The ‘Space-54 update’ has arrived.
If you’re still enjoying the roguelite bullet shooter Vampire Survivors, you might want to check out its latest update which sends players to space (again).
It’s officially titled the ‘Space-54 Update’ and is completely free. It adds one new bonus stage, two new characters, four new weapons, a new relic, and seven achievements to unlock. There’s also a bit more to uncover as well!
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
For today only, Best Buy is offering the official Xbox Series X|S Core wireless controller in Stellar Shift for only $49.99. That’s almost 30% off the original $69.99 MSRP. Aside from the difference in color scheme, this is the same controller as the one that’s included with your Xbox Series X or S console.
Stellar Shift is a color-shifting, blue-purple pearlescent shimmer that, in my opinion, looks better than most of the other Xbox color schemes out there. It also features a rubberized purple swirl grip that has different pattern varations among each individual controller.
This is the same official controller that you get bundled with the Xbox Series X and S consoles. It features textured grips, hybrid D-pad, button mapping with the Xbox app, a 3.5mm audio jack that works with any wired headset, and a Share button to send your screenshots and video out into the world.
The Xbox Core controller features both Xbox wireless and Bluetooth connectivity. That means you can also use it for your PC or mobile device as long as it supports Bluetooth. In fact, the Core controller is considered one of the best PC controllers you can get. If your PC doesn’t have Bluetooth, then you can connect your controller via a USB cable or with the Xbox wireless adapter.
For more discounts on the Xbox and accessories, check out the best Xbox deals today.
We may have just gotten our latest look at Kingdom Hearts 4 (kind of) in the form of a social media post celebrating the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Earlier today, the official Kingdom Hearts X/Twitter account shared an image of Sora on what looks like the streets of Shibuya, glancing up at various big-screen advertisements featuring Sephiroth. The reason we’re counting this as a look at Kingdom Hearts 4, however, is that it’s set in Quadratum, the bustling city in which the sequel will take place.
#FF7リバース発売#FF7R#_KH pic.twitter.com/obneXBQTnT
— キングダム ハーツ (@_KINGDOMHEARTS) February 29, 2024
We can tell because the intersection in which Sora is standing, with the big 104 building in the background, is one of the few true glimpses we’ve seen of Quadratum. The setting is based on Tokyo, specifically the Shibuya district.
In a cute touch, the image references a real-life ad campaign that’s currently taking place in Shibuya, with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth taking over various billboards and screens, as captured by @Genki_JPN on X/Twitter below.
SEPHIROTH IN SHIBUYA! 🔥 #FF7R pic.twitter.com/IAKYmOO1Cg
— Genki✨ (@Genki_JPN) February 26, 2024
It’s not much, but it is the latest crumb we’ve gotten on Kingdom Hearts 4, with Square Enix officially announcing the sequel in 2022. We got a brief trailer back then, but little information since, including a release window (see everything we have managed to figure out right here).
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, meanwhile, officially released on PlayStation 5 today, so fans are just starting to dive in. For more, check out our 9/10 review, as well as our spoiler-filled breakdown on why that one script change from Remake actually makes perfect sense.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
It feels pretty appropriate that my last deal post for RPS is for my favourite PC peripheral: the humble mechanical keyboard. This mechanical keyboard is more humble than its peers too, with a $30 asking price that is absolutely exceptional for a name-brand keyboard that gets rave reviews: the Keychron C3 Pro.
One-button fun.
WarioWare: Move It! came to Switch in 2023 and threw us back into the wild world of wacky minigames. Those who enjoyed the experience might want to check out SUPER 56, which launches on Switch later this year and looks to be just as bonkers.
From indie development team Onion Soup Interactive and publisher WhisperGames, SUPER 56 offers a collection of one-button minigames (56 of them, would you believe) for you to drive, fish, date, catch and generally laugh your way through. It doesn’t seem to quite match the ‘Act like a chicken’ level of humiliation in the WarioWare series, but is that really such a bad thing?
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Hey Xbox Insiders! We have a new Xbox Update Preview releasing to the Omega ring today.
It’s important we note that some updates made to these preview OS builds include background improvements that ensure a quality and stable build for Xbox consoles. We will continue to post these release notes, even when the noticeable changes to the UI are minimal or behind the scenes, so you’re aware when updates are coming to your device.
Details can be found below!
Note: This update may not occur automatically before it has already become mandatory. You can always find the most current update as soon as it is available by opening the Guide > Profile & system > Settings > System > Updates.
Remember: Newly enrolled users in this ring are not guaranteed to receive all early updates, but they’ll receive the update prior to the GA release. Additionally, a small subset of users may remain on their current GA build once they enroll until the next system update becomes mandatory for the public. Visit the Xbox Insider Program FAQ to learn more.
Thanks to all the great feedback Xbox Insiders provide and the hard work of Xbox engineers, we are happy to announce the following fixes have been implemented with this build:
Accessibility
Backgrounds
System
While known issues may have been listed in previous Xbox Insider Release Notes, they are not being ignored! However, it may take Xbox engineers more time to find a solution. If you experience any of these issues, we ask that you please follow any guidance provided and file feedback with Report a Problem.
Audio
Networking
As always, be sure to use Report a problem to keep us informed of any issues you encounter. We may not be able to respond to everyone, but the data we’ll gather is crucial to finding a resolution.
If you’re an Xbox Insider looking for support, please visit the community subreddit. Official Xbox staff, moderators, and fellow Xbox Insiders are there to help with your concerns.
When posting to the subreddit, please look through the most recent posts to see if your issue has already been posted or addressed. We always recommend adding to existing threads with the same issue before posting a new one. This helps us support you the best we can! Also, don’t forget to use “Report a Problem” before posting – the information shared in both places helps us understand your issue better.
Thank you to every Xbox Insider in the subreddit today and welcome to the community if you’re just joining us! We love that it has become such a friendly and community-driven hub of conversation and support.
For more information regarding the Xbox Insider Program follow us on Twitter. Keep an eye on future Xbox Insider Release Notes for more information regarding your Xbox Update Preview ring!
The post Xbox Insider Release Notes – Omega (2403.240227-0110) appeared first on Xbox Wire.
If Helldivers 2 hasn’t quite scratched your itch for reducing robots into piles of scrap, upcoming physics-based brawler Mecha Mayhem might. Gang Beasts in a world of Gundam-like bots, the fighting game lets you literally tear your enemies into pieces before repurposing their dismembered parts on your own bot.
Sometimes it’s fun to match wits in a board game with other players in competitive matches. But many of the best board games go the other way and embrace the spirit of cooperation. Co-op board games come in a wide variety of themes, with varying levels of complexity so you can find one for players of all ages. Below, we’ve selected our favorites on the market. For more game night ideas, check out our other roundups, including the best board games for kids and the best two-player board games.
Have no time to read blurbs? The links above lead directly to retailer pages where you can buy the games in question.
Lots of board games have tried to replicate the success of the Alien franchise, but it took this unlicensed homage to perfect it. Players must work together to survive a terrifying incursion of hostile life-forms into a Martian base. You’re on a constant high-wire between staying slow and quiet or getting things done fast but attracting alien attention. It’s full of detailed mechanics that can spin the game out in crazy directions, from literal firefighting to a gung-ho battle against the extraterrestrial foe. The challenge is tough, the narrative detailed and the tension always escalating. But the real kicker is that it’s possible for your friends not to be friends at all thanks to hidden goal cards that could be supportive or could be murderous, or the corporate military wing could be coming to take you all out to ensure your silence.
Narrative-heavy board games have always faced a content problem: there’s only so much variety you can achieve with boards and cards. Sleeping Gods belongs to a family of adventure games that bypassed this problem by putting everything into a huge flip-book, featuring a mix of maps for different quests. Sleeping Gods stands head and shoulders above its peers thanks to two things. First, it’s outstandingly rich storytelling, as you run through a rich mixture of encounters, characters and side-quests as you attempt to guide the lost ship, The Manticore, and her crew home from the strange dimension in which it finds itself. Second, is the detail with which the ship is brought to life, both in terms of strategic resource management to keep her going and her presence in the game world. Such is the wealth of content available that you can easily see a whole different story on a second play through, and such is the fun of doing so that you’ll surely want to try.
This is a “Living Card Game”, which means it’s kind of collectable, like Magic: The Gathering, but there’s no random element. You just buy sets and expansions knowing what cards are in each. And unlike a lot of LCG’s, deck building is easy because it’s modular, seeing players pick fixed sets of cards to create decks for their hero and the villain you’re all working against. The meat of play features some classic concepts like dual-use cards alongside novel ideas like each player being able to flip from their hero to their alter-ego, with different abilities and hand sizes. This sets up some really interesting combo-based play where you pull off cinematic moves as you work together to thwart the villain’s schemes and save the day.
To call Gloomhaven a fantasy adventure game is technically accurate, but a bit reductive. It tells the story of mercenaries chasing different goals in a changing world, and the legacy they leave behind. Gloomhaven takes the legacy system from Pandemic Legacy and weaves it into an epic fantasy campaign that takes place over generations. Each hero comes with a personal goal that, when completed, sends the hero into retirement and unlocks new classes and story elements. Upon retiring a hero, you will take control of another, which results in an impressive sense of time progression. The game includes several sealed boxes that are only opened upon reaching certain milestones, which makes Gloomhaven a game with a grand scale that is unmatched in the board game medium.
This epic game now has a sequel, Frosthaven, with an all-new narrative and fresh subsystems which see you expending and guarding the titular town. And if the price and length of either of the big-box titles turns you off, the excellent prequel Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion has most of the gameplay value at a fraction of the price.
An escape room in a box, the Exit series of games does a surprisingly good job of simulating the real thing. Players work together to find clues and solve riddles in real time in an effort to complete the scenario. Each scenario tells you to bring some pens and a pair of scissors because you’ll be permanently modifying your game throughout the session, making these games a one-and-done experience.
There are many different scenarios available for purchase, with titles like The Secret Lab, The Abandoned Cabin, The Sinister Mansion, The Forgotten Island, The Mysterious Museum, and a lot more. Priced at around $15 each (and usually cheaper on Amazon), the Exit series is an ideal replacement for a night at the movies and one of the best escape room board games.
At first glance, this game of stone-age survival doesn’t look anything special. You create a deck of cards for the scenario you want to play and distribute them between the players. Then you take it in turns to flip a card from your pile and face the challenges thereon with the skills and stone tools available to your tiny tribe. The magic happens when tribes come together, pooling their resources to overcome one tough encounter, but doing so loses them the chance to interact with the other tribe’s card. All at once, this mirrors a real slice of stone-age life, agonizing over passing up opportunities in order to secure an important prize, while giving players real emergent cooperation in how much they choose to aid each other. The survival narrative and variety of scenarios are just the icing on the rock cake.
Pandemic put cooperative games on the map, and for good reason. Much of the genre’s hallmark mechanics originated here, from action point allocation to player roles with unique abilities. It also spawned a bevy of expansions and spinoffs, but Pandemic Legacy is the best and more revolutionary take on the virus-eradicating co-op game.
It takes the core rules of Pandemic and stretches them into a campaign-length adventure played out over several sessions as you race to cure disease and prevent epidemics. This version introduces permanence as a mechanic, as the rules force you to rip up cards, sticker the board and alter the physical components in other ways as things (inevitably) don’t go your way. The only potential drawback is that you must play with the same players each session, but because the game is so good everyone will be eager to jump back in.
Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island is a daunting and dark game, but players willing to wade through the sea of iconography, hefty rulebook and stifling theme will be rewarded with a satisfying survival simulation that rewards communication and teamwork. Based on the 1719 novel, players take on the role of survivors of a shipwreck that are must work together to gather food, build shelters, stave off attacks and explore the island. The combination of different scenarios and player characters ensure good replayability, while the survival mechanics do a fantastic job of selling the theme.
A lot of games on this list are, to a greater or lesser extent, strategy affairs. But cooperation is a great mechanic to use in party games too, and Just One tops the list. All the players bar one get to see a clue, and they have to write down a word related to that clue. Then all the clues get revealed to the remaining player who has to guess the original word. Sounds too simple, except the catch is that if any of the clues are the same they get wiped, leaving the guesser far less to work with. It’s an ingenious idea that leaves players caught in an uncertain vice over just how obscure they cant get away with being, while still being worried they might be the victim of doublethink.
You likely know trick-taking games from long time classics like Whist and Bridge. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea cleverly repurposes the concept into a cooperative game through the use of missions, demanding that certain players win tricks of particular types. So you might have to win a trick containing a yellow one, for example, or two consecutive tricks or even no tricks at all. This would be easy if you could show each other your cards, so your communication is limited to one card for the entire hand, recasting the game as a strategic puzzle with plenty of tension as you wait to see whether having to follow suit will tease out a critical card or fail the mission. Fast, fun and with fifty varied undersea missions, this is a pearl of a design. This game earned a spot on our best family board games list as well.
Some of you may have childhood memories of the original Dark Tower, an extraordinary 1981 fantasy board game powered by an electronic gizmo that gave it a real sense of magic and wonder. Most copies of that original no longer work, but it’s been resurrected and revamped in this new edition, which features an all-new, all-tech tower that connects to a mobile app via bluetooth. It allows you to select from a far wider variety of characters and quests, villains and monsters than the original. The board layout and major concepts of the original, such as collecting warriors, are retained, but between the app and a raft of new mechanics, the game is transformed into a narratively rich, strategic challenge where you must prioritise and deal with a series of ever-growing threats: it can also be played cooperatively as well as the competitive setup of the original. The app provides detail such as dungeon exploration, while the tower lights up and rotates of its own accord, spilling deadly skulls out into the kingdoms below.
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most enduring fictional characters of all time, and for good reason. Watching him solve a seemingly impossible mystery with all the confidence and bravado of a stage actor has been a favorite pastime of generations of book readers and television watchers.
With Consulting Detective, you finally get the chance to step into the shoes of Holmes and test your own deduction skills in a series of nonlinear mysteries. What makes the game great is how it refuses to hold your hand; each mystery presents a short setup and then sets you loose on London, leaving you to visit notable locations, interview suspects, and make educated accusations. Be warned, however, that these mysteries are tough, and may make you question your intelligence on more than one occasion.
If you like these types of games, you can also check out our guide to murder mystery board games for similar options.
If your co-op group could use an eldritch touch, get Arkham Horror: The Card Game to the table. In this cooperative card game, players take on the role of detectives who are investigating various supernatural occurrences within HP Lovecraft’s world of cosmic horror. It’s a scenario-based experience with each mission at the mercy of an arcane Mythos, a set of conditions that must be met lest the investigators succumb to insanity.
Arkham Horror features customizable decks that are built around each investigator’s special abilities, and most scenarios can play out over a handful of sessions, lending a feeling of progression to the game. As you investigate new location cards, gather clues, and fight monsters, your detective will amass weaknesses that can hinder future games which, thematically, illustrate the mental toll of dealing with arcane horrors. It’s a great horror board game you can play with loved ones.
Protect your island from a vicious mob of colonizers in this heavy co-op experience. Players are spirits of the land, and must use their unique powers to fend off settlers. Every turn, you’ll play a card from your deck of powers. Matching a card’s element with the element of the spirit usually grants a bonus effect, meaning that careful planning is necessary.
As the game goes on, the colonists will inevitably spread and ravage the land, making Spirit Island a race against the clock. They’re predictable, though, and if you plan efficiently you can head them off before they do too much damage. Players’ cards combo off of each other nicely, too, and there are few things in tabletop gaming as satisfying as eliminating a host of settlers in one fell swoop. Spirit Island is substantially more complex than other games of this style (Pandemic, Forbidden Island, etc.), making it an ideal choice for those seeking a meatier co-op experience. This game can also be found on our list of the best board games for adults.
Who doesn’t like to bond over some good old fashioned zombie slaying? Zombicide is a cooperative survival game where players work together to complete scenarios. The Black Plague version puts a fantastical spin on the original game, and drops players into the role of paladins, magicians, and knights to take down the evil necromancers responsible for the zombie outbreak.
You’ll pick up new weapons like crossbows and swords, explore a citadel crawling with the undead, and take on several missions in this dungeon-crawling adventure. It’s a tense and thematically-refreshing take on the tried and true zombie formula with surprisingly easy-to-learn rules.
Cooperative games where you try and save the world from some deranged monstrosity out of the work of arch-racist HP Lovecraft are ten a penny. What makes Cthulhu: Death May Die stand out isn’t just the beautifully horrible miniatures in the box but the way it integrates help and harm. In order to gain new skills, your characters have to also lose some of their sanity, resulting in a clever balance of tactical trade-offs while encouraging you to come up with daring gameplay plans that deliberately expose yourselves to danger. The resulting reel of cinematic action-horror moments doesn’t feel much like Lovecraft but it is a ton of fun.
For more ideas, check out our roundups of the best board games for adults and the best trivia board games.
Matt Thrower is a contributing freelance board game and video game writer for IGN. (Board, video, all sorts of games!)
Smite 2 was revealed as a standalone sequel to the third-person god-battling MOBA last month, using Unreal Engine 5 for a visual overhaul on the front end while making a number of significant gameplay and balance changes behind the scenes. Ahead of its planned alpha test this spring, developers Titan Forge have now shown off how the game’s Conquest mode will be evolving.
EA has joined Square Enix in failing to see the leap year coming, as just like Theatrhythm Final Fantasy on Nintendo Switch, EA Sports WRC isn’t working because it’s February 29.
Fans of the rally racer took to social media to complain about the game crashing upon launch today, and EA soon published a statement explaining it was looking into it. “We are aware of an issue on console in which the game may crash on startup,” it said on X/Twitter. “This is currently being investigated and will be fixed as soon as possible.”
Guidance for PlayStation players:
1⃣ On your console, go to Settings > System > Date and Time > Set Date and Time > Set Manually.
2⃣ Change the date to March 1, 2024.
3⃣ Once this change has been done, the game should function normally.
— EA Help (@EAHelp) February 29, 2024
The fix isn’t complicated despite involving a little bit of time travel, as EA returned soon after telling players to change their hardware to March 1. This isn’t just an in-game solution, however, as players have to change their entire console’s date in the system settings.
Not including functionality to have a game work on February 29, which of course arrives every four years, may seem a tad ridiculous, but EA Sports WRC developer Codemasters isn’t the only studio to make the mistake.
Fans also flagged that rhythm Final Fantasy spin-off Theatrhythm Final Fantasy remained on an infinite loading screen until system settings were changed away from the date. Time will tell if another studio makes the same blunder.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
