Warhammer Vermintide 2’s Update 1.23 is out now, bringing with it an enhanced version for PS5. Players on the current-gen PlayStation can now expect better visuals, higher resolution, and an improved framerate.
The update is headlined by a significant increase in the PS5 version’s framerate, from 30 frames per second to 60fps. In addition, Vermintide 2 will now run at 1440p on PS5, improved from 1080p in the original version. There are also an array of fidelity and quality enhancements, including better shadows, screen space reflections, and tweaked lighting.
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Now Playing: Warhammer: Vermintide 2 – PlayStation 4 Gameplay Trailer
Update 1.23 also comes with a suite of other tweaks, fixes, and changes. The vast majority of these are bug fixes across heroes, weapons, UI, and various maps. You can see the full list of Update 1.23’s patch notes below.
Fixed crash that would happen when a client tries to lift an AI unit with the Lifestaff that has already been despawned on the server.
Fixed a crash that could occur if a player somehow tried to join a lobby as “Prologue Kruber”.
Fixed a crash caused by changing skin on melee weapon equipped in ranged slot.
Fixed a crash that could occur if a terror event was spawned as a level was being unloaded.
Fixed crash caused when SotT gets despawned (dies or leave the game) before a placed Thorn Wall expires.
Fixed a crash that could occur if an enemy highlighted by Kerillian’s Trueshot activated ability was killed by another source.
Heroes and Weapons
Fixed some Javelin melee attacks counting as ranged kills
Fixed Rapier special sidearm shots counting as melee kills.
Fixed Javelin automatically issuing a light attack after a charged attack if player has high attack speed.
Fixed Bounty Hunter’s ‘Just Rewards’ not working when the ranged crit is triggered with the ‘Locked and Loaded’ ability itself.
Bounty Hunter’s career ability animation now scales properly with speed buffs.
Saltzpyre should no longer get stuck in aiming (third person) after shooting with the crossbow.
Fixed an issue where Sienna would remain fully slowed despite having vented to below the threshold.
Fixed an issue where the Trollhammer Torpedo showing the ammunition when out of ammo.
Fixed a minor animation issue on Kerillian’s Greatsword where transitioning from light attack hit to heavy charge would cause a frame flickering.
Fixed a minor animation issue with Engineer’s piston during reload of Trollhammer Torpedo.
Fixed a super minor issue where changing Staff whilst in the air would cause the Staff to glide/animate weirdly.
Fixed a minor animation issue where a nocked Arrow could become misaligned with a bow.
Fixed an animation bug where Kerillian got stuck aiming with her bows (third person) if shooting too fast.
General
Fixed an issue where breakable planks/blockades would still be impassable for players who hotjoin a map, despite the party having already broke them, rendering the now joined player stuck further back in a level.
UI/UX
Fixed some Shade items which were presented incorrectly in Lohner’s Emporium of Wonders.
Blocked the chat window from accidentally opening when the Twitch username textbox has focus.
Fixed a graphical glitch in the Twitch vote UI.
The extra resource bars (overcharge, energy & career ability) are now displaced upwards whenever Twitch mode is active so they don’t overlap with the vote UI.
Changed the Okri’s challenges summary to tally claimed instead of completed challenges. This solves an issue that would show that there were incomplete challenges even though all challenges were claimed.
Fixed illusions showing “n/a Illusion” in tooltips instead of the item that they can be applied to.
Chaos Wastes
Fixed an issue where the mouse cursor could remain on-screen and interactive when the player leaves the game whilst the party is in a Map Shrine.
Animated Portrait Frames should now properly animate on the Chaos Wastes UI.
Player levels should now display properly when invoking the player list within the Map Shrine UI.
Cinder Peak
Fixed some land geometry that just wasn’t up to par.
Fixed a spot where terrain wasn’t solid, and adjusted a chest and enemy spawn point to suit.
Made optimizations to reduce hits to FPS in areas with a lot of lava.
Fixed some bits that weren’t network synching properly.
The Foetid Gorge
Fixed an issue where a player disconnecting with a barrel could softlock the level.
Fixed various spots where players and bots could get stuck.
Fixed an issue where Olesya could repeat event VO once the event had ended if a player re-entered the area which triggers said VO line.
I’ve thought about The World Ends With You often in the 14 years since its Nintendo DS debut. Its incredible soundtrack, the irresistible vibes of the city of Shibuya, and its compelling coming-of-age journey stuck with me even when the weird intricacies of its plot had faded. So my desire for its long-awaited Switch sequel, NEO: The World Ends With You, was not necessarily that it would answer every hanging plot thread that had been left at the end of a game I played years ago. Rather, I hoped it could recapture the feelings that made the original so special: themes of growth, connection, and love of a place because of its people.
While NEO mostly delivers in that regard, what’s also clear is that Square Enix was so eager to at last revisit the same stories, characters, and places of its predecessor that it left this follow-up little room to tell an interesting new story or reach a new emotional peak of its own. Still, it’s a homecoming that’s pulled off well enough, with a flashy signature style and entertaining combat mechanics that were translated surprisingly well to the Switch.
NEO: The World Ends With You takes place in a parallel version of Shibuya, Japan, where the deceased are sent to play a sadistic week-long “Reapers’ Game” for the right to return to life. The passive new protagonist Rindo and his charming cinnamon roll of a best friend Fret are sent to this alternate reality after Rindo has a strange and upsetting vision of Shibuya in chaos, and are later joined by the fangirlish Nagi and returning, math-obsessed, former antagonist Minamimoto. Across seven days, the group completes challenges, fights off strange monster-like enemies called the Noise, and solves puzzles set by the death warden Reapers. It’s a set-up that will be familiar to fans of the first game, but with the interesting new twist that instead of pairing off, players can form teams of unlimited size and work together as a group to “win” and set their entire group free. This welcome choice that allows NEO to explore a much larger party of allies at once than the first game could, while also opening the door to dynamics between competing players rather than merely implying their existence.
Even though Rindo and friends are effectively ghosts, they can still interact in limited ways with the real-world Shibuya by visiting shops or restaurants. And just as in the first game, Shibuya remains a delight to explore, stuffed with fashion, food, music, and culture. It’s vibrant and exuberant, packed with real-world references and clearly assembled by a team of artists and designers that adores the actual city. Some of the best objectives in NEO involve getting to know its fictional Shibuya better, whether that’s by exploring its urban legends or seeking out notable landmarks. I loved popping into restaurants to stuff my characters with mouth-watering ramen, piles of fluffy pancakes, and spicy curry, or revisiting shops chapter after chapter to see what hot new couture I could buff them up with.
But beyond these bold strokes, NEO is full of small touches that bring its Shibuya to life. You can see them in its detailed art and character designs, and in the flavor text of equipment and the skill-tree-like “social network.” But the best example stems from Rindo’s ability to scan NPCs and read their thoughts. Apart from the required plot moments, scanning serves no gameplay purpose beyond giving you a better understanding of the world of NEO. Passersby will muse about their relationships, idols, TV shows, food, gaming, school, work, and plenty more. You can’t do anything with this information, but these pensive moments are well-written and charming, and help paint a brighter picture of NEO’s Shibuya and why its inhabitants love it so much.
Inseparable from all of this is NEO’s music, which continues in the footsteps of its predecessor as one of the most stand-out and bopping video game soundtracks I’ve ever heard. It spans multiple genres including hip-hop, rock, pop, and metal, and includes plenty of new tracks alongside remixes of fan favorites – often perfectly timed atop big story moments that excited me as a long-time fan. There are very few songs in this playlist that aren’t earworms, though new hits like Kill the Itch, bird in the hand, Breaking Free, and remixes of Calling, Transformation, and Twister are stand-outs.
Pin-demonium
Alongside its joyous portrayal of Shibuya, what further impressed me throughout NEO were the myriad ways in which it was also able to translate the spirit of the original’s mechanics and feel onto a very, very different console – one that, in case you didn’t notice, only has a single screen. Nowhere is this more evident than in the real-time battle system, which layers familiar 3D hacking and slashing with a timing-based combo system and a whole host of customizability. NEO succeeds at the unenviable task of following up a dual-screen, touch input-focused system with a button-based one, while still emphasizing teamwork and “flow” between the different characters.
The World Ends With You on DS had you activating ability-granting “pins” in battle by using different touchscreen motions, such as taps, swipes, or drawing certain shapes. In NEO, each character in your party can now only be equipped with a single pin at a time, with different pins corresponding to different kinds of attacks that are each cleverly assigned to a specific button. For instance, the X button will typically have pins with rapidfire, close-range attacks, while Y has fast long-range moves. Each character can use a pin a certain number of times before it must recharge, making it necessary to balance their usage so you’re not sitting on your butt half the battle. The sheer quantity and diversity of pins available made finding them, growing them into stronger forms, and testing them in different combinations to achieve a smooth flow during combat a blast, especially in the later chapters and once I started chasing pins only accessible on harder difficulties.
There’s also a “groove” system that rewards you with powerful finishers for correctly timing combos and chaining attacks between different characters that is especially satisfying. I loved the thrill of Fret pulling off a pristine combo with a flaming sword, followed up by a big aerial kick from Minamimoto, passing to Rindo to shoot electricity out of his hands for a spell, and wrapping it all up by having Nagi drop a semi-truck on an enemy’s head before launching into a team finisher move, then passing back to Fret to do it all over again. That’s a peak I was always chasing, but the reality was that I spent a decent chunk of the roughly 40- to 50-hour campaign experimenting to find the moments where it flowed just right like that.
Especially in NEO’s first half, you won’t have a wide enough arsenal of pins to have perfectly smooth battles every time – or even if you do, your favorite pins might be outclassed by less comfy ones in sheer damage numbers. The solution is usually to grind more or try harder difficulties in the hope of getting better pins, which isn’t necessarily an ideal answer. Though it’s worth adding that, having appreciated the difficulty options and associated collect-a-thons from The World Ends With You, I was delighted to see these customizations return in all their robustness for NEO, further giving me reason to return after the credits had rolled.
Hitting those good vibes are what will ultimately stick with me about NEO’s battle system, but the groove had its missteps, too. For one, NEO’s boss battles seemed to only either be effective but unmemorable, or flashy but frustrating. The later hours have a number of battles with some truly fascinating twists and turns, but its dodge and camera controls aren’t always up to the task of keeping your team out of danger but also in view. Because you only control one character at a time (whichever one last used a pin), the AI is left to manage the rest of your party and will often walk them through poison clouds or directly into attacks that you correctly dodged, meaning you might lose a fight here or there despite doing everything right. This doesn’t happen often, but in fights with huge enemies boasting hard-hitting moves, it can feel more like you’re fighting your comrades than the enemy.
I also ran into a few annoying bugs in battles, especially in later chapters. Multiple times, enemies mysteriously got launched outside the official boundaries of the battlefield, making them nearly impossible to hit and forcing me to randomly fire off long-range attacks in the hope a few would connect and eventually whittle down their HP so I could move on. One enemy turned invisible (it was not supposed to turn invisible, though there are other foes that do have this as a functional mechanic) and became completely undamageable by anyone for any reason, forcing me to start a chain of eight interlinked fights all over again. Another time, NEO completely crashed as I was entering a very dramatic boss fight. These were small blips in the grand scheme, but happened just often enough to frustrate and merit mention.
Wicked Plot Twisters
Story-wise, NEO is as direct a sequel to The World Ends With You as one could want, despite coming 14 years after it. Without getting into any spoiler-y specifics, put simply: if you liked The World Ends With You and are hungry for resolution to the numerous plot threads left dangling at the end of it, NEO is likely to be very satisfying. I highly recommend either playing The World Ends With You: Final Mix or watching the anime first, though – while the characters try their best to summarize certain major events key to the setup of NEO, the weird intricacies of that story can be difficult to follow if you’re just listening to characters deliver rushed summaries to a confused Rindo.
What NEO unfortunately sacrifices in its success as a direct sequel are its new, original characters. Rindo, Fret, Nagi, Shoka, Kanon, and other new members of the cast have occasional moments of depth and development, but they never quite reach the heights of the arcs in the first game. The first World Ends With You was all about Shiki, Beat, Joshua, and especially main protagonist Neku coming to terms with their own weaknesses, reckoning with trauma, and growing up a little through their connections with one another. NEO’s new cast doesn’t get the same space to tackle that growth because they’re constantly giving up their own time to returning plots and problems.
When they do get a bit of character development, it’s usually all smashed into one day here or there, with characters making bold pronouncements about themselves or others with little build-up or explanation. The main protagonist, Rindo, in particular gets done dirty by an arc that boils his problems down to a single, flimsy character flaw he only meaningfully exhibits once or twice. The rest of the time he’s not much more than a plot delivery vehicle. Without your lead hero having a meaningful conflict or a central perspective, a lot of NEO’s intended emotional peaks don’t matter nearly as much as they should, whether you played the original or not.
That’s a shame, because Rindo and his friends are a genuinely fun group to spend time with, especially compared to the antisocial tendencies of their predecessor, Neku. The writing of NEO is, largely, a delightful bit of work that leans into modern youth and meme culture without coming off as too corny or “How do you do, fellow kids?”, and it has both the English and Japanese voice acting to match. The one exception is a spoiler-loaded character that appears in the middle of the story, whose speech felt both awkward and appropriative in a way that was totally unnecessary given that character’s setup.
As someone who adored The World Ends With You as a teenager and waited eagerly for a sequel for over a decade, I found myself feeling a bit conflicted about what NEO tried to do and whether or not it succeeded. It’s a worthy sequel both in how it captures the feel and spirit of the DS game, as well as in the very direct ways in which it follows up its story. But with such a long gap between the two, I found myself disappointed that NEO leaned so heavily on the nostalgia I had for characters I loved as a teenager, and didn’t do more to embrace the new characters and stories I was excited to get invested in as an adult (and especially the ones that headlined all its marketing).
It’s hard to say much without spoiling anything, but there’s a point about 20 hours into the 40- to 50-hour story where it becomes very apparent that NEO is not really about what the trailers and box art want you to think it’s about. That might be fine for some, especially those who checked out the Final Mix version of The World Ends With You or the recent anime, but even those connections can’t magically give NEO a theme and throughline of its own as strong as its predecessor. NEO feels like it’s here to finish what The World Ends With You started, and it does that well enough. I just wish it hadn’t sacrificed its own story and characters to do so.
IGN is excited to officially reveal Jumpstart: Historic Horizons, a Magic: The Gathering set coming exclusively to MTG Arena on August 12. Historic Horizons will contain 782 cards legal in the Historic format, including 31 entirely new cards unique to Arena – many of which will have mechanics that only work digitally.
You can flip through the gallery below to see nine cards arriving in Jumpstart: Historic Horizons (including two reprints, one from Modern Horizons), and read on to learn how their new mechanics work and why Wizards of the Coast decided to take Arena this direction:
Similar to the original Jumpstart, Historic Horizons cards can be added to your collection either by using wildcards or by participating in a timed event (ending September 9) in which you pick two themed packs from a possible 46, combine them into a single deck, and then compete against other players.
While a majority of the cards in Historic Horizons will be reprints – most of which are new to Arena, including many cards from both the first and second Modern Horizons sets – the 31 brand new cards will be exclusive to Arena’s digital platform. These cards will include three new mechanics with “digital-first” designs that cannot not be replicated in paper Magic.
The first of these mechanics is called “Seek,” which is a digital twist on a tutor effect. Certain cards (like Manor Guardian, visible in the gallery above) will allow you to seek a card with specific criteria, randomly pulling one from your library that meets that criteria without shuffling afterward – something that couldn’t happen at the tabletop without a player manually looking through their deck.
The next mechanic is called “Perpetually,” which modifies a specific card permanently, even as it enters other zones of play. That could be a card like Davriel’s Withering, which perpetually gives a creature -1/-2 – if that card reduces a creature to 0 toughness or less and sends it to the graveyard, for example, the debuff will remain in effect even if a player is able to bring it back to battlefield (causing it to immediately die again).
Alternatively, Lumbering Lightshield can perpetually increase the casting cost of a card in your opponent’s hand by one colorless mana – the affected card then maintains that increase whether it’s cast from hand or somewhere else, like from the graveyard with Flashback or from exile with Foretell. While this is an effect that can more reasonably be tracked with paper cards, it becomes substantially simpler in a digital space.
The third digital-only mechanic is called “Conjure,” which creates a card for you to use out of nowhere – not a token or a copy, but an actual card that can sit in your hand until you are ready to use it. This can include cards that aren’t otherwise in a set or format, with a few examples of this in the gallery above being Ponder, Stormfront Pegasus, and Tropical Island (none of which are collectible in Historic Horizons on their own).
Historic Horizons utilizes its digital-only nature beyond these three recurring mechanics as well, with WotC saying it makes it possible to print cards with rules that wouldn’t fit in a paper frame. That includes the planeswalker Davriel, Soul Broker, who has an otherwise cryptic -2 ability: “Accept one of Davriel’s offers, then accept one of Davriel’s conditions.” In practice, this has you pick one of three randomly selected positive effects from a whopping possible list of eight before doing the same for a negative effect.
In a digital-only environment, there isn’t the usual requirement of spelling out every single detail on the card itself, which WotC says will open up new design possibilities or even allowing it to modify Davriel’s lists substantially post-release. Davriel also uses the perpetually and conjure mechanics, further solidifying him as a planeswalker not meant for paper – in fact, Historic Horizons will have a “digital-first” Planeswalker for every color, each with a themed pack of their own.
The Jumpstart format has also been unbound from its paper roots – where the original would simply give you a random selection of themed packs to pick from, WotC tells me it can better collate Historic Horizons’ packs to offer a greater variety of options and synergies each time, or even keep track of which packs you’ve picked previously to provide fresh options on your next run. Packs can have more variance within them too, with certain cards having a set chance to be swapped for another of similar mana value and your mana base adjusting to the combined deck you end up with.
Why Wizards of the Coast Is Making Digital-Only Magic Cards
Speaking with Magic: The Gathering’s Vice President of Design Aaron Forsythe and MTG Arena’s Game Director Jay Parker last week, it became clear to me that WotC is using Jumpstart: Historic Horizons to take some confident but measured first steps toward what’s possible for Magic digitally.
“We didn’t want to overwhelm people,” Forsythe says, clearly aware that this is a significant choice for a game nearly three decades old and acknowledging that it’s going to be “uncharted waters” for a lot of Magic players. “We could have easily come out with a dozen wacky digital mechanics, but we felt like the way to make this feel like a card set is to pick a small number and show the breadth that that small number of mechanics can execute on.”
“Lots of people love to play magic in a lot of different ways, and we want to keep providing for all of that,” Parker explains. “When we add these new elements, we really want these to be an ‘and’, not an ‘or’.” Parker says they want to keep expanding the different types of Magic experiences they can offer, but reiterates that they “want to keep the core as well.”
Forsythe similarly emphasizes that they wanted to make sure this new chapter of Historic still feels like Magic, just with more design possibilities. “We don’t want to necessarily be designing the lowest common denominator version of Magic that has to work exactly the same on every platform,” he explains. Just as WotC makes products specifically targeted toward Modern players, Commander players, collectors, etc., Forsythe sees the digital player as “that obvious next frontier” that can be catered to with something unique.
But this shift will no doubt be concerning for some players too, with Forsythe even admitting it could “spook some of the purists out there” who see Arena as a direct translation of the paper game. To that end, he confirmed that they are going to ensure Standard, booster drafts, and other tabletop formats remain intact the way they are now, without the digital-only mechanics available in Historic. “We’re just adding new stuff for the players that live in this environment and have experience playing other digital card games out there that do things like this.”
“If you’ve seen our release calendar, the tabletop players should fear nothing as far as not getting enough stuff,” Forsythe says. “We are giving them new, cool things more regularly and more often than we ever have before.” And as for digital players, Arena actually tested these waters with a recent timed event called Mirror, Mirror. In it, powerful banned cards from other formats were rebalanced, and WotC says the response from players who had only ever played digitally was very positive – albeit, entirely new digital cards are certainly a step further than temporary rebalances.
But in terms of what digital-only cards could do, Seek, Perpetually, and Conjure actually seem like they fall on the tame end of the spectrum to my eyes. Forsythe explains that Magic’s R&D team has decades of rejected ideas to pull from, designs that were fun but weren’t suited for paper because they were too tough to track or couldn’t easily be adjudicated, for instance. So while they’re intentionally starting slow here, he says they will likely “push the boundaries of the space” as they get more comfortable designing for it, just like they do in paper Magic.
Unshackling a Magic card from the need to work physically blows the design doors wide open too, so I wanted to gauge just how crazy they might be willing to get. When I suggest the possibility of, say, a quad-faced card (a physical impossibility in the real world), Forsythe says that actually sounds “totally reasonable” as skirting around physical limitations is “exactly the kind of thing digital card games should be trying to do.” Forsythe jokingly provides his own example of a crazy effect that would actually be going too far – playing a game of Space Invaders to determine a creature’s toughness when it enters the battlefield.
Once again, they tell me the goal isn’t to make Arena an unrecognizable version of Magic, just one that leans into what it can do best in the same way that Commander-specific cards do for Commander. “We can make a whole new game that uses a lot of Magic’s rules, but I don’t think that’s what people want,” Forsythe says. “I do think they want to slide back and forth through different expressions and play the one that suits their needs at that given time.”
Of course the Historic format was already unique to Arena as well, if technically playable with paper cards. This new path changes it from essentially being Arena’s (much smaller) stand-in for older formats like Modern or Legacy to something wholly digital. “We’re really excited to be able to use Historic in a way that gives it its own identity as a format,” Parker says, explaining that he’s glad it’s now able to leverage the unique position it occupies.
On the surface, 31 digital-only cards may not seem like a huge amount given they’re arriving in a pool with 751 others, but it doesn’t take many to potentially warp a format in unexpected ways – and such a large influx overall will undoubtedly bring shifts in the Historic metagame. Parker says one of the main goals of Historic Horizons was “trying to get a whole lot of cool fun stuff from Modern Horizons into the format,” but that the higher power level of Modern meant they had to be careful while doing so.
“With the Mystical Archive, we learned a lot about how [Historic] responds to an infusion of new high power level cards,” Parker explains, referring to the set of iconic instants and sorceries added alongside the Strixhaven set earlier this year. With a few of those cards quickly becoming staples of the format (one was banned in June, and another was suspended just last week), Parker notes that “getting a little more creature heavy with these [Historic Horizons] reprints and additions is a healthy note to strike for the balance of the format.”
Still, Parker and Forsythe both reiterate that the first goal of this set is to add a bunch of cool new cards, digital or otherwise – without ballooning the power level out of control too quickly, that is. There are still hundreds of cards in Historic Horizons yet to be revealed, but I jokingly ask if we can assume Modern Horizons 2’s now notorious monkey Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer won’t be among them. Forsythe chuckles.
All month long, IGN Premiere is spotlighting some of the biggest upcoming releases in entertainment. Today, we have an exclusive clip from Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two, the upcoming feature-length DC animated film.
After being disfigured, District Attorney Harvey Dent (voiced by Transformers’ Josh Duhamel) wakes up to his alter ego, Two-Face, in this IGN Premiere exclusive clip. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC, Batman: The Long Halloween, Part Two will be distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on Digital starting July 27, 2021, and on Blu-ray beginning August 10, 2021.
You can watch the clip via the player above or the embed below.
The Long Halloween, Part Two chronicles the second half of this yearlong crime saga. As the mysterious Holiday Killer continues their deadly crime spree, District Attorney Harvey Dent is pushed to the brink in his quest to bring justice to Gotham City. As the trailer shows, The Long Halloween is also the origin story of Two-Face.
Making matters worse, Bruce Wayne has been captured by Poison Ivy, leaving Gotham undefended during its darkest hour. Even mob boss Carmine Falcone is becoming increasingly desperate, striking a Faustian bargain with Gotham’s new generation of super-criminals.
The Long Halloween, Part Two features the same creative team as Part One, including supervising producer Butch Lukic, director Chris Palmer and screenwriter Tim Sheridan. The film is produced by Jim Krieg and Kimberly S. Moreau and executive produced by Michael Uslan and Sam Register.
Most of the Part One voice cast will return for the sequel, including Jensen Ackles (Supernatural, Batman: Under the Red Hood) as Batman/Bruce Wayne, the late Naya Rivera (Glee) as Catwoman/Selina Kyle, Josh Duhamel (Transformers, Las Vegas) as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Billy Burke (Twilight, Revolution, Zoo) as Commissioner James Gordon, Katee Sackhoff (The Mandalorian, Battlestar Galactica, Batman: Year One) as Poison Ivy, Titus Welliver (Bosch, Deadwood) as Carmine Falcone, Julie Nathanson (Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay) as Gilda Dent, David Dastmalchian (The Suicide Squad, Dune, Ant-Man,) as Calendar Man and The Penguin, Troy Baker (The Last of Us, Batman: Arkham Knight) as The Joker, Amy Landecker (Your Honor, Transparent) as Barbara Gordon and Carla Vitti, Fred Tatasciore (American Dad!, Family Guy) as Solomon Grundy, Alyssa Diaz (The Rookie, Ray Donovan) as Renee Montoya and Alastair Duncan (The Batman, Batman Unlimited franchise) as Alfred.
Part Two will also feature several new additions to the voice cast. These newcomers include Robin Atkin Downes (The Strain, Constantine: City of Demons) as both Scarecrow and Thomas Wayne, John DiMaggio (Futurama, Disenchantment) as the Mad Hatter, Laila Berzins (Genshin Impact) as Sofia Falcone, Jim Pirri (World of Warcraft franchise) as Sal Maroni and Zach Callison (The Goldbergs, Steven Universe) as Young Bruce Wayne. Gary Leroi Gray and Rick Wasserman also provide additional voice work.
Final Fantasy VII Remake was easily one of the best games of last year, receiving a rare 10/10 from GameSpot, and with Intergrade, the upgraded PS5 version of Remake, you can return to Midgar with enhanced visuals and performance, new features, and a brand-new side story starring the ninja Yuffie. For those who missed out on Remake when it released on PS4, now’s a great time to pick it up and experience the entire package in its best form, as Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intergrade for PS5 is on sale for $59.94 today. That’s just over $10 off its next-gen list price of $70.
The deal comes from GameStop and is currently being price-matched by Amazon as usual. GameStop’s deal is paired with another offer that lets you get an extra 30% off any preowned title when you buy a new game that’s $30 or higher, so you could bundle this deal with that offer if you like. Otherwise, it’s just a great opportunity to pick up one of the best PS5 games for its lowest price yet.
Check out our full Final Fantasy VII Remake review for more on the game as well as the improvements added with Intergrade and the Yuffie DLC. “Final Fantasy VII Remake was already a stunner of a game on PlayStation 4, but its PS5 upgrade, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, demonstrates just how beautiful a game it really is,” wrote editor Phil Hornshaw in his update to our review. “Like many PS5 games, the upgraded version offers two graphical modes–one that provides 4K resolution and a lower frame rate, and the other that provides 60 FPS with a lower resolution. With either setting, Intergrade feels like a significant visual leap for an already gorgeous game, sharpening the impressive graphics and making for silky smooth battles.”
Amazon’s upcoming MMO New World is off to a good start, it seems, as the game’s beta has attracted more than 200,000 concurrent players on Steam to make it one of the service’s most-played titles overall.
The latest public player data from Steam shows that the New World closed beta passed 200,000 players this weekend, putting it well ahead of games like Rust, Team Fortress 2, Rainbow Six Siege, Warframe, and Path of Exile on Valve’s PC platform.
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“Some businesses take off in the first year, and others take many years,” Jassy said. “Though we haven’t consistently succeeded yet in [Amazon Game Studios], I believe we will if we hang in there.”
In addition to game development, Amazon is involved in the world of video games through Twitch, which it acquired in 2014 for $1 billion.
For more on New World, check out the video above, which shows off the first 18 minutes of the MMO. The game launches in full on August 31.
I have always recommended certified refurbished tech for maximizing value, and I speak from my own experience when I say the savings are absolutely worth it. In 2015 I bought a refurbished MacBook Air (the same model available at eBay right now for $429) and I still use it to this day and have had zero issues with it. My biggest problem is I’ve had it for so long I’ve run out of space to apply new stickers.
When recommending refurbs, I always run into hesitancy, which is understandable. Why buy something that was already fixed once? Well, ACTUALLLLLLLLLLY… when an item is refurbished, that means it already experienced a break-down at one of the most likely failure points of its lifecycle. In engineering, there’s something called the “bathtub curve” that models when something is most likely to suffer a catastrophic failure. It starts off high, drops suddenly, flattens out for a while then ramps back up again near the end of its life. It’s called the bathtub curve because it’s shaped like a bathtub.
Refurbished items already suffered their most-likely failure, and have been repaired and re-certified. That means you’re actually less likely to suffer from a breakdown with a certified refurb than you are when you buy something new.
Also, that flat part in the middle of the bathtub curve? That’s when a product has the least likelihood of failure, but is also the period of time covered by extended warranties. That’s why retailers love to sell you an extended warranty: it’s pure profit for them.
I’m neither for nor against extended warranties. I know they cover the period of time least likely to need warranty coverage, but I also think peace-of-mind is important, too. Many of the MacBooks being offered through eBay’s certified refurbished program offer a 2-year warranty, and those that don’t offer a 30-day money-back guarantee or something similar. Be sure to check the details if you’re worried.
Fortnite Week 8 Alien Artifacts are coming up quickly, with another complete set to be scattered across the map starting on Thursday, July 29 at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET. If you’ve been chasing these collectibles all season long, by now you’ve made quite a dent in your Kymera cosmetic collection, unlocking most of them, no doubt. But don’t stop now. You’re on track to complete the entire list. Here’s where to find the latest Alien Artifacts.
Fortnite Week 8 Alien Artifacts
As there almost always has been, this week brings five more Alien Artifact canisters to the island of Apollo. Within each collectible is held four Alien Artifacts each, meaning this week’s five collectibles will once again unlock 20 total Alien Artifacts once you grab them all. Look for new Alien Artifacts at the following locations:
Among the purple alien trees west of Boney Burbs
Floating inside Hydro 16, the hydroelectric dam west of Misty Meadows
Under the wooden bridge north of Camp Cod
Beneath the Choppa landing pad at Dockside Dish, between Corny Complex and Retail Row
Among the purple alien trees northwest of Corny Complex
All Week 8 Alien Artifacts in Fortnite
With Alien Artifacts, you can unlock new cosmetics for Kymera. The Tier 1 Battle Pass alien character can be customized across a variety of features, including armor color, skin color, armor underglow, eye color, head shape, and more. Each category of Kymera’s features includes a tiered list of options ranging from 2-17 Alien Artifacts per item, including a full set of free options which act as the default Kymera style. To unlock the most expensive item in any category, you’ll need to first unlock all the others before it in the same category.
That’s why collecting all Fortnite Alien Artifacts each week is so important if you’re hoping to unlock the full range of features. Unlike past customizable Battle Pass cosmetics like Chapter 2 Season 2’s Maya or Chapter 2 Season 3’s ‘Brella, Kymera can be restyled whenever you feel like it.
There’s no permanent locking-in of his look. You could even make multiple Kymera characters for different presets. It’s like amassing an alien army for your loadouts. But you have to get Alien Artifacts during the week in which they debut, as they’re replaced the following week with new ones.
You’re unlikely to grab all Alien Artifacts in one round since they’re spread out–though you could with a UFO and a little Storm luck. But don’t worry, so long as you get them all before they disappear next week, you’ll be all set.
Mortal Kombat 11 has officially become the best selling Mortal Kombat game ever by selling over 12 million units worldwide, which has helped the total franchise video game sales surpass 73 million console units to date.
Warner Bros. shared the news in a press release where it also confirmed that Mortal Kombat Mobile has amassed 138 million installs worldwide.
“When Mortal Kombat launched nearly 30 years ago, I never dreamed it would grow into the franchise it is today with more than 73 million games sold,” said Ed Boon, Creative Director at NetherRealm Studios and Co-Creator of Mortal Kombat. “We have some of the most passionate fans in the world and we appreciate the support they have shown us over the years.”
Mortal Kombat 11 became the best-selling game in the franchise by passing Mortal Kombat X’s nearly 11 million units sold worldwide, as revealed during a Rapid-Fire interview with Game Informer.
