Sometimes, you go in blind on a new game. That’s how it was for me with Sword Art Online: Echoes of Aincrad. I’ll be honest with y’all: I’m not a Sword Art Online guy. I haven’t read the manga, seen the anime, theatrical films or live action adaptation, or played any of the games. My only knowledge of Sword Art Online is that the characters are trapped in an MMO, and if you die in the game, you die in real life. Dun dun dun! That’s a pretty compelling basis for a manga or an anime, but it’s particularly interesting as a video game set in a video game. As it turns out, not knowing much about Sword Art Online made me the perfect guy to sit down with Echoes of Aincrad because, well… it's a little different from what’s come before.

Before we dive into that, let’s take a quick step back and establish a few things first. Aside from a short section of the tutorial that we don’t want to spoil, I didn’t really see any of Echoes of Aincrad’s story. Instead, my time with Aincrad was spent doing a quest called The Lost Log. But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk about some of the narrative decisions this single-player action-RPG makes.

Maybe the biggest departure for the series is that, for the first time in its history, you’re not going to play as a pre-existing character who is part of the story. Instead, you’ll make your own. When I asked Sword Art Online Game Series Producer Yosuke Futami why they made the switch, he told me there were a couple reasons. First, most games in the series have been set in the middle of Sword Art Online’s story, which required players to have at least some working knowledge of the series. Echoes of Aincrad doesn’t, and Futami hopes that means that it will be more approachable for folks who aren’t already fans. Second, he’s hoping that by putting the player into the game world as their own character, they’ll be able to experience the story of being trapped in a death game themselves, not vicariously. Neat.

My journey started in The Town of Beginnings. I spent a little time running, getting a feel for the place, and finding some elven statues that taught me some of Aincrad’s lore. The Town of Beginnings feels like, well... a starting town in an MMO. It’s got that dense-yet-artificial feel of a town in a video game, which pulls double duty in a video game set in a video game because NPCs feeling like NPCs here is a feature, not a bug. The town also shows off how utterly gorgeous Echoes of Aincrad is. This is a good-looking video game. Like… damn.

After seeing the town, I teleported to a nearby terminal (you can teleport any time you’re in town), picked up a quest, and then teleported to my chest to change up my loadout and level up. You see, Echoes of Aincrad started me with a sword-and-board build, and I decided immediately that I would not be doing that because it just didn’t feel like me. I opted for a greatsword and some new gear instead, and spent my growth points to maximize what I wanted to do (meaning: hit things with a big sword).

One of the neat things Echoes of Aincrad does is reward you for hitting certain milestones as you level up – generally once you hit five point increments. Getting my Dex to 5, for instance, boosted my sword skill damage by 3%, while hitting 10 bumped that to 5%. It’s easy to play an RPG and feel like individual levels don’t do much to make you stronger, but every time I got a new level or hit a new milestone in my time with Echoes of Aincrad, I felt it – something Futami confirmed was intentional when I asked him about it. And in Echoes of Aincrad, you can reset your parameters whenever you want. That isn’t typical of Sword Art Online as a setting, but it makes Echoes of Aincrad more accessible to newcomers and encourages you to experiment with your build until you find something you like. If you ask me, that rules.

Once I was kitted out good and proper, it was time to go out into the world. Echoes of Aincrad is set in an MMO, but it’s a single-player game. When you go out, though, you’re not alone. You can select a companion to go with you. I had my choice of three: Iori, a healer: the tankier Wyzeman; and Argo, who operates in more of a utility/support role. I went with Wyzeman. Once we were in the field, how we proceeded was up to us. The map would tell us where we needed to go, but I could only see some of it. I’d have to unlock the rest as we traveled.

Our first enemies were wolves, boars, and kobolds, all perfect for getting used to Echoes of Aincrad’s combat system. A lot of what’s here is stuff you’ve seen before. You’ve got a guard, light and heavy attack chains that you can alternate between on the fly, special attacks, and your partner’s abilities (Iori’s, for instance, creates a circle that heals you if you stand in it). You’ll also open up additional attacks if you dodge at the right time or manage to parry, as you do, and some of them are pretty cinematic. Fancy.

What makes Echoes of Aincrad cool is how dangerous everything feels. Standard enemies can and will kill you if you’re not paying attention, especially early on, and they’re not exactly the forgive and forget type: they’ll follow you for a long time if you pick a fight with them. And they’re all different. Kobolds will block your attacks and retreat and try to blind you. If they do, the screen darkens and is filled with static. It’s a great effect that does exactly what it says: makes it a lot harder to see. Wolves, on the other hand, are nimble and aggressive and travel in packs. Boars are bruisers that you probably don’t wanna go toe to toe with directly, and there are these weird plants that attack from range with vines and can burrow under the ground. And that’s not even getting to the elite enemies, which are bigger, faster, and stronger and come with additional attacks.

By far the worst, though, were the wasps. They fly, they shoot poison, they hit pretty hard. Them boys is tough, so much so that I felt like San Andreas’s CJ whenever I saw one: “Aw, s***, here we go again.” Futami knows it, too. When I asked him about the enemies, and specifically mentioned the wasps, he nodded and said “Ah. Wasp” in English (the rest of our interview was conducted via a translator). Those are the words of a man who knows what he’s doing, what horrors he has unleashed on his digital world.

But even then, there are ways to deal with enemies. They can be stunned, opening them up to big damage. In the case of the wasps, I could knock them out of the air, which is where they’re strongest. If I stunned them, I could chop off their wings, preventing them from taking to the air and forcing them to fight on my terms. No matter what enemy I went up against (or how many times I saw them), it was always scary when a fight drew the attention of more baddies and exhilarating when I landed a big hit, nailed a dodge attack, or timed a team-up attack just so.

What I saw of the world was just as intriguing. In most RPGs, the worlds are something you navigate between combat encounters, but in Echoes of Aincrad, getting around is half the battle. Futami told me that they wanted the world itself to be like a dungeon, and I felt it when I was playing. Much of the time, I was figuring out how to get where I wanted to be from where I was, and what paths I’d need to take to get from one floating blue orb – which serve as places to rest and restore your potions, but also respawn enemies – to another, finding chests along the way. By far my favorite thing about the world was finding Arks. Defeating the mini-boss enemies sealed inside the Arks will open other seals scattered around the world, allowing you to get chests and other goodies.

One time, I opened up a cave, but it was too dark for me to see what was inside. Apparently, I didn’t have the right equipment to light the way; I guess I needed a Pokemon with flash or something. That could have been annoying, but I loved navigating Echoes of Aincrad’s world so much that it just made me want to come back later. There’s so much detail here, that even walking through mud is exciting because it would show up on my characters, something Futami said the team put a lot of effort into, and you can really get a sense of that as you play.

Searching for The Lost Log usually meant making the trip in chunks, fighting my way to the next orb, then going back to down to level up, equip new armor and weapons – and upgrade and slap new abilities on them, which sadly I can’t show – switching out my companion (I liked them all, but Iori quickly became my go-to because of her healing prowess), and so on. Each trip into the wild was an expedition, and I loved an excuse to try out new weapons and partner characters, which returning to the city provided.

My demo ended with a boss fight against a couple of the big, scary plants. It was a grand ol’ time, and fitting end to my time with Echoes of Aincrad. I came, I saw, I conquered, recovered The Lost Log, and left many a dead wasp in my wake. I’m still thinking about Echoes of Aincrad more than a week after playing it. About its world, about the characters, about the wasps. Even the metatextual stuff is fun. Remember Iori? She appears as a woman when I met her, but early on, Iori is a man, and Futami is eager to see what players make of that change. It’s particularly fitting for a video game. After all, who amongst us hasn’t played as a member of the opposite sex while exploring a fantasy world?

If Echoes of Aincrad can nail what it’s aiming for, it should be a chance for seasoned vets and newcomers alike to get into the Sword Art Online world. Me? I just wanna go back to that cave. Next time, I’ll make sure to bring a light.

No matter how much time goes by, the gory, loot-filled embrace of Diablo 4 is something I always seem to return to, and with the Lord of Hatred expansion right around the corner it’s only a matter of time before I lose myself for dozens of hours once again. That’s especially true now that I’ve had the chance to check out the second of two new character classes coming alongside the expansion, the Warlock, who uses the power of Hell against itself to become an unstoppable, demonic magic user that even Mephisto himself should have reason to fear. This summoner of satanic sigils and swarms of sinister spawn has numerous distinct builds that make it an interesting option for different types of players, and make it less likely that you’ll end up in a party filled with identical demon summoners when going toe-to-toe with the Lord of Hatred, and I truly cannot wait to see what insane builds people come up with. Combined with the new region of Skovos, an overhauled endgame experience, and a whole bunch of tweaks to skill trees and loot, this finale to Mephisto’s story is looking truly epic so far.

Blizzard was happy to share plenty of news about their upcoming Lord of Hatred expansion for Diablo IV, but the main course was the Warlock character class – a mage who turns the dark powers of hell against itself and uses demons as disposable tools in his battle against their kind. It’s truly the most metal class in Diablo to-date, and after spending some hands-on time messing around with several pre-configured variations, it’s given me another reason to look forward to diving back into one of my favorite ARPGs.

Like the Spiritborn class from last year, the Warlock seems to have a bit more build diversity than the classes found in vanilla Diablo 4. Instead of a ranged magic user like the Sorcerer, who has a handful of elemental options that apply different status effects to enemies, the Warlock has a version that turns him into an aggressive melee monster, leaping around to stomp the enemy flat, or a summoner class that lets his minions do his fighting for him and has much more in common with the Necromancer. No matter which you pick though, they all have the same flavor of using hellish powers, whether that be unholy rituals or imposing your will over enemies on the battlefield to turn them into your meat puppets. And since you can mix and match these options at your discretion, there’s a lot of potential to create a well-rounded fighter that perhaps ends up being a jack of all trades, but master of none, which is both a neat option to have available, and also maybe not advisable (though that won’t keep me from at least giving it a try).

If You Build it, They Will Die

My favorite of the builds I tried was called the Legion, which focused on summoning demons to aid me in battle, then feeding off of their death to do additional damage to my enemies. In this version of the Warlock, absolutely every attack involved using and abusing my infernal servants to deal damage, including my base attack that fired exploding fallen lunatics at my foes. Naturally, the ultimate for this build let me summon an absolutely massive demon called the Fiend of Abaddon, who swung a gigantic claymore at everything in the area, doing huge damage. It’s been a while since I did a playthrough with the Necromancer, but the Warlock felt to me like a much more aggressive version of this type of minion character archetype and I absolutely loved it.

But summoning demons to do your bidding is still a fairly passive strategy, and for a truly aggressive alternative, I tried out the Vanguard build, which focused on turning myself into a hideous, profane hellspawn instead of just summoning them. This version of the Warlock involved unleashing a bunch of fire and lava all over the place, like one ability that let me summon a demonic head that spewed flames from his mouth (hell yeah), and another that caused my enemies to explode upon death, causing a chain reaction of destruction in my wake. The main draw of this variety of Warlock though, was Metamorphosis, an ultimate ability that straight-up turned me into a demon, replacing my existing hotbar with a whole new slew of blasphemous temporary abilities as I ran around tearing my way through Mephisto’s hordes with my razorsharp claws. This build felt like it would definitely take some learning to master, especially since replacing all your skills while in demon form could be fairly jarring at first, but I really liked the idea nonetheless.

Another build that really clicked with me was the Ritualist – a version of the Warlock that focused on creating sigils that impacted whole areas of the map with various status effects, often causing demons to up and explode into pink giblets. Whether I was opening up molten cracks in the earth, using totems to chain enemies in place, or hexed enemies within an area and turned me invisible when killing enemies within them, I was almost always placing lethal traps all over the map that made it impossible for demons to reach me without suffering my wrath first. Naturally, the ultimate ability for this build just summoned an absolutely humongous sigil on the ground (filling nearly the entire screen) that exploded multiple times and just wiped the area clear of any baddies. I probably only scratched the surface with this build, and there were a few sigils I didn’t even get to try, but it already felt super powerful and very different from any of Diablo 4’s other character classes.

Finally, there was the Mastermind Warlock, which was all about mobility, stealth, and applying a bunch of status effects to enemies. I definitely felt the least at home with this build, but the vibe I got from it was that it’s sort of the rogue version of the Warlock, where you’re given lots of ranged attacks and options to dodge around or become invisible, but are also quite squishy. The ultimate ability involved summoning a swarm of hungry Hell bugs that ran around the map eating everything in sight. Overall, this one seems like it requires a fair bit more finesse than some of the other options that were much more straightforward brute force plays, but even in my limited time with it, I could see that the DPS potential on this one was pretty insane. It maybe won’t be the choice for my first playthrough of Lord of Hatred, but I could definitely see myself deep-diving into this option and seeing what interesting combos I could come up with.

After experimenting with these options, I also tried my hand at building my own Warlock that mixed and matched my favorite abilities from each. I can’t say I was very successful at doing so on my first attempt, but the vibes of using Hell against itself and all the different forms that can take definitely sold me on giving this class a try come April.

More to Explore

Though most of my time was spent checking out the Warlock and its various permutations of demonic badassery, I also was given a sneak peek at some of the new systems, like the reworked skill trees that put more emphasis on customizing abilities rather than passive increases, new details on the new endgame progression system called War Paths, some seriously cool changes to itemization, like set bonuses being added, new crafting systems, and a much-needed loot filter (finally), and even a fishing minigame. I didn’t get to go hands-on with most of these, instead just learning about them from developers over the course of several Q&A sessions, but everything I’ve heard so far has me feeling really optimistic about Diablo 4’s chances at consuming my life (again) later this year.

The skill tree changes are easily my favorite tweak, as they’ve done away with all the boring nodes that just make your numbers go up (that’s what the paragon tree is for, after all), and have instead made each skill purchase an interesting decision that augments how your character plays. Some of the examples of this are a skill tree that can turn the Sorcerer’s Hydra fire summon into an ice summon instead, or in the case of the Warlock, a perk that turns a defensive wall of demons into an offensive group of roaming monsters. I really like the idea that now the core skill trees for each character will focus on modifying skills to match your playstyle, instead of just boosting DPS, and am pretty eager to dive in and see what new options are waiting to be exploited.

As for the endgame changes, set bonuses, and the new crafting systems, IGN will have plenty more to share in the future as the Lord of Hatred nears ever closer to ensnaring Sanctuary. For now, I’m sold on the Warlock, and am already noodling on some chaotic summoner builds to let loose later this year.

New Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma, who took over as the head of the Xbox business last week as longtime Xbox boss Phil Spencer retired, has confirmed the codename for Xbox's next-generation console – Project Helix – and also confirmed long-swirling rumors that the device will play Xbox and PC games.

"Great start to the morning with Team Xbox, where we talked about our commitment to the return of Xbox including Project Helix, the code name for our next generation console," Sharma posted on her X account. "Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games. Looking forward to chatting about this more with partners and studios at my first GDC next week!"

Rumors about the fifth-generation Xbox console and its ability to play PC games have been making the rounds for some time. Though perhaps it won't be playing any first-party PlayStation games that make their way to PC, since Sony has reportedly pulled back on first-party PC support.

IGN's Xbox podcast crew talked about their advice for Sharma on a recent episode, and our Next-Gen Console Watch crew offered her five changes she could immediately make that would win over Xbox fans.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired 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.