BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN — Four ultra-wealthy divers have died 800 miles off the coast of Canada after a brutal fight for a video game controller attached to the submarine they were in.
“You promised it was my turn after 1,000 meters! If the depth reader wasn’t broken, it would probably say 2,000 meters by now,” one of the deceased reportedly said, attempting to wrest the Logitech controller from OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who insisted on going first because it was his game. “You always do this, man. Don’t tell me I get a turn unless you’re actually going to give me a turn. At this rate, it feels like I’ll die before I get to play this thing.”
The heated situation didn’t come to blows until Rush attempted to defend himself with a technicality.
“I said after 1,000 meters, not exactly 1,000 meters. Just let me wait until a good stopping place and then I’ll pause,” he said, trying to get a few more moves in while his fellow gamers ganged up on him. “Dude, stop it! You’re gonna fuck up our run if you don’t cut it out. I’ll shut this whole thing off—don’t think I won’t!”
Despite attempts from the United States Coast Guard, the four men were unable to be rescued.
“We save a lot of crazy people out there, but this is the worst we’ve ever seen. By the time we got to them, their fingers were so tightly gripped around the one controller, we needed power tools to remove it,” said Coast Guard Captain Jessie Conway. “It’s just a damn shame. If they had a second controller down there so someone could be Player Two — even just an unplugged one to let the youngest diver think he’s helping steer the submarine — they would still be alive today. Instead, they’re all sleeping with the Seamen.”
At press time, the Coast Guard shared one piece of good news: the fifth member of the crew, one of the employees who works for the vacationing company, had been discovered sitting quietly next to his crewmates, alive, reading a book.
Diablo 4 has 115 dungeons to farm, but even that can get tedious and boring after a while. Nightmare Sigils are dungeon modifiers that raise the difficulty and apply between three and five affixes. This Diablo IV guide will outline the best affixes you can possibly roll on Sigils.
What Are Nightmare Sigils In Diablo 4?
Currently, there are over a hundred known affixes that can be potentially rolled on a Nightmare Sigil, of which a small group are beneficial to the player. Of the larger pool of detrimental affixes, there are a number which can be mitigated with either the right build or smart tactical play. The ideal combination will let you run a Nightmare Dungeon almost as easily as you would a regular one.
Damage Boosting Affixes: Best Diablo 4 Nightmare Sigils
Frost Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Frost damage.
Lightning Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Lightning damage.
Poison Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Poison damage.
Shadow Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Shadow damage.
Fire Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Fire Damage.
Physical Damage
You deal [5-15]% more Physical Damage.
These are a no-brainer, since they provide an outright percentage buff to your damage output.
Best Nightmare Sigils: Looting And Farming Affixes
Gold Find
You find [10-30]% more gold.
Magic Find
You find more items from enemies.
Nightmare Dungeons are heavily populated with monsters, and loot buffs like these exponentially increase the drop rate from a dungeon run.
Defensive Affixes: Best D4 Nightmare Sigils
Control Impaired Explosions
Being hit by Control Impairing Effects creates an explosion around you.
Lightning Caller
You occasionally call down lightning strikes that damage nearby enemies.
Poisonous Evade
Using Evade leaves a pool of Poison behind, damaging enemies.
Thorns
Your Thorns are increased by [249-491].
Defensive retaliation and passive area of effect attacks are great for thinning out the mobs of monsters that will surround you.
Negative Affixes
For every positive affix on a Sigil, you will be saddled with two or more negative affixes that buff the monsters in the dungeon or otherwise hinder you in some way. Ideally you will roll negative affixes that are countered by your class, build, gear, or tactical sense.
Diablo 4 Best Nightmare Sigils: Neutral Affixes
Double Bosses
Spawns two bosses instead of one!
If you’re confident in your abilities to beat the end-boss of a dungeon, this negative affix might actually prove to be a farming opportunity for additional drops.
Lightning Storm
Lightning gathers above the player. Get into the protection dome to avoid severe outcomes.
While being struck by lightning is annoying, the dome provides some respite if you can time it correctly.
Blood Blister
Monster death will sometimes spawn a Blood Blister. After a short time, it explodes, dealing heavy area damage.
If you can avoid the explosion, the area of effect damage will do you a service versus the monster hordes.
Nightmare Portals
Red portals periodically spawn in the dungeon, unleashing more hellish demons from any region in Sanctuary.
As long as your skills are up to it, more monsters to kill and farm is always a good thing, especially in conjunction with either of the looting and farming affixes.
Any Monster Damage Resistance Affixes
Monster Physical Resist
Monsters take [15-30]% less Physical damage.
Monster Cold Resist
Monsters take [20-40]% less Cold damage.
Monster Fire Resist
Monsters take [20-40]% less Fire damage.
Monster Lightning Resist
Monsters take [20-40]% less Lightning damage.
Monster Bleeding Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Bleeding damage.
Monster Burning Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Burning damage.
Monster Corruption Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Corruption damage.
Monster Overpower Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Overpower damage.
Monster Poison Resist
Monsters take [30-60]% less Poison damage.
Monster Shadow Resist
Monsters take [20-40]% less Shadow damage.
Melee Defenders
Monsters take [20-40]% less damage from close targets.
Ranged Defenders
Monsters take [30-60]% less damage from distant targets.
As long as your particular class and chosen skills aren’t actually dependent on one of these damage types anyway, the negative affix will have no impact whatsoever on the damage type that you do deal. Conversely, you can also hold on to Sigils with negative affixes that buff monster attacks with specific elemental damage (of which there are just as many as listed above), as long as your build and gear has the corresponding resistance.
Since the dawn of our nation in 1776, 45 power-hungry ghouls have risen the ranks of our society to become a President of the United States. For better or for worse (we think for worse), none of these men have been gamers. But what if they were? Once and for all, here is an objective ranking from worst to best of every U.S. president by how good at video games they would be.
#45 — Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909)
Teddy Roosevelt practically invented touching grass, and would be horrified at the idea of something like Death Stranding, when he could go outside and walk around with a bunch of shit on his back in real life.
#44 — Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)
Ronald Reagan had dementia when he was president and probably would struggle with any video game more difficult than drawing a clock.
#43 — John F. Kennedy (1961–1963)
Sickly and horny, JFK spent most of his time having sex with people who weren’t his wife and trying to keep everyone from blowing each other up. It’s hard to imagine Jack would have much time to get into gaming, even if he would love some of those romanceable JRPG characters. Most importantly, though, the guy simply didn’t know how to deal with a camping sniper.
#42 — Donald Trump (2017–2021)
By default, all the living presidents go on the bottom of the list because they have the opportunity to play video games, but we never hear about it, so you have to assume they don’t. But Trump has to be the worst gamer of that bunch. I literally cannot imagine Donald Trump holding a controller the right way.
#41 — Barack Obama (2009–2017)
I would bet money that Obama knows the names of several popular video games so that if he was asked about his favorite in an interview, he could say he loves Life is Strange or Gone Home or Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain or some shit. But if you actually stuck him in front of a video game, he would immediately vomit.
#40 — Joe Biden (2021–present)
If you put a PS5 controller in Joe Biden’s hands and let him play a video game, he would just hold it, not pressing any buttons, and stare at the screen silently with a slightly open smile. Then after like 15 minutes, he’d hand it back to you, and be like “that was great.”
#39 — George W. Bush (2001–2009)
W. would actually try playing a video game if you let him. He would make little “pew pew” shooting noises as his character spun around wildly, looking at the sky, in some Call of Duty game inspired by the people he sent to murder everyone in the Middle East.
#38 — Jimmy Carter (1977–1981)
Oh right, Jimmy Carter is still alive! Maybe he’d get really into building in Fortnite. I don’t think he’d physically play the game, but he could watch some kid play it and point at the screen and say “that’s houses.”
#37 — Grover Cleveland (1885–1889, 1893–1897)
Most people who lose the presidency after one term go home and live the rest out the rest of their lives. Some of these freaks, however, try to win again. Grover Cleveland is the only person who has actually succeeded. If you’re that obsessed with being president, you are not going to play video games in any time period — there is only one thing in the world that interests you: being in charge of a lot of people.
#36 — Andrew Johnson (1865–1869)
Andrew Johnson is often listed as the worst president of all time. He fucked up the whole country after the Civil War to the point where we are still dealing with it. He would be the guy on your squad in a battle royale who, in a 4v4 fight, you realize he’s 20 minutes away trying to do some fucking quest.
#35 — Millard Filmore (1850–1853)
Millard Filmore became president after Zachary Taylor died, signed a law that required escaped slaves to be returned to their owners, and then lost reelection, never to be heard from again until a list ranking presidents by how good they would be at video games. Doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who is very good at things.
#34 — Herbert Hoover (1929–1933)
Herbert Hoover often gets the blame for being the guy who created the Great Depression, which historians consider the greatest resource management in American history. Hoover tried his best to fix a failing economy, but his best sucked and he sucked too.
#33 — John Quincy Adams (1825–1829)
Dude’s middle name was fucking Quincy and he became president because his daddy was president. He would not be a gamer, he’d be playing polo or some fucking shit.
#32 — Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969)
Lyndon B. Johnson’s main interaction with video games would be constantly saying to his kids, “you’re addicted to that damn game!” but never learning what the game is (or that it’s multiple games) or really doing anything to stop them from playing it.
#31 — Gerald Ford (1974–1977)
Gerald Ford has undeniable jock energy. He wouldn’t know the name of a single video game, but somehow, deep in his bones, he’d know to call Halo “Gaylo.”
“You know, a Simpsons video game is a little like the mule with the spinning wheel. No one knows why it got made, and danged if he has that much fun playing with it.”
Games based on The Simpsons are infamously bad, a collection of half-assed titles most of which were designed more as cash-ins and commercials than a gaming experience you were destined to remember. As easy as it is to criticize the motives of The Simpsons corporate overlords who seemingly insisted on releasing as many games as they had ideas for games, maybe it makes sense that it took a while to figure out what exactly a good Simpsons game could look like. I mean, it’s easy to decide what phrase Bart should say on a T-shirt (top two are “Don’t have a cow, man” and something supporting the first Gulf War), but it’s a little harder to decide what kind of interactive adventure best suits the greatest satire of the 20th century.
So they did Bartman stuff for a while. Then eventually as games were able to do more, the bad games started getting graced with (sometimes) better graphics and more importantly, the ability to include voice acting. Most of them still weren’t great, but it helped, damn it. It’s not that hearing Kent Brockman or Principal Skinner pipe in a funny little quip makes a crappy game good. No, it’s not that far from crappy. They were just… less crappy.
Personally, I’m endlessly fascinated by video game adaptations, the more ill-advised the better, and I am always looking out for sleeper hits among them. It’s definitely a rough batch of games when taken in all at once, and there’s only a few worth a full blown recommendation, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of redeeming qualities or moments in the games that occupy the middle of the list.
I’ll try to keep the Simpsons references to a minimum here, so as not to be too insufferable. Instead of relying heavily on quotes and references, I’ll just try to write a good piece. I’ll just be honest, I’ll be truthful, and I’ll be sharp. (Be sharp, get it? Heh heh…. well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.)
Note: I’ve excluded certain Mobile and PC games, mostly because they’re tricky or impossible to access today. I still really want to check out Virtual Springfield sometime. It’s gotta be more fun than a lot of the stuff I played. And to my knowledge, it’s the only one of these with Phil Hartman in it.
Another note: I played this weird soccer game at an amusement park several years ago where you kick a soccer ball at Homer. Worth a mention I figured.
20. The Simpsons Wrestling (PS1)
It looks like a wrestling game, it says it’s a wrestling game, but brother, it ain’t a wrestling game!
This game is the shits. The art looks like prison tattoos came to life. The wrestling rings are a square mile large. There’s no refs and your character counts their own 1-2-3 when they do a pin. It’s absolute fucking madness yet somehow it’s all very boring.
I won’t make fun of this terrible game’s terrible premise, as nonsensical as it is. The Simpsons wrestling makes as much sense as the Simpsons doing anything else they’ve done in a video game. In fact, any genre that lends itself to a wide variety of characters is indeed a potential good fit for a Simpsons title, as the cast of Springfield is easily the finest crafted ensemble in television history. Give me a half dozen of them and let me get to work on unlocking the rest, and I’ll assuredly give your awful game a few more hours than it deserves.
So no, this game isn’t atrocious because it makes no sense that The Simpsons would wrestle. In fact, the plot is not bad. Springfield is having wrestling tournaments to figure out who is the strongest one to send up into space to fight the strongest alien. Actually kinda funny! No, this game is atrocious for just about everything else. Namely the graphics, the floaty controls, the mechanics, the inexplicable jumping, and oh hell, it’s probably worth mentioning the graphics again. Also, this wrestling game doesn’t let you do very many wrestling things, like climb the turnbuckle, take it outside the ring, or stick your entire bare ass into a guy’s face. Nope, this is all just rope running and button mashing. Yawn.
As with a lot of the lesser titles on this list, any highlights to be found are the little fun things. I laughed out loud when I won a match with Krusty and he said “That’s they how do it in the Catskills, baby!” Also, Bumble Bee Man literally flies around the ring, and that’s wonderful. However, these are just momentary breaks from the sheer agony of what I am declaring the Worst. Simpsons Game. Ever. Boy, I really hope someone got fired for that blunder. Boo-urns!!
Fun fact: Since WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game was also available on the PS1, The Simpsons Wrestling isn’t even the best fighting game posing as a wrestling game where you can be a clown and whack your opponent with a giant mallet on the system. Sorry Simpsons, Doink the clown did it!
19. Bartman Meets Radioactive Man (NES, Game Gear)
¡Ay, caramba! After an opening cutscene that I actually quite liked, with surprisingly evocative visuals and music, everything just goes to hell here. This is the last of the NES games they made, and somehow the very worst. Levels are overly long, the challenge is unfair, and the muddy graphics cause foregrounds and backgrounds to blend together, making the world hard to navigate. There’s enemies and jumping and all kinds of platform-y things happening, it’s just that none of it is very fun. If you have a soft spot for these dogshit NES adaptations with grotesque color palettes and screeching tones passing as a soundtrack, then put this one on your Must Play list. You’ll be thrilled by the stiff controls, offensive music, and poor design. Hell, there’s even some impossible underwater stuff for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans! For anyone else, however, you’re better off playing just about anything else besides that stupid wrestling game I just told you about.
18. Bart vs. the World (NES, Game Gear, Sega Master System)
A very unmemorable collection of minigames stitched together to cash in on the hottest property of the time. I mean it when I say this game is unmemorable. It was in my “I haven’t played this one,” mental pile when I started writing this article and researching games, and then when I started playing it I said to myself “Oh yeah, I’ve totally played this; it’s the video game that makes you play the 1-15 slidey square game like you’re a fifth grader in The Great Depression.” I had played this before. Very unmemorable. Anyway, there is some technically okay video game-y stuff in here. Bart goes all over the world collecting powerups and fighting bosses. But man, there’s also a lot of just the least fun minigames you’d ever want to spend your time on, like the aforementioned sliding square game, trivia questions, and a card matching thing. It’s all boring and no part of it is a relief from any other part. Released just seven months after Bart vs. The Space Mutants, this game will have you asking yourself, “What did they do with the other five months?”
17. Virtual Bart (SNES, Genesis)
And you thought the metaverse sucked in 2023, man
I don’t know why it was agreed upon that the first few waves of Simpsons games would largely be big messy collections of minigames, but here’s another one. It’s one of the worst ones, in fact! The vibrant SNES graphics look way better than the NES games we’ve seen so far here, but it’s a shallow collection of busts without very many redeeming qualities. The plot makes even less sense than most of these games. Bart wanders into Martin’s virtual reality science project presentation and now he has to game his way out or something? I don’t know. At least Bart vs. the World let you select what order you played the games in. Here you just watch Bart spin around and play whatever game he lands on. None of them are very good.
Bart as a dinosaur sounds fun until you get one look at the laughable creature you control. Bart as a baby is a whole minigame based on that one time you saw Bart swing around on a clothesline in a flashback. These are both downright terrible. The game where you’re a pig trying to free other pigs from Krusty’s slaughterhouse is a strange choice and not very fun either, if you can believe it (although that sure looks like the pig from The Simpsons Movie, so that’s fun). The first-person level where you are going down the waterslide has the graphics and originality to be a winner, but it’s probably the most unfair game of the collection.
The two not-fiascos are a little Road Warrior style racing game that plays like the speeder level from Super Star Wars and a game where Bart chucks tomatoes at his classmates to ruin picture day. Nothing too outstanding, but man they feel like Chrono Trigger compared to the other ones here. I give you personal permission to never play this game.
16. Bart vs. the Space Mutants (NES, Genesis, Game Gear)
This bizarre console debut of The Simpsons fancied itself too good to be a straight up platformer or brawler and is a frustrating mess because of it. Aliens that are not Kodos and Kang are invading Springfield and posing as humans. And do you know what they need to build their big weapon? Purple shit. Alas, the graffiti skills of one El Barto could be just the thing to save the city. Bart roams the town of Springfield aiming to turn every purple thing red. That mechanic alone could’ve been a nice layer to a game like this, a twist on standard platformers that has you seeking out red trash cans and awnings to spray paint. On paper it doesn’t sound terrible. Or a screen or tablet or however you’re reading this. Probably a phone. Thanks by the way.
Anyway, it sucks. It adds a layer of indecipherability to an already frustrating platformer. It’s hard and unfair and shitty, but also you’re expected to figure things out like a kid in a purple shirt comes out of the 200 and 400 movie, and that those showtimes correspond to your counting down timer, and that his shirt has gotta get tagged. So you have to go back to the movie theater that’s at the beginning of the level. Backtracking. It’s like Metroid! They should call those games Metroidbartvanias.
The fact that it looks a little better on the Genesis lands it a few spots higher than Bart vs. the World and Bartman Meets Radioactive Man, but all these games so far are very rough upon revisit. There’s been a disturbing internet rumor for years that says this game has a second level and beyond where you do other stuff besides spray painting red things purple. Don’t believe it. It’s a hoax.
15. Krusty’s Fun House (GB, NES, SNES, Game Gear, Genesis, Probably Some Other Things)
It’d be easy to start most of these with the sentence “this game makes no sense,” but that’s not really a fair assessment of video games, is it? Does Mario “make sense”? Nah. Just gimme some fun and we’re good.
That said, this game makes no sense and isn’t very fun.
I swear I’m not looking for too much. Just gimme a good excuse to screw around with these characters that I love! A lot of these Simpsons games are a drag, but come to life at times when a joke lands or the game features a nice ode to the show, when it briefly captures the spirit of The Simpsons, even if just for a moment. Krusty’s Fun House accomplishes this zero times.
I have and will keep complaining about how so many of these games are some hodgepodge collection of minigames, but when you have half a dozen different set pieces and game modes, there’s bound to be some personality that pokes its head out. Krusty’s Fun House on the other hand, is a deflated puzzle game with no variety from moment to moment. Walk around some fucking house as Krusty the Klown and help Bart or Homer or Sideshow Mel or Corporal Punishment kill every mouse in the room by way of leading them to that level’s torture machine. It’s, uh, a hoot?
There’s way too many levels, it isn’t fun, and again, it just doesn’t feel at all like The Simpsons. In fact, it’s almost as if this was some game called Rat-Trap on the Amiga that someone slapped Simpsons characters onto and released for every damn system around in 1992. That’s sort of what it feels like is happening here.
Fun Fact: Was called Krusty’s Fun House on the NES, and Krusty’s Super Fun House on the SNES and the Genesis. They should’ve called the Genesis one Krusty’s Sega Fun House.
14. Bart & the Beanstalk (GB)
This might be the Simpsons game that feels least like The Simpsons, even more so than the European rat game that they slapped Krusty the Klown onto. This is Bart Simpsons going through the ol’ banstalk fairytale. The gameplay is boring and feels super loose. Bart comes to a sliding stop when you release the d-pad, like the whole game is an ice level. Additionally, it’s way too hard. There’s cheap deaths and the levels are confusing. Is this one of the clouds that I jump on and it holds me, or not? There’s some fun stuff and some weird stuff (level design in the Giant’s castle and fighting Mr. Burns If He Was A Cloud respectively), but none of it makes more of an impression than the overall blandness on display here. I was very pleased to discover some sleepers among The Simpsons’ Game Boy games. This is not one of them.
13. The Itchy & Scratchy Game (SNES, Game Gear, Genesis)
You know a franchise is out of control when the side characters start getting full blown games. This one has a weird set up, and I appreciate what they were trying to do, but it just really doesn’t work. At first glance, the game looks like one of those big SNES platformers with levels that feel like airplane hangars filled with things to jump on. The twist here though is your goal isn’t necessarily reaching the end. Instead, you’re meant to run around and collect power ups as Itchy and fight off Scratchy when he pops up once in a while. Once you beat the cat to death, you progress to the next level. It didn’t take me long to figure out that not only could I just stand perfectly still and wail on Scratchy when he ran up to me every few seconds, but it was actually the easiest strategy at times.
A pointless game that nobody was asking for that is a little broken, and it’s also not very violent? I’m not some sicko that needs games to be violent to enjoy them, but I am gonna need my adaptations to resemble the thing they’re adapting in some way. Itchy and Scratchy cartoons are bloodbaths, ingeniously creative displays of death and carnage on par with Mortal Kombat and early Peter Jackson films. TheItchy & ScratchyGame feels like you’re playing a Tiny Toons game or something. You squish Scratchy with a mallet over and over and he doesn’t scream in pain or break any bones or anything. Like, come on. I don’t care about farting in video games, but if they made a Terrance and Phillip game and there was no farting I’d be just as outraged. You just expect a certain amount of commitment is all.
FUN FACT: The whole time I was playing this game, I was asking myself “Where’s Poochie?”
12. Bart’s Nightmare (SNES, Genesis)
Bart’s Nightmare – I had this one in my house as a kid*, and I absolutely hated it. It doesn’t make sense, it’s a bunch of unfinished, unfocused ideas that don’t add up to a cohesive game, and it’s way, way too hard. That’s all still true, but imagine my surprise when I played the rest of the Simpsons games I’d missed and discovered that this one is just as bad as I remembered it, yet might be an above average Simpsons game?
The story is insane. Bart is working hard on his homework, and then he falls asleep, and has to recover the scattered pages in his dream by beating a different little game for each page of it he successfully finds and stomps on. At the end of the game, Bart receives his “score” via letter grade. The grade is better based on how many pages of homework you collected in the dream. Why would that matter? Beats me. Maybe he went to class and described it all to Mrs. Krabappel.
The thing about this game that struck me while playing it this time around is the overworld you return to in between games. Bart walking the streets of Springfield in his sleep feels weird and fucked up like an actual dream! It’s not like a graphic Freddy Kruger nightmare, it’s more of an odd and cold dream world, like something out of The Sopranos. You wander the familiar but different streets (left or right, it doesn’t matter here), seeking out scraps of paper, hoping to not be turned into a frog by your sister or to trip over one of the wandering mailboxes. If you jump over a basketball, it turns into a skateboard. It’s a bizarre and unfun world to return to repeatedly between games.
Those games are the expected range from shitty shit to kind of okay. The Bartman game here is decently fun, has great graphics, and would’ve been a better basis for a game, to be honest. The game where you swim around in blood (ew) has a neat visual style and was the only one I could regularly beat in my youth. The Godzilla and Indiana Jones ones play like shit but have cool graphics. There’s probably some more I’m forgetting.
Overall, this game is as bad as most of the early to mid 90s Simpsons games. It just had the good sense to label itself a nightmare for you.
Personal anecdote: I borrowed Bart’s Nightmare from a friend of mine in middle school, and while I was never that angry of a gamer, it did make me so mad that I ejected the (again, borrowed) game and threw it against the wall. The back of the cartridge broke off, but it was just cosmetic damage. I was able to scotch tape it back together and it played just fine. Still though, I felt awful. What was I going to tell my friend? “Hey, here’s this game back, I busted it up and taped it back together.” I felt so terrible and embarrassed. There’s a happy ending, though. My friend didn’t even want the game back!
The Final Fantasy 16 release time is growing near, meaning players will get to dive into the world of Valisthea for themselves very soon. A prologue demo was released for the game not too long ago, where fans got to play through the opening hours of the game for themselves. The save even carries over to the full game, letting players keep this headstart once the game is playable.
But when exactly is the game playable? Read on to find out more about the Final Fantasy XVI release time!
What Time Does Final Fantasy 16 Release?
Final Fantasy 16 will release at midnight on June 22 for all regions, with the exception of the United States. With four different time zones, FF16 has a U.S. release time of June 22, 12 AM EDT across the entire country. Luckily, like the release of Street Fighter 6, this means Americans in other time zones will get to play the game a bit early. Here is the release time in other American time zones, on June 21:
9 PM PDT
10 PM MDT
11 PM CDT
Can You Preload FF16?
You will be able to preload Final Fantasy 16, but it’ll be a bit closer to release time. Starting on Tuesday, June 20, all players will be able to get the game preloaded to be prepared for the full release. Get the game downloaded now, and you’ll be ready on June 22! You’ll be able to spend less time bothering with downloads and figuring out how you’re going to fit the game on your hard drive, and more time on cramming in the game so social media doesn’t spoil it for you.
That’s all you need to know about the FF16 release time! Looking for some Final Fantasy content to fill the void until then? Check out our ranking of every Final Fantasy game to see how your favorites (and least favorites) rank!
Diablo 4 has several endgame currencies, one of which is Aberrant Cinders. This guide will detail how you can farm them and what they can be used for.
What are Aberrant Cinders in Diablo IV?
Aberrant Cinders are a currency drop that can be obtained in the endgame World Tier 3 events known as Helltides. These events occur every 135 minutes (2 hours and 15 minutes) and are active for one hour at a stretch.
How To Farm Aberrant Cinders in Diablo 4
The Aberrant Cinders are earned simply by slaughtering monsters and finishing any World Events that may be occurring in the Helltide afflicted region. Any known locations with high mob density are ideal for maximizing your 60 minutes in the Helltide. The World Events themselves often involve multiple waves of enemies in chokepoints, making them easy to kite and corral for area of effect attacks. The rewards chest at the event’s conclusion offers a significant payout in Aberrant Cinders as well. The Helltide World Boss event will not have a global announcement, so you will have to monitor it by manually visiting the normal spawn locations, but the pay off will be spectacular in terms of rewards including Aberrant Cinders. Additionally, be on the lookout for shrine-like Wretched Souls, Damned Souls, and Tortured Souls which glow a misty red, as interacting with them also drops Aberrant Cinders.
How To Use Aberrant Cinders
Aberrant Cinders can be spent exclusively on opening several different types of caches, dubbed Tortured Gifts, all but one of which are marked with icons on the map.
Tortured Gift of Protection
75 Aberrant Cinders
Contains Armor.
Tortured Gift of Jewelry
75 Aberrant Cinders for Ring Gifts
125 Aberrant Cinders for Amulet Gifts
Contains Jewelry.
Tortured Gift of Light Weaponry
125 Aberrant Cinders
Contains One-handed Weaponry.
Tortured Gift of Heavy Weaponry
150 Aberrant Cinders
Contains Two-handed Weaponry.
Tortured Gift of Mystery
175 Aberrant Cinders
Uniques and Legendaries across gear and weaponry.
The Tortured Gift of Mystery is a special Helltide version of mystery chests, and should be your preferred use for Aberrant Cinders. While each region has multiple possible locations for these chests, only two or three will spawn per Helltide, and must be sought out by exploration. These chests provide the most value in terms of rewards, dropping Uniques and multiple Legendaries in the Sacred and Ancestral tiers, Forgotten Souls, Fiend Roses, and other loot.
Diablo 4 Aberrant Cinders: Use It Or Lose It
Every time you die, you will lose half of your accumulated Aberrant Cinders. Additionally, they cannot be carried forward between Helltides, and reset to zero at each event’s conclusion. So spend them as soon as you have accrued your preferred Tortured Gift’s value in Aberrant Cinders.
That’s everything you need to know about farming and using Aberrant Cinders during Helltide events in Diablo 4.
Final Fantasy XVI releases June 22, 2023 and we have gathered literally every piece of information about the upcoming game and put it in this short digestible list. You’re welcome, by the way.
Breaking new ground
This is the first Final Fantasy game ever made where the main character isn’t a twink
Stand-alone story
You don’t have to play the first fifteen but fans will be real dickheads to you if you don’t play VII
This will be the final game
After Final Fantasy 16, there will never be another video game ever released
It will feature a new spelling of the word “magic”
Majjic? Magico? The developers are keeping their lips sealed about this exciting new word!
It won’t be open world
Instead, Square Enix has invented a new system with several smaller maps called “levels”
Every character is named Cid
Now you won’t have to guess what point they’ll show up in the story
You’ll be forced to make tough decisions that affect the story
Will you put your chocobo down after it bites a local child, or will you drag the family into court knowing they don’t have the zenny to afford a prolonged legal battle?
There are no NFT tie-ins
But there’s still plenty of time for Square Enix to fuck that up
It’s inspired by Game of Thrones
The developers have said that the popular HBO show inspired the game’s shitty ending
It’s tough growing up as a gamer. Each day you feel the past slip away, with your skin becoming spotted and wrinkled as the games you grew up with are nailed with adjectives like “classic” and “retro.” While we can’t stop mortality’s ever-tightening grip around us all, we can give you some good news: Elden Ring only came out in 2022!
That’s right! Elden Ring, a game you already have fond nostalgia for, is just one year old.
Yes, it feels like you were a different person back then, but it has actually only been a year and some change since you immediately put away Horizon Forbidden West and started exploring the Lands Between. Awesome!
Heck, even that moment where that kid walked on stage during Elden Ring’s Game of the Year victory and ruined Geoff Keighly’s whole show by saying some weird stuff was only a few months ago! Take solace knowing that, if you were a college student, then only one brisk semester separated that bizarre online event and the date you’re reading this. Also did we ever figure out if that kid was racist?
Give yourself a moment and just enjoy knowing that Elden Ring is still pretty new, even though the economy has tanked since it came out, and you lost your job, or maybe a friend died or something. Go and check some Vaati lore videos and see how recent the upload dates are! Pretty cool, right!?
So even though children these days are more likely to learn about Halo in history class than on the battlefield, it’s good to know that Elden Ring didn’t come out twenty years ago! Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic came out twenty years ago.
Time to rank the Assassin’s Creed games, otherwise known as the famous stabby franchise that eventually became the template for all of Ubisoft’s games. Don’t expect this list to include popular spinoffs like Assassin’s Creed: Watch_Dogs, Assassin’s Creed: Blood Dragon, or Assassin’s Creed: Wildlands. This is for the Assassin’s Creed games where people wear white hoods and go around shanking people over ideological and religious differences.
#12 — Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
This one gets the worst spot because, objectively, the game is riddled with ridiculous amounts of bloat and, subjectively, suffers from the same problems as Valhalla but has shittier grass textures, I think it’s that much more annoying to look at for the same inflated duration.
The devs thought trapping you in a 40-hour-long game (if you rush) with, like, 500 miles of copy-pasted flat green textures was a good idea? wC’mon, dude. This is Greece. Every ancient Greek story tells of the gods having nasty sex in beautiful meadows with wind brushing against each individual blade of grass. There’s none of that here. Yuck.
#11 — Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Despite AC Valhalla being one of the most bloated open-world games ever made, with tedium and blasé mission design around every corner to pad out the game’s 4,000-hour-long runtime, at least it looks nice. Snow is an easy way to make games look artificially pretty via particle effects and boot tracks, and AC Valhalla understands that.
Sure, vikings aren’t exactly a great fit for something called “Assassin’s Creed,” but Ubisoft gave up on the games actually fitting the series’ name a few entries prior.
#10 — Assassin’s Creed
Originally envisioned as a sequel to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the first entry in the franchise would naturally be the crudest of them all. Unrefined and unwashed as it was (and is, by today’s standards), it paved the way for streamlined, optimized, and superiorly monetized sequels that would help turn Ubisoft into the horrifying mass of billion-dollar blandness it is today. They even made a movie out of it! Just make sure you never watch it.
#9 — Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
This is the game that began the trend of bloated Assassin’s Creed sequels designed purely to milk some cash out of gamers’ supple, frothing teets. Not only is Brotherhood’s map design too big and barren for its own good, but it’s not even a properly numbered sequel. It’s just an AC romp designed to cling to Ezio’s jockstrap because he was the only real personality the franchise had at that point (to this day, Ezio remains the only franchise character of note). Plus, the stiff combat sucked, not improving nearly enough from AC2.
With that said, Brotherhood took a damn good first stab at the series’ bespoke, assination-oriented multiplayer component. Cheers to that, I guess.
#8 — Assassin’s Creed 2
For its time, AC2 was a strong sequel that built off the original game in all the right ways. The map was just big enough to be impressive without being daunting and the collectibles hadn’t gotten out of control like in contemporary AC games. Plus, the overarching narrative had an actual point and even a thin veil of cohesion. Ezio was a charismatic, relatable protagonist, and his musical theme (shout-out to composer Jesper Kyd) ended up becoming the entire franchise’s theme once Ubisoft realized they’d never do better. Good job, Assassin’s Creed 2!
#7 — Assassin’s Creed Rogue
This game shouldn’t be on the list. It was the last-gen consolation prize for 360 and PS3 owners who didn’t have a next-gen console when Unity came out — a mere afterthought of a spinoff masquerading as a full-fledged mainline entry. With that said…
Rogue had an interesting hook for its main character and integrated well with the smart parts of the franchise’s larger story. It contained a lot of refinements and quality-of-life items that helped it stand alongside earlier, more “inspired” entries in the franchise. Simply put, it was a good time that still holds up today.
#6 — Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
AC Syndicate is a Batman Arkham game where you can play as British Batman or British Girl Batman, complete with a punchy combat system and grapple hook. Plus, Syndicate has trains, and everyone knows train presence instantly bumps up games on all reputable score charts.
Sure, Syndicate’s narrative is meaningless and the lead characters are largely forgettable, but the world design is grand and appreciably detailed, the World War 1 digression is epic, and the game’s really fun if you have Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies’ soundtracks blasting in the background.
#5 — Assassin’s Creed Origins
This game more or less marked the beginning of the end for “old AC,” e.g., when the games were actually about assassins and weren’t excessively bloated RPGs. With that said, Origins is the best of the franchise’s contemporary titles.
Origins is the least drawn out of the new AC games, meaning you can actually complete it before it completely overstays its welcome. Furthermore, the Egypt setting is richly realized and visually engrossing. And to top it all off, the graphics are gorgeous, because having sand and particle effects everywhere is a really easy way to mask any shoddy texturework.
#4 — Assassin’s Creed 3
Ignoring AC3’s narrative’s off-putting, uneven pacing, the actual story within remains the boldest in franchise history. Between spending the first three hours of the game playing as someone besides the main character without the game telling you (surprise!) and a finale that highlights the futility of attempting to fight racism as a lone wolf, the storytellers behind AC3 didn’t hold back.
AC3 introduced the franchise’s boating system and streamlined the series’ parkour mechanics, with the latter improvement making for a more accessible experience against the franchise’s pervasive sense of jank. All in all, the game was a swing for the fences that showed what the franchise was narratively capable of, while also setting the stage for later entries (cough cough, Black Flag).
#3 — Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag
Black Flag is basically an epic, big-budget pirate simulator with some Assassin’s Creed stuff thrown in as salad dressing. If you like hoisting sails, singing sea shanties, firing cannons, and ramming ships while listening to the cries and screams of drowning enemy crewmates begging to see their families one last time, this game is an easy recommendation.
#2 — Assassin’s Creed Revelations
Not only was this game a touching, thoughtful ending to the Ezio trilogy (far more impactful than the filler of Brotherhood, in any event), but it had engaging world design that gave exploration a great flow. And, most importantly…
It had incredible multiplayer. Seriously, this game’s cat-and-mouse multiplayer iterated on Brotherhood’s to absolute perfection. Every PVP iteration after this (AC3, Black Flag) failed to stack up. Revelations’ MP maps, character abilities and customization options, and visual aesthetic were all sick as hell. Ubisoft needs to bring this component back, stat.
#1 — Assassin’s Creed Unity
Maybe it’s because Ubisoft is largely a French operation, but I’ve never seen the company pay so much care to authentically recreating a setting. Roaming through Ubisoft’s French Revolution version of Paris is, no joke, a perfectly fine primer for touring modern-day, real-life Paris. The landmarks, the streets, etcetera, are all done to perfection. One look through the Notre Dame cathedral’s stained-glass windows in this game is all you need to see to know Ubisoft put more heart and soul into Unity than any other AC entry. Despite its unfortunate technical hiccups at launch, this game remains the pinnacle of the franchise’s artistic and technological ambition.
Not to mention, the title’s pretty alright as an actual game. It makes parkour even smoother than previous AC installments, which is nice, and the game’s incredible technology means Unity’s unreal crowd density really makes you feel like you’re trapped alongside a city’s worth of people suffering through a monarchy in collapse. For a series all about immersive historical fiction, that’s a serious accomplishment.
The Mortal Kombat 1Stress Test is the first time that players in the general public are able to get their hands on the game. After initial previews at Summer Game Fest, there’s quite a bit of momentum for the latest entry in the MK series. The series is one of the longest running franchises in the fighting game genre, along with Capcom’s Street Fighter.
The upcoming stress test is meant to push the MK1 servers to their limit ahead of the game’s official launch on September 19. How can you play this beta? Read on to find out about how & when to play the Mortal Kombat 1 stress test!
How to Sign Up for the Stress Test
To sign up for the MK1 stress test, go to your WB Games account. Then, go to the registration page to sign up for the beta. It’s important to note, however, that this test isn’t available to all platforms. The online stress test is exclusive to players on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. Sorry to players on Switch and PC, you’re out of luck.
Invites to the Mortal Kombat 1 stress test will go out to select registered players on Wednesday, June 21. For players who didn’t register before this date, you’re unfortunately not going to be able to participate in this test. Also keep in mind that cross-platform play will not be enabled for this test.
Players will be able to download and play the beta on Friday, June 23 at 11 AM EDT/8 AM PDT. The game won’t be available for preload, so make sure to enter your code right at this time to maximize your hands-on time with the game. It’s also confirmed that you can stream and create content for the game, so enjoy!
When Does the MK1 Stress Test End?
The stress test will end on June 26 at 11 AM EDT, 3 days after it begins. Make the most of the time you have with the game before this time approaches!
