It's actually happened! After months of worrying speculation, we finally got a release date for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond during the recent Nintendo Direct. It's confirmed for December 4, 2025 (phew!), and already up for preorder at Amazon.

But if you tuned into the Nintendo Direct, you may have noticed a couple of extra key details. Firstly, Samus on a bike (huh?), and secondly, Samus on a bike as an amiibo that you can buy (no way!).

After a preview session where I was able to play the first half an hour of LEGO Voyagers, the mandatory-two-player, what-if-Hazelight-made-a-LEGO-game adventure from developer Light Brick Studios and arthouse publisher Annapurna Interactive, I wrote, “LEGO Voyagers might already be my favorite LEGO game ever.”

Keyword: might.

One less-than-ideal thing happened between my initial preview and my 14-year-old daughter and I completing the full version of LEGO Voyagers – where we tumbled, built, and played our way through to the end credits in same-screen co-op: it ended all too quickly. Though we enjoyed it the whole way through – it left us disappointingly unfulfilled because it ended just as it seemed like it should be hitting its stride.

Short But Sweet

You see, we rolled credits after just three and a half hours – even less than the slim five hours the publisher told us to expect. I’ve never been one to knock a game just for being short. Heck, Playdead’s Inside is still probably the greatest game I’ve ever personally reviewed at IGN, and it, like LEGO Voyagers, is a dialogue-free adventure that ended in less than four hours.

But while Inside left my jaw on the floor in astonishment at the incredible masterpiece I’d just experienced, LEGO Voyagers left both my and my daughter’s jaws on the floor for an entirely different reason: We both said, “Wait, that’s it?” To be fair, this is a $25 game and not everything has to be a Silksong. But it did leave both of us wanting more in a, “No really, we actually thought there’d be more than this,” kind of way.

I’m getting that gripe out of the way up front to set expectations, because outside of the all-too-soon end of the campaign, I love almost everything else about LEGO Voyagers. I’ll start with the tone, which is quite different from Traveller’s Tales’ more whimsical licensed LEGO games and the slapstick-with-heart LEGO movies. Voyagers is instead playfully curious – delightfully so – right down to who you play as and how you move. You and your co-op partner are just nameless, voiceless 1x1 bricks – one red and one blue, both with a single, mildly expressive eyeball attached to one side – and you simply roll your way around the LEGO-built world with fairly believable physics bouncing you around the play spaces. And though it obviously makes no logical sense, you can jump by pressing A (on an Xbox controller) and snap yourself onto any nearby peg with B. Pressing Y rotates your orientation by 90 degrees when you’re in that B-button snap mode.

Actually, though, your avatars are not entirely voiceless. Your 1x1 bricks can make adorable little noises if you press the X button, which can occasionally be used to harmonize in certain spots but is more likely intended to get your co-op partner’s attention when playing online. (On that note, kudos to Annapurna for following Hazelight’s lead and offering a Friend’s Pass that allows you to play with a friend online using only one copy of Voyagers.)

Our adorable 1x1 bricks instantly make for likeable protagonists in an almost Pixar-ish kind of way. I appreciate the little touches, like how the blue one starts with a beach bucket on its “head.” The music – which doesn’t always play but makes an impact when it does – plays a big part in establishing Voyagers’s playful vibe, too. It’s mellow but varied, humming along in the background in a way that’s additive rather than just being forgettable noise. Most, if not all of it, would go on your “Chill” or yoga playlist and not anywhere else, but it totally works here.

Bricks That Shine

I also want to commend the authentic art direction and visual identity of Voyagers, which is decidedly less cartoony compared to the licensed LEGO games. It goes for a sort-of realism, with every piece in the diorama-like worlds looking like the shiny plastic its real-life counterpart is – complete with the LEGO wordmark stamped into every brick. The soft daytime lighting baked into many scenes has a warmth and serenity to it that gives it a relaxing, mellow, and playfully curious tone, and the use of light and shadow helped draw me in immediately. That these sets sometimes have water flowing through them or surrounding them only adds to the believability of these being actually constructed LEGO sets that you’re observing from above as an omniscient participant.

Furthering that easy-going atmosphere is the complete and total lack of any penalty for death whatsoever; when – not if – you tumble off the edge of a scene or miss a jump and plunge off the side, you’ll instantly reappear right where you last were prior to your mistake. It’s completely low stakes and encourages goofing off, so when you snap yourself onto your co-op partner and roll both of you off a ledge, or fling them off a bridge you’re supposed to be holding down for them to cross, they can’t even be too mad about it until the fifth or sixth time you pull the same trick.

There’s never any direction given, but intuitively we immediately understood that your goal in a game like this is to get from point A to point B. In the early part of the campaign, that’s accomplished by simply picking up loose bricks from around the scene and working together to assemble them into makeshift bridges to cross gaps. In true LEGO spirit, there’s no single right way to build your path forward: You could build a super-clean structure that a civil engineer would approve of, or cobble together a hodgepodge of pieces with no regard for aesthetics or efficiency but which gets the job done nonetheless. We tended toward the latter, and had a great time doing it. (Side note: a Photo Mode would’ve been a nice addition as a way to capture the digital memory of what you create and share it with friends and family – and the act of working together to solve whatever obstacle is in front of you is really enjoyable. But simple screenshots sufficed.)

Those puzzles ramp up a bit as the campaign progresses, though as I mentioned it felt like there’s a lot more room for it to grow into that it leaves unexplored. A favorite scene of ours had us driving a big dump truck of sorts around an industrial yard where train tracks are made. The locomotive we rode in on had to stop due to a gap in the tracks, so we got out, hopped in the truck with one of us steering while the other (effectively) worked the pedals. We roamed around, collecting raw materials into the truck bed before taking them to the foundry to be forged into usable track pieces, then satisfyingly snapped the new track into place and continued onwards. It’s still simple, but with a few more steps involved than just assembling a bridge or stairway.

We also had fun with a series of minigames near the end of the story that I won’t spoil here, except to note that they’re particularly finicky physics-based challenges that might be quite tricky for younger gamers that are likely to be drawn to Voyagers and its E-for-Everyone ESRB rating. Fortunately, none of these tricky tasks are required in order to progress – but we did have fun earning the Achievements that came along with completing them.

Play Time

Though puzzles make up the meat of the gameplay, there’s also a bit of freedom to play around in many scenes. My daughter and I found ourselves racing to be the first to “pop” every flower we came across by rolling over it (and there are a ton of them throughout the entire campaign) even though there are no actual rewards for doing so. There are also fun little “breaks” you can take, such as by each hopping on a teeter-totter or sitting next to each other on a bench. They’re absolutely not required, but they make for fun little pit stops along the golden path (and another idea that those of us who played Split Fiction earlier this year might recognize).

If I were to levy one more complaint against LEGO Voyagers, it’s that neither my daughter nor myself quite got what the meaning of the completely wordless story was supposed to be. In the opening moments, the 1x1 brick avatars watch a rocket launch go awry. They spend the next handful of hours trying to get to the rocket facility…and I suppose you’ll see what happens. But if there was a moral to the tale here in the way you might expect from watching Wall-E or playing a game like Tunic, both of us missed it.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has now sold 4.4 million copies, staff at developer Sandfall Interactive have confirmed.

Although official figures still stand at 3.3 million copies sold in just 33 days, marketing and release producer Benjamin Dimanche, hair and technical character artist Amandine Marest, and senior gameplay programmer Florian Torres revealed in a conversation with French streamer Antoine Daniel that sales have now surpassed 4.4 million.

In the video interview, when asked by Daniel for an update on sales so far, Torres and Marest answered at the same time. And though Torres said "Officially…", Marest jumped right in with: "4.4 million." The trio then looked at each other, laughed, and Torres added: "Officially, 3.3 million, but it's 4.4 million" (thanks, Gamereactor).

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launched on April 24 across PC and console, but also straight into Xbox Game Pass as a day-one title. It also launched against Bethesda’s RPG behemoth The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, making this a stunning milestone for the first game from Sandfall.

In IGN's 9/10 review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, we described it as a "modern RPG classic," adding: "In so many ways, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 reminded me of numerous classic and contemporary RPGs I love, but developer Sandfall truly understood why those games are special and made the pieces it borrowed its own."

If that's convinced you to give it a go, be sure to check out our tips for the important things to know before going into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The studio recently published update 1.4.0, adding key features like a Battle Retry option alongside a host of quality-of-life changes, visual improvements, and bug fixes.

We recently learned that Clair Obscur is not just the shortened name for Sandfall's blockbuster debut RPG — it's also the name for an entire franchise.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Randy Pitchford is on the offensive when it comes to Borderlands 4 PC performance, responding directly to complaints on social media to Claptrap back at disgruntled fans.

Fresh from his confusing comments about the reason why the console version of Borderlands 4 lacks a field of view (FOV) slider, and his declaration that it would have been impossible to break the Borderlands 4 servers through sheer weight of player numbers alone at launch, the outspoken Gearbox chief spent time this weekend addressing the complaints about Borderlands 4 performance on PC. At various points on social media, Pitchford told people to “code your own engine and show us how it’s done, please,” and declare Borderlands 4 “a premium game made for premium gamers.” He also suggested people put their irrational distrust of video game graphics tech such as DLSS aside and use it if available to them.

There’s plenty to dig into here, but ultimately what Pitchford is saying is that PC gamers should manage their expectations when it comes to the performance of Borderlands 4 in the context of their own rigs.

“Every PC gamer must accept the reality of the relationship between their hardware and what the software they are running is doing,” he said, kicking off a thread clearly designed to address the performance issues that have sparked so much early discourse around Borderlands 4.

“We have made an amazing and fun and huge looter shooter campaign game. The game is pretty damn optimal — which means that the software is doing what we want without wasteful cycles on bad processes.”

Pitchford went on to insist that PC gamers have tools that help them balance their preferences between FPS, resolution, and rendering features, and they should make use of them. “If you aren’t happy with the balance between these things you are experiencing, please tune to your preferences using the tools available to you,” he said.

Acknowledging everyone is entitled to an opinion, Pitchford insisted it was right for Gearbox to have focused on Borderlands 4’s default settings hitting 30fps on minimum specs, and 60fps on recommended specs.

“Some of you would prefer more fps, or more features, or higher resolution. We have provided many tools to help you make those trade offs,” he continued.

Then, in typical Randy Pitchford on the front foot fashion: “It is a mistake to believe or expect that PCs between minimum specification and recommended specification can achieve all of extremely high framerate, maximum/ultra features, and extremely high resolution.

“If that last post makes you have a negative reaction, I bet you have emotions and expectations that you feel aren’t sufficiently attended to. I’m sorry.

“But please accept that the game is doing a lot and running pretty optimally and that you may have to either accept some trade offs between fps, features and resolution as your preference or you will continue to be disappointed.”

There’s more. Pitchford went on to advise PC gamers should make use of DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), Nvidia’s AI-powered image enhancement and rendering technology for GeForce RTX GPUs, downplaying concern about input lag.

“Use DLSS. It’s great,” he said. “The game was built to take advantage of it. This is not a competitive FPS. And, I have been led to believe that in a blind test that humans cannot detect any input lag. In my own demonstrates and experiments, I believe this is true.

“Everyone has the freedom to believe what they want to believe and I know on the internet it’s easy to find rage and passionate people who are convinced of all kinds of things, whether they are true or not.

“If you are so attached to the idea that DLSS is bad for your game experience because of something you saw or read on the internet, I am sorry. I hope instead you would use the technology designed to give you the experience you want.”

Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy Movie announcement has sent fans rushing back to the first Mario film, and a teasing scene that appears to set up the freshly-announced sequel.

This scene, coupled with the fact Nintendo looks likely to adapt the plot of the Mario Galaxy video game, has prompted fan speculation that we're about to see a major piece of Super Mario lore confirmed, following decades of debate.

Super Mario Galaxy centers on the character of Rosalina, a space princess that Nintendo itself has said shares similarities with Princess Peach. Within the first Galaxy game, Rosalina's backstory is revealed through pages of a storybook, with her journey through the stars explained as her searching for her long-lost parents.

Rosalina's parentage is kept vague, with her mother pictured but kept largely obscured. But Nintendo is said to have once planned a more concrete backstory that linked Rosalina and the Mushroom Kingdom, with her being related to Princess Peach in some way.

Years later, eagle-eyed fans spotted a mysterious tease within 2023's Super Mario Bros. Movie, in a scene which sees Peach discuss her origins, and reveal how she first arrived in the Mushroom Kingdom.

"You don't seem like you're from here," Mario says.

"I don't know where I'm from," Peach replies. "My earliest memory is arriving," she continues, as a flashback shows her, aged as a toddler, turning up in the Mushroom Kingdom via a warp pipe. Dressed in a skirt decorated with stars and moons, she is quickly found by a group of Toads. "I was so lucky they found me. They took me in, raised me like one of their own, and when I was ready they made me their princess."

Gearbox has confirmed it’s “exploring” how to add a field of view (FOV) slider to Borderlands 4 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S after complaints from console players.

When Borderlands 4 launched last week, console players were shocked to discover not only a lack of a FOV slider in-game, but no motion blur toggle, either. The PC version of Borderlands 4 has settings for both.

The lack of a FOV slider is the biggest issue right now with Borderlands 4 on console, if anecdotal evidence across the internet is anything to go by, with some complaining that not being able to tweak the FOV value is causing them to experience motion sickness.

Gearbox chief Randy Pitchford responded to the complaints to suggest fairness might have something to do with the lack of a FOV slider, although all that comment did was confuse fans given the PC version has it and there’s crossplay at launch.

Now, Gearbox has confirmed it’s working on the problem, saying in a statement published on social media:

“Vault Hunters! We have heard your feedback on FOV (Field of View) sliders on console. The team is currently exploring how to bring these sliders to both Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 versions. We will continue to read your feedback and prioritize game updates with your experience in mind. Thanks all!”

There are suggestions the console version of Borderlands 4 lacks a FOV slider in order to maintain certain performance levels. By increasing the FOV, you’re putting the hardware under more strain and potentially impacting things like framerate.

Whatever the issue, Borderlands 4 got off to a big start on Steam, where it hit just over 300,000 concurrent player numbers on Sunday. No other Borderlands game has come close to that in terms of concurrent player numbers on Valve’s platform. The true number will of course be much higher when you add console players.

While Borderlands 4 got off to a big start in terms of player numbers, it’s not entirely plain sailing for Gearbox. The release was marred by complaints about PC performance that have resulted in a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam. Gearbox has issued an update to address the PC version of Borderlands 4 specifically, although without patch notes.

If you are delving into Borderlands 4 don't go without updated hourly SHiFT codes list. We've also got a huge interactive map ready to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus check out our expert players' choices for which character to choose (no one agreed).

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.