Category: IGN

Since the last instalment of IGN’s Red Dead Online review in progress Rockstar has confirmed that new anti-griefing measures are in the works, and has also teased “new features, modes, and additional Red Dead Online gameplay content updates” that it will share in the new year. The prospect of measures that may dissuade pointless griefing – or at least punish it appropriately – is very welcome.

I’m genuinely confused by the sentiment that the bedlam that sometimes occurs in free roam in the Red Dead Online beta is something that players should just put up with (or, worse, that it’s in some way totally faithful to the era). Certainly the American West earned its “Wild” moniker thanks to its untamed nature during the frontier era. However, if the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral had happened four times a day, every day, we wouldn’t remember the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (and every Western you ever watched would just be a 90-minute battle royale). Players who want to be left alone aren’t being precious; if they’re anything like me they just want to be able to immerse themselves in a believable world. There’s just nothing especially authentic about towns becoming war zones multiple times a day. I’ll be pleased with anything Rockstar can concoct to foster a free roam multiplayer environment that’s always fun to hang out in.

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Now that battle royale games have become legion, the new arms race is to find clever ways for a new game to set itself apart from the Fortnites and PUBGs of the world. In Tencent’s winter-themed Ring of Elysium, which recently launched as a surprisingly polished early access game with cosmetic-only microtransactions, there’s more than a little inspiration taken from those two behemoths, but its wintery theme, clever new ideas around movement, and exciting final moments make it feel distinct.

Here, a smaller-than-average group of 60 players (either alone, in pairs, or in groups of up to four) battle it out to escape a deadly blizzard that ravages remote mountain towns. But unlike the usual trudging around on foot or the occasional vehicle, Ring mixes up the way you get from point A to point B with a map that features not only ski lifts, but also gives you access to snowboards, hang gliders, and mountain-climbing gear. That change injects exciting creativity into the genre without going into off-the-wall fantasy.

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At face value, Borderlands 2 doesn’t sound like the kind of game that would translate to VR with success – but it only took a few hours with Borderlands 2 VR to prove my preconceived notions wrong. While it’s clearly not a ground-up, made-for-VR version of the shoot-and-loot bonanza, it’s yet another reminder that large, traditional console/PC games can work reasonably well when retrofitted for virtual reality. Certain concessions, namely the lack of co-op, make Borderlands 2 VR a significantly easier, lonelier, and less replayable game than the original version, but Pandora has never been this close to your fingertips.

After spending 20 hours inside Pandora from a closer vantage point, it’s clear that Borderlands 2 has aged well. Borderlands 2 VR ports over the entire, massive map from the base game (though, notably, it’s strictly only the base game). The illustrative art style, in particular, works in its favor, and it probably doesn’t hurt that Pandora is mostly a sparse wasteland. Unlike some other ambitious PSVR games, the world and characters don’t have that slightly washed-out look. Everything looks about the same as it did in the PS3/Xbox360 original. It didn’t blow me away like Wipeout and Moss did, but it’s perhaps unreasonable to expect a VR port to look and feel as if it was designed with VR in mind.

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Heading into 2019, there are a bunch of huge games that still don’t have release dates. Some look very small in the rearview mirror – I’m looking at you, Final Fantasy 7 Remake – while some will undoubtedly see firm release dates next year. Below’s slideshow is a rundown of the biggest question marks.

While you wait for all these games to come out, check out our rundown of all the big games that got delayed this year, our discussion on the worst games of 2018, and our of all the unexpected 2019 games we can’t wait to play.

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Find out how to add this powerful Pokemon to your roster with this guide.

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Whenever PSN, Xbox Live or any other major online game or service goes down, these become some of the most heavily searched topics on IGN. So, we wanted to see how various services, platforms and individual games fared throughout 2018 when it came to staying online. To do so, we asked Downdetector, a website that collects data on online service outages, who experienced the most downtime in 2018.

To determine which games and services go down and for how long, Downdetector “collects status reports from a series of sources. Through a realtime analysis of this data, our system is able to automatically determine outages and service interruptions at a very early stage.” Downtime analyzes reports from sources like Twitter, and detects outages when the number of reports jumps above a relative baseline level.

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Use our interactive map to track down every elusive Dinosaur Bone in Red Dead Redemption 2.

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2017 was a hard act to follow for Nintendo. The Switch’s launch last year was accompanied by some of the best Mario and Zelda games each of their respective series has seen, as well as the fantastic Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. So it’s not too surprising that Nintendo had trouble hitting that bar again in 2018, but that’s not to say it’s had a bad year overall.

In the special episode of NVC at the top of the page, we broke down the highs and lows of Nintendo’s 2018, and you can keep reading to see some of the biggest highlights from the year.

Nintendo’s Biggest 2018 Exclusives

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Ubisoft’s The Division 2 held a technical alpha test for the PC over the last week, and many of those who had the chance to play it came away with positive impressions.

The alpha, which was announced last week, took place between December 15-18, and those who had the chance to play it signed a non-disclosure agreement, strictly limiting what they could or could not publicly say about the game. While many leaks arose during this time, Ubisoft has removed much of this as quickly as possible. However, some details and impressions have remained, and they’re largely positive on this post-apocalyptic sequel.

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Here’s every reward available in the 14 Days of Fortnite Challenges so far, including tips for each daily challenge.

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