Persona 5 Strikers may be the closest thing to a Persona 5-2 we will ever get, and though the Koei Tecmo co-developed follow-up eschews the turn-based battles of the acclaimed original RPG for something more akin to the Dynasty Warriors series, my experience with the opening hours of Strikers promises a worthy follow-up for the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. It’s one that retains all the style, character, and deep lore of the original that has this returning fan thrilled to see more adventures of Joker, Morgana, and the gang, even as I grapple with just how many new options the real-time action throws your way right from the start. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=persona-5-strikers-screenshots&captions=true"] As a returning fan, so much of the thrill of Strikers is getting to experience an all-new story with the returning cast, so rather than focus on the story beats of the opening six or so hours I played in Shibuya, I’ll limit myself to saying P5S hits the ground running. You could technically jump into Strikers without playing P5, which many players may be doing given that Strikers is coming to the Nintendo Switch and PC in addition to the PS4. But to do so would mean missing out on so much backstory, lore, and a deeper understanding of the main ensemble’s relationships... plus a fantastic 100-plus hour RPG. It is technically possible with this story focused on a new set of problems within the same world, but I think it would be a disservice to try to make sense of everything as you go. And rather than offer much recap, Strikers wonderfully lets the entire main cast hang out and battle together from the jump, and it’s a joy to see their personalities intersect, alongside newcomers like the mysterious Sophie and the detective Zenkichi. There's no cliched resetting of powers or removing available party members to start things off on a less powerful note. But other than that, don’t expect to hear more about the story from me - much like Persona 5, some of the series’ greatest joys are meant to be discovered on your own, and I would never steal that as easily as the Phantom Thieves steal hearts. Instead, the most obvious change I want to talk about is the shift to a more Musou-style, real-time battle system as opposed to the acclaimed turn-based RPG stylings of Persona 5. Coming much more from the Persona side than from the Dynasty Warriors side of this unlikely marriage, Strikers most immediately impressed me by how well it translates the tenets of P5’s battle system into a different form and remains so fun and engaging. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/persona-5-strikers-official-announcement-trailer"] This is in part due to Strikers’ combat not being completely real-time. Sure, you’re running around a battlefield, hitting enemies with basic, special, and ranged gun attacks, but this is still a Persona game, and at any point you can summon your chosen character’s Persona to use their abilities mid-battle. Doing so pauses the chaos temporarily, allowing you to swing your character around (without moving from that spot), choose your target area and skill, and unleash your attacks at will. That simple ability to pause battle and use your powerful moves that also drain your SP gauge is so well implemented because these elemental-based attacks are often the key to winning a battle when used well. But the action never penalizes you for stopping to take a moment to think. And Strikers, at large, is quite forgiving. While you can bring various items into battle to heal, refill your SP, or nullify status effects, I often found myself running out of SP quite quickly. Strikers does run on a calendar system similar to Persona 5, but it moves forward in time based on story beats, rather than your actions, so you can hop out of Strikers’ Jails - a new twist on P5’s Palace dungeons - back into the real world to refill your stamina and health, and again into the metaverse without precious time elapsing. Strikers overall strips away the focus of having to really manage your time and make tough choices about whether you're hanging out with a friend, working a job, or infiltrating the metaverse. That's definitely a core aspect lost in translation, but given Strikers' overall structure, I wasn't necessarily missing out on having to make those tough calls here. And being able to hop out and then back into the Jails is especially helpful because, while Strikers’ general battles are relatively easy, the mid- and end-boss battles are surprisingly squishy, with plenty of health and defenses that require a ton of SP-powered attacks to break through and ensure victory. I certainly enjoyed these larger-scale battles, but don’t expect to simply button mash your way through them. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2017/03/29/persona-5-review"] But in any battle, Strikers offers a lot of freedom and options, which is both a blessing and a curse, even as a seasoned Persona 5 player. Every one of the Phantom Thieves from P5 is available from the jump, plus new character Sophie. With a party max of four, you can mix and match depending on Persona elemental powers, personality, or special attack variances, which differ between each character. It’s wonderful to have so much variety from the start, rather than the developers implementing any sort of cliched beat that would have removed teammates or powers, but because of that, you essentially get a quick tutorial screen and then are thrown right back into battle any time you choose to play as a character for the first time. This leads to a lot of experimentation with how those special moves can really make a difference - and I found they could when, say, using Ann’s special to imbue fire in her attacks is necessary because of the elemental advantage versus amusingly turning Morgana into a bus - but it’s definitely a bit like being thrown into the deep end. And that’s on top of all the other little bells and whistles present in the battle system, from ambushes to give you a head start as you jump into battle, to environmental attacks using objects around you, to all-out attacks and showtime moves to hit scores of enemies, and more. There’s A LOT - and it’s all present largely at the start. I loved discovering how each aspect worked and how best to use them in battle, but I’d totally admit even after six or seven hours of playing I was still wondering if I was using every move in my arsenal to the best of my ability, or if I was missing something, and that led to a couple battles of trial-and-error guesswork. Luckily, that worry aside didn’t prevent me from exploring every nook and cranny of the first Jail Strikers offers, which, like Persona 5's palaces, has treasures to pick up, hidden chests, and a host of environmental puzzles. The bright, carnival-esque aesthetic led to fascinating discoveries as I explored more of the world, and coupled with the fantastic returning and new musical tracks the action always maintained an exciting pace. I'm eagerly excited to jump into the next Jail and see where these new mysteries, new abilities, and the same classic team take me. Persona 5 Strikers smartly melds a lot of the systems, characters, and sheer style of Persona 5 onto a new mechanical template, but doesn’t lose out on any of the charm and delight inherent in the original. Strikers may not have been the Persona 5 sequel I expected, but it’s certainly one I can’t wait to keep playing. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior News Editor, host of Podcast Beyond!, and PlayStation lead. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

Persona 5 Strikers may be the closest thing to a Persona 5-2 we will ever get, and though the Koei Tecmo co-developed follow-up eschews the turn-based battles of the acclaimed original RPG for something more akin to the Dynasty Warriors series, my experience with the opening hours of Strikers promises a worthy follow-up for the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. It’s one that retains all the style, character, and deep lore of the original that has this returning fan thrilled to see more adventures of Joker, Morgana, and the gang, even as I grapple with just how many new options the real-time action throws your way right from the start. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=persona-5-strikers-screenshots&captions=true"] As a returning fan, so much of the thrill of Strikers is getting to experience an all-new story with the returning cast, so rather than focus on the story beats of the opening six or so hours I played in Shibuya, I’ll limit myself to saying P5S hits the ground running. You could technically jump into Strikers without playing P5, which many players may be doing given that Strikers is coming to the Nintendo Switch and PC in addition to the PS4. But to do so would mean missing out on so much backstory, lore, and a deeper understanding of the main ensemble’s relationships... plus a fantastic 100-plus hour RPG. It is technically possible with this story focused on a new set of problems within the same world, but I think it would be a disservice to try to make sense of everything as you go. And rather than offer much recap, Strikers wonderfully lets the entire main cast hang out and battle together from the jump, and it’s a joy to see their personalities intersect, alongside newcomers like the mysterious Sophie and the detective Zenkichi. There's no cliched resetting of powers or removing available party members to start things off on a less powerful note. But other than that, don’t expect to hear more about the story from me - much like Persona 5, some of the series’ greatest joys are meant to be discovered on your own, and I would never steal that as easily as the Phantom Thieves steal hearts. Instead, the most obvious change I want to talk about is the shift to a more Musou-style, real-time battle system as opposed to the acclaimed turn-based RPG stylings of Persona 5. Coming much more from the Persona side than from the Dynasty Warriors side of this unlikely marriage, Strikers most immediately impressed me by how well it translates the tenets of P5’s battle system into a different form and remains so fun and engaging. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/persona-5-strikers-official-announcement-trailer"] This is in part due to Strikers’ combat not being completely real-time. Sure, you’re running around a battlefield, hitting enemies with basic, special, and ranged gun attacks, but this is still a Persona game, and at any point you can summon your chosen character’s Persona to use their abilities mid-battle. Doing so pauses the chaos temporarily, allowing you to swing your character around (without moving from that spot), choose your target area and skill, and unleash your attacks at will. That simple ability to pause battle and use your powerful moves that also drain your SP gauge is so well implemented because these elemental-based attacks are often the key to winning a battle when used well. But the action never penalizes you for stopping to take a moment to think. And Strikers, at large, is quite forgiving. While you can bring various items into battle to heal, refill your SP, or nullify status effects, I often found myself running out of SP quite quickly. Strikers does run on a calendar system similar to Persona 5, but it moves forward in time based on story beats, rather than your actions, so you can hop out of Strikers’ Jails - a new twist on P5’s Palace dungeons - back into the real world to refill your stamina and health, and again into the metaverse without precious time elapsing. Strikers overall strips away the focus of having to really manage your time and make tough choices about whether you're hanging out with a friend, working a job, or infiltrating the metaverse. That's definitely a core aspect lost in translation, but given Strikers' overall structure, I wasn't necessarily missing out on having to make those tough calls here. And being able to hop out and then back into the Jails is especially helpful because, while Strikers’ general battles are relatively easy, the mid- and end-boss battles are surprisingly squishy, with plenty of health and defenses that require a ton of SP-powered attacks to break through and ensure victory. I certainly enjoyed these larger-scale battles, but don’t expect to simply button mash your way through them. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2017/03/29/persona-5-review"] But in any battle, Strikers offers a lot of freedom and options, which is both a blessing and a curse, even as a seasoned Persona 5 player. Every one of the Phantom Thieves from P5 is available from the jump, plus new character Sophie. With a party max of four, you can mix and match depending on Persona elemental powers, personality, or special attack variances, which differ between each character. It’s wonderful to have so much variety from the start, rather than the developers implementing any sort of cliched beat that would have removed teammates or powers, but because of that, you essentially get a quick tutorial screen and then are thrown right back into battle any time you choose to play as a character for the first time. This leads to a lot of experimentation with how those special moves can really make a difference - and I found they could when, say, using Ann’s special to imbue fire in her attacks is necessary because of the elemental advantage versus amusingly turning Morgana into a bus - but it’s definitely a bit like being thrown into the deep end. And that’s on top of all the other little bells and whistles present in the battle system, from ambushes to give you a head start as you jump into battle, to environmental attacks using objects around you, to all-out attacks and showtime moves to hit scores of enemies, and more. There’s A LOT - and it’s all present largely at the start. I loved discovering how each aspect worked and how best to use them in battle, but I’d totally admit even after six or seven hours of playing I was still wondering if I was using every move in my arsenal to the best of my ability, or if I was missing something, and that led to a couple battles of trial-and-error guesswork. Luckily, that worry aside didn’t prevent me from exploring every nook and cranny of the first Jail Strikers offers, which, like Persona 5's palaces, has treasures to pick up, hidden chests, and a host of environmental puzzles. The bright, carnival-esque aesthetic led to fascinating discoveries as I explored more of the world, and coupled with the fantastic returning and new musical tracks the action always maintained an exciting pace. I'm eagerly excited to jump into the next Jail and see where these new mysteries, new abilities, and the same classic team take me. Persona 5 Strikers smartly melds a lot of the systems, characters, and sheer style of Persona 5 onto a new mechanical template, but doesn’t lose out on any of the charm and delight inherent in the original. Strikers may not have been the Persona 5 sequel I expected, but it’s certainly one I can’t wait to keep playing. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior News Editor, host of Podcast Beyond!, and PlayStation lead. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

Nvidia has warned that supply of its RTX 30-series graphics cards will be low for the coming months, with an increase in availability not expected until at least after the first quarter of 2021. Speaking as part of the 19th Annual J.P. Morgan Tech/Auto Forum Conference (transcript available at Seeking Alpha), Nvidia’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress, said that keeping stock levels in line with customer demands had not been possible. Kress noted that there is not much stock available at current, and expects this to remain the case “throughout Q1”. With the first quarter ending in March, it means stock is likely to be short until at least April. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=nvidia-ces-2021-geforce-rtx-3060&captions=true"] “In order to talk about supply, we first have to discuss the demand. We did have an exceptional overall holiday season,” said Kress. “We did have an exceptional overall holiday season. Gaming demand is off the charts. Our overall Ampere architecture and ray tracing are really a true success. This demand has remained stronger for longer. So, supply does remain tight at this time.” “We expect the overall channel inventories, meaning the inventories that are with our AIC partners as well as in our e-tail and retail channels will likely remain lean throughout Q1. Our overall capacity has not been able to keep up with that overall strong demand that we have seen,” Kress added. Nvidia assured that it is “working each day to improve our overall supply situation”. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/16/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-founders-edition-review"] Likely fueled by a strong critical response, Nvidia’s RTX 30-series has been selling fast. Scalpers quickly cottoned on to the demand for Nvidia’s most powerful cards ever, and so have been a notable problem in the stranglehold on stock. There’s also the question of if many cards are being purchased to use for cryptocurrency mining, but Nvidia admitted to not knowing if this has genuinely contributed to the demand. The issue is likely to affect the forthcoming RTX 3060, which looks set to be the best affordable GPU the company has made in at least two generations. A better stock situation may be found in the company’s new 30-series laptop graphics processors, but of course that does mean investing in a whole new laptop. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Nvidia has warned that supply of its RTX 30-series graphics cards will be low for the coming months, with an increase in availability not expected until at least after the first quarter of 2021. Speaking as part of the 19th Annual J.P. Morgan Tech/Auto Forum Conference (transcript available at Seeking Alpha), Nvidia’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress, said that keeping stock levels in line with customer demands had not been possible. Kress noted that there is not much stock available at current, and expects this to remain the case “throughout Q1”. With the first quarter ending in March, it means stock is likely to be short until at least April. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=nvidia-ces-2021-geforce-rtx-3060&captions=true"] “In order to talk about supply, we first have to discuss the demand. We did have an exceptional overall holiday season,” said Kress. “We did have an exceptional overall holiday season. Gaming demand is off the charts. Our overall Ampere architecture and ray tracing are really a true success. This demand has remained stronger for longer. So, supply does remain tight at this time.” “We expect the overall channel inventories, meaning the inventories that are with our AIC partners as well as in our e-tail and retail channels will likely remain lean throughout Q1. Our overall capacity has not been able to keep up with that overall strong demand that we have seen,” Kress added. Nvidia assured that it is “working each day to improve our overall supply situation”. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/09/16/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3080-founders-edition-review"] Likely fueled by a strong critical response, Nvidia’s RTX 30-series has been selling fast. Scalpers quickly cottoned on to the demand for Nvidia’s most powerful cards ever, and so have been a notable problem in the stranglehold on stock. There’s also the question of if many cards are being purchased to use for cryptocurrency mining, but Nvidia admitted to not knowing if this has genuinely contributed to the demand. The issue is likely to affect the forthcoming RTX 3060, which looks set to be the best affordable GPU the company has made in at least two generations. A better stock situation may be found in the company’s new 30-series laptop graphics processors, but of course that does mean investing in a whole new laptop. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Nintendo Switch was the number one console in the US in 2020, for both units sold and dollars made – and had the second-best year for dollar sales in US console history, only trailing the Wii's spectacular 2008. The NPD's Mat Piscatella revealed the facts on Twitter, as part of a breakdown of December 2020 video game sales. During last month, spending across hardware, content and accessories hit $7.7 billion – a 25% rise, year-on-year – with $1.35 billion of that coming from hardware. Piscatella revealed that Switch was the best seller in both units sold and money made during that month, capping off an incredible year for the Nintendo handheld, which gives it the second-highest yearly dollar sales in US history.

US NPD HW - Nintendo Switch was the best-selling hardware platform in units and dollars for both December and the 2020 year. Annual dollar sales of Switch hardware were the 2nd highest for a platform in U.S. history. Only the 2008 dollar sales of Nintendo Wii were higher.

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) January 15, 2021

That's a feat made more remarkable by the fact that there were comparatively few major Switch releases during the year, besides the admittedly huge success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. PlayStation 5 came in as the second best-selling console for dollar sales, with PS4 ranking at second for units sold. PS5 made more money in its first December than any previous PlayStation system did during the same period in the US. The NPD's stats say that Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War became the US' best-selling game of December, and 2020 as a whole. In second place? Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. However, Animal Crossing: New Horizons – which sits in third – includes no digital sales figures, meaning it could well be placed higher in actuality. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/nintendo-reveals-mario-special-edition-switch-console-ign-news"] With what could be a much busier year ahead for Nintendo, not to mention persistent rumours of a Switch Pro model to be announced, it'll be very interesting to see if Switch can continue that momentum – particularly as the PS5 and Xbox Series platforms begin to see more exclusives emerge. [poilib element="accentDivider"] 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.

Nintendo Switch was the number one console in the US in 2020, for both units sold and dollars made – and had the second-best year for dollar sales in US console history, only trailing the Wii's spectacular 2008. The NPD's Mat Piscatella revealed the facts on Twitter, as part of a breakdown of December 2020 video game sales. During last month, spending across hardware, content and accessories hit $7.7 billion – a 25% rise, year-on-year – with $1.35 billion of that coming from hardware. Piscatella revealed that Switch was the best seller in both units sold and money made during that month, capping off an incredible year for the Nintendo handheld, which gives it the second-highest yearly dollar sales in US history.

US NPD HW - Nintendo Switch was the best-selling hardware platform in units and dollars for both December and the 2020 year. Annual dollar sales of Switch hardware were the 2nd highest for a platform in U.S. history. Only the 2008 dollar sales of Nintendo Wii were higher.

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) January 15, 2021

That's a feat made more remarkable by the fact that there were comparatively few major Switch releases during the year, besides the admittedly huge success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. PlayStation 5 came in as the second best-selling console for dollar sales, with PS4 ranking at second for units sold. PS5 made more money in its first December than any previous PlayStation system did during the same period in the US. The NPD's stats say that Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War became the US' best-selling game of December, and 2020 as a whole. In second place? Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. However, Animal Crossing: New Horizons – which sits in third – includes no digital sales figures, meaning it could well be placed higher in actuality. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/nintendo-reveals-mario-special-edition-switch-console-ign-news"] With what could be a much busier year ahead for Nintendo, not to mention persistent rumours of a Switch Pro model to be announced, it'll be very interesting to see if Switch can continue that momentum – particularly as the PS5 and Xbox Series platforms begin to see more exclusives emerge. [poilib element="accentDivider"] 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.

Blizzard has given its game launcher, Battle.Net, a new visual design, marking its first major overhaul in eight years. It’s available now for some players in North America, and will be gradually rolled out to other users over the coming weeks. The new design repositions games from the left-hand sidebar to a row of icons across the top of the window, allowing for more space to be taken up by the game page, which features the latest news and updates on the relevant title. The friends and social bar has also been permanently affixed to the right hand side of the window, rather than being a separate app that opens akin to Steam’s friends list. Interestingly, Blizzard’s screenshot of the new ‘Battle.net 2.0’ interface shows the blue Battle.net logo in the upper left corner of the window. Back in 2017, Blizzard renamed Battle.net to Blizzard App, and replaced the logo with the Blizzard logo. Just months later the company did a bit of a U-turn on the name and rebranded the launcher as Blizzard Battle.net, but never replaced the Blizzard logo with the old Battle.net one. It’s good to see it finally making a return to its rightful home in this 2.0 overhaul. As previously noted, the redesign is currently only available to some users in North America. Other territories will get the new launcher in the coming weeks. If you’re in NA and haven’t received the update, you can opt to use the beta version in the settings menu of Battle.net. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2015/11/09/overwatch-official-gameplay-trailer-2"] Battle.net is, of course, the home of Blizzard’s stable of games, and will one day be updated with Overwatch 2, which will be at BlizzCon in February. We’ll also be hoping to see more from Diablo 4 and its new features, too. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Blizzard has given its game launcher, Battle.Net, a new visual design, marking its first major overhaul in eight years. It’s available now for some players in North America, and will be gradually rolled out to other users over the coming weeks. The new design repositions games from the left-hand sidebar to a row of icons across the top of the window, allowing for more space to be taken up by the game page, which features the latest news and updates on the relevant title. The friends and social bar has also been permanently affixed to the right hand side of the window, rather than being a separate app that opens akin to Steam’s friends list. Interestingly, Blizzard’s screenshot of the new ‘Battle.net 2.0’ interface shows the blue Battle.net logo in the upper left corner of the window. Back in 2017, Blizzard renamed Battle.net to Blizzard App, and replaced the logo with the Blizzard logo. Just months later the company did a bit of a U-turn on the name and rebranded the launcher as Blizzard Battle.net, but never replaced the Blizzard logo with the old Battle.net one. It’s good to see it finally making a return to its rightful home in this 2.0 overhaul. As previously noted, the redesign is currently only available to some users in North America. Other territories will get the new launcher in the coming weeks. If you’re in NA and haven’t received the update, you can opt to use the beta version in the settings menu of Battle.net. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2015/11/09/overwatch-official-gameplay-trailer-2"] Battle.net is, of course, the home of Blizzard’s stable of games, and will one day be updated with Overwatch 2, which will be at BlizzCon in February. We’ll also be hoping to see more from Diablo 4 and its new features, too. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

Amid the games industry’s constant push-pull between contained single-player stories and sprawling multiplayer experiences, Josef Fares and his studio Hazelight keep making things that sit somewhere in the middle. 2018’s A Way Out, and 2021’s It Takes Two are both well-presented, start-to-finish stories built around set protagonists, just like the titans of the single-player world. But they can also only be played in co-op (whether in-person or online), enforcing some of the competitive camaraderie of multiplayer onto that familiar structure, and adding new challenges and ideas that single player games simply can't.

Fares has, in effect, created a new genre of game to work within - narrative co-op adventures might be a suitable name. A Way Out was his first true tilt at the idea, but you can see the first sketches of that approach in Fares' first game, too – the wonderful Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons was effectively a co-op game designed to be played by a single person, or by two people on a single controller. Fares is clearly deeply interested in telling stories using multiple bodies, whether virtual or physical.

“There are so many unique and cool story experiences with a tailored co-op experience you can create,” Fares tells me when I ask him why he’s so drawn to this unusual style. “You can create this tension between the players, or this relation between the players through the game. There's definitely something that should be explored. That's something that we as a studio really want to push and become the best in the world at.”

He pauses momentarily, before adding. “We are the best in the world, because nobody else is doing it.”

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/11/it-takes-two-gameplay-reveal-trailer"]

He’s not wrong. Even years after its release, no one’s made quite the same kind of game as A Way Out – possibly because Fares is the only person with the level of all-consuming self-belief to convince publishers to finance such a thing:

“When I believe in something, nothing can stop me. Obviously no one believed in [A Way Out] – not even EA thought it would sell, but they still believed in me. I didn't care. I was like, ‘This is going to happen.’ Now, we've sold almost 3.5 million units of that game. These numbers for a small team of 30, 35 people are madness, you know? And at 3.5 million units sold, that means that, I don't know, almost seven million people played this game, which is crazy.

“Now it's proven but, for me, the important thing was to follow your passion and what you believe in. I do believe that there might be someone in the industry who wanted to try this kind of game, but they didn't really dare to because they were afraid of what could happen. I just think that sometimes you need to f**k s**t up and really go with what you truly believe in. That's the only thing that matters, you know? I do think – and hope – that more people do this, especially when publishers see that, ‘Oh, we have an audience here.’ People want this, obviously.”

He’s out to prove that point again with It Takes Two, albeit with a very different kind of story. Where A Way Out was a mostly self-serious jailbreak tale, It Takes Two takes a wildly different tone, spinning a yarn about a couple on the edge of divorce being turned into dolls and brought back together by a magical talking book (mo-capped, naturally, by Fares himself) by way of a series of fantasy adventures.

[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=I%20just%20think%20that%20sometimes%20you%20need%20to%20f**k%20s**t%20up%20and%20really%20go%20with%20what%20you%20truly%20believe%20in."]

But despite the disparate narratives, It Takes Two looks to be building on almost everything that set A Way Out apart as a game. It’s still a co-op only experience with shifting split screens, using a multitude of different activities to serve its story (Fares tells me he thinks it’ll win a world record for the number of different mechanics included), using the relationships between its players to inform the relationships between the characters. Essentially, not only did Fares basically invent a genre, he’s choosing to fill it with new games himself while no one else will.

I ask him why – and if it felt like he has unfinished business with the ideas created for A Way Out. He tells me it has more to do with building on the experience created by making that first game: “In A Way Out, a lot of the team were interns who were new, [but] now we have become really badass developers. The animation, the coding, the sound, the design, everything – it's a way better polished product, with mechanics that really feel much fresher, and nice, and tighter than A Way Out.

“Of course I wish we could have pushed all that more with A Way Out, but it was hard with the team we had. But I still think we did a great job considering what we had. In A Way Out we got compared to AAA titles – you know, you compare Uncharted’s shooting with our shooting, I mean come on. We had one coder on our shooting. But with this game, we have gotten way better and we can deliver a way better game.”

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/03/22/a-way-out-review"]

As we speak, it becomes clear that Fares doesn’t just like making this kind of game, he believes in its value, particularly in the space of games that look to tell a story above all else:

“I do believe in the narrative game. We really need to look closer at how mechanics are connected to story, and I really, truly believe that in [other] narrative games, sometimes designers and writers are [making] two different games. We need to drop the idea of the old thing where you learn your mechanic and blah, blah, blah, you get better. That's old design rules. I don't care about them. They could function and work in another game but, in story experiences, you have to have the [game] and the narrative meld together. This is what we're trying to do. Everything the characters are seeing, or interacting with, or encountering is part of the gameplay."

The more we talk, the less it feels like Fares is making his projects because he specifically likes story-based games that two players control, and more that he feels that, for now, this is the best way to prove that story and gameplay can work hand-in-hand, rather than simply in parallel with one another. He goes some way towards proving that point when I ask whether narrative co-op adventures are what Hazelight will make from now on:

“No, no, no, no, no. The next game I have in my head is very different to this. I mean, very different. [...] This is not the new tone for the kind of game we're doing. The next game is totally different. It's something totally else, which is so cool. We're going to start with it in the next month.” Rather than sit within his own genre, it feels as though Fares is feeling out his next steps, building on his original ideas, while thinking of ways to push them further in future.

[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=I%20do%20believe%20in%20the%20narrative%20game.%20We%20really%20need%20to%20look%20closer%20at%20how%20mechanics%20are%20connected%20to%20story%2C%20and%20I%20really%2C%20truly%20believe%20that%20in%20%5Bother%5D%20narrative%20games%2C%20sometimes%20designers%20and%20writers%20are%20%5Bmaking%5D%20two%20different%20games."]

I wonder if the key to moving beyond his current ideas is new technology, in that case – does the next generation of consoles offer Fares what he needs to push further? And would It Takes Two have been even bolder if it hadn’t started development before new hardware became available? His answer is typically forthright – and includes some choice thoughts on Microsoft’s new console naming conventions for good measure:

“I don't really care about consoles. I care about games. Of course I wish we could have looked more into the new consoles [for It Takes Two]. I'm just happy they are more powerful, because it takes a lot of time when a console is not really powerful enough, but what I like about the new generation is that they are powerful, that we can focus on them. But to be honest with you, they came in so late in our production – of course it's going to look better on PS5 and Xbox Series X, but we didn't really have the time to adjust them and make the PS5 version special, or the Xbox blah blah… Whatever they call the Xbox Series.

“That's a f**king confusing name. What the f**k's going on with Microsoft? They're losing it, man. What the f**k is going on? Like Series S, X, Mex, Next. I mean, who knows this? Come on. Madness. Call it the Microsoft Box and that's it. I don't know. It's a total f**king mess. Trust me, even them, they're confused in their offices. What is this X, S... I don't know, what the f**k.”

He collects himself for a second. “Anyway…”

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/04/10/a-wild-unpredictable-hour-with-a-way-outs-josef-fares-ign-unfiltered-30"]

It’s the kind of outburst we’ve come to expect from Josef Fares in recent years, but one that I include with a point – I think it speaks to exactly what makes this director stand apart. This is a digression born in the moment - it’s not a prepared statement, just a thought carried through to completion. Fares’ outspoken approach doesn’t feel like a show, or an affectation, and you get the sense that it contributes to his creative approach as much as his public persona.

I suspect Fares creates what he does not through compromise, but in steamrolling disbelievers with a combination of unwavering self-confidence and charm. It’s how he turned a career in filmmaking into video game direction, how he convinced EA to let him spend their money on a game they didn’t think would recoup its costs and how, if he gets his way, he’ll help push his own invented genre forward even further.

“There is so much stuff to be explored in narrative experiences,” he tells me. “I keep saying this: this is just the beginning. We are just getting started, so there will be a lot more.” And when he says it, he says it with total conviction. I believe him.

[poilib element="accentDivider"]

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.

Amid the games industry’s constant push-pull between contained single-player stories and sprawling multiplayer experiences, Josef Fares and his studio Hazelight keep making things that sit somewhere in the middle. 2018’s A Way Out, and 2021’s It Takes Two are both well-presented, start-to-finish stories built around set protagonists, just like the titans of the single-player world. But they can also only be played in co-op (whether in-person or online), enforcing some of the competitive camaraderie of multiplayer onto that familiar structure, and adding new challenges and ideas that single player games simply can't.

Fares has, in effect, created a new genre of game to work within - narrative co-op adventures might be a suitable name. A Way Out was his first true tilt at the idea, but you can see the first sketches of that approach in Fares' first game, too – the wonderful Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons was effectively a co-op game designed to be played by a single person, or by two people on a single controller. Fares is clearly deeply interested in telling stories using multiple bodies, whether virtual or physical.

“There are so many unique and cool story experiences with a tailored co-op experience you can create,” Fares tells me when I ask him why he’s so drawn to this unusual style. “You can create this tension between the players, or this relation between the players through the game. There's definitely something that should be explored. That's something that we as a studio really want to push and become the best in the world at.”

He pauses momentarily, before adding. “We are the best in the world, because nobody else is doing it.”

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/11/it-takes-two-gameplay-reveal-trailer"]

He’s not wrong. Even years after its release, no one’s made quite the same kind of game as A Way Out – possibly because Fares is the only person with the level of all-consuming self-belief to convince publishers to finance such a thing:

“When I believe in something, nothing can stop me. Obviously no one believed in [A Way Out] – not even EA thought it would sell, but they still believed in me. I didn't care. I was like, ‘This is going to happen.’ Now, we've sold almost 3.5 million units of that game. These numbers for a small team of 30, 35 people are madness, you know? And at 3.5 million units sold, that means that, I don't know, almost seven million people played this game, which is crazy.

“Now it's proven but, for me, the important thing was to follow your passion and what you believe in. I do believe that there might be someone in the industry who wanted to try this kind of game, but they didn't really dare to because they were afraid of what could happen. I just think that sometimes you need to f**k s**t up and really go with what you truly believe in. That's the only thing that matters, you know? I do think – and hope – that more people do this, especially when publishers see that, ‘Oh, we have an audience here.’ People want this, obviously.”

He’s out to prove that point again with It Takes Two, albeit with a very different kind of story. Where A Way Out was a mostly self-serious jailbreak tale, It Takes Two takes a wildly different tone, spinning a yarn about a couple on the edge of divorce being turned into dolls and brought back together by a magical talking book (mo-capped, naturally, by Fares himself) by way of a series of fantasy adventures.

[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=I%20just%20think%20that%20sometimes%20you%20need%20to%20f**k%20s**t%20up%20and%20really%20go%20with%20what%20you%20truly%20believe%20in."]

But despite the disparate narratives, It Takes Two looks to be building on almost everything that set A Way Out apart as a game. It’s still a co-op only experience with shifting split screens, using a multitude of different activities to serve its story (Fares tells me he thinks it’ll win a world record for the number of different mechanics included), using the relationships between its players to inform the relationships between the characters. Essentially, not only did Fares basically invent a genre, he’s choosing to fill it with new games himself while no one else will.

I ask him why – and if it felt like he has unfinished business with the ideas created for A Way Out. He tells me it has more to do with building on the experience created by making that first game: “In A Way Out, a lot of the team were interns who were new, [but] now we have become really badass developers. The animation, the coding, the sound, the design, everything – it's a way better polished product, with mechanics that really feel much fresher, and nice, and tighter than A Way Out.

“Of course I wish we could have pushed all that more with A Way Out, but it was hard with the team we had. But I still think we did a great job considering what we had. In A Way Out we got compared to AAA titles – you know, you compare Uncharted’s shooting with our shooting, I mean come on. We had one coder on our shooting. But with this game, we have gotten way better and we can deliver a way better game.”

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/03/22/a-way-out-review"]

As we speak, it becomes clear that Fares doesn’t just like making this kind of game, he believes in its value, particularly in the space of games that look to tell a story above all else:

“I do believe in the narrative game. We really need to look closer at how mechanics are connected to story, and I really, truly believe that in [other] narrative games, sometimes designers and writers are [making] two different games. We need to drop the idea of the old thing where you learn your mechanic and blah, blah, blah, you get better. That's old design rules. I don't care about them. They could function and work in another game but, in story experiences, you have to have the [game] and the narrative meld together. This is what we're trying to do. Everything the characters are seeing, or interacting with, or encountering is part of the gameplay."

The more we talk, the less it feels like Fares is making his projects because he specifically likes story-based games that two players control, and more that he feels that, for now, this is the best way to prove that story and gameplay can work hand-in-hand, rather than simply in parallel with one another. He goes some way towards proving that point when I ask whether narrative co-op adventures are what Hazelight will make from now on:

“No, no, no, no, no. The next game I have in my head is very different to this. I mean, very different. [...] This is not the new tone for the kind of game we're doing. The next game is totally different. It's something totally else, which is so cool. We're going to start with it in the next month.” Rather than sit within his own genre, it feels as though Fares is feeling out his next steps, building on his original ideas, while thinking of ways to push them further in future.

[poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=I%20do%20believe%20in%20the%20narrative%20game.%20We%20really%20need%20to%20look%20closer%20at%20how%20mechanics%20are%20connected%20to%20story%2C%20and%20I%20really%2C%20truly%20believe%20that%20in%20%5Bother%5D%20narrative%20games%2C%20sometimes%20designers%20and%20writers%20are%20%5Bmaking%5D%20two%20different%20games."]

I wonder if the key to moving beyond his current ideas is new technology, in that case – does the next generation of consoles offer Fares what he needs to push further? And would It Takes Two have been even bolder if it hadn’t started development before new hardware became available? His answer is typically forthright – and includes some choice thoughts on Microsoft’s new console naming conventions for good measure:

“I don't really care about consoles. I care about games. Of course I wish we could have looked more into the new consoles [for It Takes Two]. I'm just happy they are more powerful, because it takes a lot of time when a console is not really powerful enough, but what I like about the new generation is that they are powerful, that we can focus on them. But to be honest with you, they came in so late in our production – of course it's going to look better on PS5 and Xbox Series X, but we didn't really have the time to adjust them and make the PS5 version special, or the Xbox blah blah… Whatever they call the Xbox Series.

“That's a f**king confusing name. What the f**k's going on with Microsoft? They're losing it, man. What the f**k is going on? Like Series S, X, Mex, Next. I mean, who knows this? Come on. Madness. Call it the Microsoft Box and that's it. I don't know. It's a total f**king mess. Trust me, even them, they're confused in their offices. What is this X, S... I don't know, what the f**k.”

He collects himself for a second. “Anyway…”

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/04/10/a-wild-unpredictable-hour-with-a-way-outs-josef-fares-ign-unfiltered-30"]

It’s the kind of outburst we’ve come to expect from Josef Fares in recent years, but one that I include with a point – I think it speaks to exactly what makes this director stand apart. This is a digression born in the moment - it’s not a prepared statement, just a thought carried through to completion. Fares’ outspoken approach doesn’t feel like a show, or an affectation, and you get the sense that it contributes to his creative approach as much as his public persona.

I suspect Fares creates what he does not through compromise, but in steamrolling disbelievers with a combination of unwavering self-confidence and charm. It’s how he turned a career in filmmaking into video game direction, how he convinced EA to let him spend their money on a game they didn’t think would recoup its costs and how, if he gets his way, he’ll help push his own invented genre forward even further.

“There is so much stuff to be explored in narrative experiences,” he tells me. “I keep saying this: this is just the beginning. We are just getting started, so there will be a lot more.” And when he says it, he says it with total conviction. I believe him.

[poilib element="accentDivider"]

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.