2024 is shaping up to be a big year for the live-action Sonic The Hedgehog franchise. The Knuckles miniseries premiered on Paramount+ earlier this week, and Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is coming to theaters during the Christmas season. However, that may be far from the end of the road for Sega’s iconic characters. During an interview with GamesRadar+, Knuckles showrunner and executive producer Toby Ascher hinted at more Sonic spin-offs to come.
“We have a really good plan for the future of Sonic,” said Ascher. “As we grow these characters, what television has provided us with Knuckles is a moment to do a deep-dive character study into them. As we find stories we’re excited about, we’re going to hopefully continue to do this again.”
GamesRadar+ speculates that Shadow the Hedgehog may be the character next in line for a show. And Shadow is the logical pick. His live-action debut already happened in the mid-credits scene for Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Shadow is slated to have a major role in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Keanu Reeves will provide the voice of Shadow in the upcoming film.
Beyond Shadow, there aren’t too many obvious choices for additional Sonic spin-off shows. Perhaps Rouge the Bat, Amy Rose, Blaze the Cat, or even Metal Sonic have solo potential. But we may have to wait a few years before any of those characters are introduced in the live-action franchise.
Sonic The Hedgehog 3 will hit theaters on Friday, December 20. Knuckles is now streaming on Paramount+.
Supergiant Games has never made a sequel. Instead, it’s a studio that has consistently iterated and innovated with each subsequent game, arguably culminating in the team’s greatest work to date: Hades. The engrossing roguelite dazzled with tight and engaging combat, an iconic visual presentation, and novel take on a persistent narrative that interweaves the progression of its story with its repeating gameplay loop. If Supergiant Games were ever going to commit to a sequel, Hades definitely provided the most fertile ground for further development, ensuring that its follow-up has a strong foundation established in a proven hit. Hades II’s technical test is a small slice of the game and a very quick look at how Supergiant plans to build on the success of the first game, but it’s already clear that it is anything but a safe improvement on what has come before.
There are lots of questions as to how the established base of Hades will enrich the new areas that Supergiant Games plans to add in the near future, and how well the freshly introduced mechanics hold up over much longer, and hopefully complex, runs. But if this is the foundation that Hades II is to build off over, it’s exciting to think where it’s eventually going to end up.
The weekend is here, and there are loads of exciting deals you do not want to miss! This Saturday, new deals on some amazing video games, technology, and devices have appeared, and we’ve rounded up our picks. The best deals for Saturday, April 27, include Tekken 8, 2024 MacBook Air, One Piece Odyssey, Apple Watch Series 9, and more.
Tekken 8 for $49.99
Tekken 8 is the latest major fighting game to be released for the current generation of consoles. Over 32 characters are already playable, far surpassing titles like Street Fighter 6 or Mortal Kombat 1. The online modes far surpass their predecessors, with good netcode and many different ways to play. In our 9/10 review, we stated Tekken 8 is ” an amazing new entry in the long-running series.”
Save 10% Off Apple 2024 MacBook Air
Apple 2024 MacBook Air 13-inch Laptop with M3 chip
Amazon currently has the 2024 MacBook Air on sale for $989. This device utilizes the M3 chip, which is extremely powerful and features a 50% higher memory bandwidth compared to the M1. If you’ve been contemplating purchasing a 2024 MacBook, this deal makes today a great time to do so.
One Piece Odyssey for $19.99
This deal on One Piece Odyssey is fresh, being the lowest we’ve seen this RPG yet. Offering turn-based combat, One Piece Odyssey looks to create a fun experience with an original story featuring the beloved Straw Hat Pirates. If you’ve already played Pirate Warriors 4 and are itching for a return to the world of One Piece, now is the time to do so with Odyssey priced at just $19.99!
Save 25% Off Apple Watch Series 9
Amazon currently has the Apple Watch Series 9 41mm model on sale for $299. Normally priced at $399, this is an excellent deal on the latest Apple Watch model. Series 9 includes new features such as gestures, a display as bright as 2000 nits, and on-device processing for Siri.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage for $20
Woot currently has Assassin’s Creed Mirage available for only $19.99. Ubisoft looked to take the series back to its roots for this release with a classic setting and refreshed gameplay mechanics. You can expect an action title with plenty of stealth abilities to sneak around its map. If you’re an Assassin’s Creed fan who has felt burnt out with recent entries, Mirage is a refreshing change of pace. We gave the game an 8/10 in our review, stating the game is “a successful first step in returning to the stealthy style that launched this series.”
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 for $30
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 – PlayStation 5
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 – Nintendo Switch
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 – Xbox Series X
For just $30, you can own the first three Metal Gear Solid titles on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or Nintendo Switch. This package also includes Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Prior to the Master Collection, there was no method to play the Metal Gear Solid titles on most modern consoles, but you can now experience Hideo Kojima’s series from the very beginning anywhere.
Apple HomePod (2nd Generation) for $249.99
Best Buy currently has the Apple HomePod for $249.99. If you listen to music in your home using Apple Music, the HomePod is a great choice, as this is a device with high quality sound and audio tech. This is the lowest we’ve seen the 2nd Generation HomePod yet, so it might be worth your attention if you’ve been holding out on purchasing this device.
As great as it is to see the 3D Fallout games enjoying another moment in the sun following the popularity of Prime Video’s excellent TV adaptation, the games I most want to direct new fans toward are the classic original Fallout and Fallout 2. Aside from being where it all began, those are the stories that hold many of the answers people coming off of the show are looking for: the origins of Shady Sands, the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, what happens when a vault’s water chip fails, and much more. Their stories, scenarios, and memorable moments have stuck with those of us who played them for decades, and bringing those same experiences to an entirely new audience that’s ravenous for Fallout content seems like a slam dunk.
However, in 2024 that recommendation comes with more caveats than it ought to: While both are readily available on Steam (and included in PC Game Pass) and run on modern PCs, when you fire it up you’re presented with an array of tiny buttons, no tutorial, and 2D sprite graphics designed for 800×600 CRT monitors that, despite being loaded with post-nuclear character, make you squint to see what’s going on. It’s enough of a barrier to re-entry to make even a (very) old fan like myself balk a bit at diving in for another playthrough – and a reminder that if there’s one series that has been criminally overlooked in the era of remasters, it’s old-school Fallout.
Bringing a game like Fallout up to date in a way that would please both diehard fans and newcomers would certainly take years of work, and I don’t mean to suggest it would be easy by any stretch of the imagination. The original is just 562MB installed off of Steam; Fallout 2 is just 2MB larger. (I remember having to keep the disc in the drive to play because my brother’s PC only had a 1GB hard drive in 1998.) You can technically crank the resolution up to full 4K, but who’re we kidding? Character sprites are just 60 pixels tall, so you’re getting a bare minimum of detail – packed with retro-futuristic flavor as it may be – any way you slice it. The grainy cinematics are barely better, and only the most important conversations are voice acted. Also, there’s no controller support, so there are legions of modern-day Fallout fans who play on consoles who have no access to these fantastic games at all.
There are legions of modern-day Fallout fans who have no access to these fantastic games at all.
A full remaster wouldn’t even be as simple as porting over models and textures from Fallout 4, since any art director worth their salt will tell you things need to be designed differently when they’re intended to be viewed from an isometric perspective. (It’d be interesting to see those old games brought in line with the art style of Bethesda’s Fallout games, though personally I’d love an update that honors the more cartoonishly broad-shouldered, bulkily armored character design.) Beyond graphics, there are a number of features that would be expected in a modern game, such as character customization beyond picking between dark-haired white male and dark-haired white female for your Vault Dweller, that would need to be added. The UI could certainly use some updating as well, and the first Fallout is from a time when in-game tutorials weren’t a thing, so popping up with some instructions on how to use its systems would be a positive step. I’m sure some people would love an option to prevent companions from being permanently killed when a stray SMG burst shreds them into a fine mist, but for me that’s part of the charm.
I’m sure a modern remaster would have to do away with a few things that haven’t aged super well – I would not expect the Childkiller trait to carry over, for instance. Back when Fallout 3 was announced I asked Todd Howard how that game would handle kids; visibly wincing, he replied that you can’t do child murder at that level of fidelity. Much as I enjoyed how the original gave you such broad freedom that you could make a decision – or mistake – so monstrous the entire wasteland would hate you forever, I’m inclined to agree.
The popularity of Baldur’s Gate 3 makes me confident modern gamers wouldn’t have a problem with Fallout’s combat.
That said, the underlying gameplay holds up very well, and the popularity of Baldur’s Gate 3 and XCOM-style turn-based tactical games makes me confident that modern gamers wouldn’t have a problem getting the hang of how Fallout’s combat works – it’s far, far less complex than managing a wizard’s spells. Sure, you have to go into your inventory to load a pistol with your choice of ammo types and open a menu to target an enemy’s groin, for instance, and if your luck stat is low you’ll be prone to weapon misfires and hitting the wrong target. But it’s plenty rewarding even so, and there’s no shame in save scumming (quicksave/quickload would be another great addition).
So there’s a long to-do list, but it can be done. We’ve seen proof with 2021’s Diablo 2: Resurrected, where Vicarious Visions (now known as Blizzard Albany and, coincidentally, under the same corporate ownership as Bethesda) painstakingly remastered a beloved game from 2000 with vastly improved 3D graphics and a handful of important quality of life enhancements. In theory, Fallout could get the same treatment: According to Tim Cain, producer on the original Fallout, the original source code still exists for both games and should be in the possession of Bethesda, so they could be updated rather than remade.
It’s going to be a long, long time before Bethesda revisits the post-apocalypse.
And they really should be, because the reality is that it’s going to be a long, long time before Bethesda’s already announced development schedule allows it to revisit the post-apocalypse for another full-scale RPG. Heck, even in the best-case scenario where another Xbox studio like Obsidian or InExile were to kick off a new Fallout tomorrow while Bethesda goes back to Tamriel for The Elder Scrolls VI, we’d still be very, very lucky to see it before the 30th anniversary of the original Fallout, which came out in 1997. To put that in perspective: there will likely be a longer gap between 2018’s Fallout 76 and a hypothetical Fallout 5 than there was between Fallout 2 (1998) and Fallout 3 (2008) – a 10-year stretch during which the series was largely considered dead. Remastering the originals would fill that gap nicely in as little as a couple of years, if Diablo 2 Resurrected’s three-year development is any indication, and give Fallout fans a Stimpack injection of the good stuff to tide us over.
Every IGN Fallout Review
Dan Stapleton is IGN’s Director of Reviews and one of our many old-school Fallout fans. Follow him on Bluesky.
Jonathan Ferguson, a weapons expert and Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries, heads to the irradiated wastelands of West Virginia to check out the guns of Fallout 76, including the Colt Single Action Army, the Black Powder Rifle and the Pepper Shaker.
In the latest video in the Firearm Expert Reacts series, Jonathan Ferguson–a weapons expert and Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries–breaks down the guns of Fallout 76 and compares them to their potential real-life counterparts.
If you’re interested in seeing more of Jonathan’s work, you can check out more from the Royal Armouries right here. – https://www.youtube.com/user/RoyalArmouries
If you would like to support the Royal Armouries, you can make a charitable donation to the museum here. – https://royalarmouries.org/support-us/donations/
And if you would like to become a member of the Royal Armouries, you can get a membership here. – https://royalarmouries.org/support-us/membership/
You can either purchase Jonathan’s book here. – https://www.headstamppublishing.com/bullpup-rifle-book
Or at the Royal Armouries shop here. – https://shop.royalarmouries.org/collections/thorneycroft-to-sa80-british-bullpup-firearms-1901-2020
You can subscribe to the Armax Journal that Jonathan Associate Edited here: https://www.armaxjournal.org/
GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.
We’re quickly approaching the halfway point of the year, a period which has become a pitstop of sorts on the gaming calendar. Between the buffet of big releases we’re now seeing more regular in February and March, to the traditional holiday season rush of tentpole titles, May 2’s game release lineup could have provided some much-needed breathing room and a chance to catch up on your backlog. But as it turns out, May 2024 has some fascinating new arrivals to tempt you with.
From the long-in-development Hellblade 2 to the return of a sci-fi strategy series, there’s a month of varied releases to look forward to. Several games are leaving early access on PC, another PlayStation Studios title is headed to that platform, and Nintendo is bringing one of its best Mario games of the GameCube era to Switch. For more in May, you can see the rest of the highlights below, and for a wider look at what’s still to come this year, you can check out the 2024 upcoming games schedule.
The Blu-ray release of the original Berserk anime sold out immediately at Amazon when it launched last month. If you weren’t able to secure a copy, you have another chance to do so now. A fresh printing of Berserk is available to preorder on the Crunchyroll Store. Like Amazon, the anime juggernaut sold out of its initial batch of Berserk Blu-rays, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see it sell out again. Crunchyroll lists May 10 as the release date for the upcoming printing, so you won’t have to wait too long to start watching the anime that was adapted from Kentaro Miura’s legendary manga of the same name in 1997. Preorders are discounted by 20%, dropping the price from $60 to $45.
The 1997 anime has long been considered to be the best adaptation of Berserk thanks to its well-realized dark fantasy setting, unflinching brutality, and emotionally devastating moments.
Alongside all 25 episodes presented in high-definition, you can watch the series in either the original Japanese dub or the infamous English version. All extras from previous releases have been included, and the entire package is contained in a cover adorned with some eye-catching art. In case you’ve missed the manga or the anime, Berserk tells the tale of wandering swordsman Guts and his quest for revenge against the enigmatic Griffith, a godlike being.
Set in a world of swords, sorcery, and gruesome monsters, Berserk is a captivating tale of fate and destiny, heartbreak and betrayal. Created by the late Kentaro Miura and spanning decades of chapters, Berserk is often hailed as one of the anime series of all time thanks to its dark story and stunning animation. It’s a show that you definitely don’t want your kids to see, and while it does make some changes to the saga, it’s still a faithful adaptation.
If you’re looking for even more Berserk, check out the excellent deluxe editions of the original manga, which are beautifully oversized hardcover volumes that give this wonderful manga the premium treatment it deserves.
Best Buy is running a three-day sale this weekend, offering big discounts on video games, laptops, PC hardware, audio equipment, and more. There are hundreds of deals available, but they’re only sticking around through Sunday, April 28. To help navigate the listings, we’ve put together a quick roundup of some of the noteworthy deals available in Best Buy’s three-day sale.
While all the deals we’ve picked out are available to everyone, it’s worth noting that My Best Buy Plus members get access to additional savings on select items included in the sale.
Video games
Elden Ring
Best Buy is cutting prices on select PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch physical games. This includes big releases from last year, like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Dead Space for $30 each, which is a big drop from their normal $70 price tags. Fighting game fans can grab the recent Tekken 8 for just $50 and Mortal Kombat 1 for $$40, while souls-likers can snag Elden Ring for $40 and Lies of P for $45. And while there aren’t many Switch games in the sale, there are a few gems like Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, which is on sale for $20 (was $40).
Gaming consoles and hardware
PS5 Slim + Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 bundle, Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go
Best Buy’s gaming software deals are great, but the retailer is also discounting a selection of new gaming hardware, including a PS5 Slim console bundle that comes with a digital copy of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 for just $450, which equates to a retail value of $570. PC gamers looking for a new way to play their Steam library on the go can also grab PC gaming handhelds like the Lenovo Legion Go for $700 (was $750) or the Asus ROG Ally for $400 (was $500)
Laptops and computers
iBUYPOWER Y60 Black gaming desktop, Acer Nitro V gaming laptop
For a more standard PC gaming experience, there are also numerous laptops and pre-made gaming PCs on sale from brands like Asus, Razer, Corsair, and more. For example, you can snag the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 gaming laptop with an Intel 13th gen Core i7 CPU, GeForce RTX 4060, and 16GB of RAM for just $1,050 (normally $1,450).
As for desktops, the iBUYPOWER Y60 Black with an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU, GeForce RTX 4070Ti Super, 32GB RAM, and 2TB NVMe SSD is down to $1,950 (normally $2,100) and includes a free month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Along with the gaming rigs, select Apple Macbooks are on sale. While the savings aren’t as big as some of the other laptop deals, you can still save $150 on new MacBook Air and Pro models, such as the 14-inch MacBook Pro with Apple M3 Chip, 16GB RAM, and 1TB SSD for $1,850 (was $2,000).
Need a new display for your home theater or office? Well, this weekend is probably a good time to grab one since a bunch of TVs and PC monitors are on sale. The TV deals include 4K models like the Insignia F30 75-inch LED 4K and the high-end 75-inch Samsung QN800C Neo QLED 8K.
Select speakers, soundbars, and headphones are also part of Best Buy’s sale this weekend. You can snag over-ear headphone models like the Apple AirPods Max or Sony WH1000XM4, and in-ear true wireless models like the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II. If you’re looking for home theater audio deals, there are a bunch of soundbars and speakers on sale as well, a few of which on included in the list below.
25 years ago, Nintendo changed forever when Mario and Pikachu beat the snot out of each other for the first time. And it wasn’t some imaginative playground game or notebook scribbles, it was a real, official, Nintendo-sanctioned clobbering! Today marks the 25th anniversary of Super Smash Bros. hitting North America on Nintendo 64, launching the franchise that would eventually culminate in the best-selling fighting game of all time. So on Smash’s birthday, let’s celebrate gaming’s biggest crossover, and speculate about where the franchise could possibly go next after the literally “ultimate” last entry.
It still blows my mind that Nintendo approved a game where its most recognizable, family-friendly faces get punched by other company icons, especially considering that Smash 64’s prototype was called Dragon King: The Fighting Game, featuring no Nintendo characters at all. But when series creator Masahiro Sakurai thought the game would be more successful with Nintendo characters, the company surprisingly agreed. The uber-protective Nintendo has a cute explanation for how its all-stars can fight, as Smash 64’s opening cutscene shows plush toys of Mario, DK, and Samus coming to life in a child’s playroom. Super Smash Bros. Melee replaced the plush toys with trophies, which eventually led to Smash for Wii U and 3DS’ amiibo, which led to hundreds of dollars leaving my bank account. But however Nintendo needs to justify it, it’s just awesome the idea got the green light.
Super Smash Bros. Slamfest ’99 Photos
I anxiously awaited a green light of my own to get my start with Smash Bros. One of my earliest vivid memories comes from when I was five years old, sitting in a Target parking lot with my mom and sister. I had my heart set on getting Super Smash Bros. Melee for GameCube, but there was a catch: Melee was rated T for Teen, and my kindergarten-age self was a long way away from my teenage years. My mom called my dad to see if he thought it was okay for me to play a T-rated game, and he luckily approved. So thanks, Mom and Dad, because that decision introduced me to one of my favorite series, one that I’m still in love with over 20 years later.
Looking back now, Smash 64’s humble roster of 12 fighters seems miniscule in comparison to modern entries, but as a kid I still remember how incredible it was to play a game with Pikachu, Mario, and Link all in the same place. It felt impossible, and with each new entry, Sakurai and Co. continued to make miracles happen. Melee expanded the lineup significantly, over doubling the number of characters and adding princesses like Peach and Zelda and villains like Bowser and Ganondorf. There were also some great off-the-wall choices in Melee, like Mr. Game & Watch, the Ice Climbers, and a couple of mysterious sword fighters from an unknown Japan-exclusive series called Fire Emblem.
As much as I dislike the floaty physics of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I still really appreciate the Wii entry for all the big swings it took. From its wildly ambitious Subspace Emissary story mode, to its attempt to introduce online play to the franchise, to crazy third-party inclusions like Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog, Brawl followed in Melee’s footsteps establishing that each new Smash entry was going to be bigger and more bombastic than the last. Smash Bros. never rests on its laurels, and it has deservedly become an event whenever a new Smash Bros. hype cycle kicks off.
Thanks to the rise of the Nintendo Direct and social media, the leadup to Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS is remembered for extremely hype reveal trailers. Nintendo ramped up the third-party additions with classic gaming icons like Mega Man, Ryu, and Pac-Man, along with the truly unfathomable introduction of Final Fantasy VII’s Cloud Strife. I distinctly remember conversations along the lines of “Where does Smash go from here” starting after Smash 4’s DLC run came to an end, as the roster seemed too big to replicate in a future entry. But of course, we all now know that wasn’t the case.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is one of Nintendo’s crowning achievements. Not only did Ultimate bring every character from franchise history back, but it continued the trend of absolutely wild third-party crossovers. Steve, Banjo & Kazooie, and Sora feel like nothing more than pie-in-the-sky chat forum dreams, but Sakurai and his team at Sora Ltd. and Bandai Namco made them all happen. So now, on Smash’s 25th anniversary, I’m asking the same question we all asked before the Smash team set the bar even higher with Ultimate: What happens next?
Will Sakurai Be Involved?
Every Smash Bros. is Masahiro Sakurai’s last Smash Bros… until the next one. That’s been the pattern for nearly the entire franchise at this point, as it always seems like Sakurai is on his way out the door until Nintendo reels him back in for one more go. But this time, it really seems like it’s worth questioning if Sakurai will continue to lead Smash in the future. And yes, there is a future for Smash. “Ultimate” may be the title of the last entry, but there’s no way Nintendo is going to leave one of its mega franchises on the table with 20 million-plus sales potential. Personally, I don’t think Sakurai is going to be able to help himself the next time Nintendo gives him a call. Last year, the creator said he can’t imagine the series continuing without him.
“The question now is what happens next time?” Sakurai said in a video on his YouTube channel. “I mean whatever comes after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. One option would be to separate the series from its original creator, but for now, at least, I can’t imagine a Smash Bros. title without me. You might think that’s a natural stance for someone in my role, but I say so speaking objectively.”
Sakurai added that there’s no one right now who he can see taking the reins and leading the next Smash game, and that he’d like to continue working with Nintendo in the future. I wouldn’t be surprised if that phone call has already happened, as Sakurai announced he is ending his short-lived YouTube career later this year, and he squashed rumors of retirement by saying he’s still focused on making games.
Since Sakurai feels there is currently no one prepared to take over the series, I think he will come back for one more entry where he shifts into more of a producer role, so he can take the time to train his replacement during development of the next game. It would be a similar situation to what we’ve seen happen with Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda, where longtime directors like Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma slowly transitioned into producer roles. That way, when Sakurai is ready to step away from Smash, he can rest easier knowing his series is in good hands.
Can ‘Everyone Is Here’ Happen Again?
Even Sakurai himself doesn’t think something the size of Ultimate can happen again.
“As for what comes next for the Smash Bros. series, even I’m not sure,” Sakurai said. “I feel we truly succeeded in making people happy with this game, but now that Smash Bros. has grown to be monstrous in size, I’d say it’s difficult to imagine an increase of this magnitude happening again.
“Every time, we managed to make a game that I had previously thought impossible, so I can’t say for certain there won’t be another, but I do think it would be difficult to push it any further than we have.”
Bringing everyone back for another entry would be even tougher than it was for Ultimate. Besides the sheer number of characters to work on and balance during development, Nintendo would have to get every third-party partner — we’re talking Capcom, Sega, Konami, Square Enix, Microsoft, and even Disney — to sign off on their characters making another Smash appearance. While I don’t doubt that Sakurai and his team could pull it off again, I’m not convinced that’s the route they’d go with a brand-new Smash game.
The one route where I could see “Everyone Is Here” happening again is through a Deluxe port of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Maybe Nintendo would port a game as massive as Smash Ultimate to its next home console, and Sakurai’s team at Bandai Namco could reconvene to make some DLC additions to the roster. It would be a significantly smaller lift for the developers, and Sakurai could take the opportunity to train a new director under much less demanding circumstances than an entirely new Smash Bros. game.
Super Smash Bros.: The Complete Playlist
Here’s every installment in Nintendo’s platform fighting series.
The other route I could see Smash going is to a full reboot of the series. Movesets for Ultimate’s DLC characters were absolutely bonkers, from Hero’s spell menu, to Joker’s Persona, to Terry and Kazuya’s powered-up states, and it started to make characters who have been around since the early days of the series feel simple by comparison. Characters like Mario, Fox, Link, and Samus have barely changed since Smash 64, and it might be time to go back to the drawing board and revamp the movesets for some of Nintendo’s most classic characters. Overhauled movesets for iconic fighters in exchange for a much smaller roster seems like a fair tradeoff to me, and Nintendo would surely grow the roster over time through DLC.
Either way, Nintendo is facing a big challenge for the next Smash Bros. game. This series has always outdone itself, but Ultimate is a very tough game to try and outdo. But if there’s one team I trust to figure out how to make the next entry special, it’s Sakurai and Nintendo, and I can’t wait to see what’s next for this series that always manages to be such a special event.
What do you want to see from the next Smash Bros. game? Let us know in the comments.
Logan Plant is IGN’s Database Manager, Playlist Editor, and frequent Super Ninfriendo on Nintendo Voice Chat. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
The next-gen update for Fallout 4 is finally live, bringing Bethesda’s 2015 RPG up to par for modern consoles and PCs. But what exactly does next-gen update mean, especially in 2024?
We’ve broken down the biggest changes that are now available in Fallout 4 thanks to Bethesda’s update, which not only includes graphical and technical changes, but even additional content as well. Remember to check out our list of “Things to Do First” in Fallout 4 for anyone jumping into the game the first time with the next-gen patch.
Powered for Current-Gen Consoles
The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are miles more powerful than the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles on which Fallout 4 originally released. The new update will bring the nearly nine-year old game up to modern-day standards thanks to the next-gen update. Fallout 4 now supports 4K resolution on consoles, regardless of whether you choose between either the new Quality or Performance mode.
The main difference is Quality mode targets 30 FPS at 4K resolution on ultra settings without dynamic resolution scaling. Performance mode, meanwhile, targets 60 FPS at standard 4K resolution with dynamic resolution scaling. Furthermore, depending on your display, Fallout 4 on Quality mode will target 40 FPS when connected to a 120Hz display, or 1440p resolution at 60 FPS on ultra settings when connected to a 1440p display.
Remember, for console players, there’re also Console Commands and Cheats that you can enable even when playing on a PS5 or Xbox Series X.
One note of warning! It appears that the next-gen update is not available for players who own Fallout 4 through a PS Plus subscription currently. However, Bethesda has stated the next-gen update will be available for the PS Plus version and that the studio is working on a fix.
Squishing Bugs (for now).
Speaking of bugs, Bethesda has been working away on squashing game bugs even after nearly a decade since launch. The patch notes for Fallout 4’s next-gen update include a long list of bug fixes, ranging from technical issues, save data issues, locked missions, broken assets, and more.
However, it appears the introduction of the next-gen update introduced some other issues as well, which we’ll continue to monitor as more and more time is spent with the new update.
Thanks to mods and typically better performance, PC Fallout 4 players have been playing the game at a higher standard than console players from even before the patch. But with the next-gen update, there are still some new benefits to PC players.
With the update, there’s now official support for both wide and ultrawide screens. Furthermore, the Fallout 4 Creation Kit has received a set of fixes and updates for easier navigation and to fix bugs and crashes.
Greater Availability on More Platforms
Fallout 4 is now also officially available on the Epic Game Store, as well as getting an official “Deck Verified” badge for Steam Deck. Frankly, there weren’t too many issues running Fallout 4 on Steam Deck before, at least from my experience, but the verification should mean the process of getting Fallout 4 running on Valve’s handheld is smoother than before.
It isn’t just a technical update that’s in Fallout 4’s next-gen patch. Bethesda’s patch notes begin with a long list of new gear and questlines available in The Commonwealth. There’s a brand new Enclave storyline called Echoes of the Past that has ties to a storyline from Fallout 3, and there are new weapons, Power Armor, and outfits for players to find along the way.
Two more new questlines, When Pigs Fly and All Hallow’s Eve, will further unlock more content from the Makeshift Weapon Pack that includes a Nail Gun and Baseball Launcher, to spooky Halloween props for your settlement.
These are the biggest changes in Fallout 4 thanks to the update. For both returning and new players, this is a great chance to jump back into Fallout 4, especially after the success of the Fallout TV show.
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
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