IGN Video Games

IGN Video Games

Overwatch 2 Menu Concept Art Could Hint at an Incoming Battle Pass

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 11:28 AM PDT

Leaked Overwatch 2 concept art has seemingly revealed an incoming Battle Pass feature.

A concept for the Overwatch 2 main menu on ArtStation shows all the options players would expect, such as Play and Shop, alongside a new setting for the Battle Pass, as reported by Attack of the Fanboy.

While the screenshot isn't official and may not represent what features will be in the final version of Overwatch 2, adding credibility is the user who posted it: Blizzard senior UI artist Jayson Kirby.

He held this position on the original Overwatch until March 2020 when he transitioned to an "unannounced project" according to his social media profiles.

An explanation appears under the image states that "the goal was to simplify and refine the Overwatch look even more. The focus of the menus was to really show off the Heroes in close up detail. As the player progressed through the menus, the camera and hero position/poses would change dynamically."

While Overwatch 2 remains without a release date, development appears to be ramping up as these screenshots have appeared just a few weeks ahead of the game's closed beta which is set to begin on April 26.

Blizzard also recently revealed that Overwatch 2's PvP and PvE modes will be released separately, though didn't say when the complete editions of either would be released. The split means that Blizzard will be able to release a version of Overwatch 2's PvP sooner than the PvE mode.

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

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Complete Preorder Guide

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 10:08 AM PDT

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is set to release April 5 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC (phew). It's the biggest game yet in the entire LEGO series. It lets you play through the stories of all nine main films, and you don't have to play them in order, either. You can hop around from movie to movie at will, dropping into whatever scene you feel like playing.

The game will come out in a couple of editions, with retailer-exclusive preorder bonuses. We have all the info you need below, so let's get to it.

Preorder LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Standard Edition

PS5

PS4

Xbox Series X / Xbox One

Nintendo Switch

PC

The standard edition of the game just comes with the game. But that's all you really need, isn't it.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Deluxe Edition

PS5

PS4

Xbox One / Series X

Nintendo Switch

PC

The deluxe edition includes the game itself, as well as the following extras:

  • Slipcover case that lets you unmask Darth Vader
  • Luke Skywalker with Blue Milk LEGO Minifigure
  • Character Collection (6 Character Packs)

You take control of characters like Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rey and Finn, as well as villains like Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. Combat has been upgraded with a combo system, as well as enemy health bars replacing the old one-hit-kill fights.

Since LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the last game in the series, The Skywalker Saga represents the first time The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker have appeared in playable LEGO format. Check out our LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga review for more details.

Other Preorder Guides

Chris Reed is IGN's shopping and commerce editor. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

Video Game Cover Orchestra, 8-Bit Big Band Wins a Grammy

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 09:32 AM PDT

The 8-Bit Big Band have won 2022's Grammy Award for Best Arrangement (Instrument and A Cappella) with their take on Meta Knight's Revenge from Kirby Super Star.

The funky arrangement was written by Charlie Rosen and Jake Silverman, and was performed by The 8-Bit Big Band orchestra featuring Button Masher for the group's "Backwards Compatible" album. Meta Knight's Revenge has amassed 319,684 views on YouTube at the time of writing, though that number continues to grow with the added spotlight.

Rosen and Silverman made their way to the stage to collect their gold-plated gramophones after being announced as the winners. In their speech, they extended their gratitude to the recording academy, Nintendo, composer Jun Ishikawa, and "the hundreds of musicians in New York and around the world who have contributed to every single 8-Bit Big Band album."

The Backwards Compatible album features arrangements from a symphonic Jazz orchestra of over 70 musicians and special guests, including covers of the Chrono Trigger and Super Mario World themes, and big band renditions of Hydrocity Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Saria's Song from Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Snake Eater from Metal Gear Solid 3.

"HOLY S*** WE WON THE GRAMMY!! LONG LIVE VIDEO GAME MUSIC!!" Rosen tweeted shortly after picking up his Grammy award. "Thanks to everyone who's ever listened to the 8-Bit Big Band, ALL of the artists who have contributed their time/talent and of course HUGE thanks to my co-arranger the one and only Button Masher!! MUCH LOVE!"

Meta Knight's Revenge was nominated in the Best Arrangement (Instrument and A Cappella) category at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards alongside Bill O' Connell's "Chopsticks," Robin Smith's "For The Love Of A Princess" from Braveheart, Emile Mosseri's "Infinite Love," and Gabriela Quintero & Rodrigo Sanchez's "The Struggle Within."

Video game nominations are a rare occurrence at the Grammys. Back in 2012, Austin Wintory's soundtrack for Journey became the first video game soundtrack to receive a Grammy nomination in the Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media category, though that award ultimately ended up going to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Return to Monkey Island Is a New Sequel Coming from the Original Director

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 08:07 AM PDT

Return to Monkey Island is a sequel to the legendary point 'n' click series, coming in 2022 from original writer-director Ron Gilbert.

Designed as a follow-up to the first two games – The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge – the new game is being published by Devolver Digital in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games. It also brings back original co-writer Dave Grossman, and LucasArts composers Michael Land, Michael McConnell and Clint Bajakian. Fellow co-creator Tim Schafer – who runs Microsoft's Double Fine – does not return.

On Twitter, Gilbert said his Terrible Toybox development studio has been working on the game for 2 years "in complete secrecy".

We don't have any more information on the game than what's included in the short teaser trailer above, but we do have a 2013 blog post from Gilbert in which he laid out his ideas for a new game in the series. At that time, he said he'd want it to be "a retro game that harkened back to Monkey Island 1 and 2", and would specifically ignore the events of every game in the series after the second – and given this game follows LeChuck's Revenge, it seems he may have gotten his wish.

His other ideas at the the time included making it "a hardcore adventure game" with no tutorials, hint systems, "pansy-assed puzzles or catering to the mass-market or modernizing." On top of that, he wanted retro art but powered by modern hardware (to help the team do what Lucasarts couldn't in the 1990s), a "full-on inventory", a physical release, dialog puzzles, and no verbs used for commands. He also said he'd like to rebuild the originals' SCUMM engine, among other points.

Return to Monkey Island follows a number of projects that seem to be returning to classic franchises from Disney's Lucasfilm Games brand – including Indiana Jones, multiple new Star Wars projects, and more. It's not the first time Monkey Island has reared its skeletal head, after it got an extended Easter Egg within Sea of Thieves' Pirates of the Caribbean update.

We spoke to Lucasfilm Games about the project last year, who said the idea was to work with developers to make their dream games with Disney IP. Given that Gilbert has publicly said he'd like to buy the franchise from Disney, it might be that he saw this as the next best option.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Review

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 08:00 AM PDT

Adventure. Excitement. A Jedi craves not these things. If that's the case, then all Jedi should probably cancel their preorders for LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, since this dazzling new entry in Traveller's Tales' longrunning LEGO game series has brought both adventure and excitement by the plastic bucketload. With stunning set pieces cribbed from all nine mainline Star Wars films and a surprisingly vast number of iconic planet hubs to freely explore in between, The Skywalker Saga is a brick-breaking blockbuster executed with a goofy charm that had me feeling as happy as a droid in a hot oil bath.

In a dramatic departure from the zoomed out camera perspective of previous LEGO titles, The Skywalker Saga features a tighter, over-the-shoulder third-person view typical of the likes of Gears of War or Uncharted, and it brings along with it far greater control over your attacks. Lightsabers can be boomeranged and crates can be Force-pushed with satisfying precision, and a simple combo system allows you to launch enemies into the air for a juggling volley of saber swings with ease. Fighting as a Jedi or Sith might not have the depth of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but it's nonetheless fast, fluid, and it feels fantastic.

If you're controlling a character equipped with a blaster, you now have the option of taking cover behind walls and other objects to pick your foes off from afar, and can switch between cover positions with the tap of the button. (A similar cover-based mechanic was featured in 2016's LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but only in specific sections of a level). I love the neat touch atop this system that you're able to quickly rebuild destroyed cover (as can enemies), but outside of a couple of specific boss fights I hardly ever felt the need to actually shelter behind anything. In The Skywalker Saga, the combination of a constantly recharging health bar and the authentic inaccuracy of each Stormtrooper's shots meant there was rarely any risk in taking a run and gun approach. I certainly still enjoyed the gunplay in The Skywalker Saga, but more for its flashy spectacle than its shallow attempts at strategy.

Not only does the new close-up perspective make you feel more engrossed in the action, it also leads to a greater appreciation of how realistically rendered each individual LEGO brick is. 2021's Hot Wheels Unleashed set a new standard for high fidelity virtual plastic, and The Skywalker Saga certainly matches it down to every last plastic seam and textured hair piece, with the paint on minifigs chipping away convincingly after extended use as though they're a much-loved toy. Absolutely every LEGO creation looks so uncannily true to life, that when you blast an immaculately assembled 1000-piece Tie Fighter out of the sky, you can almost hear the cries of anguish from the parent who spent their whole Sunday afternoon helping their kid build it.

The Farce Awakens

The LEGO games have always lent a Spaceballs-style silliness to their recreations of iconic Star Wars scenes and The Skywalker Saga is no different, consistently seeking out the lighter side of the Force in even the most somber of situations. Whether it's Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader discussing the new Death Star while rows of Stormtroopers awkwardly topple over like dominos in the background, or a confused Darth Sidious accidentally issuing Order 67 instead of 66 and forcing all the clone troopers to spontaneously start disco dancing rather than commit mass Jedi genocide, The Skywalker Saga consistently finds a way to gently mock its source material with wonderfully absurd and hilarious results. Amazingly, even the events of The Rise of Skywalker are substantially more enjoyable when they're deliberately ridiculous, as opposed to accidentally so.

Even the events of The Rise of Skywalker are substantially more enjoyable when they're deliberately ridiculous, as opposed to accidentally so. 

It's not just The Skywalker Saga's sense of humour that kept me engaged, but its mission variety too. Though never quite as daring or inventive as 2021's It Takes Two, the 45 main story levels constantly switch things up so that the action never grows stale. The Skywalker Saga is capable of delivering mindless carnage on a massive scale, like when The Battle of Naboo briefly blossoms into a thrilling game of tower defense, and you gleefully lob balls of energy from Gungan catapults to decimate hordes of Trade Federation droids and assault tanks. Yet it can also be more focused and cerebral, such as when Rey enters the mirror cave on Temple Island, and you carefully puppeteer her reflections in order to reach exit portal switches.

This is on top of the fan-pleasing standards, of course, and The Skywalker Saga does indeed feature levels designed around high-speed podracing, X-Wing trench runs and all the major lightsaber duels you'd expect. But even at its most familiar moments, the campaign is still a blast to play because it feels so smooth and is such an eye-popping sight to behold. The only occasional catch is that its strict adherence to a cinematic style of presentation can come across as a bit too rigid at times. In one of the boss fights against Kylo Ren, for instance, I'd whittled his health bar down to zero, yet the fight arbitrarily continued for another minute, all so I could button-mash my way through the remaining quicktime events.

R2-Detour

Each story mission is connected by surprisingly sizeable hub areas situated on some 20-odd different planets, from the sandswept streets of Mos Eisley on Tatooine to the polished surfaces of Coruscant's Financial District, and everywhere in between. These open areas are absolutely rife with hidden Kyber bricks to collect by solving various environmental puzzles, and while you do see some repeated challenges across the galaxy – stacking crates to reach Kyber bricks suspended in the air seems to be a popular task no matter which planet you're on – there are plenty of other fun little surprises to stumble upon along the way. I particularly enjoyed the Lemmings-inspired challenge on Kamino that tasked me with adjusting a series of platforms to prevent a hapless clone from shuffling to his doom, or arranging a choir of Wookiees on Kashyyyk to angrily yawn a rendition of John Williams' signature score.

Collected Kyber bricks serve as a currency that, in addition to studs, can be invested into upgrades – either core perks shared by all characters, or class specific enhancements. While many of the core upgrades seemed like no-brainers to me, such as widening the radius in which your character automatically hoovers up dropped studs or increasing the speed with which they build objects, the vast majority of class specific perks seemed unnecessary given that The Skywalker Saga's difficulty level is already all too easy. What incentive is there to give bounty hunters the ability to spot enemies through walls when I can easily dispatch whoever is on the other side with a couple of blaster bolts, even if they get the jump on me?

The Skywalker Saga starts to resemble some sort of adorable Mass Effect for minifigs.

While I primarily stayed on target and focused on the main mission path, once I had finished all the story missions I spent a few more hours revisiting my favourite locations and completing side missions to unlock additional characters, and then swapping them in and out of my touring party in order to utilise their unique abilities to solve specific problems. It's during these moments, when you're jetting from one solar system to the next and cruising down to a planet's surface to run odd jobs for local townsfolk, that The Skywalker Saga starts to resemble some sort of adorable Mass Effect for minifigs. And if you get tired of exploring and action-platforming your way across the wealth of planets, you can always just pick your favourite starship and jet up into orbit for some impromptu dogfighting. There really is a staggering amount to do in The Skywalker Saga, and despite the fact I've spent over 20 hours with the game I feel like I've only just scratched the surface – there are seemingly enough collectible LEGO vehicles and minifigs in here to populate several hundred letters to Santa.

Dagobah System Failure

The one Star Destroyer-sized blight on my experience with The Skywalker Saga was the bug I encountered that made progressing the story of the prequel trilogy beyond Attack of the Clones impossible. Playing on Xbox Series X, I experienced a crash while trying to launch a mission hunting for Jango Fett, and when I rebooted The Skywalker Saga that mission marker was gone from the map and menus with seemingly no way of retriggering it. Since you can hop in and out of each episode and play the three trilogies in any order, I was still able to complete Episodes IV through to IX on my original save, but I needed to create a new game in order to play through Episodes I to III, during which the game breaking bug was thankfully no longer present. (At the time of writing, the developer has told me they are working on a patch to prevent the issue.)

I also noticed some slight problems with The Skywalker Saga's drop-in/drop-out local co-op mode. Across the nine episodes, I spent about half of it playing solo and the other with my son as a co-op partner. On balance, I had substantially more fun with a second player onboard and the comedic chaos it created, but the diminished field of view within the confines of the vertical split-screen did make combat feel a bit imprecise and exploration slightly more disorientating. Additionally, one player always seemed to get the rough end of the gaffi stick when it came to the story mode boss fights, relegated to the role of a comparatively impotent companion droid while the other player indulged in a spectacular lightsaber duel. At one stage in the climactic confrontation between Obi-Wan and Anakin on the molten surface of Mustafar, I spent a significant stretch as C-3PO stranded as a spectator on a hovering platform while all the action unfolded below. It left me feeling a bit C-3PO'd.

Nobody Saves the World Hits Switch, PS4, and PS5 Later This Month

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 07:00 AM PDT

Drinkbox Studios announced its new action-RPG Nobody Saves the World is coming to new consoles later this month, alongside a new update on all platforms.

Previously released for Xbox and PC, Nobody Saves the World will now be released for PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch on April 14 for $24.99. PlayStation players will get both versions for a single price, and the Switch version will have pre-orders go live today with a 10% discount. The Switch version is also designed so that players can use a single Joy-con per player and play in Tabletop mode.

Additionally, NSTW for all platforms will receive an update that adds local co-op to the experience. Previously Nobody Saves the World only featured online co-op at its PC and Xbox launch. It will also feature cross-gen co-op multiplayer for PS4 and PS5 players.

Nobody Saves the World is an action-RPG in which players take on the role of, well, Nobody, who can adopt more than 15 forms - from a birthday party magician to a rat to many more surprising ones - using a variety of Form combat moves (and even mixing and matching them) along their adventure. Its debut earlier this year was Drinkbox's most successful Steam launch to date.

The developer is previously known for such hits as the Guacamelee franchise and Severed.

For more, be sure to check out our review of Drinkbox's latest and watch some high-level gameplay from Nobody Saves the World.

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.

Last Weekend, One Player Beat Elden Ring Without Taking Damage and Another Without Dealing It

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 06:28 AM PDT

The past weekend saw someone complete Elden Ring in 3 hours without taking damage, while another player beat the game without dealing any.

The world's first Elden Ring no-hit run, as spotted by PCGamesN, was recorded by YouTube user Seki, who completed the game in 2 hours and 43 minutes and without taking a single point of damage.

Seki therefore completed the game without taking any hits from enemies, fall damage from dropping too far, or ongoing damage from status effects such as poison.

Providing some balance, YouTube user Iron Pineapple also completed a unique Elden Ring run at the weekend by defeating the game without dealing any direct damage, VG247 reported.

The player instead relied on summoned spirits to deal damage for them, mostly using summonable Fanged Imps, alongside a number of other speedrun tactics that allow major parts of the game to be skipped.

While Elden Ring is tough enough to beat through normal means, these players are pushing the limits of what's possible, alongside the speedrunners who have now completed the game in less than 20 minutes.

As with previous FromSoftware games, players will likely dig into Elden Ring for years to find new ways to conquer its open world, and have already found some pretty bizarre secrets such as a pair of fancy underwear and a hidden wall that only opens after 50 hits.

In our 10/10 review, IGN said: "Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path."

To make those choices with the best available information, check out our full guide that features everything you could ever hope to know about Elden Ring, including collectible locations, boss strategies, and more.

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

World of Tanks Developer Decides to Leave Russia and Belarus

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 05:24 AM PDT

Editor's Note: The war in Ukraine is an ongoing, painful and emotive topic. IGN urges community members to be respectful when engaging in conversation around this subject and does not endorse harassment of any kind.

World of Tanks developer Wargaming has announced that it will leave Russia and Belarus, and expects to make "substantial losses" as a result.

Announced on LinkedIn, the company said that it had transferred its live games business in the two countries to Lesta Studio, which is no longer affiliated with the company. It has also begun closing its Minsk office in Belarus.

"The company will not profit from this process either today or going forward," reads a statement. "Much to the contrary we expect to suffer substantial losses as a direct result of this decision." It added: "We will be providing as much severance and support as possible to our employees affected by the change."

"The company will not profit from this process either today or going forward. Much to the contrary we expect to suffer substantial losses as a direct result of this decision."

While no specific reasoning was given for the move, it's more than likely been spurred by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as sanctions placed on Russian and Belarussian companies as a result. Wargaming has previously donated $1 million to the Ukrainian Red Cross, and fired a creative director for expressing support for the invasion. The company has provided internal support for the 550 employees in its Kiev office.

Ukrainian deputy prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov had previously asked Wargaming (and other companies) to close its offices in Russia.

Wargaming was founded in Minsk, but moved its headquarters to Cyprus in 2011. The company makes and publishes hugely successful games like World fo Tanks, World of Warships, and World of Warplanes. As recently as 2019, Statista polls pointed to World of Tanks as the most popular game in Russia.

It's not clear what the long-term future of the company's games is in Russia and Belarus, but it says its live games will remain playable "during the transition period".

IGN has put together a guide on how to help Ukrainian civilians, and huge swathes of the games and entertainment industries have been voicing support and fundraising since the invasion.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

You Can Save Big on PlayStation Plus Premium

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 05:17 AM PDT

PlayStation users are currently getting as much as six years worth of PlayStation Plus Premium at what is effectively half price. First spotted by @Wario64 on Twitter, and verified by our deals team @IGNDeals, you can still buy 12-months' worth of PS Now using a specific link on your web browser. This will auto-convert to 12-months of PS Plus Premium at no extra cost when it launches in June.

Sony had previously blocked the option to buy more than 1-month of PS Now. But, this workaround link is still live, for now, and PlayStation users have been quick to stack up as many years of PS Now as they can, ready for the 1:1 conversion in June. As far as we know, you won't be punished for loading up on PS Now. It's likely going to get shut down soon, so if you are going to take advantage, you better do it soon. We'll explain the relevant steps you need below.

How to Get 50% Off PlayStation Plus Premium

To start you'll need to be using a web browser on your computer or mobile device. Sign into your PSN account on your device, and then top up your PSN wallet with however much you'll need (redeem codes here).

Once you're happy with your choice, use this link to purchase 12-months of PS Now. This will let you buy PS Now, and if you repeat this step after you've finished your purchase, you can actually stack your membership for what seems like an infinite amount. PS Now was previously thought to have a three-year stacking limit, but that has seemingly gone out the window, with some users reporting six years worth of stacking, while others have gone even further and somehow stacked their accounts all the way to 2031.

  1. Use a web browser on mobile or PC, not the PS app
  2. Sign into your PSN account (if it's not working this is the most common reason why)
  3. Buy PSN Top-Ups at PSN
  4. Redeem codes here if you need to
  5. Purchase 12-months of PS Now
  6. Stack as many times as you want
  7. Free PS Plus Premium conversion in June 2022

What is PlayStation Plus Premium?

Sony announced its revision of its PlayStation Plus subscription service last week, effectively combining PS Plus and PS Now. There's a brand new three-tier structure to the service, Essential, Extra, and Premium.

If you subscribe to the PS Plus Premium membership tier, you can expect around 700 games in total to be included with the subscription. Sony has stated at launch they're expecting to have games such as Death Stranding, God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Mortal Kombat 11, and Returnal. Games from PS3, PS2, and original PlayStation era titles will also be available via cloud streaming and direct downloads, but this will definitely differ depending on what game you're trying to play.

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

Elden Ring Publisher Wants to Work With Wheel of Time's Brandon Sanderson After George R.R. Martin

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 04:59 AM PDT

Elden Ring publisher Bandai Namco has expressed interest in working with Mistborn and Wheel of Time author Brandon Sanderson – who'd seemingly like to work with developer FromSoftware in the same way George R.R. Martin did.

In a a YouTube stream spotted by PC Gamer, Sanderson unboxed an Elden Ring gift package from Bandai Namco that included a message saying the publisher was interested in working with him.

Sanderson previously jokingly complained about developer FromSoftware working with Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin over him, or as he put it "someone who spends his days blogging about the NFL rather than the person who has played their games since King's Field."

During his YouTube stream, someone off-camera asked if the package was an apology for choosing Martin and Sanderson laughed saying "no, they should've hired George", but another off-screen voice told him to read the note that came with the gift.

"They are interested in perhaps doing something together", Sanderson said. "I am as well. I actually have a pitch for them in the back of my head. So I may have to send them my pitch and see what they think."

Sanderson likened the potential collaboration to his work for the Magic: The Gathering trading card game a few years ago, saying he'd already been working on a story before publisher Wizards of the Coast asked if he was interested in writing for them.

He added: "I've been thinking of what I would do if I did a Soulsborne sort of game. Obviously I don't get to decide that but I have it in the back of my head. So maybe you guys will hear something from me. I have some ideas."

The gift package was also sent from Bandai Namco to other influencers and media outlets but it's unclear if the specific note given to Sanderson was sent from FromSoftware (which has the most influence in the development process) or the publisher.

While the Dark Souls trilogy and Elden Ring are published by and closely tied to Bandai Namco, other recent FromSoftware hits have seen different publishers including Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice coming from Activision and Bloodborne from Sony.

Sanderson's interest in gaming partnerships has already been made clear through his collaboration with Fortnite last year, that saw his Mistborn character Kelsier arrive as a skin in the game.

While Elden Ring's story wasn't directly written by Martin. he provided director Hidetaka Miyazaki and FromSoftware with samples of text that provided a backbone to the world, including some of its history and important figures.

Elden Ring was launched on February 25 to incredible success in the U.S. and Europe and, as is typical with FromSoftware games, fans are finding some pretty bizarre secrets such as a pair of fancy underwear and a hidden wall that only opens after 50 hits.

It's proved somewhat of a cultural phenomenon with people continuously seeking new ways to interact with the game, such as someone modding Elden Ring characters into Tekken, speedrunners battling to finish the game as quickly as possible, and a streamer letting his Twitch chat play while he slept.

In our 10/10 review, IGN said: "Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path."

To make those choices with the best available information, check out our full guide that features everything you could ever hope to know about Elden Ring, including collectible locations, boss strategies, and more.

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

New Elden Ring Patch Buffs a Boss Who Got Accidentally Nerfed

Posted: 04 Apr 2022 04:32 AM PDT

Bandai Namco has announced a small Elden Ring patch, which will be released today, April 4, across all platforms. The patch buffs some attacks for boss Starscourge Radahn, who was unintentionally made weaker in the latest version of the game.

Elden Ring's 1.03 patch arrived last month, and made a lot of adjustments to the game. However, one was unintentional, making the famously tricky Radahn far weaker than he was meant to be when using some attacks. A new version of 1.03 arrives today as a result.

The only patch note reads "Fixed a bug in the balance adjustment of the boss 'Starscourge Radahn' in update 1.03, in which the power of some attacks was unintentionally reduced." The patch comes to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Steam today.

Players on the Elden Ring subreddit broadly welcomed the change, with Naldo273 saying, "On my second playthrough he was a complete joke. You could actually just ride around watching the NPCs melt him. I don't know what people were thinking defending that nerf. God forbid one of the most epic boss fight in From history doesn't keel over on your first attempt".

If you're sturggling with the demigod after the change, our Elden Ring guide includes some tips on how to beat Starscourge Radahn.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.
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