Category: Gaming

Hero shooter Gigantic may have shut down five years ago but Gearbox Software is bringing it back for one weekend only in a limited time throwback event.

A Reddit post from TemptedTemplar shared an email asking players to the event, while the game’s subreddit is also full of others who received the invite. “You’re invited to play Gigantic (again) during our limited time throwback event,” read the email, sent to Reddit user HeirOfRhoads.

The event will take place from October 5 at 12noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 8pm UK to October 6 at 9pm Pacific / 12midnight Eastern, so October 7 at 5am UK. It’s unclear if players other than those who received the email will be able to play.

Players will even get to enjoy “never before seen features” according to the email, including a Rush mode, new loadout system, and “revamped content”. The classic Gigantic gameplay and features will be present too, of course, bringing back the team-­based competitive action in teams of five heroes.

Gigantic shut down all the way back in July 2018, a few months after developer Motiga was shut down in November 2017. “The current state of the game has restricted options for further progress and relevant content updates, and delivering basic features while also fixing long-standing issues was more complicated than expected,” the closure announcement read.

In our 7/10 review, IGN said: “Gigantic’s multi-phase game mode and huge monsters distinguish it from the MOBA crowd, but it could use more variety.”

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

The Noble Collection releases collectibles and jewelry based on some of the biggest franchises in the world, including The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Trek and DC. Now they’re adding a massive gaming franchise to that lineup – Minecraft.

IGN can exclusively reveal a new collection dubbed Minecraft x The Noble Collection. This new line features a variety of life-size prop replicas and other collectibles inspired by the game and its distinctively blocky aesthetic. Head to the slideshow gallery below for a closer look at all of the debut pieces in this collection:

The Minecraft x The Noble Collection line consists of six items so far, five life-size prop replicas and one chess set featuring characters and creatures from the game. The life-size props feature light-up LED effects and are designed to mimic the textures of the game. The full lineup includes:

• Diamond Sword Collector Replica (MSRP: $69.99)
• Chess Set (MSRP: $59.99)
• Torch Collector Replica (MSRP: $39.99)
• Redstone Ore (MSRP: $34.99)
• Diamond Ore (MSRP: $34.99)
• Illuminating Potion Bottle (MSRP: $39.99)

“We have extensive experience developing Collectibles and Toyllectibles based on characters, creatures and on-screen props that don’t truly exist in the real world,” The Noble Collection’s SVP Julian Montoya tells IGN. “We pride ourselves for taking the time to understand the properties and intricacies that audiences value to create finely crafted treasures, which offer fans the real-life experiences they crave from the properties they love. It is important to us that our products do justice to those characters, creatures, props and iconic scenes.”

Montoya continues, “The connection to fans and their passion for a franchise is what drives us, which makes our new foray into the Minecraft IP an exciting one for The Noble Collection. We want fans to enjoy the in-game experience by bringing their favorite events of the game into their life. And we hope we achieved that by mixing an array of textures and finishes to create the stylized ‘real-world’ materials they’d expect, while merging the pixelated Minecraft aesthetic they love.”

As for the challenge of recreating the trademark blocky look of Minecraft in a real-world setting, Montoya says that The Noble Collection worked closely with the artists at Mojang to faithfully translate the game into three dimensional reality.

“The collaboration with the team at Mojang was phenomenal,” Montoya says. “Once we dialed in on the creative vision for the range – ‘Minecraft in the Real World’ – we got to work. It was important that Minecraft fans looked at the product and thought ‘Yes, this is what my Diamond Sword would look like if I could bring it out of the game!’ Our design team and the Mojang creative team established a great rapport, consistently challenging ourselves to develop something new and never-before-seen for the brand. Mojang was also extremely generous in sharing their detailed knowledge of Minecraft, which helped fuel our creative energy.”

The Minecraft x The Noble Collection line will make its official debut at New York Comic-Con. These items will be sold exclusively in-person at NYCC (Booth #1061) on Thursday, October 12 and Friday, October 13 (note that the Diamond Sword will be available as a preorder only). From there, sales will open wide on Saturday, October 14 on the Noble Collection website and select retailers.

For more on Minecraft, check out our guide to how you can play the game for free, and see where Minecraft ranks among the best-selling games of all time.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Sitting on the grid in my 2017 Holden V8 Supercar, surrounded by Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Audi R8s, I have to concede I’m feeling a little underqualified. Forza Motorsport’s online multiplayer spec racing should technically place all these cars on a level field, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve brought a cricket bat to a swordfight here. Several mediocre laps later and neither myself or my Vegemite-eating VF Commodore have troubled the timesheets much, finishing mid-pack one spot below where I started – but I’m sweating, and I’m smiling. The 2023 version of Forza Motorsport is brimming with new features across the board, from its muscular new multiplayer to its much-improved handling. All except for its upgrades, that is. They’ve been downgraded. Confused? Me too.

Forza Motorsport is, by a significant margin, the best feeling game in the Motorsport franchise to date. It isn’t necessarily a total reinvention of the Forza formula, and it still has that familiar level of forgiveness baked into it when you’re at and just beyond the limits of control. This is a series that has always been about letting us have the confidence to grab a car by the scruff of its neck and step the rear end out with a boot-full of throttle without constantly over-rotating, and that’s absolutely still the case here. The improvements before we break traction, however, are marked.

If the previous game, Forza Motorsport 7, has any noticeable handling blemishes, it’d be that there’s often a lack of bite to the feeling of grip. Six years later, that’s totally gone here in this follow-up. The feeling of grip in Forza Motorsport is far more pronounced and authentic, and cars feel more realistically rooted to the road than they ever have previously. Push beyond the capacity of your tyres and grip will now taper away instead of falling off a cliff, meaning cars squirm more and skate less – which is a great improvement.

The pleasing side-effect of these terrific tyre modelling improvements goes beyond making racing feel more accurate; it also actually makes it feel easier to drive fast. ‘Easy’ is too often used as a pejorative in a gaming context but, with respect to those who can’t feel feelings until they’re being flayed alive by a FromSoft game, in racing terms I can assure you it’s not a contemptuous concept. Lapping as fast as the pros, millimetre perfect and at maximum attack? No, that’s not simple – if it was, we’d all have yachts in Monaco by now. But hustling around a track quick and hard, confident the car beneath you is going to behave as it should? That’s well within the means of a competent driver. The old sim racing mentality that “if it’s not difficult, it’s not realistic” is something that most good driving simulators have been moving away from for some time, and Forza Motorsport is no exception. It’s easier because it’s more authentic.

Gamepad handling is extremely well-refined. While it’s hardly a surprise considering good gamepad handling has always been a staple of this long-running series, I’m happy to report it remains top-notch and has survived the physics updates beneath the surface. As usual, the team at Turn 10 has struck a terrific balance between softening things like rapid weight transfer and certain steering inputs to keep the handling tameable on a tiny analogue stick, but still demanding an indisputable deftness to drive consistently fast.

On a wheel, my experience is limited to the Thrustmaster TS-XW Racer – but it definitely errs extremely heavy out of the box. Surprisingly so, in fact. The last time my actual car felt this heavy to pilot it was because my alternator failed and killed my power steering. It is, however, extremely tuneable – so I was able to eventually dial that aggressive heaviness out and enjoy what I otherwise consider the best Forza Motorsport wheel feel I’ve ever experienced. There might be a slight numbness to severe kerbs, but the responsiveness and stability is excellent.

The feeling of car weight is also great – especially on undulating and technical track sections like cresting over the rise at Laguna Seca before slamming down through the corkscrew. There are some small, welcome touches for wheel users, too. Those who play in cabin-view with the wheel visible may be happy to see the steering animation is no longer locked to just 90 degrees in either direction. The on-screen wheel now rotates up to 360 degrees, which is far more realistic. There are also car-specific force feedback and steering lock settings in the tuning menus, making it easier to keep cars feeling right without constantly re-adjusting the global settings.

Level: May Cry

There’s more good news on tuning, including a new layer of suspension settings as well as the ability to add ballast. Adding ballast obviously increases car weight and lowers its performance index overall, but it is automatically distributed throughout the car to bring it closer to a perfect 50/50 weight distribution. It’s impossible to instantly gauge the impact the addition of ballast will have on competitive car builds, but it will be interesting to watch and experiment to see whether pushing a car over the limit before handicapping it with extra weight is a viable strategy on certain tracks.

Unfortunately, that’s currently where the positive news on tuning – or perhaps more specifically, customisation – largely stops. That’s because upgrades are no longer all immediately available for any car by default, like they are in Forza Motorsport 7 or Forza Horizon 5. Instead, they’re frugally rationed out for each car as you spend seat time in them and earn experience for that specific vehicle. They’re also no longer purchased with credits, either; rather, each car will have a set amount of ‘Car Points’ that applying upgrades eats away at. The amount of Car Points you have per car will be determined by each car’s individual level, which tops out at 50. Upgrades are always made available in the same order, but it takes several hours of driving to unlock things like engine swaps (40), body kits (45), and drivetrain swaps (50).

By design, this overtly RPG-style approach is meant to encourage us to form more profound connections with a narrower assortment of cars that mean something to us personally instead of bouncing around. In practice, however, it’s just a bit bothersome. Sure, it never feels as trivial as, say, the luck-based upgrade systems under the hood of arcade racers like The Crew series or Need for Speed Payback; we’re still in control of the parts we choose to “purchase” and fit. And sure, at car level 50 with the full range of parts available, the upgrade system in Forza Motorsport is essentially the same as it’s been for generations. The problem is getting there is now an unexpected treadmill, for every individual car (including duplicates of the same car).

I do appreciate Forza Motorsport’s “built, not bought” philosophy, but the new layer of gamification here isn’t really for me. It’s not so much the Car Point system itself – I actually think there’s a decent amount of merit in some kind of system that’s perhaps roughly analogous to time sunk. Anyone who’s ever spent time wrenching on a car will know that you can’t do everything at once, and Car Points do mean you have to slowly add and swap parts over time – just like in real-life. What I don’t really get is the concept of gating away upgrades in a strict order – especially the super straightforward ones. Why do we really need a certain car level before we can yank out the spare wheel to shave some kilos? It definitely dilutes the previous freedom we had to focus on the upgrades we predict would make the most meaningful difference to a car’s performance from the outset, and it’s all bit silly that I’m measuring fuel loads by the millilitre to slice bonus thousandths of a second off my lap times when I’m still lugging around a spare tyre in the boot.

Fortunately, you will earn car levels anywhere you use them, whether that’s career mode, free play, or multiplayer, so you’re never spinning your wheels on progression as long as you’re driving. The career mode is made up of several tiers of themed racing events that are otherwise fairly typically categorised by car class for this type of racing sim. With compulsory practice sessions ahead of each race it takes quite a while to move through each tour, so I’ve been busy for a while and will continue to be for some time. The ability to select your specific place on the grid before each event may seem like a peculiar replacement for qualifying, but it does mean that you can have the exact racing experience you want each race.

That is, if you want the old-school, Gran Turismo-style experience that’s more like an overtaking challenge than a race – where you’ll need to thread your car all the way to the front from the back of the pack in just a few laps – go for it. If you’re interested in faster AI and dogfighting all race for a single spot, that’s also possible. It’s a smart touch, and it’s a more robust single-player racing experience than the likes of GT7 as a result.

That said, I have found the event intros are a little overblown; there’s a hushed reverence to them that car manufacturers probably love, but they’re pretty stiff and starchy compared with the more casual automotive culture shows I stream or watch on YouTube these days. There are also a few car categories that don’t seem to really get much of a run in the career mode, but I would expect the career mode to grow as this Forza Motorsport platform evolves. In the meantime, free play is still here – where you can do quick races in any of the 500 available cars – but again I’d really love some simple options to better curate what the AI drives against me. There are so many specific fields to edit to narrow down your opponent’s cars, but it’s all but impossible to get the 23 specific rival cars you want. Often it just ignores my custom settings entirely. Just let us place the AI in cars we choose, like Forza Motorsport 4 did.

Dude, Where’s My Car?

Forza Motorsport’s 500-car roster is slimmer than Forza Motorsport 7 and Forza Horizon 5 – both of which feature over 700 apiece – and, yes, there are probably conversations to be had. For instance, there’s been pruning when it comes to offroaders, and hot pick-ups like the GMC Syclone and the HSV Maloo appear to have been collateral damage. Lancia is MIA despite making a welcome return to Horizon 5 just last month. You could pick at the seams for some time. However, to be quite fair, Forza Motorsport does achieve this 500-car figure without the cheeky level of double, triple, and sometimes quadruple dipping some of its rivals do when it comes to counting certain models multiple times due to different paint jobs. It really still is an enviable roster of rides, all of which bark and crackle brilliantly thanks to some serious strides with the sound. Better still, there’s no shortcut to buy them with obscene amounts of real-world money: pay attention, Gran Turismo 7.

They also look sharp and marvellous in motion. I played largely in Performance RT mode on Xbox Series X, which adds ray-traced reflections of other cars and nearby objects to the glossy surfaces of your vehicle at the cost of resolution (but not frame-rate, which never budged from 60fps). That said, I’ve probably missed out on a good portion of the visual feast here since I don’t typically play the Motorsport games in chase cam. If you favour 4K above all else, Performance mode drops ray-tracing during racing (and still runs at a resolute 60fps). A third mode packs in additional ray-tracing on other environmental objects but runs at 30fps. But hey, don’t scoff: so does Driveclub, and look how well the aesthetics of that have stood the test of time, even a decade later! It ultimately may come down to personal preference, and I don’t know whether overall Forza Motorsport quite has the measure of GT7, but damned if it doesn’t look particularly spectacular at midnight under heavy rain.

Each of Forza Motorsport’s 20 track locations features support for dynamic time-of-day and variable weather, and they definitely have been dressed with more detail than ever before, with 3D crowds and more trackside objects and fixtures. It is a slimmer selection than the 30+ locations we had in Forza Motorsport 7, although it has been confirmed further tracks will be injected in the future for free. Yas Marina is coming back next month, another unannounced track will follow in December, and the famous Nurburgring Nordschleife will reportedly be ready by spring in the northern hemisphere, 2024. Still, no Bathurst right now? That Bath-hurts.

Equally painful is the lack of two-player splitscreen, which is a mode my kids and I have traditionally had a massive soft spot for. They particularly love zany handicap races, like giving away massive head starts to ancient hatchbacks and then chasing them down in hypercars – which is precisely the kind of experimentation that sandbox racers with garages as exhaustively broad as Forza Motorsport is usually brilliant for. I presume splitscreen is simply a niche mode in 2023 and it probably comes at too high a performance cost on the Series S, but it really is a little gloomy whenever gaming seems to go backwards. Hell, Gran Turismo had splitscreen in 1997!

The trade-off here is a massively improved online multiplayer component, with scheduled racing events packaged up as full race weekends, with a practice session, a three-lap qualifying blast, and a race. There’s spec racing, where all the cars are automatically tuned identically by Turn 10 for an even playing field, and open racing where you take your own builds. I’ve been playing the Touring Car and GT spec racing series over the past week and it’s been extremely robust and reliable, especially considering the pools of players I’ve been racing have largely been developers and other press located on the other side of Earth’s largest ocean. It’s a little hard to predict just how civilised it’ll remain after launch, but the safety rating should hopefully keep dirty racers away from clean ones. I also don’t think I’ve been on the receiving end of enough bad collisions to gauge just how effective the improved penalties are in actually disciplining the right players effectively, but I’ve had mostly great, clean races so far.

Perhaps my favourite new touch from the multiplayer, though? The ability to skip to the end of a lap in the pre-race sessions (or when attacking times in the asynchronous Rivals mode). Messed up a corner? The Skip Lap option will respawn you on a flyer, just a few corners from the start line. It’s such a clever time saver.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the 13th major installment in Ubisoft’s franchise, is nearly upon us.

Mirage will debut on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC on Oct. 5, a full week earlier than originally planned. But these days, it can be tough to figure out what that means exactly in terms of when you’ll be able to start playing. Luckily, Ubisoft has detailed the global release times for both PC and console, which vary by an hour or so in most regions.

For the most part, you’ll be able to start playing in the wee hours of Thursday, Oct. 5, with a few regions getting a jumpstart on PC late on Wednesday. Mirage is already available for pre-loading.

You can see the various release times in their graphic, and we’ve also broken it down below.

Los Angeles:

• PC: Oct. 4, 10 p.m. PDT
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. PDT

Montreal:

• PC: Oct. 5, 1 a.m. EDT
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. EDT

London:

• PC: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. BST
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. BST

Stockholm:

• PC: Oct. 5, 1 a.m. CEST
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. CEST

Kyiv:

• PC: Oct. 5, 2 a.m. EEST
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. EEST

Mexico City:

• PC: Oct. 4, 12 a.m. CST
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. CST

Sao Paulo:

• PC: Oct. 5, 2 a.m. BRT
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. BRT

New York:

• PC: Oct. 5, 1 a.m. EDT
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. EDT

Paris:

• PC: Oct. 5, 1 a.m. CEST:
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. CEST

Abu Dhabi:

• PC: Oct. 5, 3 a.m. GST
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. GST

Johannesburg:

• PC: Oct. 5, 1 a.m. SAST
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. SAST

Shanghai:

• PC: Oct. 4, 9 p.m. CST
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. CST

Tokyo:

• PC: Oct. 4, 10 p.m. JST
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. JST

Seoul:

• PC: Oct. 4, 10 p.m. KST
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. KST

Sydney:

• PC: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. AEDT
• Consoles: Oct. 5, 12 a.m. AEDT

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is also getting a release on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Max Pro sometime in the first half of 2024, although we’re still waiting for an exact release date on that.

In the meantime, Ubisoft is asking fans to not release spoilers as that release date quickly approaches. Mirage follows Basim Ibn Ishaq, a character introduced in 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and has been hailed as a return to the series’ roots, with a focus on stealth and linear storytelling.

To sate your appetite, check out our hands-on preview, as well as our interview with Narrative Director Sarah Beaulieu out of Summer of Gaming.

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Boomerang X developer Dang! has announced that the studio is closing its doors due to being unable to secure funding for its next game.

“Dang is closing up shop. Unfortunately, we were not able to find funding for our next game and we are out of money,” the studio said in a statement written on the desktop Notepad app. “We’re not writing off the possibility of working on some small stuff together in the future but for now we’re all going our separate ways. Thanks to all the love you’ve shown to us over the years and thanks for playing Boomerang X.”

While the studio joked that it was rather unserious about its closure announcement by not making a professional-looking one with a logo, it assured that the news wasn’t a joke. The studio also mentioned that it considered crowdfunding, but said that the approach didn’t make sense for the situation. Furthermore, Boomerang X will not be taken off any storefronts and will still be available for sale.

Many studios have shut down this year, such as Saints Row developer Volition, due to restructuring. However, Dang’s situation wasn’t the result of mass layoffs. Studios like Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew developer Mimimi Games have voluntarily closed due to a variety of factors, like wanting to prioritize developer well-being.

Boomerang X was released on July 8, 2021 for PC and Nintendo Switch. In IGN’s Boomerang X review, we said, “Exciting combat, fantastic art direction, and interesting environments only make me wish Boomerang X were twice as long.”

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

When I first pulled into Station to Station’s voxel-powered railways, I was expecting more of a straight-forward train sim, something akin to the A-Train franchise with a bit of city building. The reality, however, is much different – Station to Station is more like a puzzle game built around some of the tropes of simulation-style games, with stuff like resource and money management unlocking the next possibility in the gameplay loop. It’s disarmingly simple to explain: some of the buildings on your map are industries that produce resources. Connect those to the other buildings that need those resources. Connect them all to the cities. Profit.

When everything is connected according to its needs and its ability to produce, you win. That’s the game at its most basic. In other words, figure out how to connect everything that needs to be connected and you win. While it may not chug quite so deep into the nitty gritty of rail management, I found myself in love with its clever levels and gorgeous style nonetheless. If anything, the fact it’s not what I expected added a layer of unexpected delight to my playthrough. That being said, even if I knew going into Station to Station exactly what is was about, it’s just so charming and interesting I would still really enjoy it. The graphics, the pace, the atmosphere, the challenge, it just really appeals to me at the deepest levels of my gamer-being.

Station to Station bills itself as a “relaxing and minimalist game about building railway connections,” and I couldn’t have said it better myself. There are six different “worlds,” for lack of a better term, each split into five or six different levels.

The levels themselves vary in size, but they all take thematically from the world in which they’re placed. For example, the “Sunforge Sands” and “Golden Dunes” worlds have you laying tracks in a desert biome, while Eveningstar Valley and Greendale are voxel-infused nods to the American west. These different themes don’t really have much bearing on the puzzles themselves (other than a few bonus tasks I’ll get to later). I would have liked to have seen some more environmental differences between the worlds, ones that have a real bearing on the strategy involved in solving each level. It seems like a bit of a lost opportunity. There are a few elements that matter in different biomes, like forests that you need to pay to remove in some levels and variation in cliff heights you need to take into account in others, but I would have liked to have seen even more.

Voxel Urbana

Station to Station’s worlds are built using some of the most beautiful voxel art I’ve seen since 3D Dot Game Heroes on PS3 (which I only mention because that game rules). The amazing 3D pixelated look is present in every part of the worlds, down to circling birds and wandering horses and dromedaries. These chunky little fellas are charming enough, but each city, town, and industry also get their own voxelated models that are pretty enough to make me wish my ashes could be spread inside the worlds of Station to Station when I die. Please, someone figure that out for me.

The heart-warming voxel models are wonderful in and of themselves, but the lighting in Station to Station takes the charm up even further. The rivers and lakes glisten in the sun, and there’s a perpetual golden hour warmth to many of the levels. As you build out your tracks and link things together, the landscape begins to fill with color, with each connected industry spreading a golden ring of life from its place on the map. It’s just so lovely. Each level is still beautiful even when none of the resources have been connected yet, but as you fill out the map it turns into an inviting, colorful world that seems to be wholly unconcerned with whether or not you’re watching it. The trains move along their tracks and make their stops, the birds fly in the sky, and the other aforementioned animals wander about peacefully. I’d almost be content just floating around the map, zooming in and out to gaze at the architecture of the tiny buildings or watch a seagull make lazy figure-eights above it all even without the interesting rail management game that’s layered on top of these little worlds.

Rail Play

I could gush about the look of Station to Station for pretty much the rest of this review, but only because it fits so damn perfectly with the style of gameplay behind it. Its puzzle-like stages feel almost like a board game brought to life by some kind wizard. The concept is pretty simple: you start each level with a few buildings on your map, and then connect them together so each resource connects with the building or city that needs it. For example, in the second level in the Golden Dunes drops you into a map with a paper mill, a logging camp, and some water towers. The paper mill requires logs and water to make paper, so you’re going to need to link those buildings together by adding a train station at each and then connecting those stations with a railway. The city itself needs water (among other things), so running a track from that line of interconnected stations will deliver the hydration the growing city needs.

You’re encouraged to link up your resources in non-logical ways with a “stacking” mechanic, which is a cool little twist that had me thinking outside the box…car. In a nutshell, if your city needs tools, you’d make the connections almost in reverse order. Tools require a tool factory, which requires steel, which requires both coal and iron ore. Hook the coal and ore to the tool factory, hook the steel mill to the city, then run a freight line to the city and watch the bonuses stack up. Resources flow from one step in the process to the other and then the money flows into your coffers. It’s almost as satisfying as winning the jackpot at a casino and watching chips come rushing out – and while that level of optimization isn’t required, it’s fun to try and hit Station to Station’s cash-based bonus goal at the end of each level.

Completing a level flush with cash isn’t the only bonus goal, either. Each map has a Star goal to try your hand at, like completing a level with a stack worth $1200, for example. The main “story,” I guess you could call it, took me around eight hours to complete, but now I’ve turned my attention to replaying the levels more carefully in order to hit those bonus goals. I don’t know if there’s something special for completing them beyond a few additional achievements, but just going back and replaying the levels for the fun of those extra challenges is more than enough incentive for me.

Station to Station won’t have you banging your head against a wall with its difficulty, but it does do an excellent job balancing the need to plan ahead with the need to think on your feet. You don’t immediately start each level with each building in place: those open up only after you’ve hit a certain monetary goal that’s different for every stage. So you might plan the perfect rail line from one resource to another and back to your city, only to discover that you now have to go over an existing rail line with a more expensive bridge to link up two newly unlocked map features. More than once I got near the end of a level and had to restart because I’d run out of money to build new rail lines – and yet those unexpected failures never actually frustrated me. In fact, I felt a little sense of excitement when that would happen because it meant I got to play through the charming level again, only with the added benefit of hindsight.

Station to Station also has a light card system that offers one-time boons to use, although the order you draw them doesn’t seem to be randomized. You earn cards in the same way new buildings unlock, through the acquisition of money, and play them before finalizing a new railway. They can be things like “Cheap Rails,” which reduces the cost of the new rails, or “Heavy Freight” trains that will earn 50% more money on the given route. The Heavy Freight modifier is awesome when you have a huge stack of resources available, adding even more to that casino-like payout system. I really like this added layer of options, as they required me to make choices about when and where to spend my cards to maximize their benefits in addition to carefully laying out the railways between cities and resources. It’s so simple in execution, but it gives a nice extra layer I appreciate.

There’s even a “custom game” option right off the rip that makes Station to Station essentially endlessly replayable. Pick your level size, biome, cliff heights, industries, and difficulty and then off you go. You can even randomize the biome and industry selections, making every new game, well… an entirely new game, which I love. I’m personally a fan of the largest possible map size, because it ups the challenge quite a bit but also leads to some incredible opportunities for huge stacks. I feel like the custom maps can be even more fun than the prebuilt levels because there’s an element of chaos if you randomize the industries and biomes.

Square Enix has officially revealed how to correctly pronounce the name of a Final Fantasy VII character. After years of debate on the internet, we finally have confirmation of how to say Cait Sith.

Cait Sith is, of course, a feline character that rides a large stuffed toy in Final Fantasy VII. Square Enix confirmed in a post on X/Twitter today that, at least in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Cait Sith is pronounced like “Kate Sihth.” Basically, the name is pronounced how it’s read on paper. Square Enix said, “We saw many of you were asking so we hope this helps!”

The debate on how to correctly pronounce Cait Sith’s name has been going on for a while now – if you want to be exact, basically dating back to 1997 when Final Fantasy VII was first released.

Back in 2008, a few users on GameFaqs noted that the name comes from the Gaelic language, theorizing the name would be pronounced closer to its Celtic origins, something like “Ket Shee.” However, it seems like Square Enix has taken a different approach to the name and is pronouncing it closer to how it’s actually spelled in the English language.

While Cait Sith has had English voice actors in past media, such as Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus, it seems like the name “Cait Sith” was never actually said by any character. We’ve reached out to Square Enix to confirm that this is indeed the first official confirmation, although by all accounts, it is.

Cait Sith will also be a playable party member in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth when it launches on Feb. 29, 2024 for PlayStation 5.

In IGN’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth preview, we said, “Story-wise, Rebirth again feels very familiar, and yet also different. This is due in part to the tremendous difference in scale and presentation – here, like with Remake, areas that were previously sparse or bare are expanded out into lush zones to explore. But there are also little changes that are mostly inconsequential, but they still play out in different ways than fans of the original FF7 are used to.”

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

Microsoft has revealed a sexy Gold Shadow special edition Xbox Wireless Controller, reminiscent of the Shadow range released for the Xbox One.

Revealed on the Xbox Store, the controller features a base gold colour that gradually fades into metallic black and is available October 17 for $69.99 / £64.99.

This is the first Shadow controller released since 2017 and the first under the new Xbox Series design, which has the improved directional pad, dedicated share button, and more.

The popular line for Xbox One began with Copper Shadow before Microsoft also released Dusk Shadow (blue), Dawn Shadow (pink), Ocean Shadow (inverted blue), and Volcano Shadow (red). This is therefore the first Gold Shadow controller period.

Outside of wild special and incredibly limited edition controllers, like fluffy Sonic the Hedgehog ones or one made from actual Jade, Microsoft has mostly stuck to more traditional solid colour gamepads in the Xbox Series era.

There have been a few exceptions though, isuch as the cosmic Stellar Shift, dusty Stormcloud Vapor, and even an Earth Day one made partly from recycled CDs, water jugs, and other Xbox controller parts.

Image Credit: Xbox

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

Activision has released a first proper look at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer, leaning heavily on nostalgia for classic maps and mechanics.

Veteran fans of the series will immediately note Activision’s use of Eminem’s Till I Collapse for the trailer, below. Till I Collapse was used for the Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 launch trailer 14 years ago.

2023’s Modern Warfare 3 includes all 16 launch maps from the original Modern Warfare 2 and will see 12 new 6v6 maps come out post-launch. The video showcases a number of these classic maps, such as the eternally popular Rust. Check out multiplayer screenshots in the slideshow below:

We also get a look at slide cancelling, which makes a return for this game. Slide cancelling is a long-running movement option in the Call of Duty series that high-skilled players use to avoid enemy fire. It involves cancelling the slide animation, thus resetting your tactical sprint and maintaining momentum even as you slide about.

Slide cancelling was in the original Warzone and 2019’s Modern Warfare, but for Warzone 2.0 and Modern Warfare 2 developer Infinity Ward stopped it from working as it used to (you can’t slide cancel out of a tactical sprint), sparking a vociferous debate among the player base. While the community came up with their own way of performing slide cancels in both games, these methods involve more inputs and are not as powerful. Modern Warfare 3 U-turns on slide cancelling, speeding up movement in the process.

The trailer also offers a glimpse at weapon stance switching for Modern Warfare 3:

Activision will host a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 open beta across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC (PlayStation owners get first access) from this weekend. Those who preorder gain access to the campaign up to a week before release. Modern Warfare 3 launches on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S on November 10.

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.

Saddle up, Red Dead Redemption fans: while the digital version of Red Dead Redemption is already live on Switch and PS4, physical copies of Rockstar’s iconic game are set to release October 13. You can preorder a physical copy now for Nintendo Switch and PS4. (And if you have a PS5, you can play the PS4 version no problem, as it’s backwards compatible).

Regardless of how you purchase it, not only do you get the full game, but it also comes bundled with the Undead Nightmare DLC for you to enjoy. Read on to see where it’s available in both physical and digital versions.

Preorder Red Dead Redemption

Nintendo Switch

PS4

Red Dead Redemption For Nintendo Switch & PS4 Trailer

What is Red Dead Redemption?

For those of you who are new to the world of Red Dead Redemption, it’s a phenomenal Western adventure from Rockstar Games that follows former outlaw John Marston as he sets out on a journey to track down members of his old gang. Back when it was originally released, we gave the game a 9.7 out of 10 in our review and stated that “Rockstar has taken the Western to new heights and created one of the deepest, most fun, and most gorgeous games around. […] Red Dead Redemption is a complete game in every sense — both the single player and multiplayer modes are excellent — and still manages to offer an attention to detail you rarely see from a game of this scope.”

As some fans have complained, this new version isn’t a remake or even a remaster. It’s pretty much a straight port. And while that is disappointing — it would be great to have the whole game remade in the RDR2 engine, for instance — the original is from 2010 and still looks pretty good today.

And if you’re wondering why it’s not coming out for Xbox, well, Red Dead Redemption is already available on that platform. Xbox Series X|S owners can pick up a copy of the Xbox 360 version, either in physical or digital format, and play it via backwards compatibility right now. The Series models even upscale it to 4K, which is a pretty nice bonus.

Other Preorder Guides

If you’re curious to see even more games that are available to preorder right now, we’ve got a wide selection of preorder guides to look through below, from Super Mario Wonder to Spider-Man 2.