Author: Trafficblast

The long-awaited update for Nier: Automata’s controversial Steam version will finally arrive on July 15 and will include borderless video settings, a Fidelity FX CAS feature, 4K UI textures, and much more.

Shared on Steam, the update notes also reveal that Nier: Automata on Steam will detect if your system has HDR and will boot the game in HDR mode if it does. It will also adjust anti-aliasing functionality, improve the bit rate on cutscenes so they will play in 60 FPS and display in the correct aspect ratio, add a Global Illumination feature, and add ambient occlusions/bloom settings.

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There will also be various bug fixes, including switching between display modes for screenshots, the mouse cursor no longer being displayed when using a controller, stabilizing the frame rate at 60 FPS under defaults settings, and more stability related fixes.

These fixes address many of the complaints levied at this port, although some may still be hoping for an official way to play the game at higher than 60 FPS.

When the Steam version of Nier: Automata was released, it received notably poor reception due to many of the features that will be added in this patch not being present. Square Enix offered no immediate solution, and many fans took it upon themselves to fix many of these issues.

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The problem was made even more bizarre when Nier: Automata was added to Xbox Game Pass on PC, and it was quickly discovered that it was the updated Become As Gods edition rather than the ‘vanilla’ Steam release.

This update will be free to all owners of Nier: Automata on Steam, and you can see the full patch notes below;

Nier: Automata Steam Version Patch Notes

Changes Made

• Borderless Video Settings
  • Borderless video settings have been implemented.
• Fidelity FX
  • A Fidelity FX CAS feature has been added.
• HDR
  • The system will now detect whether HDR has been activated in the Windows display settings, and automatically boot the game in HDR mode if it has.
• Anti-aliasing
  • Adjustments to the anti-aliasing functionality
• UI textures (4K)
  • Approximately 270 UI textures for icons, backdrops and UI elements etc. now support 4K resolutions.
• Cut scenes
  • The bit rate has been improved and all pre-rendered cut scenes adjusted, so they will now play in 60FPS and display in the correct aspect ratio without stretching the picture.
• Global illumination
  • A new “Global illumination” feature has been implemented. This can be set to three different levels; High, Medium or Low.
• Ambient occlusion/ bloom
  • The rendering targets for ambient occlusion and bloom effects have been changed to dynamic resolution based on the game’s resolution.

Bug Fixes

• It is now possible to switch between recently selected display modes for screenshots, such as between full screen and windowed mode or between borderless and windowed mode, by pushing the Alt + Enter keys together.
• The mouse cursor is no longer displayed when using a game pad controller.
• The frame rate has been stabilized at 60FPS under default settings.
• Other stability related fixes have also been implemented.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

The next DLC for the killer shark game Maneater will be released on August 31, Tripwire Interactive has announced. The Truth Quest DLC will launch that day across PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, as well as PS4 and Xbox One.

Tripwire announcing the date this week is likely no accident, as this is Shark Week. You can check out a brand-new trailer for Truth Quest below.

As announced previously, Truth Quest features additional narrative elements that continue the storyline of journalist/narrator Trip Westhaven, who is performed by Chris Parnell of SNL, 30 Rock, Archer, and Rick & Morty fame. Westhaven believes he has uncovered new secrets and conspiracies about a killer shark created by the government.

In Truth Quest, you’ll swim through a new location–an island off the coast of Port Clovis, and you can make your shark even deadlier with more evolutions to grow into. The level cap is increased to 40, while there are new enemy creatures to take on. What’s more, the game’s bounty hunter system–which calls in the government to take you down–sees some updates with the Truth Quest DLC. Helicopters will now come after you, while the military forces hunting you down now have more weapons and vehicles.

There are new objectives, too, including “Failure to Communicate” (tail-whip objects to destroy a target) and “Time Trial” (swim through rings in the allotted time).

Truth Quest costs $15/€115/£13. It is not a standalone expansion, so it requires the base game.

Maneater launched for Nintendo Switch in May, but the Truth Quest DLC has not been announced for Nintendo’s hybrid platform.

GameSpot’s Maneater review scored the game a 7/10.

“With the sharply written, hilariously delivered narration and story beats to freshen up the experience as you go along, Maneater becomes a goofy, fish-flopping romp, with a good balance of limbs to sever, boats to wreck, and challenging creatures to render into bite-sized chunks,” reviewer Phil Hornshaw said. “Maneater isn’t a perfect shark simulator, but it is a fun and funny one whose positive adaptations outpace its drawbacks.”

Following a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 selling for $1.5 million, collectors are looking for the “next big thing” that will make them a ton of money. One buyer in particular believes The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim may be it as they have purchased a sealed copy for $600.

As spotted by Axios, this copy of Skyrim sold on Heritage Auctions on the same day as that Super Mario 64 one and is the first time the popular auction site is selling a sealed copy.

“Purely the apotheosis of role-playing games, Skyrim is a game that one could never possibly tire of,” The official description on Heritage Auctions reads. “Fans sink countless hours in the land of Tamriel, and the love for this game runs deep. We’ve yet to offer a sealed copy until now, so we would imagine this will be a tough lot to claim!”

This copy of Skyrim boasts a Wata score of 9.2 A+, which is a good score that means it is in “exceptional condition,” but its not quite to the levels of the copy of Super Mario 64’s 9.8 A++.

It will be interesting to see if the value of Skyrim skyrockets like some of these other games, especially considering it is a much newer game (it released in 2011) and is available on every platform ever created ever (ok, not really, but it feels like it!), including Amazon Alexa.

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To compare it to other games sold on July 11, a Wata 9.4 A sealed copy of Tomb Raider sold for $144,000 and a Wata 9.0 A sealed copy of Red Dead Redemption sold for $384.

A couple days before, someone purchased an early-90s U.S. Army training device for $18,600 that “amounts to a replica M16 that can plug into a Super Nintendo.” This rifle was used for SNES’ Multi-Purpose Arcade Combat Simulator, which was specifically developed for the U.S. army as a cheaper way to train shooting skills.

This Skyrim story is another instance of the increasing value of video game-related goods. This craze can be seen in its fullest in the Pokemon Trading Card Game, with U.S. retailers limiting or suspending Pokemon card sales due to safety concerns caused by this huge upsurge in demand. Besides the popularity of opening blind packs on Twitch streams, an original Pokemon Trading Card Game Booster Box sold at auction earlier this year for $408,000.

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If you’d like to know how much money your Pokemon cards are worth, check out our guide on how to appraise your collection.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Mattel delivered what was easily one of the most memorable Comic-Con exclusives of all time last year with their ingeniously packaged “Barbasol Dennis Nedry” figure. What can the company do for an encore in 2021? Why, shift focus to Nedry’s equally ill-fated colleague, Ray Arnold, of course.

IGN can exclusively reveal Mattel’s latest Comic-Con-exclusive Jurassic Park figure, one which pairs Samuel L. Jackson’s intrepid programmer with a hungry velociraptor. Like the Nedry figure, Arnold is a 3.75-inch figure with a movie-accurate likeness. The raptor, meanwhile, clocks in at 2.4 inches tall and 7 inches long. The two figures come packaged inside a deluxe box modeled after the maintenance shed where Arnold meets his violent end in the movie.

Get a closer look at the “Jurassic Park Final Scene Ray Arnold” set in the slideshow gallery below:

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Like the Nedry set, the packaging also includes some interactive elements, in this case several light-up and sound effects inspired by that memorable showdown between prehistoric beast and chain-smoking engineer. Plus, Arnold’s arm is removable. Horrified Ellie Sattler figure sold separately.

The Jurassic Park Final Scene Ray Arnold is priced at $25. While the release is timed to the Comic-Con@Home digital event in July, you’ll need to head to the official Mattel Creations website to order one. Pre-orders open on Thursday, July 22 at 9am PT, and we suspect they won’t last long.

Will you be battling the horde of collectors to score your own half-eaten Samuel L. Jackson figure? Let us know what you think of this set in the comments below.

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Hunt: Showdown will add a new map in its next update, and it comes with a reference to a very different kind of monster to its usual mix of grim creations – Shrek.

As pointed out by JackFrags (below), the new DeSalle map (which is live in test servers right now, before a release later this summer) includes a very familiar swamp-house in the far south-west. Not only does the house look almost identical to Shrek’s house, but it includes an outhouse that will undoubtedly become home to a thousand Smash Mouth-soundtracked meme videos very soon.

They added Shrek’s house to a video game as a cool Easter Egg! pic.twitter.com/Hr49ZzBDLq

— JackFrags (@jackfrags) July 13, 2021

It’s far from the first referential Easter Egg in Hunt: Showdown – the game includes everything from Evil Dead’s cabin to a scene from Django Unchained. Hell, the new DeSalle map is brimming with even more references, including the mysterious Utah monolith and The Godfather.

Hunt: Showdown is a competitive, monster-killing bounty hunter shooter. We called it a “palpably tense and terrifying shooter that’s equal parts survival and competition” in our original review.

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2021 marks the 25th anniversary of the Persona franchise, and a milestone for one of the most beloved JRPG franchises around. It seems like series developer Atlus is teasing some big news to mark the occasion, with 7 announcements teased for the series.

Series developer Atlus announced via Twitter that it is preparing reveals to coincide with the anniversary, and a 25th anniversary site includes mention of seven announcements to be made over the course of the next year, with the first happening sometime in September.

The Persona series is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this September! ✨

Stay tuned for a year of Persona news, events, and more! #Persona25 pic.twitter.com/1qZqSy7f6V

— Official ATLUS West (@Atlus_West) July 13, 2021

Several more announcements will follow over the next year, with the final one scheduled for Autumn 2022. Given that the tweet came from both Atlus and Atlus West (Atlus’s western marketing arm of the company), whatever gets announced feels likely to find its way over here. Hopefully that will be without the year-long wait we’ve had for some titles like Persona 5 Strikers.

It should be noted that often these anniversary announcements don’t lead to anything beyond new merchandise releasing, but the fact that the company are teasing seven announcements suggests that there could be something significant beyond the usual merch drops. However, there is of course an obligatory link to a pre-order site for Persona related goods if you want to get your hands on assorted keyrings and mugs starring the various protagonists and mascots of the Persona series.

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The last Persona games to launch were Persona 5 Royal (released in 2020 in the west) and Persona 5 Strikers (released earlier this year), both spin-offs from Persona 5, the latest mainline entry in the long running franchise. Persona 4 Golden was also finally unshackled from its PlayStation Vita home and ported to PC in 2020 (which led to fans demanding it come to Switch as well).

Are you excited by the potential for more Persona outings? And would you want to see more outings with Joker and the gang, or a sixth mainline entry be announced?

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Liam Wiseman is a Freelance News Writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @liamthewiseman

eBay discounts are back once again, this time with a brand new discount code providing us with 15% off the latest and greatest video games. All you need to do is use code BAG15OFF at checkout, and you could get a PS5 Pulse 3D Headset for £76.49 (was £89.99), Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart for £55.24 (was £69.99), DualSense Midnight Black Controller for £50.99 (was £59.99), and so much more. See below for some more of our favourites games in the sale right now.

Other deals to check out today include the free £5 promo that’s still available at Amazon right now, alongside the latest Nintendo Switch OLED preorders. You can still get the new console from Argos, and we’re waiting patiently for the Amazon stock to go live as well.

Free Money: Claim £5 for Free at Amazon Right Now

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Even post-Prime Day, the Amazon deals just keep coming. If you haven’t already checked this deal out, now is the time. You can currently get £5 in Amazon credit just for signing up for a free Amazon Music trial. It’s for select users only, so click here to see you can get a free £5 Amazon top-up.

Use Code BAG15OFF to Save 15% on Video Games at eBay

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Where to Preorder Nintendo Switch OLED Model in the UK

A brand new member of the Nintendo Switch family has been revealed, and it’s the OLED Model, featuring a brand new shiny 7-inch screen to use. The new console model is set to release on October 8, 2021 and will cost £309.99. Preorders are live at Argos, and out of stock at GAME and Smyths, while Amazon’s UK listing is now up and available to view, but preorders are not live just yet.

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Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Commerce Editor for IGN. Send him awesome gaming screenshots @robertliam21 on Twitter.

Returning to the Italian front of World War II, and the backdrop of 2017’s Sniper Elite 4, Sniper Elite VR shelves main marksman Karl Fairburne and casts us as a rough n’ tumble Italian resistance fighter with a similarly potent penchant for putting holes in Nazis. Boasting a hearty arsenal of World War II weapons that feel great to shoot, Sniper Elite VR’s arcade-style combat is bloody fun, though a number of technical kinks and a poorly-paced story hold it back from being a bona fide bullseye.

Sniper Elite VR performs well on the Oculus Quest 2. It’s easy to sustain 90 frames per second in the heat of the action, and that’s especially important given that you need those high framerates in order to keep your edge in the midst of Sniper Elite VR’s regularly frantic and fast-paced combat. There can be quite a lot going on at any given moment.

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Most of the time you spend in Sniper Elite VR has you exploring on your own, sneaking through enemy lines, perching yourself upon vantage points for the best shot, and performing specific objectives to move through each map. There’s a thin story here but it’s poorly told and even more poorly paced. It’s literally impossible to care about any of these characters because just as soon as they’re introduced, they either die or betray you. The chronic narration is also downright awkward – the narrator’s wistful tone completely clashes with Sniper Elite VR’s constant carnage – and missions simply end with a Mission Complete menu that shows you your score. The story serves solely as a reason to run around, blow things up, and kill Nazis.

That said, this is an arcade game at its core. It features enjoyable arcade-style combat that clearly displays how many points you earn per action, and it rewards you the highest bonuses for pulling off the most creative or tricky kills with your sniper rifle. It’s cool that you get bonus points, for example, against enemies that were distracted by fighter planes droning overhead. Other environmental sounds can disguise your gunshots as well, and you can earn some major bonuses by masterminding intricate kills with your rifle. Sniper Elite VR also retains the series’ positively wild killcam and, depending on how far you dial it up, you can see your best kills in intense, x-ray detail. This is only recommended if you’re able to stomach it, though. Not only is it jarring to experience the full effect in VR – your screen can even follow the bullet out of your rifle when you have that feature toggled – but Sniper Elite’s killcam is famously brutal and depicts bullets shredding through bones and other essential organs with gruesome detail.

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There are plenty of different classic WWII-era firearms, like the Karabiner 98K and the MP40, and it’s great that you can customize your loadout between missions to get the weapons you want right out of the gate. Each one operates differently and has an appropriate kick. On Marksman difficulty (or below) every bullet is a tracer, meaning you can immediately adjust your accuracy as needed. It doesn’t look that cool, but it’s useful for practicing your shot and being more effective in combat. It’s especially useful when playing with a weapon that suffers from serious bullet drop at long ranges (such as the M1934 pistol) or when other simulation elements like noise or exact timing come into play and you need to be very deliberate with your shots.

Unfortunately there are no melee weapons, and the melee combat that does exist – where you swipe enemies with the butt of your rifle – is pretty weak. It’s also annoying that you can’t hold your sidearms with two hands, and you must manually reach in and pull out the magazine when you want to reload (instead of just tapping the X or A button as in other popular VR shooters).

Fortunately, you can hold your offhand trigger to activate slow motion. This also displays a reticle where you’re aiming your gun. Due to the fact that, for some reason, every weapon fires a little above your sights, I found myself leaning on this feature a lot by the end – like how it’s easy to end up relying too much on V.A.T.S. in Fallout, or the Dead Eye system in Red Dead Redemption.

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Enemies do try to flank you, but they also sometimes shoot through walls – and the lack of indicators means it can be difficult to figure out where you’re getting shot at from. The fact that there are no autosaves doesn’t help, especially since the save points you do find are wildly inconsistent. Sometimes they’re unnecessarily close together, and other times they’re placed way too far apart. This may result in sections where you might die over and over again before gaining any ground.

Grabbing and reloading weapons feels more natural than it did in Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, and there are some great accessibility options and difficulty settings that help customize your experience. The Oculus Quest 2’s tracking itself is pretty iffy, though, and there are too many moments where you might accidentally grab your sidearm or outright drop your rifle when you’re trying to reload. 

There are some other kinks to work out, too. For instance, attempting to crouch in the real world causes Sniper Elite VR to stop and show an “out of bounds” sign until you press a button that makes your character crouch for you. Other times, things just outright stop working. At one point, I had to completely restart a mission due to corrupt save data. Another time, my Panzerfaust fired backwards and killed me instantly.

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It’s also particularly aggravating that the final few missions are locked behind completely arbitrary and random progress gates that force replays of several missions before it’s even possible to finish the main story. You have to do a relatively high number of bonus objectives in order to wrap things up, and it’s frustrating. By the end, all I wanted to do was be done with it. I can’t help but think this is meant to pad the length of the campaign, but the campaign’s length wasn’t much of an issue to begin with. I’d have been happier if they made challenges and bonus activities fun for their own sake rather than vital to even reach the last level. None of the individual activities are too unreasonable – most of them equate to something like “beat the level in under 10 minutes” or “kill 12 enemies with grenades” – but there are a lot of them, and you basically have to get them all.