You’re probably thinking “not another battle royale” and you’d be justified. However, Rocket League‘s new Knockout game mode seems to be for people who hate battle royale games.
Knockout is part of Rocket League’s spring in-game event called Knockout Bash, which goes from April 27 to May 10. This new game mode involves using the driving/soccer skills you’d use in the normal game in an eight player destruction derby-type battle royale.
In addition to the existing movesets, there are three new skills to master: Attack, Block, and Grab. Attack is basically dodging into an opponent to send them flying if placed right. Block is essentially a parry which reflects Attacks back onto the opposing player with proper timing. Grab allows you to, well, grab other players and throw them.
The Best Games to Play on Xbox Series X|S
Knockout also adds secondary mechanics which are basically enhanced versions of existing moves such as boosting, jumping, and lock on. For example, you’re able to do a triple jump instead of the normal double jump.
Knockout features three new Arenas specifically for the mode called Calavera, Carbon, and Quadron. The walls of each Arena have been worn away and are perfect for knocking players out of the arenas.
Unlike other battle royale games, Knockout is solo queue only and gives each player three lives. A shrinking, translucent dome called the Safezone surrounds each area, similar to shrinking circles in other battle royale games. If a player goes outside of the Safezone for 10 seconds, they’re automatically KO’d.
If there isn’t a winner after six minutes, there is a Sudden KO where every attack is fully maxed out and those thrown into the Safezone are automatically knocked out. This will likely appeal to those who prefer quicker games. In fact, the shorter time limit and three lives seems tailor made for those who aren’t too keen on battle royale games in general.
Of course, this new Knockout Bash event comes with new in-game collectibles such as Florescent Wheels, Monarch Boost, or a Flutterby Decal. There are also Golden Gift Baskets which are basically loot boxes that contain random items.
If slamming cars into one another isn’t your jam, Infinity Ward revealed the official logo for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the sequel to the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot. This will be the last annual release of Call of Duty as the series moves away from yearly schedules.
David Matthews is a freelance writer specializing in consumer tech and gaming. He also strongly believes that sugar does not go in grits. Follow him on Twitter @shortblktechie
Modern Warfare 2 is a sequel to 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot, rather than a remake of 2009’s original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Besides the logo, no new details about the game were revealed.
Veteran developer Yuji Naka hit out at his former publisher, Square Enix, after a court case over his removal as director of Balan Wonderworld concluded.
Naka is best known for his work on Sonic The Hedgehog, Phantasy Star, and Nights into Dreams. In a series of tweets, Naka said that “Square Enix is no good” and that neither they nor co-developer Arzest are “companies that care about games or fans.”
Naka had served as the director of Balan for much of its development but was removed from the post about six months before the game was released. He resigned from Square Enix shortly after Balan was released and filed a lawsuit against the company. He also floated the idea of retiring from the games industry for good.
Balan Wonderworld Xbox Series X Screenshots
In his thread, Naka cited two reasons for his last-minute dismissal. First was he voiced concern about promotional work with a Youtuber, who was to perform and release sheet music for a piano arrangement of the game’s music. “I thought it strange that we would only release an arrangement of the game’s music, and furthermore use a ghostwriter to produce that arrangement,” wrote Naka. “I got in trouble for arguing that we release the original score.”
Naka also cited tensions between himself and Arzest surrounding his comments that the game was submitted in an unfinished state, with known issues left unfixed. “I believe that games should be made by working hard until the very end, until it’s a good game that the team thinks their fans enjoy when they buy it,” he wrote.
Balan Wonderworld was announced in 2020 and hyped as the long-awaited reunion of Naka and fellow Sonic creator Naoto Ohshima, who is currently the head of Arzest. It was a critical and commercial failure upon release in March 2021, with our review calling it a “half-baked platformer” that was little more than a “jumble of endearing but incoherent ideas” and let down by “fundamentally bad choices.”
While mostly focusing his ire on Square Enix and Azrest, Naka also thanked those who provided “comments and fantastic illustrations” inspired by the game, and offered his “sincere apologies to those customers who bought the unfinished Balan Wonderworld.”
IGN has reached out to Square Enix for comment and you can read our independent translation of Naka’s Twitter thread below.
I filed a lawsuit against Square Enix after I was removed as director of Balan Wonderworld roughly six months before release. Now that the court case is over and the removal order is no longer in effect, I have some things that I’d like to say.
I think Square Enix is no good: they don’t care about games or fans. According to court documents, I was removed as director from Balan Wonderworld for two reasons. This decision was made by the producer, publicist, sound director, the head of the company board, and the Human Resources department.
One reason is that a pianist Youtuber was going to perform songs from the game and publish the sheet music arrangement as part of the game’s promotion. I thought it strange that we would only release an arrangement of the game’s music, and furthermore use a ghostwriter to produce that arrangement. I got into trouble for arguing that we release the original score.
Another is that, according to court documents, my relationship with Arzest had been damaged because of comments I made about them submitting the game without fixing issues uncovered during development, as well as comments I made with the aim of improving the game itself. The producer, Mr. Fujimoto, told Mr. Oshima about these comments.
Another point: In an email to Mr. Fujimoto, Mr. Oshima wrote “I just gathered the staff and told them about postponing the demo version. I told them, ‘This decision was made by Mr. Fujimoto. Let’s do our best for his sake.’ They clapped and cheered when I told them. This was a little unexpected and I was very moved.
“Recently, staff who’ve been seeming down have been revitalised. Thank you so much. We’ll all do our best.” However, the producer decides the schedule, not me. The producer decided on that tight schedule. Something’s strange about that, right?
I don’t think it’s a good idea to only release arrangements of the game’s music. I think there’s game music that everyone knows and can hum, but I’m not sure that this is what you’d call the game’s ‘true’ music.
I believe that games should be made by working hard until the very end, until it’s a good game that the team thinks their fans enjoy when they buy it. I think it’s strange to remove and totally exclude a director who’s had input on the game, and to do so without discussion because there isn’t time.
By forbidding retweeting, liking, etc. on social media I think Square Enix is doing their fans a disservice. There were so many comments and fantastic illustrations of Balan Wonderworld and I’m really sorry that I couldn’t do anything to recognise them.
For my part, I would like to offer my sincere apologies to those customers who bought the unfinished Balan Wonderworld.
Henceforth I believe I will be able to respond to mentions and tags as an individual.
I think it’s natural to request changes that will make a game better. If you can’t do that, I think it’s fine to at least discuss it, but even that seems impossible. I don’t think this allows us to do a game justice.
Two weeks before the final deadline for Sonic the Hedgehog, we changed the spec such that if Sonic has even a single ring, he can’t die. This famous mechanic came as a result of us working to improve the game up until the last minute, and I think that people are still enjoying this game around the world to this day. #SonicTheHedgehog
I think it’s strange to say that developers can’t work until the last minute to make their game better. I asked my lawyer to help me negotiate the ability to simply make comments on the game until the end of development but this was totally ignored, so I filed a lawsuit.
I think this matter has become so big because of the results and recognition that Balan Wonderworld gained. It is such a shame that a project that I worked on from the beginning has come to this.
Personally, I think it’s a real shame that an unfinished ‘Balan Wonderworld’ has been sent out into the world. I wanted to release it properly, as a carefully-made action game. I don’t think that Square Enix or Arzest are companies that care about games or fans.
Activision Blizzard shareholders voted today to approve the company’s pending acquisition by Microsoft, but that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal, with several other hurdles remaining.
Announced via press release today, over 98% of shares voted in favor of the acquisition, which is expected to close sometime in the upcoming Microsoft fiscal year, which is between July 2022 and June 2023.
The voters approved the acquisition at $95 per share – considerably higher than the share price of late, which has been slowly dropping over the last month from the low-$80 range and has been hovering between $76 and $77 per share for the last few days.
The lowering share price ahead of the deal could indicate a lack of shareholder confidence that the deal will ultimately pass. Though the vote was overwhelming, a number of other possible challenges lie between now and the ultimate conclusion of the deal.
One key hurdle is the likelihood of an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. Lina Khan, its recently-appointed head, has already shown a willingness to tackle big tech antitrust issues, including blocking an Nvidia acquisition and reopening the case against Meta. The deal will also require regulatory approvals abroad, including in China.
The Activision Blizzard acquisition comes at a time of ongoing turbulance within and around the company. The deal itself has prompted accusations of insider trading, but even more notable is the ongoing California lawsuit against the publisher accusing it of fostering a “frat boy culture” as well as subjecting female employees to unequal pay and sexual harassment.
Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Timeline: The Story So Far
Between publishing labels 2K, Rockstar, and Private Divison, Take-Two is one of the largest and most renowned game publishers in the business; the company’s stable of acclaimed franchises includes Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, Borderlands, BioShock, NBA 2K, XCOM, and Civilization, among many others.
Between now and March 2024, the company plans to release over 40 games for console/PC, including 23 “immersive core” titles, which covers staples like GTA, BioShock, and 2K sports games; six Private Division games; four “mid-core” games (think WWE Battlegrounds); and nine ports or remasters.
Given Take-Two’s pedigree, the prospect of 40 new games over the next two years is an exciting one. To give you a better idea of what to expect, we’ve compiled a list of every Take-Two game in development. This list includes games we know (or can safely assume) are in development for console and/or PC— neither rumored projects, like 2K’s LEGO sports games, nor mobile games, including those from soon-to-be Take-Two-owned Zynga, are included.
The Quarry
The Quarry is Supermassive’s spiritual successor to Until Dawn, the narrative-driven PS4 exclusive from 2015. A teen horror story set in the woods of Upstate New York, The Quarry features nine playable characters — any of whom can die based on player decisions, according to game director Will Byles.
Supermassive is leaning into the social experience of Until Dawn by implementing local co-op in The Quarry, with each player controlling a character of their choice. The story will run roughly 7–10 hours based on player decisions/character deaths.
Supermassive’s Hollywood influences for The Quarry include Friday the 13th, The Thing, and Evil Dead, while its Hollywood cast includes David Arquette (Scream), Ariel Winter (Modern Family), Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu), and Brenda Song (The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, The Social Network).
Inspired by the early ‘90s Marvel Comics storyline of the same name, Marvel’s Midnight Suns is the next strategy game from acclaimed tactics developer Firaxis. You play as The Hunter, a customizable superhero, fighting alongside Avengers (Iron Man, Captain America), X-Men (Wolverine, Magik), and other Marvel heroes like Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Ghost Rider, and Blade.
Midnight Suns is more than “Marvel XCOM”; it’s “easily as tactical as XCOM,” according to creative director Jake Solomon, but faster-paced, with a new card-based system that adds a layer of customization and randomness to combat. Despite the introduction of a deckbuilding element, Midnight Suns will not include randomized loot boxes, though there will be a marketplace for cosmetic-only outfits.
Outside of combat, players can forge relationships with other heroes at a home base called the Abbey. Engaging with characters at the Abbey can unlock new costumes that enable new abilities. Characters cannot, however, be romanced.
The game was initially due out in March, though it’s since been delayed to the second half of 2022.
Kerbal Space Program 2
Take-Two’s Kerbal Space Program sequel adds new spacecraft, parts, buildings, and quality of life improvements such as a moveable launch tower and skippable launch countdown. KSP 2 aims to be more accessible to new players without diluting the challenge for space sim enthusiasts.
KSP 2 was initially in development at Star Theory, a studio that has since been shuttered. In 2020 development moved in-house to Private Division’s Intercept Games, with many key developers moving with the sequel to the new company. The business maneuvers around the change were controversial at the time: A Bloomberg headline detailing the shake-up reads “Game Publisher Cancels Contract With Developer, Then Tries to Poach Its Entire Team.”
A new Tales from the Borderlands is coming later in 2022. The new Tales will feature “all-new characters and stories set in the Borderlands universe,” according to Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford. The project has been “secretly” in development at Gearbox for “many years,” he added.
Pitchford revealed the game in April during PAX East, though a proper announcement won’t come until summer. Gearbox did, however, release the game’s first teaser image, which you can see below.
New Tales from the Borderlands teaser image.
The first Tales from the Borderlands, released between 2014 and 2015, is an episodic adventure game developed by Telltale. Set between Borderlands 2 and 3, it introduced characters such as Rhys and Vaughn to the Borderlands universe. With that iteration of Telltale Games no longer around, Gearbox has brought development of the next Tales in-house.
2K NFL Arcade Game
In 2020, 2K and the NFL announced “a multi-year partnership encompassing multiple future video games.” The first of those games was meant to be released in 2021, though it’s now been delayed to 2022 or later.
Unlike EA’s Madden NFL franchise, these will be “non-simulation football games” built around “fun, approachable, and social experiences experiences” that cater to “a more casual market,” according to 2K. The games will, however, feature real NFL players.
This will be 2K’s first football game since the excellent ESPN NFL 2K5 in July 2004.
2K Sports Games
In addition to the new NFL games, we can expect new entries in 2K’s regular sports series: NBA 2K and WWE 2K. The company also signed a multi-year deal with Tiger Woods in 2021 to be the face of PGA Tour 2K moving forward.
While new entries in each of these three series haven’t been officially announced, 2K’s licensing deals and past release cadences suggest new games are all but certainly in the works.
31st Union Multiplayer Game
A new “multiplayer character-action game” is in the works at 31st Union, a studio led by Sledgehammer Games co-founder Michael Condrey. The new IP will be the Silicon Valley-based developer’s first release since it was formed in 2019. The studio has since opened a second office in Spain, thanks to 2K’s acquisition of Elite3D, as noted by GamesIndustry.biz.
Before leaving Sledgehammer, Condrey co-directed Call of Duty: WW2. The veteran dev also helped bring Dead Space to life as a key member of EA’s now-defunct Visceral Games.
BioShock 4
It’s been a long wait for BioShock fans, who last visited the captivating worlds of Columbia and Rapture in 2014 with the conclusion of BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea. Following various reports and rumors, 2K officially announced it’s working on a new BioShock in 2019.
The next entry in the immersive first-person shooter series is in development at Cloud Chamber, a new studio comprised of former BioShock developers (including BioShock and BioShock Infinite art director Scott Sinclair) and newcomers alike. The team is led by longtime Firaxis dev Kelley Gilmore, while BioShock veteran Hoagy de la Plante serves as creative director. (BioShock creator Ken Levine is not involved with the project.; Levine now heads another development studio within 2K, Ghost Story Games — more on what he and his team are working on below.)
At the time of the announcement, Cloud Chamber said its BioShock would be in development “for the next several years.” While there have been no official updates in the three years since, we’ve been able to glean some minor details from various job listings: The new BioShock will be an “immersive sandbox” first-person shooter set in a “new and fantastical world,” potentially built in the recently released Unreal Engine 5.
Remastered versions of all three BioShock games (plus their DLCs) were released in 2016 as BioShock: The Collection. A live-action BioShock movie is also in the works at Netflix.
Die Gute Fabrik Story-Driven Adventure Game
Danish indie studio Die Gute Fabrik signed a deal with Private Division in March to create a new, story-driven adventure game.
“It’s a little while yet before we can tell you more about the project,” Die Gute Fabrik CEO Hannah Nicklin said alongside the announcement, “but we’re excited to build on everything we learned from Mutazione.”
Mutazione is the studio’s “mutant soap opera” game from 2019. The developer is also behind 2014’s Sportsfriends, which our review called a “dynamic and addictingly deep local multiplayer game.”
Grand Theft Auto 6
The biggest franchise in Take-Two’s stable is getting another proper entry with Grand Theft Auto 6, Rockstar confirmed in early 2022. While Rockstar just made the confirmation this year, we first heard GTA 6 was in development back in 2020, though the project has likely been in the works, to some degree, since the release of Red Dead 2 in 2018, if not Grand Theft Auto 5 in 2013.
As part of the announcement, Rockstar said “active development” is “well underway.” A release window for GTA 6 has not been announced, though multiple sources suggest Rockstar is targeting 2024-2025.
Notably, GTA 6 will be the series’ first game since GTA 1 without Dan Houser; the Rockstar co-founder and longtime series writer left the studio in 2020. His brother and co-founder, Sam Houser, remains with Rockstar.
Every IGN Grand Theft Auto Review
While official details from Rockstar are limited, a 2021 Take-Two patent may describe how Rockstar will improve NPC behavior in GTA 6. Fans, meanwhile, believe they’ve discovered the first GTA 6 screenshot housed in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition’s version of San Andreas. If the screenshot is legitimate, then GTA 6 would potentially bring the series back to Vice City.
The 10-plus-year gap between GTA 5 and 6 will be the longest in series history by far, though Rockstar has had little reason to rush: Grand Theft Auto 5 has been a golden goose for the company, selling over 160 million copies and creating an all-new revenue stream with GTA Online.
Ken Levine’s New Game
In 2017, 12 former Irrational Games developers, including BioShock creator Ken Levine, formed Ghost Story Games. The studio, headed by Levine, has yet to announce its debut project, though we know it’s working on a story-driven, “immersive sci-fi game with RPG elements.”
The story will employ Levine’s “Narrative Legos” design philosophy, in which stories can be built out of hundreds of connectable narrative pieces. The design would theoretically enable Ghost Story to realize its vision of making “a flexible narrative that is broadly replayable and strongly adaptive to player choice.”
While the game has yet to be revealed, Levine has given several hints over the years as to what players can expect:
It probably won’t have cut scenes, as Levine told Rolling Stone he has a “deep philosophical aversion” to them
More from a 2015 Q&A: The game is set in an all-new universe; it is “large-ish” in scope; the story will use something “like chapters,” rather than a traditional three-art structure; the main character will likely be customizable, though that (and any information here) may have changed over the last seven years.
Earlier this year, eight years after Levine began work on the project, Bloomberg published a report claiming the game was in “development hell.” The studio’s original idea, said to be “a sci-fi shooter like BioShock set on a mysterious space station inhabited by three factions,” was reportedly targeting a Fall 2017 release. However, multiple reboots and changes in direction at Levine’s discretion purportedly set the project back by years.
On a potentiallymore optimistic note, Ghost Story is currently hiring a Campaign Director to lead the marketing rollout for its game — a sign that development maybe progressing toward the finish line.
Max Payne 1 & 2 Remakes
Rockstar and Remedy are collaborating on remakes of Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. Remedy, the developer of those original games, will reprise that role for the remakes, with Rockstar financing and publishing. The remakes will be made with Remedy’s in-house Northlight engine.
While the companies have yet to share much info, we can safely assume these will be proper remakes given the project’s budget is “in line with a typical Remedy AAA-game production.”
The remakes, which will be packaged as a single game, are still in the “concept development stage,” according to Remedy.
Moon Studios Action-RPG
The next game from Moon Studios is an untitled action-RPG published by Private Division. The companies have yet to provide an update on the project since it was announced in July 2020.
While short on specifics, Moon Studios did share its ambition for the game, saying it “rises above anything we’ve created thus far.” The studio was recently the subject of a report that characterized it as an “oppressive workplace.”
Hangar 13, the 2K-owned studio behind Mafia 3, is also hiring for a new project, though details have not yet been revealed.
The new project comes after Take-Two canceled the studio’s last game. That game, reportedly codenamed Volt, was said to be a third-person action title in the vein of Destiny. According to the report, Take-Two had $53 million invested in the project before canceling it due to the high development cost compared to the game’s commercial viability.
Other Private Division Projects
In addition to the three Private Divison projects listed above, the Take-Two publishing label has announced partnerships with four additional developers: Evening Star, League of Geeks (Armello), Piccolo Studio (Arise: A Simple Story), and Yellow Brick Games.
Evening Star’s project is a 3D action-platformer developed using the studio’s proprietary Star Engine. Before creating Evening Star, the studio’s founders worked on Sonic Mania Plus.
Melbourne-based League of Geeks is working on an “ambitious” new IP for Private Division. The studio previously released the digital board game Armello in 2015.
Little is known about Piccolo’s project beyond its description as “a unique new IP.” The Barcelona-based studio’s debut game, Arise: A Simple Story, was released in late 2019.
Given the studio’s pedigree, the most promising of these four projects is a fantasy action-RPG in the works at Yellow Brick Games. The studio was founded by four industry veterans who worked on games in the Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Watch Dogs, Rainbow Six, and Assassin’s Creed series. Mike Laidlow, creative director of Dragon Age: Inquisition, serves as the new studio’s CCO.
Private Division said the first of these projects will be released during Take-Two’s fiscal year 2024 (April 2023–March 2024), though that grouping also includes the aforementioned story-driven adventure game from Die Gute Fabrik.
Looking for more info on upcoming games? Check out our similar features on Square Enix, Nintendo, Ubisoft, and EA.
You can also read IGN’s reviews of each Take-Two game released this year — all three of which earned a review score of 8 or higher:
In the right hands, I believe any genre can work in VR – and Cities: VR is evidence to support that belief. Not every feature of its more complex elder sibling, Cities: Skylines, fits but playing a mayor with near-omnipotent architectural abilities and creating a new urban metropolis remains fun, feeling natural and surprisingly intuitive.
Bear in mind that this isn’t Cities: Skylines with a VR mode; Fast Travel Games has built a fresh adaptation for Meta Quest 2 that places you inside this bright and colorful world. Like Skylines, Cities: VR lets you control every major aspect of city planning without getting bogged down in the smaller details. You can just plan your city without worrying about every minor detail, choosing from one of nine maps. Starting from an out-of-bounds highway, you’ll begin laying down roads and selecting buildings to accompany them. From residential homes to basic utilities, there’s a gentle learning curb based around milestones, which unlock new facilities as the population increases. It’s effective at teaching you city management as if you can’t keep citizens happy, they simply won’t stay.
Prioritizing commercial and industrial zoning over residential means you won’t have the necessary staff to keep factories afloat, but doing the opposite creates high unemployment. Should you need higher skilled workers to fill these roles, invest in education. Are citizens complaining about a high crime rate? Better build a police station, people won’t remain where they don’t feel safe. If you’d prefer an easier time or feel like being creative, unlimited money can be activated when starting a new city. Milestones can also be shut off, offering more advanced facilities like nuclear power stations immediately.
Then we come to everyone’s favorite subject, taxes. As the god mayor, you’re responsible for setting tax rates for different institutions and zones, alongside how much money’s getting invested in public services. This requires a flexible approach, so adjust these accordingly to keep citizens happy and – assuming you’ve not activated unlimited money – avoid public finances running into the red. Book balancing is essential and if you’re struggling, you can take out up to three loans at once, each holding different repayment schedules.
Compared to Skylines, there isn’t much building space.
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I’m no expert on infrastructure planning – that became clear when I kept creating cities based around absurd road layouts – but building a fully functioning city was fun. However, compared to Skylines, there isn’t much building space. You can’t expand a city beyond one tile, which is x kilometers long, and for those with grander designs this might feel considerably limiting. So it’s all about carefully planning with the space that you have, but if you make mistakes, those can be quickly erased with the magical bulldozer that refunds some of your investment in the process, so it’s not all bad.
Cities: VR just doesn’t have the scope Skylines does, likely to better accommodate the Quest 2’s hardware limitations, so it serves more as an entry point to the series than a real extension of it. Major features like terrain editing and natural disasters aren’t included, or at least, not at launch. Cities: VR feels both more streamlined and more restrictive than its predecessor at once, so it’s a shame to lose certain aspects, but considering the many, many features it does include, and the advantages of VR, calling it barebones doesn’t feel accurate. As you’d expect, managing a city is a lot more immersive than sitting in front of a TV. You can’t walk around town like a citizen, unfortunately, but there’s fun in dipping down to the surface to see daily life unfold in front of you, even if vehicles sometimes clip through each other.
There’s fun in dipping down to the surface to see daily life unfold in front of you.
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The controls feel good, too. Movement and construction options are easy to access at any time. It works well but if you’re after precision, aiming where buildings are built can be a little fiddly. Cities: VR lets you individually fill out empty zoning squares by clicking on them, even if you’re far out, but the very nature of motion controls means you’ll need a steady hand. If that’s not a concern, you can aim your controller like a paintbrush to quickly ‘brush’ over squares like a canvas, or hit the ‘fill’ option to immediately fill out that empty zone, so it’s never a major problem.
Cities: VR Screenshots
One benefit of the fact that you’re never actually walking the streets you’ve laid down is that you don’t have to worry about getting nauseous if you’re sensitive to that. Grab yourself a chair and get comfy. But Cities: VR does have some comfort options. There’s adjustable snap turning for the camera, alongside a vignette filter that shadows the screen’s border when moving.
My only real complaint is that the graphics look plain. Cities: Skylines is seven years old but the Quest 2 simply doesn’t have the horsepower to keep up. Environmental designs are washed out and lacking finer details, while buildings seem distinctly low res. It doesn’t deter much from gameplay but I can’t deny these graphics left me wanting the ability to play Skylines’ cities from this point of view.
But, after purchasing a PS Plus code, users then reported the codes being rejected after an attempted redemption.
This is now a widespread issue, with some evidence that Sony support will also not accept the codes. Examples of this can also be found on ResetEra forums, with one user being told: “On this case right now you will be unable to add those codes to the account since we have disabled the option to redeem PS Plus codes.” IGN was also contacted by a user who reported the exact same line being given to them by support.
Stacking a membership is where a user can use pre-paid cards to redeem an extension to their current membership. For example, a user with 12-months left of PlayStation Plus could previously buy another 12-months, stacking their membership to 2-years, even before the subscription expires. This is typically common practice when PlayStation Plus codes are discounted during sale events.
It is now believed by some in the PlayStation community that Sony has blocked this to prevent users from further taking advantage of making any savings on the revamped PlayStation Plus service. Sony has offered no official word, so IGN has reached out for comment.
Nobody asked Zetamasterx to devote a year and a half of their life to capturing Legendary Pokémon with slightly different colour variants to their regular counterparts, but once they started, it became an obsession. For the vast majority of trainers, capturing a Legendary at all is triumph enough – but there are a select few who strive for a prize much, much rarer than that.
In the Pokémon community, these toiling prospectors are known as shiny hunters – a narrow demographic of players who regularly invest hundreds, if not thousands of hours into honing their trade long after the rest of the fanbase have moved onto the inevitable next generation. What this entails is simple: In Gen 8, the most recent generation of mainline Pokémon games, every ‘mon has a 1/4,096 chance to be a different colour to the rest of its species. These odds can be increased to almost 1/100, but even those chances make it a slow process.
If you haven’t already guessed, the objective of shiny hunting is to locate and catch these extremely rare Pokémon. That’s not taking into account that Legendary Pokémon are far rarer than almost any other, meaning shiny versions are very hard to come by.
Zetamasterx collected every single shiny Legendary available in Gen 8.
For Zetamasterx to catch shiny Regirock, they had to soft-reset the game 18,000 times.
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It’s important to establish the sheer level of busywork here. For Zetamasterx to catch shiny Regirock, they had to soft-reset the game – meaning they saved before the battle, instigated the fight, and then reset their Switch when they realised the Pokémon they were hunting wasn’t shiny – a whopping 18,000 times. And that was after failing their first shiny chance when Regirock struggled to death after 4,000 encounters. Imagine the frustration…
For shiny Palkia, meanwhile, the player embarked on 612 unique Dynamax Adventures, the roguelike minigame introduced in Pokémon Sword & Shield’s’s Crown Tundra expansion. Both the Regirock and Palkia hunts took an entire month to complete, but at time of writing, Zetamasterx is chasing shiny Cresselia in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and is starting to worry that they’ll break that record once more – which certainly isn’t helped by the fact they failed to catch their first one of those, too.
These are the most extreme examples of Zetamasterx’s hard work, but there was much more to do than just those – catching every shiny Legendary in Sword & Shield required roughly 18 months of regular play.
What is it that motivates players like Zetamasterx to commit to a time investment of that magnitude?
Every IGN Pokemon Review Ever
Danners99, a relatively green practitioner, recently completed their second shiny hunt. Prior to Sun & Moon, their interest in Pokémon was next to non-existent – but after stumbling across some well-known hunters on YouTube, that interest was instantly piqued.
“One [hunt] only took a few hours, but the second spun over two days,” Danners99 says. “As for if I have been enjoying it, I’d say yes – however, I have taken long breaks between hunts because I’m not accustomed to long grinds just yet.”
For some, however, shiny hunting is even more interesting than the base games themselves:
“I got into Pokémon because of shiny hunting,” Late_Experience_1990 says. “I would see YouTubers hunt for them and thought, ‘I want to give this a try!’
“I’ve only been shiny hunting for about a year. As of now, I’m more casual about it – I have school and other games I’m interested in. But it’s pretty rewarding, because most of the time you have to work quite hard for them. It’s like a trophy after a long hunt.”
“That moment when you see the different colour ‘mon with the sparkles after hunting for ages – it feels like pure ecstasy.”
“
YouTube is also responsible for FR00DA87’s gravitation to hunting, although their entry point was slightly different. Instead of watching streamers chasing shinies, they got into hardcore Nuzlocke runs, which revolve around a highly specific, self-imposed ruleset: You can only catch the first Pokémon you encounter on each route; if a Pokémon faints, it’s dead; and if you white out, it’s game over. This served as a gateway to shiny hunting, which FR00DA87 soon developed a passion for.
“I think people do it for the satisfaction of the final product,” FR00DA87 says. “That moment when you see the different colour ‘mon with the sparkles after hunting for ages – it feels like pure ecstasy.” FR00DA87 is quick to lambast people who pay hackers to artificially generate their shinies, which they see as missing the point.
It’s easy to see where they’re coming from. FR00DA87 once spent six hours a day, for a week straight, chasing a single, elusive shiny Giratina, which made their reward a whole lot more special than if they’d just bought it off a cloning site for $5.
FR00DA87 is very aware that this isn’t something everyone would be into: “It’s an excessive and boring process for barely anything of worth. If you enjoy feeling great satisfaction after a long deal of non-enjoyable activity, then it’s for you. But if you don’t have much spare time or much patience, absolutely not. I just shut my brain off and do a monotonous task for hours on end, so the adrenaline at the end is worth it for me.”
It’s no surprise, then, that the single sentiment echoed by all of our interviewees is that the drive to chase shinies boils down to one specific feeling: it’s less the thrill of the hunt itself than the rush of having finished it, with a reward so few other players will have.
All New Pokemon in Legends: Arceus
This is perhaps best articulated by our most enthusiastic interviewee – a Redditor who goes by the handle Warcraft101.
“I’ve been into Pokemon for as long as I can remember,” Warcraft101 says. “The hype was unlike anything I’ll ever experience again. The cards exploded in popularity – everyone was trading them at school. If you had a holo Charizard, you were Arceus [the name of a Pokémon God].” Just like those shiny cards, the game’s own shinies offer a similar mixture of personal pride and envy from others:
“I believe shiny hunting is popular because of the reward that comes from it. As with most things in life, it’s the journey you remember. Anyone can go out, catch a Pokémon in a minute, and forget all about that moment. When you’ve spent 20 hours hunting, you feel all types of emotions – and when that sparkle finally appears, it’s absolutely exhilarating.
“We do it because we’re dedicated masochists.”
Warcraft101 isn’t being hyperbolic when they mention masochism. They’re currently 140 runs into their hunt for shiny Ho-oh – whom they affectionately refer to as their “sparkly silver birb” – and it took them an astronomical 1,822 eggs to hatch shiny Pichu, whose very existence they questioned on multiple occasions.
“I started shiny hunting thinking, ‘I just want Ho-Oh & Eevee’,” they explain. “Boy was I wrong. I still have yet to get my own shiny Ho-Oh, and after I got that first hatched Eevee in 441 eggs, I thought, ‘Okay, well maybe I’ll just do the Eeveelutions’. Nope. I keep finding random reasons from childhood that inspire me to hunt more.
“Hunts can be very time consuming depending on your method of choice, but [they’re] more rewarding than anything I’ve ever experienced in a game.”
“We do it because we’re dedicated masochists.”
“
Interestingly, despite some fans’ love for the grind, more recent Pokémon games have taken it upon themselves to streamline the process of shiny hunting. Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee & Pikachu introduced shiny chains, which increase your shiny odds for every Pokémon of the same species you consecutively catch. Pokémon Legends: Arceus, meanwhile, implemented a revised mass outbreak mechanic (a spruced-up version of the similarly named phenomenon from Pokémon Diamond & Pearl) that also heightens your chances. In both of these cases, shinies are visible in the overworld, meaning you don’t have to waste time instigating battles to check your luck.
But the real king – or curse, depending on your preference – of shiny hunting is mobile game Pokémon Go, where your odds and encounter rates can skew higher than any traditional Pokémon game. Alongside Let’s Go and Legends: Arceus, Go is something a lot of shiny hunters feel pretty ambivalent towards.
“I’ve noticed there are mixed opinions throughout the games,” says Warcraft101. “I personally love most shinies the same, regardless of acquisition. The only ones I’m slightly less fond of are from Go. A lot of people tend to dislike the Pokémon Go shinies because they are easy to get at 1/500 without any extra effort. I’ve seen some say full odds shinies are the only way.”
Danners99 reckons Arceus’ odds specifically are a little too high. Another interviewee, Whiskey_Rain_, agrees – they believe shiny hunting was too difficult in early games, but was made too easy in Legends: Arceus. In their eyes, Sword & Shield marked the point where Game Freak struck a good balance between the two.
The rest of our shiny hunter interviewees are less worried about the modern trend towards making shiny hunting less approachable.
“I don’t think making shiny hunts easier is a bad thing, because to be honest the 1/4,000 odds are just tedious and monotonous,” says FR00DA87. “Nobody does it for the experience of hunting, so easier odds are never bad. But not stupidly easy like Arceus seems to be, or the Max Lair, which can seem excessive at times when you get two in a row.”
“I think it depends on the game,” another hunter, shiniki, counters. “For example, Dynamax raids feel pretty appropriate for Sword & Shield since that’s the mechanic for this gen. I’m not as familiar with Pokémon Go, but I do really enjoy shiny hunting in [Legends: Arceus] – if you complete all the tasks in a Pokémon’s ‘Dex entry, you have a higher chance of encountering a shiny. You have to work for it, but the reward is worth it, and you can choose which Pokémon you would prefer to hunt first.
“I know Dynamax wasn’t as popular as it could have been due to the NPC AI not being very intelligent, but I would love to see more co-op modes with shiny hunting.”
So what about the future of the series – where do these hunters want their niche pursuit to go in the upcoming Pokémon Scarlet and Violet?
Whiskey_Rain_ is hoping for an additional, ultra-rare shiny variant – particularly for ‘mons like Gengar, whose shiny sprite is barely distinguishable from its ordinary one. Some might point to the even rarer “square shinies” introduced in Gen 8, which are only differentiated by a slightly altered sparkle animation – but fans tend to prefer the idea of all-new colour schemes. For Late_Experience_1990, meanwhile, the current odds in the mainline games are fine. Their main concern about the practice becoming more streamlined is that easier shiny hunting will lead to less valuable shinies.
“I’d like there to be similar odds, because the 1/100ish with the Shiny Charm isn’t awful, but also for each Pokémon to have equal methods of hunting,” FR00DA87 says, referring to how some Pokémon types aren’t affected by the Shiny Charm. “I’ve seen some hunts go into stupid numbers just because of luck, so a hard cap would be nice.”
“I’d love for a returning mechanic such as Mega Evolutions over a new gimmick like Dynamaxing.”
“
“I look forward to seeing the new shinies for Gen 9 for sure,” says a more enthusiastic Warcraft101. “I could wish for a ‘complete game’, but I know with the current market in gaming we’ll probably be getting a DLC-type deal. I’d love for a returning mechanic such as Mega Evolutions over a new gimmick like Dynamaxing. I’ve always flirted with the idea of half-shiny distorted-type Pokémon as well.
With all of the above accounts, it’s safe to say that the future of shiny hunting is unclear even for those who devote hundreds of hours to it. After all, with shiny hunting important to such a small sub-set of players, it’s unlikely to be a headline announcement for any new Generation – but that only increases the anticipation for fans when they first get to try out the new games.
One thing is for sure though – shiny hunters will remain as obsessed with the practice as ever. While Zetamasterx has their fingers and toes crossed for a return to Dynamax Adventures, they’re still reeling from the 18-month odyssey they embarked on to complete their collection of shiny Legendaries.
“I’m not sure if I’ll hunt them all again in future games,” they say. But the obsession is seemingly never far away. “Maybe I’ll give it a try.”
Cian Maher is a freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter.
On this week’s episode of IGN’s PlayStation show, Podcast Beyond!, host Jonathon Dornbush is joined by Jada Griffin and Mark Medina to dig into the various bits of PlayStation news this week, including new updates for PS5, PlayStation Plus, and PlayStation’s PC and preservation plans.
After a brief Beyond Movies and TV podcast interlude about Everything Everywhere All at Once (no spoilers but you can skip ahead with timecodes below!), the gang dives into all the new reports surrounding PS Plus’ new game trials. We break down what the deal is with these new game trials, how they affect PS Plus’ offerings, what exactly they are as compared to traditional demos, and much more. We break down what it might mean for players, how it could raise questions for developers, and whether the practice might change the expectations for playing on PlayStation with its revamped subscription service
The Best PS5 Games
Next, the group discusses Variable Refresh Rate coming to PS5, and also gets sidetracked discussing Ghostwire Tokyo…which does not have confirmed VRR support! But we do discuss the new feature a bit, what games are receiving the update, and Sony’s general approach to the feature for PS5 games. Plus, we discuss the release date for the new PS Plus, what games are coming for PS Plus in May, and a lot more news in the world of PlayStation 4, PS5, and more. Topics include PlayStation’s reported new preservation team, patches for Elden Ring and Sifu, Mark’s marriage, and more.
We also read a beautiful Memory Card story from a Beyond! listener, Jonathon offers a Trophy Test for the panel, and more!
00:00:10 – Intro & EEAAO Chat! 00:05:28 – PS Plus Announces Game Trial Initiative 00:33:25 – VRR Comes to PS5 00:48:38 – PS+ Games for May 00:56:55 – More News 01:07:36 – Memory Card & Outro
And if you’re looking for more places to enjoy this PlayStation podcast show, check out Podcast Beyond! on all available platforms: https://linktr.ee/podcastbeyond.
Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior Features Editor, PlayStation Lead, and host of Podcast Beyond! He’s the proud dog father of a BOY named Loki. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.
Get ready to hear from a lot of confused and angry cheaters.
Activision’s Team RICOCHET has unveiled several new ways they’re working against cheaters in a new blog post, including a rollout for the PC kernel-level anti-cheat driver for Call of Duty: Vanguard. The update will release across both Vanguard and Call of Duty: Warzone in an effort to curb players who cheat in the popular first-person shooter.
The Best Shooter of 2021
In the past, they have enacted a number of in-game mitigation techniques to help identify cheaters. Not only do these help identify their behaviors by collecting their data but it also employs ways that impede their ability to properly play the game. Today, the newest technique called cloaking has been unveiled, and it heavily affects their gameplay ability.
Cloaking stops cheating players from seeing opposing players in the game world.
“Characters, bullets, even sound from legitimate players will be undetectable to cheaters” the blog post details. On the flip side? Legitimate players can see the cheaters as they succumb to the madness of not being able to see anything going on around them.”
Activision has also recognized how cheating may be impacting leaderboards across the globe in Vanguard. Going forward, if a ban is enacted against a player who has weaseled their way onto the leaderboards, their entry on the board will be deleted. This will give more room for players who play fairly.
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