Category: Video Games

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17% Off Black Myth: Wukong for PC

Ahead of its Investor Day on September 17, EA revealed fresh details on its untitled Battlefield game alongside its first officially concept art, which IGN can exclusively reveal for the first time. IGN can also confirm that Battlefield will be returning to a modern setting after stints in World War I, World War II, and the near future.

While EA is cagey about specifics when it comes to the concept art, including declining to name of the city where its set (though it looks a lot like Italy, Franchise, or somewhere else in Europe), it does include details that should stand out to longtime fans of the series. Among other things, it appears to suggest that ship-to-ship and helicopter combat will be part of the new game, and that it will feature natural disasters like wildfires. Its greyish color scheme is evocative of Battlefield 4, which remains one of the most popular games in the series despite being released a decade ago.

Battlefield goes back to basics

All of it points to a back-to-basics approach for the next Battlefield. Indeed, Head of Respawn & Group GM for EA Studios Organization Vince Zampella is quick to shout out Battlefield 3 and 4 in the course of sitting down with IGN to talk about these new reveals. On the decision to return to the modern era, Zampella says, “I mean, if you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it’s that Battlefield 3… Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern. And I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we’ll see where it goes from there. But I think for me, it’s that peak of Battlefield-ness is in that Battlefield 3 and 4 days. So I think it’s nostalgic for players, for me, for the teams even. Those are kind of the heyday…although I would say 1942 also.”

The return to the modern setting represents a course correction for the series after Battlefield 2042, which eventually found its footing but was otherwise widely panned for features like Specialists — characters that made it seem as if Battlefield was trying to be a hero shooter. Its ambitious 128-player maps also proved unpopular with fans who preferred a more focused experience. Battlefield 2042 eventually went back to supporting 64 players per maps, and the next Battlefield plans to stick to that approach.

“Yeah, the 128 player, did it make it more fun? Like…doing the number for the sake of the number doesn’t make any sense. We’re testing everything around what’s the most fun. So like you said, the maps, once they get to a certain scale, become different. It’s a different play space, and I think you have to design around that. So we are designing something that is more akin to previous Battlefields,” Zampella says. “I’d rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces. Some of them are really good. I can’t wait for you to see some of them.

Specialists are also out this time around. “So I wasn’t there for 2042. I don’t know what the rationale was, but for me, it’s like the team tried something new. You have to applaud that effort. Not everybody liked it, but you got to try things. It didn’t work. It didn’t fit. Specialist will not be coming back. So classes are kind of at the core of Battlefield, and we’re going back to that,” Zampella says.

He’s careful to stress that Battlefield 2042 wasn’t a “failure of a game” despite not doing as well as hoped. He notes that the development team “really spent a lot of time learning how to adapt it and getting things back.” Still, he says, EA doesn’t want a repeat of the experience it had with 2042. “We want it to be good out of the gate.”

It adds up to what one might call classic Battlefield, but bigger — big enough that it merits the efforts of four separate studios in DICE, Motive, Ripple Effect, and Criterion (Ridgeline Games was briefly part of its development before being shuttered after founder Marcus Lehto’s departure). EA CEO Andrew Wilson claims it’s one of the “most ambitious projects in [EA’s] history.”

Nevertheless, Zampella remains vague on what all of that actually entails. “Yeah, it’s definitely betting bigger on Battlefield. It’s going in and expanding what Battlefield is. We have to have the core. The core Battlefield players know what they want. They’ve been with us forever, they’ve been amazing supporters. We need to earn their trust back and get them back on our side. And then it’s expanding out and getting more players into the universe and seeing what we can do, so when you want a different experience, you don’t have to leave Battlefield. You can experience more things within the Battlefield universe. So we’re expanding the offerings that we’re giving.”

The road ahead for Battlefield

In the meantime, Activision Blizzard is planning to release Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 — Battlefield’s traditional competitor. Where Battlefield has stumbled, Call of Duty has largely continued to thrive. It begs the question: will Battlefield ever outsell Call of Duty?

“If you look at the best Battlefields have outsold some Call of Duties and other way around, back and forth. So I think absolutely it can,” Zampella says. [Note: While sales data is incomplete, the publicly available data for even weaker releases like Infinite Warfare has typically favored Call of Duty]. “I mean, is that what we’re going for? I mean, not directly, but always. We’re not looking to take down Call of Duty. We’re making something that’s different and we’re making something that’s us. But yeah, it definitely has the possibility.”

On the subject of pushing into the transmedia space, where franchises like The Last of Us and Fallout have thrived (the latter taking home an Emmy Award over the weekend), Zampella demurs.

“There are definitely opportunities there. We’ve had some discussions, but it’s not our core business. To me, that stuff, when it works, it’s super cool… Like Arcane was f*cking great. But there’s other ones that haven’t worked as well and I won’t name those, but you know what they are,” he says. “It’s a marketing opportunity of getting your franchise out there, and it’s not core to what we’re doing right now. So we are game first. That has to work. And if the right opportunity comes, absolutely, we’ll look at it. And do we take meetings all the time? Sure. But it’s not the core business. So it’s that balance. I would love to see it. Right now, we’re not looking at anything like that for Battlefield.”

It’s unclear when the next Battlefield will release, but there are signs that EA is ramping up for 2025, having entered full production earlier this year. According to Zampella, EA is “play testing the game every week” and plans to launch a community program next year, though it’s unclear if it’s a closed beta or something else.

“We have a program that we’re going to announce next year around getting more community in, because that’s kind of the core of what we have to do — get the community back on our side, get that trust back,” he says. “So I think we’re in a really good place. Is it challenging? Of course, but it wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t.”

Whenever Battlefield eventually releases, it’ll be a big test for the series, which has a lot to prove to fans after close to a decade since its last really successful entry. It’ll be entering an unsettled console landscape, with Sony announcing the PS5 Pro last week, rumors of a next-gen Xbox, and Nintendo expected to announce the Switch 2 soon. Zampella is broadly taking a “we’ll see” approach to both the PS5 Pro and the unannounced Switch 2, though he has some kind words for Nintendo in particular.

“I mean, since [Switch 2] isn’t announced and it doesn’t exist, I can’t really comment on that. But I would say absolutely, Nintendo, along with Microsoft and Sony are great partners for us, are important to us on our business at EA, at Respawn, would love to see it,” Zampella says. “We don’t have anything to announce, but is there a world? Sure. We love them as partners. They’ve been great to us. I love the [Switch].”

One way or another, EA is betting a huge amount of time, money, and manpower on the idea that the multiplayer shooter space is ready for a shakeup. As for whether that bet will pay off, it sounds like we’ll know sooner rather than later.

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.

Lenovo is currently offering the Microsoft Xbox Series X wireless controller in Carbon Black for only $39.00 shipped. That’s about 30% off its original $55 MSRP. You won’t find a better price on a brand new official controller at the moment.

Xbox Wireless Controller for $39

Bethesda has released a deep dive into Starfield expansion Shattered Space, offering a first meaningful look at gameplay.

The video, below, shows off Va’ruun, the new planet Starfield players get to explore in Shattered Space. Bethesda describes Va’ruun as an “isolated, handcrafted new world in Starfield’s first major story expansion,” and compares it to some of the biggest and best expansions it has released for its The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.

The “handcrafted” note in particular feels deliberate. Starfield was criticized by some for leaving the handcrafted feel of Bethesda Game Studios’ previous titles behind in favor of a galaxy-spanning adventure filled with over 1,000 planets, most of which were fueled by procedural generation.

Shattered Space, on the other hand, revolves around a solitary planet, and in the deep dive video Bethesda developers stressed that the entirety of the expansion takes place on it. There is no need to leave it at all.

“From the minute you arrive on Va’ruun’kai the story never sends you off planet,” Tim Lamb, lead creative producer, said. “You’re free to leave at any time, but the story is fully centered around life on the Va’ruun home world.”

“We wanted to give you the opportunity to explore every nook and cranny of this location and find clues as to who these people really are and what happened to them,” added lead producer Joe Mueller.

“When we first started thinking about what this experience would be like, we knew we wanted it to feel like a traditional Bethesda Game Studios expansion. Having the planet laid out so intentionally works perfectly with this isolationist society. Everything they’ve done since establishing themselves will be right here on Va’ruun’kai. The whole planet tells the story of these people who have never left their home and want to remain a secret.”

Here’s the official blurb:

In Shattered Space, players will visit the homeworld of House Va’ruun for the first time. Explore a fully handcrafted new location and unravel the mysteries surrounding the followers of the Great Serpent. House Va’ruun is on the brink of collapse and their people need help finding a path forward. When your sudden presence on their hidden home planet is seen by some as divine intervention, it’s up to you to restore House Va’ruun and decide the fate of this secretive faction.

Bethesda also talked up Shattered Space’s more chaotic, aggressive, in-your-face combat, in contrast to the distance shooting of the base game. Expect ambushes from odd creatures that pop up through rifts in spacetime. Storywise, you end up caught up in a political feud between the planet’s various pockets of power, and ultimately decide the fate of House Va’ruun.

Starfield, which enjoyed the biggest launch in Bethesda Game Studios history, is available on PC and Xbox Series X and S. Shattered Space launches on those same platforms on September 30.

Owners of the Premium or Constellation Editions of Starfield get Shattered Space as part of their original purchase. Owners of the base edition can still purchase the Premium Upgrade for access to Shattered Space plus other digital items including the Digital Art Book, Original Soundtrack, 1,000 Creation Credits, and the Constellation Skin pack.

Bethesda is of course working on more than Starfield expansions. It’s also got The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 to contend with, alongside updates for MMOs Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls Online. On the mobile front, Bethesda has just released The Elder Scrolls: Castles.

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.

During last year’s Game Awards, Archetype Entertainment unveiled its upcoming AAA RPG, Exodus. Crafted by a team of industry veterans, including former Mass Effect staff from BioWare and more recruits from 343, Naughty Dog, and other leading studios, Exodus promises to deliver a “next-generation, story-driven RPG” that blends cinematic storytelling with modern AAA gameplay.

Collaborating on the project is renowned sci-fi author Peter F. Hamilton. Acclaimed for his expansive Commonwealth Saga and The Night’s Dawn Trilogy, Hamilton has lent his world-building expertise to shape Exodus and its broader universe. Alongside consulting on the game, Hamilton is also penning a duology of books set in its universe. The first novel, Exodus: The Archimedes Engine, will be released on September 19, with preorders now available on Amazon in the UK and the US.

We had the pleasure of interviewing the author, discussing The Archimedes Engine, his assistance in constructing the Exodus universe, and how his signature storytelling style brings depth and complexity to this expansive new sci-fi franchise.

The team at Archetype Entertainment has praised you for helping make the Exodus universe more scientifically accurate. What were some key areas where your expertise made a significant difference?

PFH: The best example was my contribution to the method used by Celestial starships to travel between stars at just below lightspeed. They’d got the basic requirements worked out, I just suggested a more practical method of doing what they wanted, especially in terms of the energy requirement of accelerating the huge mass of a starship up to those speeds.

What were the biggest challenges in writing within a universe that’s being built for multiple platforms? Did any aspect of the world or characters evolve based on feedback from the game developers?

PFH: The whole experience of working with others on this kind of huge-scale project was extremely satisfying. The Archetype team had already drawn up their basic guidelines, what they wanted to achieve, for the Exodus universe by the time I came on board. Being able to apply my take on those objectives was something very new for me.

Sometimes I’d have to come up with whole new technologies, which is relatively easy for a sci-fi writer; then again sometimes I’d have to find a very different societal structure for a Dominion, which means a lot of backstory as to why certain Celestials behave the strange way they do.

I’d send these in and get feedback, which would often necessitate tweaking the concepts to make them a better fit. I think we managed to get most ideas polished after a couple of revisions. It was a very positive time for me.

The Exodus universe is populated by great houses and expansive star systems. How much freedom do you have to invent and flesh out these factions, and do any of them play a key role in The Archimedes Engine?

PFH: I wouldn’t describe it as having a freedom, given that I was one of the consultants that helped shape the nature of the Exodus universe. What that opportunity gave me was knowledge of what could and could not be out there. So when I needed to add a new Celestial species, society, or star system to the story, I knew what would fit into the universe and how to shape it accordingly. And yes, the Celestials play a huge part in the Archimedes Engine. They are not benign, which makes this a dangerous universe to explore, especially for humans.

What challenges did you face in balancing scientific realism with the imaginative demands of world-building in Exodus?

PFH: This is always a challenge for sci-fi. You want to push the envelope of what can be achieved, yet at the same time make it reasonably believable. In this case, the Archetype team had some good ground rules established for what they would and wouldn’t have in the Exodus universe. So in many respects it was like my usual worldbuilding, I always plot the parameters for what can be done before I start concentrating on the individual details. In other words: the team knew what they were doing.

The Archetype Entertainment team has mentioned how much they admire your work. How did their familiarity with your novels influence the creative process during collaboration?

PFH: That’s very kind of them. Given the type of novels and themes I usually write, that is: big stories set in the far future, I think they saw me as someone who could contribute to the kind of Space Opera setting they were building for Exodus. From my point of view, it was a great fit. I had a terrific time working with them.