Author: Trafficblast

Nintendo is notorious about rarely discounting its games, even years after release, and it’s even more rare to see a large sale with hundreds of great games marked down at once. But it’s a New Year’s miracle for gamers, because there’s a massive sale going on in the Eshop right now with over 1,000 games marked down. The sale includes some first-party games down to $42 and some of the platform’s best indie titles, so you don’t want to skip out on this one.

If you prefer to shop at other stores, you’ve now got some options. Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Humble Bundle are all price-matching a handful of Nintendo’s deals, offering their own markdowns on some of the same digital titles. So if you have a membership at one of these stores or just prefer to shop at one of them over the Eshop, you can now take advantage of this fantastic sale at nearly any store of your choosing. Because these are digital downloads, you’ll still get Nintendo Gold Points when you redeem codes in the Eshop.

The New Year’s game sales will run through January 16, so you have about a week to take advantage of the deals you want. We’ve outlined all the best Eshop deals in another story, but below you’ll find the best deals available elsewhere. The same collection of game deals is available at all major retailers, but there are a few games not on sale in the Eshop, such as Octopath Traveler and Baba is You.

However, you’ll still want to check out the Eshop for the full offering of deals, including discounts on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition, Mortal Kombat 11, Okami HD, Assassin’s Creed: The Rebel Collection, Stardew Valley, and more.

Best Switch Game Deals

*not on sale in the Nintendo Eshop

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Nintendo Switch New Year’s Game Sales

For more deals, you can check out all the Nintendo Switch New Year’s sales going on right now below.

You’ve got a few more days this weekend to plug away at completing bounties in Destiny 2‘s The Dawning holiday event–which means you still have some chances to use recipes to bake holiday treats and earn the event’s special rewards, like an Exotic sparrow. If you want a reward that’s a little easier to get, though, it’s also that Xur time of the week again.

Visiting Xur is a great way to get new Exotics that can help you work your way through the Season of Dawn’s activity, the Sundial, since you can now get the season’s latest Exotics from the Agent of the Nine–provided you can afford them. Here’s where to find Xur and what he’s carrying this weekend.

Xur Location

Xur is located on Titan on The Rig this weekend. His Exotic weapon this week is Black Talon. Hunters can get the Lucky Pants leg armor; Titans get a chance at the Eternal Warrior helmet; and for Warlocks, there’s Transversive Steps leg armor.

To find Xur, spawn in at the transmat zone on The Rig and jump on your sparrow. Head north under the scaffolding until you come out on the other side and look for a small, low building on your left, near the edge of the area. You’ll find Xur waiting inside.

Xur Inventory

Black Talon is the headliner of Xur’s haul this weekend, and the only Year Two Exotic in his bag. If you like swords, though, you’re going to want this one–it fires off a powerful projectile that turns it into a ranged weapon as well as a formidable blade. None of the rest are necessarily must-haves, but with the new Armor 2.0 system, they each have potential to help you make interesting character builds.

If Xur’s wares aren’t compelling, you can always roll the dice on the expensive Fated Engram he brings with him. This gives you a single Exotic from the limited pool of ones you haven’t already earned, for the price of 97 Legendary shards. If there’s something you’re missing from your collection and you want it sooner rather than later, it can be a good deal–starting with the Season of Dawn, all Exotic Engrams are Fated Engrams, but you’ll have to level up your Season Pass or wait for a random drop to get some. Be sure to purchase it on the character who’s missing the Exotic, and note that you can only get one per week, so choose wisely which of your characters makes the buy. If you’re a PC or Xbox One player taking advantage of cross-save, you can now potentially get Wavesplitter from the Fated Engram as well, thanks to the fact that it’s no longer exclusive to PS4.

Xur Item Lineup (January 10-14)

• Black Talon (Exotic sword)
• Lucky Pants (Exotic Hunter leg armor)
• Eternal Warrior (Exotic Titan helmet)
• Transversive Steps (Exotic Warlock leg armor)

Black Talon

The Forsaken expansion included a bunch of cool Exotics, and Black Talon is something of a sleeper hit among them. It’s a sword without the limitations of a sword: when you hit the heavy attack button twice, it fires off a cross combo projectile that’s formidable in both PvE and PvP. If you’re itching to use a sword more but don’t like the limitations of close combat, Black Talon is for you.

Lucky Pants (Hunter)

Xur’s offering for Hunters this week is all about making your Hand Cannons more useful. The armor makes your Hand Cannons ready faster and fire more accurately when you swap to them, and landing precision hits with other weapons reloads your stowed Hand Cannon. The trick is to pair this Exotic and a Hand Cannon with another trusty gun like a sidearm and to be constantly switching. Try Durm and Strang, or maybe pair your favorite Hand Cannon with the new Devil’s Ruin Exotic.

Stats:

• Mobility: 7
• Resilience: 7
• Recovery: 10
• Discipline: 12
• Intellect: 6
• Strength: 6
• Total: 48

Eternal Warrior (Titan)

If you’re a Titan who uses Fists of Havoc, especially in the Crucible, Eternal Warrior can be a very useful Exotic. It grants you an overshield when you activate your Super, which can allow you to close the gap on a group of enemies or save you in an emergency.

Stats:

• Mobility: 6
• Resilience: 12
• Recovery: 6
• Discipline: 6
• Intellect: 12
• Strength: 6
• Total: 48

Transversive Steps (Warlock)

For Warlocks who want to be speedier, consider Transversive Steps. The leg armor increases your sprint speed, which can be handy in just about any mode. You get the added bonus of sprinting reloading your equipped weapon after a short time, which can get you back into the fight more quickly after an emergency, and give you an edge in battles in the Crucible.

Stats:

• Mobility: 17
• Resilience: 2
• Recovery: 7
• Discipline: 6
• Intellect: 10
• Strength: 6
• Total: 48

The action-RPG Magic: Legends was announced at The Game Awards, but the cinematic trailer didn’t give much idea of how it would actually play. Now we have much more detail on that front, due to the February Game Informer cover story on the upcoming game.

As an isometric action-RPG, at a glance Magic: Legends looks very Diablo-like. But according to the story, it pays homage to its roots with some very CCG-inspired mechanics. You’ll have a customizable deck that you’ll use to determine your spells, complete with colored mana pools to cast them.

You build a deck of 12 cards, and hold 4 spells in hand at any time. Whenever you use a spell, it gets replaced by another card from your deck. You can mix up to two colors, just like in traditional Magic, but your mana pool with generate automatically and proportionate to your deck color. So if you have half-red and half-black, it will generate equal amounts of both, but if you skew heavily in favor of red, that will generate much faster than black. Your deck also feeds into the loot grind, as enemies will drop shards that you can use to upgrade your cards.

These deck customization options are on top of class loadouts like GeoMancer and Mind Mage, which come with their own passive buffs. You’ll also have access to summon points, which can be spent on foot soldiers or fewer (but much more formidable) monsters.

In the game, you’ll use these powers to take on enemies that are determined by a smart AI director, which will respond to player skill and performance to keep the challenge ebbing and flowing naturally. You can take on full-fledged campaign missions, or smaller “Ordeals” that offer a quick 10-minute loot loop. You’ll also be able to play against your friends with best-of-three PvP duels.

Magic: Legends is coming from Cryptic Studios and Perfect World, and you can sign up to try the beta through the official site.

Our month-long IGN First coverage of Disintegration continues today with a behind-the-scenes look at some of the conceptual illustrations of key figures, locations, and elements V1 Interactive has built into its upcoming universe.

In the gallery below you’ll find artist renderings and illustrations of the massive, hovering Iron Clouds, the resistance’s own out-of-commission ship, Old Meg, and early imaginings of locations and characters. In addition, we’ve included a ton of in-game screenshots taken directly from an early build of the game to give you a sense of how these environments will look in-engine.

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And if you’re looking for more you can check out our comprehensive Disintegration hands-on preview after playing a sizable chunk of V1’s upcoming shooter, or watch an entire Disintegration story mission from start to finish.

We’re covering Disintegration in-depth all month long as part of IGN First, so stay tuned for much more in the coming days and weeks.

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Brandin Tyrrel is a Senior Editor at IGN. You can find him on Unlocked, or chat over on Twitter at @BrandinTyrrel.