Sony has revealed that the PlayStation Plus games for October 2022 are Hot Wheels Unleashes, Injustice 2, and Superhot. Announced on the PlayStation Blog, all three titles will be available to download for all PlayStation Plus subscribers from October 4.

Hot Wheels Unleashed brings the zany, over-the-top driving action of Hot Wheels to the PS4 and PS5, with an arcade sim based on the Hot Wheels universe. Collect, build, and race your favorite Hot Wheels cars, then jump into split-screen two-player with a friend to face off with your newest vehicles.

There’s a 12-player online mode, too, not to mention the ability to create your own tracks and share them online for others to play.

IGN’s Hot Wheels Unleashed review gave the game 9/10 and said: “Fun, fast, and damn near photorealistic at times, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a surprising and brilliant arcade racer. Carefully detailed, highly customizable, and buoyantly uncynical, this toy racer defies all expectations with remarkable attention to detail, excellent track design, and an accessible handling model that still rewards high skill. The racing may be tiny but make no mistake: this game is enormous fun.”

Injustice 2

A fighting game from the makers of Mortal Kombat, Injustice 2 brings the heavy-hitting superheroes and villains from the DC universe to the PS4 for an action-packed beat-em-up. Following on from the original game, Injustice 2 continues its story, allowing players to jump in as Batman, Superman, and a number of other classic DC heroes and villains to take on a range of colorful foes.

The single-player campaign charts the struggle of Batman as he fights against Superman’s evil regime while online play lets you jump straight in and smash the faces of DC’s most iconic characters.

IGN’s Injustice 2 review gave the game 9/10 and said: “Injustice 2’s fights improve on Gods Among Us in nearly every way, specifically addressing fan concerns about movement speed and giving you new ways to burn meter. Visually, the DC roll call shines even as they star in a flat and unnecessarily grim story. The unrivaled amount of single-player content to explore, especially the highlight Multiverse mode, and the height of Injustice 2’s skill ceiling make it an easy environment in which to lose hours of your day without ever even challenging another human… or giant telekinetic gorilla, as it were.”

Superhot

A unique FPS that lets you slow down time, Superhot really has to be experienced. Blurring the lines between reality and gaming, Superhot puts you in the hot seat as a fictionalized version of yourself accessing a new leaked video game – superhot.exe.

Booting it up puts you in the hot seat, tasked with taking down oncoming waves of enemies by any means necessary. Grab a gun? Sure, that’s easy… but try taking out three men in slow-mo with only an ashtray. Superhot puts an innovative twist on the FPS formula, and will definitely leave you saying “Superhot is the most innovative shooter I've played in years!”

IGN’s Superhot review gave it 7.5/10 and said: “Superhot’s clever time-manipulation idea delivers consistently fulfilling challenges by turning blink-of-an-eye action into carefully considered and cautious tactical decisions. It avoids potential one-hit death frustration with quick respawns and deaths that always feel earned and avoidable in hindsight. Its unique brand of puzzles are complemented by simplistic but helpfully high-contrast art and sound design, yet undermined by a tedious, intrusive story and a reluctance to put new game-changing spins on its ideas to extend their lives.”

These three new games will be available on PlayStation Plus until October 31, while last month’s games, Need for Speed Heat, Granblue Fantasy: Versus, and Toem, will be available until October 3.

Check out our updated lists of all PS Plus Premium Catalogue Games and PlayStation Plus Classic Games Catalogue on IGN Playlist. You can use these lists to plan what to play next, create custom-ranked lists of your favorites, and track your backlog.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla has added all sorts of fascinating new details to this long-running franchise, even as it offers a very detailed look at 9th Century Viking culture. All of that is fueling Dark Horse's latest companion book, The World of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Journey to the North — Logs and Files of a Hidden One.

This 208-page art book is presented as an in-universe journal written from the point of view of Hytham, a character introduced in Assassin's Creed Valhalla as a tutor to the main character, Eivor. The book chronicles the lore and stories driving the plot of the game, serving as both an expansion of Valhalla's story and a look at the real history that inspired the game.

Here's dark Horse's official summary for the book:

This full-color, oversized hardcover is presented as a journal kept by Hytham himself, which allows readers to experience Assassin’s Creed Valhalla as they never have before. This tome chronicles Viking culture, history, lore, and mythology amid the action and drama of the hit video game.

Discover the history and culture of the Raven Clan Vikings as they struggle against the Order of the Ancients. Get an in-depth view of the setting of the game with descriptions and depictions of in-game characters and locals as the Vikings move from Norway to England, Ireland, and Francia. What best-kept secrets will you uncover at Hytham’s side?

The World of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Journey to the North — Logs and Files of a Hidden One will be offered in both standard and Deluxe Edition hardcover forms. The latter version includes a protective slipcase, unique cover art and a folio of art prints. The standard version is priced at $39.99 and the Deluxe Edition is priced at $99.99. Both versions will release on March 14, 2023 in bookstores and March 15 in comic shops.

Dark Horse has previously expanded on the world of Valhalla through both spinoff comics like Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Forgotten Myths and Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Song of Glory.

Ubisoft recently revealed Assassin's Creed Mirage, a game that promises to return to the franchise's roots with a smaller, more stealth-focused experience. You can preorder both the standard and deluxe edition versions now. Also be sure to check out IGN's guide to playing the entire Assassin's Creed series in order.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Cyberpunk 2077 has hit a huge sales milestone, as CD Projekt revealed the game has surpassed 20 million copies sold. The game originally launched in December 2020, meaning it took under two years for the game to reach the 20 millon mark.

Over 20 million cyberpunks have been roaming the streets of Night City – partying with Jackie and getting to know Johnny, driving around with Panam and diving with Judy, hanging out with River and listening to Kerry’s songs.

Thank you and we hope to see you all in the Afterlife! pic.twitter.com/ifFLhg6npO

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) September 28, 2022

We last got a Cyberpunk 2077 sales update in April, where we learned the game had sold 18 million copies. The game has sold 2 million additional copies since then, most likely thanks to a combination of the Cyberpunk Edgerunners Netflix anime and the announcement of Phantom Liberty, the game's first and only major DLC expansion.

This sales milestone is just the latest in a string of good news for Cyberpunk 2077, which is a refreshing change of pace after the game's disastrous launch. CD Projekt recently shared that over 1 million players jumped into Night City every day last week. Cyberpunk 2077 also hit its highest concurrent player count on Steam in over a year and a half earlier this month.

Twenty million is a large milestone that few games in history have reached, but it's almost even more notable for Cyberpunk, which was in such a rough state that Sony delisted the game from the PlayStation Store shortly after launch. Cyberpunk returned to the PlayStation store last summer, and it's been a much smoother ride since then.

If you can't get enough of Night City, check out our glowing review of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Or, for more on game sales, read up on the best-selling games of August 2022, including Spider-Man, Elden Ring, and Madden NFL 23.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Dead Space developers used diehard fans to help keep them on track. During a new blog post, creative director Roman Campos-Oriola revealed that the Dead Space remake devs consulted with their very own community council every six weeks.

“Really, really early in development, we started discussions with some members of the community who were identified by our team as diehard fans,” he revealed. “We met with them every six weeks, roughly, and we gave them full access to what we were doing.”

Why did they consult the fans? Well, it seems they wanted to get opinions on a variety of “polarizing” topics.

“Because we have our opinions, but that doesn’t mean we’re right!” said senior producer Philippe Ducharme. “There were a number of polarizing topics we wanted to get a gut-check on, so we gathered feedback from these groups to make informed decisions. A focus on community is one of the key pillars of this project, so we also took feedback from our livestreams, read through user reviews and Twitch comments—there was a lot of intake of information. It was all to understand who we’re addressing with this game, and what made Dead Space spectacular for them.”

The upcoming remake will re-tell the story of systems engineer Isaac Clarke – an unlucky spacefarer who ends up aboard the USG Ishimura, a ship overrun by deadly necromorphs before crew members managed to activate its distress beacon.

EA Motive is handling the remake, with a release date in January 2023.

“First, we honor the legacy,” said Ducharme. “We look at the original game with the utmost respect. So, the core foundations will remain the same. However, we are making several enhancements to the experience to make it enticing for both new players and returning ones.”

Despite this deep respect for the original game, original creator Glen Schofield isn’t part of the upcoming remake.

“I took [the announcement] as a compliment,” he said. “I still do take it as a compliment. I'm still kind of bummed about it too. There's this weird, weird thing, like you're not attached to your own game," Schofield told Game Informer. "It's a weird feeling. [...] They want to make a game better than the one you made.”

Still, it sounds as though the Dead Space remake is going to great lengths to recapture the magic of the original game.

“We want the fans of Dead Space to rediscover Dead Space as if for the first time,” said Campos-Oriola. “But with everything feeling familiar and recognizable. That’s something that’s really important to us.”

Want to read more about Dead Space? Check out every EA game currently in development as well as a deep dive into how Dead Space is being remade.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Skull & Bones, Ubisoft's pirate battler that's been in development limbo for years now, has been delayed yet again. This is the fifth time.

In a press release today, Ubisoft has given a new release date of March 9, 2023, allowing Skull & Bones to sneak in just ahead of the end of its financial year. The publisher explained in the release that while "game development is finished at this stage," the extra four months will be used to "further polish and balance the experience" following technical tests and Insider Program feedback from prior closed betas.

Skull & Bones' development has been a tumultuous ride. It was first revealed back at E3 2017, appearing at the time to be a riff off of the naval combat in Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. At the time, it was set to come out in fall of 2018, and focused on prior-gen consoles.

Its first delay was announced the following year, pushing Skull & Bones back to "2019-20". When it didn't surface for sometime after, reports suggested that it had been quietly rebooted. It was delayed a second time to 2020, and then again to 2021. In the meantime, further reports alleged a toxic work culture at developer Ubisoft Singapore amidst wider accusations of a hostile work environment company-wide.

Skull & Bones was later delayed into 2022-2023, and then given a November 8 release date, which is what we've expected up to now. We also learned earlier this month that it will be the first of Ubisoft's published games to retail at a $70 price point.

Assuming we don't get a sixth delay, Skull & Bones is coming to Xbox Series X and S, PS5, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, and PC, with Ubisoft+ users on PC, Stadia, and Luna getting the game day one as part of the service. Ubisoft will be holding an open beta sometime before release.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

Have you ever considered what Diglett might look like if it were a worm? Well, even if you haven't, tough luck because Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will introduce Wiglett.

Wiglett was revealed during the World Pokémon Ecological Society Webinar (via Serebii). “I’ve never seen a Pokémon quite like that one,” says the voiceover. “Could it be a Diglett? It resembles Diglett but its coloring is different. Could it be a regional form unique to Paldea?”

The new Pokémon looks a lot like Red and Blue's Diglett, but now in more elongated form. It's actually based on the common garden eel rather than a worm but, you know, it is called Wiglett.

Serebii Video: Footage of the new Pokémon, Wiglett, from the World Pokémon Ecological Society Webinar https://t.co/FlR3KE4POehttps://t.co/gDbXkHT3ar pic.twitter.com/RfhjVEqNgD

— Serebii.net (@SerebiiNet) September 28, 2022

“They must be an evolved form of Diglett,” says a second voiceover. “Instead of evolving into triplets like Dugtrio, they adapt to a marine environment with another form.”

“They do have certain anatomical similarities,” says the video voiceover. “Since their appearance is different to this extent, it must be a completely different species!” the video continues. “This is the first time we witness this Pokémon.” The voice then goes on to christen the Pokémon, “Wiglett”.

“Although they appear to be the Paldean form of Diglett, we’ve learned that they live and eat differently,” they go on to explain. That settles it – Wiglett is an entirely different type of Pokémon and definitely not a dodgy-looking Diglett.

“According to the research, it is said that it is a coincidence that they have similar bodies, as they both burrow in the ground and the sand,” they reveal.

Want to read more about Pokémon Scarlet and Violet? Check out Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s three main stories and get a look at the new starter Pokémon.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Over a year after Intel announced it would begin making graphics cards and delays, the CPU maker has officially announced that it will enter the desktop GPU market next month with its Arc A770 graphics card.

The Intel Arc A770 Limited Edition graphics card goes on sale Oct 12. #IntelOn Learn more: https://t.co/fGp9tB467k pic.twitter.com/PKKuXT3Eiv

— Intel News (@intelnews) September 27, 2022

Intel's Arc A770 features 16GB of GDDR6 memory, 32 Xe cores, a 21000MHz clock, and uses Intel's Xe graphical architecture. The A770 will also support XeSS, Intel's supersampling technology that will compete with AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and Nvidia's DLSS. Several games confirmed to support XeSS include Ghostwire: Tokyo, Death Stranding: Director's Cut, and Gotham Knights.

The Intel Arc A770 will be available beginning October 12 — the same day that Nvidia's new flagship GPU, the RTX 4090, will be available to consumers. Though the Arc A770 is not a GPU that Intel is touting will trade blows with Nvidia's forthcoming top-of-the-line GPU, it will serve as competition to Nvidia's more affordable GPUs, the RTX 3060 and RTX 3070.

"We've been seeing that for a long time the price of GPUs is right in this $200–$300 range, but what's happened in the last few years is that they've gotten super expensive," Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said. "You should be frustrated because you are losing out as the gaming community, and today we're fixing that."

Ahead of the Arc A770's release, Intel uploaded a video that offered a deep dive into the Arc A-Series and shared some benchmark results of the Arc A770 and RTX 3060. The benchmarks, as seen in the image below, show the Arc 770 outperforming the RTX 3060 in several games running at 1080p with ray tracing enabled. Of course, these benchmarks should be taken with a grain of salt until independent reviews of the Arc A770 are available.

Intel still has more GPUs in the Arc Alchemist line, such as the Arc A750, but the company has yet to share pricing or release dates for the rest of its first-generation Arc desktop graphics cards.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

With the 25th anniversary of Age of Empires fast approaching, Xbox Game Studios and Relic Entertainment have announced a special anniversary stream timed to roughly coincide with the big day.

Set for October 25 at 10am PT, the anniversary broadcast will feature announcements, interviews, and "some surprises." It will be hosted on Twitch along with the main Age of Empires and Xbox YouTube channels.

In addition, Xbox has announced a special Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition for Steam and the Microsoft Store. The new release will feature all of the previous updates along with the new Anniversary Update, which will include the Ottoman and Malian civilizations.

First released last year, Age of Empires IV is a major revival for the venerable RTS series. While it "plays it safe a bit too often" according to our review, it "really excels when it wanders outside of its very traditional comfort zone." The original series, meanwhile, got its start way back in 1997.

The stream will celebrate all of Age of Empire's long history while potentially including a few announcements. As for Age of Empires IV Anniversary Edition, it will also release on October 25 on Steam, Windows, and PC Game Pass.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

EA and Koei Tecmo have revealed that Wild Hearts, the Monster Hunter-like action game from the Dynasty Warriors developer, will arrive on February 17, 2023.

In a new trailer, we got our first real glimpse at the game coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC (with an extended gameplay reveal set for October 5). Set in Azuma – effectively a fantasy feudal Japan – teams of up to three players will take on "giant nature-infused beasts called Kemono", using a mixture of action combat and crafting to create outlandish contraptions.

We learned much more about those contraptions, the Monster Hunter comparisons, and why Koei teamed up with EA for Wild Hearts in our exclusive interview with Koei Tecmo directors Kotaro Hirata and Takuto Edagawa.

Wild Hearts can be played solo or in co-op, with crossplay across all platforms. Your player-character will be almost taken down by a winter wolf called Death Stalker, before being given access to "a life-sustaining technology and... compelled to restore balance across the region."

While the game will look immediately familiar to Monster Hunter fans (or fans of Omega Force's previous Monster Hunter-like series, Toukiden), its core innovation appears to be in the form of Karakuri, magically constructed structures that can aid your hunt.

The trailer shows the player constructuing Karakuri that act as platforms to leap on monsters from, building a giant hammer and bombs, and even spawning a handheld helicopter to glide. Multiple players can use Karakuri too, with one shot revealing players constructuing harpoons that hook a monster in place.

In a press release, Koei Tecmo executive vice president Yosuke Hayashi explained, "With Wild Hearts, not only did we want to showcase the evolution, infusion and real threat caused by Kemono, but we also wanted to create a game where crafting was at the core of the experience, redefining what can be possible in a beast hunting game. We have placed great care in designing our Karakuri to fit within the combat, and we’re excited for players to use these powerful mechanisms to fight giant beasts and traverse the world.”

Wild Hearts marks the latest entry in EA's Originals catalogue, which has typically been used to bring indie games to a wider audience. Other EA Originals include It Takes Two, Lost in Random, Unravel, and more.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Wild Hearts is EA and Koei Tecmo's answer to Monster Hunter, a familiar mixture of fantasy combat and gigantic boss beasts – with some less familiar magical building and trap-setting thrown in.

Out as soon as February 17, it's been a bit of a surprise for fans of both Omega Force and Monster Hunter-like games, and there's a lot still to learn, even after we got a look at the first trailer. Thankfully, we got an exclusive interview with two of Koei Tecmo's directors, Kotaro Hirata and Takuto Edagawa.

We asked why the Dynasty Warriors developer is making a new monster hunting game (again), whether it's an open world, if that building system is meant to resemble Fortnite, and much more.

IGN: Omega Force is best known for its Musou/Warriors games, but this looks like a big departure from that approach. What was the spark of an idea for Wild Hearts?

Kotaro Hirata: This project began as an attempt to create a Japanese-style hunting game that a new generation of players around the world could have fun with. It was informed by our experience developing hunting games, specifically the Toukiden series.

Our goal of creating a Japanese-style hunting game for a new generation remained consistent from start to finish, but making this core idea a reality was not something that happened overnight. One challenge we faced was creating something unique with universal appeal that would be accepted by players around the world. To achieve this, we went through several prototypes and trial and error over a very long period of time.

The ideas that formed the core of the project were Kemono, a fusion of nature and animals; and Karakuri, a craft element that was added specifically to suit the hunting elements of this game. We believe that Wild Hearts, born from these core ideas, is a hunting game that offers a new and innovative experience.

IGN: As you mention, this shares similarity with your previous work on the Toukiden series. Why did this feel like it needed to be a new IP, rather than a Toukiden sequel?

Takuto Edagawa: We wanted Wild Hearts to appeal to a more global audience than the Toukiden series. Certainly, as a Japanese-style hunting game, Wild Hearts has some things in common with Toukiden. However, the original aspects of Wild Hearts, such as what you are hunting, the battle system, the world setting, and the visual presentation, are different from Toukiden.

IGN: Can you explain the building system we're shown in the trailer? Are you solely creating hunting tools, or can you build structures as in the likes of Fortnite?

KH: Players hunt using a type of crafting called Karakuri, an ancient technology that allows for the creation of extremely flexible and creative hunting grounds to take on powerful beasts. Karakuri can range from types that can be built instantly during battle, to some that can be combined to create new Karakuri, and also types that are used to build hunting grounds by utilizing many different materials.

Karakuri expand the freedom and possibilities of hunting combat and exploration in this game, so it differs from the direction of crafting in Fortnite which allows for the creation of huge structures.

IGN: One thing that's less clear from the trailer is the combat system. Will this have the looser, more free-flowing combat of Musou games, or is this closer to the heaviness and necessary precision of Monster Hunter?

KH: Wild Hearts features a combat system that combines a variety of highly flexible actions with deep combat against Kemono.

Players can not only perform dashing, jumping, grappling, sliding, and other actions required in today's action games, but they can further enhance the performance of their actions by making full use of the Karakuri system. On the other hand, Kemono, which are a fusion of nature and animals, can hunt players down with a wide variety of attacks that real animals can't perform.

In Wild Hearts, players will experience a new kind of combat that is different from that of the Warriors series or hunting titles we've seen before.

IGN: Is this an open world game, or is the world divided into zones?

TE: Wild Hearts uses a zone-based system, which we believe has significant advantages in a hunting game in which the player repeatedly hunts. Each separated zone is a large area and players can reach almost any point in a zone using Karakuri, so it is possible to enjoy it like an open world game in which you actively explore the world.

IGN: Why did you opt for 3-player co-op as a maximum?

TE: Originally, we considered having four players for cooperative play. However, during development, we realized that due to the power of the Karakuri, three player combat provides the best balance for maintaining a sense of tension and cooperative combat. We also took into consideration the fact that it's easier to gather together three players.

IGN: Is this Omega Force's first game that felt impossible to make on last-gen consoles? What has it taught you about creating games for new-gen that you'll take into future projects?

KH: We believe that the fantastic and unique worldview inspired by feudal Japan is one of the key aspects of Wild Hearts. In order to make the world more compelling, we felt it was necessary to maximize the performance of the current platforms.

Specifically, we have improved the atmosphere by incorporating more accurate indirect light and increased density by placing higher resolution fields, Kemono, and objects in the game.

With Wild Hearts, we embraced the challenge of using new technology. We hope that players will use Karakuri to freely move around in the colorful and expansive world that we have created.

IGN: Koei Tecmo self-publishes most of its studios' work. Why did EA become involved in this project?

KH: We wanted to create a hunting game that would be enjoyed by players around the world. EA is not only very strong in international publishing, but they have contributed a great deal to Wild Hearts with their wealth of experience, and they are truly committed to ensuring that our game reaches a global audience.

IGN: Wild Hearts was only announced this month, yet is out in February. How long has the team been working on Wild Hearts, and why was it kept secret for so long?

KH: If we start counting from the conception and planning stages, we have been working on Wild Hearts for four years. We have wanted to tell players about this game for a long time, but we thought that the shorter the time was between announcement and release, the less time players would have to wait and the more interested they would be in playing the game.

IGN: Is this a conscious attempt to appeal to a more mainstream western audience?

TE: We are very conscious of the fact that we want more people in the West to play our games, and we have received a lot of feedback from EA from a Western perspective on many details, which helps us know where to adjust the game.

However, in terms of basic design, we are not overly conscious of focusing just on a Western audience, and as a Japanese developer, we try to create something we think is fun. EA is of the same opinion and really respects our creativity.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.