What Are the Most-anticipated Holiday Games?
Welcome back to Game Scoop!, IGN's weekly video game talk show. This week we're diving into the most-anticipated holiday games, which means Call of Duty WWII, Assassin's Creed Origins, Battlefront 2, and more. Watch the video above or download the podcast below.
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11 Games Released for Nintendo Switch This Week
The Nintendo Switch has another packed release week, with 11 games, and one demo, set to be released within the next seven days, including a couple of indies recently highlighted in a Nindies Showcase.
After the release of Stardew Valley on Switch last week, Nintendo is continuing to roll out a number of highlighted Nindies. This week sees the debut of Yono and the Celestial Elephants and Wulverblade, both of which were spotlighted during the August Nintendo Switch Showcase. Check out the full slate of releases in the gallery below:
PS4, Xbox One Getting 3 NES Adventure Games Soon
Three classic 8-bit NES adventure games are coming out soon on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Packaged in a bundle called the 8-Bit Adventure Anthology (Volume One), Abstraction Games will be releasing NES titles Shadowgate, The Uninvited, and Déjà Vu on October 31.
In Shadowgate, players explore the titular evil castle as the "Seed of Prophecy," as the fate of the world lies in your hands. The Uninvited is a mystery thriller about finding your missing sister in a gloomy mansion after a dangerous incident on the road.
Meanwhile, Déjà Vu is set in 1942 and asks you to find who murdered a man in your office using your gun while you were seemingly unconscious. All three games were originally released in the 1980s.
Zelda-Inspired Oceanhorn Gets Demo on Switch Today
Oceanhorn now has a free demo on the Nintendo Switch eShop.
The isometric action-adventure game features a mixture of action, puzzle-solving, and exploration, and is currently available on iPhone and iPad, Android, Apple TV, PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
It also has physical copies available for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.
Oceanhorn is heavily inspired by the Zelda series and has sold over 1 million copies across all platforms. Developer Cornfox & Bros. is currently at work on the sequel, Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm.
Brian Barnett is an IGN Freelancer. You can follow him on Twitter @Ribnax.
Kojima Productions New Ludens Figures Revealed
Following Hideo Kojima’s on-stage announcement at Brazil Game Show 2017, IGN can exclusively reveal the first photos of the finalized versions of Kojima Productions' new line of Ludens figures.
Three different figures of the KojiPro mascot are now available for preorder and will be released in spring 2018. For an exclusive first look at the final version of all three figures, check out the gallery below:
IGN can also reveal the final product specs for each of the figures. The 1/6 scale action figure from Sen-Ti-Nel will feature 46 points of articulation, as well as moving eyes and built-in light up functions. In addition to the figure itself, it includes extra hand parts, a lance, a beam flag, and a smoke visor. A Special Edition of this figure will also be available, and will include an additional beam flag exclusive to this set, as well as a special post card.
ESRB Does Not Consider Loot Boxes to Be Gambling
The Electronic Software Rating Board (ESRB) has waded into the recent conversation surrounding loot boxes, saying the mechanic does not fulfill its criteria for using gambling as a game descriptor.
"ESRB does not consider loot boxes to be gambling," a spokesperson for the organization told IGN. The rest of the company's statement reads:
"While there's an element of chance in these mechanics, the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content (even if the player unfortunately receives something they don't want). We think of it as a similar principle to collectible card games: Sometimes you'll open a pack and get a brand new holographic card you've had your eye on for a while. But other times you'll end up with a pack of cards you already have.
Life Is Strange Episode 2 Release Date Announced
The second episode of Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, "Brave New World," will be available on October 19 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
The episode will feature a few new characters, alongside some returning ones from the original Life Is Strange, and new environments.
With Chloe and Rachel's friendship starting to grow their family life continues to be in turmoil. Before the duo can run away, Chloe gets involved with a dangerous errand for Frank Bowers, which exposes Chloe to an uglier side of Arcadia Bay.
Be sure to read IGN's review of the first episode, "Awake," for our thoughts on why we think it "delivers some promising angst from Chloe Price." Also check out all the graffiti locations and our complete walkthrough for "Awake."
South Park: Stick of Truth Originally Had Branching Factions
Matt Stone and Trey Parker initially wanted to include branching factions in South Park: The Stick of Truth, but ultimately had to leave the feature on the cutting room floor.
"Originally, there was a branching out of factions," Parker said in an interview with IGN. "So you went and did a whole thing with the goth kids, you did a whole thing with Ike and the pirates. It was all about all these factions and it just started to get completely unwieldy in terms of writing it and everything," he explained.
Parker went on to humorously note that some of the content could have possibly been featured "if we understood the DLC concept well enough."
Stone then chimed in to add that they "also tried to make Skyrim starting
Marvel’s Kevin Feige Says Spider-Man: Homecoming MCU Timeline Issue Will Be Resolved
Spider-Man: Homecoming has fans scratching their heads over a wrinkle in the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline, and studio president Kevin Feige said Marvel Studios plans to officially clarify it.
Minor spoilers for Spider-Man: Homecoming, which will soon be released on Blu-ray and DVD, follow.
One opening scene in Homecoming takes place immediately following the Battle of New York, the climactic ending of The Avengers. The movie then transitions to a period eight years later, after the villainous Adrian Toomes has built a successful black market operation off the stolen technology. This is the time period when Homecoming takes place, but it doesn't square with the presumption that Avengers took place in the year of its release, 2012.
Arrow Needs to Fix Black Canary
There's plenty of reason to be excited about the return of Arrow this week. The series is coming off its best episode ever, a dramatic season finale that wrapped up Oliver Queen's five-year journey and left the majority of the show's cast in imminent mortal danger. And even though it's apparent now that the majority of Team Arrow will survive Prometheus' final attack, the stage is set for a drastically different sixth season. But if the series is going to take advantage of that clean slate, it's going to need to prioritize one character in particular - Black Canary.
Black Canary has always been a particular sore spot for Arrow. The series has never given us a true, direct adaptation of the Black Canary of the comics. Instead, the Arrow writers have essentially fractured the character into pieces and spawned a number of different offshoots. There's Laurel Lance, crusading lawyer-turned-costumed vigilante. There's her sister Sara, a party-loving college girl molded into an elite assassin. There's Dinah Drake, a a completely unrelated character who just happens to have the right background and metahuman power to take up the Black Canary mantle. And that's not even counting Laurel's Earth-2 doppelganger, Black Siren, or Evelyn Sharp's brief tenure as Black Canary.