It’s human nature to be curious about what seemingly mundane and inanimate things get up to while we’re not looking. Such thinking spawned mythos like fairies in people’s gardens, borrowers, and the Toy Story saga, and now we come to street signs. What do those little human figures get up to when no-one is around? If The Pedestrian is to be believed, the answer is 2D platforming, solving lots and lots of puzzles, and taking control of electrical devices in an attempt to escape their confines.

In taking control of a human figure (either with or without a dress) your adventure in The Pedestrian is mostly confined to various street signs, blueprints, and other 2D surfaces. In the background, blurred into obscurity, are the beautiful 3D landscapes of the world they exist in. You can run, jump, and climb with light platforming maneuvers to get to new areas, but the crux of The Pedestrian's puzzling comes from the ability to zoom out and rearrange the positions of the 2D signs and flat surfaces, creating doorways and new paths. Once you regain control of the person symbol, you can then use these new doorways to access the other signs to complete puzzles and move forward. Rearranging the playing field adds a layer of complexity that will have you thinking about obstacles in two different ways for the majority of the experience.

There’s a satisfaction in ordering the panels of a level in your own way, which then allows you to jump back in and complete the puzzle. The process is not totally freeform, as doors and ladders on one panel will only connect to those on another if they are properly aligned, and there are often obstacles in the way that might impede a certain way of doing things. However, there's definitely a very godlike feel to the control it gives you. Occasionally my solutions felt so chaotic that I wondered if they were the intended direction; other times the puzzles felt intentionally crafted to lead me to certain results. But there is overall a nice feeling that you are figuring out things on your own, in your own way.

Extra difficulty lies in the fact that you can’t make most changes to the arrangement of your 2D platforming world without resetting other things--activated switches will deactivate, and key items will be lost, so you need to go in with a plan. Sometimes resetting is necessary, especially if you hit a dead-end, but later you'll be able to freeze some signs to prevent them from resetting, keeping the elements there active for your next attempt. The concept moves you to start thinking about puzzles in a way that's almost akin to time travel. Having to manage a puzzle board full of different segments filled with switches, keys, and laser beams, among other things, and then literally having to manage time and space to reach a goal provides some surprisingly challenging and satisfying scenarios.

The Pedestrian serves out these scenarios in bite-sized pieces. Even when presented with a larger puzzle, it’s still broken down into several smaller sections, which certainly makes them easier to comprehend. However, because of this structure, The Pedestrian can begin to feel a little too samey, especially when the reward for completing a puzzle is almost always more puzzles. It works very well as a game to spend half an hour with and then return to later, rather than slog out the whole four-hour duration in one unending sign barrage. I’d often find myself leaving it due to puzzle fatigue or being a little stuck, then come back to it later with renewed inspiration to immediately solve the troublesome puzzle, ready for a little more.

The introduction of new concepts and escalation in difficulty are gently paced, and only when new elements are first added does it really ever feel daunting--some of the puzzles I spent the longest on were just working out exactly how a new mechanic worked or could be used since the game doesn’t often provide much direction. Instead, the Pedestrian then gives you plenty of opportunities to explore and understand new features in subsequent levels and encourages you to work things out for yourself. The initial frustration is always made up for by the enhanced understanding and satisfaction of working it out on your own. It also ensured I completely grasped all the concepts, which allowed me to then solve increasingly difficult puzzles I’m sure I would have been stumped by otherwise. The payoff for making me feel stupid for one puzzle allowed me to feel incredibly smart for many other harder challenges.

There’s a real freshness to The Pedestrian's take on puzzle-platforming and world manipulation. The constant introduction of new, sometimes surprisingly complex ideas means there’s enough to keep you moving through the nicely segmented challenges. The levels themselves can be quite repetitive in both look and feel, making the game tiresome during long play sessions, but it lends itself well to short-burst experiences and never lets you feel too lost. The Pedestrian executes its charming premise well, with just enough complexity to keep your brain pleasantly stimulated.

Blizzard's president has acknowledged that it's been a tough week for the developer following the launch of Warcraft 3: Reforged due to the criticism from the community the game received.

During the Activision Blizzard earnings call held on February 6, 2020, Blizzard president J. Allen Brack answered a question about the criticism that Warcraft 3: Reforged drew from players since its launch on January 28, 2020.

"Honestly, it's been a bit of a hard week," Brack said. "Our community has come to expect really amazing things from us, and we've heard from them that we did not achieve that bar."

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Warcraft 3: Reforged was criticised by players for a number of reasons. Cutscenes don't feature cinematic camera angles that were promised, some have reported connectivity issues, while others are disappointed at the lack of a competitive ladder.

Another issue is a change to Blizzard's End User License Agreement that gives Blizzard complete copyright of custom games made in Reforged. If anyone comes up with a great game idea in Reforged then they aren't able to take it out of there and turn it into a standalone game without Blizzard's permission.

"But we stand behind our games, and have consistently shown that not only do we support them, but we continue to build on them even after launch, and we're committed to doing that here as well," Brack continued. "And so we're going to continue to update the game, and we'll continue to update the community with our plans going forward."

Warcraft 3: Reforged received its first post-launch update today, which comes in at 2GB in total. However, it doesn't make any huge changes to the game, mostly fixing bugs and addressing some issues with the game's Classic mode.

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Blizzard has also changed its refund policy for Warcraft 3: Reforged, at least for now. Rather than having to wait for Blizzard to review each refund application, players can now ask for a refund through the support system and get it automatically, or near enough.

We gave the game a 7 in our Warcraft 3: Reforged review, saying that it's "an uninspiring remaster, but Warcraft 3 itself is still a great game nearly two decades later."

Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare players are spending more money in-game than Black Ops 4 players either due to or despite the removal of the season pass and loot boxes.

During Activision's Q4 earnings call on February 6, 2020, company president Rob Kostich answered a question about how removing the season pass for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has affected player behaviour and in-game revenue.

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Kostich begins by saying it's important to acknowledge that removing the season pass for Modern Warfare was part of a number of changes Activision made "to create a better overall experience for our player community." The other changes he mentioned were bringing in cross-play and cross-progression.

He adds that with the launch of Call of Duty: Mobile last year, Activision is treating all Call of Duty players across all platforms as a singular community. "Instead of certain portions of the audience having certain content, we're focused now on free content for the entire community, to drive engagement with the overall community," Kostich said.

He then talked about how removing the season pass and loot boxes and replacing those systems with the battle pass in Modern Warfare enabled more transparency to players so they can see what their money goes towards. That, he says, has worked out really well, as evidenced in a "double-digit percentage" growth for in-game spending in Modern Warfare over Black Ops 4.

"We're looking at engagement and we're looking at daily average uniques, our engagement is up significantly year over year. That's really great for us to see so many people playing and enjoying this fantastic game," Kostich said.

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"And then on the player investment side, I'd say fans certainly seem to be appreciating the new system quite a bit. We mentioned the growth year on year, but one other thing I might add is that we're also seeing an increase in attach rates in-game to the new system. Which I think is a very, very positive sign for it."

Activision also confirmed during the earnings call that there will be a new Call of Duty game in 2020 but didn't announce who the developer is yet. Our Call of Duty: Modern Warfare review gave the game an 8.2 and said it has "the best CoD campaign in nearly a decade, thanks to fast pacing and great variety."

Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

If you love survival horror games, especially ones that are either directly from or inspired by those made in the '90s, then April 2020 is the month for you.

Daymare: 1998 is coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on April 28, 2020 across North America and Europe. You might know that is not long after the Resident Evil 3 remake release date, on April 3, 2020. Yep, you're being spoiled this April.

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The PS4 version of Daymare: 1998 will be available both in physical and digital form, while the Xbox One version will only be available digitally.

Daymare: 1998 started out life as Resident Evil 2 Reborn when it was announced in July 2015. That was just a month before Capcom revealed its own Resident Evil 2 remake and forced Italian indie studio Invader Games to shut down its fan-made homage.

But Invader wasn't deterred and instead started making its own third-person survival horror game that builds upon the work done already, but swapping out everything Resident Evil 2 for original ideas and names.

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Fast-forward to September 2019 and Daymare: 1998 was released for PC. As is intended, it's pretty similar to Resident Evil 2, featuring a story told through multi-character perspective, environmental puzzles, over-the-shoulder shooting, and inventory management.

You play as an elite soldier, a helicopter pilot, and a forest ranger as they set out to investigate a deadly virus outbreak. Naturally, there will be plenty of horrible creatures to shoot or avoid along the way.

Chris Priestman is a freelancer who writes news for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

I’ve worked with Sam Raimi. One of the nicest people I’ve known in the film business, and as a director, a true living legend. What a great choice to take over Doctor Strange.

— N O S ⋊ Ɔ I ᴚ ᴚ Ǝ ᗡ ⊥ ⊥ O Ɔ S (@scottderrickson) February 6, 2020

I’ve worked with Sam Raimi. One of the nicest people I’ve known in the film business, and as a director, a true living legend. What a great choice to take over Doctor Strange.

— N O S ⋊ Ɔ I ᴚ ᴚ Ǝ ᗡ ⊥ ⊥ O Ɔ S (@scottderrickson) February 6, 2020

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Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN.