Category: Gaming

Longtime Tekken character Eddy Gordo has always been a little polarizing, particularly in Tekken 8, and one streamer has found a way to make him even more of a pain to fight, rising through ranked mode using a script that spams one button.

Over on Twitch, jimmashima is currently streaming ranked mode matches of Tekken 8 using Eddy Gordo as his fighter. The streamer is using a script that keeps spamming “3,” or the Left Kick move, to attack their opponent. Aside from the obvious repeated kick show on stream, jimmashima also provided a little UI for the controller, showing the button inputs and the repeated pressing of the “X” button to attack.

The jimmashima “3ddy” bot has caught the attention of the community outside of Twitch, too. Users on Reddit and X/Twitter point out that the creator is using a script for spamming the same button input for every match (and even between matches). As X/Twitter user JakubDi notes, most viewers watching Tekken 8 streams on Twitch are watching jimmashima.

Jimmashima is not the only person with a 3ddy bot, however. Twitch streamer 3ddySmurfy is also live streaming themselves, playing ranked matches against other players using a script that spams the Left Kick button. 3ddySmurfy calls themselves “3ddy: North America.”

While some are interested in seeing how high jimmashima can get in ranked matches, others are annoyed by the button-mashing, so much so that players are canceling their matches to avoid fighting a 3ddy bot. User Leon3226 took to the Tekken subreddit to rant about how some online players would rather cancel their match than fight a 3ddy bot to “learn against a literal one-button clicker.”

Though, as some have pointed out, anyone who’s played a fighting game can likely recall a time when they or someone they played against (online or offline) just kept spamming the same attack over and over again. Jimmashima’s just using a script this time.

Regardless of how you feel about the 3ddy bot, many in the Tekken community note that it’s a wild time for the franchise. Between the 3ddy bots becoming a hot topic of conversation, Bandai Namco recently unveiling its roadmap plan for post-launch content for the rest of the year, and Evo Japan underway, it’s an exciting time to be a fan of Tekken.

For more on Tekken 8, check out our review. If you are playing Tekken 8 and trying your best to prepare for the impending 3ddy bot and everything else, check out our guide, where we explain Tekken 8’s new Heat System and go in-depth for every playable character.

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

Assassin’s Creed fans embedded into the Apple hardware ecosystem can rejoice, as Ubisoft announced today that Assassin’s Creed Mirage for iOS and iPadOS will arrive in early June.

In a press release, Ubisoft revealed that Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be released on June 6 for the iPhone 15 Pro series and iPad Air and Pro tablets powered by the M1 chip or newer. This will be the most recent port of Ubisoft’s open-world game since its initial release on October 5. This will be the first time an Assassin’s Creed game that was originally released on consoles and PC will be available natively on iOS and iPad.

Regarding pricing, a Ubisoft spokesperson told IGN that “after 90 minutes free,” the full version of Assassin’s Creed Mirage for iPhones and iPads would cost players $49.99. This port will also include cross-save and cross-ownership, meaning iOS owners can access the game on iPad without double dipping and transfer their saves between those two devices.

Additionally, this port would include what in-app purchases would be available and how much they would cost, as shown in the screenshot below.

The iOS and iPadOS version of Assassin’s Creed Mirage was developed by Ubisoft Sofia, with Ubisoft noting that this port would include optimized touch controllers in addition to controller support, so players that own a Backbone One, for example, can use the peripheral to play this game on the go.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage was one of four games announced for the iPhone 15 Pro series during Apple’s Wonderlust event, where the company unveiled the iPhone 15 series. Most interestingly, that particular Apple event revealed that the iPhone 15 Pro series would be powerful enough to deliver console-quality video games, thanks to its A17 Pro chip.

In our review of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, IGN wrote: “Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s back-to-basics approach is a successful first step in returning to the stealthy style that launched this series.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include pricing information.

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

Realistic first-person shooter Gray Zone Warfare is currently Steam’s best-selling game as extraction rival Escape From Tarkov endures a community revolt, though its also being panned with “mixed” user reviews.

Gray Zone Warfare’s Early Access began today, April 30, 2024, timed just as Escape From Tarkov players are sharing their frustration at “shameless” and “tone deaf” developer Battlestate Games. But while Gray Zone Warfare, which promises similar tactical FPS gameplay, is currently the best-selling Steam game above Manor Lords, Helldivers 2, and Fallout 76, players are having significant issues, including poor performance, frustrating design choices, unsatisfying gunplay, and connectivity issues.

“Can barely manage 60 frames per second with specs higher than the recommended,” wrote one Steam user. “AI is weird. [It] either shoots you from way too far away with no warning or runs out in the open and stands there like a mannequin.”

Another complained about lack of simple quality of life features. “Chose the wrong faction. Now I can’t play with my friends because there is no way of recreating your character or changing,” they said.

DemonicSquid posted an extensive review detailing the above issues alongside others such as “extremely annoying” loud music during the character creation scene, clunky movement, random slowdowns, unusual NPC health bars (enemies can be bullet sponges or they can go down in one hit), and “very shady” practices where upgrading the game makes the entire product non-refundable.

The connection to Escape From Tarkov’s isn’t lost in the reviews either, with many referencing the recent controversies. “At least it doesn’t cost $250,” wrote one positive review. This comes after Battlestate announced the $250 Unheard Edition upgrade to the Escape From Tarkov beta, which added an exclusive player-versus-everyone mode amid other extras, and notably wasn’t deemed downloadable content by the developer. This meant those who’d bought the $150 Edge of Darkness edition of Escape From Tarkov, which came with a Season Pass and thus “free access to all subsequent DLCs”, wouldn’t obtain this new content without spending another $250.

While Battlestate has already reversed some of these decisions following a backlash, fans arguably grew more upset at comments made by COO and studio head Nik Buyanov. “I would like to say that I am very sorry that fans and the game community in general are experiencing these feelings,” he said, which was dubbed a “fake apology” by many.

For its part, Gray Zone Warfare developer Madfinger Games has said it’s working to iron out the problems players are facing.

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

You can currently bag yourself an Xbox Elite Series 2 Core Wireless Controller for just £71.99, just use code PAYAY20 at checkout. These usually go for about £115, so you’re making a very tidy saving here. One of the reasons for the lower price is that the item might be missing its original packaging, The controller itself hasn’t been used though, so you’re essentially scoring a £43 discount for a missing or opened box.

The PAYAY20 sale has been offering up some delightful gaming deals this last week, but you’re going to have to make a move today, as this is officially the last day of the deal. Pick up a Nintendo Switch for just £183.99. And it’s not just the standard model Switch included in the sale either. If you’d rather get your hands on the OLED model, you can pick it up for £227.19 using the same code.

Also in the deal is a Hisense 43A6KTUK 6 Series 4K Ultra HD Smart TV for just £183.20. There are other sizes available with the same code as well. The 50″ model is down to £231.20, and the 55″ model costs just £255.20 at the moment.

Today is also your last day to get your hands on the likes of Stellar Blade for just £56 using the promo code, alongside Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for just £47.16, and a Steam Deck 512GB for £374.95. Away from gaming, these AirPods Pro 2nd Gen are included in the deal for just £167.99. Long story short, there are a tonne of deals waiting for you, but you’ve gotta get on them today.

Joe O’Neill-Parker is a freelance writer and audio producer. He is the owner of O’Neill Multimedia. He writes commerce, sports, and audio-related tech articles for IGN.

Whenever Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead releases a big balance update for the PC and PlayStation 5 co-op shooter, the community debates the various nerfs and buffs as it gets to grips with the evolving meta. After this week’s release of patch 01.000.300, which tweaked a long list of weapons, stratagems, and enemies, the debate was especially vociferous.

A change to the beloved Quasar Cannon is but one that has led to claims that Arrowhead has nerfed fun out of Helldivers 2. The game’s Discord and subreddit are especially spicy as Arrowhead community managers address concern about nerfs even as they point out that in reality, the patch made significant buffs to a number of key weapons. The Adjudicator, for example, has enjoyed a meaningful buff, as has the Punisher Plasma, and the Counter Sniper. The regular Guard Dog and the Railgun also got some love. Other weapons were rebalanced with a combination of buffs and nerfs.

As the row over Helldivers 2’s apparent nerfs continues, Arrowhead has addressed another aspect of the patch that has drawn controversy: patrols for solo players.

In the patch notes released this week, Arrowhead said patrol spawning was increased when there are fewer than four players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For four-player missions there is no change compared to before. But “the biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties.”

Essentially, Helldivers 2 is now tougher for teams of three players and less, and much tougher for solo players. Helldivers 2 is designed to be played co-op, ideally in squads of four, but of course sometimes that’s not possible, and indeed there are plenty of players who prefer to play solo, challenging themselves to complete missions on their own and on the toughest difficulties even though Helldivers 2 can be incredibly difficult played this way.

Following the release of the patch, Arrowhead released a statement attributed to design director Niklas Broström, who explained that this change was about righting a prior mistake.

“We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn’t spawn as often as they should have when less than four players,” Broström said. “The intention is that one player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to four players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th.

“Scaling of patrol spawns was exponential before, and that felt good on four player lobbies but a bit too empty when playing with fewer players, especially when playing solo. So now we made the scaling of patrols to be linear, which means if you play solo you will get 25% of the patrols compared to a four-player lobby instead of having about 17% of the patrols. There is still a cap of patrols that can spawn at the same time so during situations when we spawn a lot of patrols, such as extractions, even solo players won’t notice the difference. The change is made to make the world feel less empty for one and two-player lobbies, especially on high difficulty missions which was also slightly too easy for solo players compared to our intentions.

“Hope this clarifies the change for everyone – we’re not making the game arbitrarily harder!”

So, it turns out, Helldivers 2 was unintentionally too easy for solo players, and now it’s at the difficulty Arrowhead always intended.

The patch reaction doesn’t end there. There’s also a debate about a significant change to ricochet: “Shots that ricochet from heavy armored enemies will now properly hit the Helldiver who fired them. Trigger discipline is highly recommended.”

Players are now reporting getting killed more often by shots that ricochet, but there is confusion about just how much of an issue this is. Clips are doing the rounds on social media that appear to show players suffering embarrassing deaths at the hands of their own ricocheting projectiles, but some have suggested there isn’t a big change here. The prevailing theory is that the patch has made it so the player now takes damage from their own bullets and shrapnel when ricochet occurs, compared to the pre-patch situation where they were immune.

If you’re looking for more on Helldivers 2, check out IGN’s feature on the Let Me Solo Her of Helldivers 2, a player who has answered over 100 SOS Beacons as part of a mission to help others.

Helldivers 2 has become one of the surprise hits of 2024 since launching in February, topping the charts on Steam and reportedly selling around three million copies. According to at least one analyst, it’s still growing. Check out IGN’s Helldivers 2 review to find out why it’s going down so well.

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.

Wizards of the Coast has announced the next Secret Lair collaboration for Magic: The Gathering, and it features android superstar Hatsune Miku.

For the uninitiated, Hatsune Miku is a hugely popular digital character whose voice synthesizer can be heard in tens of thousands of songs, and whose holographic likeness sells out in-person concerts on a regular basis. Now she’s taking her act from the stage to the playmat, as she’ll soon have her own Magic cards.

The crossover will be rolled out throughout the rest of 2024, with four different Secret Lair drops themed around the seasons in which they become available. The first, Sakura Superstar (seen above), will include Miku, Lost but Singing, a legendary creature that lets you play two additional land cards per turn, and Miku, the Renowned which lets you recast instant and sorcery spells – both of which are reskins of favored commander cards. This set will include six cards total, and seems designed for those who want this digital diva to head up their commander deck.

“Secret Lair lets us take the things fans already love about Magic: The Gathering and combine them with pop culture moments and amazing new artists,” said Mark Heggen, Wizards of the Coast’s Vice President of Collectibles. “We’re thrilled to team up with the global phenomenon that is Hatsune Miku to put on this year-long celebration for fans around the world.”

Secret Lair x Hatsune Miku: Sakura Superstar will be available for preorder starting on May 13, and will cost $29.99 and $39.99 for the non-foil and foil editions, respectively.

Travis Northup is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @TieGuyTravis and read his games coverage here.

Bethesda fans won’t have to wait much longer before they finally get their hands on Starfield’s first expansion, Shattered Space, and there is even more content on the way, too.

Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard updated fans wih more information on post-launch content during an interview with Kinda Funny. When talking about how Starfield will be fleshed out throughout the year, he teased that Shattered Space is scheduled to launch this fall.

Details on Shattered Space remain a mystery, though some fans speculate that it will focus on House Va’ruun. In an interview with IGN last year, Howard promised plans to add “a lot of add-on content,” going on to suggest that the team was looking forward to fleshing out Starfield with future updates, too.

In the near term, Bethesda is continuing to deliver smaller updates that should address fan feedback and iron out a few wrinkles. Howard says the next update should be “announced in a few days” before it’s available on Steam Beta.

“It’s got some great stuff for ship building as well,” he added.

Howard also teases another “big update” that is “coming really soon for Starfield.” Details on what changes it will bring are uncertain, though the Bethesda boss does tease long-asked-for tweaks for the in-game maps.

“We redid the map stuff, so we have some city map stuff,” he says.

More info on the Starfield Creation Kit “soon”

Elsewhere, Howard touched on the Starfield Creation Kit. Bethesda has offered similar creation tools in the past, allowing players to more freely mod their games and ensure long legs after launch. He didn’t go as far as to announce a release date but did reassure players that it is still on the way.

“We’ve delivered it to some people, some of our creators for Starfield,” Howard said. “You’re going to hear some information about that soon. We don’t have date to announce on when its full release is coming, but it’s really, really important to us. Our modders out there have been incredible.”

Bethesda brought Starfield to PC and Xbox Series X | S players last September. In our 7/10 review, we explained that we enjoyed the long-awaited space RPG but had a few gripes.

“Starfield has a lot of forces working against it,” we said at the time, “but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.”

Bethesda has continued to churn out updates for Starfield since its launch. March brought a pair of worthwhile changes, including lots of quality-of-life improvements in Update 1.10.30 as well as the removal of the lockpicking penalty with Update 1.10.31. If the official updates aren’t enough to keep you satisfied until Shattered Space launches, you can check out one of Starfield’s DLC-sized mods.

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.

In its quarterly earnings presentation, Remedy Entertainment shared an update on its remake of Max Payne 1 and 2, as well as the news that Tencent has nearly tripled its investment in the studio.

In a report for shareholders, Remedy announced that Max Payne 1 & 2 remake is expected to move into “full production” during Q2 of 2024 (April through June of 2024). Additionally, Codename Kestrel — Remedy’s upcoming multiplayer action game formerly known as Vanguard — is still in the concept stage.

Elsewhere, the Control 2 team is finalizing its proof of concept and is expected to advance to the “production readiness stage” during Q2. Codename Condor, a multiplayer game set in the Control universe, is in “the final development stage before a game is launched,” or full production.

With all these games in the cooker, Remedy has received a new infusion of cash from existing stakeholder Tencent. Previously, Tencent acquired a minority (3.8%) stake in Remedy that it later upped to 5%. Today, Remedy announced that Tencent increased its stake again to 14.8%, nearly triple what it was prior.

A busy year for Remedy

It was a busy period for Remedy. The company fully acquired rights to the Control franchise from 505 Games, and is currently discussing future partnerships and business and publishing models, including self-publishing. Alan Wake 2 sold 1.3 million units as of the start of February, and Remedy says today that the game has recouped “a significant part” of its expenses.

The company additionally announced today that its COO Christopher Schmitz is resigning, and that long-time Remedy veteran and Control game director Mikael Kasurinen is being appointed as a company-wide creative director. Remedy’s revenue for the quarter was up 56.2% year-over-year to €10.8 million ($11.6 million).

Two planned expansions for Alan Wake 2 are currently in the works, one entitled Night Springs, and a second entitled The Lakehouse. Neither has a release date just yet.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Amazon is offering the lowest price we’ve ever seen on the officially licensed WD Black C50 1TB Expansion Card for Xbox Series consoles. Right now it’s only $124.99, a 16% off price drop from its original $150 MSRP. It’s currently $25 cheaper than the Seagate 1TB Expansion Card. The C50 is one of the best SSDs for the Xbox, which isn’t surprising since your options are pretty limited.

WD Black C50 1TB Expansion Card for Xbox for $124.99

The WD Black C50 expansion card is essentially a 1TB NVME SSD 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.

This expansion card offers the same speed as the internal SSD, ensuring that you won’t sacrifice performance or encounter extended load times as you might with a regular USB drive. With a 1TB expansion card, you can double the storage on your Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S Carbon Black Edition console, and triple the storage on your OG (white) Xbox Series S console.

In contrast to the PS5, there are no alternative methods for adding high-speed storage to your Xbox console. Your options are limited to either the WD or Seagate expansion cards, underscoring the importance of seizing a good deal when one becomes available.

Looking for more Xbox accessories? Check out the best Xbox deals today.

It turns out Tesla isn’t the only car manufacturer experiencing a mass recall for its video-game-esque car because of pedal-related issues. Now a bunch of drivable Mario Kart toys are being recalled because they seems to pose a significant crash hazard to their drivers.

JAKKs Pacific, a California-based toy company, recalled 17,500 units of its Mario Kart 24V Ride-On Racer Cars on April 25 because of a crash hazard related to its battery-powered acceleration pedal. According to the United States Consumer Product and Safety Commission, if debris gets clogged in the $400 Mario Kart’s acceleration pedal, it can cause the pedal to stick even if the rider’s foot isn’t pressing down on it.

“The firm has received 65 reports of incidents of debris-clogged pedals sticking, of which 15 of the vehicles crashed into permanent structures with one minor injury, a chafed hand,” the United States Consumer Product and Safety Commission wrote in its recall report.

For anyone who already purchased the Mario Kart from online and brick-and-mortar stores like Amazon, Walmart, or Target, between October 2022 to January 2024, the United States Consumer Product and Safety Commission recommends that users immediately stop using it and contact Jakks Pacific to receive a free repair kit, which includes a free replacement pedal and installation instructions.

If there’s an upside to this whole debacle, it’s that gamers will have a genuine experience modding their karts just like they were in Mario Kart 8.

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