Warframe developer Digital Extremes has unveiled more gameplay for its upcoming fantasy MMO, Soulframe.
The studio pulled back the curtain on its next project during an inaugural dev stream as part of TennoCon 2024. It’s a closer look at some of the game’s opening moments, revealing customization features, new magical abilities, and combat. The footage also gives us a longer look at the players’ wolf-like mount and the Nightfold hub, where you can relax, customize your arsenal, and talk to NPCs, all with the press of a button. It shares some similarities with Warframe’s Orbiter ship, and in case you were wondering, yes, you can pet your mount here.
It all kicks off with a look at the Warsong Prologue, which higlights customization options for their mother’s hair, skin color, eyes, and more as Soulframe begins. It reveals a taste of not only new features but also how themes of ancestry have been woven throughout the experience. This fully narrated intro sequence is then cut short as a time-skip launches us into the future, revealing what will eventually become each player’s Envoy character.
We got an even better look at the importance of visuals in Soulframe thanks to the introduction of a new NPC: Verminia, the Rat Witch. Digital Extremes says this character can “enhance the customization of cosmetics” while also helping out with potions, elixirs, and more. Although the Envoy’s abilities allows them to hurl their weapons at enemies and turn invisible for stealth approaches, Soulframe players will need more than brute force to take out large foes like Nimrod. This towering behemoth uses lightning abilities for ranged combat while using staff for close-quarters fights, and it looks like we’ll be fighting them more than once.
“The community we’ve formed around Soulframehas been really inspiring for the team and they are the backbone of everything we do.
“The community we’ve formed around Soulframe has been really inspiring for the team and they are the backbone of everything we do,” Soulframe Community Manager Sarah Asselin said in a statement. “We’re welcoming more new players than ever and we can’t wait to share our progress through regular Devstreams with the team as we continue to peel back Soulframe’s layers of intrigue.”
Today’s Soulframe gameplay should whet the appetite of both Warframe veterans and those who have never touched a Digital Extremes game, but there’s still a lot of waiting to do before it officially launches. However, during today’s TennoCon presentation, Digital Extremes promised plans to get its fantasy MMO in the hands of more players sometime this fall. As long as the plan goes unchanged, the studio says that anyone who wants to play Soulframe Preludes will be able to when they sign up.
“The closed testing we’ve been doing with our community has been so impactful; we’ve learned a ton, and we continue to listen and learn each day,” Soulframe Creative Director Geoff Crookes said in a statement. “We’re hoping to open this up to a lot more players this fall. Everything is still rough around the edges, but that’s part of our style – the feedback is important to us, and we really do iterate on it regularly.”
We learned even more about Soulframe during our interview with Digital Extremes CEO Steve Sinclair, Crookes, and Asselin. During our talk, we gained insight into how the studio is keeping with its community-driven development approach, weapon variety, potential Warframe tie-ins, and so much more. Keep an eye out for the full interview to drop early next week.
Soulframe is launching first for PC with plans to come to consoles at an unspecified point in the future. Another dev stream is set to take place in September.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.
The weekend has kicked off, and we’re rounding up the best deals you can find this weekend. Today, there are great deals on handheld PCs, laptops, headphones, and, of course, video games. The best deals for Saturday, July 20, include Granblue Fantasy: Relink, ROG Ally Z1 Extreme, Nintendo Switch Lite, and more.
Save 20% Off Granblue Fantasy: Relink
Granblue Fantasy: Relink is one of the biggest RPGs released this year. Over five years after its reveal, Cygames released the title officially on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC in January. The game features over 20 different playable characters from the Granblue Fantasy series, with characters like Nier, Rosetta, Lancelot, Percival, and more. Score this RPG now for only $39.99 and join the fun with over 100 multiplayer missions to complete!
ROG Ally Z1 Extreme for $549.99
If you don’t own a gaming PC and want to jump into the market, a handheld gaming PC is the perfect in-between. For the Black Friday in July sale, Best Buy has the ROG Ally Z1 Extreme for $549.99, which nets you savings of $100. It’s the lowest we’ve seen this model so far. Additionally, you can save $100 off the standard Z1 ROG Ally or the Lenovo Legion Go, which is also powered by the AMD Z1 Extreme.
Nintendo Switch Lite with Animal Crossing: New Horizons for $159
Walmart currently has the Timmy & Tommy’s Aloha Edition Nintendo Switch Lite available for $159. This bundle includes a turquoise Nintendo Switch Lite and a free digital copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Together, that has a $260 value, which means you can save $100 by purchasing this bundle. If you have not purchased a Nintendo Switch yet, this is an excellent option.
Apple AirPods Pro with USB Type-C for $168.99
Amazon has dropped the price of the 2nd gen Apple AirPods Pro truly wireless noise cancelling earbuds with the universal USB Type-C connector by over $80, now only $168.99. With this current gen AirPods Pro, Apple has replaced the proprietary Lightning port with the more universal USB Type-C. Don’t miss your chance to score a pair of new AirPods for an all-time low.
PowerBeats Pro for $139.99
The Beats Powerbeats Pro are an excellent choice if you’re looking for an Apple AirPods alternative. You can get up to nine hours of listening time off a single charge, with over 24 hours available if you use the included charging case. These earbuds are powered by the H1 chip, which allows for easy pairing and instant connectivity when using an iPhone. Overall, it’s hard to beat the value these earbuds provide at just $139.99.
Save $1000 Off Razer Blade 16
Amazon has the Razer Blade 16 listed for $1000 off right now for a limited time. This model includes an RTX 4080, 32GB of RAM, a 240Hz QHD display, and more. There are not many laptops out there that will offer you anywhere near the performance you’re getting with this Razer Blade.
Save $200 Off This Samsung Odyssey G5 Monitor
If you’re in the market for a new monitor, look no further than this Samsung Odyssey G5 from Best Buy. Right now, you can save $200 off this QHD monitor, which has plenty of top notch features. First, you’ll get a 165Hz refresh rate, which is essential for getting the most out of your games. Additionally, with 32″ of screen, this larger display is perfect for immersion, especially in RPGs and other large-scale titles.
Model making is a great hobby, but knowing how and where to start is another story. It can be overwhelming for novices: Injection-molded plastic models have been on the market for close to a century, and there are kits of everything from military vehicles to sports cars and anime robots to household objects. Looking at some of the incredible creations of seasoned model builders, it might seem like you need an entire workshop of tools and equipment, the steady hands of a brain surgeon, and years of practice to make something cool-looking, but that’s not the case.
To make getting into this delightful pastime a whole lot less daunting, I’ve put together a list of kits that are worth checking out. Quite a few of these recommendations are based on my own firsthand experience. Up top are kits that don’t require glue, paint, or much else in the way of supplies, but keep scrolling for some recommendations if you’re ready to get your hands dirty and possibly stuck together. Head all the way to the bottom for essential tools and supplies you’ll need for model kits and where to buy these excellent LEGO alternatives.
No Paint? No Glue? No Problem!
For a very long time, model kits needed to be glued together and painted. Nowadays that’s not always the case. Most model companies offer entry-level kits that come pre-colored and can be easily snapped together. Keep in mind that some kits that advertise themselves as “for beginners” or “entry level” are so simplified it’s hard to count them as traditional model kits. However, plenty still offer a satisfying challenge without requiring any messy stuff like paint and glue. Case in point: Gundam! If you’re looking for a beginner route to model kits, and you think giant robots are cool, then either of the following two kits is a good start.
Gundam kits are classified by grade, the two most common being High Grade (HG), which are usually $15-30 and about 6 inches tall when complete, and Master Grade (MG), which’ll run you around $30-50 and are a couple of inches taller, but usually a lot more detailed and complex. There’s also Real Grade, which is somewhere between HG and MG; Entry Grade, which is for absolute beginners; and Perfect Grade, which is for advanced builders.
Gundam modeling (or Gunpla, short for “Gundam plastic models”) has become so massively popular, it warrants its own list of recommended kits. But for anyone who doesn’t care for big anime robots (Why not? Who hurt you?) I’ve rounded up a bunch of kits that take the same no-fuss appeal of Gundam kits applied to other properties and subject matter.
Star Wars Model Kits
Bandai has given the Gundam treatment to a number of other beloved pop-culture properties, most notably Star Wars. A good number of characters and vehicles have been turned into pre-colored snap-together kits. Some lend themselves to this treatment better than others; some of the less colorful subjects may look a little bland without a bit of paint or finishing touches. A basic wash or some dry-brushing will really make the details pop on the more monochromatic Original Trilogy machines.
Boba Fett is nice and colorful and looks great without a drop of paint, which speaks to the character’s inherently kitbashed aesthetic. The Stormtroopers looked a little too plain out of the box, so my esteemed colleague Brian Altano and I personalized them a bit:
Anime Model Kits
If full-color injection-molded action figure model kits work for giant anime robots, why not anime people as well? Bandai’s Figure-Rise line has tackled Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Digimon, and even some of the human characters from Gundam.
Giant Robot Model Kits (That Aren’t Gundam)
Currently sitting at the top of my pile of shame is Kotobukiya’s 1:100 scale Metal Gear Rex. Part of my procrastination is because it’s a big beautiful model kit and I don’t want to mess it up, but also because I built the Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, which was an extremely frustrating build. This may have been because I got it partially from a friend and picked up where he left off, but I think the more intricate and top-heavy design of the Sahelanthropus doesn’t lend itself as well to a physical kit. From what I’ve read, Rex’s more squat form makes for a more straightforward build. Unsurprisingly, a mech designed for a PlayStation 1 game has less proverbial moving parts than one designed for the PS4.
Good Smile Company’s Moderoid line of kits come pre-painted, which is great if you just want to put something together and display it, but they’re also on the pricier side.
Like a lot of Bandai kits, these dinosaur skeletons snap together and are molded in all the right colors. However, since they’re a bunch of bones, they’re monochrome. That said, for anyone who doesn’t have much confidence in their painting abilities, but still wants to paint something, this might be for you. I tried out a bunch of weathering techniques on mine to make it look appropriately prehistoric, and then made a custom base.
Not quite the weirdest model kit I’ve built (that honor goes to a 1:24 scale urinating dog), but it’s definitely up there. This is basically a Gundam, but it’s soup. It’s completely snap together, though surprisingly, deceptively complex in how it’s assembled. The finished product, without a drop of paint, is impressively hard to differentiate from the real thing, which is funny but also raises some concerns about how closely instant ramen noodles resemble polystyrene.
As the name suggests, Aoshima’s The Snap Kit series of model cars are a *snap* to put together, literally and figuratively. Much like Gundam kits, no glue is required and the majority of the pieces come molded in the correct colors. (Stickers are included for the ones that aren’t.) They’re a great option for anyone who’s looking for a quick project that doesn’t require a lot of tools or materials. Without paint, the end result might look a bit more like a toy than a proper replica, but painting is still an option. If that’s the part of the hobby that appeals to you, these’ll get you off to the proverbial races faster.
I turned The Snapkit’s 2000GT-R Skyline into a beat-up junker, and kitbashed the Prius into a heavy metal post-apocalyptic monster truck. A “Judas Prius,” if you will. That one’s a work in progress; it looks too Halo, not Mad Max enough.
Military Model Kits
The beauty of tanks, aside from being a cross between a cannon and a bulldozer, is how forgiving they are of a messy paint job. The real, full-size ones are frequently painted just one color, but get caked with dirt, mud, grease and grime, which is immensely gratifying to recreate in miniature with dry brushing, washes, and pigments. If you screw up during constructing, just call it battle damage! Tamiya makes some excellent armor kits, along with just about any other type of military hardware and/or accoutrement you could ask for, including but not limited to 1:35 scale farm animals.
The scale of models can be a little confusing, but it’s just fractions. A 1:1 scale model is life size, 1:2 scale is 50% the size of the real thing, and so on. However, different subject matter is suited best to certain scales. Cars are usually 1:/24 or 1:32, and the standard for military ground vehicles, like tanks and trucks and infantry, is generally 1:35. Larger aircraft models are 1:48, but 1:72 isn’t uncommon, and when you get into larger naval vehicles it gets even more fractional. There’s plenty of overlap, so if you want a little truck to go next to your 1:48 helicopter, it probably exists somewhere out there. The scale of railroad models is the gauge of the miniature train tracks being used, which I’m not even going to go into here. The point is: You can get a big Harrier jet or little Harrier Jet, or you can buy two big ones and pretend it’s a mommy and a daddy and a baby jet.
Car Model Kits
I am admittedly not much of a car guy. My dad, on the other hand, is very much the opposite. As a Father’s Day gift one year, I tracked down Hasegawa’s 1:24 BMW 2002 Tii kit, and painted it to look like a real car he’s been tinkering with and repeatedly repairing for the last few decades. He loved the gift and I had a great time putting it together. The amount of detail and tiny parts in a kit like this might be overwhelming for a novice modeler, but it’ll certainly keep you busy.
Two companies called Revell make model kits: Revell USA and Revell of Germany. The general consensus among the model building community is that the ones from Germany are excellent and the American Revell kits leave a lot to be desired. I’ve only built the American ones, and I wasn’t impressed.
What’s your dream car? A Lamborghini? What about a kebab truck? Aoshima makes a range of great vehicles, from luxury supercars to civilian automobiles to a surprisingly broad selection of funny little food trucks.
How to Get Started with Model Kits
Tools:
This is a great little set of tools to get started. If you get serious, it’s worth investing in a nice pair of hobby shears, side-cutters or “nippers” for cutting the individual parts off the runners. The cleaner the cut, the less trimming, filing and sanding needed during assembly. I have a pair of Tamiya side-cutters that I swear by, but the God-tier option in this department is the “God Hand” line (not to be confused with the PlayStation 2 game IGN gave a controversially bad score to a million years ago).
A sturdy cutting mat is helpful for not ruining your dining room table and getting yelled at, and also for easily moving your entire project away from the dining room table because you have company coming over and you don’t want people to see the funny little things you make in your spare time.
Model cement is different from regular glue in that it’s actually a solvent that slightly melts the plastic where applied, letting you fuse parts together. This makes it effectively useless on other materials, but for plastic kits, it’s my favorite. A tiny brush is built into the lid, so you just hold two pieces of your model together and apply a drop where they touch. The cement is so thin it’ll usually flow into the crack on its own.
Paint:
Without venturing into the messy, expensive, and frequently frustrating world of airbrush operation and maintenance, my preferred method of painting models is with a combination of “rattle cans” and water-based acrylics. Primer is key because it gives the surface a finish that paint will adhere to more easily than bare plastic. It’s possible to use regular spray paint from a hardware store, but it comes out thicker and can very easily ruin any fine details. Cans of hobby spray paint produce a fine mist, which is much easier to apply carefully.
Mr. Hobby’s Mr. Surfacer is an excellent primer that will even out the appearance of a kit prior to painting, covering up imperfections in the plastic while also providing a nice matte finish that paint will stick to really well.
Unlike lacquers or enamels, water-based acrylic paint doesn’t need any special thinners or solvents when it comes to mixing or cleanup. Vallejo’s Model Color line comes in every shade imaginable, and the dropper bottles make it easier to avoid spills.
Tamiya has a whole rainbow of hobby-grade spray lacquer, which is a great alternative to hand-painting large areas and worrying about brushstrokes. If the model is mostly one color, laying down a base coat and then doing the details by hand is a good system. It’s unlikely you’ll use an entire can of paint on one kit, so if you grab a color or two per kit, over time you’ll likely collect a nice variety.
Like any good hobby, model making is basically a bottomless pit of enjoyably wasted time (that’s not actually wasted if you enjoyed yourself). No matter how good you are at it, you’ll inevitably come across someone who’s so much better than you it makes you want to give up entirely. On the bright side, a lot of experts share their work online along with handy tips and tutorials for any skill level. On YouTube, a few accounts you may want to check out are SpruesNBrews, NightShift, and Jun’s Mini Garage. If you are looking for some inspiration for dioramas, or just to see some ridiculously cool stuff getting made, Laser Creation-World and Minibricks both put up some great work. Happy modeling!
Model Kit FAQs
Where is the best place to buy model kits?
Amazon: You can find some awesome deals throughout the year, but you’ll also want to be wary of resellers marking up prices. If you find something you like, it’s always worth googling it to see what the going rate is.
HobbyLink Japan: Model making is a hobby that requires patience, and sometimes that starts before you even get the kit. HLJ is the biggest online Japanese hobby shop and has a flat-out overwhelming selection of model kits and supplies, plus toys, statues, gacha machine prices, apparel, books, and even adults-only stuff you probably won’t find many places outside of Japan. The catch? Shipping is usually expensive, slow, or both. The cheapest option can take four to seven months to arrive. Cost is generally calculated based on size rather than weight (model kits are big, but light) so it often makes sense to save up and order a bunch of stuff at once.
MegaHobby: I haven’t used this one personally, but it’s also got a great selection and it seems like most stuff ships out in six months or sooner.
IGN Store: We’ve got a modest but solid selection of kits on there, generally of the anime/pop-culture variety. (The best-sellers from HLJ occasionally show up on the IGN Store.) New items are added regularly, and older stuff goes on sale, so it’s worth checking back regularly.
Your local hobby shop: No, really! See if there’s a hobby shop near you, and go support it. Those are a dying breed and the people who work there will often actually know what they’re talking about, and it’s also a great place to meet fellow builders of small things. Bear in mind that model building is a broad hobby, and hobby shops usually cater to one particular corner of it. The 80-year-old WWII diorama builder might not know what a Perfect Grade Exia Gundam is, and the kid with a Char Aznable tattoo may not know what a Panzerkampfwagen is, but they both can most likely tell you about drybrushing, panel lines, and gunk wash.
Max Scoville is a senior writer, host and producer for IGN covering video games, movies, toys and collectibles. He has 15 years of experience in pop-culture media, previously writing for and/or appearing on Current TV, Destructoid, Revision3 and StarWars.com. He has been involved with several podcasts, including The Comedy Button, Weird Heat, Podtoid and you can currently find him hosting IGN’s weekly PlayStation show, Beyond.
His favorite video games/series include Metal Gear Solid, Yakuza, Bloodborne and Secret of Evermore. Some of his all-time favorite movies are Akira, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Royal Tenenbaums, Boogie Nights and My Neighbor Totoro. When he’s not looking at a screen for some reason, he loves to read, paint cartoon monsters and build model kits and miniature dioramas, but most of his free time these days is spent with his kid or being tired.
Bethesda Game Studios is officially the first Microsoft game developer to full unionize under the Communication Workers of America (CWA), forming a “wall-to-wall” union of developers including artists, engineers, programmers and designers. Microsoft has recognized the union.
“We, a majority of developers at Bethesda Game Studios Dallas, Rockville, and Austin, are ecstatic to announce the formation of our union with @CWAUnion,” the group wrote on X/Twitter. “Together as #OneBGSUSA, we advocate for the betterment of every developer at BGS, setting the new standard for our industry.”
The new union will now negotiate a contract with Microsoft. IGN has reached out to Microsoft for comment.
“We are so excited to announce our union at Bethesda Game Studio and join the movement sweeping across the video game industry,” senior system designer Mandi Parker said in a statement via press release. “It is clear that every worker can benefit from bringing democracy into the workplace and securing a protected voice on the job. We’re thrilled to get down to brass tacks and win a fair contract, proving that our unity is a source of real power to positively shape our working conditions, our lives, and the company as a whole.”
Overwatch 2’s 41st hero, Juno, is playable this weekend for a limited time, and fans have already unearthed a surprising bit of lore about the purple-haired space cadet healer and Mei.
Overwatch is filled with voice lines that flesh out lore from its myriad of maps as well as relationships between heroes and villains. It’s just not every character’s death throw voice line would reveal a possible familial tie. Apparently, eliminating Mei as Juno triggers a voice-over exchange in which the Martian hero says, “Sorry, Auntie!” in response to Mei’s dying gasp.
This tidbit of gameplay lore is significant not only in that it might confirm the hero shooter’s fourth familial tie among its heroes, but it also seems to debunk a key fan theory about Juno’s identity.
Late last year, a r/Overwatch thread theorized that Juno—then known as Space Ranger—was a woman named Jiayi. According to the thread’s original poster, Mei had a new voice line that would trigger while at Lijiang Control Center, where she would reminisce over a friend named Jiaya, who she went to grad school with.
Seeing as how this voice line cropped up a month prior to Juno’s reveal at Blizzcon 2023, fans quickly began theorizing that Jiayi was the government name for Juno. At the time, the theory seemed solid, considering Lijiang is the location of Overwatch 2’s in-universe Chinese space station, and Juno’s whole gimmick is that she’s an astronaut hailing from Mars.
This theory took on new life a day before Juno’s limited-time release when X/Twitter user Pampurins posited that Jiayi could actually be the name of Juno’s mother. Pampurin’s revised theory sounds like it’s right on the money thanks to the newly discovered voice line interaction.
While the voice line appears to be considered hard proof that the two are aunt and niece, there’s also a high probability that it is also just a term of endearment, seeing as how the word aunt is commonly used to address older women. IGN has reached out to Blizzard for comment. Regardless, players will likely get an earful of the special voice line interaction during Juno’s weekend of play before her full release comes Season 12 on August 20.
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
Listen up chooms, Cyberpunk is back in analog form for a second run. I previously wrote about Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone, an excellent miniatures game where gangs of plastic figures meet in the streets to spill imaginary blood. The new hardware I’m shouting about is Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City. Yes, more gangs and more blood, but this time it’s a proper board game where factions vie for turf and street cred. It’s less about violence, although there is still some of that, and more about strategically spreading your forces to occupy territory, complete jobs, and establish dominance.
This new game comes from board game giant CMON Games, publisher of hit titles such as Zombicide (on our list of best board games for teens), Blood Rage, and Dune: War for Arrakis. While Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City appears shiny and new, its foundation is an iteration on the underrated 2017 title Godfather: Corleone’s Empire. While the biological tissue shares some DNA, the many additions and tweaks layered atop function as jacked-up cybernetics that give this bad-boy a whole new visage.
Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is a very fast and sleek affair. On each player’s turn they perform up to two actions by moving a token on their playerboard from its state of ready to spent. These map directly to specific actions, so if you want to build another hideout on the map or upgrade your combat deck with new weapon tech, you need to spend the appropriate token. In addition to futzing around with infrastructure, you will mostly be activating your units and moving them about to secure territory. The three unit types all perform different functions and support alternate strategic paths. Solos push people out of important spaces and start fights. Techies purchase Edgerunner mercenaries to supplement your forces, as well as complete Opportunities–elicit jobs–for points. Lastly, Netrunners jack into the network which is a straightforward mini-game where moving down a track comes with risk and escalating rewards.
The juice in the action system is in when you decide to recall and reset your action discs. This effectively passes your turn, but it’s the primary way you exploit territory and recruit new figures. This step is necessary, however, as if you’ve already performed a particular action that you want to perform again–such as activating Solos or upgrading your combat deck–you will not be able to again until you reclaim your action tokens. The tempo control here is important, as players dictate the pace and aggression of play depending on how often they reset. It’s a fascinating strategic decision that pulls in several directions and offers various tactical considerations.
While anyone with even a minor amount of experience with strategy board games will readily understand this game’s processes, there is a somewhat tricky learning curve. This is due to the difficulty in parsing the unit types and their associated behavior. Each figure type is denoted by the shape of its base. This isn’t difficult, but it can be confusing to pair the unit types with the action discs and the connected Points of Interest on the map. These POIs are special sub-spaces within each district on the board. Gangs will control these positions with a figure, and they function as either a requirement to purchase an Edgerunner and complete an Opportunity, or they provide bonus resources when you netrun. This confounds new players as they struggle to keep these details straight. After a play or two these quirks will be internalized, but this idiosyncratic triangulation of symbology feels a little inelegant in an otherwise smooth design.
Everything else feels well polished. Most systems are simple yet unrestrained. Upgrading your combat cards for instance has you plucking two from the deck and choosing one to keep. When you add to your deck you remove an existing card, permanently keeping your hand of combat cards at four. This results in upgrades feeling potent as they cycle relatively quickly and see continual use.
Combat likewise is fast and brutal. Each player in the area selects one card secretly and then everyone reveals simultaneously. The player with the highest strength card wins the combat, with every other player forced to lose a figure from the area. More importantly, cards trigger scoring benefits, even for the losers. This combination of simple efficiency management with a brutal and uncaring edge is the design philosophy at large. The game, much like Night City itself, is unflinching and uncaring. A bad roll netrunning and your hackers short out and end up cold on the slab. A miscalculation in combat and you lose a key space. Combat itself is almost entirely dependent on your technology and not on the meatbags present in the space. It’s a hard world and you can’t afford to be soft.
The game, much like Night City itself, is unflinching and uncaring.
Almost everything present is concise and not overwrought. While this is an advantage to keeping the pace of play lively even at a max player count, it’s a detriment when it comes to the fiction. It does feel as though you are commanding gangers and sowing some chaos, but the narrative threads are relatively thin. Those expecting an adventure comparable to the Cyberpunk 2077 video game will be disappointed.
The setting here mostly functions as graphic design and a background presence. Opportunities suffer the most, as these jobs of stealing contraband and performing sanctioned hits are described with vibrant titles and brief story snippets, but the fiction is irrelevant and everyone quickly learns to bypass those surface elements and just worry about the mechanical implications. It never feels as though you’re pulling off heists or wild contracts, rather, you’re just grabbing another card in a simple game of set collection.
To the design team’s credit, they sought to address this failing. One of the most interesting aspects of Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is the story system. These are narrative scenarios that lay atop the existing game, providing new rules and entire sub-systems to engage. Often, they provide additional ways to earn victory points or unique rewards. They also feature branching story elements, allowing the scenario to veer off in one of two directions.
The story system injects a much needed element of fiction into the game and frames the action around a prescribed narrative. Like the other mechanisms, they’re not intensely detailed, so you’re not reading lengthy paragraphs. Instead, cards offer a couple sentences of context. The achievement here is in how they connect surprise and drama into the mechanical framework of the game. This system is fantastic, marred perhaps slightly by the fact that they often present situations that randomly favor certain gangs. Each gang possesses an asymmetric ability which typically pushes them towards one or two strategic pathways in the game, and sometimes these story events can inhibit or outright neuter one of those pursuits. It can be frustrating, but the unpredictability of the narrative and how it influences the game is well worth the cost.
There is also a nagging concern that some may hop into this game and then become dissuaded when they realize there is a truckload of additional content, with the majority being exclusive to the previous crowdfunding campaign and unavailable at retail. The base game is substantial and a compelling strategy game that feels complete, but there’s no shaking the agony that afflicts some consumers when they realize they can’t get all of the extra expansions that were previously available.
Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City isn’t quite the augmented behemoth that several of CMON’s best titles are, but it is a very interesting game with several qualities that are stimulating. Its greatest assets will be teased out by those familiar with the intellectual property, but the sturdy mechanical foundation certainly doesn’t hurt. There is a solid chance this ends up as one of the publisher’s most underrated titles, not garnering the respect it deserves, and that would be a shame.
Final Fantasy 14 is over 10 years old and players are finishing up its newest expansion, Dawntrail. With six expansions, including A Realm Rebron, Final Fantasy 14 is one of gaming’s greatest comeback stories. From a critically-panned launch to becoming one of the biggest games of all time for Square Enix, all of it was thanks to the consistently excellent work from the developers.
But which expansion reigns supreme? With so many to choose from, and each expansion with its own unique characteristics, it’s hard to choose. But we’ve gotten together to rank every Final Fantasy 14 expansion to find out which one we loved most.
So hit the jump to see our favorite expansions in Final fantasy 14 below.
Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn
The story of Final Fantasy 14’s rise from the ashes is well-documented. Following a disastrous launch, producer Naoki Yoshida took reins on the project and rebooted the game with A Realm Reborn, which literally destroyed the world of the launch game, and built on top of it the beloved MMORPG we know and love today.
A Realm Reborn was a two-fold project that fixed the frustrating gameplay and RPG systems of the launch version while telling a story that literally incorporates the destruction of the launch version into the wider narrative. And while A Realm Reborn quite literally saved FF14, the need to reboot an entire MMO and reintroduce players to the game is its greatest weakness. Compared to later expansions, A Realm Reborn feels downright glacial when it comes to pacing, and the need to revamp the world means its story is far more bloated than it needs to be in later expansions. While A Realm Reborn will always be cherished for saving Square Enix’s MMORPG, you’ll be hard-pressed to say the later expansions aren’t better. – Matt Kim
Final Fantasy 14: Stormblood
Stormblood is often looked at as one of the lesser-liked expansions, which, to me, speaks to how strong the rest of them are. That’s because Stormblood is still a crucial piece to Final Fantasy 14 that worked to conclude long-standing conflicts and show you just how evil and destructive the Garlean Empire was. I vividly remember the feeling of taking back Ala Mhigo after all these years of them being under Garlean rule, and taking back Doma Castle after seeing how Domans had suffered from the occupation. There are moments in which Stormblood undercuts its own messaging and perhaps didn’t fully find the nuance necessary to elegantly tell a politically charged story. However, it gets the larger picture right, and the liberation of the peoples across the different regions was invigorating nonetheless.
Stormblood’s zones might not be the most exciting of the bunch, but there’s a tranquility I still feel when flying across the Ruby Sea, over the plains of Azim Steppe, and past the rice patties in Yangxia. I often reflect on the stories of oppression and rebellion in those moments because of the smaller stories told throughout the expansion. I also remember Yotsuyu as one of the most complex villains of FF14 – her heartbreaking story represents how sadistic and corrupting living under oppression can be, which culminated in one of the best boss fights to this day. Stormblood may not have been the best expansion, but it had peaks that make FF14 what it is today. – Michael Higham
Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail
With Dawntrail fresh in my memory, it’s a bit hard to gauge its place in the Final Fantasy 14 pantheon, but even with all its implications yet to be explored, it still stands as a worthy addition to the MMO’s long history. The land of Tural opens FF14 to so many different themes and cultural influences it wasn’t able to incorporate in the past, and although it does come with some mixed results, the vibrant foundation it lays leaves even more room for growth. Newcomer Wuk Lamat is a large focus and although she’s not the strongest character in FF14, she has the heart necessary to carry out Dawntrail’s message of finding peace through mutual respect and embracing our differences.
Dawntrail’s lasting legacy is in the second half of its story where things turn in unpredictable directions. Its fusion of references to ancient civilizations, its Latin American roots, and the old-timey American West somehow make sense when they clash with the cyberpunk-tinged sci-fi elements that eventually come to the forefront. It’s able to touch on classic Final Fantasy narrative themes from a fresh perspective. We explored the depths of the pain we feel from losing the things we love most during Shadowbringers and Endwalker, but the way Dawntrail contextualizes mortality is powerfully intimate. In its best moments, Dawntrail can be as impactful as anything else found in FF14, and for that alone, this expansion deserves its flowers. – MH
Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker
Endwalker is the culmination of a 10-year long story arc for Final Fantasy 14. From the days of A Realm Reborn, players became embroiled in a celestial battle between the gods Hydaelin and Zodiark. Beset in the real-world by a global pandemic that delayed the expansion by a year, Endwalker was a reward for players who stuck with the MMORPG from its earliest days who can now see the conclusion to a long-running storyline.
The stakes were high but Endwalker is FF14’s most emotional expansion to date, reinforcing Final Fantasy 14’s core themes of how friendship and courage can overcome even the greatest challenges. And with so much of Final Fantasy 14 now playable in single-player, a new player could play from A Realm Reborn through Endwalker and feel that they’ve finished one of the best Final Fantasy games of all time.
But thankfully, Endwalker is not the end of FF14, and the newest expansion, Dawntrail, is setting the stage for the next 10 years of Square Enix’s beloved MMORPG. – MK
Final Fantasy 14: Heavensward
What a difference an expansion makes. Free from the need to fix an entire MMORPG, Final Fantasy 14’s next expansion after A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, is able to jump right into the action. With the Warriors of Light on the run, they escape to the frozen, holy land of Ishgard which has been too busy embroiled in a war against dragons to do much in Eorzea.
What’s immediately apparent in Heavensward is that it quickly establishes the themes and storytelling the FF14 team seems to revel in: dramatic, high fantasy that harkens back to the old pixel games like Final Fantasy 6. Heavensward is such a throwback to the classic sword and sorcery fantasy of early Final Fantasy games, while also introducing the dark courtly politics that would make George R.R. Martin grin. If A Realm Reborn took a lot of time to get going, Heavensward is action-packed almost from the jump and from there sets the bar for all later FF14 expansions.
To quote FromSoftware, the real Final Fantasy 14 begins with Heavensward. – MK
Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers
Final Fantasy 14 truly found its voice in Shadowbringers. Lead writer Natsuko Ishikawa stepped into the role and her poetic storytelling style gave the expansion its identity, focusing on its characters with a level of depth and emotional sincerity never before seen in FF14. From the moment you step into The First, there’s an immediate sense of urgency that sets the tone for how dire the flood of light has been on the entire realm, flipping the script on typical light versus dark stories. And in horrifying ways, leaned on showing rather than telling.
Shadowbringers captured its grand moments with a weight and excitement that few RPGs are able to pull off. It earns those moments by building characters like the Crystal Exarch, Ardbert, and Emet Selch in a complex web of heroes and villains to carry its heavier themes, and contextualize despair and tragedy in a world separate from anything we’d known in Eorzea. FF14 began to ask the big questions about loss, grief, and the lengths people will go to preserve the things that matter most to them, and did so with nuance.
And if we want to count the post-launch content, Patch 5.3 capped off what was already one of the best stories in the series with another incredible conclusion, reaching a height that I don’t think FF14 will ever be able to top. My precious crystal cat boy gave his all to save a realm, and all of my Scion friends were there to witness his greatness as he immortalized his life’s work at the Seat of Sacrifice. From its writing and narrative themes to its music and visual storytelling, Shadowbringers not only proved itself as peak FF14, it’s arguably peak Final Fantasy. – MH
These are our rankings for our favorite Final Fantasy 14 expansions. Let us know below in the comments which expansions are your favorites.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
At the very heart of Star Wars Outlaws is the fantasy that all sci-fi fans dream of: the ability to adventure across the stars. Five different moons and planets await you, from Rise of Skywalker’s chilly Kijimi to the classic deserts of Tatooine. But while fans will recognise many of Outlaws’ locations, there’s one that they definitely won’t: Toshara.
A brand new moon crafted especially for Star Wars Outlaws by the development team at Massive Entertainment, Toshara is inspired by the East African savannah. But while it has uniquely beautiful landscapes, it is – aptly for a game called ‘Star Wars Outlaws’ – a criminal hive.
“It’s run by a corrupt imperial governor,” says Navid Khavari, Outlaws’ narrative director. “And while the Empire is in charge, this is also a hub of scum and villainy, and you have all the sorts of major syndicates trying to vie for a stake of Toshara.”
To ensure Toshara is as immersive and authentic as possible, Massive approached the moon from all angles. “We had to work out the demographics of the planet,” Khavari explains. “We had to work out what the major hubs are. We had to work out fauna, flora, all of these sections that needed to come together and also be weaved by narratives.”
But before all that, Massive had to pitch Toshara to the custodians of Star Wars: Lucasfilm. Because Toshara isn’t just a location for a video game; anything in Star Wars Outlaws is canon, and so whatever Massive made would need to be fully approved by the people behind the films, shows, and Star Wars universe at large.
“It’s like they’re giving us a box of toys, we take the toys out, play with them, but then we also create our new toys and put them back for somebody else to play,” says Benedikt Podlesnigg, art and world director on Star Wars Outlaws.
While the Empire is in charge, this is also a hub of scum and villainy.
A major player in such a process is Steve Blank, director of franchise content and strategy at Lucasfilm. “Massive came to us with the idea of a savannah planet,” he recalls. “Once we sort of knew the high level intention behind the story and where we wanted to go, we let them ruminate on what does that mean? What would you like to see? What do you feel like you haven’t seen before?”
The result of those conversations was a collection of unusual and familiar ideas. Massive wanted Toshara to be a world where the Star Wars mythology’s pirate-inspired elements could live – think Jabba’s barge and Luke being forced to walk the plank over a sarlacc pit. This had to be a place of high risk, high reward treasure hunting. And so was born the so-called gem of the underworld; a moon ruled by a corrupt division of the Empire and largely controlled by the galaxy’s crime syndicates. But it wasn’t enough to develop lore. The team had to start with the look and feel of the very ground itself.
“We approached Toshara in terms of the general Star Wars design tenets, where it has to be familiar but with a twist,” explains Julian Gerighty, creative director of Outlaws. The familiar is the landscapes of Tanzania, which Podlesnigg says would be the shooting location for Tosharan scenes if Outlaws were a movie. Layered on top of this is the twist: “huge mountain outcrops that have been carved so that a city can take place within those rock walls,” describes Gerighty. And then, within that rock, is Toshara’s most distinct characteristic: amberine.
Amberine is an orange, crystal-like material that runs through the crust of Toshara and juts out through its surface. Inspired by an old Austrian fortune-telling tradition in which molten lead is poured into cold water to create shapes that reveal what’s to come, the Amberine forms into a variety of striking forms. It is Blank’s favourite part of Massive’s new world.
“You find [amberine structures] sort of wherever you’re going,” he says. “They’re inside caves, they form plateaus […] and they also react beautifully to the sun over Toshara, so you get these gorgeous reflections in the lighting.”
Unusually for Star Wars, amberine isn’t a precious resource like spice or Beskar Steel, and so Toshara’s population has left it untouched and intact. That’s not to say the crystal is useless, though. The moon’s climate is incredibly windy, and those winds erode away rocks, cliff faces, even mountains – a process that gradually reveals the incredibly resilient amberine within. It made sense, then, that Toshara’s main metropolis, the city of Mirogana, would be built within an amberine structure to protect it from the winds.
Basking within the orange glow cast by sunlight filtering through that amberine shield is the Pyke Syndicate, the most dominant of Mirogana’s criminal organisations. But don’t let them put you off visiting; the city’s busy streets are full of opportunities for both a galactic scoundrel scouting for gigs, and a player looking to diversify their experience.
The first thing that you should do as a scoundrel is go to the cantina.
“Every single location we had to choose had to be a den of scum and villainy, right? And in Mirogana you can do a lot of things,” says Gerighty. “There’s the first thing that you should do as a scoundrel, as an outlaw, is go to the cantina. And in the cantina you’ll find lots of shady characters that’ll offer you jobs. Or you can just relax, eavesdrop, pick up some intel, play a couple of games of sabacc, bet on the Fathier races, play some arcade games…”
Beyond the cantina you’ll find a city split into several regions, each with their own flavour. The gambling district is constructed using different architecture and signage to the central market, while the Imperial checkpoint is built out of the Empire’s instantly recognisable flat panels and grid vents. No matter where you find an Imperial base on Toshara, it’ll stick out like a sore thumb.
“They come in, they don’t care about their environment, they just stamp down their base wherever they need,” says Podlesnigg. He paints a picture of a time when the Tosharan landscape featured a colossal amberine archway, but when the Empire arrived they simply demolished the arch to make way for the base. In the game, you’ll be able to see that very base flanked by two amberine pillars – all that remains of that historic arch. “It creates a really interesting visual that’s seen from far away that you can really use as a landmark.”
Beyond the city’s borders, the aforementioned winds have eroded away the moon’s rock surface to reveal even more unusual amberine formations. A resourceful outlaw with a speeder bike could use such formations to hit even greater speeds during hot pursuits.
“It’s very orange glowing, so it stands out very naturally in the environment,” says Podlesnigg. “So we could make ramps where you can jump off [while riding the speeder bike]. We made the wind tunnels where you can see [how they have been] carved out by the winds. I think one of the references was surfing underneath waves.”
In the process of planning out Toshara’s geography, Massive went as far as establishing that the moon’s wind currents all run north to south. This dictated the map’s population density, road networks, audio design, and – importantly – the formation of the speed-boosting wind tunnels. And so while the amberine ramps and tunnels may be a gameplay-first element, it’s all created hand-in-hand with world-building.
“For every location, no matter how small, we want to think about what happened here, what is happening now, and what is the location in general? What [do] people do here?” explains Podlesnigg. “So we have a very clear idea of the history of the place and what the place is.”
For every location, no matter how small, we want to think about what happened here, what is happening now?
A skilled outlaw can harness the moon’s winds for their benefit, but not everyone is prepared to tackle such a climate. Echoing the derelict Star Destroyer on Jakku in The Force Awakens, Toshara is littered with crashed starships. They’re the remnants of those who tried to fight the winds and lost. It’s a smart bit of environmental storytelling, but the tale doesn’t end there. Those shipwrecks have become part of Toshara’s history and economy; with nothing but rock and amberine available to the moon’s population, the crashed ships were harvested for metal which was then used to construct many of the buildings you’ll see and explore.
With so much of Toshara’s environment being made up of harsh rock, crashed spaceships, and strange amberine structures, the finishing touch had to be something much more alive and endearing. While the crime syndicates may be the planet’s apex predators, there are plenty of other creatures in the wilds to discover and befriend. Podlesnigg describes a magpie-like flying creature that’s “attracted by everything that sparkles, and they steal everything.” It’s an amusing trait, but one that folds directly into gameplay: “When you see them circling somewhere, maybe you can go there and find something of value.”
A cuter friend can be found in Toshara’s weasel-like creatures, small pettable animals that will follow you around in groups. We can only hope that we’ll be able to round up a dozen and cause chaos in a cantina…
Toshara has yet more secrets to be discovered, but we won’t know this new moon’s best treasures until we explore it ourselves when Star Wars Outlaws arrives on August 30. Until then, you can always read more about how Massive Entertainment has tackled building the first ever true Star Wars open world game.
CD Projekt Red scrapped a reputation system during development of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt but one fan has modded it back in.
Nexus Mods user FreakVIp created the Reputation System mod for The Witcher 3, which “restores the reputation concept that was cut by CDPR from the game.” While the game is already full of hard choices and butterfly effect consequences, this mod will see NPCs respond to Geralt in different regions depending on his behavior.
Completing witcher contracts, winning horse races, clearing monsters from abandoned villages, and more will all reward Geralt with Reputation Points, while stealing and attacking guards will see Geralt lose points. Actions in quests also affect reputation.
Five ranks of reputation exist: Respected, Liked, Neutral, Disliked, and Hated. These “will have many influences to all kinds of activities” throughout The Witcher 3, including its economy. If Geralt is respected in Skellige, he can get better deals in shops, more gold for selling items, and so on while there. If he’s hated in Temeria, he’ll be charged more for items, see less return on bets, and more.
This mod comes after the release of REDkit: an official modding tool for The Witcher 3 released by CD Projekt in May 2024. The developer announced REDkit in November 2023, saying “it will allow you to create your own experiences in the game by making something completely new or editing existing quests and content.”
Would you like a bit of ska vibe in your co-op extraction action-RPG? If so then Surfpunk might be your vibe. You’ll cruise through a flooded, anime-styled paradise world hunting for loot in ancient ruins with your friends before you need to escape. Surfpunk is being developed for PC by Double Stallion.
You and up to three friends play as Raiders who roam a flooded world in search of Evress, a coveted energy source vital to the surviving Fallen World. Battle the Sumi as they try to stop you from extracting back to your Beastship with all of your loot intact. There’s also an in-game crafting system good for creating tools that can help your run, like ladders for getting to hard-to-reach places. Watch the first trailer above and check out the first screenshots in the gallery below.
Procedurally generated islands ensure that each time you get on your surfboard, it’s a different experience. If you’re interested, you can wishlist Surfpunk on Steam.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
