Diablo 4 Fans Once Again Call for Offline Mode After DDoS Attack Renders Game Unplayable for Hours

Blizzard spent much of Sunday battling a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that rendered Diablo 4 unplayable for hours.

Players began to report issues signing into the always-online action role-playing game as well as other Battle.net games on Saturday night, and login problems persisted into Sunday morning. Blizzard’s customer support Twitter account revealed the source of the problem: a DDoS attack it was “actively working to mitigate”.

The issue was so bad a warning message was added to Battle.net itself. It wasn’t until Sunday evening the same Twitter account declared the DDoS attack over, although it did not specify whether Blizzard mitigated the attack, the people behind the attack simply stopped their action, or a combination of both.

Whomever DDoS #Diablo4 you are garbage people. You are what is wrong with this world and gaming Community. pic.twitter.com/44zk63YobO

— Paul - Twitch UrbanPharaoh / YouTube Pharaoh TV (@Pharaoh_tv) June 25, 2023

As you'd expect, fans expressed their frustration across social media and in online forums. “Over 12 hours for me,” wrote redditor LethalBacon. “Was hoping to play a few hours on a Saturday night after working ~10 hours. Nope. No worries, it'll be up Sunday morning! Nope. S**t happens, but it's frustrating.”

While DDoS attacks like this one can strike any developer and any video game at any time, it is a stark reminder of Blizzard’s controversial decision to make Diablo 4 an always-online game, and has sparked renewed calls for the addition of an offline mode. Diablo 4 has been rendered unplayable due to login issues multiple times since its launch earlier in June, with disconnections and other problems causing the tragic death of Hardcore characters as they approach or hit the level cap of 100.

“The problem is this wouldn't be a problem if the game had a f**king single-player mode that didn't require an internet connection,” redditor Astray said. “Always-online video games are terrible for a multitude of reasons.”

Diablo 4 features lite-MMO elements that enable player-versus-player combat, shared social spaces and party-based dungeon crawling. Blizzard has said it is a big fan of these elements, and encourages occasional unplanned interactions between players.

Earlier in June, the first Diablo 4 player to hit Level 100 in Hardcore mode was left speechless after his character was lost forever following a disconnect. Then, last week, a Diablo 4 player flew into a rage after his 172-hour, level 91 Hardcore character died during a loading screen.

Diablo 4 launched big, becoming Blizzard’s fastest-selling game ever. It is also a hit with critics, and, generally, has gone down well with fans. However, the cost of Diablo 4’s microtransactions has raised eyebrows, and, surprisingly, Whoopi Goldberg called on Blizzard to release Diablo 4 on Mac.

Check out our interactive Diablo 4 map to start tracking your progress as you play.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

42 Times Final Fantasy 16 Is Just Game of Thrones

Warning: full spoilers follow for both Final Fantasy 16 and Game of Thrones.

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has made no secret about drawing inspiration from Game of Thrones for the latest epic in the long-running RPG series, but the influence of A Song of Ice and Fire goes way beyond its gritty mediaeval setting and regional British accents. At some points the similarities are as heavy-handed as Ramsey Bolton’s approach to Theon’s special area.

So, let’s take a look at the many characters, plot points, and locations in Final Fantasy 16 that feel less like they took inspiration from Game of Thrones and more like George R.R. Martin warged directly into the minds of the team at Square Enix. Full warning, we are going to be covering the entirety of Final Fantasy 16, right up to the finale, so there will be extremely big spoilers. There will naturally be a fair few for Game of Thrones, too, so now is your chance to back out if you need to.

Clive Rosfield Is Basically Jon Snow

With his unkempt dark hair, determined demeanour, and loyal hound by his side, it’s immediately clear that Final Fantasy 16’s protagonist, Clive, has a passing resemblance to Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow. But as Clive’s character develops it becomes increasingly clear that there’s a lot of overlap between the two. Both are the black sheep of a highborn family, are forced into servitude, and have a link to fire-breathing monsters. Flick through the gallery below to see just how many of Clive’s character traits are shared with Jon Snow.

Joshua Rosfield Is Basically Brandon Stark

Much like Jon, Clive has a younger brother who grows into one of the most vital keys to saving humanity from the looming apocalypse. Similar to Brandon Stark, Joshua is pushed to the sidelines for many of the story’s early chapters, but when his importance is made apparent he becomes one of the plot’s most important figures. The two characters are also united by the fact that they share a significant link with mythical birds; Joshua is the Dominant of the Phoenix, while Bran becomes the Three-Eyed Raven. Take a look at the gallery for more details on how Joshua and Bran are alike.

Elwin and Anabella Rosfield Are Basically Ned and Catelyn Stark

With Clive and Joshua sharing much in common with two of the Stark children, it’ll likely come of little surprise to learn that there’s parallels between the Rosfield and Stark parents, too. Elwin Rosfield, head of the house and leader of the Grand Duchy of Rosaria, is a lot like Eddard Stark, including being the person who has to die to kick the story off. His wife Anabella, meanwhile, is a little like Catelyn Stark, although she also has traits seemingly drawn from Cat’s sister, Lysa Arryn, and Cersei Lannister.

Jill Warrick Is Basically Theon Greyjoy

Clive’s companion and love interest, Jill Warrick, also appears to be heavily inspired by a Game of Thrones character. While her personality and general approach feels largely original for Final Fantasy 16, her backstory is very reminiscent of Theon Greyjoy. A political prisoner that grew up in a family and land far away from her own, Jill is also forced to endure horrible hardships as an adult. It’s an echo of Theon’s own dark, complicated tale.

Clive’s Companions Are a Lot Like Hodor, Daenerys, Ghost, and More

The Rosfield family are where the most significant parallels between Final Fantasy 16 and Game of Thrones can be found, but they are far from the only places where the series’ influence is felt. Many of the supporting cast share traits with Game of Thrones characters, ranging from small details to clear homages.

The World of Valisthea Is Basically Westeros

It’s not just the characters that bear a resemblance to the world of Ice and Fire, though. The actual landscape of Valisthea feels a little more than familiar; much like George R.R. Martin’s The Known World, Final Fantasy 16’s story primarily takes place across two continents, one of which is locked in a long and difficult conflict between many houses. Many of the towns and landmarks in this world also echo places from Game of Thrones, either through their physical appearance or their purpose.

The Villain Is Almost Just The Night King

Many of Final Fantasy 16’s characters and concepts are not as directly inspired by Game of Thrones as those detailed above. However, there are plenty of ideas from the books and show that make their way into Final Fantasy 16 and act as one small part of an otherwise more original character or plotline. For example, an apocalyptic evil that overshadows the power struggles of mortal men is a major element in the story of Valisthea. It's an idea that stops short of just being The Night King, but still certainly has similarities. Then there's wider concepts, such as the quest to bring an end to slavery. Look through the gallery to learn about these in more detail.

That’s everything we spotted, but there’s likely dozens more. Tell us any Game of Thrones details you noticed in Final Fantasy 16 in the comments below.

Dave The Diver Review

Just like an actual ocean, Dave The Diver is beautiful at first glance, but then you dive into it to find a vast, wonderful world to explore just beneath the surface. This waterlogged adventure manages to exceed the expectations of an already hilarious premise with some of the most irresistible exploration, sim management, and minigames I’ve seen in a long time, and which kept me completely glued to my seat for far more hours than I’d ever intended. With characters and a story that are deceptively substantial and more content packed into it than I could have anticipated, Dave The Diver never stopped surprising me. If you would have told me that one of the best games I’d play this year, standing alongside juggernauts with mega-million-dollar budgets, would end up being a retro indie RPG where you play as an obese SCUBA diver who runs a sushi shop…I would have believed you, actually. That sounds awesome. And it is.

Dave The Diver’s story focuses on a loveable group of coworkers turned friends who open a sushi bar near the mysterious Blue Hole: a seemingly magical stretch of water known to change its terrain and aquatic ecosystem every day. You play as the titular Dave himself, a rotund, soda-chugging diver who begrudgingly caters to the whims of everyone in his life, including the occasional bossy sea creature. What follows is an endearingly silly tale involving a secret society of merfolk, some really aggressive wildlife-protection enthusiasts, and dozens of people making very rude comments about your character’s weight.

But while it comes off a bit shallow at first, the story shockingly develops into something more substantial, with characters that are far more complex than their pixelated faces initially suggest. Even after more than 30 hours I still find myself eager to spend time with the likes of Bancho, the stoic, fearless sushi chef, and Duff, the anime-obsessed, neck-bearded gunsmith. It certainly helps that many characters are given extremely amusing and memorable cutscenes every time you interact with them, like one where Bancho traumatizes a fish with his knife-sharpening skills or where Duff elegantly dives into a swimming pool to test out a newly crafted weapon. I’ve seen them all dozens of times at this point, and yet I refuse to skip them – they’re just that good.

I refuse to skip cutscenes – they’re just that good. 

But this is not just an amusing adventure RPG; it comes with a surprisingly deep restaurant-management sim baked into it. You’ll split your time between diving into the dangerous depths of the Blue Hole to hunt for fish and supplies, battle wet foes, and complete quests while also managing a sushi shop by crafting recipes, cooking, hiring and training employees, and dealing with an extremely fussy clientele.

Diving into the Blue Hole is where the literal and figurative meat of the adventure happens: you’ll use a harpoon, guns, and nets to capture and kill fish to be turned into sushi, and explore ever deeper, inevitably leading to action-packed confrontations with aggressive sharks, navigating ancient ruins filled with simple puzzles, and fighting off over-the-top bosses like a massive hermit crab using a monster truck as a shell. Tracking down and collecting all manner of sea life is a compelling and Zen-like game of hide and seek where you’re rewarded for bringing your quarry down with as little brute force as possible by mastering Dave The Diver’s simple but satisfying combat.

Swimming around with guns blazing like a savage brute will get the job done quickly, but your shoddy work yields minimal usable resources for your restaurant. Using your harpoon – or better yet, nets or tranquilizer darts – to bring fish in alive is much more beneficial, but trickier. That tradeoff gives you plenty of ways to succeed, depending on your preference and what you think you can pull off with the tools you’re given.

Shoddy work yields minimal usable resources for your restaurant.

Sometimes you’ll get swarmed by a whole school of small, hungry biters, while other times a lone narwhal will come barreling at you to impale you on its spiral tusk; you never know what vicious wildlife lurks in the Blue Hole’s depths. Dodging out of the way and fighting back is usually easy enough, so long as you aren’t an overburdened sitting duck, but mastering the angles, navigating the environment, and choosing which weapon to bring with you (you only get one per dive) will significantly impact your options.

You might prefer an awesome long-range sniper rifle that does high damage but has extremely limited ammo, or you might prefer to get up close and personal with your prey using a shotgun that requires less of that overrated aiming. Or, if you’re feeling particularly brave, you might try to bring down your enemies with a tranquilizer dart gun and extract a giant shark to your boat while it snoozes for a few moments – a tall order that requires some serious finesse and can get you killed fast. There’s lots of different ways to play, and although it always amounts to the same pattern of dodging, shooting, and swimming away from your pursuer, it allows for quite a bit of creativity and usually leads to some pretty amusing hijinks.

Fighting silly, enormous bosses and solving simple press-that-switch-to-open-the-path puzzles offers a nice change of pace from spearfishing, even if both are too easy to provide any kind of meaningful challenge (and no difficulty options are available to bump it up). There’s definitely some very cool novelty in taking down a giant squid at the bottom of the ocean, but since nearly every boss can be killed (very quickly) by learning their pattern and hitting them three times, the break from the norm is usually short-lived. Similarly, while the plot developments that are usually involved in story-heavy puzzle sections are usually worth the trouble, the actual puzzles are mostly effortless busywork, like a few sections where you redirect beams of light off of mirrors but the solutions become obvious literally the moment you see them.

It creates a loop that is truly hard to walk away from.

In between dives you’ll make worthwhile upgrades to your gear that make your excursions more profitable and improve your combat effectiveness. There are tons of useful stuff like making your oxygen tank bigger, refining your swimsuit so you can dive deeper, increasing your inventory space, and crafting and upgrading your weapons to deal more damage and apply status effects like poison and, nonsensically, fire to your underwater foes. All of these require increasing quantities of resources generated by capturing fish and driving up profits from your sushi business, and it creates a loop that is truly hard to walk away from. I can’t tell you how many times I promised myself “One more dive,” before then rationalizing to myself, “Well, I gotta wrap up the day at the sushi stop, then I’ll stop,” then repeating those empty promises for hours on end.

Throughout all of your exploration you’ll need to keep a close eye on your oxygen tank, which smartly doubles as your life bar and your carry load limiter, drastically slowing you down when you bag too many fish and other treasures to easily carry back to the surface. Early on, that meant I often found quite a bit of challenge when faced with fish of prey, as one or two false moves could leave my oxygen nearly depleted as I desperately tried to get to the surface in time. Meanwhile, my greed for rare fish and supplies often forced my encumbrance beyond my maximum, leaving me sluggishly floundering around and jeopardizing my entire run – being spotted by a giant shark while over-encumbered is always a bit dicey.

When you run out of oxygen you don’t actually drown, but you return to the surface with only a single measly item from your haul that you are allowed to choose to take with you. This makes failure quite high-stakes – especially since you (annoyingly) can’t save in the middle of runs, which could mean you lose a half hour of progress with a single death due to some rookie mistake you should have known better than to make. The limitations of your oxygen tank and carry load also ensure that you’ll regularly need to emerge from your watery paradise, but that’s not annoying at all because it leads to interactions with the other fantastic half of Dave The Diver’s world: restaurant management.

Like a true spreadsheet lover’s dream, running an exotic sushi bar requires you to master numerous disciplines like gathering materials, hiring and training your staff, nurturing both an agricultural and a fish farm, learning recipes and upgrading your menu, and more. Watching sales charts climb and building a better business is a dopamine hit that kept me up late into the night and repeatedly drove me back into the ocean to collect ingredients, especially once the complexity of my business swelled to insane proportions when my success required me to open a branch location. The bonkers amount of depth and planning that goes into preparing for a single night of slinging sushi awoke my inner entrepreneur like few games have. Wait, should I open a sushi bar in real life? Oh, my God! Are we really doing this?!

Dave The Diver nearly constantly keeps throwing new, ridiculous stuff at you.

Perhaps Dave The Diver’s best quality, though, is in how it nearly constantly keeps throwing new, ridiculous stuff at you. As if spearfishing and restaurant management weren’t enough on their own, you’ll also get into gambling, aquatic photography, seahorse racing, raising a Tamagatchi-inspired digital pet, concertgoing rhythm games, and at least 20 other absurd things I wouldn’t want to spoil. Whether you’re exploring the Blue Hole as you hunt for an elusive shark or hanging out with merpeople, Dave The Diver lives up to the adventure game genre by absolutely never being predictable throughout its entire duration.

It’s truly impressive that, even in the story’s closing hours, I was still being introduced to new mechanics, some of which had caused the already habit-forming rabbit hole to grow ever deeper. There’s even an entire section where you’re suddenly thrown into a visual novel that fleshes out the backstories of some of the cast. Moments like that are just such a treat!

Not all of the gambles Dave The Diver takes are successful (if they were they wouldn’t be gambles!) and sometimes you’ll end up playing some haphazardly thrown-together minigame that feels like it could have been left on the cutting room floor. For example, in one part of the story you suddenly find yourself playing a half-baked 2D stealth game that has you hiding behind crates and lurking in freezers as you wait for braindead guards to slowly walk by. The good news is that these misses are extremely brief, and even when one didn’t land with me, I was at least amused that the bizarre diversion was included at all.

The last thing to note is that, despite a generally insane level of polish likely brought on by its tenure as an early access game, Dave The Diver does have some bugs it’s yet to work out. Sometimes my UI would disappear, locking me out of doing things like managing my farm, and sometimes enemies or objects in the environment would become intangible, and a few times the framerate would randomly tank itself while I was hanging out in one particular area: the sea village. These issues weren’t common enough to make me not want to keep playing this alarmingly compelling game, but they pretty significantly annoyed me when they happened – it definitely sucked, for example, when one boss randomly became invincible during our fight and I had to start the whole dive over.

How to Play the Five Nights at Freddy's Games in Chronological Order

With Blumhouse’s new Five Nights at Freddy's film releasing this year on October 27, there’s no better time than now to play through the Five Nights at Freddy’s games. Created by Scott Cawthon, the first game launched back in 2014 and has since garnered an incredible fan base and followed up its horror hit with a wide variety of games; from mainline installments to plenty of spinoffs.

For those interested in taking on the night shift against these killer animatronics, we’ve detailed how to play each of the mainline FNAF games in both chronological and release date order below.

Jump to:

• How to play in chronological order
• How to play by release order

How Many Five Nights at Freddy’s Games Are There?

When it comes to the main FNAF games, there are 9 in total, which we’ve covered below. As far as spin-offs and more challenge-based games go, though, there are 4 additional FNAF games that fall in this category. These are Five Nights at Freddy’s World, Freddy in Space 2, Security Breach: Fury’s Rage, and Ultimate Custom Night.

Five Nights at Freddy’s Games in Chronological Order

For those looking to play through the Five Nights at Freddy’s games in chronological order to get the full story, we’ve done our best to arrange them in story order. If you have different theories about this franchise’s order, though, share them in the comments!

1. Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 (2015)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

When working through the timeline of Five Nights at Freddy’s, the game to start out with is actually Five Nights at Freddy’s 4, as it takes place in 1983. This is assumed because of an easter egg during one of the post-Night minigames that can be seen by interacting with a TV in the living room. After hitting it enough times, it’ll eventually bring up a still for a commercial for a show called Fredbear and Friends, which appears to have aired in 1983, given that’s the date beneath the title.

Compared to its predecessors, though, FNAF 4 has a different setting. This time, you play as a young child in their bedroom rather than as a security guard in an office. Throughout the night, you’ll need to run from your bedroom doors to your closet (and even check behind you on your bed) for a variety of terrifying enemies, but mainly nightmare variations of the original animatronics: Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy. Listen out for them and keep your flashlight close to scare them away.

2. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2014)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is next in a chronological playthrough and brings players to the newly-opened Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza to work the night shifts as a security guard. FNAF 2 also introduces new animatronics in the mix alongside updated versions of its classics. These new additions are The Puppet and Balloon Boy, so you’ll have more to watch out for on the cameras.

This time around, you’re also given a Freddy Fazbear head to wear in case the animatronics happen to reach your office. With it on, most of the animatronics will have a harder time recognizing you and leave, which’ll buy you some more time before the crack of dawn. You also have a music box that you need to keep wound up to keep The Puppet away. This animatronic won’t be fooled by your sneaky little fake Freddy head, so make sure to keep the music box going.

We’ve placed this game as second in line for a chronological playthrough, as it’s set in 1987. This can be assumed from the paycheck you receive at the end of Night 5, which is dated for that year.

3. Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location (2016)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

In a departure from the previous game, and as its title may point to, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location takes place at a different spot called Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental, which features its own animatronics as well. This time around, you play as a technician working night shifts with a series of tasks to complete alongside surviving the animatronics.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location is actually a bit trickier to place on the timeline, and many fans still debate when it could be set. The reason we’ve chosen this slot is because of a line HandUnit says at the beginning of the game: “Due to the massive success, and even more so, the unfortunate closing of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, it was clear that the stage was set, no pun intended, for another contender in children’s entertainment.” This line could be referencing when Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza closed down in ‘87 following FNAF 2, which is also brought up by Phone Guy in FNAF 1 during Night 1. So, for now, having Sister Location between the two seems like a good fit. Let us know your theories in the comments below, though!

4. Five Nights at Freddy’s (2014)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

The one that started it all. Five Nights at Freddy’s was the first game that had players taking on the security guard mantle to keep watch of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza for five night shifts. Mainly, you need to keep an eye on the animatronics there: Chica, Bonnie, Foxy, and of course, Freddy Fazbear. Their behavior has become a bit unpredictable lately, and they like to roam around freely at night… just make sure they don’t roam into your office.

Alongside the cameras that need to be checked, players can also close the security doors near them if the animatronics get too close during the night. Keep in mind, though, you only have limited amounts of power to use. Once it’s gone, goodbye doors and lights!

Five Nights at Freddy’s takes place a few years later than the previously mentioned games, likely sometime in the early ‘90s. This can be assumed from Phone Guy’s dialogue during Night 1 where he says that the animatronics used to be able to walk around during the day, “but then there was the bite of ‘87.” This helps place it after FNAF 2 and before FNAF3, which we’ll get to next.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 (2015)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

According to Five Nights at Freddy’s 3’s Steam description, this game is set “Thirty years after Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed its doors,” which would put it after the events of FNAF 1, given that’s when Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza closed for good, and, if we’re going with the early ‘90s, would set it sometime around the 2020s. It brings players into a brand new location as well… Fazbear’s Fright: The Horror Attraction. Yes, this new attraction is based on the terrifying events that happened in Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, and they even have old animatronics from it to really keep you on your toes!

Once again, you step into the shoes of a security guard keeping watch of the attraction and its “great new relics” that have been picked up. Like before, you’ll have security cameras to monitor, but this time you also have a maintenance panel to reboot systems that go offline and close off vents to prevent those creepy animatronics from crawling toward your office space.

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator (2017)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

If you’re feeling tired of working security or maintenance, why not make the jump into running your own pizza place? In Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator, you get to do just that. But don’t worry, this game isn’t without its frights. You’ll still need to keep the animatronics away from you when in your office, and there’s plenty to monitor when you’re in there as well.

Not only do you have a computer near you to keep tabs on everything and complete your tasks, but you’ll need to watch the vents on both sides of you for anything that could be crawling through. However, both your computer and the vents make quite a bit of noise, so you’ll have to take turns shutting them off to hear your surroundings.

Throughout the game, you’ll salvage animatronics as well. One of these is Springtrap, whose first appearance in the series was in FNAF 3, which places this game sometime after it in a chronological playthrough.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted (2019)

Available on: Android/IOS, Nintendo Switch, Oculus Quest, PSVR, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted was the franchise’s first step into VR - and later came out on PC and consoles - and even has a sequel set to come out later this year called Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2 for PSVR 2. Developed by Steel Wool Studios in collaboration with Scott Cawthon, in Help Wanted you can play through a variety of mini-games that feature familiar animatronics and experiences from earlier games in the series.

But where does this game fit into the timeline? During the opening ‘Welcome’ message for the game, HandUnit states that “Fazbear Entertainment has developed something of a bad reputation over the last few decades, [...] That's why we have recreated many of these completely fictitious scenarios (lies) that you've been fed over the last several years into a hilarious VR game.” And given that Help Wanted recreates situations from previous games in the timeline up to FNAF 3 on our list, it makes sense to place it after that game and near Pizzeria Simulator.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Special Delivery (2019)

Available on: IOS/Android

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Special Delivery is an Augmented Reality game that was released on mobile devices just a few months after Help Wanted. Much like how Help Wanted immersed you into FNAF in VR, Special Delivery did the same by bringing the animatronics home to you. In this game, you have to keep an eye out for them on your mobile device as they stalk around the room, utilizing a flashlight and controlled shock to stop them.

Similar to Help Wanted, Special Delivery involves its own branch of Fazbear Entertainment. Here, the Fazbear Funtime Service is what’s sending the animatronics to your house and, when it comes to the franchise’s timeline, it would make sense that they’d create something like this around the time of The Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience in Help Wanted. Given how HandUnit explains at the start of Help Wanted that, “Fazbear Entertainment is excited to join the digital age, and what better way to do that than with an edge-of-your-seat virtual reality experience,” it sounds like that was their first endeavor, and this would be their second outing into it.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach (2021)

Available on: Google Stadia, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch

The most recent Five Nights at Freddy’s game, Security Breach, is the second game in the franchise to be developed between both Scott and Steel Wool Studios, following Help Wanted. It’s a free-roam survival horror where you play as a young boy named Gregory who gets trapped at night in Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. Throughout the night, he’ll need to survive the various animatronics, but with a surprising helpful hand along the way.

In a chronological playthrough, this game comes in last. This can largely be taken away from the fact that Freddy Fazbear’s has now grown into a Mega Pizzaplex, but there’s also a moment in one of the endings that helps confirm that it’s set after one of the previously mentioned games. However, so as to avoid spoilers, we’ll let you uncover that ending on your own!

Five Nights at Freddy’s Games in Release Order

If you’re interested in playing through the main Five Nights at Freddy’s games in their release order, you can find them listed as such below:

• Five Nights at Freddy’s (2014)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (2014)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 (2015)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 (2015)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location (2016)
• Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator (2017)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted (2019)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s AR: Special Delivery (2019)
• Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach (2021)

Five Nights at Freddy’s Games Coming Soon

Announced during PlayStation’s Showcase in May, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2 from Steel Wool Studios is the sequel to Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted and is set to release sometime later this year for PSVR2.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

Havendocks Calm Oceanic City Building Belies Its Ambitious Community Development

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been stumbling around looking for a lot of in between games this year. Tears of the Kingdom pretty obviously has dominated a huge chunk of my life for the last month. And recently I was in LA for Summer Games Fest. Earlier this year, I was playing Kirby, and when I get home, I have Humanity waiting for me. But all of these games have been a bit too high stakes to just chug away at the whole year. Lately I’ve needed something slower, something I could get lost in. And recently, I’ve found myself dipping in again and again to a little game called Havendock.

Havendock is a city builder – one of those cozy ones that presents goals but low stakes, so you don’t have to frantically sort out a civilization as its populace crumbles in your arms. It takes place not on dry land, but in the middle of the ocean, starting on a tiny deserted island and proceeding to build out on a series of interconnected wooden docks. You build more docks to make more space for more housing, more people, and more mechanisms that will make your life somewhat easier. Potable water is the first concern, followed closely by something to eat, and shelter. Eventually you’ve worked your way up to dance floors and chicken coops. Materials drift lazily by on the waves, lending an element of pleasant randomness and surprise to your work. More recently, I’ve made a dance floor and a prayer center so my residents have something to hope for - which isn't me being glib, it's a literal game mechanic.

While your castaways do get hungry and tired, their needs build so slowly and are so easily fulfilled, their existence is rarely if ever stressful, at least in the several early hours I’ve played. It makes Havendock largely a soothing way to putter around with civilization building, interspersed with moments of humor such as discovering that I can grow hamburgers in the garden, or when I see the very human touch of silly names the NPCs that arrive to assist me have. Havendock is full of this personable goofiness, speaking readily to being a game eager to please a growing community throughout an early access.

Creator Yeo Ying Zhi (who goes by YYZ) got his start working on flash games as a teenager, and eventually took some classes to help him get started learning 3D engines such as Unity. He worked on some personal tower defense game projects for a bit, and also released a 2D idol RPG game called Enchanted Heroes that’s seen some success. Havendock is YYZ’s first attempt at a larger 3D game, and while he’s been fascinated by 3D animation and game design for a while, it took a random, restless night to give him the push he needed.

“I was lying in bed and I couldn't fall asleep,” he says. “It was like 3 am. So I just had this idea of being in this peaceful place where you're in the middle of the ocean. And then I made some concept out of it. I wasn't serious about it turning it into a game. It was just some concept that I had in my head. And then it floated around, and then after some time I decided, ‘Okay, I guess I'm going to try to make this into a game.’”

I just had this idea of being in this peaceful place where you're in the middle of the ocean. And then I made some concept out of it.

YYZ has his work cut out for him, not just in the transition from 2D to 3D animation, but also in his goals to make a proper multiplayer experience. I haven’t tried the feature out yet myself, and he bills it in the early access version of Havendock as “highly experimental.” It’s easy to see why, from his description.

“Whenever the character deposits an item into the building, you need to link that across all the players, all the buildings, the items in them, and the characters themselves on top of that. So it's that interaction that actually makes it very, very difficult to have the game be really smooth in multiplayer. Currently, that's why there are a lot of issues with multiplayer that I'm trying to fix.”

While some might balk at playing something that clearly isn’t finished, having an open development like this is something that’s important to YYZ. He’s been blogging prolifically about the development process, taking community feedback into account and being as transparent as possible about the problems involved in even simple aspects like letting NPCs drink either fruit juice or alcohol at the bar. He’s been this open from the beginning, too, telling me that he released the earliest version of Havendock to the public about six to eight weeks after he started the project.

“It is very scary,” he says. “If you are scared to release it, that's probably the right feeling. If you are ready for it, you're probably a bit too late already…When I tested it, I thought it would be okay, but players do all sorts of things and there's this sandbox element to it. So you can break things in general in the early stage because I couldn't expect the way people played the game. So there was a lot of learning from that. But I'm actually glad that it was released early because that gave me a lot of feedback to work with as compared to when I spent a long amount of time getting projects available to the public, it would be a lot of time spent building things that I didn't know what if it was something that people wanted.”

Even with the struggles, YYZ says that releasing Havendock in such an early access environment has helped him develop it at a much faster and more efficient pace than his previous projects. At the time that we speak, he says he has around 2,400 Discord community members – sizeable. The help is appreciated especially as he’s largely working on the game solo, and still working part-time to pay the bills.

I went out for a day and the game had issues...so the whole day I couldn't wait to just get back home and get to my computer.

“I think this approach is quite different from how normal developers do it,” he muses. “So I think this is also a big learning point and it's super stepping out of the comfort zone for me…There was this one day, I remember I just went out for a day and apparently the game had issues because I posted an update the previous day, so the whole day I couldn't get access to my computer, so I couldn't wait to just get back home, get to my computer, quickly find out what the issue is and kind of push. It was quite stressful that day. So I think that's some of the more things that I have to be more wary about.”

YYZ’s clearly deeply invested in this project, but when I ask him what it would take for him to consider Havendock a success, his answer is a humble one.

“Maybe if enough people know about it, I can ask my friend, ‘Hey, have you heard of my game?’ And they go, ‘Yes, I heard of it.’ Something like that. It becomes, I guess, common enough that it's recognized. I'm not sure if that sounds like success, but I just think it's cool.”

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

Essential Final Fantasy 16 Side Quests Worth Doing

Final Fantasy 16 has a lot of side quests—76, to be exact—but as our FF16 review pointed out, not all of them are necessarily impressive. So, which FF16 side quests are worth doing? You can check out the complete list of Final Fantasy 16 side quests and their rewards to decide on your own which to do, but to make it easy, we've put together a comprehensive list of all the essentials, whether you're looking for unique rewards or quality story beats.

Essential FF16 Side Quests Worth Doing

These side quests all reward you with essential upgrades for your journey across Valisthea, including better potions, weapon crafting designs, and even a mount. They're actually marked for you in-game—just look for green markers with the plus sign instead of the usual exclamation point. We won't spoil their exact rewards here, but if you're curious, you can check out the complete guides.

• The White-Winged Wonder
• Blacksmith's Blues
• The Root of the Problem
• Weird Science
• Blacksmith's Blues II
• Please Sir, Can I Have Some Morbol
• Blacksmith's Blues III
• Even Weirder Science
• Blacksmith's Blues IV

FF16 Side Quests With Collectible Curiosity Rewards

Eventually, you'll be able to see some "curiousities" inside of Clive's room. There are 22 collectibles on the Wall of Memories, and many of them are earned by completing side quests. Some of these are repeats of the above, and some have an additional side quest prerequisite to unlock it.

• The White-Winged Wonder
• Lines in the Sand II
• More Than Words (requires A Bone to Pick completion)
• Payback
• Duty Undying II
• An Eye For an Eye
• Trading Places II
• For Great Justice II
• The Fruits of Her Labors
• Rekindling the Flame II
• Tears of Mercy (then speak to Tarja)
• Aiming High (requires On Balance)
• Where There's a Will
• An Inconvenient Truth
• Priceless (requires Where There's a Will completion)
• A Tail to Tell (requires An Inconvenient Truth completion)
• Three's Company
• Under New Management II
• Silver Linings (requires Trial and Error completion)

FF16 Side Quests with Standout Stories

All of the Wall of Memory-related side quests also have pretty significant stories, but these side quests' stories also stood out to us.

• Playthings
• All Bark
• Laid to Rest

We hope these side quest guides have helped direct your adventure! For more on Final Fantasy 16, don't miss these Essential Combat Tips or the Hunt Board Notorious Mark Locations.

Nintendo Shareholder Meeting Reportedly Derailed by Angry Fan Complaining About Splatoon 3

A Nintendo shareholder meeting was reportedly derailed by a Splatoon 3 player who used the Q&A session to complain about the perceived lack of boy character support.

As reported by Video Games SI, a series of posts from Twitter user NStyles outlined the events of the shareholder meeting. When presented with the opportunity to ask a question about Nintendo's business performance, the Splatoon 3 player said he believes female characters got preferential treatment in the game.

"The company has blatantly given the boys in Splatoon the cold shoulder and I would like to see some improvement," he said. "In Splatoon 3, there is a lot more customisation [than the first two games] and there is clear favouritism towards girl characters over boys.

"It makes me extremely sad when people say: if you enjoy playing as a boy then you won't enjoy playing Splatoon."

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa allegedly attempted to stop the Splatoon 3 player's complaint, saying the question was too long, but was unsuccessful as the individual continued. Once finished, Furukawa thanked them for playing Splatoon 3 and for sharing his opinion.

An individual on Twitter claiming to be the Splatoon 3 player said they sent several emails to Nintendo expressing their concerns and, upon not being listened to, bought shares in the company in order to gain an audience with company executives.

The individual also claimed to buy Nintendo Switch consoles on credit before selling them for cash in order to buy the stocks necessary to participate in the meeting.

IGN has reached out to Nintendo for comment regarding the shareholder meeting disruption.

In our 8/10 review of the game, we said: "Splatoon 3’s campaign features a fresh take on an open hub world design, mixing in short but satisfying missions to let you experiment with different weapons and abilities."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.