Category: IGN

EA is looking to usher in a new era of soccer gaming with an EA Sports FC 25 release date of September 27, 2024, according to a recent leak.

Information on the FC 25 launch plans comes from Dealabs and reliable leaker Billbil-kun. A report from the site reveals the apparent release date alongside a handful of other details about its price and purchase options. Sports gaming fans are said to have two purchase options: Standard and Ultimate. It appears the former comes with the base experience for $69.99, while the latter offers seven days of early access starting on September 20 for $99.99. EA Play subscribers can also take advantage of early access thanks to a 10-hour trial.

Over ten years and four expansions Square Enix explored the story of two warring gods, Hydaelyn and Zodiark, and the fractured worlds created through that, coming to a climactic finish in Endwalker. How do you follow up a decade of storytelling that’s garnered tens of millions of fans in the process?

Final Fantasy 14’s answer is to do something drastically different with its newest expansion, Dawntrail, adopting a much lighter, more adventurous tone, tremendous visual changes, and introduces a new cast of characters. It’s still a Final Fantasy game through and through, but fascinatingly it feels like Dawntrail has drawn inspiration from another seminal, perpetually never-ending series: One Piece.

When Dawntrail was first announced director Naoki Yoshida described it as a “Summer Vacation” for the Warrior of Light, that is to say, your player character. And it spawned a running joke within the community that this was going to be the “beach arc” — a light-hearted “break” that takes the characters away from the main drama for a couple of episodes like you see in many anime. But it turns out those comparisons may not have been completely off-base as the further you dig into Dawntrail’s layers the more it starts to feel like a shonen anime like Dragon Ball, Naruto, and most importantly for our comparison, One Piece.

No other anime has captured the feeling of adventure quite like One Piece, and Eichiro Oda’s pirate epic has already been inspiring others for well over a decade. With that in mind, it feels like a natural line to draw for Dawntrail, an expansion that wants to move past the large world-hopping story of the last decade, and create something more grounded.

Dawntrail, at its core, is a story about its ensemble cast rather than you the player. In fact, your Warrior of Light isn’t even the protagonist in the latest expansion. That honor goes to a newcomer named Wuk Lamat who serves as the Luffy of this story. And the two share more than a few commonalities.

Wuk Lamat is a young starry-eyed hero who wants to make the world a better place and achieve her dream of becoming the ruler of the country of Tural, Dawntrail’s new setting. She’s inherently inexperienced and naive, but has a heart of gold, and most of Dawntrail’s story is about her learning to become a leader, while gathering a party of diverse allies in that process.

Both Wuk Lamat and Luffy have that happy-go-lucky attitude that makes them initially seem aloof, but the deeper layer underneath shows they’re willing to do absolutely anything for their friends. It’s fascinating to see Wuk Lamat’s growth mimic Luffy’s, transforming from an unpredictable wild card to a genuinely charismatic and compelling captain.

There are plenty of other parallels you can draw between the Scions and the Straw Hat crew, right down to the player filling the same role as Roronoa Zoro; the world-renowned legendary warrior who acts as a best friend and sidekick. But beyond just drawing those parallels, Dawntrail ensures that its peppy shonen story still feels deliberately Final Fantasy-esque.

While Dawntrail’s entire narrative structure is nearly exactly the same as those first few arcs in One Piece — travel to new lands, learn the local culture, and inevitably solve their problems, all while on the hunt for a legendary treasure — but the connective tissue is the themes at the heart of Dawnrail, which speak to what the game has done for years but on a larger scale.

This story of Dawntrail is all about Wuk Lamat finding her voice and transforming into a leader, using the help of a crew made up of wildly different people, who all experience their own growth. But at its the core it’s about relationships, and diving into the complexities of how people interact with each other, and more largely how cultures integrate together.

That One Piece style of setup and storytelling is used to great effect in Dawntrail to deliver narrative punches. So much of this expansion is spent meticulously building up big personalities and delivering crucial character development, in service of a larger message about the nature of grief, acceptance, what it means to be happy, and how all of those ideas and emotions can exist at once. Like in One Piece, these themes are all filtered through a central character, with Wuk Lamat acting as a kind of compass through the narrative threads. Because the player Warrior of Light is taking on the role of a sidekick this time, we get to see these new elements of the game’s world through a unique perspective.

One Piece has often done this same thing, using the veil of slapstick comedy or over-the-top characters to deliver truly remarkable, heartfelt storytelling. Dawntrail does that through familiarity, building on a world, characters, and lore that players have come to know and love across a decade. In that sense, Dawntrail is both a fresh start for the MMO and a continuation, using familiar elements to tell a story with a much different tone and style.

It’s a bold change that likely isn’t going to resonate with every player, especially those who were enthralled by the Hydaelyn and Zodiark narrative of previous expansions. But if Final Fantasy 14 wants to continue to break new ground, it also feels necessary. Dawntrail couldn’t just do the same thing again, it had to be drastically different, it had to pull its inspirations from somewhere new, and One Piece was a prime choice for both the setting and narrative themes.

There’s a reason One Piece has cultivated such a massive fan following and continued running for over two decades. The way the franchise set itself up is impeccable, centering a complex cast of characters that have room to grow and change across a dozen different arcs.

As Final Fantasy 14 moves past its last decade, that feels like the intent here. It wants to set up a core cast of characters and concepts that can be kept running, and luckily it already has most of those left over from the previous narrative arc. Dawntrail is proof that a lot of thought has been put into laying a foundation for the game to continue along as a serialized story, and having a lot in common with One Piece should already be considered a good sign.

Hayes Madsen is a freelance writer for IGN.

Developer Nexon has released the first post-launch update for The First Descendant, which brings some much-needed improvements to the game after its rough launch.

Hotfix 1.0.1, out now across PC, PlayStation and Xbox, improves performance on PlayStation 5 specifically (the PS5 version has significant frame-rate issues), makes gameplay tweaks and various bug fixes, and fixes the logo sound volume on game launch.

On gameplay, knockback and knockdown recovery times have been sped up by 1.5 times, and the maximum usage of the Eterllick shield skill per phase has been reduced from two times to one time. There are no changes to The First Descendant’s heavily criticized monetization, however, which some have called “microtransaction hell.”

Nexon’s free-to-play co-op focused looter shooter, a sort of fusion of the likes of Warframe and Destiny, launched on June 30 and has seen huge player numbers on Steam (Sony and Microsoft do not reveal player numbers on PlayStation and Xbox). On Valve’s platform The First Descendant has seen 239,513 peak concurrent players so far, enough to put the game in Steam’s top five most-played games. Check out IGN’s The First Descendant review in progress to find out what we think of the game so far.

But the launch has endured significant problems, including the aforementioned frame-rate issues and crash problems, with lots of players still waiting for promised rewards including Twitch drops. Nexon has issued multiple apologies and dished out compensation in the form of in-game resources and items, but that hasn’t stopped the complaints. Nexon even had to ask players to stop buying the same item multiple times through Steam or the PlayStation or Xbox platform stores because players weren’t getting what they paid for.

The First Descendant hotfix 1.0.1 patch notes in full:

Platform & System

– Fixed the issue where the logo sound volume was too high when launching the game.

– Server and client stabilization has been carried out.

– (PS5) Removed unintended factors that were degrading performance.

– (PS5, XSX) Fixed the issue where FSR Upscale was malfunctioning.

Content Improvements

– Knockback and knockdown recovery times have been sped up by 1.5 times.

– The maximum usage of the Eterllick shield skill per phase has been reduced from 2 times to 1 time.

Bug Fixes

(1) UI/UX

– Fixed the issue where the back button did not work after closing the capacity exceeded popup in the module enhancement UI.

(2) Descendant

– (XB1) Fixed the issue where the heads of other players wearing skins would intermittently not display.

(3) Module

– Fixed the issue where the ‘Skill Power Modifier’ number was not applied correctly after level 5 enhancement of the ‘Lethal Infection’ module.

– Fixed the issue where the ultimate module drop animation was used when the normal module ‘High-Power Rounds Capacity Increase’ was dropped.

(4) Field

– Fixed the issue where object destruction animations did not appear in the Strategic Outpost.

– Fixed the issue where the name and description of the NPC Dominique in the Hagios region were displayed incorrectly.

(5) Equipment

– Fixed the issue where the Guided Round of the Ultimate Weapon ‘Restored Relic’ did not apply the ‘Ancient Fire’ status effect.

– Fixed the tooltip error for the Fire Skill Power of the ‘Active Volcano’ External Components 2-set effect.

– Fixed the tooltip error for the Weak Point Damage of the ‘Frozen Heart’ External Components 4-set effect.

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.

Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for the final boss of Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree. Proceed with caution!

Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree comes with plenty of additional lore that ties up some of the base game’s loose ends and threads many more, but its final boss didn’t have a word of dialogue itself.

That seemingly wasn’t the original plan, however, as one player went digging into the files of Shadow of the Erdtree and found some cut dialogue that didn’t make it into the final version.

As reported by The Gamer, Reddit user LaMi_1 shared the brief snippets online, and though they don’t give much away, the dialogue would ironically silence some of the complaints voiced by players upon finishing Shadow of the Erdtree. Final spoiler warning for Shadow of the Erdtree’s final boss.

Antagonist Miquella must take down the player to usher in a new age, so in true FromSoftware fashion, he summons some help to do so. Miquella brings in Radahn from the past, but not the weak, puny (incredibly difficult) version of Radahn from the base Elden Ring, but a bigger and stronger version now imbued with magic.

Almost like a puppet, this Radahn doesn’t speak but proceeds to destroy the player, somewhat ominously swinging his giant blade without saying a word. And this was seemingly a very deliberate creative decision as FromSoftware did record dialogue for the fight, even though some players complained of Radahn’s silence, disappointed that what almost felt like an old friend had nothing to say.

“I am Radahn,” the cut dialogue began. “Born of red-maned Radagon, and Rennala of the Full Moon. A lion bred for battle.” Elden Ring fans have weighed in on its significance, with LaMi_1 themselves admitting the dialogues are “very generic and don’t reveal anything” but it would also “be cool to hear his voice.”

Tiloy22 leaned into that first point. “They may have cut it because it just wasn’t impressive or important enough,” they said. “It’s very generic dialogue and Radahn never spoke, so him saying something ‘meh’ might lose the impact. It’s like how people prefer for mute characters like Link [from The Legend of Zelda] to never speak.”

Shadow of the Erdtree, which arrived June 21, 2024, features bosses with which FromSoftware “really pushed the envelope” on what the player can withstand, director Hidetaka Miyazaki said ahead of its release. If you consider Radahn on of those, check out IGN’s extensive guide for everything you need to know about Shadow of the Erdtree’s new weapons, its various quest lines, and how to defeat the big man himself.

In our 10/10 review of the expansion, IGN said: “Like the base game did before it, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree raises the bar for single player expansions,” we said. “It takes everything that made the base game such a landmark RPG, condenses it into a relatively compact 20-25 hour campaign, and provides fantastic new challenges for heavily invested fans to chew on.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail launched on July 2, 2024 with some technical issues but that didn’t stop it from drawing the most players to the massively multiplayer online game in over a decade.

In a blog post, Final Fantasy 14 director Naoki Yoshida thanked players for their support of Dawntrail and said the MMO had enjoyed its highest numbers since the game-changing A Realm Reborn update was released in 2013.

“I would like to thank you all for your patience and cooperation in dealing with server congestion during the early access for Dawntrail,” Yoshida said. “With your support, we were able to reach a record number of concurrent users we’ve not seen since the release of A Realm Reborn in 2013.”

A Realm Reborn is the revamp that saved Final Fantasy 14, which originally launched in 2010 to a poor reception. Square Enix relaunched the MMO in 2014 with the A Realm Reborn subtitle, which also saw its arrival on PlayStation.

Several major expansions have been released since — Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, Endwalker, and now Dawntrail — with each adding a significant chunk of story content plus new dungeons and mechanics.

Dawntrail launched with some issues, however, especially on Xbox where the game client can become completely unresponsive when moving between locations. Yoshida previously said a fix for this should arrive in the week or two after its proper launch.

The expansion’s accompanying Version 7.0 patch made plenty of positive changes to the game too, such as new areas, quests, quality-of-life improvement, a huge graphical upgrade, and the Viper and Pictomancer jobs, but seemingly not without a few frustrating bugs.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Cardy, Matt, and Jesse are taking advantage of it being exactly the halfway point of the year to talk about some of their highlights of 2024 so far, as well as the games and movies they’re most looking forward to in the remaining six months. Before that, though, they each have a new thing to bring the table in the form of Zenless Zone Zero, Kinds of Kindness, and Longlegs respectively. Do they like them? You’ll just have to listen to find out.

Be sure to send us your thoughts about all the new games, films, and TV shows to ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.

IGN UK Podcast 756: The 2024 Halfway Point Check-In

• IGN UK Podcast 755: Miyazaki’s Michelin Star
• IGN UK Podcast 754: The Boys, Some Dragons and an Acolyte
• IGN UK Podcast 753: The Best Games From Not-E3
• IGN UK Podcast 752: Our Summer Showcase Predictions
• IGN UK Podcast 751: The State of Astro Bot

Capcom’s co-op dinosaur mech game Exoprimal will not receive any new content, the company has announced just a year after the game came out.

The shooter launched in July 2023 as a brand new intellectual property from Capcom and an attempt to create a successful live service. Despite various updates and crossovers with other Capcom franchises, such as Street Fighter, that attempt has not been as successful as hoped. According to SteamDB, Exoprimal had a 24-hour peak concurrent player count of just 66 on Valve’s platform, with only 41 concurrent players at the time of this article’s publication.

Capcom said that with the release of Title Update 4, all planned Exoprimal seasonal content has been finished. After Season 4, which concludes on July 11, Season 1 will return, marking the beginning of a recycling of already released content. From there, a new season will begin on the first of each month. In addition, Season Passes 1 to 3 will be available for sale again. “This will allow players to obtain items from all seasons,” Capcom explained. Essentially, Exoprimal will be put on a Season 1 to 4 cycle going forward.

Capcom insisted all online services will continue to be available, so Exoprimal will remain available to play despite the company essentially walking away from the game. All gameplay modes will remain available to play, including the main Dino Survival mode, as well as endgame content such as Savage Gauntlet and Time Loop Rebellion.

If you’re playing alone or match with only a few other players, Bots will still be added “so that you can fully enjoy the Hammerheads’ story and reach the ending,” Capcom added.

“The Exoprimal team appreciates your interest and support, and we hope to see you in the wargame!”

Exoprimal’s announcement back in 2022 was seen as a death knell for a potential Dino Crisis revival, but Capcom teased fans recently when it tweeted out a solitary image to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the much-loved dinosaur survival horror game.

In August last year, Capcom admitted to “challenges” given Exoprimal is a new IP, but pointed to the fact it had more than one million players as a “positive.”

“Given that this game is an all-new IP, the situation is not without its challenges; however, we view the fact that the game has amassed over one million players to be positive,” Capcom said at the time. “Going forward, we will continue to release content for the game while monitoring player behavior with an eye toward expanding sales.”

Capcom insisted it expected Exoprimal would be a profitable project overall (it launched straight into Game Pass). Exoprimal does not currently feature on Capcom’s list of platinum-selling titles, which means it has sold less than one million copies.

IGN’s Exoprimal review returned an 8/10. “Exoprimal’s unique take on the hero shooter genre is a bold one – with its best modes and surprises hidden deep within its goofy sci-fi story – but a variety of fun exosuits, the simple appeal of tearing through thousands of dinos, and great multiplayer design make that grind an easy one to recommend sticking with,” we said.

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.

Nintendo has commented on the controversial topic of generative artificial intelligence in video game development, outlining the pros and cons as it sees them.

In a shareholder Q&A, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa was asked about the company’s initiatives involving AI. In response, Furukawa said generative AI can be used “in creative ways,” but said its use “also raise issues with intellectual property rights.”

Artificial intelligence and its uses in games is one of the hottest topics within the video game industry, with some studios touting AI-generated NPCs or AI-driven level creation, Others have expressed concern about its potential impact on jobs, particularly in art, quality assurance, and performance.

Generative AI thus far has drawn criticism from players and creators due to a mix of ethical issues, rights issues, and AI’s struggles to produce content audiences actually enjoy. For instance, Keywords Studios attempted to create an experimental game internally using entirely AI. The game failed, with Keywords citing to investors that AI was “unable to replace talent.”

The First Descendant has enjoyed a big launch, but it’s also been marred by a number of issues that developer Nexon has continued to apologize and offer compensation for.

Since the free-to-play co-op focused looter shooter launched a long list of issues has emerged, including frame-rate problems, the failure to deliver on promised items such as Twitch drops, and for some players, the failure to deliver items they’ve paid real-world money for.

The latter issue revolves around a problem where customers have yet to receive items when they’ve bought the same item multiple times through the basket on Steam or the PlayStation or Xbox platform stores.

Developer Nexon issued an update on this “mass Caliber purchase error,” promising a fix. In the meantime, it asked players to buy “Caliber” items (items that are bought with the premium in-game currency that is itself bought with real-world money), individually “to avoid any inconvenience.”

For those who bought items from July 2-4 and have yet to receive them, these purchases will be canceled, Nexon warned. “The same measures will be taken for any further mass purchases until the error is resolved,” Nexon said.

“We apologize once again for the inconvenience caused by this error. We are working diligently to fix the issue as soon as possible to minimize inconvenience.”

Meanwhile, producer Lee Beom-jun published a developer chat to YouTube in which he thanked and apologized to players. In the video, the Nexon developer promised a hotfix that would optimize performance of the PlayStation 5 version (The First Descendant runs particularly poorly on PS5). There’s work on those missing Twitch drop rewards, as well as a promise for gun sound improvements and crash fixes.

Interestingly, Lee Beom-jun offered an explanation of sorts for The First Descendant’s controversial third-party data collection and sharing policy that Nexon asks players to agree to before playing the game. This personal information sharing, one of the leading complaints amid the game’s ‘mixed’ Steam user reviews rating, is supposedly required because Nexon uses it to track what players are doing in The First Descendant in order to improve it. Lee Beom-jun insisted Nexon does not use players’ personal data, rather the nicknames they choose.

There is no explanation for The First Descendant’s ultra aggressive monetization, however, which some players have described as “microtransaction hell.”

Despite all these problems, The First Descendant has enjoyed a big launch, with a huge 239,513 peak concurrent players so far on Steam. That’s enough to put the game in Steam’s top five most-played games. Sony and Microsoft do not share player numbers. Check out IGN’s The First Descendant review in progress to find out what we think of the game so far.

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.