Category: Gaming

N64’s GoldenEye 007 is one of the most celebrated multiplayer games of all time, and now the Centre of Computing History has found the ultimate way to stop screen cheating by giving each player their own separate screen.

The Centre of Computing History shared a video of this new way to play GoldenEye 007 on Twitter, and it shared how it undertook this endeavor for its upcoming 25 Years of GoldenEye Dev Talk Evening.

While the event is sold out, it will allow fans who have already secured a ticket a chance to try out this separate screen GoldenEye experience for themselves.

The event will also bring three of GoldenEye’s developers – Martin Hollis, Dr. David Doak, and Brett Jones – in as guests, and will have development documents, concept art, and playable versions of GoldenEye Japan and possibly the canceled GoldenEye Remastered for Xbox 360.

If you want to have this set-up for yourself, the Centre of Computing History warned that it was a bit tricky and also quite expensive, as it required roughly £8,000 of video distribution equipment. It also noted it was running the game on an original N64 using an original GoldenEye 007 cartridge.

While this may be tough for most people to recreate, GoldenEye 007 Xbox Achievements did appear online earlier this year and potentially hint at a new port that may be headed our way in the future.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

We’re finally seeing the LEGO Horizon Forbidden West Tallneck set back in the stock in the UK. It had previously sold out at most retailers, but you can now buy it immediately from GAME, or on back-order from Smyths. The LEGO set includes 1,222 pieces and costs £69.99 if you purchase it now (or $79.99 in the US). We’re expecting this to sell out again before the end of the day.

LEGO and PlayStation teamed up to launch the Horizon: Forbidden West set featuring the Tallneck, alongside an Aloy Minifigure and Watcher figure. The LEGO Tallneck is intended as a display model and was initially released on May 1, 2022.

LEGO Horizon Forbidden West Tallneck In Stock Right Now

Living up to its name, the set is over 34cm tall, 23cm wide, and 17 cm deep, and was created in collaboration with Guerrilla Games, the developer of Horizon: Forbidden West.

It’s been an incredibly popular item, with multiple retailers in the UK and US already selling out the set (including Amazon UK, Best Buy, Walmart, and LEGO UK+US). But, it is still available to back-order from Amazon US for those on that side of the Atlantic.

Tallneck LEGO Set

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

Back in the early 2000s, surfing was one of several sports being well-served in the video game space. Treyarch’s Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer, published on Xbox, PS2, and GameCube under Activision’s long-defunct Activision O2 brand, is one high-profile example – but there were plenty of others. Krome produced Championship Surfer for PC, PlayStation, and Dreamcast in 2000, and also Sunny Garcia Surfing for PS2 in 2001. Angel Studios (which later became Rockstar San Diego) released Transworld Surf on Xbox, PS2, and GameCube between 2001 and 2003. The surf-obsessed may even remember Surfing H3O, although you might be better off forgetting that one.

And then, the tsunami of surfing games stopped. Waxheads were waiting for more, but the surfing sub-genre was sunk.

“Perhaps I need my head read,” jokes Bungarra Software CEO Andrew West when asked why he thinks it’s been effectively two decades since a sport-focused surfing game surfaced. Based in Fremantle, Western Australia, Bungarra is the developer of Barton Lynch Pro Surfing 2022 – an ambitious new surfing game bearing the name of 1988 ASP World Tour Champion and Australian Sporting Hall of Famer Barton Lynch, available now on Steam Early Access.

“We started back then and we were working on a version of surfing for a publisher, so we actually lived through all of that time,” says West. “It’s an interesting question. Back then it was a Tony Hawk and SSX-inspired gold rush of sorts.”

West attributes the wipeout to low sales and a perceived lack of depth in the genre.

“For a large, publicly-listed entity like Activision, the sales for games like Kelly Slater or Mat Hoffman were probably never going to see sequels because, for Activision, I guess the numbers for them didn’t stack up,” he says. “So perhaps the thinking among other publishers is that if games like KSPS, Sunny’s game, or Transworld don’t get sequels, then why bother?”

West concedes those are fair questions to ask, but also points out Bungarra doesn’t need to make “an Activision-like amount of money” to service its audience and survive.

“But to do that we have had to address that nagging question of gameplay depth and frankly, it’s taken us two decades to figure it out,” he says. “The other thing that has changed over the course is the whole digital and streaming thing – I can’t even begin to tell you how liberating that is compared to when we started. But as you point out it’s been 20 years between drinks, so we really hope that people will get behind us and support the game because, if I am brutally honest, the simple fact is that it just may not happen again anytime soon.”

Surf conditions and weather can be totally customised before entering the water.

With its expansive world tour mode, commentary, weather options, and a full character creator, Bungarra describes Barton Lynch Pro Surfing 2022 as a “truly sport-focused surfing game.” West confirms the team are surfers themselves who are truly passionate about the sport and the culture. Pressed on the best surfing movie, West himself can’t narrow it to a single answer.

“South to Sian, Rubber Soul, Billabong Surf into Summer ’87, Asian Paradise, and I love the Sessions series on Red Bull TV, in particular the Andrew Mooney East Canada road trip,” says West. “For anyone who’s lived out of a car – or a cave – hunting for waves, that seven-minute short movie just makes you feel so good and is sure to bring a smile to your dial.”

Of course, surfing credentials are just one part of the equation, but as an eight-person studio (four full-time, four part-time) West is philosophical about the question of balancing expectation with the realities of what’s possible for a small team making an ambitious, contemporary sports game of this type.

“That’s a really tough one,” says West. “We understand that people work hard and they expect their entertainment to be at a high quality, especially if they’re going to give you their time.”

“I mean if you’ve had a tough day, the very last thing you want to come home to, is a lousy piece of entertainment right? No one wants that, so we are upfront with people and hopefully they understand that we are not a large AAA studio with a massive budget. Once our audience realises that then generally the expectations are reset because most people are reasonable.

“At the same time the game has still got to be good, and you can’t hide behind the indie excuse either. So our aim is to create an offer that is solid visually, offers something new, has depth, and is largely bug-free at launch. The goal is to focus on the core experience – get the basics right, and then when the time comes downstream we can then try and build upon that and then add those nice-looking extras. For us, right now it would be pure folly to even try and compete with the likes of Electronic Arts on those beautiful cut-scene movies that you see in their sport games.”

100% pure adrenaline.

Interestingly, Barton Lynch Pro Surfing 2022 isn’t Bungarra’s first surfing game; the studio previously had a little-known game called The Surfer launch on PS3 in 2017. No, not PS4, PS3 – a curious four years after the PS4 had arrived. West explains development of The Surfer was incredibly tough, but it taught them several valuable lessons.

“The Surfer was a mission and you wouldn’t be alone in not being familiar with it,” says West. “It was a super-tough project because we funded that ourselves, worked part-time jobs for years, and there were only three of us working for three days a week.”

“We literally crawled over broken glass to get that game to market and by the time we did the PS3 was already long gone. I think the development issues with the PS3 are well documented, and by the time we were finished we had no time or energy to look at any other platform. It was exhausting. I could be wrong but I think we were quite possibly the last game to release on the PS3 – or close to it. But perhaps that’s a story for another day.

“What we learned was how to develop a gameplay and scoring loop for surfing that actually made sense, and also just what it takes to get a console game to market – which is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life and nothing else comes close. So The Surfer informed us in many ways about surfing game design and the sort of production values people expect and deserve.

“It allowed us to understand what the design requirements are in regards to forming the basis for a larger project such as this one. It also allowed Bungarra to get this project off the ground, because as at least people could see that we actually had a game out on console. We came out on the PC via Desura originally, and then later on the Sony PS3. We are still learning and we certainly don’t know it all, but we owe everything to The Surfer and I’ll be eternally grateful to my colleagues Matthew Strickland and Jack Nelson for the work we did on that project.”

Little hand says it’s time to rock and roll.

Barton Lynch Pro Surfing 2022 brings with it a large list of licensed gear and equipment (including Billabong, Quiksilver, Roxy, MR Surfboards, Lost, Pyzel, ONeil, Creatures Of Leisure, Futures Fins, and more), and West notes there was enthusiasm amongst them for a new sports-focused surfing game, “but it was understandably tempered.”

“I mean, when you’re a no name and you’re asking for access to an established brands product – whether it’s a multimillion dollar brand or a smaller brand with street cred – that’s always going to be a tough ask,” West admits. “But, this time around we were fortunate enough to have Barton and his business partner open those doors for us. Once they were opened then people could see and understand where we were taking this.”

“As you say, people appreciate authenticity in sports games and it was important for our audience – our people, to have the brands in the game in order to reflect some semblance of reality. Plus, we wanted to mainly focus on the sport simulation side and largely avoid that objective-centered arcade approach of the past. Surfing’s an established rules-based sport and it’s rather combative, so when we pitched that idea I think the brands understood what we are striving to achieve. We hope that this is step one in a much longer process.”

Barton Lynch Pro Surfing 2022’s career mode takes players all around the globe to some of the world’s most recognisable surf spots, and West explains a great deal of thought has gone into the locations themselves and the cadence of the tour Bungarra has created.

“We had to think long and hard about this because we wanted to create a tour that would be rooted in some form of reality and we took into account a range of logistics,” says West. “So the way we’ve structured this is that we have based the tour on the time of the year, when each location would have their most optimal conditions – as you would in reality – and then we also looked at the actual gameplay requirements for new players. So a lot of thought and planning went into this.”

“We reviewed Europe first because January is the northern hemisphere’s winter/spring and because of that it made sense to start there. For this you’ve got to take into account swell directions, tides, and winds that work at certain times of the year at the varying locations. We also looked at other factors such as locations that are iconic and look amazing, such as Mundaka in Spain. Mundaka can be a fickle wave, but it’s absolutely all-time when it’s on and, from a game design perspective, it is perfect to introduce early because it’s a left-hand barrel, plus the wave is long. So this means that new players have the ability to come to grips with the game mechanic relatively easily because of the length of the wave and it runs in one direction.

“Aileen’s in Ireland was next, again because it’s an intense underground big wave in Ireland and the playing field is massive. Aileen’s is a magnificent looking location but it’s also a long right; again, perfect for players coming to grips with the control and scoring schematic. From there we followed the weather and design factors again and so Snapper, Margaret’s, Jeffrey’s Bay, Hossegor, and all the others came to pass. We actually outsourced the location modeling initially, but after some time we discovered some really amazing high-end tools that allowed us to model the locations accurately internally and we were then able to finish that work off ourselves, to really get the look we were after.”

Bungarra claims plenty of work has been done to create a satisfying scoring system.

Bungarra has observed the recent revival of skateboarding sub-genre over the last few years, but West stresses the audience for Barton Lynch Pro Surfing 2022 is a little different from sports games like skateboarding, or even snowboarding.

“Our core audience is the surfer,” says West. “We’ve looked at the skate and snowboard games out there as a matter of course, with a view to looking at design ideas and visual techniques mainly. So we do study them. For both of those sports, a casual gamer can simply pick up a controller, move their avatar forward and then start skating or snowboarding immediately.”

“Over the past fifteen years, since Skate, the innovations for those games have largely centered around the controller and the scoring schematic and in general, those games have become harder to play. The question of taste is a trickier one to answer because as you know, surfing has a lot more natural barriers to entry than skateboarding and snowboarding, so by extension we are naturally harder to play. Surfing has a lot more going on – you’ve got to paddle to get to the wave, then understand which way the wave is breaking and then if you’re new to the sport, somehow catch the wave and move forward.”

West goes on to explain how Barton Lynch Pro Surfing 2022 is different from older surfing games; he admits that they’ve previously been pushed to remove parts of the surfing experience, like paddling and duck-diving, to make the game easier and “speed up the loop.”

“However in this game, we’ve done the very opposite and created a gameplay mechanic out of the whole experience – paddling, duck-diving, surfing – everything,” he says. “So for non-surfers or casual gamers, if there is a general taste for games that offer more of an authentic challenge, then hopefully, yes, they will come along for the ride.”

According to West the ocean system for Barton Lynch Pro Surfing 2022 features waves that actually traverse across the levels themselves, which is also a new approach.

“You might have noticed that with almost all surfing games, the wave is effectively static?” West asks. “By this I mean, that you never actually get any closer to the shoreline? But in this game you do. It’s full on.”

“To be clear though, BL Pro Surfing is somewhere between a simulation and an arcade experience so it is definitely pick up and play, but hard to master. I guess because of our past experiences, we felt that for a long time that we needed to appeal to everyone rather than our core constituent – the surfer.

“Time is a great leveler though, because we’ve learned that we just can’t – and should not – try and appeal to everyone. We are niche and we happily accept that.”

Barton Lynch Pro Surfing 2022 is available now on Steam Early Access, and is dropping in on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 at later dates.

Luke is Games Editor at IGN’s Sydney office. You can chat to him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.

The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly opening an inquiry into Sony’s planned acquisition of Bungie, marking a notable ramp-up in federal oversight of gaming mergers during a period of major industry consolidation.

According to sources speaking with The Information, last week the FTC began seeking more information about the deal in an investigation that could potentially delay its closing by six months or even more. Though a closing date wasn’t announced alongside the initial announcement, The Information reports it could be pushed into early 2023.

The FTC is reportedly focused on concerns that Sony might be motivated to prevent competing companies and services, such as Xbox, from accessing Bungie’s games such as Destiny 2. That means examining how popular Destiny is, and whether a possible restriction would meaningfully harm Sony’s competitors and create antitrust violations. While Sony has publicly committed to keeping Bungie games cross-platform, its ability to restrict both current titles and future releases in the future is a point of antitrust concern.

This investigation represents another sign of the FTC’s recent, more aggressive approach toward potential antitrust issues in the gaming industry. While it is customary for the FTC to look into large deals, the spree of major gaming acquisition in recent years as well as the growing size of such deals appears to have prompted greater scrutiny, particularly under Biden-appointed FTC chair Lina Khan.

For instance, in February, reports suggested that the FTC was similarly investigating the planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft to determine whether it would harm consumers, partners, or competitors. And Khan has stood at the head of a planned crackdown on merger guidelines, and has similarly pushed a block of a planned Nvidia acquisition and reopened an antitrust case against Meta.

The FTC’s investigation doesn’t necessarily mean the acquisition will be meaningfully impacted, especially given the immense legal challenge required to ultimately block a deal. However, the increased scrutiny on the gaming and tech sectors will likely remain a consideration in future acquisitions as more and more major companies express interest in adding to a growing pile of internal studios and the industry is further consolidated.

Update 4:08pm PT: Responding to an inquiry from IGN, the FTC declined to comment.

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

Yesterday, a new trailer for the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi dropped. In anticipation of its upcoming release, Ewan McGregor is in full press mode supporting the six-part series and stopped by virtually on the Jimmy Kimmel show.

Over the course of the interview, McGregor dove right into a number of topics ranging from action figures of himself to fans who know more about the series than he does. But it is one specific side comment that made us pause.

In the interview, he praises director Deborah Chow who “really knows [her stuff]” regarding the various media the Star Wars universe inhabits. McGregor says that “all of the storylines have to … match up” and you “can’t have some fact in a video game that doesn’t match up to the movie.”

It’s a known fact that Star Wars Jedi: Fall Order is situated around the same time as the events of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. It isn’t that big of a hyperspace jump to think we could see a cameo from Cal Kestis or another Fallen Order character.

In Jedi Fallen Order, Cal is hunted down by the Jedi hunting Inquisitors. In fact, both Fallen Order and the Obi-Wan series feature The Inquisitors as the main villains. Check out our Jedi: Fallen Order review to see just what we thought of Cal’s adventure. Could he be in Obi-Wan Kenobi?

Luckily, we won’t have to wait too long to find out. Obi-Wan Kenobi drops its first two episodes on Disney Plus May 27, 2022. In the mean time, check out our coverage on the heartfelt reunion between Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen for Obi-Wan Kenobi and be sure to check out the first trailer for the series.

Casey David Muir-Taylor is a freelance writer at IGN.

With over 120 internal studios, 230 games in development, and a massive stable of 850 IPs, Embracer Group has quietly become one of the biggest names in video games. The company, which calls itself “a parent company of businesses led by entrepreneurs in PC, console, mobile and board games, and other related media,” most recently purchased a handful of studios and IPs from Square Enix, including Crystal Dynamics/Tomb Raider, Eidos-Montreal/Deux Ex, and Hitman Go developer Square Enix Montreal.

As Embracer Group continues to expand, many gamers have wondered, What exactly is Embracer Group, and what’s it doing with all these game franchises?

To answer that question, we’ve distilled Embracer Group’s thirty-year history into a digestible chronology, explaining how the company came to be and cataloging its growing list of notable development studios and game franchises. (Monetary amounts are listed in USD$ via exchange rate based on the days those deals were announced.)

What is Embracer Group?

Embracer Group is a Swedish holding company — that is a company that doesn’t produce goods or services itself, rather it owns other companies that do. In the case of Embracer, it owns 10 such companies (i.e., operating groups): THQ Nordic, Koch Media, Coffee Stain, Amplifier Game Invest, Saber Interactive, DECA Games, Gearbox Entertainment, Easybrain, Asmodee, and Dark Horse. All 10 companies operate a varying number of businesses and/or studios, all of which fall beneath the Embracer Group umbrella.

To extend the oft-used familial metaphor, Embracer is the parent company of Koch Media and Saber Interactive, and therefore could be considered the grandparent company of developers like Volition (Saints Row) and 4A games (Metro), which are owned by Koch and Saber, respectively.

So how did Embracer make the jump from a relatively unknown company to a global gaming powerhouse? It began rather humbly, in 1990, when a 13-year-old Lars Wingefors (Embracer’s founder and current CEO) started selling used comics. By ‘93 Wingefors expanded into buying and selling used video games, and by 2000 he “operated Sweden’s largest independent games wholesale business,” according to Embracer’s website.

Wingefors would reconfigure his business several times throughout the early 2000s, culminating in the transition from game sales to game publishing as Nordic Games. The company says the current iteration of Embracer Group started “for real” with the acquisition of publisher JoWood Entertainment in 2011, though its rise to public consciousness is better placed in 2013 when it acquired Darksiders, Red Faction, and Destroy All Humans from a bankrupt THQ.

THQ’s bankruptcy played a significant role in the rise of Embracer; not only did the company purchase the aforementioned THQ franchises, it later bought the THQ trademark. By 2016 Nordic Games was renamed THQ Nordic to capitalize on the stronger brand recognition. In 2019 the company rebranded for the last time, taking on the moniker Embracer Group to represent its mission: “Embrace great companies, great people, and great ideas.”

In addition to a diverse portfolio of video game studios and IPs, Embracer owns household names in board gaming (Catan Studio – Catan, Z-Man Games – Pandemic) and comics (Dark Horse – Hellboy, The Umbrella Academy).

Notable Embracer Group Acquisitions

Embracer’s current acquisition spree kicked off in 2018 with its nine-figure purchase of Koch Media, though as previously mentioned, it began buying game franchises in the early 2010s.

Below we’ve compiled a chronology of Embracer’s most notable purchases. Considering the number of acquisitions Embracer has completed over the past decade, we’ve omitted lesser-known studios and IPs from this list, as well as most mobile and board game developers.

2013

In 2013, Embracer (then operating as Nordic Games) made its first major acquisition, buying Darksiders, Red Faction, MX vs. ATV, Destroy All Humans, and other IPs for $4.9 million from a bankrupt THQ.

2017

After a few quieter years, Embracer acquired German developer Black Forest Games and its IPs — Giana Sisters, Helldorado, and Rogue Stormers — for roughly $1 million. Black Forest is now working on a remake of Destroy All Humans 2, after releasing a remake of the series’ first game in 2020.

A week later, Embracer acquired Pieces Interactive, makers of Magicka and Titan Quest, for roughly $350,000. The studio’s been quiet since releasing its third Titan Quest expansion in 2019.

Embracer’s third and final acquisition of 2017 was of BioMutant developer Experiment 101 for around $9 million. As part of the purchase, Embracer also became the owner of the BioMutant IP, which it planned to turn “into one of [its] major franchises.” However, after a lengthy development, the action-RPG was released in 2021 to middling reviews.

2018

Embracer’s first nine-figure acquisition came in early 2018 when it bought Koch Media/Deep Silver for $150 million. As part of the deal, Embracer became the owner of Dambuster Studios (Dead Island 2, Homefront: The Revolution), Fish Labs (Chorus), and Volition (Saints Row, Red Faction).

The company followed up on that massive purchase by acquiring two IPs — Timesplitters and Kingdom of Amalur — for undisclosed amounts. The stylish first-person shooter series Timesplitters was created by Free Radical Design, which would go on to become Crytek UK in 2009 before folding into Deep Silver Dambuster in 2019. However, in 2021, studio founders Steve Ellis and David Doak reformed Free Radical to create a new Timesplitters. Kingdom of Amalur, meanwhile, was remastered in 2020 as Kingdom of Amalur: Re-Reckoning.

Embracer then acquired Coffee Stain for ~$34.7 million. The company came into the Embracer fold along with the Goat Simulator and Satisfactory IPs. Coffee Stain is now one of Embracer’s 10 operating groups, alongside Koch Media, THQ Nordic, Gearbox, and others. The company also published the 2021 PC hit Valheim, though developer Iron Gate Studio remains independent.

The same day Embracer acquired Coffee Stain, it purchased Bugbear Entertainment, the racing-focused studio behind Wreckfest, for an undisclosed amount.

Valheim PC Gameplay Screenshots

2019

Embracer’s first acquisition of 2019 was the $37.5 million purchase of Warhorse Studios, the developer behind the immersive RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Warhorse is now working with Saber Interactive, another Embracer-owned company, on a Switch port of Kingdom Come.

ELEX 2 developer Piranha Bytes was acquired by Embracer that May for an undisclosed amount. As part of the deal, Embracer also obtained the Gothic and Risen IPs.

Embracer then expanded its racing portfolio with the $50 million purchase of Milestone in 2019. The Italian developer most recently released the excellent Hot Wheels Unleashed in 2021. Its other notable racing series include MotoGP, Ride, and Monster Energy Supercross.

Six years after acquiring the Darksiders IP, Embracer bought the series’ current developer, Gunfire Games, for an undisclosed amount. Outside of the Darksiders series, Gunfire found success with its Dark Souls-inspired shooter Remnant: From the Ashes.

Little Nightmares developer Tarsier Studio was the final studio to be embraced in 2019. The studio, acquired for $10.5 million, is now focused on creating new IPs, as Bandai Namco owns Little Nightmares. With the sale, Embracer also obtained the rights to Tarsier’s previous puzzle-solving VR game, Statik.

2020

Saber Interactive became Embracer’s fifth operating group when it was purchased for $150 million in early 2019. (While the upfront purchase price was $150 million, the deal has the potential to climb to $525 million based on performance goals.) Saber is best known for its ports and remasters (The Witcher 3 for Switch, Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary), though it also found success creating its own game with World War Z. It’s now working on Evil Dead: The Game, due out May 13, as well as Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2.

Evil Dead: The Game – April 2022 Screenshots

Embracer then acquired developer 4A Games, its proprietary game engine, and the Metro IP for $36 million, though the deal could be worth as much as $71 million based on performance milestones. The studio most recently released Metro Exodus in 2019.

The same day Embracer acquired 4A, it picked up New World Interactive, the studio behind the multiplayer FPS series Insurgency, for an undisclosed amount.

Embracer also expanded its VR presence in 2020 with the $59 million purchase of Arizona Sunshine developer Vertigo Games.

It followed that up by acquiring 13 studios in a single day, including Pinball FX developer Zen Studios, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated developer Purple Lamp Studios, and Shadow Warrior 3 developer Flying Wild Hog. Of those three acquisitions, only the purchase price of Flying Wild Hog was disclosed ($137 million).

2021

Embracer kicked off 2021 with its biggest purchase to date, acquiring Borderlands developer Gearbox for $363 million upfront, with incentives that could make the deal worth as much as $1.3 billion. Gearbox was made Embracer’s seventh operating group upon its acquisition. Regarding Borderlands, 2K will still publish “all of the known and planned” games in the series, though the IP is owned by Gearbox/Embracer.

Alongside Gearbox, Embracer announced its $100 million acquisition of developer-publisher Aspyr Media in February 2021. The acclaimed port studio has worked on several Star Wars games, including the upcoming Knights of the Old Republic Remake. The deal could end up being worth as much as $450 million.

Two years after acquiring Deep Rock Galactic publisher Coffee Stain, Embracer purchased the game’s developer, Ghost Ship Games. Ghost Ship was one of eight acquisitions Embracer announced on August 5, 2021, alongside DigixArt (Road 96), Splitgate Ironworks (Ghostrunner), and 3D Realms (Duke Nukem Forever). While individual prices weren’t disclosed, Embracer announced the collective total of that day’s eight acquisitions was $313 million.

Perfect World Entertainment and its subsidiary Cryptic Studios joined Embracer in December 2021 at the cost of $125 million. Cryptic is best known for its work on MMORPGs, including Star Trek Online and the D&D-based Neverwinter. Perfect World has rebranded to Gearbox Publishing since being acquired.

2022

This brings us to 2022 and Embracer’s latest set of acquisitions, which came courtesy of Square Enix, who dealt Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal to Embracer for $300 million. Also included in that deal were a number of notable Square IPs, including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, and Thief.

The acquisition came less than a month after Crystal Dynamics announced it was working on a new Tomb Raider using Unreal Engine 5. Eidos-Montreal, meanwhile, is “working on a host of AAA projects including both new releases from beloved franchises and original IP.”

For more on Embracer’s latest acquisition, you can read our op-ed on why Square Enix’s sale could be a good thing. “At the very least, [Hitman developer] IO’s independence from Square certainly offers a cautiously optimistic tale of what could happen,” writes IGN’s Jonathon Dornbush, “though we won’t fully understand how these teams truly succeed or fail for at least another couple of years.”

Buying a house in Final Fantasy XIV sometimes feels as insurmountable a task as buying a house in real life.

Housing has been a hot commodity in FFXIV for years, as owning a house gives players a space to decorate and make their own. But with demand far outpacing supply, housing is one of the luxury items in Final Fantasy XIV.

But if you’re lucky to get a house, you’ll be glad to check out HGXIV, a fan podcast, and community that shines a spotlight on designers and provides essential resources like design guides, housing directories, designer portfolios, and more.

There are two big hurdles to purchasing a house in FFXIV. The first is the high cost, as the most basic plot of land starts at 3 million gil (the in-game currency), and larger plots can cost up to 50 million gil. What makes buying a house even more difficult is that it has practically become a game of chance, as players need to comb through residential wards and wait for plots to go on sale, then hope they can snatch it before someone else. A certain level of commitment to FFXIV is needed to even consider owning a house.

Square Enix has constantly tried to introduce new ways to get houses to more players, but even its most recent attempt with a lottery system was met with a crippling glitch that messed up the way winners were drawn.

Despite all the roadblocks, however, a vibrant community has popped up around the housing market, filled with dozens of virtual interior designers.

“When I first started to learn how to decorate, there weren’t many guides or resources online on how to do things. I would look on the FFXIV subreddit and sometimes people would post their houses, but where could I find more? I luckily was able to find a website called Housingsnap. It’s Japanese based (the Japanese housing community is HUGE) and users can post pictures, and it really changed how I looked at decorating,” says Ashen Bride, the founder of HGXIV, who adds that the podcast was created “from a desire to not only discuss housing and aspects that go into a design, like lighting, and themes, but to also offer transparency on how to make furniture.”

Countless housing portfolios can be found on Twitter and forums, and from a glance, everything might seem incredibly overwhelming. It’s hard to even know where to start, but that’s the entire reason HGXIV exists. “People joke that ‘Housing Savage’ is buying a plot in the first place but I would say decorating is truly where the suffering begins!” says Bride, who also offers a few tips to anyone looking to get their start.

A sample of custom housing decoration in FFXIV. Credit: Square Enix.

“I would say if you’re brand new, the best thing to do is work within your limits, just set things down and sit and enjoy your space. Don’t rush yourself, or compare yourself to someone else, because everyone has their own skill sets and ways to make things. The space you’re making is for you and your friends to enjoy!”

HGXIV’s Discord has a robust set of options to help anyone of all skill levels, from a massive directory of designers that work for gil commissions to stop-motion “Break it Down” videos that go step-by-step through designs. Of course, if you’d simply like to hire a professional designer you can also do just that with HGXIV’s directory.

It’s a wide and vibrant community that’s welcoming to newcomers, and Bride herself doesn’t have any real-world interior design experience. They’ve been playing FFXIV since 2013 but didn’t get invested in the housing community until they had the chance to purchase a house after moving to the Famfrit server. This is when things finally started to make sense.

As Bride says, “I enjoy problem and puzzle-solving and sometimes the limitations of the furniture system can breed a lot of creativity from designers. Something about FFXIV and lego-ing furniture together just clicks in my brain.”

While HGXIV creates a fantastic resource for prospective designers, Square Enix still has some work to do to make housing more accessible to more players. Up until recently getting a house in XIV required a lot of time and patience, effectively requiring players to camp out at housing wards to try and find plots that would go up for sale.

The lottery system was supposed to make the whole process a bit more fair and, hopefully, a crackdown on the bots abusing the system. During the entry period of the lottery, players could pursue the housing wards and find a plot that they like. At that point, they can pay the requisite gil to enter the lottery, which randomly chooses a winner from all players that have entered.

This would, supposedly, make getting houses a fairer process across the board, and cut down on a single-player purchasing multiple housing lots. Anyone who doesn’t win will get their gil back. Glitches have put a damper on the whole lottery system, but Square Enix has been incredibly diligent about providing new housing wards and servers to open up more options.

There’s no easy answer to the problem, as Bride notes that a lot of the community has suggested “Instancing” housing, which would essentially give each player self-contained housing that only they and their friends could enter. However, Bride explains how this could also kill the illusion of permanence that housing wards have. “I also feel they want to keep the immersion of wandering a housing ward and standing around with friends,” they add.

On top of the core problem of getting a house, there are a lot of smaller improvements that could be made to the overall system to streamline design. “I love to decorate but the Housing Menu system is so outdated and clunky to work with.” In many cases, players have to break and “glitch” the game to get custom designs, like wanting to use a lamp for a floating light or putting a book on a bed. HGXIV has an entire section on its website that walks players through the various means of “glitching” and creating custom designs.

It’s amazing to see how XIV’s housing community has exploded over the last few years, and Bride thinks a large part of that is how the game targets a more casual demographic. “I’m not ashamed to say I keep a subscription at this point to log in, talk to my friends, and decorate a house. It creates a social aspect while also letting players show their creative side. I really enjoy going into someone’s house and being able to see parts of their personality and the things that they like,” says Bride.

FFXIV has helped create an important social space for so many players that feel isolated, whether that’s from their own life or the pandemic. It’s clear there’s an overwhelming amount of passion that goes into housing designs and the community, and if HGXIV can help even one other person find their passion, then it’s succeeded.

“Sometimes I think back about how I started out, and how I wanted to learn new designs and make friends with similar interests, but I was a bit lonely without a community. I’m happy if anything I put out there has made it easier for people in their housing journey to feel accepted and make friends.”

Check out IGN’s Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker review for more coverage of Square Enix’s hit MMO.

Hayes Madsen is a freelance writer whose work has appeared on Inverse, Fanbyte, PCGamesN, and more. Hayes loves anything related to JRPGs and cats, especially if they’re together. You can reach him @Solfleet on Twitter.

Epic Games and Microsoft are partnering to bring Fortnite to Xbox Cloud Gaming. The megahit battle royale is now available to play on PC and even iOS and iPad devices through streaming.

Anyone interested in playing Epic’s battle royale just needs a Microsoft account and an iOS device or Windows PC with internet to begin playing immediately through a browser. There’s no need to subscribe to Xbox Game Pass as Fortnite will remain free-to-play through Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Xbox Cloud Gaming lets users play games instantly without needing to install a game onto their device locally. The service is normally part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, but Fortnite does not require a membership to play. Instead, players can log in with their Microsoft account through xbox.com/play on a web browser to begin playing Fortnite.

The browser-based version of Fortnite means players can circumvent Apple’s decision to delist Fortnite from the iOS App Store. Nvidia did something similar for a limited time when it brought Fortnite to its streaming platform GeForce Now.

This new free-to-play offering is meant to bolster Xbox Cloud Gaming which Microsoft announced has been used by over 10 million players.

Xbox Cloud Gaming is not the main benefit of an Xbox Game Pass subscription, which gives members access to a library of games, including first-party Xbox titles. But as an additional service, IGN has found Xbox Cloud Gaming to be functional though not perfect. When it works, it’s amazing to load up a full game in seconds though you’ll be playing at a lower resolution and slight lag depending on your internet.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Developers, including Totally Accurate Battle Simulator’s Landfall have begun signing an environment-focused anti-NFT pledge.

The pledge was set up by Climate Replay – a gaming-centred group made up of various developers raising awareness of the climate emergency – and six studios have signed it so far.

Alongside Landfall, KO_OP has signed the pledge (most known for the Lara Croft GO: The Mirror of Spirits expansion) alongside other developers Bearwaves, Godolphin Games, Cloudy Games LLC, and Brainless Labs. 127 individuals have also signed the pledge alongside the studios, featuring a mix of developers and fans.

Cory Scheviak, game designer and founder of Climate Replay, said the pledge has been well-received so far, and that developers see it, “as a way forward for the gaming industry to have a framework for responsibly implementing this technology. All in all, the response I’ve seen has been wholly constructive and well-received, both from fans of NFTs and critics,” he added.

NFTs aim to allow for ownership of digital items and some developers and publishers have already explored letting gamers own certain unlocks, such as Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s limited edition Quartz gear.

But implementing NFTs comes with certain gameplay risks, Climate Replay said on its website, as developers could alienate their player base, stop gamers just “playing for fun”, encourage bots, and more. More seriously, implementing NFTs and their blockchain systems (which track and allow the dealing of NFTs) requires serious energy consumption, and therefore emissions, that are also bad for the environment.

As a result, Climate Replay’s pledge is asking developers to only consider implementing NFTs if it’s right for the gamer and makes use of technology that doesn’t cause significant environmental damage.

Additionally, it says that implementing digital ownership technology should not: rely on unregulated cryptocurrency, disproportionately benefit early adopters or wealthier players, encourage informal jobs (grinding in a game solely to make money), or be implemented without full transparency.

The exploration of NFTs in games has been a widely controversial topic so far. Ex-Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé said last week that, while he’s a believer in blockchain technology, it has to be implemented to work for the gamer first.

“I bet I’d have some takers here today if I wanted to sell my Animal Crossing island from the latest Nintendo Switch version. I’d like to be able to monetise that,” he said. Though “it can’t just be an approach by the developer [who thinks] that it’s interesting or it’s a way for them to make more money.”

But that’s the problem according to executives at PlatinumGames (developers of Bayonetta and Nier: Automata), who said that companies investing in NFTs are doing so purely as money-grabbing schemes instead of player-focused incentives.

Specific developers who’ve received severe criticism for NFT implementation include Worms studio Team17, who announced a range of “MetaWorms” collectibles before cancelling it a day later, and the wave of backlash even prompted employees to speak out on their overall poor treatment.

Beating the 24 hour record, STALKER 2 developer GSC Game World announced and cancelled its NFT plans within an hour, saying that, “based on the feedback we received, we’ve made a decision to cancel anything NFT-related.“

NFTs were also banned from Steam as Valve president Gabe Newell said they were linked to “a lot of sketchy behaviours” and “out of control” fraud. This was reflected by smaller indie game marketplace itch.io, who called NFTs a scam and said anyone investing in them should re-evaluate their life choices.

Some companies such as GameStop and Ubisoft are sticking by NFTs though. The publisher’s aforementioned inclusion of NFTs in Ghost Recon Breakpoint – the “most expensive” of which could only be obtained after playing for 600 hours – was announced in December to further backlash, but executive Nicolas Pouard said that gamers just don’t get it.

“For now, because of the current situation and context of NFTs, gamers really believe it’s first destroying the planet, and second just a tool for speculation,” he said. “But what we are seeing first is the end game. The end game is about giving players the opportunity to resell their items once they’re finished with them or they’re finished playing the game itself.”

Ubisoft announced it was ending support for Ghost Recon Breakpoint in April 2022.

Battlefield and FIFA publisher EA, like Ubisoft, expressed early interest in NFTs, saying it thinks they’ll be “an important part of the future of gaming”. This had changed a few months later though as EA announced it was “not driving hard” in the direction of NFTs, though not necessarily ruling them out.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.