Bethesda’s upcoming RPG Starfield has received a Restricted rating due to its depiction of “interactive drug use,” the Australian Classification Board has announced. It is Australia’s strongest classification, meaning sales of Bethesda’s new RPG will be restricted to adults over 18 in Australia.
Violence was classified as having a “Strong Impact,” while nudity and sex received very low ratings. Drug use did the most to drive Starfield’s ratings, which its depiction being classified as “High Impact.” Starfield’s rating is stronger than Fallout 4, which received an MA-15 rating for its violence when it was released back in 2015.
Bethesda’s RPGs have long been known for their explicit content, including featuring a fictional drug called “Jet” that your character can get addicted to in-game. This is the strongest rating to date, though, offering a hint of what to expect when it’s eventually released later this year.
A little more insight into Starfield
While Bethesda has delved into some of Starfield’s systems and gameplay, there’s still a good deal we don’t known. Back in 2022 we interviewed director Todd Howard, where he talked about how it would mix handcrafted content with a procedurally-generated galaxy, among other features.
Starfield was originally supposed in late 2022, but was subsequently delayed into 2023. Xbox boss Phil Spencer supported the delay and said “the decision to give the team the time to build the game that they feel they should be building is just the right thing to do.”
Starfield is currently slated to release September 6 on PC and Xbox Series X|S, and has been confirmed to be available Day 1 on Xbox Game Pass.
Hyperkin, the company that makes retro-inspired gaming accessories for modern-day consoles, is at it again. Instead of making an original Xbox controller this time, the company has decided to jump a generation and create an Xbox 360-style controller for the Xbox Series X|S called the Xenon.
The Xenon is set to come out on June 6 and will be priced at USD 49.99. You’ll be able to buy the controller in black, white, pink, or red.
Additionally, the 360-inspired controller will come with precision analog impulse triggers, a view and share button allowing you to take screenshots and record gameplay, vibration feedback, a 3.5 mm headset jack, and a detachable Type-C cable so you can charge/update your controller.
The controller was announced last November and is named after the original codename given to the Xbox 360’s first console iteration.
This isn’t the first time Hyperkin has decided to pay homage older Xbox consoles. On its website, you can purchase a Duke wired controller that works on the Xbox Series X|S and even the iconic single-ear-piece headset used in the 360 era.
You can play a pre-order for the Xenon controller on the Hyperkin Website on May 5.
Hi Luis Joshua Gutierrez is a freelance writer who loves games. You can reach him at @ImLuisGutierrez on Twitter.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been confusing global officials for over a year. What’s even more confusing is a reference to PlayStation’s Superman in a case underway in the U.K.
The legal team representing Microsoft referenced a PlayStation Superman game in a document responding to the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) provisional findings regarding concerns the company’s nearly $70 billion acquisition of the publisher may render Activision Blizzard games exclusive to Xbox should the merger go through… but that reference was most likely a typo.
In Section 2.20, where it discusses the impact the merger will have on PlayStation exclusive titles on Xbox console sales, it wrote, “This applies for ‘big titles’ like God of War and Superman. There has never been evidence that exclusivity of one single franchise can drive console sales.”
The problem is, a Superman game hasn’t been made for the PS5 or PS4. In fact, the last time a Superman game was made for a PlayStation console was Superman Returns, the video game adaptation of the 2006 movie of the same name starring Brandon Routh as the Man of Steel, for PS2.
The superhero game Microsoft’s attorneys probably meant to write in that section is Marvel’s Spider-Man, as it was mentioned three times throughout the document. Insomniac Games made that game and Spider-Man: Miles Morales exclusively for PS4 and PS5. Although, both games aren’t necessarily PlayStation-exclusive titles anymore since they got ported over to PC last fall, especially the remastered version of the former.
If you tried looking for a Superman game on the PlayStation Store because of the typo, you’re out of luck. But don’t worry, you’ll get to see him in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which reportedly got delayed to later this year because of the backlash directed at the gameplay shown off during Sony’s recent State of Play live stream. The game also generated controversy over Rocksteady Games making it online-only, even in single player mode.
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.
I’m not exactly sure why a developer best known for quiet, choice-filled games that border on interactive movies is so interested in turning them into arcade-style rail shooters, but Supermassive Games is taking another crack at exactly that – this time with the help of the new PlayStation VR2 headset. Like Until Dawn: Rush of Blood before it, The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR focuses less on storytelling and more on action to mixed results. While it’s fun to blast through ghouls and bats in my path, this spinoff is plagued by many of the same issues as its predecessor, including a disappointingly short runtime.
Switchback VR’s story feels like an afterthought, putting you in the role of an unnamed protagonist on a hellish rollercoaster ride across ten different stages. Most are locations featured in the first season of The Dark Pictures Anthology, but you’re never really told much about why the protagonist is visiting them or any of the few supporting characters they meet. That’s partially because Switchback VR is very short, only taking me about four hours to complete, but it’s disappointing all the same, given how good of a job Supermassive usually does providing backstory and depth to its characters.
But what it lacks in story, Switchback VR mostly makes up for in gameplay. While the on-rails nature of its action naturally limits where you can go, you are able to move your head to look around in any direction in VR. It was fun to quickly turn each time I heard eerie screams or enemies creeping up on me in the background or occasionally having to physically duck to avoid falling beams and leaning pillars. That situational awareness is key as enemies will sometimes sneakily appear to the left and right of your peripheral vision.
You will always have two guns to fend off enemies, each independently controlled with the PS VR2’s Sense controllers. While you start every level with the default pistols, you can grab ammo-limited alternatives like a revolver or a machine gun by shooting red crates that appear in convenient sections of each stage. It’s annoying that these special weapons are locked into the hand you initially shot the crate with, but you can still have some fun switching up your strategy for a bit when you find them. For example, you could use a machine gun to swiftly remove enemies close to your cart and conserve ammo by firing the pistol at enemies further away. Other weapons like a flare gun are required to solve certain puzzles and progress further – they do not require a lot of thought to solve, as you just need to shoot at certain objects to keep the track moving forward, but it is a nice change of pace from just shooting hordes of enemies.
Shooting feels responsive and the motion-controlled aiming is very accurate.
The shooting mechanics themselves have been simplified for VR, with firing and reloading both mapped to two buttons on each Sense controller since so few are needed overall. That’s not a bad thing as on-rail shooters focus more on throwing as many enemies at you as possible in a short period of time than nuanced gunplay. Still, shooting in Switchback VR feels responsive and the motion-controlled aiming is very accurate, which made headshots extremely rewarding each time I pulled one off.
The heads you’ll be popping vary depending on the stage you’re on, ranging from standard zombies to flying vampires. Most of these enemies will be familiar to those that played any of the first season of The Dark Pictures Anthology, each a faithful recreation of the monsters from those games. Killing enemies or destroying inanimate objects such as bottles, empty crates, and skulls will increase your score for a level, which is a nice incentive to deal as much damage as you can. There are even local and online leaderboards for you to compare scores with other players, but it feels like a shallow exercise when they don’t measure important factors like accuracy.
Switchback VR nails the creepy atmosphere and tension of each stage – from the dark and abandoned World War 2 freighter seen in Man of Medan to the sandy underground ruins of the ancient empire featured in House of Ashes. Unfortunately, the frequent overuse of cheap jump scares quickly overshadows any building suspense provided by a given location. While the first two enjoyably caught me by surprise, it doesn’t take long for them to become more annoying than alarming.
But while the jumpscares did little to keep me on the edge of my seat, the handful of sections where Switchback VR took advantage of the PS VR2’s eye-tracking were actually impressively unsettling. These areas have enemies that move closer and closer to you each time you blink, which is an incredibly novel experience for any game that left me wanting to see more. It’s a shame that only a few moments of Switchback VR make use of this concept, but the parts that do are a great showcase of the potential of this new tech in future horror games made for the headset.
The little bit of variety alternate routes offer isn’t very memorable.
Although Supermassive has done a good job of including some of the PS VR2’s new technology, Switchback VR still feels a bit technologically unpolished in a few places. I noticed a few performance issues while playing: Some background textures, like tree branches, would randomly appear as the cart moved closer to them, and I had three instances where the screen froze for a few seconds. These issues were relatively minor and didn’t totally throw my ride off the rails, but they were still noticeable and annoying on such a brief trip.
Despite its short length, Switchback VR does offer some replayability by letting you go down different routes that help shake up each run. Most of these decisions are made by shooting at specific gates that allow you to change your cart’s course, which is a nice way to blend that choice into the action. You even get a complete view of your route at the end of each stage, along with a tease of the alternate paths you could have taken, encouraging me to go back in and see what I missed. That said, the little bit of variety those routes offer isn’t very memorable when you can still see everything Switchback VR has to offer in two or three playthroughs.
In addition to changing your route, some stages give you an option to save, kill, or abandon survivors that appear in some stages. Each survivor is tied to an optional puzzle that gives you amount of time to at objects in a specific order. However, like most of Supermassive’s games, the majority of these small decision points have little or no impact on the overall story.
Boss fights are also included at the end of some stages, but their execution leaves a lot to be desired. These battles pit you against antagonists from their respective Dark Pictures entries, such as the final form of the Sailor Girl in Man of Medan, whose boss battle consists of her levitating and throwing projectiles at you. Most of the boss fights end up boring and unremarkable, like busy work to slow you down rather than an epic obstacle you must overcome to finish the stage.
Dying Light developer Techland has revealed more information and another piece of concept art for its upcoming open-world fantasy action RPG, which is shaping up to look like a big departure from the studio’s previous works.
On Twitter, Techland shared just a bit more information about its unannounced title, writing, “Our newest game is set to be a narrative-driven #fantasy epic with an exotic open world ready to be explored. We strive to create a compelling story-focused #AAA title that combines and refines the best aspects of gameplay that Techland is known for.”
Along with that, Techland posted a piece of concept art, showing a character climbing a tree looking out at a vast, lush world littered with ruins. There also appears to be a broken moon or planet in the sky.
Techland shared a similar tease nearly a year ago, where we also learned the studio brought on narrative director Karolina Stachyra and narrative lead Arkadiusz Borowik for the project, a pair of fantasy veterans who previously worked on The Witcher 2 and 3. The studio also has talent with credits on games such as Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Mad Max, Deathloop, Horizon Zero Dawn, and more.
We don’t have a title or release window for this game, knowing little beyond the concept art and that Techland wants to make this game a “fully next-gen experience”.
Techland’s last game was 2022’s Dying Light 2, which we called. “Another in a long series of big, ambitious games whose potential greatness is visible just beneath a grimey layer of bugs”. In addition to work on the new IP, Techland is just one year into a five-year plan of post-launch content for Dying Light 2.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
Emmett Shear, CEO of uber-popular streaming platform Twitch, is resigning from his position after more than 16 years at the helm.
Shear announced his departure in a Twitter thread today. According to screenshots of his blog post, the birth of his son made him pause and reflect on his future at Twitch. He compared its growth from a 24/7 reality show to a site where streamers can broadcast their gameplay to millions of people to raising a child — his first child.
“Twitch often feels to me like a child I’ve been raising as well,” Shear said. “And while I will always want to be there if Twitch needs me, at 16 years old it feels to me that Twitch is ready to move out of the house and venture alone. So it is with great poignancy that I share my decision to resign from Twitch as CEO.”
In October 2006 we started working on live video for the internet. That became Twitch. More than 16 years later, I’m now a father and ready to move to my next phase of life. I wrote a blog post, but the short version is: thank you so much to everyone who built this with me.
Dan Clancy, the current president of Twitch, will now serve as CEO effective immediately. Shear will continue working at Twitch in an advisory role.
Growing pains
Shear founded Twitch in October 2006 as a 24/7 reality show named Justin.tv, named after one of his co-founders, Justin Kan, and made to document Kan’s life.
As the years passed, Shear said he didn’t think a round-the-clock reality series focusing on one person was the best idea, so in 2013, Justin.tv grew and transformed into Twitch, a site where streamers can broadcast gameplay of their favorite games for millions of people to watch.
In the last decade, it put Fortnite on the map, turned Ninja and Pokimane into stars, and became a fully-owned subsidiary of Amazon. It’s also dealt with no shortage of controversies, including a deepfake scandal and more. Either way, Twitch’s influence on the gaming community is undeniable, attracting millions of users per day.
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. She has contributed her work to various publications, including Digital Trends, TheGamer, Twinfinite, Mega Visions, and The Escapist. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.
Five ex-Criterion and Need for Speed developers, including former GM Matt Webster, have founded Fuse Games, a AAA studio focused on “blockbuster spectacle and player-centric innovations in social gameplay, self-expression, and creativity”.
Joining Webster, who will serve as the new studio’s GM, are head of content Steve Uphill, head of production Pete Lake, head of operations Alan McDairmant, and head of technology Andrei Shires, according to Eurogamer. The quintet of developers departed Criterion in December with over 90 combined years of experience at the prolific racing studio.
Fuse Games will develop for consoles and PC. Despite the developers’ experience with racing games, Webster told GI.biz the team hasn’t committed to a genre for its debut: “Obviously arcade racers and open world racers are what we know very deeply,” they said.
“But we have played around in other genres over the years, including Battlefront, Battlefield… VR. We know what we are good at, and that spans a broad range of things now. Once we select our genre, we want to lead that genre.”
Webster and his colleagues are looking to set up shop in Guildford, the same UK town Criterion calls home. The staff has already been built up to 17 employees.
The developers left Criterion just weeks after the studio shipped its latest Need for Speed game in December. IGN’s Need for Speed Unbound review praised its bold new style while noting its lack of innovation.
Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.
Danish developer IO Interactive made a name for itself over two decades ago when it released Hitman: Codename 47, the first in a long line of games starring everyone’s favorite sardonic assassin with a barcode tattooed on the back of his bald head. The series has spawned over half a dozen games, two major motion pictures, and lots of commercial success and critical acclaim.
Now, however, with the most recent Hitman game trilogy completed and all folded together under the Hitman: World of Assassination umbrella, IO Interactive is moving on to two other projects: a James Bond 007 game – of which little is known about so far – as well as a new online fantasy-RPG, which looks like it will come after Bond and we know even less about. Hitman, the studio says, is on hiatus for now.
All of this preamble is to set up what I’m about to say, and that is this: Microsoft, if it isn’t already, should be taking a long, hard look at IO Interactive as its next potential acquisition target – regardless of whether or not the Activision-Blizzard deal is approved by regulators, but especially if it isn’t. The fact is, there aren’t a lot of independent AAA game development studios left on the market. Embracer Group bought Gearbox (and a whole bunch of others), Sony took Bungie off the market, Microsoft has spent the past several years acquiring the likes of Obsidian, inXile, and Playground, etc.
To be fair, IO’s prowess outside of Hitman is, for now, relatively unproven. The original Xbox third-person strategy shooter Freedom Fighters was awesome, but that was a long time ago. The two Kane & Lynch games were also a long time ago, and they weren’t awesome. However, the studio seems like the perfect fit for James Bond, and if it works, that could develop into a long-term partnership with the licensor. The online fantasy-RPG is more of a wild card, but it’s so different from anything the studio has ever done that it’s bound to be, at the very least, a project that has creatively energized the IO team.
I’m not sure there’s a better bang-for-your-buck acquisition target out there than IO
As such, I’m not sure there’s a better bang-for-your-buck acquisition target out there than IO. Of course, that’s if they even want to be bought. They were owned by Eidos Interactive (later Square Enix) for many, many years, but the studio eventually negotiated its independence. That it has not only survived but thrived in the years since speaks to a well-managed organization. Microsoft would be wise to snap them up – again, if the studio is even willing to sit down at the negotiating table – and add hundreds of talented developers as well as one proven franchise (in a genre Xbox currently has no presence in), one potentially huge licensed game that could be to Xbox what Goldeneye was to Nintendo, and one fantasy-RPG that, well…OK, I guess Xbox already has plenty of in-house RPG talent. But hey, too much is never enough, right?
No doubt Phil Spencer has already picked up the phone and called IO Interactive at some point, but on the off chance he hasn’t, I certainly hope he will. I’m hard-pressed to think of a more talented studio that’s capable of delivering AAA success that’s not already been gobbled up by some other larger publisher or investment group. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see what happens with the Activision-Blizzard situation first, but after that, I look forward to seeing what Microsoft does next.
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.
Arkane Studios has shared the official story trailer for its upcoming co-op shooter Redfall which shares the mad science origins of the game’s vampire apocalypse.
The lengthy three minute trailer (below) opens with an optimistic message from a character called Ava, who says a drop of her blood was promised to “free people from sickness and death”.
This seemingly turned into a dangerous experiment that resulted in her death, however, with the extracted blood not just healing people and granting immortality, but turning them into vampires too. These vampires took over the town of Redfall, which quickly collapsed into a broken society led by gangs of the savage monsters.
Some of the stronger vampires are also introduced in the trailer, suggesting that Redfall will be separated into four areas with vampire leaders at the helm of each. These include The Hollow Man, a winged vampire with protruding organs; Bloody Tom, a massive, muscly vampire; Miss Whisper, who seems to have branch-like growths all over her body; and the Black Sun, suggested to be the most powerful of all.
Various gameplay clips also featured in the trailer, showing how up to four players can take on the town at once to defeat facilities full of the vampires in a ton of creative ways.
Kirby’s Dream Land 2 has joined the Nintendo Switch Online collection along with BurgerTime Deluxe, Side Pocket, and Xevious.
Nintendo shared its March 2023 NES, Super NES, and Game Boy Updates for its Nintendo Switch Online subscription service in a YouTube video that turned the spotlight on the new additions, which are available on both the Basic NSO and Expansion Pack tiers.
Players will be able to explore the Rainbow Islands in Kirby’s Dream Land 2 and feast on arcade action in BurgerTime Deluxe, both of which are joining the Game Boy library, while also putting their skills to the test in Side Pocket, now in the SNES collection, and Xevious, in the NES library.
Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games were added to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service in February, with classic Game Boy games available to those with the Basic NSO subscription, and Game Boy Advance games going to Expansion Pack subscribers.
