Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai has revealed footage from the game’s original N64 prototype - and it shows a surprisingly fully-formed version of the game.

A new video unveils footage from Dragon King: The Fighting Game – the original game that formed the basis for Super Smash Bros.

“There were no special moves, dodges, or even items yet,” explained Sakurai. “But the game’s rules were basically the same as Smash Bros.”

“It had smash attacks, mid-air jumps, shields, dashes, and five-direction aerial attacks,” he added. “A Battlefield stage layout, too, though you could change that.”

WAKE UP EVERYONE

Sakurai just dropped never before seen gameplay of Dragon King: The Fighting Game prototype for the N64 which would later become Super Smash Bros.!

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! pic.twitter.com/VSbLkEDMKs

— Tommo says “Play Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series” (@TommoTheCabbit) October 20, 2022

“At the time we were very limited in how we could configure models,” he explained. “But they still move pretty well, I’d say.”

The Dragon King prototype was met with high praise from Nintendo, and it was eventually adapted into the Super Smash Bros. we know and love today.

“Now, when you think of Smash Bros., you can’t help but think of its large roster of Nintendo characters,” he explained. “But this wasn’t in the original proposal – it’s something we negotiated for later.”

As you can see from the footage, the prototype included generic fighting game-style characters, but Sakurai didn’t want to flood the market with a load of new fighters nobody cared about.

“I didn’t want to throw players into a roster full of character nobody had ever seen and knew we needed to come up with an objective solution to this problem,” he added. “In the end, we convinced Nintendo to let us borrow their most popular characters." The result was an instant classic, letting players battle with some of Nintendo’s most iconic heroes.

Sakurai also shed some light on the design process behind the game’s relatively simple controls:

“I came up with the idea for this game in 1996, around when command inputs for fighting games were starting to get extremely complicated,” he said. “Some of these were extremely intense. So, I opted for simple controls with a stick direction and a button, something players could intuitively pick up.”

Often thought to be the antithesis of fighting games, Smash Bros' controls allow just about anyone to pick up a controller and start playing, without having to learn long and difficult combos.

“There’s also the Smash input, performed by ‘flicking’ the analog stick,” he added. “With just a quick flick, you could unleash a stronger attack, or jump. I came up with this after thinking about how best to utilize the N64’s new analog stick.”

Want to read more about Smash Bros? Check out how Nintendo is finally embracing its grassroots Smash Bros. scene as well as our top 25 Nintendo Switch games.

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

Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai has revealed footage from the game’s original N64 prototype - and it shows a surprisingly fully-formed version of the game.

A new video unveils footage from Dragon King: The Fighting Game – the original game that formed the basis for Super Smash Bros.

“There were no special moves, dodges, or even items yet,” explained Sakurai. “But the game’s rules were basically the same as Smash Bros.”

“It had smash attacks, mid-air jumps, shields, dashes, and five-direction aerial attacks,” he added. “A Battlefield stage layout, too, though you could change that.”

WAKE UP EVERYONE

Sakurai just dropped never before seen gameplay of Dragon King: The Fighting Game prototype for the N64 which would later become Super Smash Bros.!

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! pic.twitter.com/VSbLkEDMKs

— Tommo says “Play Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series” (@TommoTheCabbit) October 20, 2022

“At the time we were very limited in how we could configure models,” he explained. “But they still move pretty well, I’d say.”

The Dragon King prototype was met with high praise from Nintendo, and it was eventually adapted into the Super Smash Bros. we know and love today.

“Now, when you think of Smash Bros., you can’t help but think of its large roster of Nintendo characters,” he explained. “But this wasn’t in the original proposal – it’s something we negotiated for later.”

As you can see from the footage, the prototype included generic fighting game-style characters, but Sakurai didn’t want to flood the market with a load of new fighters nobody cared about.

“I didn’t want to throw players into a roster full of character nobody had ever seen and knew we needed to come up with an objective solution to this problem,” he added. “In the end, we convinced Nintendo to let us borrow their most popular characters." The result was an instant classic, letting players battle with some of Nintendo’s most iconic heroes.

Sakurai also shed some light on the design process behind the game’s relatively simple controls:

“I came up with the idea for this game in 1996, around when command inputs for fighting games were starting to get extremely complicated,” he said. “Some of these were extremely intense. So, I opted for simple controls with a stick direction and a button, something players could intuitively pick up.”

Often thought to be the antithesis of fighting games, Smash Bros' controls allow just about anyone to pick up a controller and start playing, without having to learn long and difficult combos.

“There’s also the Smash input, performed by ‘flicking’ the analog stick,” he added. “With just a quick flick, you could unleash a stronger attack, or jump. I came up with this after thinking about how best to utilize the N64’s new analog stick.”

Want to read more about Smash Bros? Check out how Nintendo is finally embracing its grassroots Smash Bros. scene as well as our top 25 Nintendo Switch games.

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

Alan Wake Remastered has officially launched for Nintendo Switch, with a special discount available on the Nintendo eShop.

Remedy Entertainment and Epic Games announced in May that the remastered version of Alan Wake would be heading to Nintendo Switch later in the year. Today, they followed up on that promise by releasing the award-winning action-thriller on the Nintendo eShop, with a special launch discount of 20% off the game's usual retail price of $29.99 USD / £24.99 price.

Alan Wake Remastered is the updated version of the open-world survival game first released on Xbox 360. It offers the complete experience, with the main game and all original DLC, including two story expansions - The Signal and The Writer - that dig further into the game's multi-layered tale packed with suspense, engaging characters, and shocking revelations.

Alan Wake Remastered is also available on PC and via physical and digital editions on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4/Pro, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Xbox One X, and Xbox One S.

IGN's review of Alan Wake Remastered concluded that the game might be better suited to newcomers than existing fans because the experience is similar to "taking an old horror hardcover off the bookshelf and wrapping it in a glossy dust jacket," where it looks "brand new on the surface" but the act of "thumbing through it remains the same."

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

Silent Hill: Ascension's announcement left a lot of unanswered questions, but one of its creators has shed some light on what fans can actually expect - including the fact that the interactive streaming event will only ever run once.

Speaking to a well-known Silent Hill leaker known as Dusk Golem on Twitter (below), CEO of Genvid (a streaming software tools company working on the game) Jacob Navok revealed that Ascension is a narrative-based, branching choice cloud streaming experiment.

Konami is essentially going to stream, only once, a choose your own adventure-style Silent Hill mini-series where the stream's chat will collectively decide what happens, essentially letting the fanbase create its own Silent Hill canon. Crucially, it will only ever be aired once, according to Navok.

(1/9) So I interviewed @JNavok, one of the people behind the upcoming Silent Hill: Ascension, to clarify a bit more on what the project actually is.

In basic; a narrative branching-choice cloud streaming experiment that is going to be aired ONCE as a mini-series to tune into, &

— AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem (@AestheticGamer1) October 20, 2022

These decisions will determine characters' relationships, fates, if they live or die, and so on, seemingly not unlike a Telltale game (and former Telltale staff members are actually working on Ascension). The "hours" of content will be presented through video game cutscenes.

The experimental project is being created between Genvid, the gaming arm of J.J. Abrams' film and TV production company Bad Robot, Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive, and video game-to-TV specialist production company dj2 Entertainment. Navok said the team was equally excited and nervous to reveal it to the world.

Though we'll need to wait until the event premieres to get a full idea of what it involves, it seems to be akin to The Walking Dead: Last Mile, another interactive streaming event spearheaded by Genvid.

Ascension was announced at Konami's Silent Hill Transmission showcase with a brief trailer that shows off some of its streaming and interactive elements, as well as a shadowy, monstrous threat. Silent Hill 2 Remake was also announced, alongside two further spin-offs (Silent Hill: Townfall and Silent Hill f), and a new movie.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Konami has revealed the system requirements for its newly announced Silent Hill 2 Remake, and running all the recreated horror goodness is going to require a hefty PC setup.

As reported by PC Gamer, Silent Hill 2 Remake's Steam page has revealed the recommended system specs demand a GeForce RTX 2080 or AMD Radeon 6800XT graphics card, as well as an Intel Core i7-8700K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600X equivalent processor with 16GB of RAM.

Those graphics cards, which were high-end in 2018 and remain strong options, still don't get the game running at its best. The recommended system requirements will deliver medium quality visuals at 60fps, or high quality visuals at 30fps. The latter is for 1080p; 4K can be achieved, but only with DLSS "or similar technology" enabled. Konami hasn't yet shared what specs will be required to run the game at 60fps with high settings, but given the requirements for just 30fps, it will likely be pretty demanding.

Alongside the recommended specs, the opposite end of the spectrum was also shared. Silent Hill 2's minimum requirements - which "should" enable low or medium quality at 1080p and 30fps - demand an AMD Radeon RX 5700 or GeForce GTX 1080 equivalent graphics card alongside an Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 3 3300X processor and 12GB of RAM.

Silent Hill 2 Remake was announced during the Silent Hill Transmission showcase with a three minute trailer that showed off the 21-year-old game recreated in Unreal Engine 5. It's also coming to PlayStation 5, where Konami has promised "seamless" gameplay with no loading screens, though this will likely be a PC feature as well and perhaps one reason for its particularly demanding system requirements.

The original is considered one of the greatest horror games of all time and rumours of a remake have been circulating for a long time. Konami reignited talks when it renewed its Silent Hill trademark in March (though not its official website) and leaked images seemingly appeared online in May before being swiftly deleted.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Konami's Silent Hill 2 Remake from Bloober Team won't feature loading screens and instead has seamless gameplay when transitioning to new areas, coming out of cutscenes, and so on.

Announced in a PlayStation Blog post, Bloober Team's creative director and lead designer Mateusz Lenart discussed how Silent Hill 2 Remake's PlayStation 5 console exclusivity allowed for some additional features.

One of these is the seamless gameplay made possible by the console's SSD storage system. "One last great improvement I want to mention is the SSD storage technology," Lenart said. "The superfast data streaming means players won’t see any loading screens as they seamlessly explore the entirety of the Silent Hill town."

He also explained how the PS5's 3D Audio and DualSense controller allow for greater levels of immersion, allowing Bloomer Team "to make Silent Hill 2 an even more harrowing and unforgettable experience for fans old and new.

"We’re confident that we can do justice to this cult classic, and breathe a new life into its gameplay. The end result will be a Silent Hill game that looks and sounds better than anything that has come before it."

Silent Hill 2 Remake was announced during the Silent Hill Transmission showcase with a three minute trailer that showed off the 21-year-old game recreated in Unreal Engine 5.

The original is considered one of the greatest horror games of all time and rumours of a remake have been circulating for a long time. Konami reignited talks when it renewed its Silent Hill trademark in March (though not its official website) and leaked images seemingly appeared online in May before being swiftly deleted.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Warning: This story contains spoilers for Black Adam.

Black Adam is clearly building towards a face-off with Superman, but the plan is for this to be much more than a one-off moment.

During an interview with CinemaBlend, producer Hiram Garcia explained the long-term goal of putting Black Adam and Superman together on screen.

“It’s never been about a one-off or just about a fight,” he said. “No, it’s about so much more than that. We really want to craft a long form of storytelling and show that these two characters exist in the same universe and are going to have to deal with each other often, either on the same or opposite sides.”

It’s no secret that Henry Cavill appears as Superman in Black Adam. After all, Dwayne Johnson himself has been spoiling that particular nugget of story info while doing press rounds to promote the film. But it looks as though it’s more than a mere cameo.

“Hopefully they’re going to clash at some point,” said Garcia. “But it’s not just about a ‘one fight’ situation. That was never our dream. That does not reward the fans. Fans want to feel a journey between these guys knowing that these guys exist in the same universe.”

Clearly, Johnson and his fellow producers want this more than anything. Whether or not DC Films and Warner Bros. Discover are on the same page, remains to be seen. After all, a recent change of leadership has seen Black Adam executive producer and DC Films boss Walter Hamada ousted from Warner Bros. Discovery.

Since this was his final film, it’s unclear where that leaves Black Adam and Dwayne Johnson’s lofty ambitions for the character.

Johnson has been clear – Black Adam and Superman will fight. At least, if he gets his way. “That is the whole point of this,” he said. “There's a new era in the DC universe that's about to begin.”

What’s more, Johnson has even referred to Black Adam as DC’s new “Phase 1” – mimicking the Marvel Cinematic Universe and sending a clear message that this is a fresh start for Warn Bros. Doscovery’s DC universe.

“Black Adam will serve as our phase 1 of storytelling in our DC Universe,” he said via Twitter. “Exciting times for the brand to build up and build out.”

But Black Adam hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm… yet. IGN’s review gave it 5/10 and said: “Black Adam overindulges to the point where it’s hard to enjoy the DC anti-hero’s debut. It’s packed with undeveloped characters and an excessive number of repetitive action scenes, to the point where its half-baked debate on what it means to be a hero is lost in all the noise. Try as it might to capture lightning in a bottle, Black Adam never manages to find its spark.”

Want to read more about Black Adam? Check out where to watch Black Adam as well as how a lot of edits were needed to bring Black Adam down from an R-rating.

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

After confirming its imminent arrival earlier this month at PAX Aus 2022, new free-to-play, first-person shooter World Boss has arrived today in Early Access on Steam. Developed by PlaySide Studios, World Boss had been previously available to try during its open beta playtest.

World Boss is described as a casual, drop-in shooter with roguelite elements. According to PlaySide World Boss is also inspired by IO games, which is a genre of typically browser-based, free-to-play games loosely defined by their simple graphics and general accessibility.

“With World Boss, we took the quick drop-in and drop-out nature of IO games, the customisation of roguelites, and the strategy and mechanical finesse of a first person shooter, to create a familiar-yet-unique FPS for everyone,’ said PlaySide CEO Gerry Sakkas in a statement released alongside the launch.

“One of our goals with World Boss has been to bring our community closer to the development process. Throughout the beta period, we’ve been listening to player feedback and suggestions, and we’ve already rolled out a range of fixes, improvements and optimisations. We’re looking forward to bringing further content to players in the foreseeable future.”

World Boss has been developed in collaboration with Australian YouTube personalities Lannan Eacott (‘LazarBeam’) and Harley Fresh (‘Fresh’).

Luke is Games Editor at IGN's Sydney office. You can chat to him on Twitter @MrLukeReilly.

Konami is bringing back Silent Hill in a big way.

As part of the new Silent Hill transmission, Konami announced multiple Silent Hill games and projects including a full remake of Silent Hill 2. Read on to see everything that was announced today in the Silent Hill Transmission.

Silent Hill 2 Remake

As rumored, Bloober Team is developing a full remake of Silent Hill 2 with the help of original Team Silent artist Masahiro Ito and composer Akira Yamaoka. The remake was announced for PlayStation 5.

The remake will retell the story of James Sunderland who is looking for his dead wife, who sent him a mysterious letter from the town of Silent Hill. Konami and Bloober are promising a fully reworked game using new technology and delivered in 4K.

Silent Hill: Townfall

A new spinoff developed by No Code Studios (Stories Untold) and publisher Annapurna Interactive. This new project will be a unique take on the Silent Hill franchise from a highly-decorated AA-developer.

Silent Hill f

Another new spinoff announced is Silent Hill f. Set in 1960s Japan, this narrative-driven spinoff will be written by acclaimed Japanese writer Ryukishi07, who created visual novels like Higurashi and Umineko.

The spinoff will juxtapose a beautiful and terrifying world and focus on the psychological, supernatural mysteries of Silent Hill.

Silent Hill: Ascension

Potentially the most unique announcement from the transmission, Konami announced Silent Hill: Ascension, an immersive project where participants around the world will control the characters in a new Silent Hill story. Basically a Let’s Play Pokemon version of a new Silent Hill story that will be live on multiple platforms.

Silent Hill: Ascension is a collaboration between Genvid Entertainment, Bad Robot Games, Behvaiour Interactive, and dj2 Entertainment.

Return to Silent Hill

Christophe Gans, the director of the first Silent Hill movie is making a third movie in the series with Return to Silent Hill. Details are being kept under wraps for now, but Konami is promising more information about the project at a later date.

Konami’s return to Silent Hill has been highly-anticipated and now the details of the new Silent Hill projects have finally been revealed. Share what you think about the announcements below and which Silent Hill project you’re most excited about.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

As part of today's Silent Hill festivities, Konami announced Silent Hill f, a new story set in 1960s Japan.

Described as juxtaposing a world view of “beautiful, therefore horrifying,” Silent Hill f is being written by Ryukishi07, the acclaimed Japanese visual novel writer behind the Higurashi and Umineko series.

The atmospheric trailer shows a scenic, but sinister, Japanese town that's becoming engulfed in some kind of fungus. The ending of the trailer, however, is genuinely terrifying with a woman covered in fungus.

Having worked with stories that deal heavily with psychological and supernatural horror, Ryukishi07 is a great choice for writer on a new Silent Hill game. The setting is also unique for the series given that Silent Hill is a town in the United States. But the spinoff will likely expand upon the lore of the series.

The game is also being developed by Neobard, a studio in China that has helped develop Capcom's most recent games like Resident Evil Re:Verse.

It's unclear what the "f" stands for in the title, but this is shaping up to be a fairly exciting departure for the series.

As part of the Silent Hill transmission, Konami announced several new projects including a full remake of Silent Hill 2 as well as multiple spinoffs.

Check out IGN’s Silent Hill round-up for all the news announced in today’s Transmission.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.