With your hands full of guns and a warrant for the Devil’s arrest in your pocket, Shotgun Cop Man sends you on a nonstop blitz of new ideas. This short and sweet action-platformer continually reinvents itself across 10 clever worlds, leaving little room for a good idea to get stale. Once I mastered its distinct style of projectile-based movement, barrelling through the circles of hell turned into a pure power fantasy. Even though it’s harder than it should be to chase high scores and better times, I still had a blast gunning for a more optimized run after the credits rolled.
Shotgun Cop Man’s goofy vibes, flashy acrobatics, and time attack setup transported me back to my middle school days of bypassing the browser security settings in the computer lab to sneak in runs of Flash games like Fancy Pants Adventures or Electricman 2. Granted, this would blow many of those study hall time killers out of the water, but I could still easily see myself racing to the end of its first world with a friend while we’re supposed to be working on a research paper or math homework. It shares the same tight scope and paired back tone, but here those mask a surprisingly deep platformer.
Shotgun Cop Man isn’t just a standard run-n-gun shoot-em-up. Instead, the recoil from your shotgun serves as the driving force behind most of the movement. Need to take out some demons to your right? Well, you better make sure the coast is clear to your left when you pull the trigger. This challenging, but ultimately rewarding, system of ballistic blowback fills in for genre-standards like jumping or dashing midair, while firing your sidearm — which ranges from a satisfyingly snappy but weak pistol to a powerful gatling gun — allows you to hover midair or make more precise hops.
You can’t just spray and pray you wind up on the next platform, though. Each weapon has limited ammo, keeping Shotgun Cop Man relatively grounded: the shotgun itself only holds three shells at a time, so he needs to touch terra firma to reload. That said, sidearms tend to have bigger magazines, allowing for a reliable second option to fall back on when you need to get to the ground and take another shot at a tough jump. This restrained approach brings a levelheaded balance to Shotgun Cop Man that encourages mayhem and speed without leaving precision and skill in the dust.
Shotgun Cop Man bets big on its platforming acumen, and it pays off.
To make matters more difficult, Shotgun Cop Man also has to contend with the armies of Hell as he chases down their leader. Aside from a few combat-focused levels that blend each circle of Hell’s unique mechanics into an arena-style showdown, as well as the requisite boss that shows up at the end of each 17-level world, Shotgun Cop Man is all about movement. Because of that, enemies play second fiddle here, being treated as platforming obstacles masterfully woven into each level. They act like the bright-red explosive barrels of a 3D shooter, providing the satisfaction of popping them while offering direction on where and when to shoot. Shotgun Cop Man bets big on its platforming acumen rather than falling in-line with other action platformer successes like Katana Zero, and it pays off in spades.
Still, this unique movement takes quite some time to get used to, especially if you’re playing with a controller: Pointing in two different directions like a twin-stick shooter (left for walking, right for aiming) makes for an unnatural platformer control scheme. Wrapping my head around it felt like being asked to rub my belly and pat my head at the same time. Unfortunately, there’s really no better way to make this specific type of movement work on the sticks, though it is much more comfortable with a keyboard and mouse. Thankfully, Shotgun Cop Man’s accessibility features allow you to skip certain inputs, like making it so you pick up new sidearms automatically, so you can tweak things to be much more comfortable.
I was halfway through the roughly five hour campaign by the time I felt like I’d fully climbed its relatively steep learning curve, mastering this propulsion-based blend of combat and movement. Normally, this initial struggle would be a knock against it, but Shotgun Cop Man constantly introduces and innovates on new ideas while rewarding your growing mastery of them. It also sets up systems that successfully encouraged me to obsessively replay levels in an attempt to shave nanoseconds off my time. This potent blend dangles an appetizing carrot-on-a-stick to gnash at in bite-sized speedruns once you’ve found your footing.
When he inevitably takes a hit, Shotgun Cop Man’s heart comically pops out of his body. Running into it will pick it up and restore health, but he’ll die in one hit without it. When that happens, the camera zooms in on his oddly detailed face as he says, “I die,” in a goofy, computerized voice. This minimal, self-aware sense of humor sets the tone overall, as there’s otherwise not much of a premise to explain here (and developer Dead Toast Entertainment even pokes fun at this in the credits by putting quotes around the word “Story”). You’re a cop with a shotgun trying to arrest the Devil. Naturally, Old Scratch doesn’t play ball. Each time our hero catches up to him, Satan tells the boy in blue to shove it, and you continue on your chase once more. It’s thin, but it works, and is just amusing enough to keep things moving.
Unfortunately, that sense of humor eventually becomes Shotgun Cop Man’s Waterloo. Each time it zooms in on his face as he points out the obvious, it takes far too long to get back into the action. It takes as many as three button presses to respawn, and even longer to restart a level. I know how silly this sounds in the face of everything Shotgun Cop Man gets right, but in a game where you’ll be dying and trying again quite a bit, these add up to completely hamper any sense of momentum. That’s especially glaring when every level in Shotgun Cop Man grades your performance on whether or not you killed every enemy, beat the par time, took any damage, or did all three of those in the same run. In what feels like a big oversight, there’s no quick level restart button when you die, so to chase that perfect run, you need to resume the level after that death, pause, and then hit the retry option from there. Because Shotgun Cop Man trades in seconds and milliseconds (most levels took me less than a minute to complete), this otherwise small bump in the road became an outsized, unnecessary part of mastering each level.
That said, for a game that only took me about five hours to see from end to end, Shotgun Cop Man crams in a staggeringly impressive range of innovations and spins on its seemingly simple run-and-shoot formula. It ricochets from idea to idea, never allowing a mechanic to get old — in fact, there are quite a few I wish got some more time to shine, like reactive floors, which alternate between safe and deadly each time they’re shot, or clever box-moving puzzles that put your understanding of each weapon’s power to the test. Most mechanics get a chance to shine before being woven into more new mechanics later on, but there’s also an impressive level creator (exclusive to the PC version) that lets you toy with some of these ideas yourself if you feel like your favorite didn’t get its time in the sun.
I’m not much of a level designer myself, but the creation suite provides a robust toy chest for dedicated designers to mess around with. It doesn’t just feature tools that enable you to recreate or expand upon any clever idea found in the campaign, it even includes wholly unique mechanics that aren’t found there, like extra enemy and NPC types. I didn’t get to try any user-created levels during the pre-release period, but I’m really excited to see what people think up once Shotgun Cop Man is out in the wild.
I remember vividly when I first caught wind of The Outer Worlds back in 2018 – my managing editor at the time talked about his preview of what developer Obsidian was working on; an original first-person RPG with the makings of a Fallout game. As someone who still won’t shut up about Fallout: New Vegas to this day, that was music to my ears. It turned out to be one of my favorite games of 2019, but instead of expecting it to be the next coming of Fallout, I saw it more as a new foundation for Obsidian to work within.
There were certain limitations to what the first Outer Worlds could be in terms of size and scope, and that much was clear in the several conversations I’ve had with the development team when reflecting on it. But after seeing the sequel in action for the first time and interviewing key folks at Obsidian, The Outer Worlds 2 seems like that original vision fully realized. For all the details I’ve been able to dig up about the revamped gameplay systems and worldbuilding, the overarching idea was that The Outer Worlds 2 needed to be a deeper RPG where player choice has more of an impact in nearly all aspects of the experience. And from everything I’ve gathered from our month’s-worth of exclusive coverage, this sequel looks like it’s stepping in the right direction.
What I’ve seen thus far is based on an early build of the game, all of which has been through hands-off demos, and all the footage you’ve seen was provided by Obsidian. So while I haven’t played it yet, The Outer Worlds 2 is so far reminding me of some of the best parts of the studio’s long list of RPGs, where unconventional playstyles are viable and unpredictable choices and outcomes are intrinsic to the roleplaying aspect, asking you to roll with the punches regardless of whether or not it’s deemed “optimal,” and this manifests in several ways.
Attributes, which were stats that you invested in as you leveled up, have been set aside for a heavier focus on Skills – a total of 12 (including staples like Engineering, Explosives, Guns, Hacking, Leadership, and more) now dictate how your character functions. While this may seem like further streamlining, the goal is to make sure the points you put into various Skills have a more noticeable impact throughout the process of leveling up, as opposed to the minute effects you’d feel in the old Attributes system. Of course, I can’t speak to how this comes to fruition in a full playthrough, but there are other systems in place that feed into the idea that these mechanical decisions can affect your character in bigger ways.
[U]nconventional playstyles are viable and unpredictable choices and outcomes are intrinsic to the roleplaying aspect.
That leads to Perks, of which there will be about 90 to choose from. There are specific Skill levels needed to gain access to certain Perks, but these are said to offer significant changes to what you can do in combat, conversations, exploration, and more. One example is a Perk that lets you aim, fire, and reload while sprinting and sliding for those who want to approach enemies with the mentality of a traditional shooter. Or the Serial Killer and Psychopath Perks that grant bonuses for those who try a much more violent playthrough. Or the Space Ranger Perk that lets you convert points in your Speech Skill into damage bonuses in battle. Dialogue branches may vary based on the Skills and Perks you have (more so than the original), or your character may pick up on things in the environment they wouldn’t be able to otherwise, so the results of your build aren’t just isolated in combat scenarios. Those are just a few examples of how these systems feed into specific playstyles with the intention of rewarding you for the way in which you’re specialized.
Then there are Traits that stack additional permanent effects that you wouldn’t necessarily get through Perks. The catch is that if you want to take more Positive Traits, you have to also select Negative Traits, and that’s where things can get interesting. I’m actually curious about how I’d play with something like “Dumb” where I’d have to lock myself out from ever putting points into five of the 12 Skills, or “Sickly” where I’d take lower health and toxic resistance. It seems like a trade-off that could be worth it, depending on how I want to build out my character.
But if you want to lean more into unconventional mechanics, accounting for things you usually wouldn’t in other RPGs – enter the new Flaws system. Like in the original, the game is watching your behavior and then offering permanent bonuses at the cost of a permanent detractor depending on how you play. However, The Outer Worlds 2 goes deeper on this idea – you’re not just offered a Perk point if you take a Flaw. Flaws now have bespoke status effects and conditions that can have major ramifications for how you’ll play the game, should you take a Flaw. I only got to see two of them, but they speak to the philosophy behind them. Sungazer offers regenerative health outdoors during the day at the cost of extreme visual lens flare and reduced accuracy, and that’s activated by staring into the sun multiple times. Or if you quickly skip through dialogue choices frequently, Foot-in-Mouth offers a permanent XP bonus while forcing you to make all future dialogue choices in a 15-second window – and if that timer runs out, the game will pick for you, which can lead to some unintended consequences. There’s another Flaw that’ll force you to accept all future Flaws no matter what, and Obsidian hinted at one that will account for those who save scum, but that remains to be seen – it’s bizarre ideas like these that can shake up playthroughs. Obsidian said there are around 30 Flaws in total, and my hope is that the incentives will be worth the trade-off, and that they’re built in a way that it won’t be easy to circumvent their effects, which could diminish their impact.
All that said, it’s clear that Obsidian put a lot of thought into how to rebuild its RPG mechanics with the intention of making something that is more reactive and impactful, or at least purposeful along the progression path. And with no respec beyond the intro mission, you’ll have to build out your character with a little more care. Hands-off demos can only tell me so much, so I’m expecting everything else around The Outer Worlds 2 to bring out the best in those systems and push me to engage with them beyond the surface level.
That sounds all well and good, and the brief gameplay sequences I saw were also promising. While the first game had approachability at the forefront, The Outer Worlds 2 looks like it’s offering more variability with a web of systems that come together for something a bit more sophisticated. For example, we now have actual stealth mechanics with a better detection system, proper stealth kills, and scenarios in which this approach would make sense – and features such as damage bar read-outs tell you whether or not a stealth attack will be worth it. The N-Ray Scanner is one of the new gadgets you’ll use, and this lets you see through walls and detect cloaked enemies or key objects hidden in the environment, but it’ll expend your mana-like energy – it’s a tool that’s conducive to this playstyle, and I’m looking for how this approach can be sustained throughout.
Judging from the brief run of the N-Ray Facility, for example, I saw snippets of that in action, which leans into this particular playstyle I prefer. This level was also ripe for playing it like an immersive sim, and it gave me hints of Deus Ex or Dishonored, especially with how you navigate the level and find different paths. I know the DNA of those games will always find their way into first-person RPGs, but it’s something that wasn’t quite as present in the first Outer Worlds, and very much apparent in this sequel.
If the original was Obsidian building the framework, my hope is that this sequel is the series reaching its full potential.
And while I’m excited for stealth options and wielding the environment to create paths forward, the punched-up gunplay and addition of gadgets shows an improvement in combat approaches across the board. The aforementioned sprint-slide-firing Perk – along with the returning Tactical Time Dilation (TTD) – looks to be a deadly combo in a firefight, but some wild unique weapons like the crank-powered sniper rifle called the Planet Killer or the advertisement-blasting Pop Gun that’ll distract enemies, widen your toolset. When all hell breaks loose, the triple-barrel shotgun will probably be an old reliable in my playthrough. And I’m sure I’ll be saving those rare shots I’ll find for this game’s version of the BFG for the toughest fights.
But with Obsidian looking to games like Destiny in terms of reworking gunplay, I think it’s a net-positive for how the game feels on a moment-to-moment basis. There’s an emphasis on better mobility, smarter enemy behavior, and varied enemy types, along with that wider, more creative arsenal. But there’s also no more level scaling, and so there’s been more consideration in how difficulty works in The Outer Worlds 2 with tiered enemies and static levels for encounters across the game, letting encounters be designed with more intent, especially with where the designers will funnel players and create friction.
The more intimate details of level design excite me, and seeing interiors like the Zyranium Lab be noticeably bigger and intricate with multiple paths has me thinking about the gameplay possibilities. But its large open zones are also a key point in this sequel. I’ve said in previous coverage that bigger doesn’t always mean better, and Obsidian is aware of that. So, The Outer Worlds 2 has an emphasis on density and rewarding players who poke around its areas with more side stories and useful loot in a way that the first game didn’t. Points of interest out in the distance are built intentionally and are said to be placed for a reason and draw players to those locations and discover quests off the beaten path. This is all based on a brief walkthrough of Golden Ridge, which is the only open zone I saw, and it does seem like there’s a lot more going on at the ground level. And I hope that this design philosophy extends to the rest of The Outer Worlds 2’s open regions.
Finally, Obsidian wasn’t ready to share many details on story or companions, but game director Brandon Adler hinted at a world-changing event happening early on when landing on Golden Ridge, and that being indicative of the types of narrative swings they’re going for. Creative director Leonard Boyarsky, who was one of the original Fallout developers, spoke to how the team is thinking about The Outer Worlds 2’s story. He mentioned being sharper with its humorous tone while going deeper on its commentary about how corporations, and those in power, will exert and abuse their power on those seen below them. It seems a major factor in conveying these themes will be through factions – The Protectorate, The Order of the Ascendant, and Auntie’s Choice (a merger between Auntie Cleo and Spacer’s Choice from the first game). While companions are optional, it appears they’ll be an important lens through which you navigate and understand the world. Boyarsky also emphasized the intention of making a story that can stand the test of time with its dissection of the human condition, rather than directly reflect the times in which it was made – and that’s largely been the philosophy that guided the old Fallout games, including New Vegas.
Overall, I get the impression that Obsidian is trying to avoid homogeneity in its gameplay systems, and build worlds with questlines and encounters that tease out the varied options you have this time around. You can have complex and creative systems to toy with, but ultimately, it’s a means for engaging with the captivating stories tucked within where we have a distinct role to play. If the original Outer Worlds was Obsidian building the framework, my hope is that this sequel is the series reaching its full potential. And that’s something we’ll have to see when The Outer Worlds 2 comes out later this year.
Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is set to leave early access and launch on May 21, Netmarble and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have announced.
The action-adventure role-playing game based on George R. R. Martin’s much-loved fantasy universe is set for release on all mobile platforms as well as on PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Windows.
Game of Thrones: Kingsroad launched in early access form in March, and has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam. Most of the negative reviews revolve around its monetization, which some have called “greedy.” “It’s like a mobile game on steroids and kinda not in a good way,” reads the current ‘most helpful’ review on Valve’s platform.
In a release date FAQ posted to Steam, Netmarble addressed the expected gap between the progression of early access and new players. It said that Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is “fundamentally designed with a focus on single-player gameplay,” and that it had worked to “minimize any feelings of imbalance or unfairness that might arise from differences in progression.”
Testing was conducted to improve the game, the development team continued, “to improve the game and make it more enjoyable and accessible for everyone.”
“We encourage all players to focus on the inherent fun of progressing through the later stages and reaching the endgame content, rather than comparing progress with other characters,” Netmarble suggested.
Netmarble went on to apologize for its prior communication and patches, which it admitted were “somewhat lacking.”
“Moving forward, we are committed to more frequent and transparent communication through regular AMA sessions and Developer Notes,” it added. “We kindly ask for your continued anticipation and support as we approach the official launch.”
As you’d expect from a game like this, there’s a premium Founder’s Pack that offers Early Access and other exclusive in-game content. Mobile players can pre-register through the App Store and Google Play store on iOS and Android devices ahead of the grand launch.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
With The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered out and millions of players enjoying Bethesda’s much-loved open-world role-playing game, its army of fans are coming together to issue advice to those who might have missed out on the fun 20 years ago.
Oblivion remastered is a remaster, not a remake, Bethesda has stressed, and so many of the quirks of its ageing design remain. One of those quirks — or frustrations it might be better called — is Oblivion’s level scaling system.
It’s this latter point that has sparked a fresh round of advice from Oblivion veterans to newcomers, and it all revolves around Castle Kvatch.
Warning! Spoilers for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered follow.
Breaking the Siege of Kvatch is the fourth main quest, and tasks you with defending the city of Kvatch against the Daedric hordes. It involves going through an Oblivion gate where you’ll face off against multiple high level enemies. Once you’ve done that and closed the Oblivion gate, you have to clear out the Daedric invasion in the main plaza of Kvatch itself.
If you waited too long and leveled up a lot, you’ll find that all of your helping friends are quickly killed because the enemies you’re facing are extremely difficult. Due to Oblivion’s level scaling system, the higher level you are, the tougher those enemies will be. At higher levels, Kvatch will throw every variety of Daedra at you, rather than easy-to-kill Scamps. You might encounter a room full of Daedroth (strong crocodile-headed bipedal Daedra), Daedric Princes, or other monstrosities.
Breaking the Siege of Kvatch leads into The Battle for Castle Kvatch, should you take it on. Here you battle to retake the town’s castle, defeating the Daedra along the way. Like Breaking the Siege of Kvatch, level scaling can be a real problem here.
Enter helpful Oblivion veterans who are recommending players take on Kvatch before they hit level 10.
“I’m like panicking now…” said redditor IsThatHearsay. “First time playing Oblivion, didn’t even know you had to sleep to lvl up until just before I got to this mission.
“Closed the Kvatch Oblivion gate right before this mission still as lvl 1, then read online to sleep and I jumped from lvl 1 to 9 immediately with hour sleep increments. Met Martin there and decided to escort him to the Cloud place to take a break from fighting, followed by deciding to cheese some skills like Conjuration, Acrobatics, Sneak, and whatnot quickly and climbed to lvl 15.
“Now have to go back to do Kvatch at lvl 15+, when I’m hearing I probably should’ve just done it while still lvl 1…”
“I just tried it at level 20 and let me tell you, that shit is fucking rough,” said frontadmiral.
“Completed at lvl 21 on a mage, god it was tough,” said Ranaki_1967. “Had to in the field recharge my staff, drink potions escape down the ladder, have maximum shield armour, a Dremora champion.
“The framerate was bad.”
“Bro im doing it at 27 rn and im NOT having a good time, Xivali are EVERYWHERE,” Mother_Bid_4294 said.
Even Oblivion experts have been caught by taking on Kvatch at too high a level. “I’ve oblivioned extensively in the original but I still made the same mistake, went back to Kvatch level 13, just about manageable,” Various-Jellyfish132.
“Make use of sneak for bonus damage and retreat through loading doors to recover if needed, if you have a bit of space, their attacks are easily dodged. The daedroths don’t seem to follow you through the doors so you can pick them off one at a time.”
“Oblivion scaling is just wild though because you will level up once and suddenly Scamps transform into Daedroths and Clannfear Runts turn into Daedric Princes,” Groosin1 said.
“Because the scaling cap is only 17-18. And the way leveling works, at 17-20 you could be anywhere from a guy with middling combat skills for what you’re using and getting obliterated, to being God.”
Part of the issue here is that players are leveling up faster in Oblivion Remastered than they did in the original Oblivion. That’s because the developers changed the leveling system to modernize it, but kept the level scaling the same.
This has had the knock-on effect of causing some players to be a higher level than they would have been in the original when taking on tough quests such as Kvatch.
For the first time ever I decided to do Kvatch before level 10. It was cool to see it actually functioning as an even battle instead of a horde of overleveled demons one-shotting all the guards. Really makes you wonder if they ever tested it at higher levels. pic.twitter.com/VeQH3xst0b
As you’d expect, modders have once again come to the rescue. Fresh from tackling PC performance issues in Oblivion Remastered, modders have also released balanced NPC level cap mods and balanced unleveled rewards mods, so if you’re on PC, you can change the way Oblivion Remastered works significantly. If you’re on console, however, you’re stuck with level scaling.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Lost Soul Aside is delayed three months, from May 30 to August 29, 2025, its developer has announced.
After roughly a decade in development, the PC and PlayStation 5 single-player action game was finally scheduled for llaunch next month, but a statement from developer Ultizero Games revealed the delay to late September to add polish.
“We are truly grateful for the positive response we’ve received from players all over the world since we announced Lost Soul Aside,” Ultizero Games said.
“We remain committed to delivering a high-quality game experience. To match the standards Ultizero Games have set for ourselves, we are going to take some additional time to polish the game. Lost Soul Aside will now release on August 29, 2025. We want to express our heartfelt thanks to our fans waiting for the launch.”
Originally the passion project of solo developer Yang Bing, Lost Soul Aside has grown to become a major Sony-published title under the company’s China Hero Project, with Bing now the founder and CEO of Shanghai-based studio Ultizero Games.
IGN recently had the opportunity to sit down with Yang Bing to discuss the long road to launch. So many years of development went into Lost Soul Aside, escalating from a solo creator’s vision to a trailer reveal at Sony’s State of Play broadcast. Through it all the hype has built up, with some calling Lost Soul Aside an exciting mix of Final Fantasy characters and Devil May Cry combat — even from the moment Yang Bing’s initial reveal video went viral in 2016.
The main character Kesar wields a shape-shifting weapon you can swap between, which changes your playstyle, and you have a dragon-like companion named Arena who can summon abilities to support Kesar.
Like its inspirations, Lost Soul Aside emphasizes aerial dodging, precision timing, combos, and countering along with large-scale boss fights. The game blends its sci-fi premise with a variety of contemporary aesthetics that fit into a campaign that takes you across multiple dimensions. Although it’s tough to glean where the story is going based on its trailers, Bing describes Kesar’s journey as one of “redemption and discovery.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Bloomberg reported the canceled game, codenamed R7, was an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe. And while that is not the Titanfall 3 sequel fans have been clamoring for, some are devastated that the fan-favorite Titanfall 2 is still without a sequel almost a decade later.
“I just fell to my knees at Walmart,” said one player, while another simply wrote: “I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE.”
“How many more times will this happen before they finally give it up and leave us to our sorrow?” lamented another.
Not all fans are taking it as bad news, however, as some think an extraction shooter based in the Titanfall universe could have failed, killing the franchise for good.
“Best thing that could’ve happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned,” posited this redditor. “A Titanfall extraction shooter would probably flop and the c-suite executives would say ‘see, the people just don’t like Titanfall anymore,’ instead of the obvious reason being nobody asked for a Titanfall XTS.”
“I’m fine with this one being canceled,” responded someone else, followed by: “Extraction shooter lmao. Good riddance.”
“So sick and tired of ‘extraction shooters’. They’re so formulaic and boring. I don’t want to loot bunch of useless shit and camp in an attic or sit in a bush for 20 minutes or risk getting shot moving thru big open fields. Give me quick matches, wallrunning and titans blastin’,” suggested this fan.
“Got sad. Read extraction shooter. Was literally okay,” summarized someone else.
The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other thought to have been the aforementioned extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe.
Mohammad Alavi, who became narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3 before it was cut, told The Burnettwork that much work on the sequel had been done.
“Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about 10 months, right? In earnest, right?
“We had new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right? But I’ll make this clear: incrementally better, it wasn’t revolutionary. And that’s the key thing, right?
“And we were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were making something revolutionary, y’know what I mean?”
So, what happened? According to Alavi, it was a combination of the multiplayer team having issues making an experience that didn’t burn players out quickly, and the explosion of the Battle Royale genre with the release of PUBG in 2017.
“The multiplayer team was having a hell of a time trying to fix the multiplayer, because a lot of people love the multiplayer. People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer,” Alavi said.
“But the people who love Titanfall 2 multiplayer is a very small number of people. And most people play Titanfall 2 multiplayer and think it’s really good, but it’s just too much. It’s cranked up to 11, and they burn out a bit fast. And they’re like, ‘That was a great multiplayer, that’s not something I continually play a year, two years,’ right?
“So we were trying to fix that. We were trying to fix that from Titanfall 1 to 2, trying to fix it from Titanfall 2 to 3, the multiplayer team was just dying.
“And then PUBG came out.”
Respawn developers were seemingly more interested in playing a Battle Royale map with Titanfall 3 classes the team had put together, than any of the standard Titanfall multiplayer modes they were working on. This prompted a realisation: ditch Titanfall 3, which may or may not have ended up a better game than its predecessor, to create a Battle Royale that was wonderful.
“And at the time, I had just literally become [the] narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3. I had just pitched the story, the whole game, that me and Manny [Hagopian] had come up with. We made this big presentation and then we went off at break, and came back from break, and we talked about it and we were like, ‘Yeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game.’
“We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves ’cause we were like, ‘We can make this game, and it’s going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.’
“And don’t get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall. I love that game. Titanfall 2 is my most crowning achievement, but it was the right call. That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didn’t even know about it for another six months until we had a prototype up and running that we could show them!”
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Diablo 4 has launched Season 8 and with it kicked off a series of free updates that will, eventually, lead into the action role-playing game’s second expansion, due out at some point in 2026.
But not all is well within Diablo 4’s ravenous core community. It is a player base hungry for significant new features, reworks, and fresh ways to play the near two-year-old game, and it’s not shy about letting Blizzard know how it feels. Yes, Diablo 4 is more than its core community, with a significant number of casual players who just like to blast monsters without too much thought on how they’re doing it. But the foundation of Diablo 4’s community is made up of veteran fans who play week in, week out, fuss over meta builds, and want Blizzard to give them much more to think about.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Diablo 4’s recently released 2025 roadmap — the first Blizzard has released for the game — suffered a backlash. In the wake of the roadmap’s release, Diablo 4’s community expressed concern about what’s coming up in 2025, including Season 8, and questioned whether there’s enough new content to keep them coming back.
Season 8 launches not only with all this in mind, but with a number of controversial changes of its own. Chief among them is a significant change to Diablo 4’s battle pass to bring it more in-line with Call of Duty’s, offering players the chance to unlock items in a non-linear fashion. But the battle pass now pays out less virtual currency than before, leaving players with less currency to put towards subsequent battle passes.
In this sweeping interview with IGN, Diablo 4 lead live game designer Colin Finer and Diablo 4 lead seasons designer Deric Nunez respond to the reaction to the roadmap, confirm plans to update Diablo 4’s skill tree (something players have wanted for some time now), and explain those changes to the battle pass.
IGN: How is the team feeling about the rollout of Season 8? Are there any challenges you’re predicting that you might have to tackle?
Colin Finer: Season 8, we’re feeling really good about it. The thing we’re really looking out for is anything crazy that happens in the first week. We’re looking to see if there’s anything that’s gonna be underperforming as part of the boss powers, which is the big marquee seasonal thing that we’ve introduced in this season. So anything that might be underperforming, we’re looking to make buffs. To anything that’s massively overperforming, that’s just breaking the game in terms of, you get one boss power and now everything is easy, we’re probably gonna be toning down.
It’s nothing that we’re too scared about. We find on Diablo the harder something is to balance, the more fun it is. So I think it’s in a pretty good spot. We’re excited for this season to come out and really have players become bosses.
IGN: Has the team’s philosophy around buffing and nerfing following a season rollout changed over the course of Diablo 4’s lifetime?
Colin Finer: Absolutely has evolved and changed, and a lot of it has been revolving around what we try and uphold and respect, which is player time investment and where players are having fun and meeting them there.
So just to give a history on it, in the very first season of Diablo 4, we made a bunch of changes, sweeping nerfs to the game because we wanted it to fit more within our launch vision of the game, where combat was a little bit slow and methodical, and you’re gonna take monsters one-on-one, and bosses are gonna be really challenging and difficult. Obviously, that didn’t go super well because it felt like were defining what the fun of the game was for the players.
Over time we’ve become a lot more hands off once a season goes live. We don’t want to necessarily make any big changes in the middle of a season, for example, to nerf or do big buffs to classes, because we again want to respect player time investment.
For a while we had a thought after Season 1 where it was like, ‘OK well, we won’t nerf at the start of a season, but we will make big nerfs in the middle of a season, or will make big buffs in a season.’ As we saw progression became more deep and we added more ways to min-max your characters, we felt like doing big sweeping changes in the middle of a season would disrespect player time investment. You might work your way up to a really powerful Necromancer build with tons of minions, you’ve tempered your gear, you’ve masterworked it, and then if we found that it was too powerful in the middle of a season, it was way overperforming, if we nerf that, that meant all that time you put into that character was essentially being thrown away. So we didn’t like that.
And we didn’t like the other part where we were going to massively buff a class, for example, in the middle of the season, because you might have wanted to play that. But now, now that you haven’t invested in that build, now it presents this obnoxious challenge where it’s like, ‘Well, I wanted to play this, it wasn’t strong at the start of a season, and now it’s this big climb to get to that point where you’ve unlocked this new build for me.’
In Season 8, what we’re really looking at now is being a little bit more reactive early into a season and then taking a step back. What that changes now in terms of our philosophy is if we see something in the start of a season that is crazy or overperforming — and how we define overperforming is that it’s just short-cutting a lot of the challenge and progression of the game.
Season 7, to give you a clear example of that, we felt like Blood Wave Necromancer was doing this, where you get one unique item on the Necromancer, and now all the bosses in the game are falling over. You’re one-shotting everything in the game. We like getting to that point. We like when players can become God-like powerful. We don’t like when it’s cheapened by one item or one interaction that invalidates everyone else’s journey to get to that spot.
So we’re going to be looking in Season 8 for early outperformers like that, taking S-plus builds to just an S. And if there’s anything new that we’ve added — for example, we’ve added this really cool unique item on the Sorcerer that allows you to fan out Ice Shards — if, for example, that underperforms we will also be buffing those early into a season.
So it’s really just being a little bit more reactive earlier into a season and then taking a step back and letting players have fun with all the stuff that we’ve added.
IGN: I’m big into Diablo lore, and so it’s exciting to see Belial arrive in Diablo 4 as part of Season 8. Why Belial now? And for Diablo lore fans, is there anything meaningful here they should keep an eye out for?
Colin Finer: Absolutely. Diablo, the genre and the IP, greater and lesser evils always have a way of somehow coming back into Sanctuary, right? You thought you had banished them, like Lilith was banished to the abyss but she somehow came back. So Belial is another great example of that. In Diablo 3, he took over Caldeum, throughout the Iron Wolves, which you now see in the outskirts of Diablo 4, and they’ve been cast out. They’re sort of outcasts.
In terms of why Belial now? In Vessel of Hatred, Mephisto is walking the earth in his human form, all hell has broken loose, and Belial, who’s a lesser evil, obviously can’t pass up this opportunity to try and wreak havoc, take advantage of the chaos, take advantage of the fact that the gates of hell are open, Mephisto is walking the earth. And this felt like the proper time for someone like Belial, who’s such an incredibly cool villain, incredibly cool demon, to want to come in and take advantage of this chaos.
So overall, the narrative that we’re really pursuing and interested in is that Diablo 4 is evolving with these expansions and the Vessel of Hatred kicked off this… you never know who’s going to come back. So we have a ton of big bads up our sleeves who are looking and eager to come back into Sanctuary to take advantage of this madness.
IGN: You’ll obviously be keenly aware of some of the reaction to the roadmap among the core community. I think it’s fair to say there’s been some mixed reaction there. Were you surprised by some of the reaction about what was coming to the game this year?
Colin Finer: I don’t know it was necessarily surprising. You know, if you ask our fans, ‘What is it you want more of?’ It’s more details, more content, more things. So we know we have an obligation and we’re in service of the player in terms of really getting them a fantastic experience and adding and evolving Diablo 4 over time.
What we are talking about more on is ensuring that the players understand that this is just a starting point and that it is a conversation with the player base. Part of the seasonal model that we really enjoy is that seasons are a place for us to try really big, crazy, bold new ideas that we then can use community interaction and conversations to validate what’s working for them, to then bring it into the eternal game and to evolve Diablo 4 over time.
So a good example, if you think back to our past, we did this crazy Blood Harvest in Season 2 where all these vampires were running around, it was all hell broken loose on the overworld, and we took a lot of those lessons learned and things that players really enjoyed and pulled that straight into Season 4 with our updates to Helltides. So we’re always looking to have a conversation with the community and hearing their thoughts on what’s working for them and to pull that back into the broader game of Diablo 4 to make it feel like it’s evolving over time.
Part of this was, we have Nightmare Dungeons and Infernal Hordes, we have a couple of features called out on the roadmap, and again, it’s a starting point. We’d love to hear some of the community thoughts and feedback when they see these things in terms of like, ‘Oh, I wish this thing was changed in Infernal Hordes,’ for example. That gives us a lot of great validation in the direction that we’re heading on that particular feature.
Deric Nunez: My initial reaction to the reactions of the roadmap, it was all definitely very fair feedback. We see the roadmap as the kickoff for a conversation that we’re looking to have with the player base. Obviously things get a bit more obfuscated the further out we get. We’re really excited that some element of what the fans are looking for will definitely be revealed as we get further along. When it’s all said and done, I think we’ll be in an overall very strong place for Diablo 4, as we make the road towards the next expansion and refining that foundation and seeding in the new seasonal fun that we’d like to inject season after season.
The fact we’re getting so much feedback from a broad spectrum of the player base, the hardcore blasters and the casuals alike, is definitely all very important for us as we make decisions moving forward, and also validating some of the decisions and directions that we’re already taking with the roadmap yet to be revealed.
IGN: I play a lot of Diablo and I play a lot of Call of Duty, and it looks like Diablo 4’s new battle pass has taken some inspiration from Call of Duty with the way you can now pick what you’re working towards. Can you talk about why you’ve changed it in this way?
Colin Finer: We are updating the battle pass in Season 8 with a new system called Reliquaries. A lot of this was driven by, the battle pass just felt like a pretty long and tedious grind through 150 levels to get the things that you wanted. And we felt like that wasn’t necessarily servicing our players in the best way that we could.
Diablo, there’s a lot of different ways to target or get chances at the types of loot that you want in the game. There’s a lot of control, there’s a lot of ways for players to manipulate the odds, or target something they want, just like the Lair Boss system where maybe there’s a specific boss you want and you can farm that boss to get the unique item of your dreams.
The Reliquary system aims to inject some of that choice and allow players to drive and work towards the things that they actually want out of the battle pass. The high level was, how do we get players more in the driver’s seat in terms of claiming some of the stuff that they actually want out of the battle pass? We think it’s just a lot more flexible now.
IGN: I’ve seen negative feedback to some of the changes to the battle pass where you get less virtual currency back from it now than before. That won’t have passed you by. Can you talk about the reasoning behind those changes?
Colin Finer: Yeah, I think it’s definitely fair reaction. We’re always listening. I think the thing that we think works a lot better as part of the system is, again, you’re able to really work towards and pick the things you want out of the system. I believe also the Platinum that you gain out of the entire system is available to everyone now. So you don’t even need to buy the battle pass necessarily to gain some of those things back. So it’s a net win for everybody overall, in that sense.
IGN: For Season 9, is there anything on the roadmap that people can expect might change either as a result of feedback or because things have become clearer internally? Or is everything on the roadmap that we’re seeing now still what people can expect? I’m talking about Season 9 there but that can extend to Season 10 as well.
Colin Finer: At a high level, it really sets the expectation for what is the big major thing that we’re gonna work on. But just like Season 8, how it has tons of quality of life changes, tons of updates, tons of details, each future season is also going to have that level of detail, content, and variety.
I’ll give you a great example: because it was the Season of Bosses in Season 8, we thought what better time and opportunity do we have to actually update a lot of the bosses that exist in our game? So we took a look at Duriel. He’s been in the game for quite a while. We’ve completely changed the fight. We’ve added some new attacks. We’ve added a lot of fun new ways for him to eat you and kill you. Those level of details all coalesce into one really solid, incredible package for a season that the roadmap just isn’t really able to capture at this point. Because it’s really just trying to say, ‘We’re going to be investing and looking into Nightmare Dungeons… how do we level up that system and feature?’ And there’s just going to be so much that goes into it that really is hard to sell with just a few bullet points in terms of telling players where we’re actually heading.
Deric Nunez: The devil will definitely be in the details when we reveal more. There’s a lot more beyond the veil, the broad stroke of what was revealed.
IGN: Generally, there is a desire from players for brand new skills and build variety. What’s the thinking there about whether or not to do it either way?
Colin Finer: This is a really meaty question, so I’ll dive into a couple sections. Our goal every season is to completely refresh the meta and make it feel like there’s tons of exciting new ways to play the game. A great example of this is you might have played a Whirlwind Barbarian last season, but you can still play it this season, and our hope that the boss powers that we’ve added that are unique to this season have ways to actually make that Whirlwind Barbarian feel completely different and get you to care about different things, and to have it change the way you play.
So a great example is one of the boss powers has essentially a power that when you’re channelling, it’s going to fire a death laser beam. It’s the Wandering Death. If you fought that one, you get to rip the power out of it, and now while you’re Whirlwinding it’s going to shoot that death laser. So that’s a really cool way for you to have a really big impact on your overall build while still having a similar playstyle.
As far as the skill tree changes, I can confirm we are talking about updates to the skill tree, but I don’t have any details. It’s something the team is taking very seriously, and we are talking about, what is a major change that we think would create more build variety and more build diversity going forward?
The reason why it’s going to take us quite a while is it’s kind of a big problem to entangle. So right now, just to dive into some of the details, Legendary aspects are two parts that we consider problematic. It’s both customization, which is like, ‘I want my — for example, if you played Rogue — Twisting Blades to orbit around me.’ We think that’s a really cool thing and really cool playstyle customization choice.
But because it’s a Legendary item, it also has what we call power growth, which is, now Twisting Blades deals more damage. And what that means is if you want to play a Twisting Blades Rogue, you have to play with the Twisting Blades orbiting around you playstyle, right? We’ve just sort of said because there’s both power on this as well as customization, this is the only way you’re allowed to play Twisting Blades Rogue.
So we want to separate some of that out. We want to pull more of the customization into the skill tree and allow aspects to be more power growth. That’s a lot to entangle and that’s why it’s a lot of conversations that we’re having right now. And it’s a lot of work on us to make sure we get it right, so that we release it into a high quality state. That’s just like a little insight into the philosophy that we’re working towards as part of that.
The TL;DR to that is we do want to do something to the skill tree, no plans that I can share now, but it’s something that we’re definitely talking about.
Diablo 4 Season 8 is live now.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Fans hoping to catch the first few episodes of Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld will have to drop into Fortnite if they want to watch the series before it comes to Disney+.
Epic Games unveiled how it will expand upon its existing Star Wars offerings today, revealing that the upcoming animated spinoff’s first two episodes will premiere exclusively through Fortnite. It’s part of the studio’s efforts to double down on Star Wars content for its upcoming Galactic Battle season, which focuses on delivering Star Wars-themed goodies.
You’ll be able to see Tales of the Underworld kick off with two episodes starring Asajj Ventress via the Star Wars Watch Party island starting at 10 a.m. ET on May 2 – two days before the show comes to Disney+ subscribers. Epic encourages fans to link their Epic Games and MyDisney accounts, too, with eligible players being gifted a First Order Stormtrooper outfit in return. It’s unclear how else connecting the accounts will benefit those who participate, though Epic teases that there are “more benefits to come.”
“Disney and Epic are pioneering the future of social entertainment together, and this expansive Star Wars collaboration offers a glimpse into the type of interactive experiences we envision,” Epic Games President Adam Sussman said in a statement. “We are reimagining what’s possible with immersive storytelling in Fortnite with one of the world’s most beloved franchises – stay tuned for a lot more to come.”
You’ll have until May 11 to watch both Tales of the Underworld episodes, at which point Star Wars Watch Party island will no longer be live. It will also feature a Battle Arena for players to duke it out as they use lightsabers to cut down waves of enemies. Those who watch both episodes will earn an Asajj Ventress loading screen.
Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld is a six-episode series animated in the style of The Clone Wars that follows Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane. An official description for the show teases that the former will find herself face to face with a new chance at life and a new ally, while the latter is forced to confront his past.
Disney’s ties with Fortnite extend far past its upcoming Galactic Battle season. The House of Mouse acquired a $1.5 billion stake in Epic in March 2024, positioning itself to collaborate with the game developer for many years to come. It was a move that will see the two powerhouses working together in more ways than one while also resulting in the addition of more Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar outfits in the hit battle royale video game. Some highlights from its next season including Darth Jar Jar and Emperor Palpatine.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
The problem with Tempest Rising’s multiplayer is that while it’s perfectly competent at recreating a slice of the old Command & Conquer multiplayer with a pair of new and interesting factions, it’s just that: a slice, rather than the whole pie. With only two factions, nine maps, and the most basic of options for customizing its two or four-player matches, just about everything here screams “minimum viable product.” Combine that with the fact that Tempest Rising doesn’t aspire to be anything more than a revival of C&C’s gameplay, and there’s not a tremendous amount to get excited about. It may well expand over time – such as whenever the Veti faction arrives – but like a vehicle factory that’s only half built, it won’t be super useful until you’re certain you’ll have enough harvested Tempest in the bank to complete it.
I could try to comment on unit balance, but like with any fresh-out-of-the-gate multiplayer game, anything I say will almost certainly soon be obsolete. My anecdotal experiences with the community’s apparent preference for GDF over Dynasty, probably thanks to their self-replenishing drone swarms, is likely to either be nerfed in a patch within a week or proven completely wrong. Soon, I’m sure someone way smarter than I am will figure out a devastating counter that reduces the seemingly unbeatable (and admittedly pretty cool) strategy of loading Skycrane transport helios with drone operating infantry to automatically barrage anything in range to a garbage-tier strategy for fools.
So I’ll leave that to the folks who are busily hashing out the best build orders and counter strategies for the unique characteristics of each faction, which are mostly remixes of C&C ideas with a few twists to get a hang of. I’m a big fan of the Dynasty’s Scrap Trucks, which let you quickly unfold a vehicle-repairing turret anywhere on the map and start plopping down structures that you can pre-construct at your con yard. Naturally, there’s no end to the opportunities for showing off your micromanagement skills by deftly controlling the transforming Trebuchet tanks, picking targets for your long-range artillery and airborne units to clear the way for flamethrowers and armor, activating special abilities to disable groups of enemies and leaving them vulnerable, laying mines, scouting, calling in support abilities, etc. – all while building and protecting your own resource economy and climbing the tech tree.
Because of Tempest Rising’s retro style and adherence to time-tested tech trees I’ve found it instantly familiar and easy to slip back into old habits; I’ve been enjoying going back to the classic engineer-rush where I steal the enemy’s construction yard out from under their noses while a handful of infantry distracts them from the opposite flank. (That’ll only work for a short while after launch, so I’m getting that trollish thrill while I can.) If it worked in C&C, it’ll probably work here.
There are a few features that feel like they’re built almost exclusively for the hyper-competitive set, such as the Doctrine tech tree that invites you to dump thousands of precious Tempest credits into upgrades that, for the most part, don’t get all that good until you’re several tiers deep. Boosting my infantry health by 15%, for instance, doesn’t seem all that worth it until I have a lot of infantry in play (as opposed to building more infantry). At my skill level – and probably that of most people who aren’t hardcore players – the vast majority of my games thus far haven’t lasted long enough to build up the kind of excess cash I’d need to invest in that sort of thing, with most of them wrapping up before the 15-minute mark. But I’m sure that plenty of people will find uses for these to get the upper hand with specific builds, so it’s good to know there’s more depth to be mined if you put in the time to train up.
However, if you are a competitive player looking for your next RTS fix, know that Tempest Rising doesn’t have a ton for you to play with at the moment. For one thing, if you play ranked, there are only 1v1 matches available. Even if there were 2v2 ranked matches (it’s actively being worked on, the developers promise), there would only be three maps available that support four players in teams or free-for-all. 1v1 isn’t much better in that regard, with just six options. Combine that with there only being two factions until whenever the Veti expansion comes along – which could be a while given the lack of a published timeline – and it feels pretty slim compared to a lot of the games that inspired it.
There’s nothing wrong with the maps that are here – each is a symmetrical layout with areas of high and low elevation, plenty of bottlenecks and alternate routes, all dotted with capturable neutral structures that can give you a “free” (for the cost of an engineer) foothold to build defenses and forward production off of, as well as a few that generate resources. It’s simply that there’s nothing unexpected – good or bad – at all, and that gives it a very bog-standard feeling. It’s hard to make the argument that Tempest Rising has gone for quality over quantity when there are no big standouts.
In addition to the roughly 100 job cuts IGN reported earlier today at Respawn Entertainment, EA has made wider cuts across its organization today, impacting around 300 individuals total including those already reported at Respawn.
IGN understands that these wider cuts largely impacted EA’s Experiences team, which includes groups such as EA’s Fan Care team and various others working on customer support and marketing. As with other cuts at EA, those impacted will be given the opportunity to apply for other roles internally prior to being let go.
“As part of our continued focus on our long-term strategic priorities, we’ve made select changes within our organization that more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth,” an EA spokesperson said in an official statement.
“We are treating our people with care and respect throughout this process, working to minimize impacts by helping affected employees explore new opportunities within the company when possible and providing support during the transition.”
The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other of which was, per Bloomberg’s reporting, a new Titanfall game.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
