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Cheap Board Games You’ll Love in 2024

Are you tired of stressing about keeping up with the latest board games, the hottest new expansions, or being on the outside looking in when wanting to start a new hobby? We’ve all been there. The barrier to entry for many tabletop, card, and board games can sometimes be high, with some games’ starter kits starting well over $100. It can be intimidating to get into certain board games due to budget, and that’s a shame.

Whether you’re getting that special gamer in your life a birthday gift or hosting a casual game night with close friends, plenty of budget options exist that are sure to scratch that itch. And we’ve compiled some of our favorites right here!

TL;DR: These Are the Best Cheap Board Games

Board Games Under $30

Qwirkle

Qwirkle is one of a tiny handful of games that have won the biggest trophy in the scene, the Spiel des Jahres, and gone on to become a mainstream hit in its own right. And what’s more, you can now pick up a copy for under $30. Its success is down to a combination of intuitive gameplay and addictive tactical smarts. The game pieces are tiles with differently coloured shapes on them, and on your turn you can play any number that share a colour or shape, into a line or column that shares the same colour or shape. You then score a point for each tile in the sequence, plus a bonus if you complete a set of six shapes or colours. The result combines the familiar spatial strategies of Scrabble with all sorts of head-spinning opportunities to set up future plays or block opponents.

Boss Monster

A personal favorite of mine, Boss Monster is a love-letter to a bygone era of early pixel art RPG video games, filled to the brim with heroes, dungeons, spells, and of course, boss monsters. In it, you are the boss monster, building your dungeon and setting various traps to kill the heroes before they slay you first. Each Boss card has unique abilities that will inform your dungeon-building strategy, and you can even disrupt your opponents’ dungeons by buffing heroes adventuring through them. Boss Monster is designed for 2-4 players, and the 10th Anniversary edition of this replayable classic also comes with 15 brand new cards.

The Chameleon

The Chameleon is an easy to pick up, quick-to-play social deduction game. At the beginning of the round, players are dealt face down cards, one of them being the Chameleon. Players not dealt this card are then issued a secret code word, unbeknownst to the Chameleon, and must use tricky wordplay and conversation to oust the Chameleon, all while that player tries their best to blend in. This is great for quick rounds, parties, or the local brewery.

Decrypto

Decrypto is another clever wordplay game — make sure you have plenty of extra paper and pencils ready to go just in case. Each round consists of two teams, with one player from either team working to decipher a secret code and pass it onto their team. The other team has the opportunity to steal if you fail to pass along the code. Set up is quick and easy, and the secret code pieces are plentiful enough that you won’t have much overlap for multiple games. Highly team-oriented and fast-paced rounds make Decrypto a must-play for larger gaming groups.

Board Games Under $20

Targi

Sometimes cheap games are fairly light affairs, great for family time, but less so for long-term investments that grow on you over time. Targi is a rare exception, a two-player only title that comes in at around 20 dollars, but which can last a lifetime of exploration. Play involves a grid of randomly placed cards around which you place pieces against a row or column, locking that position up from your opponent, and you’ll eventually gain the cards at the intersections where your placements meet. Some give you resources, while the point-scoring cards you’ll need to win cost them, but there are severe limits on how much of either you can collect. Combining tense tactical placement with head-scratching hand and resource management, this is a gem you can pick up for a bargain price.

Hand Games 21

Games don’t come much cheaper than those you can play with your hands alone, like Rock, Paper, Scissors. And for the modest entry fee of fifteen bucks, you can add 21 new hand games to your repertoire, all of which are much better and more creative than that hoary old chestnut. Your hands will be transformed into those of a wizard, hurling spells at your opponents, or those of a banker, grabbing and counting wads of cash at lightning speed. If you want something a little less action-oriented, there are puzzle games involving hidden fingers and social deduction games that eschew the traditional cards and dice. It’s an impressive feat of design chops, and it doesn’t involve your feet at all. And of course, once someone’s invested the price of the book, you can spread the games to your friends for free.

Betrayal: Deck of Lost Souls

A Tarot card-inspired horror-themed board game, Betrayal: Deck of Lost Souls is a cooperative strategy game in which players must work together to defeat the numerous monsters and horrors they’ll face. The catch: one player is secretly a traitor, trying to bring about the one true Curse. Highly stylized and macabre art makes this a great gift for horror fans. This standalone card game consists of over 90 Item, Curse, Character, and Omen cards, creating endless potential for a fresh and exciting experience each time you play. Also check out our Betrayal at House on the Hill buyer’s guide.

You’re Getting Old

Best enjoyed by skinny-jean-wearing, avocado-toast-eating, will-never-be-able-to-afford-a-house Millennials, You’re Getting Old is a classic “never have I ever” style card game that tells you that yes, you are in fact getting old. To start the round, each player draws a card with prompts that make them old and ones that redeem them. If you can answer what “deadass” means, you’re redeemed and move down a space using your avocado token. The player who gets to the highest space first by being old ends the game, and whoever has the lowest position wins. Quick and easy set up, and great for making fun of your friends.

Coup

Looking to test out your lying abilities? Coup is the game for you. In it, players fight over gaining or losing influence as they struggle to be the last one standing. Take actions to steal currency from another player, or counteractions to block foreign aid or stealing. Subterfuge is at the forefront here, as you’ll often have the opportunity to use character card abilities you may not actually control, but be warned: other players can challenge you, and if you’re caught, you lose influence. When you lose your two influence cards, you’re out of the game and the next round begins until one player is left.

Board Games Under $10

Say Anything

If you want to thrill a big group of players with a brilliant party game you can pick up on the cheap, you won’t do better than Say Anything. Players take turns drawing a question card and picking one to ask: everyone else then writes and reveals their answer. Once they’re all public, everyone secretly bets on which answer the question-asker will like the best before the big reveal, when you’ll find out who’s hit the jackpot and who’s going empty-handed into the next round. Like all the best party games, it’s a very simple formula that’s likely to inspire some big laughs and some spicy table chat, and at this price it’s entirely worth adding to your after dinner party repertoire.

Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza

A quick, easy, and insanely addictive card game, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza is perfect for families and will put your reflexes to the test. The goal is to get rid of all the cards in your hand, and doing so requires focus and concentration. Players take turns in a clockwise order, and you say aloud either taco, cat, goat, cheese, or pizza in that order while playing your card. If the word you say and the face-up card match, players must slap the card and the last player to do so adds the face-up pile to their deck. This makes for great laughs and all-around competitive silliness that is well worth its price.

Poop

Similar to Uno, Poop the Game is a numbers-based strategy card game where the goal is to dump (no pun intended) your hand to win. Each round has players take turns pooping but be wary not to clog the toilet: if you play the card that makes the poop pile exceed the number on the toilet card, you take all of those cards, and the round starts over. There are also special cards that reverse turn order and color-based strategies to “flush” the toilet. Thankfully, Poop the Game has no scratch and sniff components.

Couch Skeletons

Super quick and easy set up and short play time makes Couch Skeletons a great pick for a small gift or travel game. You and another player take turns placing numbered skeletons on one of five couches, with the card you play being either one number higher or lower than the skeletons in play. If you have no cards to play, you then discard your hand, and the next round starts by drawing three cards. The goal is to get rid of all your cards from both your hands and empty the draw decks, and you win when you’ve played all your cards and aren’t able to draw.

Be sure to also check out our recommendations for the best party games and the best 2-player board games.

Myles Obenza is a freelance commerce writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter @Myles Obenza.

Daily Deals: HyperX CloudX, Street Fighter 6, Danganronpa Decadence, and More

The weekend has officially kicked off, and we’ve rounded up some of the best deals you can find this weekend. Whether you’re searching for a new gaming headset or a new game to pick up on sale, there are plenty of options this weekend. The best deals for Saturday, June 29, include the HyperX CloudX Headset, Street Fighter 6, Danganronpa Decadence, and more.

HyperX CloudX Headset for $29.99

The CloudX is officially licensed for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, so you can play worry-free knowing you’re getting a reliable headset. HyperX prioritized sound with this headset, with enhanced bass reproduction and clear highs, lows, and mids for all-around immersion. It’s worth noting that the CloudX can be used on PC, but you’ll need a splitter to get both microphone input and audio output due to the design of this headset.

Street Fighter 6 for $29.99

Street Fighter 6 is one of the most popular fighting games out there, with the second year of DLC just starting. M. Bison is officially out now, with an exciting new look and plenty of surprises with his moveset. Now is a great time to pick up SF6 and grab the Year 2 DLC as we look toward Terry Bogard, Mai Shiranui, and Elena.

Danganronpa Decadence for $29.99

Danganronpa Decadence packs in the main three titles in the Danganronpa franchise: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Anniversary Edition, and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Anniversary Edition. Additionally, Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp, a fourth game, is included in the package and features board game-style gameplay. If you’ve never played any of the Danganronpa titles, this is a great chance to pick the entire series up for just $30.

Samba de Amigo for $14.99

Released just last year, you can pick up the latest Samba de Amigo rhythm title for just $14.99 on Nintendo Switch. This matches the previous low of the title. It’s been quite a while since the last entry, and this one packs a punch with dozens of new songs. Multiple DLC packs based on SEGA properties have already released for the game, including Like a Dragon, Persona 5 Royal, and Sonic.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD for $9.99

If you picked up Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble earlier this week, you might be close to finished with the main levels if you’ve played quite a bit. For more Monkey Ball fun, this sweet discount on Banana Blitz HD is a great option! Over 100 levels are available to play through, with ten different multiplayer games you can start up with your friends. Join AiAi and the others and score at the top of the leaderboards!

Pick Up the Dead Space Remake for $29.99

Dead Space launched last January, and this is a great time to pick up the game if you haven’t already. This remake features an impressive use of technology and a completely modernized combat system. Special attention has been put on the audio, with 3D Audio technology utilized for an immersive experience. You can expect loads of thrills and horror as you look to escape the stranded ship. The USG Ishimura has never looked better or been scarier.

Demon Slayer -Kimetsu No Yaiba- Sweep the Board! for $39.99

Sweep the Board! is the latest game from Demon Slayer – Kimetsu no Yaiba-, focusing on a fun, party-like title that is extremely similar to Mario Party. You play as Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu, Inosuke, and the rest of the Demon Slayer cast as they traverse through multiple party boards and complete minigames against each other.

How the Original Driver Flipped the Free-Roaming Script Forever

In April 1908, Newcastle upon Tyne man Gladstone Adams was driving his Darracq-Charron motorcar back from the FA Cup final between Newcastle United and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Newcastle had lost and, to make matters worse, Adams’ journey home was being delayed by snow. That is, it kept covering his windscreen and he had to repeatedly stop and get out of the car to clear it.

Some kind of innovation was needed. There had to be something that would help people see where they were going.

As it turned out, there was; a few years later Adams invented his own windscreen wiper. He patented the design and became one of several people from around the beginning of the 1900s credited with conceiving of similar devices, although his version of the windscreen wiper never made it into production.

3D driving games had quickly become Reflections’ specialty, but the team knew you couldn’t tread water in a genre long famous for being on the cutting edge of video game technology.

Nearly a century down the track, Newcastle upon Tyne developer Reflections had found itself riding high on a purple patch of PlayStation success, propelled by the popular Destruction Derby series it had developed for legendary British publisher Psygnosis. 3D driving games had quickly become Reflections’ specialty, but the team knew you couldn’t tread water in a genre long famous for being on the cutting edge of video game technology. Some kind of innovation was needed. Something that would help people see where the future of driving games was going.

As it turned out, Reflections founder Martin Edmondson had just such an idea – and, unlike their fellow Novocastrian’s windscreen wipers, Edmondson’s idea did make it into production.

And it completely redefined what a driving game could be, forever.

Founded in 1984, Reflections spent the bulk of its first decade building action games for early home computers like the BBC Micro and Amiga, but by the mid ’90s it would become a house of horsepower. Reflections established its panel-punishing prowess on PlayStation very early; indeed, the original Destruction Derby was released in October 1995. At this stage, it had barely been a month since the original PlayStation had officially launched in the West.

A highly praised sequel arrived just over a year later, with a raft of technical improvements, and in 1997 Reflections released the competent but unremarkable Monster Trucks (otherwise known as Thunder Truck Rally in North America). However, while the Destruction Derby series would continue, the partnership between Reflections and publisher Psygnosis would not.

Unshackled from its publisher commitments, Reflections pivoted to something else. That something else was Driver, and it was going to be something special. GT Interactive certainly thought so. By December 1998, it was so impressed the publisher literally bought Reflections entirely.

Driver, which first launched in June 1999, was unlike anything that had come before it. These days it seems less common for a game to come along and establish the foundations of what’s essentially a brand new sub-genre, but wind the clock back a couple of decades and it was happening with steady regularity. In the scheme of driving games, Driver was truly one-of-a-kind.

Driver did more than just take the brash, car chase gameplay from the original top-down Grand Theft Auto games and bring it to life in 3D.

Driver did more than just take the brash, car chase gameplay from the original top-down Grand Theft Auto games and bring it to life in 3D – it distilled the mayhem of some of Hollywood’s greatest ever car chase classics and made them playable.

Smokey and the Bandit, The Blues Brothers, The Cannonball Run, Bullitt – the team took inspiration from countless car chase classics. Martin Edmondson was particularly passionate about them; Walter Hill’s 1978 film The Driver was one of the first movies he ever saw at a cinema.

The Driver, a minimalist neo-noir action thriller set in the underbelly of LA, was not particularly successful upon its release – but it has amassed an admirable legacy. It didn’t just inspire Driver, that is; Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 film Drive respectfully shares several thematic similarities, it was a core inspiration for Edgar Wright’s 2017 film Baby Driver, and it’s been referenced on multiple occasions by Quentin Tarantino.

The Driver’s influence on Driver the game goes far beyond the name, too. The infamous garage test at the beginning of Driver’s story mode was directly inspired by a strikingly similar scene in The Driver, where Ryan O’Neal’s unnamed getaway driver meticulously mangles a Mercedes (all while still keeping it drivable) in a calculated display of his precision driving abilities. The twist in Driver is that players are punished for denting the car. Ironically, doing so will trigger the very same car crash sound effect specifically used in this very scene in The Driver (alongside a host of other car chase movies from the ’70s and ’80s, mostly from 20th Century Fox).

Driver’s garage test is regarded by some as harder than any mission in the game that followed, although I can’t imagine that’s a sentiment that any Driver fan who actually played the game’s finale would share (‘The President’s Run’ is monumentally more difficult than the garage test). Playing and completing the test for the first time in many, many years, I can’t help but wonder whether its reputation as an uncommonly gruelling challenge is a little overblown. Admittedly, Driver was essentially a religion for me during the last year-or-so of the original PlayStation so I’m not the best gauge – but I’ll note my 15-year-old son needed just four cracks to beat it, playing on original hardware. So I can’t say it stumped him, either.

That said, if you did in fact bounce off Driver because of its unfriendly first mission, you missed out on an absolutely amazing and unprecedented driving experience.

Sliding behind the wheel of a slate of ’70s muscle cars as former race driver-turned-undercover cop Tanner, it was your job to lay rubber across four US cities – Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York – all in the name of high-speed justice. Each of these cities are fascinatingly distinct. Sun-drenched Miami features lengthy causeways and addictive bridge leaps, while San Francisco is packed with drastic elevation changes, trams, and the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. LA’s missions occur exclusively at night, amplifying the seediness (and again paying homage to The Driver, in which director Hill deliberately shot all the chase sequences for at night). New York is a dense maze of grids and tunnels, framed with high buildings.

The maps were incredible, but so too was the handling. Driver’s hulking American pony cars and land yachts weren’t exactly rapid or nimble by typical gaming standards for the time, but they were nonetheless outstandingly satisfying to throw into elbows-out powerslides and over huge jumps (where the era-accurate suspension would often see them bouncing a second time as the soggy springs absorbed their All-American bulk).

From its flying hubcaps to its fabulous funk soundtrack, Driver’s dedication to bringing the spirit of ’70s and ’80s car chases back to life on PlayStation was dazzling.

From its flying hubcaps to its fabulous funk soundtrack, Driver’s dedication to bringing the spirit of ’70s and ’80s car chases back to life on PlayStation was dazzling. Sentimentally speaking, it’s one of my favourite games of all time. Depending on what mood you catch me in, it may be my outright favourite, ever.

For clarity, Reflections didn’t quite break through alone. Angel Studios’ Midtown Madness did, after all, speed onto PCs in 1999 also (a few weeks before Driver hit PlayStation). An open world racer set in Chicago, Midtown Madness set the tone for taking traditional racing to the streets. Open worlds would become the studio’s area of expertise, and Angel Studios (now Rockstar San Diego) would later flex that strength in the likes of Midnight Club, Smuggler’s Run, and Red Dead Redemption.

Still, that Ubisoft has let the legacy of Driver languish since the release of 2011’s much-loved Driver: San Francisco is downright depressing. A groundbreaking achievement in every way, Driver deserves so much better.

That Ubisoft has let the legacy of Driver languish since the release of 2011’s much-loved Driver: San Francisco is downright depressing.

Today, Driver is a relic. In 1999, however, Driver was truly ahead of its time. A pioneer. Contemporaneous audiences agreed. Or, at least, the ones that could pass the first mission did. It’s one of the top 30 best-selling games on PlayStation, ever. Wedged roughly somewhere between the acclaimed super sequel Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 and monster hit Resident Evil 3, Driver was certainly no sales slouch.

In other words, it’s more than some curio in the history of open world driving games that some gamers may otherwise believe began with the likes of Grand Theft Auto III.

Perhaps you disagree. After all, all Reflections had to do was assemble four, enormous free-roaming city environments (the likes of which had never been built before), craft AI that could respond and effectively pursue players through them (which didn’t exist), compliment it with a class-leading vehicular damage system (that few racing developers of the era seemed capable of matching), and throw in a full replay editor for players to create custom car movies (on a console with 2MB of RAM).

Easy, right?

Well, in the words of Driver’s own tricky tutorial: show us what you can do.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can chat to him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.

Beyond Beat ‘Em Ups: SNK Has Ambitions to Become a Top 10 Publisher

Back in the day, SNK was one of gaming’s biggest names. King of Fighters and Fatal Fury were hugely popular beat-’em-ups in the 1980s and ’90s, while Metal Slug helped define the side-scrolling action game genre, and the company’s high-spec console, handheld and arcade hardware were the envy of many.

After two tumultuous decades in the 2000s, SNK received investment from Saudi Arabia’s Electronic Gaming Development Company in 2020 and was fully acquired in 2022. The investment has come under scrutiny due to Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, which includes allegations of unfair treatment of women and the LGBTQ community. In the aftermath of the acquisition, an SNK lead insisted that the studio’s new ownership “doesn’t affect us in any way.”

Shortly after the opening of a new development studio in Singapore in April, IGN spoke with SNK President and CEO Kenji Matsubara about the company’s vision, which includes becoming a Top 10 global publisher.

Matsubara’s goal is ambitious, but the company does of course face extremely stiff competition. Depending on the definition, the world’s largest game publisher is currently Sony Interactive Entertainment, with the Top 10 also including Microsoft, Nintendo and Electronic Arts. The group also includes relative newcomers from China such as Tencent, NetEase and miHoYo.

“Setting such a lofty goal has helped me to identify the challenges that stand in our way,” he says. “What SNK currently lacks the most is development capabilities, so strengthening development capabilities will be essential. Beyond that, we can also consider acquiring other studios with strong IP, to add to our portfolio.”

SNK’s next announced game is Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, the first new entry in the Fatal Fury series in 26 years. After nearly three decades away, the new game is attracting a positive response from fans of fighting games – but Matsubara acknowledges this alone will not be enough.

“It will be necessary for us to develop titles in various genres and release multiple titles every year,” he says. “We are also working on genres other than fighting games. We are planning not only action games that utilize SNK’s legacy IP, but also action games that are brand new, and we hope to start releasing these over the next few years.”

Matsubara joined SNK in July 2021. In the three years since, he has made significant changes, strengthening the company’s development, sales and publishing divisions. Headquartered in Osaka, the company also opened new development studios in Tokyo and, most recently, Singapore, with another studio already open in Beijing. Last year, its Osaka HQ changed location as well, leaving its longtime home for a larger, more centrally located office close to Shin-Osaka bullet train station. In terms of marketing and sales, Matsubara has increased the company’s focus from Asia to include more proactive efforts in the West.

As a geographically central location in Southeast Asia with a high level of English proficiency, stable economy and growing pool of tech talent, Singapore is becoming one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent locations for game development. In recent years, companies such as Ubisoft, Electronic arts and Bandai Namco have opened offices there, while locally developed indie games such as Cuisineer and Let’s Build a Zoo are taking Singapore’s soft-power culture to the world. Gaming peripheral makers such as Razer and Secretlab, too, have built a strong reputation for the country, while gamescom spinoff event gamescom asia has been held there for several years.

As we spoke with Matsubara shortly after the opening of SNK’s new Singapore studio, we asked the reasons behind this choice of location.

“When I joined SNK, we only had studios in Osaka and Beijing,” he says. “We soon set up a Tokyo studio, but we felt we needed to increase the number of studios and work on strengthening our development capabilities. When we look to Asia, Singapore is the most attractive place. Engineers there are knowledgeable about generative AI and machine learning, which have been attracting attention in recent years, and they are interested in joining the videogame industry. So Singapore felt ideally suited for game development.”

Each of these studios undertake different tasks while also collaborating on certain projects. While the Singapore studio finds its feet, it has been twinned with the Tokyo studio, while also taking advantage of local knowhow to contribute development research to the group as a whole.

“For now, the Singapore studio and the Tokyo studio work together closely, holding regular meetings and collaborating on title development. In the future, I would like the Singapore studio to become a standalone studio, and to develop AAA titles as a hub studio for Southeast Asia.”

Matsubara also explained that the Singapore studio has a strong R&D focus, particularly in the fields of generative AI and machine learning, which will feed back into the rest of the SNK group.

SNK also has sales bases in China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. But even with all of these new development and sales offices, the company’s plans for expansion continue to unfold. As SNK works towards its goals, it plans to eventually either open outposts in North America and Europe, or to build partnerships in those regions with other companies.

While SNK has a very long way to go to realize its aspirations of cracking the global Top 10 publishers, it is clearly no longer just a Japanese company. By embracing a multicultural approach and dabbling in new genres, there’s a good chance it will release some cool games. That in itself will be an important first step in once again making SNK a household name.

Daniel Robson is Chief Editor at IGN Japan and is on Twitter here.

How Alice: Madness Returns Found New Life on the Internet Long After the Departure of Its Creator

If Alice: Madness Returns was dead on arrival, that would at least be aesthetically consistent.

The 2011 sequel to American McGee’s Alice went even deeper into Alice in Wonderland’s red guts than the first game, pulling out the most nightmarish aspects of the Victorian children’s story and tying their shadows into a neat action-adventure. But it suffered from abysmal launch sales, with reviewers and fans both being disappointed by what they felt were rough controls and level design.

Still, game designer American McGee wasn’t giving up.

McGee, who created the series after being fired by id Software, hoped to gather enough community support for a follow-up, and the most diehard Alice believers gave it to him in spades. But after a decade of this cutting fan pressure, publisher EA finally made a decision in 2023: there would be no more Alice games. They blamed the “analysis of the IP” and market conditions.

Was it all over? Would Alice have to lie facedown in the graveyard once and for all? Not exactly. Alice: Madness Returns doesn’t just live, it thrives.

“Even though EA was going to let Alice die,” says 33-year-old Twitch streamer Foxfire47, who has been a fan of the series since the first game released in 2000, “the fans were absolutely not.”

She credits Madness Returns’ lively online fanbase to McGee himself. He began working on a proposal for a potential follow-up, Alice: Asylum, in 2017, and encouraged fans to contact EA directly to show their support. His now retired Patreon contains all the other ways he incentivized fans to deepen their obsession, like referring to the fandom as “Insane Children” and eventually posting an Alice: Asylum design bible bursting with art.

His otherworldly design is at least one reason why fans could never truly abandon Madness Returns, or the Alice series in general. They are a gorgeous testament to the fact that anyone can survive the worst thing that’s ever happened to them.

Friendships and bonds

Foxfire47 discovered Madness Returns’ online fan base through McGee’s Patreon in 2018. She remembers feeling McGee’s excitement for Asylum bleeding into her preexisting enthusiasm for the series, and it did the same for everyone she met over Patreon and Discord.

“Friendships and bonds were made through Alice: Asylum,” Foxfire47 says.

When EA ultimately passed on the project, they were also rejecting an entire community that had put years and money into materializing a shared dream. But McGee had trained his fans to become personally invested, and an IP issue seemed small in the face of their dedication.

“After [EA rejected Asylum],” Foxfire47 says, “I feel that, as fans for Alice, we wanted to keep the spirit of the games alive. With the camaraderie of this community, we are always going to show our love for these games.”

The community now sustains Madness Returns through YouTube videos with millions of views, pouty TikTok fancams with hundreds of thousands of likes, detailed cosplay, tattoos, and other tangible methods of worship. All of this online word-of-mouth has helped Alice fans succeed in an unprecedented goal. They are actively collecting new fans for an abandoned, 24-year-old franchise telling the strange horror story of an orphan teenager, Alice, who retreats into an hallucinated Wonderland.

I feel that, as fans for Alice, we wanted to keep the spirit of the games alive

“I bought Alice: Madness Returns, and I’m playing the first one for the first time because of your cosplay!” one commenter recently told popular TikTok cosplayer Jessilyn Cupcake. In recent years, she’s made and shared several Alice cosplays with her eager followers, including Alice’s ultramarine tea dress and the yowling Hobby Horse hammer from Madness Returns. She first found Madness Returns in 2011, telling IGN that she “fell in love immediately.”

“It still feels modern and a fresh take despite being 15 years old,” Jessilyn says. “I think [its] hack-and-slash-style gameplay with multiple weapons, costumes, and abilities is one of the best examples in a game, ever.”

The game is an intoxicating blend of deadly and delicate, much like its most famous weapon, the lace-patterned Vorpal Blade – a chef’s knife for short-range combat. In Madness Returns, traumatized 19-year-old Alice must take on the child sex trafficker and psychiatrist Dr. Bumby, who tries to trick her into madness in order to commodify her body. But Alice learns to wield her fragile power against any abomination.

Alice’s ability to work through her pain and tackle any problem, from baby dolls that vomit to dangerous men, is part of her underdog appeal. And McGee accessorizes Alice’s hypnotic visions with touches like the creamy, white bow behind her bloodspattered apron, and the crystal-blue butterflies in the misty, tree-covered Vale of Tears.

Though Madness Returns the game has been out for years, the most popular way for fans to publicly join together is by looking at the tiniest game details through a magnifying glass. On TikTok, a scene shows Alice hallucinates having her skull drilled open at the corrupt Rutledge Asylum. The camera lingers on swollen leeches in jars. Alice looks dazed in slow-motion, with makeup staining her skin like a bruise, and moved viewers supply the video with 43,000 likes.

“SAVE ALICE ASYLUM PETITION,” says the most popular comment.

Madness Returns YouTube videos likewise prioritize analysis of the game’s visuals and story. One 51-minute video by video essayist Boulder Punch spends almost half of its runtime on series “highlights,” praising its surreal platforming and aching orchestral score.

YouTuber BlackRose was among those captivated by its “beautiful, grungy artwork” when she recorded her first YouTube episode with it in 2023, leading her to recommend it to her 111,000 followers.

“I was immediately hooked,” she tells IGN. “One particular part of the game that sticks with me vividly was when Alice became a giant after eating [enchanted Eat Me cake in] Queensland. I had loads of fun becoming big and terrorizing all the enemy card guards while I laughed maniacally for having so much power.”

Master of the macabre

“The art direction of the two Alice games are definitely what struck me the most [about them] — that dark, gothic style that blends objects of childhood with violence and the macabre,” says Maria, who runs the horror gaming YouTube channel eurothug4000.

McGee’s defunct Shanghai-based games studio, Spicy Horse, specialized in the unique style that gave Alice life. Aside from the Alice series, the developer also (somewhat unpopularly) turned several Brothers Grimm stories into platformers, while padding them with intriguing, cartoonish gore. But American McGee’s: Alice is what truly established Spicy Horse as a purveyor of cute brooding. Madness Returns’ art director Ken Wong was certainly inspired by it.

After Wong created Alice fanart in 2000, McGee took notice, and the two worked on designs together for several years. And on Madness Returns, “we saw an opportunity with the visuals to create something that was violent and horrific, yet also beautiful and full of imagination,” Wong says. “Wonderland is such an amazing setting.”

“I’m biased as the art director,” Wong continues. “But in 2024, I think it’s worth playing Madness Returns to experience a real visual feast. We were pushed to unleash our imaginations and explore some really dark places, and I think the game we created has some of the most beautiful environments and some of the most f’ed up characters I’ve ever seen in a game.”

@leah___lbbh But recovering the truth is worth the suffering. #SeeHerGreatness #alicemadnessreturns #alice #madnessreturns #fyp #SeeHerGreatness #fyp #fyp #fyp ♬ Alice Madness Returns – °•💘💌 𝒜𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓎𝒶𝒽 💌💘•°

Though the content of its story suggests defiance of its lineage, Madness Returns nonetheless shares its core with Alice in Wonderland, the idea that being a girl in an adult environment feels surreal. Because of this, actress Susie Brann, who voiced Alice in both games, tells IGN over email that she “wanted to bring to life the Alice [she’d] read about as a child.”

“I saw her as frank, polite, well brought up, curious, honest and adventurous,” says Brann. “I was aware that there was a great disparity between the innocence and truthfulness of Alice and the horror that was going on around her. But being aware that she had experienced real horror in the loss of her parents in such a horrific way, the games could be seen as an outworking of what was going on in her mind. Maybe bringing some form of closure, if not healing, to her mind.”

The original Alice in Wonderland provides a roadmap to children hoping to detangle the bizarre world of grown-ups. Madness Returns has, in turn, become a cornerstone guide for women who’ve learned to become distrustful of the white rabbit that led them to it. Fans online gush about the way Madness Returns handles trauma, which is, to this day, uncommonly nonjudgmental and empowering.While the villainous Bumby forces Madness Returns’ Alice to suffer from gendered grief, she never allows it to infect all of who she is. She’s more of a goth role model than a tragic hero, and in fans’ appreciation of her, she’s been able to join Alice in Wonderland as a fairytale classic.

Some fans have even grown up with Madness Returns the way other children, for more than a century, have had Alice in Wonderland read to them at bedtime. That was the case for twenty-two-year-old Johnnie, whose mom had been playing Alice games since before they were born. They first played it themselves when they were only five years old.

I’m biased as the art director, but in 2024, I think it’s worth playing Madness Returns to experience a real visual feast

These days, Johnnie appreciates how “[Alice] isn’t sexualized, demonized, or saved by a man,” they say. “All of her healing is done on her own, and I’ve always loved and appreciated that. […] Alice as a series, I believe, sparked a lot of discussion around trauma, psychosis, and mental health and provided that safe space for those who have suffered too without being painted as a villain.”

Twenty-three-year-old Brynlee Daigle agrees. She’s loved Madness Returns since begging her mom to buy it in 2012. Now, she discusses it with friends on Discord and does Alice roleplay on Tumblr. “One aspect of the game that still sticks with me is the important message about mental health, that no matter if you’re disabled, or severely traumatized, you can overcome any obstacle in your way.”

“It’s why I have the [American McGee’s Alice] Jabberwocky [boss] battle tattooed on my thigh,” she continues. “It’s there to remind me I can always defeat my inner demons.”

A community lives on without its original creator

Though he’s helped Madness Returns sprout a loyal and hopeful community, McGee himself might prefer to let Alice’s memory fade, like ink. In an email to IGN, a representative for McGee declined a request for comment, instead citing a recent YouTube video as McGee’s “final word on the matter” (after that, McGee acknowledged the “intensity of Alice fans” in relation to this article on Twitter). In the video, McGee describes being “emotionally, quite destroyed” after EA rejected his community-backed proposal for a third game.

Though McGee once welcomed fans’ ardor while recruiting support for his Patreon, EA’s rejection has understandably cut down his patience for it. He currently treats fans’ eagerness like he would a slack-jawed Frankenstein – a creation that could never meet his wants and needs.

“Alice fans tend to have difficulty reading what I am saying when it comes to how much I DO NOT want to make games anymore,” he wrote on Twitter on April 24.

Fans have learned to cope with his cold shoulder. Most of the meaning they derive from Madness Returns is personal anyway.

“Many of the active fans I’ve seen online are women,” says Maria, “and American McGee’s Alice goes through a lot as a young woman growing up in a world working against her.”

“I think every woman can relate to some aspect of [Alice] in a way,” she continues, “that feeling of something taken from them, that feeling of not seeming like you’re in control […] because you are a woman.” So fans are grateful for what already exists. “If there’s one thing I want people to take away from playing [Madness Returns],” says Jessilyn, “is that working through trauma — no matter how hard or stupid it is — can be worth it.”

“If something is true, it’s true for all time,” Brann says. “If the game resonates with people and helps them work through and leave behind some of their turmoil, understanding themselves more and what they’ve been through, that’s got to be a good thing.”

Ashley Bardhan is a freelance writer at IGN

The First Descendant Review In Progress

At this point, I’ve now played The First Descendant in three or four different beta iterations, and each time I’ve felt no more or less certain whether this would be something my friends and I would want to play, or just another sci-fi shooter in a sea of similar games vying for our attention. After more than 45 hours sunk into a pre-launch preview build over the past week, I’m only slightly closer to answering that question – but I’m certainly not having a bad time. I’ve got a whole lot left to play, including the all-important endgame, for instance, so as of now I’m still not sure if The First Descendant will be my next looter-shooter fixation, or yet another one that misses the mark.

Nexon’s free-to-play third-person multiplayer game plays in the same space as Genshin Impact, complete with cool-looking characters to unlock and countless currencies and materials to grind, all of which can be bypassed by those simply willing to cough up their hard-earned cash. And, like some of its polished contemporaries, there’s a pretty decent game here in spite of a UI that requires a PhD in RPG hogwash to decipher and an irritating monetization model that does crazy things like make you pay real money to increase your inventory capacity or get RNG consumable dye packets just to change the color of your gear. Running around with friends while shooting enemies and unleashing interesting supernatural abilities upon alien armies is an undeniably good time (as it is in Destiny, Warframe, and Outriders, to name a few) and the deep RPG mechanics and loot systems are a spreadsheet-loving nerd’s dream. It’s also a fairly pretty game that feels a lot more premium than one might expect from the free-to-play space, despite the occasional framerate dip or crash (at least in its pre-release state). That said, the free-to-play model is every bit as eyebrow raising as it might sound, the story and dialogue is laughably bad, and much of the campaign is packed with filler that can be a real snooze.

I’ve split my dozens of hours dashing around small hub areas completing repetitive chores in between much more substantial missions and boss battles against robotic kaiju called colossuses. Those self-contained missions and boss fights are exactly the kind of thing I hope for in an action-packed cooperative game: Some seriously awesome combat that rivals its peers, interesting enemies to take down, and a loot system that had me regularly trying out the latest shiny weapon I pulled from some shmuck’s corpse. If The First Descendant would just let me mainline that part, we’d be onto something and my mind would be made up.

The impressive self-contained missions are kept locked behind dull errands.

Unfortunately, so much of it is kept locked behind sections where you complete a series of really dull errands, like defending a piece of tech from waves of enemy assaults, gathering items from fallen baddies to deposit into a collection robot, or just killing stuff until a miniboss spawns for you to take out. Not even dope combat can stave off boredom when it has you hanging around for a few minutes while you wait for small groups of enemies to spawn until you’re told that you succeeded, then being directed to the next spot on the map to do it again. These sections account for a pretty big chunk of what you do during the main story, too, seemingly to pad out the adventure so you don’t burn through the more interesting activities too quickly. Worst of all, there are only a few flavors of these kinds of quests, so you’ll find yourself being asked to repeat them multiple times in between every boss battle or more meaty story mission.

While I’ve only played through half of the campaign, so far it’s really not looking great, fam. Absolutely brimming with nonsensical sci-fi babble like “dimensional walls,” “inverted data codes,” and “unleashing Arche,” it’s one of the sillier stories I’ve seen in a while. Most of the dialogue is absolutely atrocious: At one point I burst out laughing when a bad guy menacingly declared, “Qliphoth will engulf Ingris. The roars of the Vulgus will fill this land with fear!” In another section I shook my head as an antagonistic character named Jeremy (a grown man with the voice of a whiney, spoiled teenage brat), showed up to be the most annoying person in the world and was mean to me for no reason while I ran quests for him. It’s truly heinous stuff, but some of it is so bad it’s pretty amusing – I eventually found myself looking forward to cutscenes, eager for the next hit of sci-fi gibberish and butchered voice performances. (On top of the absurdity, the English voices rarely come close to matching the lips of the characters speaking. That’s fine if you enjoy watching anime dubs, but I find it pretty distracting.)

Thankfully, the most interesting characters are those you can unlock and play as, like the unflappable electric speedster Bunny (my personal favorite), or the sarcastic and smarmy grenade-chucking soldier Lepic. Some of the cast do still seem a bit shallow, largely because you get only a little backstory and character development for most of them, but hearing them cheer as you blast monsters to bits and seeing their charming animations – which clearly had much more effort put into them than those of the NPCs – is quite nice. Only one of these playable characters has an actual questline associated with them (with more planned for the future), but the bits of that story I played were some of the better content available in The First Descendant at launch, so here’s hoping they at least deliver on that front.

Actually learning to play as them is great too, although I still have plenty more characters to unlock before I’m able to take them all for a spin. One character might control the battlefield with explosive AoE attacks, while another covers enemies in devastating ice-based debuffs. Bunny does insane DPS by running around as much as possible to generate electrical energy, then unleashes it in powerful blasts. Since each of the characters has their own style of play, switching between them offers a markedly different experience, like how Ajax, a heavy tank with protective abilities is all about standing your ground instead. Most games with playable characters as its main chase live or die by how compelling those unlockable avatars are, and so far The First Descendent seems like it’s loaded with distinctive options that are absolutely worth going through the trouble to obtain.

Similarly, the weapons, equipment, and upgrades you earn while shotgunning your way through levels are awesome. Loot drops constantly, most weapons feel distinct and satisfying to play with, and watching the numbers go up as you modify and upgrade every new toy in your arsenal makes The First Descendant hard to put down… until it forces you into about 15 separate menus to juggle dozens of materials and so many different systems that you might want to keep your inhaler at the ready. This kind of thing is pretty typical for looter-shooters, granted, but even by the already gag-inducing standards of the genre, this one’s especially obnoxious to learn – especially since the tutorial robot who shows you the ropes in the social area explains things to you in a series of texts that pass by quickly enough to challenge your speed-reading skills.

Even after spending dozens of hours with this pre-launch preview build, I’ve got plenty more to play and an endgame to dive into once it launches properly next week. Check back in the coming weeks for my final, scored review.

Ticket to Ride: Paris Board Game Review

Growing up in the suburbs of Illinois, I remember bringing my dad to and from the train station to get to work in the big city of Chicago. When Ticket to Ride came out later in life, it brought a lot of nostalgia for those big-city dreams in one of my other favorite memories with my family: playing board games.

Family board game nights involving the franchise can bring you places worldwide, and also to different time periods. That’s the case with the newest edition, Ticket to Ride: Paris, brings you to the bustling metropolis of Paris, France, in the Roaring Twenties.

What’s in the Box

The compact box of Ticket to Ride Paris holds a small treasure trove of gaming pieces. It includes a guidebook introducing a new game element, a small board, four bags of colored bus tokens (with an additional spare bag), matching circle colored meeples, destination tickets, and transportation cards adorned with art that evokes the spirit of the Roaring Twenties. The box’s thoughtful design, with a plastic compartment for each piece, ensures easy cleanup after the game.

The board is also small. I could probably fit it in a medium-sized purse or bag if I wanted to. The top possible score on the perimeter of the border is only 50. The city routes are divided by color and are relatively short as well. The eight longest routes are three lengths. There are twelve double routes and twelve single routes. Most of the routes are double routes, with only a handful of exceptions. There are four single three-car routes, two single double-car routes, and only one single-car solo route.

Rules and How It Plays

Ticket to Ride: Paris is a very beginner-friendly map. I brought this, along with a copy of a junior version (Ticket to Ride: Ghost Train), to a local brewery to play with four friends this weekend. Half of the group wasn’t familiar with the franchise. Half were familiar as we regularly play base game versions digitally in my digital board game community. (Jimmy, it’s your turn over there, by the way.) This version of the game didn’t add as many complexities as other maps, so it made the game quite easy to navigate for everyone there. I was excited about introducing the series to friends.

Ticket to Ride: Paris is a very beginner-friendly map.

You can play Ticket to Ride: Paris with two to four players. In a two-player game, I would guesstimate that the game might be more competitive since the game changes slightly with a two-player game versus more. Four was the maximum number of players, so we could see a complete view of how it played with its max capacities solely on its own—especially as I didn’t bring a full version of Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride Europe with me. (You are recommended to play maps normally with one of those base games.)

Several mechanics in the original base games are akin to how others in the franchise operate. Choose your color to play and place your associated meeple on the start zero space on the board’s perimeter. Grab the associated buses to go with your color for later placement on the board.

Next, you’ll distribute each player two face-down secret destination cards from a deck. Players can choose to take both but must take one of them. After you’ve got your destinations, players will take turns collecting transportation cards to get buses to place along the board on their route. You can only claim one route per turn, so you must think stragetically and choose wisely.

You can place routes on any tracks in games with more than two players, even if they are double routes. You cannot claim both routes of a double track, though.

You have a limited number of buses, so you’ll want to be mindful of your destinations and the number of trains you and your opponents have. The game ends when someone runs out of placeable buses.

Build a French Flag for More Points

One great addition to Ticket to Ride: Paris is that, as you place your buses, you can create French flags to gain points. French flags are created by making routes with red, white, and blue sets of collected transportation cards. You can only work on one flag at a time. When you complete a colored route with one of the colors in the flag, you’ll be able to keep one of the cards used to work on building a French flag. Completing a flag can only be done with those tricolors, however. Unlike routes, you cannot complete a flag with a rainbow bus. After you complete a flag, you discard those cards and can start on a new one. You’ll gain an additional four points for each completed flag, so you’ll want to use those three colors as a part of your strategy as well.

One of the magical things about playing games like this is that it inspires folks to discuss travel and transportation. The colored transportation cards each have different forms of transportation from the Twenties, including a trolly, a steamboat, a fancy car, a bicycle, and a croissant truck. It inspired conversations about how diverse travel can be in places worldwide–especially in one focused city. One friend told me how she had taken a day trip to Paris from London by bus. She told us about her thoughts traveling through and seeing some of the sights that were destinations on our board. Sadly, I have not made my way to Paris yet, but now, thanks to the game, I feel a bit of a connection to another part of the world and am inspired to visit new destinations if I ever go there.

Where to Buy It

Ticket to Ride Paris is available for an accessible price. You can buy it for only $24.99 on Asmodee’s store or Amazon.

Jennifer Stavros is a contributing freelancer for IGN, covering everything from comics, games, technology, and nerd culture. Follow her on Twitter or watch her on Twitch under the handle @scandalous.

CD Projekt Devs Wants to ‘Push the Envelope’ With Social Issues in Cyberpunk 2077 Sequel

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red recently discussed the future of the RPG series and where it still has room to grow in its upcoming sequel, codenamed Project Orion. One hope the studio has for its upcoming sequel is to do a better job of pushing the envelope in its commentary on social issues.

During a recent episode of CDProject Red’s AnswerRed Podcast, associate game director Paweł Sasko underscored how, despite the game’s nature of not hand-feeding players answers to prevailing social issues, Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t go far enough in its social commentary.

“I see that we didn’t push the envelope far enough in some places, for instance,” Sasko said. “Like, let’s say, the homeless crisis. When I look at it, I’m like, ‘We weren’t far enough in ‘[Cyberpunk 2077.’] We thought that we were dystopian, but we just touched the surface.”

Dan Hernberg, the executive producer for Project Orion, agreed with Sasko that Cyberpunk’s portrayal of social issues was flawed and voiced his optimism for Orion furthering the game’s social commentary in ways 2077 fell short.

“I think the really cool thing about Cyberpunk—and the dystopian future that it has—is there’s so much relevance to today, of megacorporations, of people on the fringes, you know, of people just being exploited resources, of the wealth gap, of all these things,” Hernberg said. “I think that 2077 allows us to tell these stories in ways where—at the heart of it—there’s always relationships and people, but we’re in a really broken world and that we can call out some of these things.

“I think for me that’s what Cyberpunk is about, exploring those themes but in a very poignant way,” Hernberg continued. “I love the world, and I think that’s what we’re going to try to do with Project Orion. Really continue to lean into that and continue to say, ‘What is [the state of the world ] today,’ and what does it look like in a couple of years.”

Back in March, CD Projekt Red hired Hernberg, a former head of production at Amazon Games and lead product manager at Blizzard Entertainment, as one of the veteran developers working on Orion in its Boston studio. Although details on Project Orion are scarce, one thing we know for sure about the follow-up title is that the company wants it to follow in the footsteps of The Witcher’s evolution. Meaning, that CD Projekt Red aims to have Orion usher in more gameplay enhancements and features than its predecessor once it finally releases. Another rumored idea for the title is that it might include Cyberpunk 2077’s scrapped multiplayer feature.

In our review of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, we gave the game a 9/10, writing, “Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty completes an immense turnaround for CD Projekt Red’s future RPG kickstarted with the anime spinoff, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and its latest 2.0 Update.”

Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.

Can Metaphor: ReFantazio Escape the Shadow of Persona? Exploring One of 2024’s Most Interesting Games

Eight years ago, Japanese director Katsura Hashino announced that he was forming a new team within Atlus after more than a decade spent working on the Persona series (and Catherine), saying he wanted to try something new. Last summer, his game was finally revealed – Metaphor: ReFantazio, an RPG that features plenty of similarities to the Persona games, but has a personality all its own.

In broad strokes, Metaphor retains many familiar elements from Hashino’s previous games. Like its spiritual predecessors, Metaphor utilizes a turn-based command system built around exploiting the weaknesses of enemies. The main character, an outcast who uses forbidden magic, looks a great deal like the hero of Persona 3 Reload thanks in no small part to the art of Shigenori Soejima. Even some of the terminology is the same, a notable example being Tarukaja – a spell that boosts attacks in Persona and now Metaphor (though Hashino denies any link between the two).

Its pedigree and excellent production values has been enough to generate excitement in some RPG circles, with some going so far as to call it their most anticipated game of the year. But others in the broader gaming community are a bit more perplexed, either because of the similarities to Persona, because of the unconventional name, or both.

So what is Metaphor: ReFantazio really all about? And does it have a chance to step out of Persona’s shadow and establish a fanbase all of its own? These are still open questions, but I did get a little closer to developing my own understanding of Metaphor when I played it at Summer Game Fest earlier this month.

About Metaphor’s name, and why it doesn’t have romance

First, that name, which is definitely a mouthful. The Metaphor part is easy enough to understand – Hashino says that he wants players to be able to relate the story to their own lives. In short, he wants it to be a metaphor. “We had all these different ideas. We couldn’t think of many good ones so we were like, ‘Okay, just Metaphor. It’s easy.’”

As for the second part, Hashino says, the team wanted to rethink the idea of a fantasy world. Hence, ReFantazio. Okay, so it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, but you can’t say it’s not memorable.

As for the game itself, the demo I saw consisted of three different sections – a story sequence, a dungeon crawling sequence, and a boss battle. The demo begins by establishing some of the world through Gallica, a fairy companion who brings a bit of an 80s D&D vibe to Metaphor.

In the sequence, Gallica relates the legend of a place that looks suspiciously like New York City, with Gallica amazed by a world with no magic, no tribal conflict, and “towers of glass that reach the heavens.” It’s a story that seems to suggest that discrimination is a recurring theme through Metaphor, with many of the main cast members battling prejudice of some sort.

As we developed the concept of the game, we realized our interest in exploring the idea of inner strength and how people overcome limitations

Speaking with IGN in a follow-up email, Hashino confirmed that Metaphor’s story is “closely related to the theme of changing the world for the better.”

“As we approached this project, we wanted to challenge ourselves to do something different from our past works while still leveraging the comprehensive strength and experience of Atlus as an RPG maker. As we developed the concept of the game, we realized our interest in exploring the idea of inner strength and how people overcome limitations. Essentially we wanted to explore how we can become the best possible versions of ourselves,” he said.

“To achieve this, we focused on how people perceive each other based on personality or personal interactions. This led us to the idea that biases or prejudices can form around judgements of these characteristics. We created a backdrop to this world around the idea that various characters in this world are exposed to some form of bias or prejudice in this regard.”

While the fantasy world of Metaphor is different from ours in many ways, if we are able to convey it well, we believe fans will be able to find various similarities between it and our own.”

Ultimately, Hashino says, his main goal for Metaphor was to move away from Persona’s modern setting while sticking to the format he knows best. That means that Metaphor plays a great deal like Persona on a moment to moment basis, which is especially evident in the dungeon crawling and boss battle sequences. It even has summons that look a lot like the demons from Personas. Admittedly, there’s plenty of nuance to be found in these comparisons – among other things, a big part of the strategy is positioning your characters in the front or the back row, and the battles overall are much faster – but on the surface the resemblance is clear.

The most meaningful change can be found in the third section of the demo, which in addition to the boss battle showcases a bit of how the story progresses. Where the latter day Persona games are built around a linear daily school calendar, Metaphor is structured more like a road trip where you have the freedom to go where you please (Hashino compares it to a vacation where you won’t be able to see everything in one playthrough).

Setting a destination on the Gauntlet Runner, the crew’s landship, will take a certain amount of time to reach, during which you can build up your stats by reading books with titles like “Pride and Persuasion” or doing laundry.

Notably, Metaphor doesn’t have any romantic connections to build, unlike Persona, which Hashino attributes to the desire to avoid making a “romance game.”

“We made [Persona] as a RPG story about teenagers. And teenagers, they date, they have romance. That’s part of the joy of being a young person exploring your boundaries. So that was why we included it in the game…because if we didn’t have this in, it wouldn’t really feel authentic. For our new gam…we didn’t want to include it because it didn’t feel as natural, if that makes sense,” Hashino explains.

“The second point I would like to make is the main plot focus is that there’s this character, the protagonist, who is trying to become the next king. And rather than focusing on his love life, we wanted to make sure we have this whole follower system. So we wanted people to focus on that.”

Metaphor draws heavily from 80s and 90s fantasy

This approach sits at the core of what separates Metaphor from Hashino’s previous work. I’ve often compared the latter day Persona games to something like an anime Buffy the Vampires Slayer, featuring Japanese teenagers who deal with high school drama by day and battle demons by night. When I played Metaphor, though, the first show that popped into my head was Aura Battle Dunbine – an early example of the isekai sub-genre featuring a young motorcycle enthusiast who is transported to a fantasy world populated by giant robots resembling bugs.

Hashino acknowledges that he’s a fan of Dunbine, but chalks up any influence it might have to its significant popularity in the 1980s. More significant may be what Soejima calls “the fantasy boom” of the 1980s and 90s, which gave rise to Record of Lodoss War, Dragon Quest, and a host of other well-known properties.

“So I lived through the late ’80s and early ’90s when there was a fantasy boom over here, and all the fantasy stuff that existed in that era and that previously came from overseas was part of my artistic DNA,” Soejima says. “After that, I read a lot of really serious fantasy stuff, which came into me and mixed into this other base layer and helped form my DNA as well. The first fantasy I interacted with was [Dungeons & Dragons] way, way back in the day. Probably more than books, Wizardry would be what really influenced me from the fantasy genre.”

One way or another, Metaphor figures to be an interesting experiment for Hashino and company. Given a new canvas, the team seems keen to put their own stamp on the fantasy genre, drawing from well-known influences and giving them a new spin with their distinct verve and style. It feels at once familiar and invigorating – a fresh approach that still leans into their individual strengths, with a heightened art style and even faster battle system. Atlus, for its part, is treating it like the launch of a new franchise, giving it a global launch with a prime release slot in October.

“When we were creating this game, we thought, okay, we know that people do like the approach that we take,” Hashino says, “so we have more confidence to realize our vision without fear of how people will react, because we think people will like our game.”

We’ll be able to see for ourselves when Metaphor: ReFantazio releases October 11 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

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

GOG’s Resident Evil 2 PC Port Is Based on the Original 1998 PC Version, Not the Sourcenext Version

A few days ago, Capcom and GOG surprised fans by announcing they would be re-releasing the original Resident Evil trilogy on PC. Along with providing easier access to the original trilogy, DRM-free, GOG has also revealed that the original version of Resident Evil 2 is based on the 1998 Windows PC version.

The news was first reported by YouTuber The Sphere Hunter, who revealed she had the chance to play the first two games in advance — revealing that Resident Evil 2 classic was based on the original Windows PC version, not the Sourcenext version. A GOG spokesperson also confirmed this detail to IGN in a statement sent via email.

If you’re unfamiliar with these two ports, the former was released in 1998 for Windows 98, while the latter, developed by software company Sourcenext, was a WindowsXP-compatible port released exclusively in Japan in 2006.

The biggest difference between these two versions is that the Sourcenext version provided higher-quality full-motion videos (FMVs). Many Resident Evil fans have argued that the Sourcenext version was the definitive way to play Resident Evil 2 on PC. Though this version was only released in Japan, as content creator Ultra Creed pointed out, fans have used the Resident Evil 2 Classic REbirth mod to not only translate the Sourcenext version to English (minus the FMVs) but also add support for modern controllers and added optional gameplay features you could enable, such as quick turns and tactical reloads.

In our review of the original PC version of Resident Evil 2, IGN wrote: “It’s just too shallow for the average PC gamer. With such little change over the Playstation version, it makes you wonder why it took Capcom three months to get this one out on the PC.”

The original Resident Evil is now available on GOG. Resident Evil 2 and 3 are not available yet.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.