IGN's Summer of Gaming is officially on, and the events keep rolling with Summer Game Fest 2023 on Thursday, June 8. With E3 being cancelled, Summer Game Fest promises to be one of the biggest events of the season. Jeff Keighley's show debuted some heavy hitters last year, like The Last of Us Part 1 and Marvel's Midnight Suns, so there's definitely potential for juicy surprises this time around, especially since it's a live in-person event this year.

If you want to tune into Summer Game Fest we'll point you to where you can watch the livsetream and let you know when it starts. We'll even do a bit of speculation about what to expect!

Summer Game Fest 2023 Start Time

Summer Game Fest kicks off on June 8, 2023 at 12pm PT/ 3PM ET/8PM BST, and if you're watching from Australia, that means the show will be premiering Friday, June 9 at 5am AEST. We don't know which games will be at Summer Game Fest, but we do know the show will be around two hours long, so there will probably be a ton of content stuffed into the presentation.

IGN will also be hosting a pre- and post-show for Summer Game Fest, and that will kick off at 11:30am PT/2:30PM ET/7:30PM BST, or 30 minutes before the show officially starts. The post show will immediately follow Summer Game Fest. This looks to be one of the most packed events for Summer of Gaming.

Where to Watch Summer Game Fest 2023

If you want to watch Summer Game Fest, IGN will be hosting a stream on our homepage and across our other social media pages. Here's everywhere you can watch the kick-off of Summer Game Fest 2023 on Thursday, June 8.

• IGN.com (homepage)
• IGN's Facebook Channel
• IGN’s Twitter
• IGN's Twitch Channel
• IGN’s Youtube Channel
• IGN's TikTok
• IGN's iOS App
• IGN's Android App
• IGN's PlayStation 4 App
• IGN's Xbox One App
• Roku
• IGN App for Android TV
• IGN for Amazon Fire TV
• Apple TV
• IGN 1 on Samsung TV Plus
• Pluto TV
• Plex Live TV

Summer Game Fest 2023: What to Expect

Because Summer Game Fest is an in-person event at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, California, an absolute deluge of publishers have signed on for the event, including CD Projekt Red, Square Enix and Xbox.

So while there's sure to be trailers from games that are right around the corner, like Final Fantasy XVI from Square Enix, this lineup combined with the live audience is the perfect time to debut "World Premieres." There's also Day of the Devs, which focuses on indie games and developers, if that's more your speed.

Sony will also be at Summer Game Fest, but it comes just a couple weeks after the Playstation Showcase back in May, so don't expect any huge first-party titles to drop. The same is true of Xbox, although it may sneak some of its highly anticipated game reveals into the show, as the company is confirmed to be a part of the live show. That means we might see a bit of Starfield, though that game is getting its own entire show this year.

Either way, we'll probably see some glimpses of the best games 2023 has to offer, and we might even get a peek into the future.

If you've started compiling a collection of digital games, you probably already know just how limited the Switch's base storage capacity. The Switch and Switch OLED have 32GB and 64GB of internal storage respectively. Some of that is reserved for the OS. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom takes up over 18GB of storage all by itself. Other must-have titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Pokemon Sword or Shield tap out at 13.5GB each. There's only one expansion slot in the Switch console so you want to make sure you get the biggest card you can afford.

The Lowest Prices on MicroSDXC Cards (Updated)

These Micro SDXC cards are 100% compatible with any Nintendo Switch, Switch OLED, and Switch Lite console. Some of them may be rated for higher speeds than the official Nintendo Switch branded memory cards. That doesn't really matter though; the Nintendo Switch can only support U1 speeds, so a U3 speed will just be throttled back down to U1 speeds.

Steam Deck Owners Can Use These Cards Too!

The Switch isn't the only gaming system that accepts these cards. If you're a Steam Deck owner, you can also use this card, especially if you picked up the 64GB storage option.

For more deals, take a look at our daily deals for today.

A Pokémon Scarlet and Violet tournament in South Korea was canceled after its finalists planned to stage a unique protest.

All four players had agreed to field teams made up entirely of pokémon that only know Metronome – a unique and unpredictable move that fires off a completely random move when used.

“Pokemon Korea saw our teams, didn't like it, and therefore disqualified all four of us for playing Metronome,” said Nash, one of the disqualified finalists, in a Twitter post.

How we got disqualified for playing Metronome. pic.twitter.com/AR6ukdApMU

— Nash (@NashVGC) June 3, 2023

The result would have been a tournament final that was decided by pure chance, but The Pokémon Trainers Cup was completely canceled before this could go ahead.

This also meant that the four competing trainers lost their Day 2 pass to the World Championships later this year.

“[We] decided to go on Metronome battle to protest against all these issues within our community,” added Nash.

Pokémon players in Asian regions have been increasingly frustrated by how tournaments are run there, especially when compared to other regions.

“No irl events, constant problems in tour system, disregarding younger divisions, absurd compensations for the problems they caused," Nash said. "But the real problem behind all this is that they show absolute disrespect to our players.”

However, one of the biggest issues is the use of a best-of-one format, on top of hectic scheduling which caused back-to-back games in the Pokémon Trainers Cup.

“People were getting re-match after re-match, and could not stop playing during the tour,” explained Nash.

Despite these frustrations, Pokémon Korea chose to penalize the protesting finalists, with all four receiving an email informing them that they were disqualified.

“The reasoning behind it was that we all locked in poke mons that learned one specific move,” said Nash. “According to Pokémon Korea, this falls into prohibited acts.”

Although the final didn’t go ahead, the four players certainly got their message across, with players from other regions coming out to support them.

“Bringing Metronome to the Milwaukee Regional Championships in solidarity of the Top 4 people DQ at Korean Nats,” said competitive Pokémon player, Gabe Mendoza on Twitter. “Good luck and have fun to all my opponents.”

IGN’s review of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet gave it 6/20 and said: “The open-world gameplay of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is a brilliant direction for the future of the franchise, but this promising shift is sabotaged by the numerous ways in which Scarlet and Violet feel deeply unfinished.”

Want to read more about Pokémon Scarlet and Violet? Check out the recent Pokémon Home update as well as another Pokémon event that was canceled – this time due to crashes.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Hit mobile game Angry Birds is getting a brand-new animated series on Amazon Prime.

Announced today, the 24-episode series, titled Angry Birds: Mystery Island, will follow three new hatchlings – Mia, Rosie, and Buddy. There’s also a foreign exchange piglet called Hamylton.

“We’re excited to work with Amazon to add a new chapter to the Hatchlings’ story in Angry Birds Mystery Island,” said Rovio's head of brand licensing, Hanna Valkeapää-Nokkala. “I’m sure fans of the Hatchlings will be eager to see them in their own series, with speaking voices for the first time.”

Get ready to venture into uncharted territory. 🔍 🏝️

An all new Amazon Original series takes us to parts unknown, somewhere in the Angry Birds world. What secrets does this island hold, and who will be there to unravel them?https://t.co/FhPhA73vYI

— Rovio (@Rovio) June 6, 2023

The show follows the four youngsters as they set off on an all-expenses-paid island getaway, but are instead mistakenly catapulted to a mysterious, uncharted island.

It’s not exactly FarCry, but the ragtag bunch will need to explore the island and unlock its secrets if they want to find their way home. Meanwhile, they encounter exotic sights and unexplained natural phenomena – all while being away from home with no parents in sight.

“Working with such a dream team and cast has been the highlight of my career,” said creator Eric Rogers. “Together, we are hatching a series full of comedy, heart, and binge-worthy mystery, filled with laugh-out-loud moments.”

Speaking of the cast, the four leads will be voiced by none other than Harvey Guillén, Kate Micucci, Dominic Monaghan, and Nasim Pedrad.

“It’s exciting to expand the Angry Birds universe with endearing new characters and multilayered storytelling that speaks equally to kids and kids at heart,” said Amazon Kids head of original series, Veronica Pickett.

Other hatchlings were seen in the animated movie, Angry Birds 2, and have also played a role in the hit game series.

“The Angry Birds captivated people of all ages and became a global phenomenon with the debut of their first game, and their cultural presence has remained steadfast,” said Amazon Studios head of animation, Melissa Wolfe. “We are excited by the opportunity to expand the Hatchlings’ world into a family series for our global customers to enjoy even more stories around these beloved birds.”

Want to read more about Angry Birds? Find out how Angry Birds became one of the most successful mobile games ever as well as more about SEGA’s acquisition of Angry Birds developer, Rovio.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

It’s Pride Month; the time of year where we not only commemorate the history and achievements of the LGBTQIA+ community in celebration, but also take time to reflect on hardships, current issues, and make space to listen and share their stories, uplift their voices and support them.

We invite you to celebrate and support LGBTQIA+ folks with us; whether it be reading stories by the queer community and its allies, learning about how Pride is more than just a rainbow flag (do you know its history?), or donating to an impactful charity changing and saving the lives of LGBT+ youth (see below); it's all incredibly important.

What's more, we're excited to showcase several Pride-related features you'll love to read from IGN, Humble and other Ziff Davis sister sites, with more to come throughout June.

Jump to:

• Donate to The Trevor Project
• History of Pride Month
• LGBTQIA+ Resources

Read Queer Stories: LGBTQIA+ Reading List

IGN is excited to share reading lists and resources to support LGBTQIA+ voices in the industry and beyond. Here's a shortlist to get you started. Our new piece is up, so take a look now:

8 Queer Comics to Read:

Check back throughout the month as we share more lists and exclusive content for Pride each week!

Support LGBTQIA+ by Donating to The Trevor Project

This year, we're joining sister site, Humble Bundle to support The Trevor Project.

2 Ways You Can Support The Trevor Project:

1. You can donate directly here.

2. You can purchase a Humble Choice Membership or Bundle:

Humble selected The Trevor Project as their featured charity, where 5% of every June Humble Choice membership (available starting June 6) will go to support The Trevor Project until the end of the month. This month’s Humble Choice games include Ghostwire: Tokyo, Remnant: From the Ashes – Complete Edition, and six more.

Humble will be offering a number of bundles throughout the month that support The Trevor Project. Their Blender Animation & Games by Packt is available right now—so be sure to keep an eye out for more bundles supporting The Trevor Project in the days and weeks ahead.

"Last year, your support of The Trevor Project through Humble purchases helped them increase their base of volunteers by 315—that’s 315 trained and qualified people fielding an estimated total of 31,500 crisis contacts over the course of their first year. We’re proud to team up with them again this year and continue supporting their mission to help LGBTQ+ youth through times of crisis." - Humble Bundle Team

Show Your Pride

You can now shop over 20 fun franchise Pride shirts, including IGN's own designs made by our amazing designers:

History of Pride Month

Every year, Pride is recognized across the United States during the month of June. This is largely due to the Stonewall Uprising that took place in New York City in 1969. The Stonewall Uprising helped fuel the momentum of the gay rights movement, and following the event, activists began to organize Pride marches and parades throughout June. That tradition continues today, though there are many cities that hold their events at different times of the year.

Read more: 7 Facts About the Stonewall Riots and the Fight for LGBTQ Rights

More LGBTQIA+ Resources:

What Does LGBTQIA+ Stand For?

LGBTQIA+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and the + symbol holds space for the diverse gender and sexual identities that continue to be explored and understood.

You may have seen a "2" included at times, which can be more or less common based on region. For example, as stated on Princeton's Gender and Sexuality Resource Center page; "within the Canadian Government, they use the acronym LGBTQ2, with “2” standing for Two-spirit; a term used by some indigenous communities to represent gender and sexual diversity, often regarded throughout the tribal history as different figures within the community".

We use LGBTQIA+ to be inclusive while recognizing and understanding it may not include all identities as an acronym and continues to be expanded upon.

For allies:

• Supporting LGBTQ+ people is vital for human rights, whether you’re LGBTQ+ or not. Here's how to be an ally for LGBTQ+ community and people and get FAQs answered if you're still learning.
• 7 Early Pioneers of the Gay Rights Movement

For parents:

• 9 Children's books to read for Pride Month
• Resources you'll need for raising an antiracist child

If you are someone who identifies as LGBTQIA+ and are thinking of harming yourself, get immediate support here from The Trevor Project, and know there is help available without judgment. You can also text ‘START’ to 678-678 or call 1-866-488-7386 to talk to someone now.

Lindsey (she/her) is the Senior Audience Development Manager for IGN since 2021. Find her on Twitter at @LindseySalzer.

The final trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom reignited the fervor of fans waiting for the sequel to Breath of the Wild. The roughly four-minute video provided glimpses of Link's upcoming adventures and obstacles in Hyrule, making others speculate about the game's story, lore, and secrets. But for Zoey McCullough and others within the deciphering community, the final trailer served as a realization that all of their hard work up to that point had been for naught.

Hiding in plain sight throughout the game’s trailers were tablets and architectural pieces adorned with unknown characters and symbols. To most people, these runes were merely aesthetic additions, but to a decipherer like McCullough, they were a quest unto themselves. McCullough had been hard at work deciphering exactly what, if anything, this mysterious fictional language was trying to say – but Tears of the Kingdom’s final trailer was forcing her and other decipherers like her to start over from scratch before the game had even been released. And her work has only grown more complex since.

Speaking with IGN, McCullough explained the immense difficulty and challenges behind deciphering the hidden language of Tears of the Kingdom, the overall camaraderie and thrill of finally cracking the code, and advice for newcomers to the decipherer community.

Decrypting the Code of the Kingdom

Deciphering video game text is not new. The Chozo language in Metroid titles, Hylian markers in Breath of the Wild, and even riddles in Pokémon all exist to further add elements to each story. And when a fake language is deciphered into a real one, the results of solving these puzzles vary between tangible rewards like obtaining legendary Pokémon, or intangible ones such as extra lore or flavor text. Regardless of intent, individuals like McCullough, who call themselves decipherers, devote countless hours trying to make sense of these unassuming clues across numerous games, including Tears of the Kingdom.

Despite Tears of the Kingdom being McCullough’s first attempt to decipher a game, her interest in the field goes back years, beginning with Ocarina of Time. She’s enjoyed solving cryptograms throughout most of her life, with Link’s adventures on the Nintendo 64 acting as the catalyst to her work now.

“In a time before so much information was online, I remember wondering if there was a way to solve the Kana-based Hylian language from that game,” McCullough said. “Years later, I now know that I was way off the mark because I had no concept of the Japanese language, which Ocarina of Time's Hylian language was based on.”

McCullough’s understanding of Japanese improved when she first started learning years ago. Despite not having a formal education and complete knowledge of the language, she learned more about grammar and sentence structure from working with other native speakers when attempting to decipher the runes in Tears of the Kingdom.

Understanding the real language each constructed language derives from is one of the primary hurdles when trying to decipher. McCullough explains that this initial puzzle involves creating, testing, and ultimately proving different theories as to what best matches the text. This step typically involves the Index of Coincidence, a mathematical equation that calculates the probability of two letters being equal. For example, each language has a frequency of used letters and positions, and when compared to constructed languages, certain letters will appear with the same or relative frequency of their actual counterparts. McCullough notes that, through this, she quickly determined that the text in Tears of the Kingdom was not related to English because the translations didn’t make sense. Instead, she discovered they shared similarities with Romaji, a translation of Latin script to write the Japanese language.

“It took a few days to gather comparable text sources that were in Romaji already so that I could perform scoring on those, so that I could treat them as ‘well known sources,’” McCullough said. “Specifically, I chose the Romaji text from the Sheikah tapestry in Breath of the Wild, along with Romaji converted from the Japanese quest text. I wanted sources that were from the same author or authors, based on the assumption that Nintendo likely has a writing style and that this new text would follow that writing style if I was correct. Once I had the scoring information from the source, I turned the rune text into ciphertext, and performed similar scoring using the Index of Coincidence method. Right away, I found that the rune text and Breath of the Wild source text scores were nearly identical.”

Breath of the Wild had its own deciphering community already, specifically for varying tapestries like McCullough used for her initial research. The Sheikah tapestry, along with members of the deciphering community, helped to ease McCullough’s transition to understanding runes within Tears of the Kingdom. Yet, every time McCullough made significant progress translating runes from a trailer, Nintendo would edit the constructed language in the next one, forcing her to start over.

“A lot of what changed between the trailers were substitutions of the runes from one place to another,” McCullough said. “A prime example of this is in one of the murals from the October 2022 trailer compared to now. In spite of the effort, no solution would work against it. I was convinced that there was a mistake in the mural, because it was such an odd usage of the rune based on the other statistical data we'd built up. An enormous amount of rune content in the collectors edition artbook changed too, and they were changes that invalidate any solution we'd come up with.”

While she expected the text to gradually change, she notes it’s still slightly disappointing to start from scratch every few months. Thankfully, with the game now fully released, there should be no further changes.

The Deciphering Community

McCullough is not alone in her efforts. From communities to varying YouTube channels, Tears of the Kingdom decipherers are sharing their findings with one another to ultimately crack these codes. When she started “within 24 hours of the October 2022 trailer,” McCullough deciphered on her own. She then disclosed her results to others before eventually becoming part of a team that continues to study and decrypt the constructed language.

“The first time, I worked alone, and brought my results to GameOverJesse to share since The Hylian Gamescast has an incredible track record with sharing information in an accurate way,” McCullough said. “From there, I met The Lorulean Historian and joined The Great Library of Mudora, where we continued to work at solving the runes after the initial trailer. Following the teaser and the final trailer this year, we had to start over again because Nintendo made more revisions to rune text, with us needing to start almost from scratch each time. That's when Lor and I picked up our third teammate, Zip, and we went all in trying to solve it.”

Beyond the capability to share notes and results, celebrating cracking codes and deciphering languages is an important aspect within this community. Not only is it thrilling for the decipherer, but it also means the theories and tests conducted by others worked. And when a decipherer is correct, others can use the new findings to develop methods or advance their own research. Everything builds upon what came before and as McCullough states, the feeling of success can be powerful and overwhelming.

“The most satisfying [part] for me would have to be on the third attempt at solving them after the February trailer,” McCullough said. “After a long set of weeks where we were all burnt out, I remember it being late on a Friday when I was trying different approaches to break the text, and then I broke it. Words started to appear, and it kept hitting me that we did it, even if it wasn't perfect. I remember stepping away from my desk because I started sobbing out of catharsis. I didn't care what it even said at that point. I just wanted to break it. Even though the final game release invalidated that work as things have changed with rune text, I'm still proud of that moment.”

Currently, McCullough and her team are continuing to decipher and catalog each entry. Prior to Nintendo changing the runes, they uncovered multiple uses of 'Sacred Realm' or 'Sacred Ground' (Seichi in Japanese). These findings directly translated to actual plot points of the game and overall story.

“We found several decoded words for Seichi, Sechi, and even Seti at different points, all of which are the same word in different versions of Romaji,” McCullough said. “We knew that we had a few key words from the giant stone monument in the collectors edition art book that were like that. We found fragments of sentences about a person ‘sealing a great evil’ and even mentioned ‘founding a great land.’ Looking back at different interpretations by native speakers, two of them turned out very close to the final plot of the game.”

Beyond attempting to solve the riddles of Zonai text, McCullough notes that there are potentially two other constructed languages not yet deciphered. She suspects one derives from Hylian, similar to text within Twilight Princess, while the other was discovered within quests given by a character known as Wortsworth. While some solutions have already been documented, McCullough notes that more work is required before people have definitive results.

“Very quickly, we produced solutions to the symbols that make sense in the final game,” she said. “Using the same approach on the repeating symbol banner on the Tears of the Kingdom site, produces せたいがうこ (世帯がうこ), which means family history. There isn't enough evidence to know if all the theorized solutions for the second symbol set are correct, but it seems likely that we are on the right path. Much of the [third] text reads like some sort of hybrid of Middle-English and Welsh, but during reviews and analysis by another friend, they've discovered that it merely has causal coincidences to both and instead appears to be a [constructed language] all its own. Comparing the text to the runes and to the Hylian alphabet from the Era of the Wild don't produce a one-to-one match for anything found in game, not yet at least.”

Even though they’ve had to start over, the prospect of having a translated constructed language is what drives each decipherer. And because it’s a community effort, there’s no serious competition between who can officially crack the code. A successful translation benefits everyone.

“Ultimately, getting the complete, right answer out in the open is the main goal,” McCullough said. “I hope we get to be the ones to solve it, but I'd be thrilled if anyone breaks it this time around. ”

Hopes of a Decipherer

Despite the deciphering efforts primarily focusing on a constructed language within a video game, the results can have a positive impact for scholars and hobbyists in other fields. Since each text utilizes similarities with real languages like Romaji, understanding the patterns and structures can expand resources for others. McCullough’s immediate hopes are to solve puzzles in Tears of the Kingdom, but to also share her findings across the Internet.

“[M]y hope is to get the text deciphered and catalogued properly, on zeldawiki,” McCullough said. “I'd love to write up a more in-depth document detailing the approach. Even though the process of deciphering text is well-known, there isn't a lot of information about how to approach deciphering logographic languages.”

Deciphering may seem incredibly daunting to those outside the community. Needing to understand mathematical equations, spending weeks, sometimes months testing theories only to have them invalidated, and the overall time commitment can be overwhelming to newcomers. But McCullough encourages others to try their best and join the field. She explains that part of the thrill with the work is exploring the unknown, especially with questions and the inevitable testing. And more importantly, she wants people to feel welcome, noting that you don’t need to have extensive knowledge in deciphering to join the fun. All that matters is you keep pushing to solve the riddles.

“Keep trying, question your own biases, and verify everything you find and anything anyone else finds,” McCullough said. “Seek to find the right answer instead of the answer you want. Every single skill that our team applied can be learned on the internet or from a book at a public library. Even when you feel like quitting, let the pursuit of wonder be your fuel. It's worth it.”

After several betas and an early access period, Diablo 4 is finally available for all to play. IGN's expert guide writers have been hard at work uncovering its many secrets and adding them to the Diablo 4 Walkthrough. While Diablo 4's open regions allow you to explore and delve into various dungeons, it's still worthwhile to tackle the main story as soon as you can, as it's the only way you can eventually unlock a mount to ride across Diablo 4's vast areas.

We still have you covered on Diablo 4's various optional Dungeons, Side Quests, Altar of Lilith locations, and much more, but the latest Diablo 4 Walkthrough update covers each of the first three Acts that can be undertaken in any order and the fourth Act that unlocks the ability to purchase and customize mounts.

While you're free to tackle Diablo 4's first few Acts in any order you like, we recommend taking the bulk of them on in the order listed below, due to the minimum recommended level that increases with each Act. Here's every Diablo 4 main quest that we recommend doing, in the order we recommend, so far.

All Diablo 4 Walkthrough and Guide Sections

Act 1: A Cold and Iron Faith

Upon completing the Prologue in Kyovashad, the game will open up so you can go out and explore more of Sanctuary's world, along with continuing the main campaign. Act 1: A Cold and Iron Faith contains 19 quests for you to complete in the main region of the Fractured Peaks, and are best done first.

• Ill Tidings
• Tarnished Luster
• The Knight and the Magpie
• Undertaking
• Below
• In Her Wake
• Storming the Gates
• The Cost of Knowledge
• Light’s Guidance
• Kor Valar
• Pilgrimage
• Light's Judgement
• Light's Protection
• Wayward
• Shroud of the Horadrim
• Fledgling Scholar
• Crossing Over
• Descent
• Light's Resolve

Act 2: The Knife Twists Again

This section of the game contains 17 main story quests to complete and takes place in the main region of Scosglen to the North, and recommends that you're at least level 10 or higher before embarking on the journey, so is best completed after Act 1 depending on your level.

• An Unforeseen Visit
• Dark Omens
• Encroaching Shadows
• Exhuming the Forgotten
• Harrowed Lament
• Apex of Misery
• Parting Embers
• Feral Nature
• The Beast Within
• The Path of Rage
• Fangs of Corruption
• Stemming the Flow
• Buried Secrets
• In Ruins
• Entombed Legacy
• Shadow Over Cerrigar
• As the World Burns

Act 3: The Making of Monsters

This Act contains 16 main story quests to complete in the main region of the Dry Steppes to the West, and it's recommended that you go into it around level 15 or higher, which is why we advise completing the other two acts first.

• The Spreading Darkness
• Suffering Disquiet
• Whittling Sanity
• A Moment to Collect
• Brought Low
• The City of Blood and Dust
• Small Blessings
• Whispers from the Past
• Through the Dark Glass
• Descent Into Flame
• Loose Threads
• Oasis of Memories
• Flesh from Bone
• Beneath the Mask
• Piercing the Veil
• Exhumed Relics

Act 4: A Gathering Storm

After completing the previous three Acts, you’ll be ready to move into Act 4. It only has 6 main story quests, but completing the second quest will finally allow you to visit the Stable and unlock the ability to ride and customize mounts to travel around Sanctuary at increased speeds. It’s recommended that you head into it at level 20 or higher as well.

• Prying the Eye
• A Master’s Touch
• Lost Arts
• A Meeting of the Minds
• Anguish Incarnate
• Eye of the Storm

More Diablo 4 Guides

EA is nearing an agreement to move the ongoing development and operation of MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic from BioWare to third-party studio Broadsword Online Games, IGN has learned.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Broadsword and EA have signed a letter of intent, with the deal expected to be finalized as soon as this month. The agreement would see The Old Republic handed over to current Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot developer Broadsword Online, which is run by former Mythic Entertainment co-founder and BioWare VP Rob Denton, who previously worked on The Old Republic in its early days.

Currently, roughly 70-80 people are part of the core development team of The Old Republic, more than half of whom are expected to move to Broadsword. Those remaining with EA would have an opportunity to look for roles elsewhere within the company, but may otherwise face layoffs.

The Old Republic will continue to see planned content updates, such as the upcoming patch 7.3 and the next PvP season, with more expected down the line. EA will remain as the game's publisher, while BioWare will focus its resources on single-player games such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The two series announced new games in 2018 and 2020, respectively, but details for both have been scarce ever since and Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in particular seems to be suffering from an exodus of senior leadership. Its QA workers voted to unionize last year

A new hope

The Old Republic was first launched in December of 2011, and IGN gave it a 9/10 in our review at the time. It was initially released as a subscription game but was converted within the first year to free-to-play after a steep subscription drop-off, and has remained that way ever since to steady success.

The Old Republic is still being updated regularly, with numerous expansions over the last decade, and while it never quite reached the heights of competitor World of Warcraft, it did achieve nearly $1 billion in lifetime revenue as of 2019. Last year, its creative director Charles Boyd left the company after 16 years.

The Old Republic remains a popular period within the Star Wars universe, with Lucasfilm acknowledging it as a potential setting for future movies and shows. A remake of the original Knights of the Old Republic is currently in development, but its status is unknown after being delayed indefinitely.

One way or another, the Old Republic is on the cusp of a new era. IGN has reached out to EA for comment.

Additional reporting by Kat Bailey.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Gloomhaven was big in every sense of the word, a physically imposing cooperative dungeon crawl campaign that raised nearly thirteen million dollars on Kickstarter and changed the face of gaming. When it hit the shelves it was a critical darling, pulling in high review scores and encouraging players to work all the way through its two-hundred-odd hours of play. It spawned a much more compact prequel, Jaws of the Lion, and yet still the fan base wanted more. Now, after another thirteen million dollar Kickstarter, they’ve got it with an Arctic-themed full sequel, Frosthaven and another few hundred hours of dungeon-delving board game delight.

What’s in the Box

If Gloomhaven was big enough to exert its own gravity on the hobby as a whole, Frosthaven is even bigger. It’s so big that the simple drag factor of the 10-inch-deep lid against the box sides makes opening it a non-trivial task, like levering open the rusty hinges of a treasure chest.

When you’ve won that struggle, the first bauble you’ll encounter is a four-page manual on how to sort and organise the mountain of cardboard and plastic packed inside. Beneath that is the actual rulebook, which is so thick it needs to be softbound. This is to say nothing of the scenario and section books, the latter of which contains story text paragraphs, both of which require spiral binding.

The sheer amount of stuff here boggles the mind. There are sheets upon sheets of chits and standees to punch and organise into supplied storage trays and bags. There are decks and decks of cards which sit in slots, separated by dividers, in trays at the bottom of the box. There’s a map board with stickers to mark your exploration, character sheets, tracking dials and lots of mysteriously sealed envelopes of secrets.

Most intriguing of all is the row of symbol-marked sub-boxes within the main box. These are character boxes and they come in pairs with a matching symbol: one contains the character’s miniature and the other their decks of cards, chits and character details. You get access to six of these, of varying complexity, at the start of the game and have to earn the right to open the remainder as you progress.

Rules and How it Plays

While that spiral-bound rulebook will look daunting for newcomers, veterans of either of the previous games will find most of the core systems intact. The most critical of these is its card-based approach to combat. Each player’s character has a unique class and comes with its own deck of cards detailing the special powers, spells and combat moves it has access to. These are divided into two halves, with a different effect on each and a number in the middle. On your turn, you must pick two to play getting the upper effect from one, the lower effect from the other, and using either number as your initiative value for the turn.

This makes planning your turn an absolute tactical minefield. The upper and lower effects are arranged in such a way that it’s very hard, in most cases, to attack twice, or to chain your most powerful abilities together. In the rare instances where this is possible your initiative will almost certainly suffer.

Movement and melee against monsters on the tight corridors of the grid-based maps are taut and dangerous. On almost every turn you’ll be torn between fighting enemies, helping friends or advancing your scenario goals. Trying to choose the right cards for the right circumstances is a pain so keen that it becomes a pleasure. All the more so when you lose cards for each cycle through the deck, a screw slowly tightening with every wasted action and another impossible decision point to face down.

To make the cooperative aspect more interesting, players are only allowed to talk about their plans in general terms, not using specific numbers. Players also have random secret goals for each scenario, a longer-term quest which they can keep public or private as they wish. Players are also not supposed to share treasure, only keeping what they’ve looted, crafted or bought themselves. All this conspires alongside the game’s gnarly tactical engine to stop any one player from dominating the game and bossing others around. Everyone has their own objectives and will have to balance those with the needs of the group.

Trying to prevent you from achieving either is the horde of monsters queuing down every corridor and behind each door to tear you apart. There are dozens of different types, each with its own simple AI deck to govern their behavior, including an initiative value for when they act. Most of them are ruthless and armed with a wide variety of special abilities like poison and paralysis to stack misery upon the misery of them ripping you to bits in combat. To stop combat from becoming predictable, Frosthaven uses combat modifier decks instead of dice so you get a mix of possibilities without any wild swings.

Most of this is essentially the same as it was in Gloomhaven, bar a few clarifications and improvements to speed things along, plus plenty of all-new characters. And it’s also much the same between scenarios. There are still events to draw on your way to a dungeon and events to draw afterwards, although they’re now divided by season. You will still also get the chance to spend your gold on useful items and spend your experience on improving the ability and modifier decks for your character. You’ll still find yourself on an absorbing, branching narrative of scenarios with somewhat more engaging writing. It’s all still great, helping you feel part of a living world while offering an array of strategic options to play with. What’s really new is the town of Frosthaven itself.

Frosthaven, the town that is, has its own board and even its own character sheet. It serves as your base between adventures and you can use buildings there to do various things advantageous to your party. Early on, for example, you’ll get the chance to craft items and potions from resources found on your quests. As time goes on you can use those same resources to add new buildings to the town and upgrade the ones you have, increasing your options and capabilities. You’ll also be responsible for its defenses, which are called into play as part of frequent attack events which risk your hard-earned constructions being damaged or destroyed.

It’s a fantastic addition. Not only does it give you more strategic options to play with and more motivation to dig through dungeons looking for loot but, because you created it, you become invested in it over time. In both Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, the characters you play will retire over time to be replaced by new ones. And while that adds variety and excitement to proceedings, it interferes with the bond between player and character that you want to foster in a role-playing-style board game. The town becomes a surrogate for that sense of attachment. It becomes your baby, something you want to work to improve and staunchly defend against harm.

Of course, the town, like everything else in this massive game, requires a host of components to maintain. Playing the game entirely analogue, as written, with its overflowing inventory of chits, cards and characters is a colossal amount of overhead. Fortunately, there are various digital assistants you can employ instead which makes things easier. But no app can take the donkey work out of searching the box for the tiles you need to construct the map, or the monster standees to put on it. Nor can it help you remember what on earth is going on if you walk away for a fortnight and forget. Playing Frosthaven is a commitment in every sense, but if you’re able to put in the regular hours it will reward you handsomely.

Where to Buy

• See it at Amazon

Diablo 4 was officially released today and if you're planning to give it a whirl, you should anticipate the game's servers to be a little rocky.

IGN's sister site, Downdetector.com, has been sharing user-reported outages for the game's servers, but these issues aren't entirely new. Players have reported problems with Diablo 4 since its early access release five days ago. PlayStation 5 players that preordered the $90 Digital Deluxe Edition or the $100 Ultimate Edition reported a day after the early access release that an "Invalid License" error was locking them out.

Players were also having wide login issues last night, although Blizzard said in a tweet this morning that those issues were resolved.

The sever problems haven't stopped Diablo 4 from becoming a runaway hit for Blizzard, as the company confirmed that Diablo 4 become its fastest-selling game of all time. They also noted that Diablo 4 players have clocked in 93 million hours, though Blizzard did not specifically disclose how many copies were sold.

In our review of Diablo 4, which we awarded a 9/10, we said Diablo 4 "is a stunning sequel with a near perfect endgame and progression design that makes it absolutely excruciating to put down."

Of course, if you manage to not encounter any server issues for Diablo 4 today and you are looking to track your progress as you play, check out our interactive Diablo 4 map.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

When you think of RoboCop, you think of a one-man tank. A heavily armed and armored dealer of justice who patrols the streets of Detroit while walking really slowly. Honestly, it’s a surprise he ever makes it to the scene of the crime on time, given the pace he ambles along. It’s even more of a surprise that RoboCop’s methodical movement from the movies has made it into Rogue City, which is a first-person shooter – a genre traditionally dominated by games where speed and agility are key.

Of course, RoboCop’s slow and precise movements are two crucial parts of his identity, so it was always the plan to make that an important part of the game. However, it meant rethinking the way the developer approached making a first-person shooter. “It was one of the biggest design challenges, to get that slow and heavy character into the game,” explains Piotr Latocha, RoboCop: Rogue City’s game director. “He's kind of slow and tankish, and we need to be true to the lore, but also we cannot be super slow and super heavy. So finding that spot – how to make this character interesting, so the combat was fluid – was the biggest challenge.”

As such, much of the movement and agility you see in other shooters simply isn’t in Rogue City, and you’ll need to rethink how you play an FPS when you play RoboCop for the first time. “He cannot do stealth or crouch,” says Latocha, talking about the limitations of having a main character who’s mostly made out of titanium. “But he can do other things that are cool with this character. So, for example, breaching walls, throwing heavy enemies, grabbing enemies and throwing them. There's a lot of stuff that a heavy character can do, but also we have a skill tree where we unlock some skills, some of them are active, and you can use some of them to expand on the gameplay as well.”

Skill points are earned by completing quests and scanning objects scattered around Detroit as you work through the story, and can be spent upgrading RoboCop’s many abilities. Rogue City bridges the gap between RoboCop 2 and 3, so RoboCop is already an established member of the Detroit Police Department and is kitted out with several abilities available from the outset. Some are lifted straight from the films, such as aiming down sights to scan and pinpoint the whereabouts of nearby hostiles, but there are others that have been introduced for the game.

There’s slow-motion, which obviously slows down time for a few seconds, giving you the edge when it comes to aiming at enemies. There’s dash too, which gives a temporary speed boost - although it still feels very much in keeping with the slow pace of the action. “It's not running but moving faster,” enthuses Latocha. “So if you move faster into the enemies, they fall down. You can use this to your advantage – they're not dead, they’re knocked down, but you can finish them off easily.”

There are other abilities too: “Shockwave works basically like a police flashbang, so you can stun the enemies, explains Latocha. “But it's the first version of the Shockwave skill. If you upgrade it until the very end, it's deadly. So if you stun the enemies [with the upgraded Shockwave skill], they'll fall down dead.”

While some of these abilities stray from RoboCop’s original blueprint in the movies, they don’t feel out of place for the souped-up cyborg. One element that’s completely authentic to the movies is RoboCop’s Auto 9 machine pistol, which he uses throughout the story. It’s a powerful weapon, even at the beginning, but there are plenty of upgrades to unlock as you progress. “That was actually one of the challenges, because we wanted to keep the player using the Auto 9 because it's his iconic weapon,” says Latocha. “It's something that RoboCop uses a lot so it needs to be fun, it needs to feel powerful. But we also used an upgrade system to [improve] the Auto-9, so as the game proceeds you can make it stronger and stronger.”

Examples of Auto 9 upgrades include reducing the recoil so it’s more accurate, switching from burst fire to full auto, and explosive bullets. But even in its original set-up, the Auto 9 has a large magazine and infinite ammo, so it makes light work of the enemies during the opening levels of the game. But there is an element of strategy, despite its power, as Latocha explains: “When you run out of ammo you need to reload. But do you want to reload, or just run into the nearest guy and punch them?” And when RoboCop’s punch can smash through skulls, it’s a pretty handy back-up if the ammo counter clicks zero.

There will also be times when an alternative weapon makes more sense, as Latocha continues: “We wanted to give [the player] some variety. So we have some side arms that you can use but you cannot carry them from level to level, or chapter to chapter. But you can just pick them up, play with them, and some [are better] in different situations.”

Despite this focus on aggression, developer Teyon always wanted RoboCop: Rogue City to be more than just another FPS. “This was actually really important to us, that it's not only a first-person shooter but it's much more than that,” affirms Latocha. “We wanted to build on the RPG elements, so dialogue choices, dialogue trees, and those skills actually help you to solve some things in different ways. Psychology sometimes lets you talk someone into doing something without using violence, or skills like Engineering can unlock a dialogue option that enables you to talk someone out of doing something.”

It seems there is still a man behind the mask then, and that RoboCop: Rogue City will require you to use your brain as much as your trigger finger. Well, almost.

Emma Matthews is IGN's Junior Syndication Editor.

Nintendo just revealed that Bowser, Mario's longtime arch-enemy and the King of the Koopas in the Mushroom Kingdom, is canonically 34 years old.

The ages of all the characters in the Super Mario Bros. franchise have remained a mystery since 1985. However, Nintendo of America revealed Bowser's age in the most hilarious way possible: through a YouTube video post last Friday (though still unlisted) showing Nintendo Switch owners how to create a Nintendo Account.

The first thing you do when creating your Nintendo Account is put in your birthdate to ensure you're 18 or older at the time of account creation. The company used Bowser as an example for the demonstration to make it seem as though he's making a Nintendo Account for himself, setting his birthdate to Feb. 5, 1989, which puts his age at precisely 34 years old. That's quite young for a turtle dragon that's been going after Mario and his friends along with Princess Peach for nearly 40 years.

Nintendo also revealed the canonical age of Bowser's only son, Bowser Jr. When creating a Nintendo Account for a child, Bowser Jr.'s birthdate is set to March 3, 2010, which makes him 13 years old. Seeing the heir to the Koopa throne as a teenager instead of the little kid he's always been is hilarious considering we haven't seen him hit puberty yet - growth spurt, deepening voice, acne and all.

If you're wondering how old some of the other characters are, Shigeru Miyamoto said in a 2005 interview that Mario is somewhere between 24 and 25, while Luigi is the same age. That means they're twins!

Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.

Blizzard revealed that Diablo 4 is the company’s fastest-selling game of all time. Although, this milestone has some caveats.

While Blizzard didn’t provide any specific sales numbers, Diablo 4 has been played for 93 million hours since its early access launch on June 1.

“This is a moment years in the making for the Diablo 4 team,” said Rod Fergusson, Diablo general manager, in a statement. “We’re extremely proud to offer players the richest story ever told in a Diablo game.”

He continued: “Since the game was first announced in 2019, the support from millions of players around the world drove us toward this release of our dark vision of Sanctuary. Hail Lilith, Blessed Mother.”

The fires of Hell burn bright 🔥#DiabloIV is the fastest selling Blizzard game of all-time. pic.twitter.com/L4pdjVnWFE

— Diablo (@Diablo) June 6, 2023

It’s once again worth noting that Diablo 4 has been out for four days before its official release date of June 6. So Blizzard is‌ presumably counting sales from early access members in addition to day-one purchases from everyone else.

The previous record holder for this feat within Blizzard was the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion with 3.7 million units sold on its first full day on PC. However, Diablo 4 was released on multiple platforms.

Diablo 4 also currently has two expansions in the works. In IGN’s Diablo 4 review, we said, “Diablo 4 takes the strategy of refining things the series already did so well rather than giving it a more substantial overhaul, and that careful and reverent path has shaped this massive sequel into one of the most polished ARPGs ever created, which makes slicing through the legions of the damned a hell of a good time.”

Looking for more info? Check out our interactive Diablo 4 map to start tracking your progress as you play.

George Yang is a freelance writer at IGN.

Respawn's Jedi: Survivor included a ton of new and returning characters completely crucial to Star Wars Canon but perhaps none more important than Turgle.

The giant froggy menace grabbed the attention of Star Wars fans for his strangely charismatic shenanigans, and now Jedi: Survivor director Stig Asmussen has teased his return in the future.

Speaking to IGN for Podcast Beyond, Asmussen commented on the fan reaction to Turgle and gave his followers hope that they'll get even more in the future.

"When you work on a game, you never know what people are going to latch onto and Turgle... the team love Turgle," he said.

"I think Richard Horvitz, the actor, did a fine job with him, but once it goes live, once it's out in the wild and seeing people's reaction with that, it confirmed and validated a lot of the feelings that we had on the team."

Finally, when asked if Turgle could return, perhaps in the third game that Asmussen hopes to make, Asmussen teased that he hopes so.

Turgle wasn't the only thing that captured fans' attention in the long-awaited sequel, however, as they also recreated Star Wars' most famous lightsabers, winced at the return of Jedi: Fallen Order's most infamous foe, and enjoyed watching Cal Kestis hang out with Luke Skywalker in a comical advert.

In our 9/10 review, IGN said: "If Respawn makes a third game like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Fallen Order, it'll complete the best Star Wars trilogy in 30 years, hands down."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Square Enix has confirmed Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has new characters, obviously, as well as more intimate battles compared to its predecessor.

The game’s fifth developer comment was revealed on Twitter with the question: “Has the battle system changed from Final Fantasy V7 Remake?”

Battle director Teruki Endo responded: “In Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, new comrades will join you in battle and you can cooperate with other party members in even closer ways than before.”

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Developer comment number 5#FF7R pic.twitter.com/qk5YShBnkN

— FINAL FANTASY VII (@finalfantasyvii) June 6, 2023

Many fans are speculating about which characters will join Cloud and his crew in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but the fan favorite is Vincent Valentine. Other potential new characters include Cid Highwind, Cait Sith and Red XIII. Endo’s response is rather vague, so it’s unclear what he means when players can cooperate with party members even closer this time around. Persona-like social meters to increase relationship levels? Intimate Fire Emblem Fates teammates face petting? Who knows?

In previous developer comments, Square Enix confirmed Rebirth will have a higher degree of freedom than Remake, and players can play Rebirth without worrying about playing Remake beforehand. Furthermore, Square Enix reassured fans Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will have stories and characters because apparently, we were getting worried it wouldn’t.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth launches Winter 2023 for PlayStation 5. Square Enix is yet to nail down a release date.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He's been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.

When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey

Capcom has moved to remind Street Fighter 6 players that DLC hasn’t come out yet amid a backlash to the game’s Ultimate Pass.

The Street Fighter 6 Year 1 Ultimate Pass, which costs $49.99 / £49.99, launched alongside the game itself and now has a “Mostly Negative” user review rating on Steam.

The backlash stems from confusion about the availability of the content of the Pass itself, as well as a feeling from some that it does not include enough of the in-game currency.

The Ultimate Pass includes four additional characters (Rashid, A.K.I., Ed, Akuma), extra colours and costumes for those characters, two new stages, and 7,700 Drive Tickets.

While the Steam page for the Pass states it includes post-launch content, some thought it would be unlocked upon purchase.

There's additional confusion about the Pass' extra colours and costumes, with some thinking they are for the launch roster of characters rather than the upcoming DLC characters.

"Don't get me wrong, I love the base game," reads one “Not Recommended” Steam review. "But now that I realise what this Ultimate Pass includes (or more so, what it doesn't include) I really regret paying out almost double what the base game cost in order to get the Ultimate version. There's a bunch of costumes and colours for the base characters, why were these not included in the Ultimate Pass? Really unimpressed with this cheap tactic to squeeze extra money out of people with easily misleading wording."

Capcom took to Twitter to clear things up: “Regarding the Year 1 Character Pass and Year 1 Ultimate Pass: the only content available at this time are the Drive Tickets.

“Additional content from the pass (characters, costumes, colors, stages) will be released sequentially at a later date.”

Regarding the Year 1 Character Pass and Year 1 Ultimate Pass: the only content available at this time are the Drive Tickets.

Additional content from the pass (characters, costumes, colors, stages) will be released sequentially at a later date.

— Street Fighter (@StreetFighter) June 4, 2023

Meanwhile, some players have complained about the number of Drive Tickets included in the Pass.

“7,700 Drive Tickets sounds like a lot on paper, but in reality, it is about enough to buy extra palettes for a single character (out of 18) and maybe some clown shoes for your avatar,” another “Not Recommended” Steam review reads.

“It almost feels like an insulting ‘bonus’ and soured my entire mood about the pass. This bundle definitely feels like a rip-off at launch. Avoid, wait for a sale. Just buy the base game.”

Generally, Street Fighter 6 is a hit with players and critics. Capcom announced it had one million players across the launch weekend, and online play appears to be smooth.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Send news tips to wesley_yinpoole@ign.com.

Respawn Entertainment's Star Wars Jedi franchise has never been shy about pulling from FromSoftware's Dark Souls games but director Stig Asmussen has revealed The Legend of Zelda to be another inspiration.

Speaking to IGN for Podcast Beyond, Asmussen revealed that sequel Jedi: Survivor's developers drew inspiration from Zelda games to create the myriad of puzzles for Cal Kestis and the player to overcome.

"We had a lot of puzzles in the game and I would be lying if I didn't say that we definitely drew inspiration from Zelda," he said.

Asmussen explained that his team of level designers essentially had a toy box of different Force abilities and other mechanics to play with and create these puzzles from, keeping Zelda in mind as they did so.

"It's all about creating these challenges for those who want to take part in [them]," he added. "We had kind of a clever wrapper, that these were old High Republic training centres. This is kind of their NASA pilot training abilities."

Environmental puzzles are a big part of Jedi Survivor, and Cal frequently comes across areas that resemble the shrines in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. It's just one of the many ways that Zelda has inspired action-adventure games in recent years.

Jedi: Survivor kept fans busy in plenty of other ways too, whether in obsessing over its new froggy character Turgle or wincing at the return of Jedi: Fallen Order's most infamous foe.

In our 9/10 review, IGN said: "If Respawn makes a third game like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Fallen Order, it'll complete the best Star Wars trilogy in 30 years, hands down."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

This article contains major spoilers for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, including a key plot point and its consequences.

Respawn Entertainment's Jedi: Survivor includes a story as complex as any other in Star Wars, and director Stig Asmussen has revealed what inspired its biggest twist.

Speaking to IGN for Podcast Beyond, Asmussen revealed that a classic Keanu Reeves film directly inspired one character and, final spoiler warning, the reference is surprisingly on the nose.

Jedi: Survivor's Bode was based on Bodhi from Point Break, big betrayal and all. "Bode is born out of our narrative director Aaron Contreras," Asmussen said. "He had this idea, of all movies, [from] Point Break."

He continued: "That was the genesis for it and we wanted to have this character that they have this friendship, this bond, but then just take the player on the ride and learn this guy's a traitor at the same time that Cal learns it.

"He's a great fight at the end. That really was most of the emotion in the game, he was born out of that. We're really happy with how it turned out."

Bode, the close friend of Cal who betrayed him and caused a crisis, both emotional and literal, is almost too similar to Bodhi, the close friend of Johnny who betrayed him and caused a crisis, both emotional and literal. We can't believe we didn't see it sooner.

"When we were play-testing the game, some people saw Bode coming from a mile away, and they still liked it because it made them feel smart," Asmussen added. "The people that were just floored by it, they loved it as well, but it's an interesting story."

Jedi: Survivor became the best selling game of April despite only being available for two days of that month and received high critical praise too.

In our 9/10 review, IGN said: "If Respawn makes a third game like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Fallen Order, it'll complete the best Star Wars trilogy in 30 years, hands down."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

After a leak a few months ago, Western Digital and Microsoft have teamed up to create storage expansion cards for Xbox Series X/S.

The Western Digital WD_Black C50 storage expansion cards will be available in two storage configurations: 500GB, which costs $79.99, and 1TB, which will retail for $149.99 (the same price as Seagate's 1TB storage expansion card). Both configurations are currently available to order on Western Digital's website, Best Buy also has a listing, but only for the 1TB model.

This marks the first time Xbox has announced a new expandable storage card option not made by Seagate since the Xbox Series X|S launched nearly three years ago. Unlike Sony's PS5, which uses M.2 SSDs, Microsoft uses proprietary storage for its fourth generation of home gaming consoles.

While Xbox Series X|S's storage option is easier to use as you plug it into the rear of either console, as opposed to opening up your PS5, the big drawback was that Xbox owners could only buy an expansion card from Seagate, which came at a price even for the 512GB option.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Pikmin 4 is set to release exclusively for Nintendo Switch on July 21, 2023. The latest entry in this series about tiny plant-like aliens exploring a strange planet introduces several new elements, including Ice Pikmin and a roly-poly dog named Oatchi. Pikmin 4 is now available for preorder (see it at Amazon).

Preorder Pikmin 4

• Get it at Amazon - $59.99
• Get it at Best Buy - $59.99
• Get it at GameStop - $59.99
• Get it at the eShop (digital) - $59.99

No special, deluxe, or collectors editions have been announced for Pikmin 4, so the standard edition is your only option.

Pikmin 4 Trailer

What is Pikmin 4?

Pikmin is a series of real-time strategy games that date back to 2001, when the original title appeared on the Nintendo GameCube. This fourth entry has been a long time coming, with Shigeru Miyamoto saying back in 2015 that it was “very close to completion.” Seven years later, it’s finally set to release in July.

This installment introduces a new Ice Pikmin that can free enemies and the environment to help your alien flora navigate the strange planet they find themselves on. The plants aren’t alone this time around, either, as they get help from a rotund dog called Oatchi, who can smash through barriers and carry Pikmin on its back while swimming across ponds and puddles.

Overall, it looks like good fun for fans of the series or anyone interested in picking up a colorful, cartoonish strategy game.

Other Preorder Guides

Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed or on Mastodon @chrislreed.