Fantasy News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Earlier today, Square Enix released the Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail benchmark. This is par for the course, as the Japanese company has always released benchmarks whenever a new expansion for the popular MMORPG was about to launch.

The recently released Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Ultimania confirms that the third game's story has already been written and that it could end up releasing in 2027.

Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has suggested that players should be able to tip developers after completing a game.

The upcoming Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail expansion will receive an official benchmark tool later today, Square Enix has confirmed.

More than 20 years after the original game changed the way many of us see video games, Square Enix revived Final Fantasy 7 via the first part of its remake. Now the game is bigger than ever before as the second installment in the remake trilogy, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, has taken the world by storm. Leaving Midgar and traversing the fictional world beyond, Draculabyte has celebrated Rebirth's success by curating a range of t-shirts that mash-up the game's characters with iconic metal bands.

Dragon's Dogma 2 fans have been sharing some of the things that they think the first game did better than the sequel, such as all items being able to stack to 999 and Pawns more closely following your commands.

Kingdom Hearts fans are discussing whether the first game in the series deserves a remake or not, but it seems that most people don't think it even needs one.

Ben Starr, the actor behind Final Fantasy 16's Clive Rosfield (the best Final Fantasy protagonist, if you didn't know) has called out Final Fantasy 12 for having the worst version of Cid in the series.

If you're hoping Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's new grandiose Ultimania novel provides answers or hints regarding the ending's lingering mystery, you may be disappointed. 

Final Fantasy 14 is readying up to release its massive Dawntrail expansion and 7.0 update this July, featuring a gorgeous graphical overhaul that shows how far the MMO has come since its rebirth over 10 years ago.

Ben Starr, who plays Clive in Final Fantasy 16, has joined fans in calling for another Final Fantasy Tactics game. Speaking with TheGamer at the BAFTA Games Awards this week, Starr says that the Tactics games are "iconic", and that it's "absolutely time" for another sequel.

In November, I reviewed the PlayStation Portal. I was mixed on Sony’s streaming handheld at the time, frustrated with a corner-cutting execution of a good idea. It seemed like a poor value compared to simply slapping a cheaper Backbone controller on a phone. As is often the case with tech reviews, though, I only had a short window to test it out where I was more focused on the more objective side of what the Portal does and doesn’t do. Would my feelings change when I was using it naturally?

If you've finished Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, then you'll know how weird and wonderful the story gets with its multiverse shenanigans. You need a lot of free time and red string to actually follow the events of the latter half of the title, which was delibreately left open to interpretation to get fans theorizing about what exactly could go down in Part 3, whenever it releases.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Ultimania, a book on the game's development, is out now in Japan. This reveals a bunch of interesting notes that the devs made while working on the project, including the canonical ages of all the characters - and there's one in particular that fans have found very surprising.

Though Square Enix has not publicly shared details about the next part of the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy, the development team has provided some new insight through the game's companion books.

It continues to be a difficult time at Ascendant Studios, the developers behind last year’s magical shooter flop Immortals of Aveum, as it’s claimed that the studio have now furloughed most of their staff - only a matter of months after almost half of their employees were laid off.

Square Enix has given fans an update on the status of the third and final part of its Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy.

Final Fantasy fans have a lot to unpack today, as the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Ultimania book has now launched in Japan, giving us more juicy details about the recent RPG as well as the next chapter in the Remake trilogy. Notably, we've gotten a little more indication as to how long we can expect to wait for Part 3, even if no release window has been confirmed yet.

Yoshinori Kitase hopes that Final Fantasy 7 continues after the Remake project ends with Part 3, though he doubts he'll be involved if that happens. 

Some new videogame releases pounce on us like excitable Golden Retrievers, while others become apparent to us more insidiously, like undead Golden Retrievers creeping back from the grave to do their master's bidding unto eternity. Withering Rooms is one of the latter: released out of early access last week, and noticed by me just yesterday, it's a haunted mansion metroidvania in which you are a small girl in a nightie who must use meat cleavers, pentagrams and spells of self-enlargement or possession or incineration to overcome various monsters of the Silently Hilly and/or Residentially Evil persuasion. No, none of the monsters are Golden Retrievers.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is a great celebration of the original title whilst being its own unique experience. It's constantly paying homage to the game that it's building upon, full of little references, foreshadowing, and adorable moments scattered across the story for OG Final Fantasy 7 fans to point at and appreciate. Some of them are so subtle that they're only just being discovered weeks after launch, which is the case for our topic of discussion today.

There’s a great deal of romance attached to leading a medieval revolution against an oppressive regime, thanks in no small part to the myths surrounding Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The reality would have been much colder, darker and damp, but Bellwright is a game that latches onto that idealised fantasy and runs with it, tasking you with liberating the lands and building an army strong enough to stand against the Crown.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players should now have no trouble trying to obtain the game's Platinum Trophy, as Square Enix has finally resolved the bug affecting completion.

Square Enix recently published a 42 minute Final Fantasy VII Rebirth “Special Talk Session” on its Square Enix Music YouTube channel. The video features series composer Nobuo Uematsu, writer Kazushige Nojima, and creative director Tetsuya Nomura.

Seekers of Skyveil recently held a new playtest, and the team is sharing some details and stats from the experience, from how many creatures everyone defeated to how successful they were at extraction in the fantasy extraction title.

A new Final Fantasy VII Rebirth patch is now live, introducing fixes for multiple issues, including a progression issue that prevented the completion of a Chapter 12 sidequest.

Ascendant Studios, the developer behind last year's EA-published magic shooter Immortals of Aveum, has reportedly furloughed the majority of its staff.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Platinum Trophy is now back on the menu, thanks to Square Enix issuing a new patch for the RPG.

Command & Conquer games flooded the European charts in March after EA put out a bundle of games on Steam.

Hikaru Utada, best known in the gaming world for her work on Kingdom Hearts, has released a re-recorded version of Hikari, the Japanese version of Simple and Clean.

A Duolingo user discovered a hidden reference to the massively popular Witcher series while using the language-learning app. Since its first story in 1986, The Witcher has garnered international acclaim from its legions of fans scattered all over the globe, with comics, video games, and a live-action TV series providing several portals into author Andrzej Sapkowski's fantastical world of magic and monsters.

Bungie executive creative director Luke Smith has teased plans for the Destiny franchise beyond Destiny 2.

World of Warcraft Classic is steadily embarking on its time-travelling trip through WoW of old. The next stop is apocalyptic 2010 expansion Cataclysm, which we now know is due to, uh, re-shatter Azeroth at the end of next month.

Sony has announced the game catalogue additions for PlayStation Plus this April for Extra and Premium subscribers.

Azur Promilia is an exciting new title from Manjuu, the developer behind Azur Lane, which is generating a buzz for its new trailer with a unique blend of gameplay inspired by Genshin Impact and Palworld.

Square Enix has released the soundtrack for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which features 175 tracks.

2023 is a tough act to follow. IGN awarded 83 games a review score of 8 or higher last year, including five 10s — among which were two generational greats in Baldur’s Gate 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. A year later, the release calendar looks comparatively light, with Switch all but certainly in its final year as Nintendo’s primary console and Sony not releasing "any new major existing franchise titles" until 2025.

Blizzard has announced a release date for World of Warcraft Cataclysm Classic.

Bungie will show off Destiny 2’s next expansion, The Final Shape, later today.

Getting tired of your Pawns stating the obvious, pointing out the same ladder repeatedly, and commenting on how you spend your gold? There's a handy Dragon's Dogma 2 mod that makes them shut up.

What is it that draws people to the strategy genre? Is it planning ahead? Is it puzzling over the best course of action? Is it the orderly nature of grids and linear movement? Or, going off the Fire Emblem series, is it helping an unlikely group of sellswords and mercenaries become super best friends? Whatever it might be, Unicorn Overlord has ‘it’, an X-factor that ensures that it’s an early entry for strategy game of the year.

Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 continues to sell at an incredible rate. The latest report from GSD (reported by GamesIndustry) reveals that the game was once again the top-selling title when considering both digital and physical channels across the United Kingdom.

Welcome to the IGN AU Daily Deals article, also unofficially known as the "How Low Can That Starfield Constellation Edition Go" limbo check. Full truth: I'm eyeing a purchase of it myself, and my absolute must-buy mark is going to be that magical $200. Shall we reach that numerical event horizon where nothing—not my money, or even light itself—can possibly escape? I dunno. But it was $256.14 yesterday...

Rolling Games just soft-launched a new game on Android called Cooking Wonderland Global. If you’re in Australia, The Philippines, the USA, Brazil, India or Malaysia, then you can get your hands on this game from the Play Store.

Time for another sorry week of heaving news-fuel into the Maw's thousand-and-one gullets and urgh, what's that brooding stench? It reeks of embargoes in here. The air is foul with it. This week is the week of the inaugural Triple-I Initiative showcase, aka the IIIIs, aka a 45-minute dollop of trailers and announcements from such studios as Slay The Spire creators MegaCrit and Darkest Dungeon developers Red Hook. We know of a couple of the announcements in advance; others, we'll learn about alongside you on 10th April.

The blemishes of beloved video games are sometimes referred to as their “jank.” The term encapsulates things in a game that may be slightly broken or inherently peculiar — aspects that should be detrimental to the experience, but aren’t. Ideally, these broken bits are overshadowed by a game’s superior elements, be they intricate combat systems, rich stories, or unique worlds.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has an easy-to-miss voice line if you choose to visit Jessie's portrait without any other party members in Chapter 8.

One Final Fantasy producer has sparked hope for another strategy spin-off in the popular series.

Saturday and the weekend have officially arrived, which means it is time to round up the best deals you can find this weekend! We've searched all over the internet to compile the deals you do not want to miss, which include video games, technology, earbuds, and more. The best deals for Saturday, April 6, include Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, the Razer BlackShark V2 Headset, Granblue Fantasy: Relink, Beats Powerbeats Pro, and more.

Final Fantasy director Naoki Yoshida - better known among fans as Yoshi-P - says it's "probably about time" for another Final Fantasy Tactics game.

The Elder Scrolls Online is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary, and as the MMO approaches that milestone, its developers say they understand that a Final Fantasy 14-style technological overhaul could prove important.

Square Enix has confirmed a glitch in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth blocking players from unlocking the Platinum Trophy will be addressed in the RPG's next update. Currently, a side quest called Can't Stop Won't Stop isn't registering high scores in the G-Bike arcade minigame, which is required to unlock the Platinum Trophy and progress other missions near to the end of the game. The publisher hasn't said when the PS5 patch will arrive, but presumably, it'll be available soon.

Despite Dragon's Dogma 2 boasting marginally better launch sales than Rise of the Ronin (with both titles releasing on the same day), it's Team Ninja's PS5 exclusive that's managed to stand stronger in the latest Japanese charts. Indeed, Ronin has actually done quite well for itself, shifting an additional 20,000 retail copies over the last week, bringing its total to a fairly respectable 85,000 units. It was topped only by Princess Peach: Showtime!.

If you've been chipping away at Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's shiny platinum trophy, then it's possible that you'll have run into the Can't Stop, Won't Stop bug. Reported last week, a pretty nasty bug made its way into Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's latest update that makes getting the platinum trophy completely impossible unless you have a physical copy.

Amazon has announced the 12 games it'll be giving away to all Prime Gaming subscribers in April, with this month's offerings including Fallout 76 — whose arrival is perfectly timed to coincide with Amazon's new Fallout TV series.

2024 has kicked off with a list of bangers ranging from Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth to Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, and as excellent as those games are, I'm growing increasingly desperate for more bite-sized titles to maintain a varied gaming diet. And Castaway, an upcoming indie that bills itself as a "short and sweet adventure" and looks like a perfect tribute to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, feels like just the thing.

The bug stopping Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players from obtaining the Platinum Trophy on PS5 is set to be fixed in the RPG's next patch.

Spring has sprung in Aida, the vibrant world of Tower of Fantasy! To celebrate the season of renewal, the developers are hosting a special Spring Screenshot Contest with awesome rewards up for grabs. So grab your digital camera (or in-game equivalent) and get ready to capture the beauty of Aida in bloom!

The ultimate cure for the annoying Dragonsplague affliction featured in Dragon's Dogma 2 is now available, but only for PC players.

Square Enix has launched a brand-new pet goods brand known as SQEX PETS, with a few products from the initial line-up being revealed. According to the official Japanese website, the first products were made under Tetsuya Nomura's supervision and include designs based on the Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts series.

Final Fantasy 7's lead characters have been turned into action figures of all descriptions, most of them selling out quickly without much controversy surrounding them. Cloud, Tifa, and Aertih's Bring Arts figures were the exception. The collectibles caused a stir when they went on sale in 2022 due to the NFT versions of the figures that came with their Digital Plus editions. Square Enix is now selling the Cloud and Tifa options again following Rebirth's release but has made the wise decision to do so without including any NFTs.

Mid-March, Blizzard revealed 12 new Hero Talent Trees in a sneak peek at the new system coming with the The War Within expansion. Our Mistweaver Monk guide writer, JuneMW, offers an early review of the Conduit of the Celestials Monk Hero Talents that offer a flexible talent selection compatible with both caster and melee Mistweavers in a well-developed theming and fantasy that makes you feel like you're channeling the might of Pandaria.

A Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth fan has discovered an interesting detail about the game's credits sequence and how it reflects Cloud's state at the end of the game.

Earlier today Tom Betts - founder of Nullpointer and former lead programmer at The Signal From Tolva developers Big Robot - emailed me about his new game The Horror At Highrook. In the space of a single, rollercoaster paragraph, Betts earned my curiosity by describing himself as a fellow Soul Reaver enthusiast, lost it again by criticising Soul Reaver’s camera - such insolence! - and earned it swiftly back by mentioning that he’s from Yorkshire. Then, he upgraded my curiosity into attention by describing The Horror At Highrook as a “clockwork narrative” horror experience that takes inspiration from Poe, Stoker and Lovecraft on the one hand, and from boardgames, wiki-hunting and escape rooms on the other.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 intentionally gives players a hard time.

Final Fantasy 14's eagerly anticipated crossover event with Final Fantasy 16 has begun. While there's a cool quest to complete, a Torgal mount to obtain, and more, it's one Clive Rosfield who's proving a hit with the community—his rippling biceps, to be more exact. 

"It almost feels like proof-of-concept for a first-person Prince of Persia game, with an ever-so-gentle dusting of Portal," our Edwin said after playing free first-person platformer Grimhook when it launched in December. It's a cracking little game, parkouring about with the help of supernatural powers and a grappling hook, but ends right as it feels like it's getting started. I'd certainly be up for three hours of this, so how splendid to hear that the developers are planning to make a "complete" and fancier experience.

A new range of officially licensed t-shirts based on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is coming to Uniqlo soon.

Final Fantasy 14's long-awaited crossover with Final Fantasy 16 is finally here, bringing everyone's favorite hunky protagonist Clive Rosfield to Eorzea for the first time. Having had a much more difficult arrival than the likes of Lightning and Noctis, having been dumped in Eastern Thanalan with nothing but a sword on his back and a throbbing headache, it's your job to help Clive out and send him back home.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth players who picked up the game digitally and are currently working towards unlocking the game's Platinum Trophy might want to rein in their chocobos, as the game's most recent patch introduced an issue preventing it from popping.

Legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu will compose the central theme for the as-yet-unnamed third game in Square Enix's Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, tentatively committing to the job after being put on the spot by Rebirth director Tetsuya Nomura.

Following a bit of a tease last week, Yellow Brick Games — the studio founded by former Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw — has properly revealed its new third-person action adventure, Eternal Strands, which is coming to PC and consoles next year.

Former Dragon Age director Mike Laidlaw is making a new fantasy game. Eternal Strands is third-person adventure pitched as a mixture of Shadow Of The Colossus and Monster Hunter with Tears Of The Kingdom's physics powers. The trailer, which you'll find below, certainly has giants you can clamber across and spray with goop.

Bungie plans to show off delayed Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape next week.

Square Enix has officially begun development on the third and final part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy.

Tales of Kenzera: Zau is coming to Sony's PlayStation Plus subscription on day one of its release.

We never thought we’d see the day but here we are: Xbox games on PlayStation. Yup, that’s right - we’re green with envy no more. But as momentous an occasion as this is, that’s not the only surprising reappearance; Unknown 9: Awakening also enjoys a grand reintroduction, and indie darling In Stars and Time pops back for seconds this month in PLAY #39, which is out right now!

The director of Final Fantasy 7 Remake says Part 3 is "off to the races already," but that he's ready to be "done" with this "absolute marathon of projects."

It looks like another one of Square Enix's age-old JRPGs is being lined up for the remaster treatment, giving heaps of new RPG fans the chance to play Saga Frontier 2 who might not have had the opportunity - or, you know, might not have been alive - in 1999.