Analysts suggest that, in as little as six years, digital game sales could entirely dominate the video game market. It's a shift that’s been brewing throughout the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One console generation; but now, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X generation could become the turning point where physical media becomes all-but obsolete.

Unlike other entertainment industries, video game fans have clung on to the nostalgic draw of boxes, discs, and cartridges — so, why is this acceleration happening now, after years of healthy physical game sales?

For collectors who love adding the latest releases to their shelf, this shift might be frightening to consider. But does digital's dominance necessarily spell the end of physical games, or will collectors show enough interest and spend enough money to keep physical media alive, albeit in a new, more specialized form? And will digital change game ownership, standard pricing, and collecting as a whole?

IGN spoke with several video game industry analysts to get their thoughts on this rapidly evolving marketplace.

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Digital Game Sales Are On the Rise

Overall sales of digital versions of video games have slowly been catching up to physical game sales over the last few years. Now, the scale is tipping towards digital more than ever — partially due to the trends set throughout the last few years, and partially due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic keeping consumers from shopping in-person — and pushing them towards digital storefronts.

Digital games have hit big milestones over the last few years. Cyberpunk 2077 reportedly saw the biggest digital game launch of all time. Elsewhere, developers are seeing digital sales outpace physical sales numbers, with Capcom reporting approximately 80% of its game sales are from digital downloads.

Reflecting that shift, Sony and Microsoft have now both released digital-only consoles that eliminate the option of using physical media entirely, but offer enticingly cheaper prices. If you have a more expensive PS5 or Xbox Series X with a physical disc drive, you're still given complete freedom when choosing how to buy your games. See a sale online you can't pass up? Go ahead and order the game with 2-day shipping. Want to make an impulse grab you see in a second-hand bargain bin? No problem.

For years, gamers have been offered that freedom as par for the course. Now, the reality of digital-only consoles effectively funnels consumers down a digital pipeline to PlayStation or Xbox’s more controlled stores. But the reason for that is simple — more gamers than ever prize the ensured convenience of digital over the potential freedom of physical.

Taking a deeper look at sales numbers globally supports the idea that more gamers are starting to favor digital downloads. Instead of lining up at GameStop for the latest release, players are waiting for their digital downloads to unlock at the strike of midnight. In Sony's recent Q3 FY2020 results, we saw digital sales outnumber physical sales throughout the entire current fiscal year.

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Even when we exclude games that are typically digital exclusives, digital sales still have the upper hand. In Sony's "Full Game Software" results for the three quarters of the current fiscal year, digital sales accounted for 74%, 59%, and 53% of overall sales, respectively.

This means, when given the choice between retail and downloads, the majority of players on PlayStation consistently choose digital over physical.

It's not just Sony seeing this shift in numbers. In Nintendo's recent earnings report, the company said digital sales made up 40.9% of all software sales, which is a sizable 12.3% increase year-on-year. Nintendo's digital sales also saw an increase of 104.9% when compared to 2019.

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic has to be taken into account. Sony's 2020 fiscal year began on April 1, 2020, when lockdowns across the world were reaching their peak. Customers who suddenly found themselves housebound could explain the huge 74% statistic in Sony's first quarter, which ran from April 1 to June 30.

"It's very straightforward: in a pandemic, downloads are the safest and most convenient option for concerned gamers," says industry analyst Dr. Serkan Toto of Kantan Games Inc.

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But as we look at 2020, analysts noted that the COVID-19 pandemic was not an instigator for the rise of digital media, but simply an accelerator of a trend we've seen take shape throughout the last console generation.

"The game industry, as well as consumers, have been gradually shifting towards digital sales before the pandemic already," says Dr. Toto. "COVID-19 has of course been a strong accelerant for that trend, as some physical locations were simply forced to shut down or people generally were not eager to go out anymore."

In 2018, digital games accounted for 43% of Sony’s Full Game Software download, and in 2019 it was 55%. Both are large year-over-year increases from even before the pandemic hit.

The acceleration is significant compared to the start of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One generation. Daniel Ahmad, a Senior Analyst at Niko Partners, said on Twitter that we entered the last generation of consoles in 2013 with digital downloads accounting for 5-10% of total sales. Now, we enter the PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X generation, and digital downloads account for half of the sales.

It's worth noting that we entered the current console generation (2013) with digital downloads accounting for around 5-10% of unit sales.

Now we're entering next gen with 50%+ as standard. Packaged sales are still strong, especially during COVID-19, digital is additive overall — Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) July 30, 2020

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Websites like Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop have helped keep physical game sales alive during a time when people aren't making purchases in person as often. While you may be hesitant about going out to a store right now, it's easier than ever to go online, add a game to your cart, and checkout within seconds.

In 2020, two-thirds of games sold in the UK were purchased digitally. That's a 20% year-over-year increase from 2019. However, last year also proved players still love cracking open a new game case as 18.2 million games were sold in boxes in the UK — a 2% increase from 2019.

This means digital and physical sales both jumped, but digital increased significantly more. In this case, digital sales numbers rising is more of a reflection of video game sales numbers as a whole going up, not the immediate death of physical media.

"Packaged software sales have been on a decline for the past few years, but this year has been slightly different," Ahmad said. "The impact from COVID-19 expanded the games market as a whole. It led to a sharp increase in digital game sales and helped stem the decline in packaged software sales."

Mat Piscatella, an analyst for the NPD group, says rising digital numbers do not necessarily spell doom for physical games.

"Growth in digital premium game sales is not being offset by matching declines in physical," Piscatella said. "Changes in physical and digital spending are also often not significantly correlated."

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For now, it seems there's a place at the table for both physical and digital sales.

"Recent numbers indicate that physical sales are surprisingly holding up well, as lockdowns don't go on forever and people can still order physical games online even during a pandemic," Dr. Toto said. "At the moment, it looks like the pie has grown overall, without physical imploding."

Analysts believe that digital sales will continue to ascend, but not as quickly as we saw during the unprecedented events of the last year.

"We expect the digital sales ratio to continue increasing, but not at the same rate as 2020," Ahmad tells IGN. "That being said, we are at a point where the overwhelming majority of games sold are via digital download already."

An All-Digital Future?

"Like it or not, but there can be no doubt that the future is digital," Dr. Toto said. "Once people are starting to download games, they are likely never going back to buy them physically."

If you're a hardcore physical collector, you may have felt your heart start beating a little faster after reading that. A silver lining? Video games are as popular and profitable as ever. For the games industry as a whole, analysts expect spending to remain high as we move further into 2021.

"We expect the increased engagement across gaming as a whole to maintain post-pandemic," Ahmad said. "We predict that people who discovered gaming in 2020 will continue playing."

However, analysts do believe physical sales will slowly diminish, leading to digital cementing itself as the primary way players purchase games. Dr. Toto said an all-digital future raises some concerns for consumers.

"What about ownership of a digital game? Is there a guarantee that I can access my download in 20 years or am I effectively just renting it? Why is there no second-hand market on digital? How do platform providers on console aim to solve the storage problems that come with downloads?"

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These concerns have cropped up from time to time throughout the last few years. Some games get delisted due to licensing issues, becoming inaccessible to redownload in order to play or preserve. Also, consumers who rely on trade-ins to help fund future game purchases are hung out to dry on digital storefronts.

"The convenience outweighs any negatives for most consumers," Ahmad said. "That being said, there are moves that publishers can make to increase digital game ownership acceptance among a broader audience, such as offering timed refunds, gifting, or trading."

If you're worried about not being able to add the latest releases to your shelf, don't panic too much just yet. Analysts think the future of physical games will be sharply redirected towards the most hardcore, passionate corners of the fanbase.

"There will continue to be a market for packaged software in the future. While the ratio of digital games keeps increasing, it’s important to note that over 200 million packaged games are still sold each year across the major console platforms," Ahmad said. "We may see packaged game offerings evolve in the future, with a larger focus on special editions."

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Analysts believe physical games aren’t going anywhere, anytime soon. This is partially due to the hardcore segment of the fanbase, and the group of consumers who go to the store to buy physical games as gifts for friends or family members. Most would probably agree it's more fun to gift a physical game than a download code.

But no matter how physical gaming clings on, analysts we spoke to feel set on the idea of digital becoming the true force in the industry in the not-too-distant future. "My estimate is that digital will be the totally dominant form by the end of the decade, after the life cycle of the current PlayStation and Xbox models," Dr. Toto said.

Microsoft and Sony's new consoles launched last Fall and, judging by the length of the last two console generations, this estimate pegs digital game downloads as the completely dominant form of game purchases by around 2027-2028.

Six or seven years may seem like a long time, but in the scope of video games, it's not that far off. The video game industry adapts at a rapid pace, and before you know it, mass-market physical games could feel like a distant memory.

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Looking Ahead to the Next Few Years

However, the fate of physical games could rest upon how hard platform holders push the digital-only consoles in this generation, and how much of the player base jumps on board.

"If players gravitate towards the current digital editions of next-gen consoles, which are priced lower, we could see platform holders move to double down on digital-only consoles next generation," Ahmad said.

Piscatella agrees, saying, "the long-term trends will depend on the types of consoles being made, and developer- and publisher-driven initiatives."

But Ahmad was quick to point out that digital sales overtook physical sales even before the digital-only consoles launched, which suggests there are other significant factors in play.

From the publishers and developers’ perspective, digital game sales give them a boost by cutting out the middleman, leading to more profit. Capcom's latest earnings report specifically mentions how digital sales have increased the company's profits by subtracting retailers from the equation.

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"In my view, retailers large and small will be cut out of the game industry's value chain in the long run," Dr. Toto said. "Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo won't say it openly, but cutting out the middleman is clearly where the industry has been shifting towards for years now already."

Even if the goal is to cut them out in the long run, analysts believe stores will continue selling physical games until the market ceases to exist altogether. There's an unquestionable convenience to digital games, but there's also something to be said for swinging by the electronics section to pick up a game on your weekly trip to pick up milk and eggs.

"As long as there is physical retail, they will all keep selling physical games," Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities said. "But the evolution of sales to digital downloads will ultimately impact their health."

Some analysts believe the shift to digital will be gradual, until the point where the majority of fans are used to the digital storefront as the primary way to purchase games. At that point, we may see some big publishers pull the plug on physical game production entirely.

"The tipping point is reached when it doesn't make any economic sense to produce physical games and when the backlash of the fanbase is expected to be manageable," says Dr. Toto. He added we could even see a major publisher shift to digital-only releases as soon as sometime this generation.

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It's not just the big companies that benefit from digital sales. Indie developers and publishers rarely release physical games because digital sales help the bottom line significantly more. For many indie developers, the cost of manufacturing discs just isn't worth it. In recent years, we've seen indie developers creating boutique physical editions of their games once they’ve become a proven success, in some ways leveraging the love of a hardcore audience as a second revenue stream — a model that could be seen as a blueprint for larger developers and publishers in future.

The increasing irrelevance of physical games means less competition for digital storefronts hosted on Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo's consoles. Console storefronts almost certainly won't suffer from the internal competition seen on PC – where Steam, Epic Games Store, and more compete for digital gamers' attentions – and if retailers like Best Buy and Walmart ever fall out of the equation, it gives the publishers a larger slice of the pie. This could end up leading to an increase in prices for the consumer.

"In the future, we will see US $70 as the new standard price for single games," Dr. Toto said. "Some titles are offered with that price tag already." Dr. Toto added that platforms like Xbox Game Pass will likely see price increases as the catalogue grows and the service becomes a more popular mainstream option.

While the timetable may be fuzzy, digital game sales are looking to dominate the market completely, and evidence suggests the shift is irreversible.

"It would be safe to assume that the share of physical premium games within the overall content market should continue to decline over time," Piscatella said. "To what extent and over what time period remains opaque."

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While the speed may be subject to debate, the analysts we spoke to agree the curtain has fallen on the dominance of physical games, saying it's only a matter of time until cases, cartridges, and discs join a past era of game manuals, memory cards, and composite cables (although, somewhat ironically, memory cards seem to be making a small comeback entirely because of digital).

For physical collectors, this may raise some concerning questions about the future of trade-ins, lending games to friends, and game ownership. On the widest possible level, it’s not unthinkable to imagine a future console generation that forgoes physical media altogether, making physical game collecting itself a thing of the past. For players who already primarily buy games digitally, it may be a change that goes unnoticed – until the point when publishers might feel comfortable enough to jack up the cost of their games due to the lack of competition from physical marketplaces.

While the shift to digital sales is all-but inevitable, games companies remain tight-lipped about their long-term plans for how to react to it. Questions regarding disc drives, game preservation, and digital exclusives loom large as the industry enters a new era. Some players are embracing the change and shifting their game libraries from their shelves to their hard drives. Others are clinging on to physical media, planning to stay on the ship until it goes down.

This console generation will, without a doubt, answer some of our lingering questions about physical media's demise. Regardless, it's time we realize the question isn't if digital will become entirely dominant, but when and how the change will impact the way we buy and experience games.

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Logan Plant is a news writer for IGN, and the Production Assistant for Nintendo Voice Chat, IGN's weekly Nintendo show. You can find him on Twitter at @LoganJPlant.

Pokemon Go developer Niantic is releasing a 5G-exclusive game demo called Codename: Urban Legends. The demo is part of Niantic's strategy to build a "planet-scale AR platform", according to a new blog post from the developer. Codename Urban Legends has been created to test what an immersive multiplayer experience would look like when it leverages 5G technology. Codename: Urban Legends looks like a far more involved social augmented reality game than the likes of Pokemon Go. "5G multi-access edge computing (MEC) can handle up to 10x simultaneous players compared to 4G," says Niantic. "This is just the beginning of how we can augment the world around us faster and experience adventures, together." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/06/28/niantic-real-world-ar-occlusion-with-pikachu-and-eevee"] In Niantic's video demonstration of Urban Legends, you can see a family simultaneously fighting monsters in a wide-open space, dodging projectiles and shooting at augmented creatures with their phones. This is what Niantic is calling "large-scale multiplayer on 5G." The developer has partnered with Deutsche Telekom, Globe Telecom, and Verizon to network test and help realise the technology. The game has been built on the platform that powers Niantic's other games, like Pokemon Go and Ingress, and will use the "ultra-low latency and high bandwidth capabilities" of 5G to its advantage. "By teaming up, players cast magic spells to blast monsters and rescue mythical allies, including Doty, the original Niantic Explorer," the blog post reads. It's not clear when players will be able to check out Codename: Urban Legends, but we'll be sure to let you know when it's available. However, Niantic has told The Verge that the game will be exclusive to its carrier partners when it releases. Niantic CEO John Hanke recently teased an updated look at its augmented reality glasses design. For more on Niantic, check out our article covering the first details revealed about the new Pikmin augmented reality game, which has debuted in early access in Singapore. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

YouTube is experimenting removing the display of dislike numbers on videos. Announced on YouTube’s Twitter account, the video platform explained the experiment is a response to creator feedback. Specifically, the tweet cites the well-being of creators, as well as targeted dislike campaigns used to harass some creators.

In response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns, we're testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count. If you're part of this small experiment, you might spot one of these designs in the coming weeks (example below!). pic.twitter.com/aemrIcnrbx

— YouTube (@YouTube) March 30, 2021

“We're testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count,” the tweed explains. “If you're part of this small experiment, you might spot one of these designs in the coming weeks.” While the dislike count will not be publicly displayed beneath a video, creators will still be able to see the exact number of dislikes in YouTube Studio, the system’s back-end tools. This means user feedback will still be provided to those that need it, but any negatives that may come from the number being publicly visible may be negated. YouTube notes that the experiment is “small”, and is only for select users. There is no guarantee that this is the direction YouTube will head in; for now this is just a test to gather feedback and study the results of the change. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/06/01/god-of-war-is-destroying-youtube-ign-daily-fix"] To check out if you’ve been included in YouTube’s experiment, why not head over to the IGN YouTube channel and see if the panel below a video has changed. Oh, and while you’re there, you may want to take a look at how IGN’s YouTube channel has changed to help you get the most of it. Or, for changes in games instead of YouTube, check out all the many hundreds of changes coming to Cyberpunk 2077 in patch 1.2. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

The Oculus Quest 2 has outsold every other Oculus headset combined. The news arrives as part of a Bloomberg video interview with Andrew Bosworth, VP of Augmented and Virtual Reality at Facebook. When asked about virtual reality hitting the mainstream, Bosworth said that it was "starting to happen right now," citing the Oculus Quest 2's sales indicating a shift from early adopters to mainstream success. "Oculus Quest 2, in just a few months on the market, has outsold not just its predecessor but all of its predecessors combined," Bosworth said. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=oculus-quest-2&captions=true"] The Oculus Quest 2 launched in October of 2020, which means it is currently only five months old. Regardless, the cheaper, wireless head-mounted display has already outsold all of its predecessors, including the Oculus Rift, Oculus Rift S, Oculus Go and the Oculus Quest. The Quest 2 launched and superseded its predecessor in technology with a higher refresh rate and resolution, but actually dropped the base price of the 64 GB device to $299, down from $399. This was certainly a move made by Facebook to make VR more accessible to mainstream users. Here's our review of the Oculus Quest 2, which we scored a 9, calling it "an amazing VR headset." Shortly after launch, we learned that users will lose all of their Oculus games if they delete their linked Facebook account.  [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Chinese police in the city of Kunshan have shut down a video games cheat operation that had amassed $76 million in revenue. The operation, called “Chicken Drumstick”, ran a website that sold cheats to players via subscriptions, according to a report from BBC. These subscriptions, which provided cheats for games such as Overwatch and Call of Duty Mobile, started at approximately $10 per day, and ran up to $200 per month. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2017/04/03/the-state-of-cheat-codes-game-scoop"] Kunshan police collaborated with Chinese gaming company Tencent to raid the Chicken Drumstick operation, where ten people were arrested and $46 million worth of assets were seized. Among the items seized were a number of luxury sports cars. Cheat manufacturing on an industrial scale has been a problem in gaming for a number of years, spanning from wall hacks for shooters to gold farms for MMOs. Kushan police believe Chicken Drumstick to be the “world’s biggest” cheating operation case because of the huge amount of money involved. The cheats offered by Chicken Drumstick - the sort used to give you an unfair advantage in PvP games - simply makes playing games worse for everyone. That’s not to say there are not acceptable cheats, though; games like GTA: San Andreas have developer-coded cheats built into the game to make things fun for the player. And if you’re stuck in a game and need to ‘cheat’ by looking up the answer, our IGN Game Help page probably has you covered. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. 

The Mortal Kombat movie is delayed a week after Warner Bros. announced the video game adaptation will now be released on April 23 instead of its original April 16 release date. HBO announced the date change in a press release sent to IGN but did not explain why the date was pushed back a week. The video game adaptation is set to premiere on both HBO Max and in theaters, as per WarnerMedia's strategy of releasing its entire 2021 movie slate in both formats. Directed by Simon McQuoid, Mortal Kombat is a new film adaptation of NetherRealm's popular fighting game series. The movie will include iconic characters like Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Liu Kang, and more as they compete in an otherworldly fighting tournament that will determine Earth's fate.

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During a press tour promoting the movie, director Simon McQuoid promised a true-to-series adaptation that aims to push the R-Rating to its limit without becoming "unreleasable." Each character will also be true to their video game counterparts, and this will be reflected in their introductions and fight scenes. McQuoid is a veteran commercial director who is making his feature film debut with Mortal Kombat. McQuoid previously directed a series of live-action commercials for PlayStation. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/19/mortal-kombat-movie-vs-game-characters-compared"] Meanwhile, WarnerMedia has released several films direct to HBO Max already including Wonder Woman 1984 and very soon Godzilla vs. Kong on March 31. You can check out IGN's Godzilla vs. Kong review here ahead of its HBO Max premiere. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor.

It's been over 100 days since Cyberpunk 2077 was removed from the PlayStation store, and CD Projekt says that it's all up to Sony as to when the game finally returns. In an investor Q&A call today, the game's removal was brought up by a shareholder, with CD Projekt saying that the studio was still patching the game in earnest -- but that ultimately, the decision to return it to the storefront was in Sony's hands. SVP of business development Michał Nowakowski specifically referenced the recent 1.2 patch, saying that each update brings the game closer to re-release on the PlayStation Store, but did not give a specific new timeline. "However, the final decision, you have to understand, belongs to Sony," he said. "We do believe we are closer...but of course the final call is theirs. So let's wait and see." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/18/cyberpunk-2077-being-removed-from-playstation-store"] Later on, this thought was reiterated, but CD Projekt also projected that whenever Sony opted to put the game back on the store, it would likely encourage buyers on other platforms -- resulting in a sales spike for the company. Cyberpunk 2077 was originally removed from sale on PlayStation consoles on December 17, 2020, following numerous performance issues that disproportionately impacted prior-gen consoles. CD Projekt had a number of other Cyberpunk-related announcements today as part of a strategy update presentation today, including plans to develop two AAA games (in The Witcher and Cyberpunk franchises) simultaneously beginning in 2022, promises of better marketing strategies, and an update (or delay, or cancellation) on the status of Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Scrubs' Donald Faison has been cast as Dr. Utonium in the live-action reboot of The Powerpuff Girls for The CW, which is now simply called Powerpuff. As reported by THR, Faison joins the cast that is led by Chloe Bennet, Dove Cameron, and Yana Perrault as Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, respectively. [caption id="attachment_2493973" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Donald Faison Image Credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images[/caption] This new Professor Drake Utonium is described as "the quirky, debonair and narcissistic scientific genius who is immensely proud of the three extraordinary girls he created in his lab. Staring down a midlife crisis, he is determined to repair his relationships with his now-adult daughters." The live-action reboot of Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls is set years after the events of the original and follows these three girls who are now "disillusioned twenty-something-year-olds" who resent the fact that they lost their childhoods to crime-fighting. The pilot for the show, which was ordered last month, is being written by Diablo Cody and Heather Regnier. Regnier worked on the Veronica Mars revival and iZombie, while Cody is perhaps best known for writing Juno, where she won the Academy Award for best original screenplay in 2008. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2016/02/11/the-powerpuff-girls-return-clip-i-am-not-a-princess"] Faison starred as Dr. Christopher Turk in all nine seasons of Scrubs that ran from 2001 to 2010. Faison is also known for his roles in Remember the Titans, Kick-Ass 2, Clueless, Waiting to Exhale, and much more. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com. Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Microsoft and Bang & Olufsen have revealed the Beoplay Portal Wireless Headphones for Xbox that cost $499 USD, which just so happens to be the same price as the Xbox Series X. These new high-end headphones are the first product for the Designed for Xbox Limited Series program, which Microsoft says "communicates how closely we have worked with our partners on each product to test quality, performance, safety, and security with all Xbox hardware experiences." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=designed-for-xbox-limited-series-bang-olufsen-beoplay-portal-headphones&captions=true"] Bang & Olufsen's headphones come in Black Anthracite, Grey Mist, and Navy Brass and are available for pre-order today. In the US and Canada, the Black headset is available for purchase today, March 30, while the Grey and Navy variants will ship in May. The Beoplay Portal headphones will be released globally from April 29, 2021. While they offer a "sophisticated aesthetic and can be used in any situation," they also offer easy access to gaming features like customized game/chat balance, mute, and volume on the headset itself or from the Bang & Olufsen audio app. They are made to easily connect to your Xbox Series X/S or Xbox One with lossless 2.4HGz Xbox Wireless connectivity, but they also are compatible with gaming PCs and mobile devices with Bluetooth 5.1 and aptX Adaptive. Charging only takes 3 hours, and the Beoplay Portal offers "12 hours of battery life when using Xbox Wireless, Bluetooth and active noise-cancellation, and 24 hours when only using Bluetooth and active-noise cancellation." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/15/xbox-wireless-headset-review"] Its virtual boom arm provides "reliable microphone performance without the intrusive design of a physical boom arm" that can amplify your voice while cancelling out background noise. The previously mentioned Bang & Olufsen app is available on iOS and Android phones and allows for user to "quickly swap between pre-set game modes, like RPG or FPS, adjust adaptive active noise-cancellation, mic monitoring, mic tone and game/chat balance." As far as design goes, the Beoplay Portal "combines Scandinavian design values with the world of gaming." Designed by Jakob Wagner in partnership with Bang & Olufsen's design team, these over-ear headphones feature lambskin ear cushions for great sound isolation and fully immersive audio. They also have calfskin leather on the exterior headband with bamboo fiber textile on the inside band, and the cushions on the top of the headband help prevent fatigue and head pain from long-use. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/12/13/essential-xbox-series-x-s-accessories"] These more expensive headphones give Xbox fans a new option to go alongside the more affordable Xbox Wireless Headset that was revealed earlier this month. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com. Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

"In a sense, it all started with Undertale," Chris Nordgren, a VFX artist and co-founder of Foreign Gnomes, tells me of music battler RPG Everhood. It's kind of the elephant in the room (or email, in this case) when I interview him about the game, which shares obvious, immediate visual similarities with Toby Fox's 2015 indie darling. That's on purpose. It's also not where the similarities end. "[Undertale is] a game that I’ve very much admired," Nordgren says. "But before I first played it, I admit that I looked down on Undertale because of its minimalist art direction. As a visual effects artist, it worked against my interests at the time, but that perception completely shattered when I actually started playing Undertale! [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/03/04/everhood-launch-trailer"] "We’re not afraid to say what’s inspired us. It was a deliberate choice to make our game share some aesthetic similarities with Undertale. Some people might say we did that too much—and maybe they’re right in a few instances—but we wouldn’t want to change anything. "The entire game is really compressed into great moments from other games. If you really scour every scene in Everhood, you’ll likely find a reference to another game, even if it looks completely different." [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=But%20before%20I%20first%20played%20it%2C%20I%20admit%20that%20I%20looked%20down%20on%20Undertale...but%20that%20perception%20completely%20shattered%20when%20I%20actually%20started%20playing."] It would do Everhood a massive disservice, however, to accuse it of being some kind of copy of Undertale. Having played it through to one of its multiple endings, it's more appropriate to call Everhood a response to Undertale, especially with regards to how the player interacts with the beings they encounter throughout the titular world. Without spoiling Everhood: you play as a puppet-like character who simply goes by Red. In the opening of the game, your arm is stolen from you by Blue Thief, and delivered to a greedy villain named Gold Pig. The first half of the game consists of you meeting the game's cast and seeing the sights while you try to get your arm back. The second half of Everhood gives you a very different goal -- one some players may not want to carry out. There are multiple possible ways to approach the second half of the game, and while they may be challenging to find, there are routes available for those who don't want to embrace the quest given to them. Nordgren says the team leaned heavily on playtesting to make sure people didn't feel entirely stuck. "But if a player decided to stop playing the game at that point, I think it creates a unique gaming experience in its own right," Nordgren continues. "That decision says a lot about the person who made it, and that’s really powerful." Another absolutely critical difference between Everhood and just about anything else is its battles. They take place on a screen not unlike a Guitar Hero song, with the enemy dancing along to the music just like they're playing a rhythm game. But the player is on the receiving end of those notes, and must dodge them in order to survive the encounter. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=It%E2%80%99s%20a%20musical%20game%20that%20isn%E2%80%99t%20outright%20tied%20to%20rhythm%2C%20it%E2%80%99s%20more%20like%20being%20in%20an%20interactive%20music%20video."] "It’s a musical game that isn’t outright tied to rhythm, it’s more like being in an interactive music video," Norgren describes, saying that making the battle system for Everhood was actually fairly easy. "Every time I listened to music, I would imagine it as a music video. I would make a mockup, send it to Jordi, and see if he could get the battle working." In fact, Everhood's music was composed before any of its game locations were designed, and he and fellow Foreign Gnomes co-founder Jordi Roca pieced together the context of these fights once the music was done. "The amazing artists that collaborated with us for Everhood usually created a certain piece of music that was planned to capture a theme or feeling and from there it was a matter of trying to fit it into the game. "When it came to a lot of the final battles, I took a different approach than the more freewheeling method I mentioned before. For the pivotal battles, the music was carefully composed and orchestrated to really deliver on specific story beats and twists!" Everhood is the first game that Nordgren and Roca have worked on together, and according to Nordgren (who also works at Mojang on games like Minecraft Dungeons), it came together in a bit of an unusual way. The story, he says, was largely improvised as he and Roca went along, for instance. "We just tried to create interesting scenes with the hope that we’d find the overarching story along the way. Sometimes it felt like I was being contacted by something divine that guided me towards what felt right. I’m sure a lot of creatives can relate to that feeling. "Everhood’s main theme became obvious to me somewhere during the middle of production. Once I had a sense of what everything was really about, I started to adjust details and point towards the bigger picture." Everhood is a strange, thoughtful experience. It asks players to consider carefully what it means to live, die, and kill within an RPG framework, and frequently interrupts the story with strange sequences where unseen beings ask the player to contemplate immortality and humanity. Though multiple sequences seem to call to mind specific philosophical traditions or schools of thought, Norgren says he had no specific ones in mind when he was making Everhood. Rather, he was very focused on the idea of an endless journey or quest. He says he wishes he was more educated on some of the individual schools of thought, but then counters, "That would also defeat the purpose somehow, wouldn't it?" "I think of it more like a journey to find what works for you. Everhood is a collage of ideas and in the end, it’s more in the eye of the beholder. Everhood’s message is that I am convinced the journey is something we should cherish." Everhood is out now on Steam and Nintendo Switch, though having played it I recommend players with any photosensitivity issues heed the warnings in the opening. Norgren confirms he and Roca are sending the game for photosensitivity tests, though, and plan to incorporate options to turn off certain effects. "Making sure that everyone can safely experience Everhood is a primary focus for us right now," he says. Beyond that, Norgren says he feels there may be more to explore in the world of Everhood, though he and Roca will need to experiment more before they can confirm anything new -- and if they make anything more, it will of course take time. For now, Norgren hopes those interested will play Everhood at their own pace. "I recommend not rushing through the game. Make sure to play Everhood when you feel ready!" [poilib element="accentDivider"] Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.