Year: 2023

Since their inception, video games have acted as portals to other worlds. Unlike books and films, they allow us to not just be immersed in another land but to truly explore one. It’s that core fantasy that has seen the concept of the open world flourish; what better way is there to create a sense of discovering a new world than to build one with as much depth and as few borders as possible? That goal has seen the open world advance from a form of environment design to a whole diverse genre in its own right.

Where linear game design delivers slices of another reality, the open world aims to simulate on a grander level. It combines geography, architecture, populations, and events to create a living city, region, or kingdom.

As you set out on Link’s quest to save Hyrule, you need to take the IGN Tears of the Kingdom Walkthrough and Strategy Guide with you. Yes, yes, it’s dangerous to go alone and all that… But seriously: This guide has been composed by expert players over hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of gameplay. Along the way we will show you how to get every Shrine, Fairy Fountain, Tower, and much more. The latest updates include the intro areas that teach you the ropes:

• Great Sky Island – Find Princess Zelda and The Closed Door – The four opening Shrines are accounted for here, and the quest for the paraglider.

Warning: The below contains a spoiler from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Well, Nintendo did it: they kept a giant chunk of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s map from being fully revealed to the general public before release.

The chunk in question, of course, is the Depths, an absolutely huge part of Tears’ Hyrule maps that was completely unavailable in Breath of the Wild. Tom Marks, in his 10/10 review, sums it up best:

“Rest assured that the generally small sky islands do not represent the entirety of the new area to explore, because waiting beneath is a dangerous, pitch-black map that is literally the size of Hyrule itself. It is massive.

The Open Roads Team is no longer a part of Fullbright after splitting with the company.

According to Fullbright co-founder Steve Gaynor , the team — now known as The Open Roads Team — will continue to work with Annapurna Interactive, but is no longer connected to its former studio.

“After a great deal of consideration, it’s just no longer Fullbright’s place to represent Open Roads publicly going forward,” he confirmed. “It will be credited to The Open Roads Team at launch.”

It’s been almost two years since Gaynor stepped down as creative lead on Open Roads following accusations of creating a “toxic work culture”.

“I stepped away from the project,” he reflected.

Following a tease from Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon, rumors around Mortal Kombat 12 have already started circulating ahead of any official announcement from Netherrealm Studios.

Days ago, Boon posted a short video of a ticking clock on Twitter counting down to something, and that something is most certainly Mortal Kombat 12. The clock almost reaches the 12th hour before an explosion rockets it ahead to land on “1.”

Today, another Twitter account associated with previous PSN leaks, @billbil_kun, alleges that the next grizzly fighter is titled Mortal Kombat 1, making that “1” in Boon’s video seems a little more significant.

Deviation Games has laid off a number of developers as Sony reevaluates its portfolio. The studio is currently working on a new original AAA IP with PlayStation.

Several developers from Deviation Games took to LinkedIn to announce that they had been let go of their current positions. These include now-former associate producer Jared Bailey, technical combat and encounter designer Luke Stumpf, and software engineer Kyle Perras.

Not much context or information was provided about the reason for layoffs, but Perras mentioned that Deviation Games “ran into a difficult situation and was forced to make a number of layoffs which I was a part of.