Category: Gaming

Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition has appeared again, this time on Microsoft’s Xbox store.

The unannounced game appeared on the Xbox store overnight with a raft of screenshots before Microsoft pulled the listing offline.

The internet noticed and splurged the details online, of course, including Wario64 on X/Twitter (below). According to the listing, the Anniversary Edition has 4K resolution and 60 frames per second performance, with “improved graphics, controls, and audio, along with brand-new autosave and cross-save features”. Apparently there’s a new speedrun mode, too, and updated achievements.

Here’s the official blurb:

Swoop into the marvelous world of Hillys as action-reporter Jade to investigate the mysterious DomZ alien attacks alongside colorful characters, like her adoptive uncle Pey’j or the valiant Double H.

Embark on this epic adventure in up to 4K, 60 fps with improved graphics, controls, and audio, along with brand-new autosave and cross-save features.

Enjoy exclusive new rewards as you explore the planet and discover more about Jade’s past in a new treasure hunt throughout Hillys.

Put your skills to the test thanks to the new speedrun mode and updated achievements, and learn more about the game’s development and secrets in the anniversary gallery!

Armed with her daï-jo and faithful camera, Jade’s adventure will get you to freely explore Hillys, combat creatures large and small, infiltrate dangerous areas, solve enigmatic puzzles, play addictive mini-games, race the best hovercraft pilots, and take pictures of the whole experience.

Be ready to dive into a trailblazing blend of action gameplay and thrilling emotional cutscenes!

This game leverages Smart Delivery allowing access to both the Xbox One title and the Xbox Series X and S title.

Ubisoft’s Beyond Good & Evil first launched on November 11, 2003, so we’ve skipped past the actual 20th anniversary. Still, it’s likely an announcement and launch is imminent. IGN has asked Ubisoft for comment.

In August, the Electronic Software Ratings Board (ESRB) rated Beyond Good & Evil: 20th Anniversary Edition for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC, so a release is expected across all platforms.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 was officially announced in 2017 and has been in the works in varying states of capacity ever since. It’s unclear when or if this game will see the light of day as updates from Ubisoft have been non-existent, and it’s reportedly still in pre-production even after more than six years of development.

In IGN’s 9/10 Beyond Good & Evil review, we said: “While it’s over a bit before you’d want it to be, Beyond Good & Evil tells its story with amazing pizzazz and polish. Even better, it’s a story well worth telling.”

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.

Capcom just brought its latest Dragon’s Dogma 2 Showcase to a close, but it still made sure to show off towering new enemies like Talos, a new vocation in the form of the Trickster, and more immersive RPG gameplay.

It was a short presentation that had its show stolen almost immediately when Capcom began to introduce fearsome foes like Talos, a giant statue capable of destroying its surrounding environment. It appears players can take Talos out by climbing around its body and striking weak points Shadow of the Colossus-style.

Talos is proof that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is bringing a gigantic scale to the series, but that’s not the only thing that’s new. While the world may appear similar to the original adventure, Producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi says the sequel’s story takes place in “a parallel world.” As the Arisen, players will find themselves caught between the struggle of two kingdoms: Vermund and Battahl.

Meanwhile, Dragon’s Dogma 2 Director Hideaki Itsuno introduced us to one of the many quests we’ll encounter. This specific excursion follows the player character as they work with and befriend Elven siblings.

This section of the showcase was used to show off the Elven settlement known as the Sacred Arbor. Here, the Arisen might encounter NPCs that speak their own language that requires translation to understand. If the player has a Pawn nearby who understands Elvish, they will be able to automatically translate it.

“These Specializations that Pawns can acquire will make each of them more unique,” Itsuno said, “and hopefully more enjoyable to journey with.”

Dragon’s Dogma 2 release date revealed

Other new features highlighted in the Dragon’s Dogma 2 Showcase include first looks at a more robust character creator and the new Trickster Vocation. The latter allows players to fight with foggy illusions while providing buffs for Pawns. Itsuno says that this style of combat was made for those who prefer to do their fighting from the sidelines.

Finally, Capcom confirmed that Dragon’s Dogma 2 launches for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S on March 22, 2024. Of course, we already knew that thanks to a leak from earlier today.

Preorders open today, and there are a few options and goodies for buyers to choose from. In addition to the Standard Edition, players will have the option to pick up a Deluxe version of Dragon’s Dogma 2 that bundles the base game with 1500 Rift Crystals, the Dragon’s Dogma Music & Sound Collection, an Explorer’s Camping Kit, and six other useful items.

Those who preorder the standard edition will be granted access to the Superior Weapons set, which includes some shiny tools for the four starting Vocations. Preorders for the Deluxe Edition, meanwhile, come with the Standard bonuses as well as the Ring of Assurance.

For more on Dragon’s Dogma 2, be sure to check out our hands-on preview, where we came away saying, “If there’s one comfort that I can have as a fan of Dragon’s Dogma, it’s that Dragon’s Dogma 2 will offer up more of what I loved about that first game, and that many of those minor elements have been improved upon.”

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.

Zombies can be fun to mow down, but they also run the risk of being one of the least interesting monster enemy types around: a slow, lumbering, decaying husk that’s better off buried than occupying our attention. If nothing else, The Walking Dead: Destinies, based off the otherwise fantastic early seasons of the TV show, succeeds in embodying all their worst qualities. In its ugly, shuffling attempts to stand tall even while looking like rotting husk of a game from the Xbox 360 days, Destinies deserves neither your attention nor access to your wallet – and we would be better off if this boring mess had stayed buried in the past, from which it seems to have exhumed its broken mechanics. While it earns a small amount of credit for at least attempting to play with plots that diverge from the TV show, little else is done to elevate it above the muck of banal design, awful character models, and the laughable sense that this is barely a rough draft of a game.

Longtime fans of the TV show are clearly the target audience here, since the characters poorly mimic the visual likenesses of their real performers. But aside from trying to strike a chord through recognisability, Destinies presumes you know the entire melody as you’re unceremoniously thrown into the shoes of Rick Grimes after he wakes up in the hospital alone.

It is here – right at the beginning of what became eight to nine painful hours – that everything falls apart.

The hospital is, naturally, filled with zombies and Rick must find his way out with some basic mechanics like pushing, sneaking, and healing that we’ve seen in essentially every third-person post-apocalyptic horror game ever, but worse. Zombies are, of course, mindless by design, but these are some of the most incompetent enemies you will encounter in any video game. Aside from there only being about three zombie models, they also get stuck in walls, glitch through the ceiling, collide with each other, and pose about as much threat as a wet sock on a carpet: annoying and unsightly, but otherwise forgettable.

Destinies is ugly as sin, with hideous character models, terrible lighting, and homely environments that themselves are re-used multiple times. I have been playing plenty of games out of my backlog from the Xbox 360 days on my Series X lately, and I can tell you this current-gen game looks worse than the nearly 20-year-old GTA IV.

The texture resolution reminds me of bad webcams we all endured during early COVID-19 Zoom calls. At the very least, the frame rate seemed consistent at 60fps on PS5, when it wasn’t crashing or failing to display its so-called cutscenes. I also hit several game-breaking bugs, one of which required a full restart. Also, during a boss fight, my character refused to interact with the enemy to initiate a cutscene. Not to mention sound and music would vanish for no reason, until I restarted.

Speaking of, the cutscenes themselves are consistent with those cheap-looking placeholder types we’ve seen in games like Redfall and Rise of Kong (which Destinies publisher GameMill was also behind). Characters are displayed in static poses while their voice actors deliver lines, giving you the opportunity to see their terrible designs in full glory. They are clearly meant to vaguely resemble their TV counterparts, but they look like what you’d get if you asked me to draw them from memory.

Strangely enough, the voice performances are actually not atrocious, but the actors didn’t have much to work with. For example, they all have one-liners when taking down enemies or fighting them off – “My blood’s boiling!” “Get off me!” and so on – all of which repeat endlessly. In the context of a dangerous world of constant terror, hearing weird action movie one-liners from both an ex-cop and a 70-year-old farmer was jarring.

Destinies doesn’t even retell the show’s story well. For example, early on when Rick’s son Carl is shot, it is never explained who shot him, and no one seems to know or care. At all. In fact, Otis, the culprit in the show, never even appears in Destinies. Instead, the survivors simply grab the boy and run off to the Greene farm story arc that infamously slowed the series’ pace down.

The only thing Destinies has going for it is being able to play with the titular dynamic: the fates of its characters. There are many occasions where you must make a binary decision that leads to the death or abandonment of a survivor. If you know the show, it is of course enjoyable to make the decision that runs against the established plot. Most notably, you can basically recast the main character, choosing who wins the fight between Rick and Shane after they spend some time on the farm, letting Shane can take over as husband and father to Rick’s family. That’s a pretty dramatic, fundamental change!

It’s clear the developers had some love for the show, given the work put in to portraying Shane as we’ve never seen him. His hair and beard grow out, he forms relationships with characters he never met, and so on. Another good example of an impactful decision involves changing who becomes the final boss’s right-hand man, flowing from a decision you make in the first few hours. But, unfortunately, this is only interesting conceptually, since it still fails miserably in execution, and naturally most decisions do little to affect the actual plot.

The survivors move through different camp areas in their grand road trip, such as the previously mentioned farm and later a prison. These become hub areas where you do three things: start the next main and side missions, resolve a meaningless conflict between two characters, and “talk” to other survivors. And by talk, I mean each person will say one arbitrary, generic line whenever you go back to the hub area, offering no reflection on the events happening around them. For example, Rick’s wife Lori will tell the man who blew her husband’s brains out about how she enjoys making pancakes for the family on Sundays.

Each main mission usually sees you playing as a different survivor. Often this makes little sense, since you’re generally by yourself or playing as the worst person for the task at hand. For example, a few hours into Destinies, Lori gives birth in the prison – but a few minutes later you’re playing as her to recover items from a nearby department store. There were many other survivors who did not just endure a birth in a zombie apocalypse who could have gone, but sure, let’s send the new mother. No explanation is given. Another time, a 70-year-old farmer is sent – alone – to recover an assault rifle and ammo in the basement of the prison. You’re never told why someone who actually handles weapons – like a younger, more agile police officer, for instance – could not have gone instead, or at least accompanied the old farmer.

Destinies attempts to shake up the scenarios in its main quests, but they all come down to either getting to a specific part of the map or collecting items. Very rarely will two characters be together, assisting one another – which was a central focus of the entire show and its spinoffs. There was an opportunity to have one character make decisions that a second character would have to endure the consequences of, but Destinies does nothing with this.

In fact, it’s just not very good at consequences in general. The central and titular dynamic of Destinies is watching your choices define the lives of these survivors, but it doesn’t function well enough to maintain the illusion. More than once, I saw characters I had killed – deliberately or inadvertently – appear during cutscenes. Rick’s son, who died from a gunshot in my playthrough, was running from the farm in a static cutscene; Rick himself, who I had Shane kill, appeared for a solid few seconds battling the horde in the final fight. This may be a universe where the dead return from the grave, but I don’t think Destinies is doing it right.

Each survivor has various unique skills that can be upgraded by acquiring skill points, either through completing tasks or… finding radios, for some reason? For example, the pizza delivery guy can upgrade his sneaking movement speed to avoid conflict with zombies, or Rick’s revolver can do more damage. The skill tree is a massive eyesore, and ultimately meaningless – in the first two hours, I had already maxed it out for everyone.

Best Zombie Games of All Time

Even fully upgraded, combat in Destinies is some of the worst you will experience, and feels as though it might’ve been lifted from shovelware of previous console generations. There is no kickback or feel to guns or melee weapons. Shooting is floaty and unresponsive, with terrible auto-lock that has you targeting enemies nowhere near you. Every character has the exact same set of moves, whether they are a fit hunter or a new mom. Characters can use a kind of super move when they’ve built enough “adrenaline”, which restores health and kills enemies instantly, but that also feels pointless when you’re fighting zombies that are so slow and die in two hits.

You do eventually begin to encounter tougher human enemies, but their armor and agility just means they are more irritating and take longer to kill. Oddly, they are also introduced out of nowhere and not spoken of at all. They first appear during Shane’s only flashback sequence to when he was trying to rescue Rick from the hospital – who are they? What do they want? Why are they attacking Shane? Sorry, you’ll never know if you haven’t watched the TV series. Shane himself never reacts to it.

There’s no shortage of great deals during this year’s Cyber Monday sales, and for a limited time you can pick up dozens of great Nintendo Switch games at a steep discount. Keep in mind, though, the part about being “limited,” as we’re already seeing some items, like at Walmart’s Cyber Monday sale, already starting to sell out, so act fast if there’s a game you’ve been waiting on!

Walmart Cyber Monday Nintendo Switch Game Deals

Walmart has added a handful of new games to its Cyber Monday sale, including deals on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Pokemon Scarlet, Fire Emblem Engage, and more.

Nintendo Switch Cyber Monday Game Deals at Best Buy

Some Cyber Monday Best Buy deals are still in full effect, and include some steep discounts on Nintendo Switch games, accessories, and more.

Nintendo Switch Cyber Monday Game Deals at Amazon

Amazon’s Cyber Monday sale has some standout sales on Nintendo Switch games this year including the lowest price we’ve seen on Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, and a nice discount on the recently released Sonic Superstars.

Nintendo Switch Cyber Monday Game Deals at GameStop

There are still some great deals for the GameStop Cyber Monday sale this year, including up to 50% off dozens of games, including some standout Nintendo Switch titles such as Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, Bravely Default II, and more. Plus, if you order online and pickup in store, you’ll get an additional $5 off your order. This additional savings can be used multiple times, so if you’re planning to pick up multiple games, it’s a great idea to order each one separately to receive the discount.

Nintendo Switch Cyber Monday Digital Game Deals on the Nintendo eShop

If you prefer the convenience of digital games, there are dozens of great Cyber Monday eShop deals happening right now including sales on Nintendo first party games, Capcom games, Warner Bros. games, and more. You can take advantage of these sales through 12/3 at 11:59 PM PT.

Where to Buy Nintendo Switch Games on Cyber Monday

Just about every retailer has Cyber Monday deals on Nintendo Switch games this year, including sales on popular games like Super Mario Odyssey, Fire Emblem Engage, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Octopath Traveler II, and many more, available both in store and online. Of course, you’ll find deals at all of the big box retailers like Best Buy, GameStop, Walmart, and Target, but there are also great deals to be had over at Amazon and on the Nintendo Store.

The Nintendo eShop is a great option if you prefer the convenience of digital games, as you don’t have to worry about swapping cartridges or potentially losing them. Not only can you find dozens of great games on sale this year during the Nintendo Cyber Monday eShop sale, but you can even double dip on these deals by purchasing Nintendo eShop gift cards from other retailers, which also happen to be on sale this year for Cyber Monday. It’s like a deal within a deal — dealception.

Be sure to check out our full roundup of Nintendo Switch Cyber Monday deals for savings on consoles, accessories, Nintendo Switch Online memberships, and more.

Matthew Adler is a Commerce, Features, Guides, News, Previews, and Reviews writer for IGN. You can follow him on the site formerly known as Twitter @MatthewAdler and watch him stream on Twitch.

While we love PS5 games, they can be a little on the expensive side at times. As games continue to push the boundaries of what is possible on a console, prices are starting to align with these advancements, leading to the introduction of $70 launch games. Thankfully, these prices don’t last forever if you have a bit of patience. So now PS5 Cyber Monday deals are here to help with a few top discounts – but this is also your last chance to save with most deals ending after today.

We’ve had our eye on the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals for a while, but now as this is your last chance to secure a discount, it’s time to stick down our metaphorical flag and declare: these deals are good. We’ve found Cyber Monday deals from a variety of retailers for the very best games like Final Fantasy 16, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Diablo 4, and more. But, watch out, as the countdown to the end of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales is now on, and these deals will be gone by the end of the day on November 27.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Cyber Monday Deals

Yes, we gave Modern Warfare 3’s campaign a 4/10 (and its multiplayer a 6/10). No, that doesn’t mean this specific IGN writer (hi!) is going to tell you not to buy this game — you can make your own minds up. But, if you are interested, the latest Call of Duty entry is $27 off in the Cyber Monday sale, which is easily the highest discount it’s seen so far.

Final Fantasy 16 Cyber Monday Deals

You can pick up 2023’s entry into the Final Fantasy saga for just $34.99, that’s a fantastic 50% off right now. If you’ve yet to play this game, then you should move fast to snap it up. We gave it a 9/10 back in June when it first came out – stating: “Featuring fast, reflex-driven, action-heavy combat, Final Fantasy 16 is certainly a departure from what fans may expect out of a Final Fantasy game, but its excellent story, characters, and world-building are right up there with the best the series has to offer, and the innovative Active Time Lore feature should set a new standard for how lengthy, story-heavy games keep players invested in its world.”

Sonic Superstars Cyber Monday Deals

The latest game in the long line Sonic titles is Sonic Superstars, and while this latest entry isn’t getting the same attention as last years break from the formula Sonic Frontiers, it’s still one of the top selling games on Amazon right now during the Cyber Monday sales. We gave Sonic Superstars a 7/10 in our review – stating: “Sonic Superstars has a mix of both interesting and ill-advised new ideas, making it an enjoyable Sonic game but not exactly a Super one.”

Diablo 4 Cyber Monday Deals

One of the best games of the year, Diablo 4, is down to just $54 this Black Friday. It’s not a huge discount, but it’s still a significant one. If you haven’t had the chance to pay the incredible ARPG just yet, well this is the perfect opportunity. We gave the game a 9/10 in our review – stating: “Diablo 4 is a stunning sequel with near-perfect endgame and progression design that makes it absolutely excruciating to put down.”

Metal Gear Solid – Master Collection Vol. 1 Cyber Monday Deals

Cyber Monday Deal

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol.1 (PS5)

See on Amazon

Here’s one where you get to go: ‘It should’ve been that price in the first place!’ — Well, we’ll let you have your fun. The Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Cyber Monday deal isn’t something to write home about, but it’s the best way to play the classic games on modern consoles right now, and it does come with a lot of content. So, at $39.99, you’re getting a reasonable deal here. It’s not getting any cheaper, either, so this is the best offer you’re going to get.

Star Wars Jedi Survivor Cyber Monday Deals

Walmart is currently the king of Black Friday discounts, as it also has Star Wars Jedi Survivor for just $34. If you haven’t had the chance to pick up Cal’s latest adventure, this is a great opportunity to do so. We gave the game a 9/10 in our review.

Mortal Kombat 1 Cyber Monday Deals

If you prefer your fighting games to feature significantly more blood and gore, then Mortal Kombat 1 is the one for you. It features fast-paced fighting, plus significantly more murder than you’ll find in the likes of Street Fighter 6. It didn’t come out long ago, but it’s already on sale for just $58. See our 8/10 review for all the reasons why it’s worth your time.

Street Fighter 6 Cyber Monday Deals

What can we say, Capcom has been releasing some absolute gems lately, and the Black Friday deals are good as well. Just like its Capcom brother RE4, Street Fighter 6 is down to $44 at Walmart. We gave the game an amazing 9/10 in our review – stating: “Street Fighter 6 is the most feature-rich a Street Fighter has ever been at launch, but even beyond that, it’s roster of 18 characters is excellent, the new mechanics revitalize the one-on-one fighting formula, and it absolutely nails all of the little things that make for a stellar fighting game.”

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Xbox Cyber Monday deals are dwindling, and time and some of the best deals are running out. Our favorites at the moment include the Xbox Series S – Starter Bundle (including three months of Xbox Game Pass) for just $249 at Walmart. Additionally, the Xbox Series X is still on sale at Amazon for $449. But, that’s not all, so make sure you take some time to dig into the rest of the deals we’ve found for you just below. Rival console PlayStation’s Cyber Monday deals are pretty fantastic as well, so there’s never been a better time to be a gamer looking for a deal.

TL:DR – Best Xbox Cyber Monday Deals

Shortcuts

Cyber Monday: Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S Deals

The Xbox Series X is still $50 off its regular price, and this is likely your last chance to score a deal this year.

Cyber Monday Deal

Xbox Series S Starter Bundle

Includes 3 Months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

See on Walmart

There’s never been a better time to jump into current-gen gaming, and if you’re in the market for a new Xbox Series console, you can save a bundle on new console… bundles… at Walmart and other retailers! One of the very top offers is the Xbox Series S Black Friday deal which includes the console and even packs in three months of Game Pass Ultimate at no extra cost — which is an additional $50 in savings as well. This is our favorite deal in the sale for Xbox.

For those after an Xbox Series X Black Friday deal, you also won’t be disapointed. Walmart is coming up with the goods and has the Xbox Series X Diablo 4 bundle for just $439 right now. There’s also the Diablo 4 + Modern Warfare 3 bundle for $489 — another example of some serious savings to be had this Black Friday.

Cyber Monday: Xbox Game Deals

While the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have technically ended, there are still more incredible deals on games to pick up for Xbox consoles. Some of our favorites includes Assassin’s Creed Mirage for $39.96, Star Wars Jedi Survivor for $35, and Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 for $39.99. Plus, there’s so many other great discounts to considering so don’t miss out and check out out all the best Xbox Cyber Monday deals we’ve found for you just here.

See More Xbox Video Game Deals Here

Best Xbox Game Pass Deals for Cyber Monday

We all heard about the Xbox Game Pass price hike that Microsoft implemented recently. A month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate now costs $16.99, a hefty fee. But, if you weren’t aware, you can actually still circumvent this change by buying Game Pass codes from retailers like Amazon who haven’t yet increased their prices to reflect the change. Paying $44.99 isn’t a huge discount versus the $50.97 Microsoft charges, but it’s not nothing. Also, it’s very possible the price drops lower at some point during Black Friday.

Cyber Monday: Xbox Accessory Deals

Black Friday Deal

WD_BLACK C50 1TB Expansion Card SSD for Xbox Series X|S

See on Amazon

Games are huge these days, so if you’re running low on storage on your Xbox Series X or S, you’re far from alone. Xbox expansion cards are essentially NVME SSDs encased in a specialized Xbox-compatible shell. Unlike the more complex PS5 SSD installation process, which involves opening up the PS5 to access the SSD slot, the Seagate expansion card simply plugs into its dedicated port on the back of the Xbox. With this deal, you can add 1TB of storage that acts just like regular internal storage, for cheaper than normal.

Xbox Black Friday and Cyber Monday Timeline: Now Live

Starting November 17 – Mostly Ended

• Save up to 50% on digital games
• Save up to 65 % on select games from Xbox Game Studios
• Save up to 67% on select PC digital games

Starting November 18 – Mostly Ended

• Save on select Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles
• Save on select Xbox Wireless Controllers

Starting November 23: – Still Available

• Get free engraving on the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 created with Xbox Design Lab

Ending November 27:

• All deals are live until 11:59 PM PT

Where to Find Xbox Deals on Black Friday

When it comes to hunting for Xbox deals on Black Friday, you have a multitude of options. Retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and similar stores are sure to offer enticing discounts on Xbox games and accessories. If you prefer digital titles, the Xbox Store will have its share of deals too. Look out for upcoming sales from Best Buy, Walmart, and Amazon to score the best deals. Here’s a guide on where to buy Xbox Series X and S consoles.

Xbox Black Friday Shopping Tips

Before you dive into the Black Friday shopping frenzy, keep these Black Friday shopping tips in mind:

1. Plan Your Spending: Set a budget and stick to it. Only buy games or accessories you genuinely intend to use.
2. Create a Wishlist: Make a list of the items you want to buy and stick to it to avoid impulsive purchases.
3. Compare Prices: Double-check deals at different retailers to ensure you’re getting the best price.
4. Act Swiftly: Exceptional deals may sell out quickly, so don’t hesitate to grab them.
5. Don’t Worry If You Miss Out: If you miss a deal, it might come back on Cyber Monday or during the next Prime Day.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Mehuman Games and Toplitz Productions have announced Vampire Dynasty, the latest and boldest entry in the Dynasty series. It features open-world exploration, four-player co-op play, castle building, vampiric powers, and “a wide variety of possible main story endings.” Check out the announcement trailer above and the first screenshots below.

“We are excited to escort the Dynasty series on a dark and sinister path,” said Michał Ciastoń, CEO of Mehuman Games and Lead Designer on Vampire Dynasty. “We embrace the challenge to deliver a gaming experience that both veteran Dynasty players as well as fans of dark fantasy and horror games can equally enjoy. We have always been fans of both the occult and sinister as well as of sandbox games. We cannot wait to show you more of what we achieved by merging both of these worlds.”

Mehuman will use Unreal Engine 5 to bring the fictional Sangavia to life. You’ll play solo or in up to four-player co-op. The developer says, “As a surviving victim of a vampire attack, you will not only have to learn to utilize your newfound abilities but also find a place in a society where vampires are at the top of the food chain.”

Vampire Dynasty is expected to launch into Early Access in late 2024. Wishlist it if you’re interested.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

A wave of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim players are getting a little sentimental and booting up their old Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s to “retire” their original characters.

Skyrim is now more than a decade old — 12 years, two weeks, and six days, to be exact — but remains in player consciousness as much as it did at launch. Bethesda’s beloved role-playing game lets players explore a vast open world, fight great evils, and become a living legend, not to mention build a house, get married, and have kids.

Several players are currently taking that role-playing one step further, however, by revisiting their now veteran adventurers and retiring them. Though this isn’t a particularly new concept for RPG fans, the current trend was triggered by Scutarior on Reddit.

“This is gonna sound cheesy, sentimental, and a bit much, but hear me out,” they wrote. “I recently found my old Xbox 360 where I first played Skyrim. My total first play through, no strategy, no game plan, no knowledge of lore, I just went for it.

“It occurred to me, this account that I spent hundreds of hours on was just sitting there waiting for me to pick it back up at any moment. This little Skyrim dude saw me through high school, and part of college, and I just left him sitting this whole time. So I decided to get back on the 360 to retire my old guy.

“I took him to his custom built house, put him in some emperor clothes, put all the weapons away, and sat him at the table. Saved the game and shut it off. Gave the virtual dude some closure and said goodbye to my first playthrough. It weirdly felt kinda nice. Before you laugh at the idea, give it a try.”

The post became very popular on Skyrim’s subreddit, with other players chiming in with similar stories and several pledging to do the same themselves. “Good idea. Gonna boot up my PS3,” said luigiknightx. “I’m gonna get super emotional, not gonna lie. That first save still feels like a second home to me. Even though i haven’t played on it in a long time, just the memories of my first playthrough make me feel emotional.”

Hbell-LarkbirdTO put their own spin on it. “This brought a tear to my eye,” they said. “I might do that, or I might put her to bed with her husband like that couple in Titanic who cuddles in bed while the ship sinks.” Plenty of other users agreed too. “This is beautiful and I will absolutely be doing this,” CantBake4S**t said. “Even my husband who isn’t a gamer said it’s brilliant.”

Many Skyrim players revealed they had done the same too, retiring their characters in their family homes or other significant places. “My first character is living happily as an alchemist on her farm, surrounded by friends, her children and her beloved husband who opened a shop,” said TiioK. “After saving the world a few times, they decided to stop with the fighting and said goodbye to the Companions.”

Though it’s a little less wholesome, AntiJackCoalition did something similar with their villainous character. “The account I did the most s**t on — like Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, Companions, civil war, Dragonborn DLC — vanilla playthrough ending I retired sitting in some big Bruce Wayne-ass mansion in the mountains with a lot of gold,” they said. “It does feel really nice to leave them to themselves after everything is over.”

With The Elder Scrolls 6 still five years away at least, fans have had to find their own ways, like this, to keep the ageing Skyrim entertaining. Another player recently accrued a 267,000 gold bounty murdering 5,000 NPCs in a quest to kill “everything that was killable”, while another fan recreated the game in Age of Empires 2.

In our 9/10 review of the beloved RPG, IGN said: “Skyrim is a rare kind of intensely personal, deeply rewarding experience, and one of the best role-playing games yet produced.”

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

Xbox’s Cyber Monday deals are still available, and while we originally thought Xbox controllers would only be getting a small $10 discount at most retailers, the deal is actually a lot better than that and well worth considering if you’ve been after an additional gamepad. The cheapest controller you can get right now is for $39.99 at Best Buy (see here), and its the Stellar Shift Special Edition with an MSRP of $69.99. This deal is also still live for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the UK, with Xbox Controllers down to £38.99.

Cyber Monday Deal

Xbox Wireless Controller – Astral Purple

See on Amazon

Out of Stock

Xbox Wireless Controller – Stellar Shift Special Edition

See on Best Buy

This will likely sell out as it’s such a good deal, so let’s get into what else is available in the deal as well. By the looks of things, most other controllers have dropped to at least $44.99, which is a decent $20 off the standard Xbox controller and a reasonable deal for Cyber Monday. Plus, this includes some of the newer color variations as well like the Astral Purple design. We’ll leave all the links you need just below.

There are plenty of other fantastic Xbox deals still live as well. The best deal we’ve seen so far is the Xbox Series X Diablo 4 Bundle from Walmart, which includes Diablo 4 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 for $489, or $439 without CoD.

If you’re a Best Buy Plus/ Tech Total member you can also get a Series X for $399 + a Best Buy $50 Gift Card, and for everyone else its $449, but that is still a great deal. Microsoft is still currently hosting its own Cyber Monday sale, and you can currently get an Xbox Series S + 3-months Xbox Game Pass for $249.

Dell also has a variety of deals now available across PCs, laptops, consoles, accessories, and more. In addition, Dell has several monitors available for a discounted rate for Cyber Monday. Be sure to check out our Dell Cyber Monday 2023 roundup for all the ongoing deals still available.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a more original premise for a city builder than “grow a frontier boomtown populated entirely by retrofuturistic steam-powered robots” in a long time. That makes SteamWorld Build a refreshing drink of water in a trackless desert compared to the many, many trend-chasing builders we’ve seen over the last few years – and while you build a town above, it sets itself apart further by having you simultaneously excavate a mine below in search of both mineral resources and pieces of ancient technology that can be used to escape your dying planet. It’s a short, sweet city builder that doesn’t do too much new beyond that setup, but uses the parts it has to make a fun whole I know I’ll revisit in the future.

As has been the case for a decade, the SteamWorld games have a really well-established palette of character designs, colors, and even sounds to draw from. The result is a game world stylistically on par with much larger, more established franchises — like the Warcraft universe — that adapts really well to different genres without losing its visual distinction, personality, and setting. That’s still true in SteamWorld Build, where the goofily stylized robots that chug along to the same twangy country-western guitar tracks with the same silly voices are as charming as ever. It’s a planet of steam-powered robots that all have accents like a Scandinavian person pretending to be from the old west, and by God does it still work here.

SteamWorld Build’s central rules are nothing new in a city builder. You provide citizens with services and produce goods, both of which let you eventually upgrade those same citizens to higher tiers – Settlers to Engineers to Aristobots to Scientists – and unlock new buildings that offer even more stuff for that next tier of bots. If you’re looking for a deep simulation of each citizen’s needs, you won’t find anything like that here, but the simplicity is a strength in its own ways.

Fans of series like Anno will pretty quickly get what SteamWorld Build is doing and almost surely enjoy it, as will those like me who remember the older Impressions City Building series. Services are routed to your metallic folk through a basic system of distance: Everything moves over roads you’ll lay down, and any house in range of a service building immediately has access to it. Goods are produced at a specific rate, and you can stockpile some, but mostly you’ll rely on having just as much coming in as going out, trading excess away at your town’s train station.

But it’s not entirely cut and dry, as your town simultaneously spreads underground. You’ll recruit miners, prospectors, and mechanics to excavate, extract, and improve your mining works. At first you’ll focus on finding easily-removed chunks of ore in dirt and rock, but later you have to supply expendable tools like pickaxes and drills to remove harder stone obstructions. And while the resources you find above initially support the mine works, eventually that flip-flops as the town needs the oil, water, and old tech you excavate below. There’s a simple yet satisfying loop as engineers from the town help you recruit mechanics to work underneath it, who then install and maintain auto-extracting machines on resource veins you find, growing your tunnels further so you can expand more, and faster, both above and below.

You’ll eventually need security bots to keep the underground works functional and safe from whatever monstrous bugs and ancient threats you might dig up. They’ll help protect your miners proactively, but you can also build traps and turrets to scare off enemies and defend your static base. It’s a sort of Dungeon Keeper lite, where the threats generally aren’t threats at all until you dig them up on purpose, letting you take on fights at your own pace – at least, at first. That’s on top of a welcome range of difficulty settings that can make enemies anything from pushovers to a real, consistent threat. That’s a strong design decision for the kind of lowkey city builder SteamWorld Build is, where disruptive attacks could end up feeling more annoying than challenging. The fact that it uses enemies as speed bumps to smooth out the pace of progression instead of a constant gauntlet to worry about is nice.

As you dig and build, the train station aboveground also gets regular visits from out-of-towners. In classic old west fashion, this is a source of both money and things you can’t otherwise make yourself: Building upgrades. Most buildings have an open slot or two to boost them, such as warehouses getting more storage space and workers to haul goods, resource producers getting a chance to make bonus items, or even just new picks and guns for the bots in the mines. You can also trade away excess goods for cash, which is nice. These upgrades are very simple, not complex enough to provide diverse build strategies to each new run, but they support your experience in a key way: If you don’t enjoy figuring out ideal production rates, for example, you can just invest in bonus production and not think about your underperforming cactus juice farms ever again.

From start to finish, it only took me about eight hours to build a town, excavate the mines, and construct a rocket to escape SteamWorld. This is a quick and simple city builder, which is both its greatest strength and what holds it back from being so much more. There are five maps with different terrain to work around, but the decisions you have to make while doing so aren’t otherwise going to change very much. You’ll build the same stuff every time with little variation. Making your way through the production chain and exploring those maps is plenty of fun – but it’s just the one kind of fun, not a deep and engaging puzzle that unfolds and draws you deeper over time.

It does get a lot of beginner-friendliness and approachability from its decision to embrace simplicity. That’s evident, for example, in the fact that developer The Station has actually managed to deliver competent controller support, unlike a lot of other city builders that only vaguely succeed at it.

That’s not to say there aren’t any unpredictable elements or new things to unlock and do the longer you play, either. Each map can be played with a randomly generated underground layer, which is a nice touch that keeps the mine-building fresh. Beating a map also unlocks a permanent upgrade to future towns’ infrastructure, like a boosted train station that has shipments come more often. Nothing too special, but it is a bit of a victory lap that cuts down on busywork that’d be annoying to repeat. It’s also a space-saving convenience that frees up time to make your towns pretty with decorations. Nothing like a neatly-appointed rail line to keep up steambot morale.