Category: IGN

Civilization fans will know the in-game narrator plays a huge part in the strategy series. For a start, you hear their voice a lot as they impart wisdom about humanity itself throughout the course of the game. And the Civilization games have had some high-profile actors play the role over the years. The late and great Star Trek legend Leonard Nimoy voiced Civilization 4, William Morgan Sheppard voiced Civilization 5, and Ned Stark himself, Sean Bean, voiced Civilization 6.

Now, Civilization developer Firaxis has maintained the Game of Thrones line of succession by drafting Gwendoline Christie to play the in-game narrator in Civilization 7. Fresh from a gameplay reveal at Opening Night Live, Firaxis announced Christie’s role in the game with a new trailer, below, that offers a glimpse at what to expect when Civilization 7 releases early next year.

Just revealed! Your in-game narrator for Civilization VII is… Gwendoline Christie!

Watch the full Gameplay Showcase, happening now!https://t.co/xIm1PxuUQF | #Civ7 pic.twitter.com/TXyDewBQo1

— Sid Meier’s Civilization VII (@CivGame) August 20, 2024

Christie, like Sean Bean, is a Game of Thrones alum, having exploded into the mainstream by playing Brienne of Tarth in the HBO fantasy-drama series. Here, Christie seems a little more relaxed than the overcharged Brienne, setting the scene for perfectly for Civilization 7.

IGN went hands-on with Civilization 7 ahead of its Opening Night Live reveal and came away impressed. Civilization 7 launches February 11, 2025, on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, and Mac and Linux via Steam.

Check out everything announced at Opening Night Live to catch up.

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.

It’s about to kick off in the centre of Kuttenberg, the sprawling medieval city at the heart of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Menhard the sword master has offered to teach protagonist Henry of Skalitz a few tricks with the blade, but the lesson has been interrupted by Kuttenberg’s official fencing guild. They won’t let Menhard teach so much as a pommel strike, despite him having a charter from King Wenceslas to do just that. Moreover, they’re going to fine the old Fechtmeister for breaching their rules.

Things are getting heated, with the chance of a real swordfight breaking out growing by the second. But Henry has an idea. “Menhard wasn’t teaching me anything,” he blurts out. “We were duelling because I insulted his honour!”

Unconvinced, the guild master asks what the duel was about, at which point I’m given an array of choices for Henry to respond with. Reacting quickly, I decide to have Henry say that he slept with Menhard’s daughter. I don’t know whether Menhard has a daughter, but it seems like the sort of thing medieval people would get into a duel over, so I roll with it.

It works. The guild master buys my bald-faced lie and waives the fine, though Menhard is still prohibited from teaching longsword in the city. With a fight avoided, I turn to Menhard expecting him to be grateful. Instead, he’s furious. It seems Menhard really does have a daughter, and the very idea of Henry sleeping with her has genuinely insulted his honour. Oops. With their relationship damaged, Henry must desperately placate the raging swordmaster before they can focus on more important matters, like plotting how to get back at Kuttenberg’s fencing guild.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is shaping up to be an even bigger RPG than the original, a 100+ hour epic featuring massive battles, sweeping Bohemian landscapes, and a fully simulated medieval metropolis. But at Warhorse Studios’ preview event hosted in the real-life city of Kutná Hora (the modern Czech name for Kuttenberg) it was this throwaway detail that stuck with me the most. Warhorse claims every choice the player makes in its RPG will feel like it matters, and this dramatic response to a decision I barely thought about was the first (but not the last) indicator that KCD2 could well deliver on this promise.

It’ll be several hours before KCD 2 opens-up to you in this way, however. Warhorse provided access to two separate chunks of the game, the first of which took place right at the beginning. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 opens in medias res, with an explosive castle siege where you defend the ramparts with crossbow and longsword. Warhorse says KCD 2 will feature substantially larger battles than the previous game, and this initial sequence was an impressive taster of playing at a larger scale, from booting down siege ladders from the castle wall, to firing crossbow bolts into a crush of enemy soldiers as they come barrelling through the gate.

Following this exciting opening, KCD 2 rewinds to connect with the end of the first game, as we rejoin Henry and his friend and liege lord Sir Hans Capon on a mission to deliver a letter to neighbouring lord Otto von Bergow. This initial hour is strictly linear and heavy on cutscenes, but it keeps you engaged through the feelgood vibes of Henry and Hans’ friendship. Like the first Kingdom Come, the sequel is written in a very humanistic style. Henry remains a deeply affable, fish-out-of-water protagonist, while his position as Sir Hans’ squire leads to an interesting blend of camaraderie and tension between the two.

Together, the pair have big “lads on tour” energy, clearly revelling in the rare freedom their position and assignment affords them in medieval society. It isn’t all fun and games, however. An encounter with a retinue of Bergow’s knights emphasises the danger that lurks around every corner, as the two have to convince the armed horsemen that they aren’t bandits. It’s the first of many elaborate dialogue sequences, with numerous player choices and a lot of exposition. Indeed, while KCD’s conversations are generally interesting, I did wonder if they might benefit from some sterner editing at times.

KCD2 is built to be played with no foreknowledge of the original. As such, the opening hours fold in several refresher tutorials, such as Henry and Hans having a friendly duel that reintroduces you to KCD’s unique swordfighting system. This has been refined for the sequel, reducing the number of directions you can swing your sword from five to four, and making actions like parrying and riposting easier to pull off. While it’s been years since I played the first game, I was nonetheless able to hold my own against Sir Hans after a few minutes of instruction, suggesting that Warhorse’s changes have indeed made the system easier to grapple with. The sequel also introduces bespoke fighting systems for certain non-sword weapons like maces, letting players who don’t fancy mastering the blade to adopt the simpler approach of cracking skulls.

The introduction culminates in Henry and Hans taking a bath in the river, followed by a goofy scene where they sneak through the reeds along the riverbank, drawn by the sound of peasant women singing nearby. The scene quickly takes a darker turn, however, as the pair’s camp is attacked by bandits, whereupon they’re forced to flee into the woods wearing nothing but their pants. It’s a sequence that shifts between dramatic and comedic multiple times, and the game handles those tonal changes well.

Through a series of unfortunate events, Henry and Hans end up in the care of a local peasant woman, where we get a chance to see the quieter side of KCD2. One of the original’s strengths was how it strived to immerse players in moment-to-moment play, and KCD2 seems just as indulgent in this regard. Simple actions like eating stew from a pot and picking herbs to make potions are depicted with intensely detailed first-person animations, while the Bohemian forests you explore are verdant and alive with birdsong. There’s a chance to experiment with the updated alchemy system, which is even more tactile and involved than the first game, with you sprinkling ingredients into a big cauldron, before adjusting its height with a lever to change the heat level. Later, when Henry has to fight and kill a couple of bandits who come looking for him, an optional objective unlocks to bury the bodies away from the peasant woman’s home, and you can go through the entire process of putting these wayward souls to rest.

Everything in this initial demo suggests KCD 2 will retain the original’s capacity for letting players steep in its medieval setting. What it didn’t show was anything wildly new. For this, the second demo was more promising. This fast-forwarded the campaign to the 50-hour mark, where Henry arrives in Kuttenberg. This medieval metropolis is the largest urban space seen in the series yet, a bustling environment where every NPC has their own daily routines and behaviours.

It’s here where Henry encounters the swordmaster Menhard and becomes embroiled in the dispute over who has the rights to teach longsword in the city. To settle the disagreement, Menhard hatches a plan, and asks Henry to steal the fencing guild’s official sword and hang it on the wall of the Rathaus (the town hall). This, Menhard explains, is the formal way of issuing a challenge of arms to the town, a challenge which Menhard could then accept to prove his martial superiority.

Of course, this means sneaking into a guildhall filled with master swordsmen, which Menhard wisely suggests you do at night (though you are free to try it in the daytime if you wish). Yet even in darkness, clandestine activities are a risky business in Kuttenberg. Anyone walking around at night is expected to carry a torch, and not doing so will get you in trouble with the guards. Having successfully evaded the city watch, I then have to climb over the wall of the guild house, pick the lock on one of several potential entrances, find the sword, and escape.

Here, the open-ended nature of KCD 2 becomes much more apparent, with the quest feeling closer in spirit to a game like Dishonored than the more directed sequences of the early game. The first time I attempt the theft, things go south quickly. I pick the lock but attract the attention of one of the nightwatchmen, who relocks the door after searching for me. I pick the lock again, and proceed three steps into the building before I’m rumbled. I try to fight my way out with fisticuffs, managing to knock out one of the nightwatchmen, but another has roused the town guard, who come barrelling in with swords drawn to quickly cut me down.

In my second attempt, I’m more careful, and succeed in lifting the sword unnoticed and hanging it on the wall of the Rathaus. This would be a natural endpoint for the quest, but it proves to be far from over. Succeeding in the theft leads to a multi-stage longsword tournament between Menhard and the swordmasters’ guild, and you can choose to be sworn in under Menhard’s stewardship and fight for his honour and right to teach longsword in the city. Moreover, the quest can alter in multiple ways depending on your actions, both in narrative choices and general play. If you steal the sword but are spotted doing so, for example, the guild will accuse you of the theft when Menhard accepts their challenge. Consequently, the swordmasters’ guild is given heavier armour during the tournament, making the fight more difficult on your end.

This elaborate structure isn’t entirely surprising; quest design was one of the first game’s strengths too. Nonetheless, it certainly feels like the sequel is operating at a higher level amid the busy streets of Kuttenberg. And if Menhard’s quest is reflective of the sequel’s 100+ hour total, then Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 could end up being something rather special indeed.

Earlier today, Bethesda announced that in the lead-up to Starfield’s upcoming Shattered Space DLC, players would be treated to the game’s first land vehicle, the Rev-8, in an update coming later tonight. Well, it’s now later tonight, and Starfield’s 1.13.61 update is now live.

The big centerpiece of this patch is, of course, the Rev-8. It’s the game’s first land vehicle, and we got our first look at it earlier today in a trailer. It’s kinda cute, bouncing around craters and things with its little hover jets and turret. Take a look:

The update isn’t just car-centric, though the Rev-8 is a pretty big deal. There are a number of new settings being added such as a frame rate target setting allowing players to pick between 30, 40, 60, or uncapped on VRR displays. Non-VRR displays will still be able to select between 30 and 60, though players are warned screen tearing may occur on non-VRR displays if 60 is selected. There’s also a new setting allowing you to prioritize between visuals and performance, and toggling Vsync on and off. And there are new Xbox Series S performance options added as well.

Gameplay-wise, the majority of the changes appear to be fixing various bugs or minor other adjustments to make gameplay a bit smoother. You can read the full patch notes here.

Today’s update comes ahead of a much larger DLC expansion entitled Shattered Space, which we learned today would be releasing on September 30. Shattered Space was first revealed back in June at the Xbox Games Showcase and is the game’s first story expansion. It takes place on the homeworld of House Va’Ruun and includes a new planet, weapons, spacesuits, gear, and more.

We gave Starfield a 7/10 in our launch review, saying that it “has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.”

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

The last time the developers at MachineGames made an Xbox-exclusive first-person action-adventure based on a movie character, it turned out to be one of the best experiences of the entire original Xbox/PS2 console generation. That game was The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, back when the core of MachineGames was still at Starbreeze. I bring this up because after I got to see an extended demo of the studio’s newest project, the also-Xbox-exclusive Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I couldn’t help but be strongly – and I do mean strongly – reminded of the Vin Diesel-starring original-Xbox classic, in the very best of ways. Indy absolutely screams Riddick, and because of that, The Great Circle went from something on my most-anticipated list to being far and away the game I’m most looking forward to playing this year.

My hands-off demo began in (where else?) a huge underground temple, with the sun shining down onto a small figurine. Indy picks it up and the door closes behind him. He cracks the figurine open with a rock. Inside is a small block of some sort – a key, perhaps? Naturally, this triggers a cave-in, with our hero remarking, “Oh, you gotta be kidding me.”

The player takes over as the camera shifts to first-person (though it will go third-person for platforming sequences). As sand fills the room, Indy shuffles over to a window that’s suddenly become reachable thanks to all the sand. He tumbles into a stand and then a run, a stamina bar showing how much longer Jones can keep sprinting. He uses his trusty whip to make a leap across a chasm as the temple conditions grow more lethal by the second. He goes into a slide to exit the temple just in the nick of time.

MachineGames promises plenty of these kinds of exhilarating action sequences in The Great Circle, which notably – just like in Riddick – rarely involves the use of a gun. Sure, Dr. Jones has his trademark revolver, but, as creative director Axel Torvenius explained, “The key to the combat is to carefully decide your approach,” and added, “It’s very dangerous in this game to fire a gun.” It won’t be done particularly often, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly when the moment comes. “You should firstmost try to use your wits and your whip,” he continued. “To understand that there are optional ways to solve [problems].” Don’t, then, call this Indy game a first-person shooter. It’s a very first-person game, alright, but it’s decidedly not a shooter. It’s a mix of puzzle solving, platforming, stealth, and combat. Just like this team’s first game that starred a certain bald convict who can see really well in the dark…

“The focus for this game is adventure,” said director Jerk Gustaffson. “We want exploration to feel truly rewarding.” As such, one of your primary tools is Indy’s journal. It starts blank but quickly becomes a jam-packed archive of your travels, which will include visits to Egypt and the Himalayas, among several other locales. Furthering the spirit of adventure, there will be times where you’ll wear disguises in order to fit in, like one scene I saw where our favorite professor of archaeology dresses up like a priest in order to infiltrate a heavily guarded area. The adventure focus will even reflect in the gameplay structure of The Great Circle, with MachineGames revealing that the campaign will consist of a mix of linear areas and more open areas that you’re free to wander in.

Meanwhile, you’ll earn Adventure Points by finding journal entry-worthy items and secrets – as well as by taking pictures of key items with your camera – and those points can be spent to upgrade your Indiana Jones to play more like you prefer, be it upping your stealth abilities, combat abilities (like True Grit, which essentially lets you survive an otherwise-fatal blow to get back in the fight), or other skills. MachineGames says there are “dozens” of upgrades to choose from. You can also buy items from shopkeepers, like one I saw that had a monkey beside him at his booth. What these are, though, I have not yet seen.

Much of the combat looks like it’ll involve your fists, but like in Riddick, your foes won’t go down with a simple press of the punch button. You’ll have to skillfully parry, block, and combo your way to victory in hand-to-hand combat. And don’t be afraid to get your whip involved too, by lashing it at opponents’ feet to knock them down, as one example of what it can do for you in gameplay. But your dukes aren’t always going to be your go-to weapons. I saw Indy use a rolling pin in a kitchen to bash a Nazi’s face in. I also watched him pick up a shovel, sneak up behind a Nazi, and whack him on the back of the head. In fact, sneaking looks to be a big part of The Great Circle, with stealth emphasized as a core tenet of gameplay – as it was in Escape from Butcher Bay.

Something Richard B. Riddick didn’t do, though, was bring any friends along with him for the ride. Indiana Jones, on the other hand, will welcome help along the way. I saw a couple of companions at his side throughout my demo across numerous scenes in the game. They’re not always around, but when they’re by your side, I didn’t see enough to know exactly what they’ll be capable of? Are they solely to help advance the plot and allow for more Indy quips? Or will they also offer an Elizabeth-in-BioShock-Infinite-like assistance in combat?

That remains to be seen, but my demo ended with a sequence that showed off a lot of what The Great Circle is going to be all about: adventuring, avoiding traps, and solving puzzles! To find a key that would unlock a temple, Indy needed to sneak into enemy territory disguised as a regular worker. After snooping around for a while, he finds the golden medallion he’s after and takes it quietly (banking +5 Adventure Points). He encounters four bad guys at a table and, this time, walks out of the tent without incident. Upon returning to the nearby temple’s hidden door and inserting the medallion, the door opens. Indy and his accompanying ally go deeper into darkness, using a lighter to illuminate the way. “This hasn’t been disturbed for thousands of years,” the professor remarks. They slowly explore the dark temple before lighting up a torch. At the end of a narrow hallway stands an ornate iron gate. Pulling the lever causes the floor to give way – revealing spikes underneath! The companion saves Indy from being impaled. Indy then uses his whip to hook onto a bar above and then lower himself down to a newly revealed crawl space underneath the floor. He shuffles through, finds a pull chain, yanks it, and the gate opens. Both Dr. Jones and his ally find a mural and take a photo of it (for 10 more Adventure Points).

They come to a sunlit room with a half-obelisk, half-throne in the back of the room, bathed in sunlight. Sunbeams point at a golden mask. The puzzle here is to redirect the sunbeams by tilting the mirrors adjacent to the throne. Your companion grabs the mask after the mirrors are aligned properly. And in a moment of overexcitement, she sits in the throne with the mask and the seat of the throne gives way! As Indy reaches to save her, both end up dragged down to a darkened pit below, where the light of the torch reveals a floor covered in…scorpions. (You thought I was going to say snakes, didn’t you?)

The fact is, this core group of developers at MachineGames – many of whom have been together for two decades – have never missed. From Riddick to The Darkness to the modern Wolfenstein games, this is an incredibly successful team. And now, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is a playable Indiana Jones adventure being built using the best parts of the template that this development team used to make its first – and in my humble opinion, best – game of all. I absolutely can’t wait to play it.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Back in 2022, ARC Raiders revealed itself as a co-op shooter with stylishly post-apocalyptic guerillas fighting robotic attackers that rained from the sky onto their ruined world. We haven’t heard much since. Now, developer Embark Studios is back, telling us that two years of development have refined its free to play co-op shooter into a PvPvE extraction shooter instead. It’s still a game where teams of scavengers hit the surface world hunting for the things their underground colonies need amid robotic occupation… but now they’re competing with any other scavengers that get in their way.

Also new: ARC Raiders will release in 2025 with a $40 price tag.

“Years back we announced [ARC Raiders] as a co-op only game,” said executive producer Aleksander Grondal. “But since, through extensive playtesting and internal evaluation, we evolved it into a PvPvE action survival shooter, an evolution that for us surfaced the best version of what this game could become.”

That seemed clear from the way the developers spoke about it, and from internal playtest videos that I saw during a live event. Machines were an omnipresent threat to a roving trio of raiders. Some could be taken out by quick coordinated attacks, like flocks of smaller drones, or were best avoided, like heavier fliers armed with rockets. Others were larger, more vicious multi-limbed crawlers that groaned out mechanical roars and which we only saw attacked via ambush tactics. Other teams of scavengers were the truly surprising threat—either glimpsed briefly in the distance, encountered in an interior where both parties were surprised, or spotted as an ambush at an extraction point.

“This is a game that lives on tension,” said chief creative officer Stefan Strandberg, “where you have to be on your toes. Listen to the world around you in moments of silence.” Strandberg’s statement really hit home with what I saw of ARC Raiders, which was very distinctly lacking in heavy background music, instead favoring environmental noises like wind, trees, water, footsteps, and the noises of characters cracking open boxes with tools.

There was space for all that noise, too, and fights between both players and machines are intended to be spaced out. “The game needs to have the room to build tension properly,” said Grondal, “and that means the pacing between interactions of other players and the AI needs to have enough space for you to feel that.”

The enemies previewed had very distinct sounds to them as well: Fliers had a precise quadcopter buzzing and signal beeping, while rolling explosive bombs had a rotary whine and four-legged hunting walkers had a grinding groan and whir. If the ARC Raiders delivers on this promise, it’s definitely the kind of experience where veterans will recognize and hunt enemies based on the sounds of individual weapons and the weight of footsteps.

It will at least make ARC Raiders stand out when compared to many other modern multiplayer shooters, which are often going louder, faster, and more in sync with a musical score. Strandberg and Grondal were clear that Embark wants ARC Raiders to be a slower and more decisive game – one with consequential choices in how you play and what your setup was beyond the precise details of your gun mods. (Though, I have to say, there was definitely a big page full of gun mods.)

Strandberg in particular said that the studio’s goal was to make it a “rich sandbox of gadgets and tools beyond your military shooter” while still being “grounded” and “tactile.” That seemed at least partially evident in how characters jogged around the world and did heavy vaults over obstacles while laden with equipment. It was also clear in the gadgets they used in footage: One clip showed a player with a kind of grappling gun that pulled them to the upper window of a building, while another showed a player hooking to some kind of stationary zipline.

In another fight a player first deployed a smoke grenade to put cover between himself and an ARC machine walker, then placed a land mine nearby before continuing to run… only to throw a “lure grenade” to the mine’s location once a little further away. The robots are clearly tough, though—only after repeating the trick a second time did it go down, and that was all the grenades the player seemed to have.

The players of the brief gameplay demo escaped their jaunt to the surface via a subway stop—after some tense cat-and-mouse gunplay with another team camping the extraction site. Their “time on surface” clocks read 11 minutes, 39 seconds as the loot screen rolled. They didn’t yet know exactly how many people would be in a match, but they did say that crossplay was intended and that ongoing matches currently backfilled new teams as older ones extracted.

Grondal said that ARC Raiders should release with a “robust” live service experience, including regular free updates post-launch.

As to how the team felt about the switch from a focus on co-op to the PvP element being front and center? “We kept the good parts, and that was 100% the right decision,” said Grondal, “and the game is so much better for it.”

Walmart is offering a 20% discount on the professional-grade Xbox Series X Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller. Right now you can grab it for only $142.33 shipped (normally $180). This is the original Black model that includes the component pack. The newer Elite Series 2 Core controllers in White, Blue, and Red do not include the component pack and they normally retail for $140. The component pack retails for $59.99.

Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 for $142.33

Includes component pack

The Xbox Elite Series 2 Core controller features better build quality and lots more customizability than the stock controller that comes with the Xbox Series X console. Some of the pro gaming features include adjustable-tension thumbsticks, wrap-around rubberized grip, and shorter hair trigger locks. The component pack, which is bundled with this controller, includes an extra sets of paddles, thumbsticks, D-pad, and case.

Check out the best Xbox deals today for more discounts on Xbox accessories.

Woot! (which is owned by Amazon) is offering the best deal on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Right now you can get a 3 month code for only $36.49. Microsoft recently raised the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $19.99 per month, so now you’re saving 40% off a 3 month membership. Note that you can purchase multiple codes and apply them to your account, up to a maximum of 36 months. This deal was supposed to expire last week, but Woot! has extended the deadline to August 23.

Note: There is a coupon code “VIDEOGAMES” that takes $3 off one order. If you purchase multiple gift cards, this code will only work on a single gift card.

3 Months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $33.49

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gives you access to a library of hundreds of Xbox games, including day one releases. You can play them for the entirety of your membership without any restrictions. You do lose access to them once your membership is over, but if you ever decide to renew, all your past achievements and progress will be saved. You’ll also have access to Xbox Game Pass for PC. Although there aren’t nearly as many games as there are on Xbox, there are still plenty of AAA titles to keep you sated. Other perks include exclusive membership discounts, the ability to play your games across multiple devices with cloud gaming, free access to EA Play membership, as well as bonus in-game content and rewards. It is an exceptionally good – almost essential – membership for Xbox gamers. New release games are not cheap, and being able to play them without buying them will save you a lot of money and easily recoup the cost of the membership.

Looking for more Xbox deals? Check out all of the best Xbox deals today.

When F-Zero rose from the dead in 2023’s September Nintendo Direct, no one was more surprised than the man who designed Captain Falcon over three decades ago.

Ex-Nintendo designer Takaya Imamura was with the company for over 30 years, with credits on all-time classics like The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Star Fox 64, and F-Zero. But when F-Zero 99 launched on Nintendo Switch last year, it was the first entry in the franchise without Imamura’s input, and the creator admits he wouldn’t have thought of the 99-player online direction for the series.

“The first thing I thought was really that if I’d still been at Nintendo, I don’t think I’d have been able to take this approach to it.,” Imamura says. “So I was really surprised that they made such an original take on the IP on the game itself and arranged it in such a fun way.”

Imamura may not be at Nintendo anymore, but he still holds his two main creations – F-Zero and Star Fox – very close to his heart. In fact, Imamura has already found his way back to video game development, as he’s working on a new project with an art style that’s very reminiscent of his pair of Nintendo darlings. OMEGA 6: The Triangle Stars uses the same retro future art style that Imamura built his career on, and it’s the first game he’s worked on since leaving Nintendo three years ago.

“I think it’s the first time I’ve drawn pixel art since Star Fox on Super Nintendo, which has been a while,” he says with a smile.

Imamura’s OMEGA 6 began with a 2022 manga published in France that’s now being adapted into an adventure game due out on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2025. It’s set around a journey to locate a new home planet for the human race, and Imamura says he put his all into the original comic before beginning work on the video game.

While Imamura himself tinkers on a new IP, he also comments on the state of the games and entertainment industry, noting how difficult it is for a new idea to take off.

“I think Nintendo’s real peak was when [Shigeru] Miyamoto-san was in a really central position and they were creating lots of new IP. But at the moment – and this is not just related to Nintendo – but at the moment, in the games market and in general in the entertainment world, it’s really tough to bring a new IP to market and have it be successful.”

Read on for IGN’s full interview with Imamura-san (through an interpreter), where we discuss where F-Zero goes from here, his new project OMEGA 6, why Star Fox 64 is still the most special game he’s worked on, and the keys to Nintendo’s success in the future.

IGN: When you spoke with IGN in 2021 right after you left Nintendo, you said F-Zero wasn’t gone for good, but a grand new idea was needed to bring it back. Last year, Nintendo revealed and released F-Zero 99, the first F-Zero game released that you weren’t involved with. What were the emotions when you saw F-Zero finally return from the outside?

Takaya Imamura: First off, I was really surprised. The first thing I thought was really that if I’d still been at Nintendo, I don’t think I’d have been able to take this approach to it. So I was really surprised that they made such an original take on the IP on the game itself and arranged it in such a fun way.

IGN: Why don’t you think that you would’ve been able to take that direction?

Imamura: I think it was mainly because when I saw it, I thought, “Well, that’s just like Nintendo to take this direction.” And for me, F-Zero, I’ve been working on it so long that I’ve got this… My vision of it is not as flexible as whoever took the reins on [F-Zero] 99 and was able to basically think outside the box and recreate what it was.

IGN: So now that Nintendo has acknowledged F-Zero again in this way, where do you think this series can go from here?

Imamura: If you’re asking me, in my imagination, I’m seeing something scaled up akin to F-Zero GX. But given Nintendo’s got the reins at the moment, I think they as a company will probably take it in the direction for a wider range of players, including casual gamers as well. So it’s an IP that can really capture a wide range of players.

IGN: I think that we’re in agreement that GX is the pinnacle of the F-Zero series, but basically every F-Zero game is fantastic and the sales numbers didn’t always reflect their quality. And that led to a near twenty-year hiatus. I’m wondering, as the series progressed, did you and the team ever feel like you needed a big sales hit to keep the series alive? Or as a creative were you never really focused on that side of things?

Imamura: Of course, the most important thing of any product is that it sells. So that was the first thing on our mind. We can’t just focus on game fans. We couldn’t, I couldn’t when I was at Nintendo. But F-Zero and Star Fox tend to be supported by more core gamers than casual, and Nintendo obviously needs to be able to approach a wider range of players. So yes, of course, the first thing on my mind was to have something that sells. But these games seemed to have better support with a more core gamer audience.

IGN: So you just mentioned Star Fox, and last time we spoke with you, you called Star Fox 64, “the game of your life.” And I think a lot of fans agree that is the highlight of that series. I’m wondering if you can share why Star Fox 64 is so special to you beyond the fact that you put so much care and hard work into it.

Imamura: I think it’s difficult to express exactly why I feel that, but I think it’s probably mainly because out of all the games I’ve worked on, it’s the one where my vision has been most reflected in the final product. I was able to put most, if not all, of the ideas I had into the game. So it’s the game that I’ve made that has the most of me in it. I’m a huge film and game fan myself. And I think probably Star Fox 64 has the most elements of that, homage to other creative works, film, games, et cetera.

IGN: We’ve talked about F-Zero and Star Fox, and now you’re working on OMEGA 6, and it only takes a glance to see the similarities in your character design with those two Nintendo series we’ve touched on. OMEGA 6: The Triangle Stars uses your iconic retro future art style that F-Zero and Star Fox share. Can you just tell me very simply to readers who may not know, what is OMEGA 6?

Imamura: I don’t know if it’s the elevator pitch, but in a single phrase, the best way to describe it would be that it’s the video game spin-off product of me really wanting to become a manga artist, a mangaka, and creating a comic, putting my all into this comic and then spinning off into a game.

IGN: I find that really interesting because you left Nintendo to try something new, and you’ve been teaching, you wrote this manga, but through it all, it’s led you back to video game development. And I’m wondering when you left Nintendo, if you planned to eventually work on another game again and how that all came to be.

Imamura: Well, I had actually been thinking about game development. It was on my mind after I’d left, but I wasn’t thinking about something quite as large as OMEGA 6 has become. It was more a compact, smaller experience at first, but then we started adding things, and before I knew it, here we are.

IGN: What excites you the most about OMEGA 6? And what do you want to tell fans of your previous works about it to get them excited as well?

Imamura: Well, one of the things would be that I basically drew every single pixel in the game. So the first thing would be that I want the fans to look at the pixel art and enjoy it basically. I think it’s the first time I’ve drawn pixel art since Star Fox on Super Nintendo, which has been a while.

IGN: So speaking of that, the Super Nintendo was a long time ago, and you saw Nintendo through many highs and many lows. And right now, Nintendo’s riding what you could call an all-time high, at least financially speaking. In your opinion, what about Nintendo’s leadership and direction keeps the company relevant both across the generations that you were there for and into the future?

Imamura: Obviously, it’s just my opinion, but I think Nintendo’s real peak was when Miyamoto-san was in a really central position and they were creating lots of new IP. But at the moment – and this is not just related to Nintendo – but at the moment, in the games market and in general in the entertainment world, it’s really tough to bring a new IP to market and have it be successful. So I think what Nintendo will need to do is to work on new IP and also the existing IP, become something like Disney in terms of having all these IPs that they can create products from.

IGN: I want to make sure we touch on Zelda because you were the art director on Majora’s Mask, which is one of the most visually interesting games in the series. And the story is different and mature as well about sadness and regret. What it was like working on a Zelda game that’s still so distinct from the rest of the franchise?

Imamura: That’s quite a well-known episode in that the president of the Nintendo at the time, [Hiroshi] Yamauchi, the order came down from him to make a new Zelda in one year. And so it came down to two points. One of them was that we had the previous Zelda and we wanted to differentiate it from that. And the other one was how do we create a new world, something that is very new, that is distinctively different from previous Zeldas in such a short time? And that was basically what we came up with. We took a different path visually and conceptually. My job on the art side was to make it different from Ocarina of Time – as clearly different as possible. And that’s why we ended up with the world that that game is set in.

IGN: I’ve always been very fascinated by the design of Majora’s Mask itself, the item. When I was a kid, I used to just stare at the cover art of it on the Nintendo 64 box. What were your inspirations for the design of the very creepy mask?

Imamura: So in Osaka, there’s a museum that collects lots of different artifacts and clothing from different ethnic groups. And I often go there for inspiration for different designs and stuff. And for the mask in particular, that was one place where I absorbed a lot of design ideas from.

IGN: My final question here is, as the person who created Tingle, every time a new Zelda is revealed, are you hoping that Tingle shows up in some capacity?

Imamura: [Laughs] I haven’t seen him in recent games, but I think there is a character similar to Tingle in Tears of the Kingdom.

IGN: Thank you so much, Imamura-san. I appreciate the time, and best of luck with OMEGA 6 and at gamescom.

Imamura: Thank you for your time as well.

Parts of this interview were edited for clarity.

Logan Plant is IGN’s Database Manager, Playlist Editor, and Super Ninfriendo on Nintendo Voice Chat. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Blogroll image credit: Takaya Imamura (https://twitter.com/ima_1966/status/1351786503815397376/photo/1)

Sports game fans, rejoice! Backyard Sports, the iconic video game series known for making kid-friendly sports games, is back.

In a press release, Playground Productions, the company currently holding the rights to the Backyard Sports IP, confirmed it was reviving the series, noting that the franchise is “slated to return in the coming months.” Playground Productions also provided the first teaser trailer for Backyard Sports, featuring memorable characters like Pablo Sanchez and Stephanie Morgan.

You can check out the first trailer below.

Beyond the confirmation of new Backyard Sports video games, Playground Productions said the series’ return will expand its reach to multiple verticals beyond video games, such as film, TV, and merchandise. Playground Productions explained that the revival of Backyard Sports will use “cutting-edge technology and esteemed character IP” to aim to create stories and experiences that will resonate with those who grew up with the series along with the current generation of youth.

“We’re incredibly excited to reintroduce Backyard Sports to a new generation of players,” Playground Productions CEO Chris Waters wrote in the press release. “We’re taking great care to preserve the look and feel that made the original games so special while updating them with modern features and gameplay that today’s audience expects. I can’t wait for fans to see what we’re building on the Playground.”