembering details from cards, and even conducting research on the internet into real world history. The game is played over the course of four interconnected missions so you’ll want to have a group that’s committed to seeing the case through to the end. You’ll store your progress with a companion website that also plays audio and video to make the gameplay more immersive.

Viticulture

You’ve inherited an unimpressive Tuscan vineyard and you have to build it up into something to be proud of in this charming strategic game that takes place over a series of seasons. In summer you’ll deploy workers to plant vines, build structures and sell grapes, while in winter you’ll harvest crops and start aging your wines. You can develop more complex and valuable varieties based on the types of grapes you grow and how much work you’ve done in your cellar, which you can then use to fulfill orders and earn more money to make additional improvements to the vineyard. Pop open a bottle of wine and settle in to learn a bit about how it’s produced as you play.

For a wide variety of additional roundups, check out our picks for the best board games for 5 year olds, plus the best Warhammer alternatives and the best war board games.

Xbox has announced a new PC Game Pass referral program that lets existing members gift a free trial of the subscription service to a friend.

Every Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass holder will be able to send a total of five friend referrals by clicking the “Give PC Game Pass” button located on your Game Pass home screen menu. Each trial can be redeemed to grant access to a 14-day PC Game Pass trial, as long as the target of your generosity is new to the service.

Microsoft has launched the program to coincide with the release of Arkane’s first-person action horror shooter Redfall, which was released earlier today on Game Pass for Xbox consoles and PC.

Beyond Redfall the trial unlocks all of the content usually contained in the PC Game Pass service, including hundreds of games ranging from Rare’s pirate adventure title Sea of Thieves, to Playground Games’ high-octane offering in Forza Horizon 5. The trial also provides access to all the titles included in an EA Play membership, along with any new first party Xbox Studio games launching onto the service during the trial period.

The new program will be welcome news to gamers hoping to give Game Pass on PC a try, especially considering that Microsoft recently ended a long standing promotion that offered a one month trial of the subscription service for $1.

Xbox recently revealed some of the titles that will be coming to Game Pass in the the coming month, including the fairlytale action-adventure Ravenlok (May 4), the action RPG Weird West (May 8), the tactical cyberpunk-inspired Shadowrun Trilogy (May 9), and the turn-based title Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 (May 11).

While the new friend referral system is ideal for Redfall’s co-op nature, the shooter has had some significant problems out of the gate. Our review in progress highlights a number of display issues and bugs, which, combined with a degree of “vanilla” mission design and a “lifeless world”, left IGN’s Luke Reilly feeling underwhelmed at the state of the game.

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

Apex Legends Season 17, or Arsenal, is coming May 9th and brings in a brand new Legend, major map changes to World’s Edge, new Firing Range, Weapon Mastery, and an overhauled Rank System. Every season, Respawn aims to improve and bring meaningful updates to Apex and Season 17 is looking to be an especially ambitious one. Here’s everything you need to know about everything coming to Apex Legends Arsenal on May 9th.

Let’s go over the new Legend, Ballistic, first. I have a separate lore video for him that you can watch on this channel. Ballistic is an Assault Legend so he gets the passive benefits of unlocking the class specific Assault bins throughout the maps and can additionally carry more ammo per stack in his inventory.

Here’s how Ballistic’s kit works:

• Passive: Sling
  • Ballistic can carry a third weapon in his inventory with no attachments.

• Tactical: Whistler
  • Ballistic shoots a smart ammo projectile at an enemy that will apply a weapon overheat debuff. An indicator on the affected enemy’s hud will show how many shots they can shoot before the gun will overheat, causing them to pause firing for a short cool-down animation. Whistler can be held to lock-on to an enemy but can be dodged if you break line of sight with the tactical.
  • If Whistler misses, it will remain on the floor or surface of the area (Like Ashe’s tactical) and if an enemy runs into it, it will deal 5 damage.
  • Whistler deals 20 damage on hit and will do an additional 30 damage if the enemy overheats their weapon.

• Ultimate: Tempest
  • Ballistic deploys an area of effect buff to him and his nearby teammates that grant them unlimited ammo, faster movement speed, and faster reloads. Tempest also temporarily set his third gun (the one with no attachments) to become a gold, fully-kitted weapon for the duration of the ultimate.
  • The charge time for Tempest is around 3 minutes and the duration of Tempest is 30 seconds.
  • Tempest’s ult time can be extended if you secure a kill while buffed, kind of like Bloodhound’s ultimate. This will extend the buff time for all teammates.

Ballistic is an incredibly strong Assault Legend that is certainly going to change the game. As an additional note, the weapon Ballistic puts into his Sling slot can be switched out with any weapon he has in his inventory but that weapon will lose all of its attachments and the previous Sling weapon’s attachments will still have to be looted unless the attachments on the swapped gun match the Sling weapon.

Weapon Mastery is a new way to level and get additional achievements in Apex in Season 17. Similar to how Call of Duty does Weapon Camo challenges, Apex’s Weapon Mastery will involve specific challenges to level the weapons to unlock new weapon trackers, banner frames, and Legendary skins for each weapon when you master them.

All weapons will start at level one in Season 17 even if you’re a long-time player. You level your weapons through playing the game and the leveling will not reset over seasons. Every 20 levels, a weapon trial will unlock that will grant you a reward upon completion. Once you hit level 100 for a weapon, you’ll get a Legendary skin for that weapon.

World’s Edge is getting some massive reworks as a refresh for Season 17. The notorious Fragment East and West (the Point of Interests in the middle of the map) are getting a facelift with a new POI addition planted on site called the Monument, the Museum of Apex Legends. This museum has actual exhibits detailing the history of the Apex Games and features almost a bunker-like structure that has sniper nests accessible via ziplines inside the museum.

The Warehouse from Fragment has also been relocated to where Lava City once was, between Dome and Big Maude, and is called Stacks. Lava all across the map have been raised so you can now travel across it, so there are no more chasms. For example, the lava underneath Harvester has been raised so you can’t fall off into the middle anymore and it has a new center section with additional loot.

There’s also been a new vault added to Skyhook to improve the loot around World’s Edge and Trials has been changed to also improve loot health. The map rotations for Season 17 include World’s Edge, Kings Canyon, and Olympus. Additionally, Mirage’s party boat Mirage a Trois is now permanently only in World’s Edge.

There will be a new Survival Item called the Evac Tower. It’s a mobile redeploy that can be set anywhere on the map to raise a redeploy balloon for you and your team to use. Anyone in the area can see when the Evac Tower is raised since it will deploy with a rocket upward to place the Tower and anchor it.

This Tower is not permanent and will disappear after a certain amount of time and can also be destroyed if you or enemies shoot at the balloon so you’ll have to be careful when using the Tower to escape. Valkyrie’s ultimate is still the better choice but at least this option is available if you don’t have a Valk on your team.

The Firing Range went through a pretty decent change last season, with the customizable dummies and hitfire feedback, but now it’s been reworked to be even bigger. The entire Firing Range has been remade from the ground up as an actual map with multiple buildings and environments made to create a mock battleground for players to warm up and practice in.

There is now a dueling pit dedicated for 1v1s, a new Agility Course, and an entirely new town sized map. The loot layout has been adjusted so you can practice grabbing loot from deathboxes (which is great for shield swap practicing), and the Agility course lets you practice sliding, ziplining, jumping, climbing, wall bouncing, whatever you want in that arena.

The dummies are still customizable with the feedback on how your spray patterns look but the targets throughout the map have been improved. They’ll now light up different colors to give you feedback on where you hit them. You can keep track of all of your practicing through turning on Dynamic Stats that you can reset anytime you want.

New Ranked System

The Ranked System is getting an overhaul in how matchmaking and entry costs work. In Season 17 you will need to complete ten placement matches to get assigned a rank. From that rank, you can grind to get to the level you want. The placement doesn’t work based on wins or losses, like Overwatch’s placements, but instead will work off a hidden MMR.

The placement matches help figure out your base skill level then will put you in a rank that the system thinks you’ll enjoy ranking up from. Ranked Points are now being called Ladder Points since you’ll be climbing the ladder up the ranks. There will not be any more splits and each season will be a full ranked season.

No matter what your rank is, all LP costs will be the same to enter ranked matches. It will be a flat cost of 35 LP to enter a match and the Kill Points are still the same with individual and team KP.

Apex Legends Season 17 will be dropping May 9th with all of these changes. What are you looking forward to most? Let us know! Be sure to subscribe to IGN’s Apex Legends game category to stay up to date on all of Apex news.

Stella is a Video Producer, Host, and Editor at IGN. Her gameplay focus is on competitive FPS games and she’s previously reviewed Apex Legends, Hyper Scape, Halo Infinite Multiplayer, and Battlefield 2042. She regularly hosts and shoutcasts competitive Apex Legends and Halo Infinite tournaments when she isn’t streaming on her Twitch channel after work outs. You can follow her on Twitter @ParallaxStella.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor fans have fallen hard in love with an unlikely character – a strangely charismatic frog-boy called Turgle.

Fans first encountered Turgle on the planet Koboh, where protagonist Cal Kestis intercedes to save the alien’s life from an electrifying end at the hands of the Bedlam Raiders – a criminal group intent on terrorising the system under the leadership of the Gen’dai Rayvis.

Though some gamers low-key wish that Cal had left Turgle to the predations of the Bedlam Raiders, others immediately fell for the comedic character’s open naivety and ineffable big frog energy. Whilst Turgle appears generally upbeat during his interactions with Cal, players can find hints of the amphibian’s deeply-rooted self doubt and anxiety by interacting with force echoes found on Koboh.

I am so proud to be a part of Star Wars cannon after so many years. And I am so very touched by all the fan love for this little guy?❤️ I Am Turgle! pic.twitter.com/lMd7b8AWnA

— Richard Horvitz (@RichardHorvitz) May 1, 2023

Turgle devotees quickly took to social media to post fan art and voice their appreciation for their newfound champion, with many pledging to protect him with their lives, while others called for further Turgle content in the form of a movie, or at the very least DLC.

“I am so proud to be a part of Star Wars cannon after so many tears, and I am so very touched by all the fan love for this little guy,” tweeted Turgle’s voice actor Richard Horvitz in response to the outpouring of affection. “I am Turgle!!”

Members of the development team also voiced their love for the character, with Respawn Entertainment’s Justin Perez tweeting, “All of us on the dev team were pretty sure Turgle was going to be the breakout star of Jedi Survivor, and the main takeaway from today is that we were absolutely correct”. Perez also revealed that the team had an internal Slack channel dedicated to pictures taken in the game’s photo mode, which was dominated by “Turgle glamour shots”.

IGN gave Star Wars Jedi: Survivor a 9/10, describing it as “a sequel that does virtually everything better than the original – which was already an exceptional Star Wars Game”. Be sure to check out the game’s Wiki page for all the tips, tricks and walkthroughs that you’ll need to get the most out of Respawn’s epic Jedi odyssey.

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

I can’t think of another game I’ve put more time into pre-release than Street Fighter 6. Between time spent playing the game at the Capcom booth at Summer Game Fest Play Days back when it was first announced last year, to the late nights grinding through ranked matchmaking across two betas, to the times I’ve been fortunate enough to play it through special events at IGN, I feel like I can pretty confidently say that the core fighting of Street Fighter 6 is going to be excellent.

But that’s just one piece of the pie, and while the recently released demo has given us a small taste of everything else the full game will have to offer, I recently visited Capcom to play an updated build and delve even deeper. So, here are my final impressions of Street Fighter 6 before launch, covering the World Tour mode all the way up to chapter 3-2, along with some thoughts on one particular character that hasn’t been playable up to this point.

World Tour is Better Than You Might Expect

For those who haven’t gotten to check out the PlayStation demo, World Tour is Street Fighter 6’s new RPG-like single player mode that has you taking your own fledgling Street Fighter creation and building them up into a fierce world warrior. You can challenge just about anyone on the street to a fight, whether they deserve a rising uppercut to the face or not. The more you fight, the more EXP you gain, which allows you to level up, improving your stats, and giving you skill points to add to a fairly deep skill tree.

The build that I played at Capcom went a few chapters beyond where the demo left off, and thankfully corrected my biggest issue with the demo right away by letting me switch from modern to classic controls as soon as I reached the end of the first chapter. I appreciate the addition of the Modern control scheme, and think it’ll be a great way to get fighting game newcomers to stick around in this mode, but being able to play in the traditional Classic Control scheme made World Tour feel more like a natural extension of the core game as opposed to a walled-off single player mode.

The biggest thing that struck me while playing through the first three chapters of World Tour was the sheer amount of things to do. There was a main quest line that I could follow that involved seeking out Chun-Li in the Chinatown district, but I was in no hurry to do so, as just about every direction I went in Metro City had some sort of interesting encounter and payoff. Climbing up to the rooftops led me to find an extremely high level fighter in a Superhero outfit named the Watcher, who of course I had to beat up for a fighting magazine that I would ultimately give as a gift to Luke to deepen our bond (more on that in a bit). In addition to fun and goofy NPCs, there were also plenty of treasure chests to discover containing a variety of worthwhile items, equippable pieces of gear that provide a variety of bonuses, buff-granting drinks and food, and supplements that gave me permanent stat boosts. The city itself isn’t gigantic, but it feels dense and full of personality.

And really, that personality goes a long way. World Tour absolutely nails the right vibe for a Street Fighter story mode. It’s colorful, fun, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and feels like a mini version of Yakzua at times, complete with a whole clan of goofy gangsters who fight with boxes and TVs on their heads. I do hope that some sort of plot does take form as the mode goes on, but even if it doesn’t, there’s at least a lot of fun to be had just watching beloved characters like Chun-Li behave like a real person inhabiting this world.

What I appreciate most about the mode is the way in which it begins by stripping Street Fighter 6’s core gameplay down to its bare essentials, and builds it back up piece by piece, teaching new players the fundamentals by incorporating them into missions with tangible rewards, and introducing mechanics at a reasonable pace. When you begin, you have Luke’s core moveset and only two special moves, but as you keep playing, building up your relationship with Luke by sparring with him, giving him gifts that you find in the world, and chatting him up, you’ll start to gain his full moveset. And this is the case for other fighters too. Once you meet Chun-Li, you can deepen your relationship with her, and start learning her moves as well.

World Tour is definitely a mode that’s aimed at newcomers to Street Fighter and fighting games in general, but even as a seasoned fighting game fan, it won me over. I love the idea of getting to mix and match special moves from different characters, the world was full of fun things to discover, and I had a lot of fun finding and outfitting my character with new pieces of gear – like a pair of devil wings that granted a large damage boost, but also caused my life to slowly drain.

Fighting Ground

I also got to spend some time with the offline multiplayer suite, otherwise known as Fighting Ground. I spent most of my time playing as Cammy, since she was my main in Street Fighter 5, and while her core gameplan of knockdown and rushdown is still largely the same, she does have some pretty significant changes this time around.

For one, she now has a new mechanic involving charging her special moves. Charging her Spiral Arrow, for instance, now makes it behave like a V-Trigger 1 version of the move in Street Fighter 5. Meaning, she will attack through her opponent, and get an opportunity to combo into either a cannon spike or a super. It’s really cool, but also makes her feel like a bit more technical character this time around.

Her hooligan combo also has some new tricks. She can now use an overhead crescent moon kick out of it, which can lead to some nasty combos, she can cancel it early and drop right out of the sky, and of course she still has the option of throwing you if you just sit there and block, or hitting low with a slide attack (that is also now plus on block!) Overall, she’s extremely cool and I can’t wait to learn how to play her. Fortunately, Street Fighter 6 has no shortage of ways to learn a new character. There’s the combo trials, an excellent training mode, and the much improved character guides that not only walk you through each move, but also give you advice on how those moves should be used, and gives you the opportunity to practice each lesson as well.

Street Fighter 6 is shaping up to be the whole package, and certainly the most fully featured a Street Fighter game has ever been at the beginning of its lifecycle. We’ll have to see if it sticks the landing when it hits PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox, and PC on June 2.

Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit