Category: IGN

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

With Redfall arriving at IGN just a couple of days ahead of its official release date we haven’t had enough time to complete a final review yet – certainly not without becoming a nocturnal monster myself and staying awake all weekend. However, after several sessions – solo, co-op with a friend, and also in a group of three – I must admit I’m thoroughly underwhelmed by Redfall’s vanilla missions and lifeless world, and very disappointed at its lengthy list of display issues and bugs.

Redfall is a distinct departure from the likes of Deathloop and Dishonored. Certainly some of that Arkane DNA has sidestepped its way into the finished product – chiefly in the magical abilities of the four available powered-up protagonists – but Redfall’s open-world approach to a modern day Massachusetts is otherwise a little more mundane in comparison. Not only does the architecture of Redfall seem a little flavourless compared to Deathloop’s funky retro-futurism and the Victorian backdrop of Dishonored, but there seems little to absorb whenever I stop to explore.

Perhaps best described as Far Cry with a supernatural slant, Redfall’s premise seems simple: take back the town from the slobbering vampires and their human flunkies that have occupied it. Unfortunately, so far the experience seems surprisingly boring and regularly broken. I appear to be just over halfway through and the mission design seems largely baked around poking through various locations around town looking for random items and picking them up, putting them down, or turning them on or off. Sometimes there’s a locked door involved, but a key for it will be sitting somewhere nearby – waiting to be arbitrarily stumbled across. It’s simply not interesting; it’s just a lot of walking around rooms looking at dull props until one of us accidentally highlights the one we need.

Even the kooky and otherworldly vampire nests, which essentially function as enemy camps you can assault for loot, seem to be a letdown. These nightmarish nests, which remix parts of the overworld and warp and cram them into twisted tunnels descending to a huge and haunted heart that needs to be destroyed, quickly became chore-like – especially once I began to notice the same segments being recycled and reused in subsequent nests.

Fangs for Coming

With four heroes to choose from, each with three special abilities – plus co-op support for up to four players – there are objectively many ways you and a team of friends can approach combat in Redfall. At its best you’ll have players strategically teleporting around, conjuring up a ghostly sniper rifle, or summoning a friendly vampire ex-boyfriend to fight alongside you – like a David Boreanaz booty call. It’s kinetic and it’s bloody, and there are moments where it does come together in battles that would have Blade dipping his sunglasses in disbelief. Unfortunately, such moments are irregular at best, and I think it’s probably due to Redfall’s enemies lacking the wits to put up a stimulating fight.

Human enemies seem largely disinterested with taking cover in a firefight, and I’ve had snipers rushing at me like Medieval knights. The vampires, however, are easily the worst offenders, charging and slashing at us like mindless animals. Worse, they just seem woefully underutilised as scary threats. A lot of the time they just float around in the open – apparently sleeping peacefully. They just hover, waiting for us to walk directly up to them and attack them – sometimes blissfully unaware you’ve just turned the vampire that was beside them to dust.

It’d be easier to look past the plain combat had the rest of Redfall been able to get its fangs into me, but it still hasn’t and I’m sceptical it will. The story itself seems to be unfolding in lightly animated paintings or static, in-engine dioramas. They all look like placeholders for cutscenes that aren’t coming, and I have to say fighting my way to a film projector to run what’s essentially a slideshow certainly gives Redfall a cheapness that’s hard to shake.

Redfall doesn’t save progression for any player but the host in co-op games, which seems fair enough if you and your mates don’t have the same missions unlocked but makes a lot less sense if all players are at identical points in the game. I began Redfall from scratch with two friends, all three of us fresh from the first mission, but while they kept their gear and XP they’ll now need to play those missions again.

A lot has been made of Redfall only running at 30fps at launch on Xbox Series X|S but, while it’s certainly noticeable when moving rapidly, it’d be disingenuous of me to pretend it’s a dealbreaker. As a console gamer who grew up playing on 50Hz TVs at 25fps, I’m not going to throw my toys out of the pram over it. What’s far, far more pressing an issue than Redfall’s Xbox frame rate is its raft of other performance problems, from textures that take an absolute age to pop in (or don’t load at all), disappearing characters and animations, and other mission-breaking bugs.

Sometimes my friends appeared completely stationary, sliding around the map like chess pieces, and sometimes they weren’t there at all – they were just a floating gun. On the other hand, sometimes a character appears but their gun doesn’t – making them look like they’re playing air guitar. During the climax of an early boss fight my character completely vanished from my friend’s screen, turning what could have been a satisfying team victory into a moment of bemused laughter.

During one side mission I died trying to kill a vampire, but when I came back to finish the job he was just a non-interactive blue ghost, rotating to face me but otherwise rooted in place. When I came back again his energy shield was there, but the vampire… wasn’t in it. During a co-op session I found myself (more than once) fruitlessly attacking an enemy who was standing right in front of me but my friends saw as a dead body. At one stage, while playing solo, my crouch and start buttons broke. They just made clunking sounds. My inability to crouch persisted after death, but returned when I fast travelled to a safehouse. The start button doesn’t pause the game, by the way. It’s obviously understandable when playing online co-op, but completely baffling and inconvenient when playing solo.

Right now Redfall is not the game I’d expected, certainly not following the excellent Deathloop, but you can check back with us later this week for our final assessment.

Luke is Senior Editor and part of the IGN reviews team. You can chat to him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: Jedi Survivor

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor features many connective threads and deep cuts to the established lore of the decades-spanning sci-fi/fantasy franchise. Throughout Jedi Knight Cal Kestis’s journey across the galaxy, he’ll encounter familiar enemies to battle and overcome. However, one particular foe from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order made quite an impact on players who were brave enough to fight it, and it’s now back with a vengeance in the sequel.

In Survivor, players can get a rematch against the oddly named, but totally dangerous, Oggdo Bogdo — which was an original creation from Fallen Order. When most players first encountered the foe in Fallen Order, many were outmatched by its raw strength and high resiliance. The sequel takes things further by allowing players the chance to fight the “Spawn of Oggdo,” which shares the lethality of its parent, along with another more difficult battle that takes things further.

What is Oggdo Bogdo?

In Fallen Order, Oggdo Bogdo was an optional mini-boss located in Bogano. As something of a large frog-looking creature, it also possessed massive strength and agility. What made the original game’s fight against Oggdo Bogdo so memorable was its first and very sudden difficulty spike. The enemy was able to one-shot most players, and given its placement in one of the game’s starting areas, many felt compelled to try to defeat it.

Though intended as a purely optional fight, it became a rite of passage for most players to try their hand at Oggdo Bogdoa. The community chatter about Oggdo Bogdo eventually turned the boss into a meme, and EA and Respawn Entertainment even poked fun at the encounter on social media.

A special friend awaits you on Bogano… pic.twitter.com/3jfazlfNbt

— EA Star Wars (@EAStarWars) November 22, 2019

And with the return of the Oggdo Bogdo, many players are voicing similar concerns about the fight as they did with the original.

Where to Fight The Spawn of Oggdo

Much like the original game, you’re welcome to try your hand against Oggdo fairly early into the game. On the planet Kohbo, and after getting settled into the planet’s core open field known as Rambler’s Reach, you can immediately head to Fort Kah’lin, which can be found positioning the main settlement north and then looking towards the structures of the holo map directly southeast. Fort Kah’lin is a massive enemy base filled with raiders and their repurposed battle droids, and you’ll need to fight your way inside to reach the upper areas. Eventually, you’ll make it to an area with droids and a metal floor, which turns out to be a trap floor, which drops into a cavern with the Spawn of Oggdo.

Just like the first Oggdo, the Spawn is a noticeably challenging fight and possesses many unblockable attacks. It also has a lethal grab attack, which sees the creature grab you with its tongue and chomp up Cal, leading to instant death. It’s an unforgiving encounter, and it’ll require reading the mini-boss to overcome it. If you defeat the Spawn of Oggdo, you’ll be able to loot a chest to unlock Cal’s lost poncho from the original game — which has been a favorite among fans. For a more detailed breakdown on how to find and defeat the legendary enemy, you can find our breakdown in the guide.

More and more game studios are actively discussing and considering the implications of new AI technologies in development, and Honkai: Star Rail developer miHoYo is among them.

The fourth entry in the Honkai series launched last week for PC and mobile, bringing gacha and other systems familiar from its prior open world hit Genshin Impact to a classic RPG format with familiar nods to prior Honkai games.

And like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail is a massive game, with plans to continue growing over time. It’s made by a development team of over 500 people, but even with so many on board its scale makes it unsurprising that the developers used at least a couple AI techniques to polish off certain otherwise-handcrafted design elements.

“Our team is paying much attention to AI, especially its impact on the gaming industry,” reads an answer from the Honkai: Star Rail development team in response to IGN asking about advances in AI technology. “In fact, we have already integrated some latest AI technologies into Honkai: Star Rail. These techniques have been implemented to improve the facial appearance and behavioral patterns of characters, enhancing the immersive gaming experience with a more natural representation overall.”

That said, there are some areas of Honkai: Star Rail specifically that miHoYo feels AI isn’t necessarily ready to touch just yet, though it may be in the future. Specifically, content scripting – you won’t find any AI writing in Honkai: Star Rail, especially given how story-driven the game is. Still, miHoYo says it finds more in-depth AI application for scripting “definitely intriguing.”

“With that being said, we also found out that the current application of AI is still restricted. It is more like a ‘cherry on the top’ technique to supplement what we already had instead of fundamentally solving issues from the ground up. We will focus on the [repercussions] and development of AI, figuring out a more robust implementation in the future.”

What’s next for Honkai: Star Rail

In the same interview, we also asked about upcoming content plans for Honkai: Star Rail. MiHoYo didn’t offer too many new concrete details, noting that future plans would be unveiled when the studio was ready. But it did confirm that Honkai: Star Rail is a long-term game with an “ever-lasting plan and goal” that will, like Genshin Impact, have future Special Programs to announce major updates and introduce new in-game content.

We also learned that while Honkai: Star Rail features a handful of familiar faces from previous Honkai games and is a spiritual sequel to that series, other crossovers such as with Genshin Impact or other games, are not off the table. However, miHoYo says that for now, it’s too early to consider any. So no Paimon in Honkai: Star Rail…for now.

Finally, miHoYo also reiterated it has no “concrete updates regarding other platforms” when we asked about Xbox and Switch console releases. A PlayStation release, however, is still in the works for an as-yet-unannounced date. Notably, Genshin Impact was announced for a Nintendo Switch release, but is still missing in action on the handheld over two years after its initial PC, PlayStation, and mobile release.

We’ve been keeping an eye on Honkai: Star Rail since its release, including spotting its fans’ inexplicable love for a certain trash can. If you’re working through Honkai: Star Rail yourself, our Wiki Guides are here to help.

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

It’s only been out for a weekend, but already Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is on sale for $10 off at Amazon. The deal applies to physical copies of the game on Xbox Series X and PS5, and you do have to clip the on-page coupon to get the discount. It’s rare these days to see a discount so early on a game this good (see our 9/10 review). If you pick it up, make sure to clip the on-page coupon, or you’ll end up paying full price.

Get Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for $59.99 at Amazon

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor takes place five years after the events of Fallen Order. It puts you back in the shoes of Cal Kestis as you re-assemble your squad and take on the Imperial threat. Unlike many games of this type, you get to keep the abilities Cal learned in the first game, so you can wall run, zipline, and double-jump to your heart’s content from the very start.

I picked up this game on Xbox Series X, and had a grand old time over the weekend using various lightsaber stances to fight my way out of a dangerous mission on Coruscant. Then I made it to a new planet, where I went off the beaten path and immediately got destroyed by a rancor. Such is live in a galaxy far, far away.

If you’ve had your eye on Jedi: Survivor and you own a current-gen console, I’d say this is definitely worth picking up for the price. Otherwise, like all games from all developers besides Nintendo, I’m sure we’ll see a deeper discount on it in a couple of months.

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 Twitter @_chrislreed or on Mastodon @chrislreed.

Among the many findings in the more than 400-page report released by the UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority blocking the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, the agency concludes that the fears put forward by Sony regarding Call of Duty exclusivity are unwarranted. In fact, the UK regulator determines that Xbox would lose “substantial” money if it ever tried to keep Call of Duty all to itself.

While the exact numbers have been redacted to protect the privacy of the third-parties involved (Sony, Xbox, and Activision Blizzard), the report specifically models two theoretical scenarios where Microsoft could attempt to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation platforms, before concluding that “it would not be financially profitable for [Microsoft] to engage in a total foreclosure strategy.”

The conclusion is drawn from, among other things, the “critical diversion ratio,” which is the rate at which PlayStation Call of Duty players would need to switch over to Xbox in order for it to become profitable for Microsoft, and how much those new players are likely to spend on Call of Duty in the five years following a total foreclosure strategy by Microsoft. By analysing the lifetime total value (LTV) of Call of Duty players, the CMA estimates that Microsoft would see a net loss in the billions over those five years.

The CMA’s analysis takes a variety of factors into account, from the potential reputational hit to Microsoft were they to go back on their public statements about Call of Duty exclusivity, to the benefits to Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription, Microsoft’s history of keeping certain exceptionally popular franchises multiplatform (e.g. Minecraft), and more. Ultimately, that told the story to the CMA that any scenario where Microsoft pursued an exclusivity strategy around Call of Duty would result in shortterm and longterm losses that wouldn’t incentivize that kind of move.

Previously Sony has claimed that they “cannot protect against the loss of Call of Duty,” and said that Microsoft making it exclusive or downgrading its performance on their platform would cause irrepreble damage to their company. Meanwhile, Microsoft has continued to assure regulators that they would ship Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles for as long as they exist.

Despite the CMA’s conclusion in regards to Call of Duty, they ultimately decided to block the merger on the mostly unrelated matter of cloud gaming, where they fear Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and subscription service could result in a monopoly that Sony and Nintendo would be unable to compete with.

We’ve learned a lot more from the CMA’s final report, including that the regulator doesn’t think Nintendo platforms can run Call of Duty, and how much money major publishers say their games cost to make. For a deeper dive into what’s going on with the deal overall, check out our explainer of what’s next, and why cloud gaming, not Call of Duty, may kill the acquisition.

Travis Northup is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @TieGuyTravis and read his games coverage here.

PlayStation says that its 10 live service games in development will be in different genres and for different audiences. Furthermore, PlayStation is aware of the fierce competition between live service games and the time investment they take from players.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, PlayStation Studios head Herman Hulst said, “There is a risk that we talk about ‘live service’ in generic terms – as if it is a single genre or even a single business model. PlayStation Studios are making a variety of games that could be referred to as ‘live services’, targeting different genres, different release schedules, and at different scales.”

He continued: “We are also creating games for different audiences, and I take confidence from our track record in creating worlds and stories that PlayStation fans love.”

Hurst explained that each of the studios PlayStation recently acquired is on its own trajectory. Additionally, whether or not an acquisition occurs depends on what the studio needs to grow and succeed. Being part of PlayStation Studios allows access to a global network of other studios, as well as technology and service teams.

“The priority for each studio is to deliver their own project – to make the best game that they can,” said Hurst.

PlayStation acquired Destiny developer Bungie and Jade Raymond’s Haven Studio last year, as well as Firewalk Studios last month. PlayStation is ramping up the development of live service titles with these studios, including one from Naughty Dog set in The Last of Us universe. The game Firewalk is working on will release on both PlayStation and PC.

PlayStation plans to release more than ten live service games by March 2026.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.

When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey

A Skyrim modder named Art From The Machine has shown off a mod they’re working on that uses ChatGPT and other AI tools to give NPCs a memory of your adventure, endless things for them to say, and a way to ask them questions with your voice.

As reported by PC Gamer, this mod uses ChatGPT in concert with xVASynth for text-to-speech that lets NPCs speak these new answers with an AI version of their voice and Whisper for speech-to-text so players can use their own voice via a mic to ask questions to them.

As you can see in the video here, the new responses from the NPCs aren’t quite natural as of yet and can be a bit slow, but it shows promise of a world where NPCs can comment on nearly everything you do and even answer questions directly from the player that aren’t just canned responses from a list of dialogue options.

For example, the video released by Art From The Machine shows a conversation with Ulfberth War-Bear from Warmaiden’s in Whiterun, and the player can ask him what the store’s hours of operation are and even how much time remains until the store closed based on the in-game clock.

He is also seen describing a sword the player picks up, showing that any NPC – with the proper knowledge, of course – could dynamically explain various items in the world to you as part of a conversation instead of having that info solely in text form in some menu.

“It seems to be a well-crafted iron sword with a soul gem embedded in the hilt. The enchantment on it allows the wielder to capture the souls of their enemies,” Ulfberth War-Bear says.

As for NPCs remembering your conversations, Art From The Machine is working on using a basic memory system in tandem with ChatGPT to help make this a possibility.

“I have a basic memory system set up where I ask ChatGPT to summarize the conversation on exit to help condense it down for future prompts,” Art From The Machine said on Reddit. “There are much more sophisticated tools out there to handle memory though such as Langchain which I am hoping to implement in the future.”

While the tech is obviously impressive, one of the biggest ongoing questions will be if AI-driven text can ever match that of a human. Sure, it’s cool to have endless content in a game, but does it matter all that much if it doesn’t feel real or layered or hand-crafted with the context of our own past experiences and identity? Only time will tell.

For more, check out all of our content from IGN’s AI Week, including if AI will spell doom for animation, how AI could change video games forever, how gamers are craeting brand-new RPGs using ChatGPT, and why ChatGPT seems to be everywhere.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.