When Buy Now first revealed its party of four main characters, players wondered if they would get to control all four. While the main game required players to control Noctis, the other three characters wouldn’t become playable until their respective DLC. In just a few weeks, a new update will bring character swapping to the main game.
During an Active Time Report stream (via Polygon) Square Enix celebrated the anniversary of Final Fantasy XV and discussed what is to come in the future. One of the major reveals during the broadcast was an upcoming update that would bring a new character-swap feature to the game. Players will be able to switch between Noctis, Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto on the fly. There are a few story-based restrictions, like the Leviathan battle, where players will have to play as Noctis. Each party member will control as they do in their DLC packs.
The other big reveal from the stream was that next month’s Episode Ignis won’t be the last story-based add-on for Final Fantasy XV. In fact, director Hajime Tabata says players should expect up to three additional episodes in 2018. One will supposedly focus on Ardyn Izunia.
For anyone who bailed on Final Fantasy XV when it first came out, now is a perfect opportunity to dive back in. Our review wasn’t favorable toward its story or combat, but numerous updates throughout the year have improved the experience, such as fixing some of the issues in the story.
Character swapping is set to release alongside Episode Ignis on December 13 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The PC version of Final Fantasy XV is still expected to release sometime next year.
If that is still not enough Final Fantasy, PlayStation VR owners should check out Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV. While it may be a fishing game in virtual reality, it packs a surprising amount of fun. Each level ends with a boss fight that begins after catching a certain weight of fish. In these fights, the fishing rod is swapped with a crossbow, until their health is low enough to reel them in.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.