The Walt Disney Company has been telling some of the most beloved stories in all of entertainment for over 100 years, but it's taken stepping aboard the Disney Destiny for me to feel more a part of them than I ever have before.

After inviting me to Papenburg, Germany, in August to see how the Disney Destiny was built, Disney welcomed me back aboard its newest cruise ship ahead of its maiden voyage on November 20 to experience what makes this Heroes & Villains-themed ship so special. After departing Ft. Lauderdale’s Port Everglades for three way-too-short days, it was those special story moments we were part of - whether it be Loki taking over the Grand Hall and declaring himself king or Cruella de Vil storming into her own lounge - that truly won me over.

Developer Poncle says its newly announced Vampire Crawlers is more of a spinoff than a sequel, but it sounds like Vampire Survivors 2 may actually be in the works, too.

Fans had their eyebrows raised when the studio behind the hit monster-slaying video game announced Vampire Crawlers as its new game during today’s Xbox Partner Preview. While the roguelike deck-builder might seem like a proper Vampire Survivors sequel at first glance, Poncle says in a new interview with Xbox Wire, this isn’t the case.

“This is just a spin-off of Vampire Survivors – hopefully the first in a series of spin-offs!” studio founder and CEO Luca Galante said. “The idea is to take some of the core pillars behind the development of VS and to apply them to existing genres. I’m talking about accessibility, immediacy, affordability, replayability, and sparkly stuff. Tons of sparkly stuff!”

It’s no doubt an idea a wide range of Vampire Survivors fans will gravitate to, especially as Poncle teases what could be more than one spinoff. Alas, the lack of a 2 next to the title means Vampire Crawlers is planned to offer something different from the core experience, but fans hoping for a proper follow-up may not want to count out Vampire Survivors 2 just yet.

“With regards to a sequel to Vampire Survivors, we’re working on something, but we’re not talking about that just yet,” Galante adds.

It's just one sentence of acknowledgement, but it’s still enough to confirm that Poncle has multiple ideas brewing when it comes to the future Vampire Survivors. Whether that lands a 2 next to the original title's name or results in something else entirely, we’ll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, Vampire Crawlers seeks to bring the humor the series is known for together with a new gameplay loop. A trailer for the spinoff, which Galante says Poncle has been working on for around four years, reveals a switch to first-person gameplay with some dungeon-crawling to boot.

Vampire Survivors 2 could be years away. In the meantime, players can look forward to Vampire Crawlers when it comes to PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S in 2026. For more, you can read our Vampire Survivors 1.0 review, where we gave Poncle’s popular monster-slaying game an 8/10.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Sony's newest flagship wireless noise cancelling headphone has dropped to the lowest price ever, and it's not even close. Ahead of Black Friday, Amazon Resale is selling "like new" Sony WH-1000XM6 wireless noise canceling headphones for as low as $248.43 after an automatic 20% off discount is applied during checkout. It normally retails for $450 and the current "Black Friday deal" for buying it new is still nearly $400 on Amazon.

Amazon Resale (formerly Amazon Warehouse) is Amazon's official account for used goods. The products are sorted by condition, with "Like New" being the best. There's a good chance these items haven't been used at all and were returns from customers who have changed their minds, or simply products with blemished packaging. All Amazon Resale items also get the same 30-day return policy as any other Amazon purchase. Most "Like New" items still have a majority of its original manufacturer's warranty remaining (and sometimes the full warranty if the item was never sold).

"Like New" Sony WH-1000XM6 Headphones From $248.43

Amazon’s Black Friday sale is officially live. Yes, a week ahead of time. Deals will rotate in and out until the day of Black Friday itself, which does make it a bit challenging to figure out whether you’re actually getting the best possible discount.

One of the big draws of any Amazon sale is the amount of discounts on physical media, and the retailer has highlighted a whole section for Black Friday anime deals. There are hits and misses here, for sure, but I managed to pick out quite a few great deals that are at or very close to their all-time low prices.

Anime Blu-rays and DVDs in Amazon’s Black Friday Sale

As with any Amazon sale, I recommend doing a bit of scrolling and searching for your favorite series. If you're looking for some inspiration, Dan Da Dan is a personal favorite from the past couple years, in large part because I still haven’t gotten the banging intro out of my head. The anime adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man has also become a massive hit, and the limited edition Blu-ray of Season 1 includes a 72-page Booklet and digital art galleries. Both of these Season 1 releases have dropped to all-time low prices, making them the best deals from the current generation.

From a little further back in the day, you have the combination of anime that got me personally into the medium. Death Note is nothing short of a classic, worthy of a spot on any collector’s shelf. While not quite at its lowest ever price, a 60% discount is nothing to scoff at.

On the wackier side of things, the complete series of Soul Eater has hit an all-time low. I stand by it as one of the greats in large part for having some of the coolest character designs. (Looking at you, Death the Kid).

There’s a somewhat slimmer spread of anime movies on sale, but there are certain deals that are pretty much unbeatable. This includes one of the more recent steelbook releases, Grave of the Fireflies, hitting a new lowest ever price. While the rest of the Studio Ghibli movies have small discounts right now, I’d expect better deals on those closer to Black Friday. (For reference, they're pretty much always on sale.)

What About Streaming?

Best Buy's Black Friday Sale has officially kicked off with some great deals on gaming hardware. Possibly the very best deal I've found so far is on the Lenovo Legion Go S Z1 Exterme SteamOS handheld gaming PC, which has dropped to just $649.99 after a massive $250 instant discount. This is the lowest price I've seen by nearly $130. Note that this is the more powerful model with the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip and it is easily one of the best Steam-based gaming handhelds currently available. It's essentially a souped up Steam Deck alternative.

Save $250 Off the Lenovo Legion Go S Handheld Gaming PC

Godfall developer Counterplay Games reportedly shut down earlier this year, so seeing it suddenly reappear with Armatus, a full-blown roguelite shooter coming to PC and consoles in 2026, might be somewhat of a shock.

A trailer, including everything from far-along cinematics and tense gameplay, materialized during today’s November 2025 Xbox Partner Preview. It’s undeniably got that Godfall flair to it, as its main character can be seen smashing and blasting their way through a post-post-apocalyptic Paris.

It’s not often a game developer seemingly closes down only to reemerge months later with a brand-new video game for PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S. We sat down with Counterplay studio head and creative director Ming Zhang to learn more about Armatus, its roguelike gameplay, and what it’s been like for the team to continue its work when those rumors were kicked up. You can see the full interview below.

IGN: To set the stage, tell me about Armatus and this trailer we're going to see. What are players looking at in this first trailer?

Ming Zhang: What you see in this trailer is snippets of gameplay, largely with a little bit of cinematic footage from our game. You know, it's been a number of years in the making, and this is Counterplay's next entry in our love of visceral combat. You see some of the abilities, some of the enemies, and some of the cool moves that you're going to be you're going to be able to do, in this case.

What can you tell me, in a little more detail, about its gameplay, its story, and, especially, the world it takes place in?

Zhang: It's a third-person roguelite shooter, and in order to build the world, what we did, is we took the concept of urban fantasy, which is the grim supernatural underneath the real world, and we took it to the nines. What happens in the post-post-apocalypse of an urban fantasy world? Well, you know, the real world kind of starts to break apart, and underneath, all the supernatural stuff starts to spill forth, right? When you think about, 'What is a city that evokes classic but also modern, and has all the right tone and tambre, even un-supernatural?' It would be Paris. Starting from there, we then said, 'Well, what is the kind of character that we would have bring here? We wanted to create the supernatural character, who was powerful and had access to these celestial abilities that you would be able to use, but we also wanted to take the sound and fury of modern firearms and put that in the hands of this supernatural being. So, you've got the magic and the firepower, and put it together.

I saw The Vanishing is what triggered this Paris to look like this. What can you tell me about that event and how it resulted in something like that?

Zhang: There's something about the word spoiler that is coming up (laughs), so you'll have to, you'll have to play and find out, but it is the pivotal event. That kicks off the game.

That's totally fair. You talked about it a little bit there, but what else is it about Paris that makes it the location you go to for this instead of somewhere else around the world?

Zhang: Paris just has incredible visuals, as a city. Again, when you think urban fantasy, it's impossible to avoid a lot of the gothic undertones. The architecture of the city already evokes the emotions that we wanted from those from the supernatural side of the world, so combining that real world with the supernatural was a big part of the setting as well.

I'm curious if you can tell us more about the different tools players will have at their disposal. Are there different guns, weapon modifiers, or abilities? What can we generally look forward to?

Zhang: This is a run-based game, and the primary, I say, means of combat that the player has is, of course, your gun. So, you have your gun, you will be able to shoot it, but you also have a melee weapon at your disposal, and you have several locomotion kits and several abilities that you will be able to pick. One of the things that was really important to us was that players do this thing that we internally call 'creative expression through combat,' where not only is it that, you have all these amazing tools that you can use in your in your player kit, it's that you get to customize the player kit that you're taking on the run as you play each run. Just as it's important to have visceral fidelity in the gameplay, it was important for us to have the build craft to go along with it.

Armatus is described as a third-person, roguelite shooter. Are there any specific games that inspired Counterplay when crafting its gameplay?

Zhang: We have a lot of references, as all game designers do. I think you'll have to play and discover all the references, but I think fans of the genre will be very pleased with what we have to offer.

I don't know if maybe you'd have the same answer, then, for some of the different movies, books, and games or shows that inspired the story and universe this takes place in?

Zhang: Well, one of the things that we always look for at Counterplay, and we've done this since the beginning, was interesting genre blends. Without getting you know too nerdy (laughs), we always look for combinations. We always look for the chocolate and peanut butter or whatnot, and so I think a lot of the fun in doing that is for our players to figure it out on on their own, but I think you'll see the inspirations worn pretty heavily on our sleeves.

Roguelite, I think, is a term that a lot of people hear, and they feel like if they've played one, they've played them all. What does Armatus do to stand apart from other rogue lights and shooters?

Zhang: I tend to think of roguelite as a design framework. It'd be like saying, 'If you played one RPG, you played them all.' The design framework is the thing that you scaffold the game on top of, but it's not the only thing in the game. As we emphasized, our game really sings when you get into the combat. Creative expression through combat is a core pillar of what we wanted to do. If you came into this game and you just wanted to slaughter demons using abilities and guns and melee, this is the game for you, and if you wanted to be the kind of person who strategically picks every single upgrade in order to hit the perfect combination and eradicate rooms that way, this is also the game for you. So that's kind of how we think about it.

How long is your average run going to be? Is this the kind of thing where you can play quick run before bed, or do you really need to sit down and lock in for hours and hours?

Zhang: We're still working on the game, so I prefer not to give a number at this at this point, but what I will say is, like many games that have come before and after, both in the third-person action genre, as well as the roguelite genre, the choices that you make have a big impact on how much you can do.

I think at the end of the trailer, you tease a boss fight. I'm not looking for specifics here, but are bosses something players can look forward to in Armatus, and what can you tell me about them?

Zhang: Yeah, bosses are definitely a part of the game. Thank you for that. Bosses are definitely a part of the game, and we call them Greater Demons. What they represent is, if you think of the demonic incursion that's happening in Paris, in the post-apocalypse that we talked about, the Greater Demons are the ones that anchor. They're more solid than the other ones. They're bigger, they're scarier, they are figures of nightmare, and I think players will have a great time being killed and killing them as well.

So would you call Armatus a particularly difficult game, then, or is that in the hands of the player through different options?

Zhang: I think that's going to be up to the player, but I guess you'll have to wait and see on that one, too.

What are some of the lessons the team learned from, specifically, Godfall, because it's really easy to compare these two, that the team brought into the development of Armatus?

Zhang: I think the biggest one is this: Coming out of Godfall, one of the things we consistently received feedback on, and it was almost all positive, but basically the big discussion point was the starting point in the game felt almost primordial. Then, as you unlocked moves in the skill tree, suddenly you were doing this and you were doing that. The combat in that game felt like a conversation with the developers. Again, I'm paraphrasing, you know, one or two reviews here, but that was a major source of feedback we got across the board. Fans really resonated with the dynamic combat that we had in Godfall, and they really liked this conversation with the developer-style of play that they had. So as we moved into our next project, we said, 'Hey, we did it for melee. Can we pull it off for shooters as well?' So we took that, and that's where this emphasis on build craft comes from.

I saw a lot of rumors earlier this year that Counterplay had shut down, and sitting here now, that's obviously not the case. So, I'm curious if you have any comment on that situation you'd like to share, and more specifically, what it's been like for the studio to see those rumors swirl while knowing full well that Counterplay's next game is very much still in development, despite that.

Zhang: I think most of the studio was too busy working on the game (laughs) to really pay attention to rumours that don't really apply to their day-to-day. I think the only comment I really have on it is, the announcement and future release of Armatus is a celebration of Counterplay Games, of our camaraderie, and this team that has gone through thick and thin together. It means the world to us that players are going to be able to see this game. They're going to play it, and we think that people are going to have a lot of fun. So, my comment is, go play Armatus, and then you can tell us how you feel about, right? (laughs)

Moving back to the game itself, I couldn't tell based on the trailer alone. Is this an entirely single-player experience, or are there any multiplayer elements, even scoreboards, or anything like that?

Zhang: It's a single-player game, and as for features, again, we're, we're still in development, so wait and find out.

I get it. It’s hard to talk about these things when the pieces are always moving, I'm sure.

Zhang: I think it's harder not to talk about these things, right? That's kind of the challenge here.

PC, PlayStation, and Xbox versions are on the way, but I also saw that a Nintendo Switch 2 version is in development. Were there any challenges in bringing Armatus to that console, and is the Switch 2 version expected to launch at the same time as other platforms?

Zhang: Yes, they are all expected to launch together. The challenge with these things is always optimization, but if you've seen Godfall, a PlayStation 5 launch title, you know that, if there's one thing that we do well, it's optimizing game systems.

Is there anything about Armatus that you want to talk about or that you want players to know now that they're finally seeing what this looks like?

This game is a love letter to action combat in all its forms. It's a love letter to the urban fantasy, gothic horror inspirations that we see in so many games and fiction all over, and the thing that is most important to us here at Counterplay is for players to see this letter that we've written. So, I can come up here and yammer about systems and features all day long, and all I would be doing is making promises to the audience, but the promise I will make is that if you play our game, you're going to have a really great experience of butchering all these demons.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Publisher Lyrical Games and developer Plot Twist have revealed Erosion, a twin-stick roguelike set in a post-apocalyptic wild west that is set to launch into early access early next year.

The Xbox Partner Preview trailer for the next title from the Kraków, Poland-based studio teases a change of pace for The Last Case of Benedict Fox team as it targets a spring 2026 early access release for PC via Steam and Xbox Game Preview. A full launch is expected to follow later the same year for PC platforms, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S.

Where Plot Twist’s previous title leaned on 2D visuals and a Lovecraftian tale, Erosion seeks to let players loose in a mad open world with fast-paced combat and lots of character. The trailer promises to keep players entertained with destructible voxel environments, a poker mini-game, customizable vehicles, duels, loads of weapons, and boss fights, but that doesn’t mean the team is leaving story at the door.

“In Erosion, players find themselves in a distant future where a mysterious, sentient rock formation called the Pillar is consuming civilization piece by piece,” an Erosion story summary says. “They will descend into the mysterious Pillar to battle through chaotic, fully destructible dungeons, fighting to get one step closer to saving the protagonist’s daughter or losing her entirely to time itself. Every decision changes the story, and every death takes time off the clock.”

Years pass with every death in Erosion, meaning players will want to be extra careful if they don’t want to see everyone – including their daughter – grow old throughout the course of their journey. It’s a twist that’s teased in the trailer, with even the environment seeming to take a beating as time runs its course.

We’ll learn more about Erosion in time, so while we wait, be sure to check out our review for The Last Case of Benedict Fox. We gave it a 6/10 upon its release in 2023, saying, “The Last Case of Benedict Fox is a disappointingly uneven Metroidvania that’s just as likely to engage as it is to enrage.”

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

As part of Amazon's official Black Friday sale, the retailer is offering an excellent deal on a miniature-sized gaming PC. Right now you can pick up a Cooler Master NR2 gaming PC equipped with a GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card for just $1,899.99 shipped after you apply a $700 off coupon on the product page. This is an amazing price for an RTX 5080 prebuilt, let alone a micro-sized one. The NR2 is housed in Cooler Master's NR200P Max chassis, which is one of the most popular and well-reviewed ITX cases on the market. Despite its compact size, the NR2 is equipped with excellent cooling and powerful components. Normally there would be a high dollar markup on a boutique setup like this.

Cooler Master NR2 RTX 5080 ITX Gaming PC for $1,899.99

Indie developer Cococucumber is, for the first time ever, trying its hand at a sequel with Echo Generation 2.

Where the first turn-based romp channeled ‘80s and ‘90s vibes to create a nostalgic adventure that looked like Stranger Things was tossed into a blender with voxel graphics and classic RPG gameplay, the sequel is going a totally new direction. The sideways prequel skips the cozy small-town feel to drop players straight into a B-movie, cosmic horror story where they play as the missing father from the first game.

Its first trailer, which debuted as part of today’s November 2025 Xbox Partner Preview, teases a much more horrific experience for Cococucumber. We sat down with game director Martin Gavreau and studio producer and director Vanessa Chia to learn more about Echo Generation 2’s inspirations, how fan feedback helped guide development, and why the team decided to revisit one of its existing universes from a new perspective. You can see everything they had to say in the interview below.

IGN: Tell me about what people are going to see on Thursday. Tell me about this trailer and what exactly Echo Generation 2 is.

Martin Gavreau: It's very different than the first game. We were not sure how far we could go with it, because when you do a sequel, you have many options. You could say, 'Let's just do more of the same,' or you do something entirely different, or anywhere in between. There was a bit of an existential crisis of 'What do we do with this?' We felt that we wanted to see how far we could expand on this world-building. The first game, except for a very short moment, everything is within maybe a 5-10-mile radius of a small town, you know? The sequel, it's much more than that (laughs). It's much more. It's across the galaxy. We visit a different planet, we visit a different dimension, a different time era, and also, what's at stake is much bigger than, 'OK, I want to figure out what happened to my dad.'

You think about the first game, you start just playing with your sister in the street with a raccoon, and then at one point, you fight a mech with the cannon and lasers. You're supposed to be just a kid infiltrating a military base. There's a ramp going up to there, and we wanted to have this ramp up on another scale. Sometimes, in some classic RPGs, you start in your town and you end up fighting gods. So it's like, 'Let's go all the way there.'

So, the trailer, what we're going to see is part of the story. We're not revealing everything. There's big story moments that are not in the trailer that we want to keep. I don't think we're going to reveal them even later, before launch, we want to keep a lot of surprise. We're not playing as a kid anymore. We're playing as the father who disappeared, and it's before the first game. I mean, when you you play with time travel, is it a prequel? So it's a part of a prequel/sequel in some ways. There's some connection with the first game that, I think, people who played the first game, will definitely see a lot of connection, but in an expanded universe that happened across a different time.

We're going to jump back and forth between the future and the past. Really, really bigger scope and more complex plot to...I don't want to spoil it, but there's a much bigger issue happening across the galaxy. We, of course, want to go back home because we're getting trapped. To go back will become eventually, of course, still a goal, but what's the point of going back if you're going back to ruins? You don't want to come back to your Hobbit town and the Shire, and then it's all burned and destroyed. So you want to make sure that you go on a journey of adventure, but also you're going to come back to a world that is still, you know, intact and exists.

Echo Generation 2 obviously has some connections to the first game, but it also seems so different. I am wondering, why a sequel? Why a sequel to Echo Generation instead of something like Ravenlok or Riverbond?

Gavreau: I mean, I would love to do a sequel for Riverbond and Ravenlok. Revisiting those games and expanding on them would be a fantastic opportunity. But why do Echo Generation? There's always a bit of a business decision, because there's always a risk associated with making any game, but we're small in the studio, so it's what we feel like doing. We sit down and we talk all the team, share a bit there, you know, their ideas and what we like to work on, because there's always a possibility also to create a new game, no? And it's the same thing with making a sequel, and everybody loved making the first one. I think it's just the desire to go back to this world and expand on it.

We started the production right when the pandemic started, five years ago, already. So it just coincided, where we entered production for it, and at first there was a lot more unknown about, 'Is the whole world gonna collapse? Is everybody gonna die?' We used the game as a small safe haven structure. When I'm at work, we don't talk about politics, we don't talk about the vaccine or the virus. We just...we are living Echo Generation, and we live in that world, to our little bubble of imagination with these cute characters and talking raccoon, you know? It kind of helped us keep our sanity throughout the events of the pandemic, I think.

Maybe there's a special kind of association with it emotionally, and we felt like the story was not finished, that we had so many ideas that we couldn't put in the first game, that were left on the cutting room, so to speak, that we were really excited to go and work more on it. I think that was probably the reason after Ravenlok to go back to Echo Generation. Now, I don't think it's going to be an Echo Generation 3 after that. We have other plans, and there's been a different thing that we've been working on. Between all the games you can do, you have to commit to one, and everybody felt inspired. It's such a long amount of time not to make a game.

It's not going to spend a week or a month, it could be years, and it's what you live with every day. You ask yourself, 'Do I want to live with that world every day? Do I want to explore?' It's a long-term relationship, in a way, because even after you launch, you need to patch it. It's many, many years. I want to make sure that not only me is on board, and I love to do it, but everybody who has to work on it will find something interesting. It was not easy not to make a sequel. We realized it was harder than we thought, but we really wanted to make that game.

Echo Generation really wears its inspirations on its sleeves. Because Echo Generation 2 is so different from the get-go, what are some of the other inspirations for this game specifically? The movies, games, books, and shows that helped influence its development?

Gavreau: That's great that this could be seen, that you could observe those things in playing the first game. We're not hiding it, and we wanted to use different ones for the sequel and go places we didn't go before, like cosmic horror, for example. So if you think about, you know, the Call of Cthulhu and things that are more kind of like, 'What's out there in space? Is there forces beyond what are really there, and we're just not connected with them, and what if they discover humanity? So there's part of it is cosmic horror, but part of it also is Star Wars (laughs). We wanted to keep the same feeling of the first game. We wanted to use a lot of different inspiration that doesn't seem like they're going to work together at first.

We have also part of Cyberpunk. We have Blade Runner. We went for more of the sci-fi inspiration. We have 2001: A Space Odyssey in there. There's also X Files, because it's so fun to have. There's this kind of giant biomass that we teleport experiment again, like The Fly from Cronenberg. So, we went to inspiration that is more in the horror and sci-fi side, even if there's a bit of fun in there. I got fascinated, too, with this idea of the Backrooms. So maybe we have a little bit of that in there. That there's this other reality next to us, where there's this kind of mind maze, where you can get lost.

It's going to be a much more violent and scary game than the first one. Maybe not for kids entirely so much anymore. I think our rating is going to be probably 16 or 18 plus. We don't really think about it, but just when we fill out the questionnaire, whatever happened happened. But there is more blood, more gore, and it is pixel and voxel (laughs). So it's not as scary, maybe, but it's kind of fun in a way, like when you see the scientist getting smashed up with the blood. There's this playfulness with it, like B-movie playfulness that you have in movies like Tremors, and we wanted to capture that cool.

Why is launching day one on Xbox Game Pass the right move, specifically, for Echo Generation 2?

Gavreau: Well, the first one was on Game Pass. A lot of fans and people who discovered the game are on Xbox already, so it just feels like a logical way to do something similar with the sequel. Other than that, for us, I think it's our fourth game that's going to launch on Game Pass. We've we had this amazing relationship with Xbox that we had a chance to have their support. When you are on Game Pass, it comes with a lot of marketing support, like being part of a show or social media. Independent video games don't always have a publisher.

We don't have a publisher, so this kind of support really helped the game to get discovered. There's so many people on Game Pass that if you see a title that you're not familiar with, give it a chance, try it out, and see if you like it. It really helped open a lot of opportunities for the game to be played, and the end of the day, as a game developer, that's what you want. You want to be able to share your creation with as much people as possible. I think with Game Pass, definitely, it's been incredible to have all this interaction and this communication with the community on Xbox.

Were there any major points of fan feedback after the first game that you specifically want to address with Echo Generation 2?

Gavreau: Oh, yeah, definitely. Some of them, we address in the Midnight Edition. When we started the sequel after Ravenlok, we were thinking, 'Why don't we address some of those issues that some people had playing the game and make a special edition of the first game?' That was going to help us get back in that universe and see if it's possible to improve it in some ways, for quality of life. We really listened to player feedback. Also, something narratively, the first game, it was fun for being episodic, and also at the same time, there's a cost, and the cost is maybe the overarching main story suffered a bit from it. We still keep this episodic format in some ways, but there's a much stronger connection around the main story.

This is one of the things we tried to improve. Hopefully, we'll see if that works. Another one is to make the combat faster. The combat is so much faster now, the way we designed it. It was one of the design guidelines from the start. We need to be able to fight and resolve things much faster. If you want to stop and think you can, but if you want to go fast, it is possible to go very fast through the animation or the options given to you.

Going into a deck-building mechanic, now, also keeps the combat interesting throughout. What we saw is, sometimes, people, they find a companion, they love one move, and they just keep playing with that companion and that one move. Well, hey, there are a lot of different interesting moves that we designed, so if we add the deck-building mechanic, now you can adjust depending on the enemies you encounter. Maybe your deck will work against a certain environment, certain types of enemies, but you need to adjust it in other situations.

You need to keep adjusting your combat style, depending on enemies and depending on the type of cards. You have to have more variety on that side. Those were some of the feedback we tried to improve and implement on that side, for the combat and the story.

I don't think I saw a release date. I'm assuming, obviously, that's not something you can give me, but is this a game we see in 2026, or is there any kind of window you are targeting?

Gavreau: I was just talking this morning with a team member and what they were working on next, and they're like, 'I'm done.' (laughs) How can you be done? How can you be done with the game? Let's have a look.

But we're pretty advanced. I think we want to make sure we have enough time to polish everything. We want to make sure that we have time to balance all the combat and the journey, but the game is pretty advanced. How early depends on how fast we can go through the last phase of making sure the game is properly balanced, and everything runs smoothly.

(Editor’s Note: Cococucumber clarified after the interview that Echo Generation 2 is targeting a 2026 release window.)

Is there anything else you'd like to add about Echo Generation 2, the process of getting here, leading up to this reveal, and what it's like to finally pull back the curtain?

Gavreau: It feels strange, because we started working on it so long ago. We started working on it right after the first one was launched, and then it's been in and out. We were exploring different types of gameplay and prototyping. It might be, maybe, four years? I don't know, three or four years that this game has been, in some ways, in development? It feels a bit strange that, finally, we're going to be able to talk about it. We're very excited to see if people are going to remember it or be excited for it.

I think it's four years since (Echo Generation) launched. So you need to come with something new. You need to take some risk. This is what we decided to do with the game. Maybe some people wanted to have something very similar. But this is not exactly the decision we took. We decided to take more creative risk for the story and the game mechanic. Hopefully it still feels like an Echo Generation game, and the fan will embark on this journey and find it interesting, but it's, in many ways, going to be very different.

We were talking about the references, but the tone and the journey, the adventure, the combat, the speed of it, and the violence of it, and the excitement to to travel across the galaxy into to end up finding all those super powerful entities, I think, for us, it's super exciting to be able to finally share some of it, and soon, when it's ready, the game. I would like to talk more about certain things - I cannot at the moment.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Apple has officially revealed its Black Friday plans for 2025, and the promotion details are exactly what you'd expect. Apple is offering up to $250 in gift cards when you purchase eligible products directly from its store. While it isn't surprising to see the same promotion as last year, it's still better than no sale at all. The shopping event will run from Friday, November 28 through Cyber Monday. So if you're planning on making any purchases from the Apple Store, this window is the best time to do so before 2025 ends.

Apple Black Friday Sale Details

Apple will be offering a range of gift cards between $25 and $250 depending on what products you purchase. You can check out the full list of eligible products directly from Apple's Black Friday event page, or check out the inclusions below.

As you can see, the gift card promotion isn't available for everything. The most notable exclusion here is that the only iPhones included are the iPhone 16 or iPhone 16e. None of the latest iPhone 17 models or the new iPhone Air are included here. Black Friday is still arguably one of the best times to buy an iPhone, but if you're looking to buy the newest phones you'll need to look for a deal outside of Apple direct this year.

Apple Black Friday sales at retailers

It's worth noting that Apple's own Black Friday sale never offers the best deals on Apple products. You can usually find the lowest prices on Apple Watches, AirPods, iPads, and MacBooks at other major retailers. Both the Amazon Black Friday sale and the Best Buy Black Friday sale have officially launched and you can already find deals on pretty much everything Apple from there. Most notably, the Apple AirPods Pro 3 have dropped to their lowest price since launch at almost every major retailer except the Apple Store.

Tonight's Xbox Partner Preview showcase has now concluded, and we've got a fresh list of new day one Xbox Game Pass launches to look forward to.

Alongside all the announcements and new trailers today, five more titles were confirmed to arrive day and date into Microsoft's gaming subscription service — including a couple of games available to play today!

Head below for the full rundown of everything announced as coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one.

Developer Panik Arcade has announced its popular rogue-lite slot machine horror game, CloverPit, is getting an Xbox Series X | S version, and it’s out today.

It’s a surprise console launch that was revealed during the Xbox Partner Preview just moments ago. A trailer for the CloverPit port catches newcomers up to speed just after Panik Arcade announced it had managed to sell 1 million copies after a month and a half on Steam.

“CloverPit is the demonic lovechild of Balatro and Buckshot Roulette, a rogue-lite that traps players in a hell of their own creation,” an official CloverPit summary says. Locked in a rusty cell with a slot machine and an ATM, you must pay off your debt at the end of each round, or fall to ruin – literally!”

As Xbox Series X | S players give CloverPit a spin for the first time, Panik Arcade is already teasing the next reason to stay locked in for more, as its presence at the Xbox Partner Preview comes with the promise that DLC, titled Unholy Fusion, is coming soon. Details on the add-on content, including its release date and how exactly it ups the ante, remain a mystery for now.

CloverPit’s surprise appearance on Xbox consoles follows the 1.2 update that slotted in last week. Its main attraction saw hard mode added to the experience, with rebalancing adjustments, as well as a UI overhaul, now in the mix.

CloverPit launched for PC September 26, 2025, and is available for Xbox Series X | S, Xbox on PC, Cloud, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Premium, as of today. It’s unclear if there are any plans to come to more consoles or other additional platforms.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Bloodborne and Hollow Knight-inspired Metroidvania Crowsworn is back with a new gameplay trailer confirming plans to (eventually) launch for PC and consoles.

A long-awaited new, public look at developer Mongoose Rodeo’s highly anticipated, hand-drawn action game arrived as part of today’s Xbox Partner Preview showcase. While an updated glimpse at Crowsworn’s dark fantasy universe and cute-but-intimidating characters is welcome, the real news is that Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S have officially joined PC in its list of platforms.

You can tell exactly which games inspired Mongoose Rodeo with just one look at Crowsworn, but the Kickstarter project says its blend of ideas results in something unique. More than 19,600 backers supported Crowsworn during its initial campaign in July 2021, with its final tally bringing in CA $1,258,068. It was a crowdfunding initiative that saw backers turning up to support its mix of Devil May Cry, Hollow Knight, and Bloodborne combat, with its base goal reached less than three hours after the campaign launched.

“A dark curse has befallen the land of Fearanndal, a once vibrant kingdom,” an official story summary for Crowsworn says. “All but the last remnants of humanity have seemingly vanished, as the world is overrun by sightless creatures of nightmare.”

Kickstarter backers have received exclusive updates every few months for the last few years, but for everyone else, today’s Xbox Partner Preview gameplay trailer and platform commitment represent what may be Mongoose Rodeo’s most substantial showing in quite some time. While we wait for that ever-elusive Crowsworn release date, you can check out IGN’s list of the best Metroidvania games of all time.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu materialized at the Xbox Partner Preview to deliver the news that it’s coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S summer 2026.

It’s a narrowing of the previously promised release window, which had publisher Nacon and developer ACE Team prepped to deliver its four-player horror co-op vision at some point next year. As its gameplay trailer demonstrates, players will need to work together if they want to survive the Lovecraftian nightmares that lie waiting in The Mound.

Nacon and ACE announced The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu during the March Nacon Connect, revealing the project as a first-person experience set in a jungle with the capacity to twist the minds of any who enters. Players are given weapons and tools to make each trek easier, but the real pull is the mind games that will have friends turning against each other.

“The Mound is inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft with their oppressive and unpredictable atmospheres,” an official description says. “Here, the supernatural forces don't just hunt you down: they distort your perception of every situation to throw you off balance. Faced with diabolical creatures and unexplained phenomena, the border that separates reality from illusion blurs, sowing doubt and paranoia among your group.”

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is set to release next summer.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Publisher Oro Interactive and developer Cybernetic Walrus will let groups of four go undercover as gas station aliens when Roadside Research launches for PC and Xbox Series X | S early next year.

An update for the comedic co-op game arrived in the form of a new trailer shown during today’s Xbox Partner Preview. It comes with the news that Xbox and Game Pass have joined the launch lineup, which should see Roadside Research arriving for PC via Steam, Xbox Series X | S, and Xbox for PC and Cloud Q1 2026.

If you’re watching the trailer wondering, “Are those aliens really working at a gas station?” the answer is no – or at least that’s what they want you to think. Roadside Research sets four players up as a group of undercover extraterrestrials who are hoping to learn more about the human race. Blending takes more than a few masterfully crafted paper masks, with players tasked with managing and maintaining their rest stop in order to attract the right kind of attention.

“Aliens have landed on Earth… to run a gas station,” Cybernetic Walrus’ Roadside Research summary says. “Play solo or up to 4 players and do human tasks to blend in. People depend on you, it’s your job to make sure that the shelves have the correct items, refuel customers passing by, and provide food for travelers. But most importantly, you must conduct your research.”

Roadside Research joins the recent trend that’s seen an increase in friend-focused party games. Highlights from the last few years include Lethal Company, Content Warning, R.E.P.O., and Peak.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Publisher Apogee Entertainment and developer Trigger Happy Interactive made an appearance at the Xbox Partner Preview to announce their first-person psychological horror game, Total Chaos, doesn’t just have a release date – it’s actually out today.

The surprise launch arrives after the Turbo Overkill developer bumped its previous July release date for a broader Q4 2025 plan a few months back. It was a last-minute delay that saw fans left in the dark as the wait for Sam Prebble’s survival horror experience grew, and now, as revealed in its new trailer, that wait is over.

Trigger Happy describes Total Chaos as a descent into madness that takes place in the darkest corners of Fort Oasis. Its status as a full-fledged experience that originally spawned as a Doom 2 mod means player can indeed expect to get their hands on a few guns, which, of course, are a must-have if they want to fight off the creepy crawlies hiding around every corner.

Besides its haunting visuals and humble beginnings, Total Chaos has attracted attention thanks to some of the talent behind it. Prebble is known for leading the charge at Trigger Happy but also has extensive experience in visual effects, with credits on movies like Avatar and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Meanwhile, Silent Hill music mastermind Akira Yamaoka was tapped to create the music for Total Chaos, too.

Total Chaos is out today for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Hitman World of Assassination has seen Agent 47 face a rogue’s gallery of guest stars, but he may only have one shot to take out a notorious hip hop alter ego in the next elusive target mission, Eminem vs. Slim Shady.

That’s right: Marshall Mathers himself is the star of the next add-on mission for IO Interactive’s long-running sandbox stealth series. An Xbox Partner Preview trailer for the music-themed collaboration teases an especially creative mission for players to look forward to as Eminem asks Agent 47 to take care of his chaotic evil twin after he becomes a walking, talking bad guy.

Hitman World of Assassination will soon see players work with Eminem to organize the death of Slim Shady, but IOI is no stranger when it comes to bringing celebrities into its deadly sandbox. Other recent elusive target collaborations have seen Agent 47 coming face to face with Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude Van Damme, with another 007-themed pack pitting the cold killer against Mads Mikkelsen’s Casino Royale villain, Le Chiffre.

For more on IOI, you can check out how 007 First Light is shaping up. If you’re looking for more on Eminem’s history in video games, you can reminisce about the time the rapper joined Fortnite.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).