Category: Video Games

Fantasian: Neo Dimension on PS5 – hands-on report

Produced and written by the legendary Hironobu Sakaguchi, and accompanied by a mesmerizing score from Nobuo Uematsu, Fantasian: Neo Dimension’s release on PS5 is set to enchant both new players and long-time Final Fantasy fans alike. Despite being originally designed for mobile in 2021, Fantasian is a full-scale JRPG with undeniable charm. I recently had the chance to dive into an early preview through the Ancient Hill area with Leo, Kina and Cheryl in my party. This segment included a few voiced cutscenes, a small area to explore, and a handful of fights, including an enigmatic special encounter and a classic boss battle. Here’s what stood out.

What’s new in this version

Fantasian: Neo Dimension brings several exciting upgrades with its release on PS5. The most noticeable is the stunning 4K resolution, which makes every detail of the meticulously crafted world pop with breathtaking clarity. Another welcome addition is the dual-language voice acting. Whether you prefer the authenticity of Japanese dialogue or the accessibility of English, Fantasian: Neo Dimension offers a fully voiced experience that brings its cast to life. Finally, the addition of an easier difficulty option means those who are new to the genre will get an easier time going through the title despite its classic JRPG difficulty.

One of the most intriguing new features is the ability to customize your soundtrack. For battles, players can choose between the original music composed for Fantasian —which is obviously excellent considering its author— or mix it up with iconic tracks from a selection of older Final Fantasy titles. You can choose a particular title, or use the random option to get a surprise soundtrack to play over each fight.

A unique art direction

The art direction of Fantasian: Neo Dimension is nothing short of extraordinary. The game’s world is built entirely from hand-crafted dioramas, which have been digitally recreated using drones equipped with 3D scanning technology. This meticulous process resulted in over 150 dioramas that form the game’s various environments, each one brimming with hand painted details.

The dioramas are crafted with an unparalleled level of care, with contributions from notable artists, including Akira Toriyama, the mastermind behind Dragon Ball, and veterans from Japan’s Tokusatsu industry, known for their work on practical effects in films and television. 

Exploring these diorama-based environments feels like stepping into a work of art, with layers of textures and intricate details I wished I could simply reach through the screen and touch. The physical craftsmanship creates a visual experience that is entirely unique to the title.

Merging legacy with innovation

One of the most remarkable aspects of Fantasian: Neo Dimension is how it masterfully combines classic JRPG elements with some innovative gameplay mechanics. Fans of traditional JRPGs will find comfort in the familiar turn-based combat system, complete with elemental weaknesses and your classic spells. However, the game introduces a simple twist by allowing players to manually aim the trajectory of attacks and spells, enabling them to ricochet off multiple enemies. Some of these attacks will be your classic area-of-effect spell or single-target slash, but other attacks will pass through enemies and you can manually adjust the curve of the spell to hit specific enemies in its path. This added layer of strategy is super satisfying, particularly during large-scale battles.

And to boot, larger scale battles are guaranteed by the Dimengeon system, a feature that addresses perhaps one of the most common criticisms of traditional JRPGs: the sometimes repetitive random encounters. Instead of regularly battling the same enemies in the overworld, Fantasian allows you to store these encounters in the Dimengeon, an alternate dimension where you can tackle them all at once. A couple caveats to this: any enemy you haven’t encountered yet will still trigger an instant battle, and you can only store a certain number of enemies before you’ll have to dip your toes in the Dimengeon and clear the queue. 

This system not only streamlines gameplay, allowing you some lovely uninterrupted exploration phases, but also allows for some excellent fights. When you enter the Dimengeon, you’ll find various bonuses scattered throughout letting you steal an enemy’s turn or buff your party’s attacks. Picking these up by aiming your attacks through the bonuses turns these mass battles into thrilling, high-stakes encounters. I found this system particularly enjoyable, as it allowed for more creative approaches in combat. The sheer number of enemies in these Dimengeon battles – which caps at 30 in a single fight – gave me the opportunity to experiment with different spells and strategies, making each encounter fresh and exciting.

Fantasian: Neo Dimension is a beautifully crafted love letter to the JRPGs of old, enriched with modern enhancements that make it feel fresh and innovative. The combination of stunning handcrafted diorama environments, classic gameplay elements, and new mechanics like the Dimengeon system creates an experience that is both nostalgic and novel. As a fan of the genre, my time with Fantasian: Neo Dimension definitely left me eager for the full release.

No Man’s Sky Fan Art Inspired Latest Update That Finally Adds Fishing to the Game

No Man’s Sky’s next big update finally adds fishing to the game after a piece of fan art stopped developer Hello Games in its tracks.

Following the release of No Man’s Sky’s Worlds Part 1 update and its new water technology, Hello Games has today, September 4, released the Aquarius update, which finally adds fishing to the long-running space sim.

This fishing feature was inspired by a piece of fan art, below, that shows the player’s avatar fishing while sitting on their spaceship. It was published by redditor catador_de_potos with the thread title: “I’m a simple man with a simple dream.”

“Something folks really loved in the Worlds update was the new water technology, tons of players were posting videos of themselves just chilling at the water’s edge,” Hello Games boss Sean Murray said.

“One piece of fan art in particular stopped us in our tracks, of a player lazily fishing from their wing of their boat. That inspired our next update Aquarius – where we finally add fishing to No Man’s Sky!”

The Aquarius update adds “a huge array of fish, from common minnows to wild alien catches, each with their own habitat and catching conditions” to No Man’s Sky, Murray said.

You can bait your line to lure in the rarest of fish or trawl the deep for hidden messages in a bottle. There are trophies to earn, fishing logs to complete, and new fishing equipment rewards. There’s even a unique fishing expedition, Murray teased, which sends players on a quest for “the biggest catch of the day.”

New equipment lets you fish in deep water from your personal fishing platform. New Fishing Pots can be used to bait and trap rare catches. You can cook up the catch of the day with new recipe combinations to be discovered.

“My favorite thing is to build a little base on the perfect shoreline, so I can cast my rod whenever the mood takes me,” Murray added.

No Man’s Sky launched in 2016 initially for PC and PlayStation 4 before coming out on Xbox One in 2018, and PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S in 2020. A Nintendo Switch version followed in 2022. Over the years, Hello Games has issued a long list of major updates, most recently the aforementioned Worlds Part 1. Murray said Worlds resulted in No Man’s Sky’s biggest player numbers in over five years.

Indeed, it’s a busy time for Hello Games, which alongside updates for No Man’s Sky is working on its next game, Light No Fire. It’s about adventure, building, survival and exploration together, set on a fantasy planet the size of Earth.

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.

Dragon Ball MOBA Arrives in 2025

Bandai Namco has confirmed the Dragon Ball MOBA, codenamed Dragon Ball Project: Multi, fully launches in 2025.

A beta for the game wrapped yesterday, September 3, 2024, and Bandai Namco thanked fans for playing on its X/Twitter account while quietly announcing the full release window.

“We sincerely thank everyone for taking part in the regional beta test,” the post said. “All the valuable input we have received from our players will help our development team strive to make the game even more entertaining.

“New information about the game will continue to be available on this account, so please follow us until release. The game is planned for official release in 2025.”

Dragon Ball Project: Multi was announced as a top-down action real-time strategy game where players engage in four versus four battles playing as Dragon Ball characters such as Goku, Vegeta, Future Trunks, Piccolo, Krillin, Android 18, and Majin Buu.

Set to release on PC via Steam alongside mobile platforms the App Store and Google Play, Dragon Ball Project: Multi also promises vast customization options including different skins, entrances, finisher animations, and more.

“Experience the world of Dragon Ball through wrecking the battlefield with your own strength, or by conquesting the enemy objective with your friends and allies,” the synopsis reads. “The hero characters you take in control will grow in strength as the round progresses to give you a chance to obliterate enemy players and bosses alike.”

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

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Brings Back Double Assassinations

Assassin’s Creed players who’ve lamented the removal of double assassinations in recent entries will be pleased to hear the Japan-set Assassin’s Creed Shadows is bringing the nasty technique back.

A Ubisoft blog post confirmed stealthy assassin Naoe, who is one of two playable protagonists in Assassin’s Creed Shadows joined by the savage samurai Yasuke, can use the much-loved double assassination to take down two enemies at once.

“Depending on her weapons, she can assassinate enemies in unique ways, and perform double assassinations with her Hidden Blade and tanto,” the post said.

Double assassinations were once a mainstay of Assassin’s Creed but haven’t appeared in the franchise since 2015’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, meaning it’s skipped four mainline entries. This lines up with the series’ switch to larger role-playing games in Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla, but not even smaller, more traditional entry Assassin’s Creed Mirage had it.

Some fans have long tried to justify why this is the case, and as spotted by GamesRadar, one said it’s because the technique was created by original assassin Altaïr Ibn-LaʼAhad and therefore only exists in the games set after his.

This lines up, as the last four games have all been set before the original Assassin’s Creed, but other fans have pointed out the assassins are master killers able to land on a target from 100 foot above or do a front flip while stabbing someone in the neck, so the concept of killing two people at once shouldn’t be beyond them.

IGN had a wealth of exclusive content on Assassin’s Creed Shadows upon its reveal in May 2024, and you can read about all the gameplay changes, story beats, and open-world assassinating coming with Shadows in our extensive interview with the development team.

If that’s not enough, check our analysis and explanation of where and when Shadows is set and 40 key details we’ve learned about the game. You can also watch our full breakdown of the cinematic trailer to discover all its hidden details, Easter eggs, and more.

Shadows launches November 12, 2024 for those buying the more expensive Gold, Ultimate, Deluxe Editions, or Collector’s Editions, while the $69.99 Standard Edition is available on November 15, 2024. There’s a lot riding on Assassin’s Creed Shadows for developer and publisher Ubisoft, after the recently released Star Wars Outlaws reportedly failed to meet sales expectations.

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

The people behind amazing Brutalist parkour game Babbdi are making a free 1v1 FPS with over 100 maps

Babbdi was a game of stark and severe Brutalist aesthetics, and also, a game about playing scales with a trumpet, walljumping with a baseball bat and using a leafblower to fly. Snuck out over winter 2022, it was a sombre but delightful freebie with immense though well-hidden imagination, in which your only explicit objective was to find a way out of a small concrete city.

Now, developers Lemaitre Bros are making a gott-dang 1v1 FPS called Straftat, slated for release on 24th October 2024 with over 100 arenas. It’s similarly in love with concrete, but it also has blunderbusses, dual-wielding, Gatling guns, corner-peeking, curved swords, cowboy hats and beehive hairdos.

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Review: Pizza Tower (Switch) – An Ingenious Platformer That Beats Wario At His Own Game

Wario would be proud.

Nintendo’s Wario Land series has always occupied a unique niche in the company’s extensive catalogue with its weird humour and unconventional approach to platforming tropes, which is why fans have been greatly let down by the fact that there hasn’t been a new entry in over 15 years. To fill the gap, an indie team called Tour De Pizza came out early last year with its own spiritual successor called Pizza Tower, offering a polished and thrilling adventure into a truly insane food-themed world. Since release, Pizza Tower has quickly built up a high reputation for its creativity and gameplay design, and now that it’s come to Switch, we’re pleased to report that it is indeed a fantastic platformer.

Pizza Tower places you in the role of Peppino Spaghetti, the chef and owner of a failing pizzeria who finds himself threatened by an evil sentient pizza named Pizzaface who lives nearby in the titular tower. Pizzaface has a laser on top of the tower which he’s going to use to destroy Peppino’s pizzeria, so our daring chef dashes off to climb the tower and destroy the evil pizza and his minions once and for all.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Until Dawn Remake Developer Ballistic Moon Acknowledges ‘Significant’ Layoffs

Update 9-4-24: Until Dawn remake developer Ballistic Moon has acknowledged “significant” layoffs at the studio after several staff members announced their departure earlier in September.

A LinkedIn post from the studio said it was “profoundly sorry” for the layoffs that appeared to affect at least 11 members of staff at the studio, though an exact number is unclear and Ballistic Moon did not respond to IGN’s request for comment.

“It is with deep regret and a heavy heart that we must make the tough decision to significantly sale down our team to secure the future of our studio,” Ballistic Moon said. “This comes after our development of Until Dawn for PS5 and PC.”

It continued: “Saying goodbye to such a talented and passionate group of people is incredibly difficult, and we are profoundly sorry for the impact this restructuring will have on our employees and our families.”

Original Story 9-2-2024: Ballistic Moon, the developer behind the PlayStation 5 and PC remake of Until Dawn, has laid off several staff members.

Eurogamer first reported that at least two staff members had announced their departure on LinkedIn but 11 Ballistic Moon developers have now either posted about being made redundant or marked themselves as “open to work” and looking to start somewhere new immediately.

It’s unclear exactly how many of these staff were laid off, or if the number is greater than 11, but IGN has asked Ballistic Moon for comment.

“Like many others in this wonderful but turbulent industry, I am sadly being made redundant from my role,” said junior game designer Cassy Cornish in a LinkedIn post. “Unfortunately my current role at Ballistic Moon is being made redundant so I’m looking for new opportunities,” said game programmer Stuart Campbell in another

The past two years have seen countless video game industry layoffs as big companies including Microsoft, Sony, and the embattled Embracer Group have not just cut jobs but shut down entire studios.

Microsoft shut down Redfall developer Arkane Austin alongside Hi-Fi Rush and Ghostwire Tokyo developer Tango Gameworks in May 2024 in a move met with shock and anger by industry peers and fans.

Embracer Group shut down Saints Row developer Volition in 2023, while Sony shut down its London Studio in March 2024 amid layoffs affecting 900 staff across the PlayStation business. Chinese video game company NetEase also reportedly laid off most staff at Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios with plans to shut it down altogether.

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

Hero shooter Concord taken offline as Sony say its “initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended”

Concord, that 5v5 multiplayer first-person shooter about Guardians Of The Galaxy-like space persons, will be taken offline on the 6th September. Anyone who bought it is being offered a full refund and it’s been wiped off storefronts. All of this comes just shy of three weeks since the game dropped, with Sony citing a launch that “didn’t land the way we’d intended”.

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Concord Players Are Jumping Off Cliffs In-Game as They Desperately Grind for the Platinum Trophy Before Shutdown

Sony’s shock announcement of Concord’s shutdown just two weeks after it went on sale has sent its remaining players into overdrive as they desperately try to secure its Platinum trophy before it’s too late.

PlayStation Studios’ ill-fated first-person hero shooter, which suffered a drastically low player count upon launch, goes dark on September 6, with all players set to receive a refund. Ryan Ellis, director at Sony-owned developer Firewalk, said: “while many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognize that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended.”

Soon after that announcement, reports indicated that Concord players were throwing Rivalry matches in a bid to earn experience points as fast as possible. Rivalry mode sees two teams of five players battle for dominance across best-of-seven single-life rounds. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. Now, players are starting a match and immediately running off a platform to their doom, resulting in a win for the opposing team and the end of the round.

Rivalry matches are the perfect choice for this tactic. Win or lose, it rewards players with more experience points than other game modes. And because it’s the best-of-seven single-life rounds, as long as the whole team gets in on the act and each round takes about 30 seconds, you can finish a match in just a few minutes — again, as long as all players follow suit and you lose or win four matches in a row.

Thus, this is the quickest way to earn experience points in Concord, and thus the quickest way to earn that Platinum trophy (you need to get to reputation level 100, which takes hundreds of thousands of XP), with just two days left before the game shuts down. But be warned: your win percentage will take a hit if you keep deliberately losing. Still, that might not be much of a concern given Concord’s impending doom.

IGN has verified that Rivalry matches are currently being played out in this fashion. The race, it seems, is very much on.

Some Concord players are saying there’s not enough time to grind to the Platinum trophy, so it might escape them. Others are holding out hope that Concord returns in free-to-play form, although there’s no guarantee it will return at all. As a result, the Concord Platinum trophy may go down as one of the rarest in PlayStation history.

What’s clear is that Concord itself is one of the biggest flops in PlayStation history, a game one of its developers said was in the works for an incredible eight years. There is now concern for the fate of its developer, Firewalk, and Sony faces tough questions about its upcoming live service games, including Bungie’s Marathon and Haven’s Fairgame$, neither of which have a release date.

Concord’s launch was nothing short of disastrous, with analysts telling IGN it has likely sold as few as 25,000 units. It debuted to a tragic 697 peak concurrent players on Steam, a number that made the 12,786 players of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which was dubbed a disappointment by Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav and caused a $200 million hit to revenue, look like a titan.

Last year, Sony president Hiroki Totoki committed to launching just six of 12 live service games in development, and one based on The Last of Us has already been canceled.

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.

Shadowrun and Battletech creators unveil cyberpunk horror RPG set on a “dying space station” where upgrades change your personality

When I catch word of a chocolate-and-peanut-butter blend of genres such as “cyberpunk survival horror RPG”, my eyes light up. Literally, they light up like the pilot lights of flamethrowers, like glyphs on a cursed monolith that has been exposed to fresh blood after a billion years of dormancy. When I hear that the aforesaid RPG is set on a “dying space station”, I begin to emit a monotonous reverberation, like the mysterious banging recently heard aboard the Boeing Starliner. And when I hear that it’s being made by the people behind Shadowrun and Battletech, I extend dozens of independently cognitive motorised tentacles and begin writing a news article.

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