Category: IGN

Mario Day may have passed, but many of the deals are carrying on. One of its best this year was the Nintendo Switch Mario ‘Choose One Bundle’, which you can still access! For $299.99, the bundle includes both the Mario Red console and a Mario game of your choice. In regard to the latter, your choices include Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, or New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. Below, you can see links to where each of these bundles can still be purchased.

Nintendo Switch Mario ‘Choose One Bundle’ for $299.99

The Super Mario Bros. Movie Ticket Pre-Sale

In the spirit of Mario beyond Mario Day, there are still several more deals to check out (including a new LEGO Super Mario Dry Bowser Castle Battle expansion set), but more importantly, The Super Mario Bros. Movie tickets are up for pre-sale. If you’re looking to pick up tickets for Nintendo and Illumination’s upcoming film (which releases on April 5), head to the link below to reserve them.

This is an excellent time to pick up a Nintendo Switch, especially with games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the horizon, which you can preorder here. You can also pick up the physical version of Metroid Prime Remastered for the Switch and see a full list of other upcoming Nintendo Switch games for this year here.

If you want to see even more gaming deals outside of what Nintendo has to offer, make sure to visit our Daily Deals page to see everything from sales on Dead Space Remake to what’s in Capcom’s sale. The latter features a sale on Resident Evil Village as well, which is the latest mainline Resident Evil game and worth adding to your collection before Resident Evil 4 Remake releases on March 24.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

Warning: Full spoilers ahead for episode 8 of HBO’s The Last of Us.

HBO’s The Last of Us episode 9 has arrived and we finally get to see the conclusion to the first series. But how close does the show compare to the game?

To help answer this question, we’ve gathered images from episode 9 of HBO’s The Last of Us and put them next to stills from Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us game to see how faithful the adaptation is. Check out the slideshow, or watch the video above to see the scenes from both the show and the game in action.

In our The Last of Us episode 9 review, we said “The season one finale of HBO’s The Last of Us is a thrillingly faithful adaptation of one video games’ greatest endings, even if it doesn’t pack quite the same punch as the original. Pedro Pascal excels in Joel’s defining moment, displaying both the tenderness and brutality we’ve come to expect from Ellie’s protector. Wonderfully shot and hauntingly soundtracked, it’s an ending that will long linger in the memory of those first experiencing it, and one that ultimately sticks the landing on the comparatively shorter runway that’s been built for it..”

For more, be sure to check out our similar comparison for last week’s episode.

Warning: This article contains minor spoilers for HBO’s The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II.

The first season of HBO’s The Last of Us has officially ended, which means it’s time to turn the page to Season 2.

The hugely successful HBO series has been renewed for a second season that will adapt the story from Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II. As fans of the game know, The Last of Us Part II takes place five years after Part I, leading to some discussion surrounding if the show would part ways with Bella Ramsey and recast the role of Ellie for the time skip.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the season finale, executive producer and Naughty Dog co-president Neil Druckmann put those concerns to rest, saying he and showrunner Craig Mazin want to make Season 2 with Ramsey at the forefront.

“When we made the game, I felt we were incredibly lucky,” Druckmann said. “It was like lightning in the bottle that we found Ashley Johnson. I can’t imagine that version of Ellie being anybody else. And then somehow we got lightning in the bottle again with Bella.

“We are extremely lucky to have Bella and the stuff you saw throughout this entire season. The only way we would ever, ever consider recasting Bella is if she said, ‘I don’t want to work with you guys anymore.’ Even then, I’m not sure we would grant her that. We might still force her to come back to Season 2.”

Mazin shared Druckman’s enthusiasm for Ramsey’s Ellie, and he also pointed out that “[Ramsey]’s 19 now, which — by the way — is the age of Ellie in The Last of Us Part II.”

The structure and story of Season 2 are a bit of a mystery right now. Mazin has previously said that Part II is “more than a season’s worth of television, for sure,” implying they could split up the sequel into at least two seasons. Plus, the non-linear timeline of Part II’s storytelling could be presented in multiple ways.

Season 1 also routinely altered story beats from the game, most notably drastically shaking up Bill and Frank’s love story. Mazin is setting similar expectations for Season 2, saying some moments could be “radically” different than what players experienced in The Last of Us Part II.

“[Season 2] will be different just as this season was different,” Mazin said. “Sometimes it will be different radically, and sometimes it [won’t] be fairly different at all, but it’s going to be different. It will be its own thing. It won’t be exactly like the game. It will be the show that Neil and I want to make, but we are making it with Bella.”

For more, check out our The Last of Us season finale review, which we called, “a thrillingly faithful adaptation of one video games’ greatest endings, even if it doesn’t pack quite the same punch as the original.”

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.

Editor’s Note: The war in Ukraine is an ongoing, painful and emotive topic. IGN urges community members to be respectful when engaging in conversation around this subject and does not endorse harassment of any kind.

STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl developer GSC Game World has revealed it was hacked by a group on a Russian social network.

On Twitter, the GSC Game World team posted a statement about the hack, explaining what happened and revealing that the studio has faced cyberattacks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Recently, our employee’s account for a collective work-with-images application was hacked,” GSC Game World wrote. “The responsibility for this was claimed by a community from a Russian social network. They are threatening to use the data obtained for blackmail and intimidation.

A message from GSC Game World team pic.twitter.com/rqRM0tFZmO

— S.T.A.L.K.E.R. OFFICIAL (@stalker_thegame) March 12, 2023

“This is not the first attempt to hack and leak our data, including personal information. We have been enduring constant cyberattacks for more than a year now. We have faced blackmail, acts of aggression, hacks, attempts to hurt players and fans, and efforts to damage the development process or the reputation of our company.”

GSC Game World is asking fans to “refrain from watching or distributing information” about STALKER 2 in the event of any leaks. The studio said that outdated and work-in-progress materials are not representative of the final product.

Elsewhere in the statement, GSC Game World also reiterated its “unwavering commitment to supporting” Ukraine, adding that “attempt to blackmail or intimidate us are completely futile.” Finally, the team expressed its appreciation for the STALKER 2 community, ending by saying, “Your support is our inspiration.”

The Ukrainian studio has been very vocal about the ongoing war in its home country. When development was sidelined due to the conflict, GSC Game World said work on the game would continue “after the victory.”

In the months following, the studio shared a look at GSC Game World’s Kiev office and workers before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, work on the game has continued, with reports that some of the developers have relocated. There’s no release date for STALKER 2 yet, but last we heard the game was targeted for release sometime in 2023.

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.

During a panel at the Monaco Anime Game International Conferences 2023 (MAGIC 2023), two legends of the Japanese videogame industry looked back on 30 years of history they helped shape. Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night creator Koji Igarashi gave their opinions on how Japanese video games became a worldwide phenomenon, how things went wrong in the early 2000s, and how Japan made a comeback over the last decade.

Sakaguchi said that the release of Dragon Quest in 1986 greatly inspired him. Before Yuji Horii’s domestic hit, Sakaguchi believed that developing RPGs for the NES (or Famicom in Japan) would not be possible. The Legend of Zelda, which was released in that same year, was a game he greatly enjoyed as a player, but did not directly inspire him.

“Nintendo and (Shigeru) Miyamoto’s games were on another level,” Sakaguchi said.

“Mario already kind of had a story,” he added. “I think that the story in Zelda was an extension of that. In these games, the story is not the most important component. I personally wanted to make a game in which the story comes first, which is why Dragon Quest felt closer to what I wanted to achieve. The music and systems are of great importance as well, but it is the scenario and story by Yuji Horii that made Dragon Quest special.”

For Igarashi, it was quite the opposite. He has previously stated that he was influenced by The Legend of Zelda when creating Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

“In my games, action is the most important component,” said Igarashi. “I think that action games can be compared to boot camp training, as you have to jump and dodge at the exact right moment. Without a purpose it simply becomes a penance, which is why we need to have a story to keep the player motivated. In that regard, the story is definitely important, but it doesn’t come first.”

If Dragon Quest made RPGs popular in Japan, it was Sakaguchi’s Final Fantasy series that made Japanese RPGs popular around the world. Sakaguchi says that while he was happy to see his games gain popularity on the NES and SNES in Japan, he was frustrated to see the games weren’t picked up in the Western market.

“At the time, people in the West saw pixel art and three-heads-high characters as something for children,” Sakaguchi said. “It was frustrating that our games were struggling there, as we wanted to find a way to expand our business. That finally happened when we were able to incorporate CG for Final Fantasy VII.”

Final Fantasy became one of the most iconic and popular series on the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2. However, by the time the PlayStation 3 came around, Japanese games started to fade to the background, with the exception of Nintendo.

“I think that one of the main reasons for that is the fact that consoles like the NES and PlayStation were very specific hardware,” suggested Sakaguchi. “This made it easier for Japanese developers to master the hardware, as we could ask Nintendo or Sony directly in Japanese. This is why – I realize it might be impolite to say this – Japanese games were of a higher quality at the time. As a result, Japanese games were regarded as more fun, but when hardware became easier to develop for, things quickly changed.”

“Japanese developers had been developing skills specifically for console games, but in North America and Europe, there was a long history of PC culture,” Igarashi said.

“By the time there was no longer a big difference between developing for console and for PC, Japanese developers could no longer rely on their specialty as console developers, and had to master PC development,” said Igarashi, positing that this was the major reason Japanese games started falling behind.

Sakaguchi added: “Many Western gamers grew up playing Japanese games. When games by Western studios started to improve, they felt new and fresh when compared with the Japanese games those players were more familiar with. I believe that in entertainment, freshness is extremely important.”

After Sakaguchi left Square and created his own studio, Mistwalker, in 2004, Western RPGs started to overshadow their Japanese counterparts. Series like The Elder Scrolls, Dragon Age and Mass Effect gained massive followings, while Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy XIII and Sakaguchi’s own Blue Dragon failed to attract mainstream audiences in the way they once did. However, Sakaguchi says he never felt it was necessary to derive inspiration from Western RPGs.

“In the West, children often get their own room from a very young age, whilst in Japan the whole family sleeps together in the same room,” said Sakaguchi. “I think that such small cultural differences can be felt through the games we make today. Even when Western games became mainstream, I didn’t feel the need to be inspired by them. I believe that cherishing my Japanese cultural background is what attracts people towards my games in the first place.”

For Igarashi, things are a bit different. Today, the Metroidvania genre he helped create is one of the most popular genres among indie developers, and there are dozens of recent games directly inspired by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

“I would like to start by telling everyone to please leave my field!” Igarashi said, jokingly.

“In all seriousness though, I think that it is only natural for works to be inspired by each other. As for games within the genre, I try to play the good ones. More so than me, the director (of Bloodstained) researches these games to see what they do well and learn from their mistakes at the same time. In that regard, I guess I should call [other Metroidvania developers] our friends. We all learn from each other in the hope of creating better games.”

Sakaguchi and Igarashi are not the only legendary Japanese developers who left a major development company to become independent. Hideo Kojima, Yu Suzuki and Hidetoshi Nagoshi are only a few examples of the many Japanese talents who have set up their own studios.

“In my case, (at Konami) I wasn’t able to make the type of game that I knew fans were waiting for anymore,” Igarashi said.

“Mobile games were gaining popularity in Japan,” he recalled. “As a company, I think it was the right decision to shift focus. However, as a result it was no longer possible for me to make the same type of games. That’s when I heard the voice of a devil inside me telling me to quit. I think that to a greater or lesser extent, the direction of companies and what developers wanted to make started to diverge.”

With titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Metal Gear Solid V, Elden Ring and Final Fantasy XIV, it is safe to say that Japanese developers are at the forefront of the game industry once again today. That being said, the climate is fundamentally different from the 1980s and ’90s. Free engines like Unreal and Unity offer more documentation in English than in Japanese, putting Japanese developers at a disadvantage; and while Nintendo remains a very Japanese company, SIE (Sony’s videogame division) moved its headquarters from Tokyo, Japan to San Mateo, California in 2016.

“Nintendo is a very creative company,” said Sakaguchi. “They want to create games they believe are fun, and Shigeru Miyamoto is still central to that, which in turn is reflected in their marketing. That’s why their headquarters need to remain in Japan. Sony (PlayStation), on the other hand, is a much broader company that does business in many different genres. The biggest market is the West, and with their strength in marketing it is natural for them to make that market central.”

“The way I see it is that Sony is approaching videogames as a more cinematic type of entertainment,” said Igarashi. “Of course, they are aiming at the biggest market, but I think they need to be located where the best cinematic entertainment is made. Nintendo, on the other hand, is closer in spirit to a toy manufacturer.”

Igarashi said that while he is impressed by the success of modern Japanese titles like Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring, he wants to stay focused on the type of game he does best.

Sakaguchi has been playing so much Final Fantasy XIV that he has found no time to play such titles. Final Fantasy XIV is one of the most noteworthy successes among modern Japanese videog ames. The MMORPG genre has traditionally been a territory largely dominated by Western developers, but FFXIV has held its own alongside titles such as World Of Warcraft, EVE Online and Everquest.

“As the director (Naoki) Yoshida says himself, FFXIV is like a Final Fantasy theme park,” noted Sakaguchi, explaining the reason he thinks Final Fantasy XIV became such a big success. “It seems like an MMORPG on the surface, but in reality it’s a bit different. It’s a game that celebrates 35 years of characters and worlds from Final Fantasy, similar to something like Disneyland. In that regard, you might even call it a new genre.”

IGN interviewed Sakaguchi about his love for Final Fantasy XIV in 2022. At MAGIC 2023, Sakaguchi also looked back at the development of Chrono Trigger.

Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was released in 2019. It was well received by critics and sales topped 1 million units in 2020. Igarashi is currently working on a sequel, although details are still sparse. Sakaguchi’s studio Mistwalker released the classical RPG Fantasian on Apple Arcade in 2021. As he said at MAGIC 2023 that he hopes to make a sequel and bring the original to PC.

Esra Krabbe is an editor at IGN Japan. He thinks 2023 will be another big year for Japanese videogames.

Much like its bloodsucking antagonist, Castlevania has lain dormant for many years, but Konami’s classic vampire-slaying franchise is finally beginning to awaken thanks to projects like Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania.

Released earlier this week, the heralded DLC stars Richter Belmont and Alucard in what Konami Return to Castlevania supervisor Tsutomu Taniguchi half-jokingly refers to as an isekai — slang for anime about characters suddenly being transported into a new and unfamiliar world.

“Is ‘isekai’ a buzzword ? Because this is how I would define this storyline,” Taniguchi told IGN in a new interview. “Let’s just say that Dracula’s Castle teleported on the Beheaded’s Island and what happened on the island stays on the island.”

No, Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania isn’t canon, but it is a fun reimagining of the old-school platformer, which got its start on the Famicom way back in 1986. The DLC has been heralded by fans and critics alike, with IGN’s review calling it a “shining blueprint of how to do a crossover right.”

‘Respectfully stolen’

According to Evil Empire chief operating officer Benjamin Laulan, it got its start at 2019’s BitSummit festival in Kyoto, which the studio attended in the hope of making a deal to sell Dead Cells in the Japanese market. A meeting with Konami convinced Laulan to shoot his shot and pitch a crossover, and was surprised to find a receptive audience.

“Back in France, we started working on it and well, since Dead Cells had ‘respectfully stolen’ so many elements from the series already, such as: the whip, the key art with the castle, the food hidden in walls… the ‘rogue-vania’ punchline… (oops!) It just made sense to continue this way, so we got lost into excitement and went all-in, the pitch quickly turned into a full DLC proposition,” Laulan said.

Laulan called Empire’s collaboration “really, really smooth,” saying Konami readily agreed to everything from Richter Mode to the Konami Code.

Taniguchi, for his part, said that Konami is “proud” that Castlevania had such an impact on Dead Cells.

“Seriously, knowing that Dead Cells, which is among the greatest indie games of the past ten years, was inspired by Castlevania is a huge source of pride for us,” he said. “When Evil Empire and Motion Twin came back with their full-DLC proposition instead of just this short featuring we weren’t really surprised and we were hoping for that to be honest. And we just thought we had to let them go full circle, because we knew they would use every ounce of their talent to honor the franchise. And also, I personally admit I just really wanted to see what a fight against Dracula in Dead Cells would look like!”

‘We know that our fans always want more’

Taniguchi wouldn’t say what the Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania means for the broader franchise, which hasn’t seen a proper release since 2014’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (the successful Netflix series aside), but did acknowledge the “excitement and enthusiasm of the fans online,” which is “really motivating for [Konami].”

“We tried to bring back the games that people loved and cherished with the Castlevania Anniversary Collection and the Castlevania Advance Collection, we also brought back Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night for our PlayStation fans and on mobile, and launched Grimoire of Souls on Apple Arcade to celebrate the lore of the franchise,” Taniguchi said. “But we know that our fans always want more, and we do too, so this opportunity to have this amazing crossover with Dead Cells was impossible to pass up on. “

Konami is a long way from its glory days, when franchises like Metal Gear Solid and Castlevania towered over the games industry, but there are signs of a comeback. Konami is currently working on multiple Silent Hill projects, including a full-blown remake of Silent Hill 2, and rumors of a Metal Gear Solid remake persist. Even Suikoden is getting a little love with a remaster set for later this year.

Will Castlevania follow suit? We’ll just have to see. But in the short-term, Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania is a tantalizing reminder of what could be for one of Konami’s most beloved franchises.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Only two and a half hours after going live, Destiny 2’s latest raid, Root of Nightmares, was first conquered by a relatively unknown team of underdogs called Team Hard in the Paint.

Raids are Destiny’s ultimate endgame challenge, which involve six players working together to figure out complicated mechanics and execute them to perfection, all while avoiding being killed by hordes of enemies and powerful bosses alike. For many years, Bungie has observed the launch of their raids by hosting official “World First Races,” which document the first team to beat these dastardly gauntlets.

Bungie confirmed the world first victory, writing, “Guardians from around the world fought against an ancient threat in the Root of Nightmares raid this weekend during the World First raid race. A massive congratulations to Team Hard in the Paint for emerging victorious. As the first team to both beat the raid and the additional challenges, all six members will receive World First title belts and will forever be known as the World First Champions of Root of Nightmares.”

Super Mario Odyssey came to Nintendo Switch on October 27, 2017. It’s kind of hard to believe but because time is an immutable constant, that date was almost five and a half years ago. In spite of that half-decade gap, we haven’t had a proper follow-up and Nintendo hasn’t really needed to rush into a sequel or successor because Mario is such a powerful property. It operates like a massive steam boiler: Mario is well into a red-hot operating temperature and only needs a steady stream of fuel to remain fantastically efficient. Mario is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Nintendo’s most important character, and I would argue nothing even comes close. No, not even Link, in spite of how excited we all are for Tears of the Kingdom.

What’s interesting about Mario’s importance to Nintendo is that originally, Mario was created because Nintendo couldn’t get the license for Popeye. Think about that for a second: In the infinite possibilities of the universe, there exists a dimension where we’re all anxiously waiting for the release of the Super Popeye Movie this year. Popeye’s foil Bluto was replaced with an angry ape called Donkey Kong. Olive Oyl, the object of Popeye’s affection and rivalry with Bluto, became “Lady,” and Popeye was replaced with a mustachioed everyman named… Jumpman. Mario was never intended to be anything more than a recognizable side-character, someone who would pop into future Nintendo games as a thread of commonality for the company’s works. And he did show up a lot in Nintendo’s NES games: calling the fights in Punch-Out!! or hitting the links in Golf, among others.

While Mario’s design is a result of the limitations of the hardware at the time, the mustache, red dungarees and cap that came about from those limitations now define Nintendo as a whole. Take any one part of that original design and show its modern equivalent to anyone with even a passing interest in gaming and they could put the pieces together. Mario’s hat alone became a supporting character in Odyssey (will the next game focus on a sentient mustache? We can only hope).

No Nintendo character has as much merch as Mario. Yes, Pokemon is a massive brand with literal tons of merchandise, but there’s no one single Pokemon that has the reach of Super Mario. It helps that Mario has such incredible range. Whether it’s 2D or 3D, RPG or sports, kart racing or brother smashing, Mario fits in everywhere Nintendo puts him. Part of this is no doubt because, not in spite of, his humble roots as a replacement sprite for a licensing deal gone sour. Since Mario’s character had so little in the way of backstory, it opened the character up for almost limitless possibilities. We have a “fiction” around Mario and his adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom, but because there was no real reason for Mario to jump over barrels and flames to reach his goal, his only motivation in games was to achieve a goal.

Contrast that open endedness to another one of Ninteno’s biggest characters, Link. Obviously we have Link in Super Smash and Mario Kart, but in all the Zelda games, Link is and remains a variation on the “Hero of Time.” His is an incredible character with a level of openness allowing players to use him as a proxy for themselves, but he’s bound by certain rules and tropes that make him less of an obvious fit for wildly experimental uses.

I would also argue the Super Mario series as a whole, with its easy to understand gameplay loop, gives Mario an edge over the rest of the Nintendo stable of characters. You know almost everything you need to know about the entire Super Mario Bros. game within the first 10 seconds, whereas the first Legend of Zelda game on the NES sets our hero into a world where the objectives aren’t nearly as clear. You don’t even have a weapon when you start, something we take for granted now, but to a first-time player who’s not versed in the game’s vocabulary, it seems like an impossibility to explore the world of Hyrule when you can’t even defend yourself.

There’s a reason Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios is Mario themed right now, and it’s the same reason we’re getting a Super Mario movie: no other character comes close to Mario’s universal appeal and recognition, something Nintendo is acutely and shrewdly aware of. It’s an interesting quirk of the English language and our date system that gives us “MAR10” Day, but now it’s a whole event every year, with Nintendo offering discounts on the many available Mario games, as well as reflecting on the character. It’s “May the Fourth” for video gamers, but less punny.

If you still don’t believe Mario is Nintendo’s most important character, I ask you this: Is there any other character in popular culture with so much appeal that Nintendo would end a Direct by telling you they’ve made a replica of his boots to show off? I don’t think so.

The walking, talking black mold, Xûr, is now live in Destiny 2 for the weekend until next week’s reset. If you’re looking to get your some shiny new Exotic armor or weapons for your Guardian, look no further.

Each week, Xûr has a random assortment of Exotic armor, one for each Guardian class, as well as a random Exotic Weapon and an Exotic Engram available for purchase. In addition to his Exotic wares, he’s got a random collection of Legendary weapons and armor to deck out your Guardians.

We’ve rounded up all the info on Xûr for the week including where to find Xûr, which Exotic weapons and armor are available, as well as which Legendary weapons you should pick up, either for PvE or PvP.

Where Is Xûr Today?

Xûr’s location can be found at The Tower on March 10 through March 14. To reach him, travel to the landing point at The Courtyard and make your way to the Hangar. Hang a left when entering the hangar and you’ll come face-to-face with space Amazon.com.