Category: Video Games

Super Smash Bros 4 Trends Ahead of Nintendo Wii U and 3DS Server Shutdown

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, colloquially known as Smash 4, are trending online ahead of Nintendo shutting down servers for both consoles on April 8, 2024.

Fans of Smash 4, which paved the way for Nintendo Switch successor Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, have returned to the beloved brawler in its final few days of online play and taken to X/Twitter to share their favorite memories of that era.

“Every game has its flaws and Smash 4 is no exception, but damn was it fun to play,” wrote Sillintor on X/Twitter, one of many users with similar comments which caused it to trend on the social media platform.

“Smash 4 coming back from the grave for one final send-off before servers close brought tears to my eyes today, especially seeing so many old names on my friends list playing,” said TDude. “Truly is that journey’s end now, isn’t it? It’s been fun.”

Other users are posting their favourite clips from the game, half of which seem to be hotly contested battles and half of which are brutal beatdowns. “You know, with all these Smash 4 clips on my timeline, it made me reflect on this one clip I have,” wrote SmashMarioPro2000. “This was one of the harshest beatdowns I’ve ever gotten in Smash history, like I got brutalized.”

The shutdown of online functionality for the Wii U and 3DS, which were launched in 2012 and 2011 respectfully, comes one year after Nintendo shut down each systems’ eShops. It announced this next step in their sunsetting in January 2024, revealing the likes of online play, internet rankings, and data distribution would all cease to function.

Nintendo is now deep into the following console generation with the Switch, of course, with even conversations about its successor becoming more and more frequent. Fans are growing more and more eager for an upgrade to the console considering it was released in 2017, but the next generation of Nintendo hardware is reportedly still a year away.

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

Lord of the Rings Influenced a Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Quest

Spoiler Warning: This article features minor spoilers of an enemy which appears in a late game mission of Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion.

Beloved fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings may not be an obvious inspiration for dystopian role-playing game Cyberpunk 2077, but it influenced developer CD Projekt Red regardless.

Speaking to IGN at GDC 2024, associate game director Paweł Sasko further explained CD Projekt Red’s philosophy of designing specific quests with certain genres or themes in mind. It has used this concept on a grander scale previously, like imagining The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as a horror game to create the Hearts of Stone expansion, or seeing Cyberpunk 2077 in the espionage genre to create the Phantom Liberty expansion as a whole.

It was in this chunk of new story content that CD Projekt Red implemented this philosophy on a more intricate level, however, and it pulled from myriad popular works to do so, including The Lord of the Rings. Sasko referenced Somewhat Damaged, a quest late in the Phantom Liberty expansion, and the giant spider-like robot monster called Cerberus the player must escape.

“Entering the Bunker was like entering the layer of a monster,” he said. “And even that scene when Cerberus shows up, it kind of bears resemblance to the moment when Shelob appears in The Lord of the Rings, when she hangs over you, this looming sort of a shadow.”

Just as Shelob skulks around the dark cave while stalking Frodo in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Cerberus can be seen doing the same in the dark subterranean bunker where the player finds themselves in Somewhat Damaged. The mission can be seen in the gameplay video below, which includes full spoilers for the entire mission, but the Cerberus scene comes at the 15 minute mark.

“So this is what we started doing, because when you define a genre theme and those guiding principles for your content, it’s so much easier to guide your designers about what they’re supposed to do. And there’s so many decisions they’re making themselves. It’s not directors or leads who are doing it, it’s designers who are making those decisions every day.”

Phantom Liberty arrived alongside the game-changing Update 2.0, which completely revamped Cyberpunk 2077 with features such as a new perk system and improved AI. It also brought closure to an Elon Musk fan theory, a reference to the late racing legend Ken Block, and bizarre additions to the game’s biggest mystery. Update 2.1 later added a full metro system, romantic partner hangouts, new vehicles, and more.

In our 9/10 review of the game, IGN said: “Cyberpunk 2077 throws you into a beautiful, dense cityscape and offers a staggering amount of flexibility in how you choose to take it from there.”

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

Someone Already Modded Invincible Series 2 Finale Cameo Into Marvel’s Spider-Man

That was fast! The Invincible Season 2 finale aired just this week, and already a modder has put its standout cameo character into a video game.

Warning: this article contains full spoilers for Invincible: Season 2, Episode 8!

Season 2, Episode 8 toys with the idea of the multiverse, with Mark hurtling through other dimensions and encountering heroes on alternate Earths. In one scene, Mark meets a very Spider-Man-esque character named Agent Spider, voiced by The Spectacular Spider-Man’s Josh Keaton. This scene is a tribute to the comic book team-up between Spider-Man and Invincible from 2005’s Marvel Team-Up #14.

Hot on the heels of the episode’s release on Prime Video, Spider-Man PC modder Rezauddin Nur recreated Agent Spider inside the PC version of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, the 2020 re-release of Insomniac’s smash-hit PlayStation 4 Spider-Man game from 2018. The impressive-looking mod gives Agent Spider a cel-shaded look similar to that seen in the Prime Video show. The mod is available to download from NexusMods.

Speaking this week, Invincible creator Robert Kirkman explained how the Season 2 finale’s multiple cameos came to be, revealing Amazon’s lawyers were particularly interested in the Spider-Man cameo.

“It was just trying to figure out a way to keep that moment somewhat intact from the comics,” Kirkman told Variety. “It seemed like something that would be a fun and surprising way to do it. Amazon legal, painstakingly, was like, ‘No, the costume can’t be that color. We gotta get away from this and that.’ There were a lot of eyes on that scene.

“We wanted to find an actor who had done Spider-Man before. [Supervising director] Dan Duncan came in immediately and was like, ‘Josh Keaton needs to do it. Spectacular Spider Man is a great series.’ He had worked on it and said Josh was great. He seemed like the best possible choice because it’s animation to animation. It seemed like it would be a fun thing.

“That said, he’s not playing Spider-Man. That’s Agent Spider. There might be some similarities, but I think Josh’s nuanced performance as Agent Spider is completely different than the way he played Spider-Man in Spectacular Spider-Man. But who knows? My opinion may be somewhat biased.”

Remarkably, Kirkman said he’s “pretty sure” Marvel only found out about the Agent Spider scene this week. “We didn’t call any Marvel lawyers or anything,” he added. “No, that was Amazon’s legal department’s job to make sure that Marvel didn’t need to know.”

With Invincible Season 2 done and dusted, thoughts now turn to Season 3, which Invincible star Steven Yeun discussed with IGN in a recent interview.

Image credit: Rezauddin Nur / NexusMods

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.

WOW Classic’s Season Of Discovery doesn’t player test new content, leading to more bugs – but more fun

As World Of Warcraft Classic – an MMORPG that is, confusingly, a new version of the old version of World Of Warcraft – enters phase 3 of its Season Of Discovery, PCGamer has an interview with some of the devs where they talk about the decision to not run Player Test Realms – servers where they roll out the new content to smaller numbers of players to road test it. This means that when they launch new stuff for Seasons Of Discovery it’ll probably break more often, but it means players get to discover brand new things together. Which is great! And the developers think it’s good too.

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Total War: Warhammer 3’s upcoming Thrones of Decay expansion gets huge pricing change

Thrones of Decay, the upcoming expansion for strategy game Total War: Warhammer 3, will now be available to purchase as either three separate faction packs, or as a bundle at a discount. So, if you don’t fancy shelling out the full £19.10 for all three factions, you can grab new bits for either Nurgle, the Empire, or the Dwarfs for £7.49. If you do buy just one to start off with – say, to get a feel for the quality of Thrones of Decay as a package – you’ll get a 15% discount on the remaining two packs in the future.

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Video: Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance Second Official Trailer Released

Now arriving “one week earlier”.

Following the announcement of Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance in February, Atlus has now released the second official trailer for the game.

In case you missed it, this will be the “definitive version” of Shin Megami Tensei V – featuring a brand new storyline, new locations, new demons to add to your team and new choices to make. Here’s some additional PR:

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Random: Nintendo Releases Endless Ocean Luminous ASMR Style Video

Deep dive.

Nintendo yesterday dropped new details about the upcoming Switch release Endless Ocean Luminous, and now it’s released a new ASMR-like video highlighting the “sights and sounds” of the game.

This video is almost four minutes in length, and as you listen to it, you’ll be able to hear all the sounds of the ocean, straight out of the game.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Goblin Stone is an XCOM-like with card combat, colony building and goblin breeding

Goblin Stone released almost a month ago, but we haven’t written about it yet, and it feels like you should know about it. It’s a turn-based RPG, it’s a roguelike with permadeath, it’s got XCOM-style base-building, its got card-based combat; it is extremely your sort of thing, if you’re the exact statistical average of Rock Paper Shotgun readers.

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Stellar Blade Director Says No Microtransactions Outside of Potential Crossover Collaborations

In a recent interview with Ruliweb translated by Genji and confirmed by IGN, director Kim Hyeong-tae talked about what players can expect on launch day. One feature Stellar Blade fans shouldn’t expect is microtransactions… at least not initially.

“We want to make it clear at this point that Stellar Blade will not require any additional expenses that gamers are not aware of beyond what they paid for the package,” Kim told Ruliweb.

Although Kim assured fans that Stellar Blade won’t have any microtransactions, Shift Up hasn’t entirely ruled out selling them in the future.

“The only exception is if we create collaboration costumes with another company’s IP, those may be sold for a fee,” Hyeong-tae said. “Also, there is no New Game+ in the launch version, so please look forward to it being updated very soon.”

While Shift Up has no plans for premium DLC at the outset, Hyeong-tae did tease players with free updates post-launch, chief among them being additional costumes for its protagonist, Eve. Regardless, come release day, Stellar Blade’s base game won’t have any microtransactions.

Stellar Blade is a Playstation 5 exclusive action-adventure game by the developers of the popular mobile game, Goddess of Victory: Nikke. It follows a girl named Eve as she combats mysterious invaders known as NA:tives, to reclaim a post-apocalyptic Earth.

In our preview, we likened Stellar Blade’s combat to Sekiro meets Nier: Automata, saying, “While the depth of its exploration remains to be seen, Stellar Blade’s action alone was more than enough to get me excited for its April 26 release on PlayStation 5.”

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

Stop Killing Games hopes to petition regulators to stop developers from shutting down games

Ubisoft racing game The Crew shut down on March 31st, rendering the game unplayable for everyone who bought it since its release ten years ago.

In response, YouTuber Ross Scott has launched Stop Killing Games, “the largest campaign ever to stop publishers destroying games”. The initiative exists to encourage people to petetiion their governments about the issue.

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