Author Archives: Ryan McCaffrey

Tainted Grail, the board game that burst onto the scene as 2018’s biggest Kickstarter campaign, is now aiming even higher. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is a first-person, open-world RPG that aims to release into Steam Early Access in Q4 2022. Get a look at the tone and vibe of the game in the new cinematic trailer at the top of this page.

Polish fantasy writer Krzysztof Piskorski created Tainted Grail, which took its first stab at video game success with 2020’s Tainted Grail: Conquest, a deck-building roguelike. The Awaken Realms development team describes the world of Tainted Grail as a “gritty, unique retelling of Arthurian legends — an epic dark fantasy setting in which humans arrived at the island of Avalon in search of paradise, only to find a hellish land tainted by the Wyrdness — a mysterious force warping the reality.”

The Fall of Avalon promises a dark storyline, ample player freedom, complex quests, player choices that are “respected,” and plenty of monsters to slay.

More concrete gameplay features on tap include a unique magic system, multiple crafting systems, skill-based combat with the usual and welcome fantasy trifecta of melee weapons, ranged weapons, and magic, as well as memorable and plentiful NPCs. Wishlist Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon on Steam.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

The Halo caretakers and developers at 343 Industries are making a major piece of lost Halo history playable: the infamous Halo 2 E3 2003 campaign demo that never made it into the final game. We react to this fantastic surprise and recall the Halo 2 hype from that time. Plus: a plea for proper, native Xbox Game Pass support on the Steam Deck, our thoughts on the potential Apex Legends Universe single-player game that Respawn might be making (aka Titanfall 3?), our reaction to the long-awaited gameplay reveal of Skull & Bones, and more!

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, to our YouTube channel, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out our recent interview with Todd Howard, who answered all of our Starfield questions after the big reveal at the Xbox Showcase:

For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere. The fighters on the North African front in Company of Heroes 3 seem inclined to agree with me. A far cry from the breezy, blooming Italian beaches we saw in IGN’s last preview, the other side of the Mediterranean theater is parched, oppressive, and sparsely-settled. It takes a rugged army with the ability to keep the tank treads running in far less than ideal conditions to succeed here. And the new Deutsch Afrika Korps – who will also be playable in multiplayer as a separate roster from the already revealed German Wehrmacht – are up to the task.

The mission I got to play involves breaking through British lines and capturing a nearby town in order to cut off their retreat. This is part of a linear Axis campaign set during the earlier years of the war that will serve to complement the open-ended, Total War-esque Allied campaign in Italy that I looked at last year. While it certainly added to the workload, Relic wanted to provide a single-player experience more geared toward fans of old-school RTS campaigns, who are more interested in the tactical battles than managing a whole theater on the strategic level.

The DAK seems designed almost as a direct counterpoint to the polished, precise, carefully-orchestrated Wehrmacht. If the German forces in Italy are an expensive pocket watch, the North African troops are a potato clock you put together with whatever was on hand and you’re hoping it will still run after you’ve dragged it through a couple of sand dunes and maybe an artillery barrage. They’re well-adapted to the harsh conditions they’ve been forced to fight in, and have a strong focus on improvised tactics and getting battered armor back into the fight.

Do It Yourself

This battle philosophy is exemplified by the fact that even basic DAK infantry have the ability to repair vehicles. They’re much slower at it than a dedicated engineer squad, using whatever scrap, spit, and tape happens to be lying around. But I found it particularly useful if I just needed to keep a Panzer III topped up on health between enemy waves, or an ambush by anti-tank infantry required some emergency maintenance when I didn’t have anyone truly qualified nearby. DAK infantry can also ride tanks into battle, which is an excellent mobility option that doesn’t rely on vulnerable trucks or halftracks, and allows you to bring a repair squad with you wherever you go.

They also get access to a dedicated repair truck, which is lightly armored but can fix up other vehicles very quickly and even salvage destroyed friendly or enemy equipment right from the battlefield. I found this very useful for creating mobile repair areas just behind my lines, where I could use a cliff or ridge to stay out of the enemy line of fire.

The other new friend joining this battle was the hulking 88mm anti-tank gun, which is so big that it requires a truck to tow it into position. This absolute unit, if positioned well, is like a delete key for enemy tanks. Even in a head-on charge, with their heavy frontal armor protecting them, they just melt when this thing gets going. And with good spotting, it can fire at what feel like almost absurd ranges. But due to how cumbersome it is and how long it takes to set up, supporting it with more maneuverable troops is essential. And it has almost no chance to survive if it gets flanked, or if enemies get inside its minimum range. Overall, I hope to see more towed big guns like this, as it adds an interesting new dynamic of escalation, risk versus reward, and map control to the Company of Heroes formula.

Castles in the Sand

The whole vibe of fighting through North Africa is also utterly different from the missions I played last time. As the Allies in Italy, you’re sneaking through lush vineyards and blasting apart beautiful Renaissance churches, quite literally destroying the past to save the future. There’s a persistent sense of melancholy as you think about the fact that these places would all be spectacular vacation spots if there weren’t a horrible war going on. Out here on the baking dunes, there’s always a sense that this is a hostile land which doesn’t want you around. I’m a little bit disappointed that the sand and heat don’t actually affect your units – I think I was in the minority in that I really enjoyed the weather system and having to keep my units from freezing in Company of Heroes 2. But the lighting and architecture definitely tell a rich story.

My first task was to break through a British trench line, which I did somewhat ahistorically by Tokyo drifting my tanks around to take advantage of the new directional armor system as much as possible. COH 3’s tactical pause even lets you choreograph maneuvers worthy of a Fast and the Furious climax scene. With the DAK’s talent for getting battered panzers back onto the front line quickly, you can afford to take more risks with even some pretty expensive units.

The next phase has you set up the chonky 88mm, but also highlights its weaknesses when enemy artillery zeroes in on you and you’re forced to reposition it in the middle of a battle. Smaller, more agile field guns can be told to manually attack any spot of ground in their range even without vision, so merely letting your enemy get a quick peek at where your 88 is deployed can put it in great danger. I can see this leading to scouting and scout-hunting becoming a lot more important, especially in multiplayer.

You Shall Not Pass

The final phase of the mission gave me a very short amount of time to set up a defensive line in the town to stop the full-speed British retreat. Their units barely stopped to engage me here, so it was really a matter of having enough firepower to make sure no one slipped through. On my first try, a couple infantry units made it past me while my big guns focused on the enemy armor and trucks, reinforcing that what looks like a formidable defensive line can be quite porous if you don’t supplement it with a few machine guns or regular infantry posted up in a window.

It’s certainly ambitious to include two, very different single-player campaigns in Company of Heroes 3, covering a large swathe of the Mediterranean theater and entirely different eras of the war. The developers told me they obviously have had to think carefully about how to balance these factions when, for instance, the DAK is years behind the other three technologically. In multiplayer, the remaining playable armies represent the German, British, and American forces from later in the war. The idea is that they should be able to hold their own and succeed on any map, though, and won’t be tuned to excel specifically in the desert at the expense of other environments.

If you don’t want to take my word for it, though, you can try out the mission yourself starting today and running through July 19th!

Marauders, the upcoming PvPvE loot-and-raid sci-fi first-person shooter that combines on-foot FPS gameplay and spaceship dogfighting, is heading into a closed beta session next week.

From July 20-25, anyone who preorders Marauders will be able to participate in the closed beta on Steam. Developer Small Impact Games and publisher Team17 say that the closed beta will add two new Raid locations since the closed alpha a couple months ago: Merchant Ship, which they describe as “an expansive, breach-able frigate perfect for intimate and long-range firefights” and Terraformer, a “newly abandoned agricultural hub built on top of an asteroid shard.”

We previewed Marauders during the closed alpha recently and came away impressed with the core gameplay loop. The closed beta will add a number of improvements made since the alpha, including the addition of the Heavy Thompson and the Klobb Machine Pistol weapons, as well as the ‘Scrap Bomb’ heavy explosive and “numerous quality-of-life improvements such a ‘Quick Loot’ option and foldable bags for economic inventory management.”

Marauders will launch into Steam Early Access and Game Preview via PC Game Pass later in 2022.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

The new LEGO Loop Coaster is a massive thrill ride with a vertical, 90-degree drop and two inversions. It is the latest entry in LEGO’s “Fairground” collection, and it is an impressive spectacle, either as a singular centerpiece or as a beloved addition to a growing LEGO amusement park.

LEGO offers smaller amusement park builds through its LEGO City branding, but the Fairground-branded rides are adult builds that lean heavily on ingenuity. I have three prior builds in the collection: the Ferris Wheel (2015); the Carousel (2017), and the original Roller Coaster (2018), inspired by the Coney Island Cyclone. They’re beautiful, but my enjoyment of them is enhanced by the knowledge of how they work—of how this gear turns that rod, which turns the chain lift and the wheels that line the track, which allows the Roller Coaster cars to pick up speed.

It’s the knowledge of how the Carousel animals roll on a secret track above the ride, and crooked LEGO technic rods allow animals to “gallop” up and down. An outside observer sees the pretty final product. But a builder sees, up close and personal, what must have been an exhausting exercise in trial-and-error. A builder sees a mechanism that:

1. Creates the desired visual effect
2. Is hidden or integrated enough to be seamless and not call attention to itself
3. Is consistent and functional 100% of the time

The 2018 Roller Coaster fulfilled all three qualities. Its cars left the load station, ascended, ran the entire track, rolled back into the station, and repeated these functions: fluidly, seamlessly, and indefinitely. The new 2022 Loop Coaster also demands all this, plus a new complication: two large, inverted loops.

To gain the necessary acceleration and velocity to make both loops, the Loop Coaster would have to be tall—at least 3 feet. And therein lay the problem: how to get the roller coaster cars from the bottom of the ride to the top of it, both quickly and efficiently. A classic chain lift hill would get the job done, but would add hundreds of redundant pieces to a 3500+ piece build. A 3-foot-tall, reinforced incline is a building project unto itself, and it’s not a very fun one.

So, the designers eliminated the hill entirely and replaced it instead with an elevator mechanism. It lifts the coaster cars, via a small section of track, to the top of the ride. The coaster cars slide off the elevator and begin their looping descent. And while this is going on, the lift lowers back down to the bottom of the ride—in time to catch the cars after they’ve completed their run—and sends them back up. Again, and again, and again.

When I first saw the trailer for this set, I wondered how the elevator would work. Would I turn the crank clockwise to send it up, and then counter-clockwise to send it back down? It didn’t seem possible to accomplish both whilst turning the crank in a single direction. But the LEGO designers managed it by using different sized links on a single chain. The larger ones “catch” the elevator and send it up. And then the smaller ones release the elevator, and gravity does the rest.

The Loop Coaster has a cool blue and yellow color scheme, a departure from the more whimsical coloring of the prior rides in the Fairground series. The coaster is space-themed, and decorated with stars and a sci-fi entranceway The ride is loaded with the minute detail that these advanced sets are known for. There’s a red, helium balloon that’s floated away in the area over the line queue. There’s a tiny ladybug crawling along the footpath. There’s a squirrel next to the park bench. There’s a height requirement ruler to prevent little minifigures from boarding the ride. There’s a candid camera attached to the track near the inversion, and there’s corresponding television monitors in the line queue which show the minifigures’ terrified faces. And there’s more.

The set includes eleven mini-figures—10 adults and 1 child. Of these, 4 of the adults are employees—a ride operator, a balloon busker, a hot dog man, and a pretzel lady. The latter three each come with their own concession stand. The hot dog stand is especially cute, using minimal pieces to create the impression of ketchup and mustard bottles and an open grill.

I’d strongly recommend getting a corresponding motor (sold separately) to turn the gears. You can crank it manually, but it’s much nicer to stand back and enjoy the experience than constantly run it. This build is micro-oriented, but more than worth the effort it takes to build it. And the elevator is better seen than described; you’re assembling this complex mesh of weights, counterweights, gears, and lifts, and it isn’t until the last possible moment that you realize how it all fits and works together. You surprise yourself.

The LEGO Loop Coaster, Set #10303, retails for $399.99. It is composed of 3756 pieces and was designed by a team led by Senior LEGO Designer Pierre Normandin. It is available now.