New accessibility options are coming to Assassin's Creed Valhalla including the Saga Difficulty Mode that lets players enjoy the gameplay and story without challenging combat.

The new difficulty mode, available below the Easy in Valhalla's settings, means enemies don't scale with the player's level, they inflict less damage overall, and they react slower during stealth sections.

Other settings will be added to customise Valhalla's combat, with players able alter the amount of damage taken, the amount of damage given, how much the player can heal, how much Adrenaline is gained, and how much health the enemies have.

Adding an easier difficulty mode isn't the key to solving all of gaming's accessibility problems, of course, but it's a good step in the right direction.

Myriad other improvements are being added in the new update, which lands on February 22 in preparation of the Dawn of Ragnarök expansion.

Various fixes to stealth gameplay will be implemented, including enemies' reaction to whistling, players being wrongfully detecting, and NPCs disengaging from combat almost immediately.

Dozens of other issues have also been addressed, and Ubisoft has published each intricate detail in a blog post.

The Dawn of Ragnarök expansion is coming on March 10 and has the player battle through the mythical world of Svartalfheim. IGN said Assassin's Creed Valhalla was "great" and a "big, bold, and ridiculously beautiful entry to the series that finally delivers on the much-requested era of the Viking."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.

New accessibility options are coming to Assassin's Creed Valhalla including the Saga Difficulty Mode that lets players enjoy the gameplay and story without challenging combat.

The new difficulty mode, available below the Easy in Valhalla's settings, means enemies don't scale with the player's level, they inflict less damage overall, and they react slower during stealth sections.

Other settings will be added to customise Valhalla's combat, with players able alter the amount of damage taken, the amount of damage given, how much the player can heal, how much Adrenaline is gained, and how much health the enemies have.

Adding an easier difficulty mode isn't the key to solving all of gaming's accessibility problems, of course, but it's a good step in the right direction.

Myriad other improvements are being added in the new update, which lands on February 22 in preparation of the Dawn of Ragnarök expansion.

Various fixes to stealth gameplay will be implemented, including enemies' reaction to whistling, players being wrongfully detecting, and NPCs disengaging from combat almost immediately.

Dozens of other issues have also been addressed, and Ubisoft has published each intricate detail in a blog post.

The Dawn of Ragnarök expansion is coming on March 10 and has the player battle through the mythical world of Svartalfheim. IGN said Assassin's Creed Valhalla was "great" and a "big, bold, and ridiculously beautiful entry to the series that finally delivers on the much-requested era of the Viking."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.

The Batman villain Paul Dano had trouble sleeping while playing The Riddler.

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 37-year-old Batman villain explained why he found it difficult to “come down” from the role.

“There's a sequence with Peter Sarsgaard's character [Gotham district attorney Gil Colson]. That was intense,” said Dano. “There were some nights around that I probably didn't sleep as well as I would've wanted to just because it was a little hard to come down from this character. It takes a lot of energy to get there. And so, you almost have to sustain it once you're there because going up and down is kind of hard.”

It sounds as though The Batman was an intense experience all round.

After all, the Batman himself, Robert Pattinson, spent a long time working on his Bat-voice, spending hours on set in the Bat-suit.

And Paul Dano had some troubles with his costume, too. Dano himself pitched the idea of The Riddler covering himself from head to toe in plastic wrap, to avoid leaving DNA evidence at his crime scenes. Director Matt Reeves loved it… but it looks as though Dano made a rod for his own back.

“My head was just throbbing with heat,” he explained. “I went home that night, after the first full day in that, and I almost couldn't sleep because I was scared of what was happening to my head. It was like compressed from the sweat and the heat and the lack of oxygen. It was a crazy feeling.”

Thankfully, the costume department made some modifications that made it easier to breathe inside his Riddler costume.

But Reeves loved the idea of the Riddler as a vigilante in this villain’s origin story.

“The Riddler is omnipresent, but almost as a ghost,” said Reeves. “When I came up with the idea that the Riddler would be sending correspondence to Batman, [what] was captivating to me was if you're a character whose mode is to work as a symbol, be anonymous, to come out of the shadows, nobody is supposed to know who you are; your power comes from the fact that you're anonymous. Then suddenly someone starts to rob you of your anonymity, you start to lose a bit of your power and it starts to unsettle you.”

“The flip side of that is that by withholding the Riddler, he had more power,” he added. “He was more unsettling. He felt like a ghost throughout the whole movie, this kind of presence that you never knew where he would show up and how he was affecting things. And that that mystery would put Batman in a very vulnerable position because he didn't understand from where and how and what the Riddler was acting.”

Robert Pattinson stars as The Batman alongside Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, and Paul Dano as The Riddler.

The Batman is directed by Matt Reeves, based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Peter Craig.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

The Batman villain Paul Dano had trouble sleeping while playing The Riddler.

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 37-year-old Batman villain explained why he found it difficult to “come down” from the role.

“There's a sequence with Peter Sarsgaard's character [Gotham district attorney Gil Colson]. That was intense,” said Dano. “There were some nights around that I probably didn't sleep as well as I would've wanted to just because it was a little hard to come down from this character. It takes a lot of energy to get there. And so, you almost have to sustain it once you're there because going up and down is kind of hard.”

It sounds as though The Batman was an intense experience all round.

After all, the Batman himself, Robert Pattinson, spent a long time working on his Bat-voice, spending hours on set in the Bat-suit.

And Paul Dano had some troubles with his costume, too. Dano himself pitched the idea of The Riddler covering himself from head to toe in plastic wrap, to avoid leaving DNA evidence at his crime scenes. Director Matt Reeves loved it… but it looks as though Dano made a rod for his own back.

“My head was just throbbing with heat,” he explained. “I went home that night, after the first full day in that, and I almost couldn't sleep because I was scared of what was happening to my head. It was like compressed from the sweat and the heat and the lack of oxygen. It was a crazy feeling.”

Thankfully, the costume department made some modifications that made it easier to breathe inside his Riddler costume.

But Reeves loved the idea of the Riddler as a vigilante in this villain’s origin story.

“The Riddler is omnipresent, but almost as a ghost,” said Reeves. “When I came up with the idea that the Riddler would be sending correspondence to Batman, [what] was captivating to me was if you're a character whose mode is to work as a symbol, be anonymous, to come out of the shadows, nobody is supposed to know who you are; your power comes from the fact that you're anonymous. Then suddenly someone starts to rob you of your anonymity, you start to lose a bit of your power and it starts to unsettle you.”

“The flip side of that is that by withholding the Riddler, he had more power,” he added. “He was more unsettling. He felt like a ghost throughout the whole movie, this kind of presence that you never knew where he would show up and how he was affecting things. And that that mystery would put Batman in a very vulnerable position because he didn't understand from where and how and what the Riddler was acting.”

Robert Pattinson stars as The Batman alongside Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, and Paul Dano as The Riddler.

The Batman is directed by Matt Reeves, based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Peter Craig.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Bethesda has revealed the 2022 content roadmap for its online action RPG Fallout 76.

The year-long road map introduces new public events from alien invasions and the first time players can venture outside of post-apocalyptic West Virginia.

Split into four seasons; the spring update will introduce a new seasonal event called Invaders From Beyond, a map-wide event where players are tasked will encounter aliens and UFOs. The event will take players with defeating the aliens and hindering their research by way of destroying brainwave siphons. While the summer update will introduce three new public events: Test Your Metal, Eviction Notice, and Moonshine Jamboree.

However, the more interesting updates come in the second half of the year. The fall update introduces Expeditions: The Pitt, which Bethesda notes is "a whole new way to play Fallout 76." The update will mark the first time players will have the chance to venture outside of Appalachia in-game and new NPCs with quests.

The press release confirms that players will "venture beyond the boundaries of Appalachia on missions to the lethal location known only as, The Pitt," implying that players may return to the city first introduced in the second Fallout 3 DLC. Last June, Bethesda teased that players would have the ability to not only explore Appalachia but that The Pitt would be the setting you will have the option to venture off to. Not to mention Trogs, an enemy creature introduced in Fallout 3's The Pitt expansion has also been confirmed to return in the fall update.

The winter update, titled Nuka-World on Tour, sees an entrepreneur bringing a traveling roadshow to Appalachia. New public events will be added, including a region boss public event, and players will have the opportunity to explore the Nuka-World on Tour's grounds. Fallout fans may remember that Nuka-World is an actual (and fictional) amusement park and served as the primary setting for the Fallout 4 DLC of the same name.

While a new Fallout game is not coming out any time soon, as Fallout 76 enters its fourth year of post-launch support, the game had received plenty of content updates that make it look like a different game compared to when it launched back in 2018.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Bethesda has revealed the 2022 content roadmap for its online action RPG Fallout 76.

The year-long road map introduces new public events from alien invasions and the first time players can venture outside of post-apocalyptic West Virginia.

Split into four seasons; the spring update will introduce a new seasonal event called Invaders From Beyond, a map-wide event where players are tasked will encounter aliens and UFOs. The event will take players with defeating the aliens and hindering their research by way of destroying brainwave siphons. While the summer update will introduce three new public events: Test Your Metal, Eviction Notice, and Moonshine Jamboree.

However, the more interesting updates come in the second half of the year. The fall update introduces Expeditions: The Pitt, which Bethesda notes is "a whole new way to play Fallout 76." The update will mark the first time players will have the chance to venture outside of Appalachia in-game and new NPCs with quests.

The press release confirms that players will "venture beyond the boundaries of Appalachia on missions to the lethal location known only as, The Pitt," implying that players may return to the city first introduced in the second Fallout 3 DLC. Last June, Bethesda teased that players would have the ability to not only explore Appalachia but that The Pitt would be the setting you will have the option to venture off to. Not to mention Trogs, an enemy creature introduced in Fallout 3's The Pitt expansion has also been confirmed to return in the fall update.

The winter update, titled Nuka-World on Tour, sees an entrepreneur bringing a traveling roadshow to Appalachia. New public events will be added, including a region boss public event, and players will have the opportunity to explore the Nuka-World on Tour's grounds. Fallout fans may remember that Nuka-World is an actual (and fictional) amusement park and served as the primary setting for the Fallout 4 DLC of the same name.

While a new Fallout game is not coming out any time soon, as Fallout 76 enters its fourth year of post-launch support, the game had received plenty of content updates that make it look like a different game compared to when it launched back in 2018.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Halo Infinite's campaign will receive a number of fixes and improvements as part of the mid-season update expected to be released on February 24.

While the update focuses mostly on the game's multiplayer, developer 343 Industries said in a blog post that players will "see multiple improvements in the campaign experience".

Though it was otherwise quite vague, 343 said the update would address issues with Achievements not unlocking and returning to the game via Quick Resume, adding that "the team has been working on a handful of fixes for campaign since launch and there will be more on the way."

343 also shared some of the changes coming to multiplayer, starting with general network improvements that were outlined earlier this month by lead engineer Richard Watson.

It also ensured that anti-cheat improvements will be made and that even more are on their way.

Certain first-person animation glitches that cause framerate stutters will also be ironed out in the update, alongside other stability and performance issues that have been reported to 343.

Finally, the range of the Motion Tracker in Big Team Battle will increase by 33%, from 18m to 24m based on a recommendation through community feedback.

The complete list of patch notes will be released alongside the update on the Halo Support site.

IGN said Halo Infinite was "amazing", as "after six years, it was fair to wonder: did Halo still belong in the 'Best Shooter' conversation? And would I still care about it? I am both relieved and delighted that Halo Infinite emphatically answers both questions with a resounding yes."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.

Halo Infinite's campaign will receive a number of fixes and improvements as part of the mid-season update expected to be released on February 24.

While the update focuses mostly on the game's multiplayer, developer 343 Industries said in a blog post that players will "see multiple improvements in the campaign experience".

Though it was otherwise quite vague, 343 said the update would address issues with Achievements not unlocking and returning to the game via Quick Resume, adding that "the team has been working on a handful of fixes for campaign since launch and there will be more on the way."

343 also shared some of the changes coming to multiplayer, starting with general network improvements that were outlined earlier this month by lead engineer Richard Watson.

It also ensured that anti-cheat improvements will be made and that even more are on their way.

Certain first-person animation glitches that cause framerate stutters will also be ironed out in the update, alongside other stability and performance issues that have been reported to 343.

Finally, the range of the Motion Tracker in Big Team Battle will increase by 33%, from 18m to 24m based on a recommendation through community feedback.

The complete list of patch notes will be released alongside the update on the Halo Support site.

IGN said Halo Infinite was "amazing", as "after six years, it was fair to wonder: did Halo still belong in the 'Best Shooter' conversation? And would I still care about it? I am both relieved and delighted that Halo Infinite emphatically answers both questions with a resounding yes."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.

Soul Hackers 2, a sequel to 1997's Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers and a new game in the Megami Tensei series, is launching on August 26 this year.

Soul Hackers 2 will launch on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox, and PC just a day after it releases in Japan. Developer Atlus says the new JRPG will combine aspects of the Megami Tensei series and first Soul Hackers in celebration of its 25th anniversary.

SEGA Europe said in a story synopsis: "In a war between devil summoners, it's up to Ringo and her team to decrypt destiny and save the world from apocalypse!"

It takes place towards the end of the 21st century as the player, of course, fights to stop the end of the world.

The gameplay shown is what Megami Tensei fans would expect as the player leads a party of characters through dungeons, fighting monsters in turn-based combat. For those unfamiliar, similar combat is featured in the Persona series, another Megami Tensei spin-off series.

Soul Hackers 2 is being directed by Eiji Ishida, who most recently led on Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, which IGN said were "great" and "good" respectively.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.

Soul Hackers 2, a sequel to 1997's Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers and a new game in the Megami Tensei series, is launching on August 26 this year.

Soul Hackers 2 will launch on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox, and PC just a day after it releases in Japan. Developer Atlus says the new JRPG will combine aspects of the Megami Tensei series and first Soul Hackers in celebration of its 25th anniversary.

SEGA Europe said in a story synopsis: "In a war between devil summoners, it's up to Ringo and her team to decrypt destiny and save the world from apocalypse!"

It takes place towards the end of the 21st century as the player, of course, fights to stop the end of the world.

The gameplay shown is what Megami Tensei fans would expect as the player leads a party of characters through dungeons, fighting monsters in turn-based combat. For those unfamiliar, similar combat is featured in the Persona series, another Megami Tensei spin-off series.

Soul Hackers 2 is being directed by Eiji Ishida, who most recently led on Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, which IGN said were "great" and "good" respectively.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale.