'Please give us one more chance': Infinity Nikki developer grovels in lengthy apology letter following disastrous launch of its newest patch
Š Infold Games
Š Infold Games
Š Funcom
Š Gameloft
Š Mad Mushroom
Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is set to leave early access and launch on May 21, Netmarble and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have announced.
The action-adventure role-playing game based on George R. R. Martinâs much-loved fantasy universe is set for release on all mobile platforms as well as on PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Windows.
Game of Thrones: Kingsroad launched in early access form in March, and has a âmixedâ user review rating on Steam. Most of the negative reviews revolve around its monetization, which some have called âgreedy.â âItâs like a mobile game on steroids and kinda not in a good way,â reads the current âmost helpfulâ review on Valveâs platform.
In a release date FAQ posted to Steam, Netmarble addressed the expected gap between the progression of early access and new players. It said that Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is âfundamentally designed with a focus on single-player gameplay,â and that it had worked to âminimize any feelings of imbalance or unfairness that might arise from differences in progression.â
Testing was conducted to improve the game, the development team continued, "to improve the game and make it more enjoyable and accessible for everyone."
âWe encourage all players to focus on the inherent fun of progressing through the later stages and reaching the endgame content, rather than comparing progress with other characters,â Netmarble suggested.
Netmarble went on to apologize for its prior communication and patches, which it admitted were âsomewhat lacking.â
âMoving forward, we are committed to more frequent and transparent communication through regular AMA sessions and Developer Notes,â it added. âWe kindly ask for your continued anticipation and support as we approach the official launch.â
As youâd expect from a game like this, thereâs a premium Founderâs Pack that offers Early Access and other exclusive in-game content. Mobile players can pre-register through the App Store and Google Play store on iOS and Android devices ahead of the grand launch.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
When it comes to the Great American Novel, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more quintessential pick than Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. The book's unflinching depiction of a soldier's life during the Civil War made it unique in the literary world upon release, and it also makes it a natural fit to be adapted into a graphic novel. Abrams ComicArts has done just that.
Ahead of its May release, IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of The Red Badge of Courage. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:
The Red Badge of Courage is adapted from Crane's original prose by writer/artist Steve Cuzor. Here's Abrams' official description of the graphic novel:
Written by Stephen Crane when he was just 24, The Red Badge of Courage is a Civil War story that captured the imaginations of readers worldwide and made its author an overnight literary icon. Now artist Steve Cuzor and Abrams ComicArts are publishing a powerful graphic novel adaptation of the classic and genre-defining war novel. Cuzorâs stark yet detailed artwork in The Red Badge of Courage perfectly captures the realistic prose of the original novel, presenting a lushly illustrated, unflinching depiction of war through the eyes of a young, inexperienced soldier.
A groundbreaking and realistic examination of the psychological effects of war, The Red Badge of Courage draws from firsthand accounts and research and has been continuously in print since its publication in 1894. Craneâs depiction of his main character, Henry Fleming, and his internal monologue, ring so true that many readers mistook Crane for a veteran himself. The realistic prose and visceral descriptions of battle that Crane used marked the first shift away from uncritical patriotism in war literature. It would take until at least the 1920s and the wake of the horror of the First World War for the rest of the genre to catch up. In the years following its publication, The Red Badge of Courage was hailed by Crane scholar Henry Wertheim as âunquestionably the most realistic novel about the American Civil War,â while Ernest Hemingway called the novel an âAmerican classic.â
âBy illustrating Craneâs classic story, Cuzor pulls readers into the midst of the action, making Henry Flemingâs experience feel all the more visceral,â said Abrams ComicArts' Publisher Joseph Montagne in a statement. âLiterary aficionados and students alike will find another layer of this classic story to appreciate in this new adaptation of Craneâs magnum opus.â
The Red Badge of Courage will be released in bookstores on Tuesday, May 13 and in comic shops on Wednesday, May 14. You can preorder a copy on Amazon.
In other comic book news, iconic TMNT villain Shredder is getting his own solo series, and we've got an exclusive look inside the new Heavy Metal series.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
Š ConcernedApe
Š Respawn
The buzz around preordering a Nintendo Switch 2 has also come with its reputation for more expensive new games, but getting to grab the physical version of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition for ÂŁ60 on the upcoming system is a nice surprise.
Available at Monster Shop's eBay store, the outlet has introduced a "LOOPY20" discount code that, when applied at checkout, will take the titular 20% right off the game's price tag to ÂŁ59.99.
This is the complete version of the game as well, including the massive and critically acclaimed Phantom Liberty DLC. So, you'll have 50 to 130 hours of top-quality sci-fi content to play on your Switch 2 âeither on the go or docked â for a great price.
Granted, Monster's original ÂŁ74.99 tag made it one of the more expensive retailers selling the new port of the game. For example, HMV is already selling Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition on Switch 2 at the same ÂŁ59.99 price point. Meanwhile, Amazon UK previously sold preorders of this new version for ÂŁ69.99, but has since cut the price by 7% to ÂŁ64.99.
Still, this means you've got another retailer who is selling the physical version of the game for the same price as the digital version on the Nintendo eShop. What's more, you'll have decent backup options on the off-chance Monster runs out of stock by the time you read this.
The code only runs to May 2, as well, so act fast to secure the deal while you can. But take note, eBay requires payment at point of sale, so you'll be paying for this preorder right away.
However, Monster's 20% off code applies to every item we've seen on its store so far. While it doesn't have every game available, there are some great other preorders and newly released games you can get at a steal.
Among them are the standard edition of Elden Ring Nightreign for ÂŁ31.19, its Collector's Edition for ÂŁ187.59, Split Fiction for ÂŁ34.40, and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 for ÂŁ41.19.
If you're not interested in any of those, visit the Monster Shop Outlet's store page for the full list of offers. Each product page should you its discounted price using the code, but in case you don't spot it, try using the discount code at checkout anyway to see if it works thereâsince we've found that to be the case for some.
Ben Williams â IGN freelance contributor with over 10 years of experience covering gaming, tech, film, TV, and anime. Follow him on Twitter/X @BenLevelTen.
With The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered out and millions of players enjoying Bethesda's much-loved open-world role-playing game, its army of fans are coming together to issue advice to those who might have missed out on the fun 20 years ago.
Oblivion remastered is a remaster, not a remake, Bethesda has stressed, and so many of the quirks of its ageing design remain. One of those quirks â or frustrations it might be better called â is Oblivionâs level scaling system.
Oblivionâs original designer recently called the game's level scaling a âmistake,â but it made it into Oblivion Remastered anyway. It means loot acquired is tied to the level of your character at the point you acquire it. Similarly, enemies will still spawn according to your level.
Itâs this latter point that has sparked a fresh round of advice from Oblivion veterans to newcomers, and it all revolves around Castle Kvatch.
Warning! Spoilers for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered follow.
Breaking the Siege of Kvatch is the fourth main quest, and tasks you with defending the city of Kvatch against the Daedric hordes. It involves going through an Oblivion gate where youâll face off against multiple high level enemies. Once you've done that and closed the Oblivion gate, you have to clear out the Daedric invasion in the main plaza of Kvatch itself.
If you waited too long and leveled up a lot, you'll find that all of your helping friends are quickly killed because the enemies you're facing are extremely difficult. Due to Oblivionâs level scaling system, the higher level you are, the tougher those enemies will be. At higher levels, Kvatch will throw every variety of Daedra at you, rather than easy-to-kill Scamps. You might encounter a room full of Daedroth (strong crocodile-headed bipedal Daedra), Daedric Princes, or other monstrosities.
Breaking the Siege of Kvatch leads into The Battle for Castle Kvatch, should you take it on. Here you battle to retake the town's castle, defeating the Daedra along the way. Like Breaking the Siege of Kvatch, level scaling can be a real problem here.
Enter helpful Oblivion veterans who are recommending players take on Kvatch before they hit level 10.
âI'm like panicking nowâŚâ said redditor IsThatHearsay. âFirst time playing Oblivion, didn't even know you had to sleep to lvl up until just before I got to this mission.
âClosed the Kvatch Oblivion gate right before this mission still as lvl 1, then read online to sleep and I jumped from lvl 1 to 9 immediately with hour sleep increments. Met Martin there and decided to escort him to the Cloud place to take a break from fighting, followed by deciding to cheese some skills like Conjuration, Acrobatics, Sneak, and whatnot quickly and climbed to lvl 15.
âNow have to go back to do Kvatch at lvl 15+, when I'm hearing I probably should've just done it while still lvl 1âŚâ
âI just tried it at level 20 and let me tell you, that shit is fucking rough,â said frontadmiral.
âCompleted at lvl 21 on a mage, god it was tough,â said Ranaki_1967. âHad to in the field recharge my staff, drink potions escape down the ladder, have maximum shield armour, a Dremora champion.
âThe framerate was bad.â
âBro im doing it at 27 rn and im NOT having a good time, Xivali are EVERYWHERE,â Mother_Bid_4294 said.
Even Oblivion experts have been caught by taking on Kvatch at too high a level. âI've oblivioned extensively in the original but I still made the same mistake, went back to Kvatch level 13, just about manageable,â Various-Jellyfish132.
âMake use of sneak for bonus damage and retreat through loading doors to recover if needed, if you have a bit of space, their attacks are easily dodged. The daedroths don't seem to follow you through the doors so you can pick them off one at a time.â
âOblivion scaling is just wild though because you will level up once and suddenly Scamps transform into Daedroths and Clannfear Runts turn into Daedric Princes,â Groosin1 said.
âBecause the scaling cap is only 17-18. And the way leveling works, at 17-20 you could be anywhere from a guy with middling combat skills for what you're using and getting obliterated, to being God.â
Part of the issue here is that players are leveling up faster in Oblivion Remastered than they did in the original Oblivion. Thatâs because the developers changed the leveling system to modernize it, but kept the level scaling the same.
This has had the knock-on effect of causing some players to be a higher level than they would have been in the original when taking on tough quests such as Kvatch.
For the first time ever I decided to do Kvatch before level 10. It was cool to see it actually functioning as an even battle instead of a horde of overleveled demons one-shotting all the guards. Really makes you wonder if they ever tested it at higher levels. pic.twitter.com/VeQH3xst0b
â Entropy Phi (@entropy_phi) April 27, 2025
As youâd expect, modders have once again come to the rescue. Fresh from tackling PC performance issues in Oblivion Remastered, modders have also released balanced NPC level cap mods and balanced unleveled rewards mods, so if youâre on PC, you can change the way Oblivion Remastered works significantly. If youâre on console, however, youâre stuck with level scaling.
Weâve got plenty more on Oblivion Remastered, including a report on a player who managed to escape the confines of Cyrodiil to explore Valenwood, Skyrim, and even Hammerfell, the rumored setting of The Elder Scrolls VI.
We've also got a comprehensive guide to everything you'll find in Oblivion Remastered, including an expansive Interactive Map, complete Walkthroughs for the Main Questline and every Guild Quest, How to Build the Perfect Character, Things to Do First, every PC Cheat Code, and much more.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Š PC Gamer
We're just over a month away from the much-hyped arrival of Nintendo Switch 2, which means Nintendo has been busy behind the scenes, updating its OG Switch firmware and getting the digital eShop ready for June 5. Part of those changes, however, has evoked a surprisingly strong reaction in fans â the eShop has switched from orange to red.
Not only has the orange background â which has been the shop's primary color since the Nintendo 3DS days of June 2011 â been refreshed to a bright red, but the shop icon on the Home screen's taskbar has also been given a coat of paint. Previously, the red background color had primarily only been used to mark key Nintendo anniversaries.
RIP orange eShop. Lasted from 2011 to 2025 across 3DS, Wii U and Switch 𫡠pic.twitter.com/Gv9bBUKJ2H
â It's-A-Mii, BoTalksGames! (@BoTalksGames) April 30, 2025
That's not all, either. Nintendo has also straightened the 'e' on eShop and removed the little "eyelashes" from it, too, and changed the font, as demonstrated by the 't' in Nintendo.
"Going to be sickâŚ" cried one alarmed Twitter respondent, while others descended into a "It's bread" frenzy, riffing on the viral Silent Hill 3 meme.
"Yeah I miss the orange already, lol," said another commenter on Reddit, to which another joked: "NOW itâs next gen."
THEY KILLED HIM
â Nathan (@NSuperGamerGuy) April 30, 2025
HES ALL RED NOW pic.twitter.com/4v2QiXboZv
Interestingly, though, this is actually not the first time the eShop has been red, as some players have also been reminiscing about. It also aligns the console store with the color palette you see when visiting the Nintendo eShop via your browser.
On the plus side, players are reporting the updated eShop seems to be responding faster since the most recent firmware update.
As IGN reported earlier today, Nintendo Switch Firmware Update Version 20.0.0 makes a number of key changes to the eight-year-old console in preparation of the launch of its successor, the Switch 2, in June, according to the patch notes released on Nintendo's official website. It includes the addition of a system transfer to Nintendo Switch 2, which youâll now find in System Settings, so you'll be able to transfer from your Switch to Switch 2 using local communication.
This is all leading towards the hotly anticipated release of the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5. Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders went live on April 24, with the price still fixed at $449.99 â and they went about as well as you'd expect. Meanwhile, Nintendo has issued a warning to U.S. customers who applied for a Switch 2 pre-order from the My Nintendo Store, saying release date delivery is not guaranteed due to very high demand.
Check out IGN's Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order guide for more.
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Š Epic Games
Š Tim Mosenfelder via Getty images.
Š PC Gamer
Š ConcernedApe
Lost Soul Aside is delayed three months, from May 30 to August 29, 2025, its developer has announced.
After roughly a decade in development, the PC and PlayStation 5 single-player action game was finally scheduled for llaunch next month, but a statement from developer Ultizero Games revealed the delay to late September to add polish.
"We are truly grateful for the positive response we've received from players all over the world since we announced Lost Soul Aside," Ultizero Games said.
"We remain committed to delivering a high-quality game experience. To match the standards Ultizero Games have set for ourselves, we are going to take some additional time to polish the game. Lost Soul Aside will now release on August 29, 2025. We want to express our heartfelt thanks to our fans waiting for the launch."
Originally the passion project of solo developer Yang Bing, Lost Soul Aside has grown to become a major Sony-published title under the company's China Hero Project, with Bing now the founder and CEO of Shanghai-based studio Ultizero Games.
IGN recently had the opportunity to sit down with Yang Bing to discuss the long road to launch. So many years of development went into Lost Soul Aside, escalating from a solo creator's vision to a trailer reveal at Sony's State of Play broadcast. Through it all the hype has built up, with some calling Lost Soul Aside an exciting mix of Final Fantasy characters and Devil May Cry combat â even from the moment Yang Bing's initial reveal video went viral in 2016.
The main character Kesar wields a shape-shifting weapon you can swap between, which changes your playstyle, and you have a dragon-like companion named Arena who can summon abilities to support Kesar.
Like its inspirations, Lost Soul Aside emphasizes aerial dodging, precision timing, combos, and countering along with large-scale boss fights. The game blends its sci-fi premise with a variety of contemporary aesthetics that fit into a campaign that takes you across multiple dimensions. Although it's tough to glean where the story is going based on its trailers, Bing describes Kesar's journey as one of "redemption and discovery."
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Regardless of age, every gamer remembers when they suffered their first save game data loss, be it a corrupted console/PC harddrive, or a PS1 memory card suddenly showing blue blocks of damaged data. Japanese gamers were reminded of these painful feelings on April 30, when actor Shinya Okadaâs dramatic reaction to losing all his original Pokemon Red save data from 1996 was captured in a YouTube video. The actorâs stunned facial expressions and fansâ outpourings of sympathy even led the incident to be featured on Japanese entertainment news outlets.
A familiar face in Japanese TV dramas, 77-year-old actor Shinya Owada is also a huge Pokemon fan, regularly playing through various games from the series on his YouTube Channel âShinya Owadaâs Hideout.â Often accompanied by his trusty Squirtle plushie (that he recently took on an adorable trip to the aquarium), Owadaâs warm-hearted enthusiasm for the games, plus his dramatic narration of the dialogue has earned the veteran gamer over 56.4K subscribers.
In his latest âLetâs Playâ video posted on April 29, Owadaâs cheerful enthusiasm to continue his Pokemon Red adventure gradually morphs into disbelief as the game asks him if he wants to start from the beginning. Owadaâs startled reactions of âwait? what?â as he realizes that all the hours he has put into capturing and training Pokemon have vanished are palpable.
Owada also took to X to share his feelings on the matter in a post that quickly amassed 4.4 million views and over 200 comments: âMy Pokemon Red Game Boy cartridge save data has vanished. In my remaining lifetime, I will find another adventure to embark on.â Although he had previously streamed Pokemon Red, he announced that he plans to stop playing the game for now.
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â 大ĺç° äź¸äš (@oowadashinya) April 29, 2025
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ĺéşăŽăťăźăăăźăżă
ćśăăŚăăžăăžăă^_^
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ăžăć°ăăć ăć˘ăăžă#ăăąă˘ăł #ă˛ăźă #ăŹăć´ť pic.twitter.com/uofsbpsYDR
Owadaâs unfortunate data loss experience attracted many sympathetic comments, with people reminiscing about the sadness they felt when they lost valuable saves when they were children, often on cartridge-based systems like the Game Boy and N64, or PS1 and PS2 memory cards. As many commenters suggested, it seems likely that the battery in Okadaâs Game Boy cartridge of Pokemon Red finally died, thus deleting his precious save data. Without the benefits of cloud-based storage back-ups, it was quite easy to lose all the data on your cartridge or memory card if the contacts wore out, you took it out of the console too quickly, or even looked at the console in the wrong way (this writer swears that this is how she lost her 90 hours of Final Fantasy IX gameplay back in 2001...).
âLosing save data is also losing life,â stated one commenter on Owadaâs YouTube video, drawing stark attention to the hours of effort and grinding that vanish into oblivion when you lose a save (something that all Simmers, Citybuilders, and RPG fans can attest to). Others were more philosophical: âeven if save data disappears, the memories remain!â Comments also showed fansâ fondness for Owada, with one user adding: "If this happened to any other video game streamer, I would laugh at how ridiculous it is, but with Mr. Owada, it's a different story."
If all this has strangely inspired you to go back to Game Boy-era Pokemon games, check out IGNâs comprehensive walkthroughs for Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow.
Image credit Shinya Owada / YouTube.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
PokĂŠmon TCG fans are getting a strong lineup today, with multiple Elite Trainer Boxes on sale. That includes an early discount on the Journey Together set, which is rare this soon after release.
Regardless of being in it for the promos or looking to crack packs, this is a great time to grab sealed product, not ot mention singles dropping in value across the board.
There's also a deal on Ionoâs Bellibolt Premium Collection, and the Iron Leaves ETB from the Temporal Forces expansion is holding steady at a fair price.
Outside the world of cards, AirPods Pro 2 are available for $169, a significant drop from their usual $249 price tag.
If you just picked up a Switch 2, thereâs also a quick-install screen protector available for under $10.
Humble has a 17-title XCOM bundle starting at just $10, and the IGN Store is offering a limited Oblivion collectible ingot for pre-order, perfect for Elder Scrolls fans and collectors.
Journey Together Elite Trainer Box is seeing a notable early discount at $64.95, down from its usual $97.99 price. With 9 booster packs, a full-art promo card featuring Nâs Zorua, and 65 matching card sleeves, this is a solid pickup for collectors or competitive players looking to expand their deck.
Youâre also getting Energy cards, a playerâs guide, dice, and other accessories packed in a themed storage box. With singles from this set trending down in price, picking up sealed product offers better value if you're after specific chase cards.
This Premium Collection features Ionoâs Bellibolt ex as a full-art foil promo, plus a foil Ionoâs Tadbulb card and six booster packs. At $53.23, itâs a modest discount off the typical $55.88 price (for Amazon).
Youâll also get standees, a photo sticker, and a backdrop display themed around Iono and Bellibolt. With several playable cards in this set seeing markdowns on the singles market, this box is a good option for collectors or those hoping to pull value.
This limited edition Oblivion Gates statue from Elder Scrolls IV is available now for pre-order at $39.99. Itâs officially licensed, limited to 5,000 units, and includes a display stand in a collectible box.
The detailed design captures the fiery gates seen in-game and measures 110 x 76mm. Scheduled to ship in October 2025, this is a good pick for fans of the series looking to add a unique item to their collection.
Temporal Forces Elite Trainer Box featuring Iron Leaves is holding at $55.42. It includes booster packs, Energy cards, themed sleeves, and tools for competitive play.
This expansion brings back ACE SPEC cards and features both Ancient and Future PokĂŠmon ex, including Walking Wake ex and Raging Bolt ex. With singles from this set also seeing price drops, sealed boxes may offer better pull value for players chasing newer cards.
Humble is offering a full XCOM franchise bundle starting at just $10. That unlocks 17 titles, including XCOM 2, Enemy Unknown, Chimera Squad, and multiple DLCs with a combined value of $269.
This is a rare chance to pick up nearly the entire series in one package, and part of your purchase supports the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsonâs Research. Whether you're new to the franchise or filling gaps in your library, it's worth a look.
This 2-pack screen protector for the Switch 2 uses amFilmâs latest auto-alignment system for quick, bubble-free installation in under 30 seconds. Itâs currently down to $9.99, a 23% savings off its usual $12.99 list price.
Youâre getting tempered glass rated at 9H hardness, plus anti-fingerprint coating and responsive touch sensitivity. A smart add-on for anyone who's preordered Switch 2 and wants protection without hassle.
Appleâs AirPods Pro 2 with the updated USB-C case are available for $169, which is $80 off the standard price of $249. Thatâs one of the lowest prices weâve seen this month.
These wireless earbuds offer active noise cancellation, adaptive audio modes, personalized spatial audio, and a secure fit with multiple tip sizes. Theyâre also IP54-rated for water and dust resistance, making them a reliable option for both everyday listening and workouts.
I think calling this a bundle is almost underselling it. You are getting DOOM, Wolfenstein, DOOM Eternal, and a coupon toward DOOM: The Dark Ages, just to name a few. It is a lot of chaos and a lot of catharsis for not a lot of money. Steam ratings are strong across the board if you care about that kind of thing, but honestly, DOOM 1993 still sells itself.
Six booster packs in one bundle sounds good on paper, but in my opinion, the smarter move right now is to look at singles. Prices for this set are dropping fast, and if you are chasing specific cards, buying them outright is probably cheaper and less soul crushing than another box full of commons.
Greninja ex SIR, that is all. In all seriousness, this is a brilliant set that's often overlooked. Whilst the price is a little over MSRP, it's worth getting just for the booster packs included. Plus the promo, sleeves and dice look great in this particular ETB. Following the trend, Twilight Masquerade single cards are also crashing in price, so make sure to check if you can just buy the cards you're after for less.
kachu gets a lot of oversized cardboard love in this box with a promo card, a giant version, and four Shining Fates booster packs. It is a decent pickup if you like opening packs, but single card prices are slipping hard right now. I think it makes more sense to hunt down the exact cards you want unless you are feeling reckless.
In my opinion, this is one of those collectibles that you either want immediately or not at all. It is an officially licensed Dark Brotherhood medallion, limited to 5000 pieces, finished in black and gold, and somehow still cheaper than most novelty keychains. Ships later this year, assuming you survive the wait
Paldean Fates brings back shiny PokĂŠmon in a big way, and this bundle gives you six booster packs to chase them. I want to be excited about it, but again, single card prices for Paldean Fates are not holding up well. If you just want a shiny Charizard ex SIR without the suspense, the singles market is sitting there quietly judging your pack opening addiction.
I like a good tin, especially one with five booster packs packed inside, but getting a random Kyogre, Xerneas, or Dialga promo card feels a little like gambling with slightly better odds. It is a solid pickup for the price if you do not mind leaving your promo fate to the RNG gods. If you are only after one specific chase card though outside of the included two Surging Sparks boosters, it might save your blood pressure to just buy it separately.
Lexar is finally giving some breathing room on pricing with this Amazon sale, and the Armor 700 is a standout. You are getting 4TB of rugged storage with serious transfer speeds for about 100 dollars off the typical price. It is water resistant, dust resistant, and a lot more durable than whatever junk is sitting at the bottom of your backpack right now.
Woot is offering a solid spread of PokĂŠmon games today, and I want at least three of them. Brilliant Diamond, Legends: Arceus, Letâs Go, Eevee!, and a few others are sitting between $39.99 and $44.99, which feels right for anyone catching up before Switch 2 changes the landscape again. In my opinion, it is a smart time to grab them while prices are behaving themselves. Everything here is fully playable now and will likely get performance bumps once Nintendo's next system arrives.
MSIâs factory-reconditioned gaming desktops are quietly one of the best parts of today's sale. Machines like the AEGIS R 13NUE-448US are going for $1,129.99, and RTX 4060 GPUs are under $300. I want to be responsible, but this pricing makes it harder than it should be. If you have been thinking about rebuilding your setup, this is exactly the kind of deal you hope not to miss.
Amazon has the Samsung PRO Plus 512GB microSD card with a USB reader for $29.99. I think it is a good fit if you are adding games to your Switch, Steam Deck, ROG Ally, or anything else still using microSD storage. It is fast enough for quick transfers, big enough for most libraries, and cheap enough that you do not have to think too hard about it. Just know it is not built for Switch 2, in case you're planning ahead.
The 8BitDo Retro 87 Mechanical Keyboard is down to $99.99 at Amazon. I think it is one of the best-looking keyboards out right now if you want something that works and does not scream âboring office equipment.â It has Kailh Jellyfish X switches, a top-mount design, fast response, and Xbox-inspired styling that actually looks good on a gaming desk. I probably do not need another keyboard. I am thinking about it anyway.
Amazon also has the 8BitDo Retro R8 Wireless Mouse on sale for $58.68. It feels like the natural companion to the Retro 87 Keyboard, but it also stands fine on its own. It packs a PAW 3395 sensor, programmable buttons, a 4K polling rate, and a charging dock that doubles as a signal booster. I want one for a low-key gaming setup that does not look like it is held together with RGB lighting and prayer.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been out little over a week, but you can already grab Sandfall Interactive's critically acclaimed RPG, and potentially an early GOTY shout, up to ÂŁ10 off on console at Amazon and ÂŁ8 off on PC.
With these discounts, you can now grab it for just ÂŁ40.99 on PS5 and ÂŁ39.99 on Xbox physically, while a digital Steam copy for PC is currently priced at ÂŁ33.59 during Fanatical's Level Up Sale.
Currently sitting at 92 on Metacritic, plenty of reviewers across the gaming space have felt the same. What's even more impressive is that that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is actually Sandfall Interactive's first ever gameâmade up of just a small team of 30 to boot.
It also launched day-one on Game Pass, making it easier than ever to dive into one of the yearâs most striking RPGs. Whether youâre testing the waters through the service or picking up a discounted copy to own, you're backing one of the most exciting new studios in recent memoryâand getting a potential Game of the Year candidate in the process.
The timing is bold too. Just two days after the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, which is sure to soak up attention, Expedition 33 carves out its own space with style. Even stacked against that juggernaut, this critical hit more than earns your time and moneyâeven at full price.
A sweeping 30-to-60-hour adventure, the game reimagines turn-based combat by fusing it with real-time dodging and parry mechanics, delivering something far more dynamic than your usual RPG fare. Youâll guide a band of expeditioners across the hauntingly beautiful world of Lumière, a Belle Ăpoque-inspired realm under siege by a mysterious godlike figure known as the Paintress. Once a year, she wipes out part of humanity in a ritual known as âthe gommageââand your mission is to end it.
Sandfall Interactive has clearly taken cues from Japanese RPG giants like Persona and Final Fantasy, but its blend of western aesthetics, deep worldbuilding, and a phenomenal soundtrack makes it feel like something new. It's not just borrowing from the bestâit's pushing the genre forward.
Ben Williams â IGN freelance contributor with over 10 years of experience covering gaming, tech, film, TV, and anime. Follow him on Twitter/X @BenLevelTen.
Titanfall fans are reeling from the news EA has canceled another incubation project at Respawn Entertainment, and simultaneously laid off a number of individuals across its incubation, Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, and EA Experience teams.
Bloomberg reported the canceled game, codenamed R7, was an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe. And while that is not the Titanfall 3 sequel fans have been clamoring for, some are devastated that the fan-favorite Titanfall 2 is still without a sequel almost a decade later.
"I just fell to my knees at Walmart," said one player, while another simply wrote: "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE."
"How many more times will this happen before they finally give it up and leave us to our sorrow?" lamented another.
Not all fans are taking it as bad news, however, as some think an extraction shooter based in the Titanfall universe could have failed, killing the franchise for good.
"Best thing that could've happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned," posited this redditor. "A Titanfall extraction shooter would probably flop and the c-suite executives would say 'see, the people just don't like Titanfall anymore,' instead of the obvious reason being nobody asked for a Titanfall XTS."
"Iâm fine with this one being canceled," responded someone else, followed by: "Extraction shooter lmao. Good riddance."
"So sick and tired of 'extraction shooters'. They're so formulaic and boring. I don't want to loot bunch of useless shit and camp in an attic or sit in a bush for 20 minutes or risk getting shot moving thru big open fields. Give me quick matches, wallrunning and titans blastin'," suggested this fan.
"Got sad. Read extraction shooter. Was literally okay," summarized someone else.
The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other thought to have been the aforementioned extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe.
These cuts follow a number of other layoffs over the last few years at EA. Earlier this year, it restructured BioWare, moving developers to other projects and laying off others. It also eliminated 50 jobs at BioWare in 2023 and an unknown number more at Codemasters, and in 2024 a larger restructuring that resulted in 670 workers laid off company-wide, including around two dozen workers at Respawn.
In 2023, it emerged that Respawn Entertainment worked on Titanfall 3 "in earnest" for 10 months before ditching it for Apex Legends.
Mohammad Alavi, who became narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3 before it was cut, told The Burnettwork that much work on the sequel had been done.
âTitanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like, âOkay, weâre gonna make Titanfall 3,â and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about 10 months, right? In earnest, right?
"We had new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right? But Iâll make this clear: incrementally better, it wasnât revolutionary. And thatâs the key thing, right?
âAnd we were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were making something revolutionary, yâknow what I mean?â
So, what happened? According to Alavi, it was a combination of the multiplayer team having issues making an experience that didnât burn players out quickly, and the explosion of the Battle Royale genre with the release of PUBG in 2017.
âThe multiplayer team was having a hell of a time trying to fix the multiplayer, because a lot of people love the multiplayer. People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer,â Alavi said.
âBut the people who love Titanfall 2 multiplayer is a very small number of people. And most people play Titanfall 2 multiplayer and think itâs really good, but itâs just too much. Itâs cranked up to 11, and they burn out a bit fast. And theyâre like, âThat was a great multiplayer, thatâs not something I continually play a year, two years,â right?
âSo we were trying to fix that. We were trying to fix that from Titanfall 1 to 2, trying to fix it from Titanfall 2 to 3, the multiplayer team was just dying.
âAnd then PUBG came out.â
Respawn developers were seemingly more interested in playing a Battle Royale map with Titanfall 3 classes the team had put together, than any of the standard Titanfall multiplayer modes they were working on. This prompted a realisation: ditch Titanfall 3, which may or may not have ended up a better game than its predecessor, to create a Battle Royale that was wonderful.
âAnd at the time, I had just literally become [the] narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3. I had just pitched the story, the whole game, that me and Manny [Hagopian] had come up with. We made this big presentation and then we went off at break, and came back from break, and we talked about it and we were like, âYeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game.â
âWe literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves âcause we were like, âWe can make this game, and itâs going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.â
âAnd donât get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall. I love that game. Titanfall 2 is my most crowning achievement, but it was the right call. That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didnât even know about it for another six months until we had a prototype up and running that we could show them!â
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Gearbox development chief Randy Pitchford has insisted the decision to release Borderlands 4 earlier than planned had nothing to do with any other gameâs release date, amid speculation the shooter might have moved due to games such as Marathon or Grand Theft Auto 6.
Co-op focused FPS Borderlands 4 was due out September 23, but will now release on September 12 across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
This 11-day shift sparked speculation that GTA 6âs release date had come into focus and that parent company Take-Two, which also owns GTA developer Rockstar, had shuffled its pack in a bid to give Borderlands 4 more breathing room. GTA 6 is currently still down to launch in the fall of 2025.
There was also talk that Borderlands 4 might have moved due to a clash with Bungieâs Marathon, a co-op focused extraction shooter. Marathon is a crucial game for Bungie, which is owned by Sony, and was set to go up against Borderlands 4 by releasing on the same day, September 23, 2025. Borderlands 4 is getting its own PlayStation State of Play broadcast today, April 30, at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 11pm CEST.
But in a tweet, Pitchford denied any gameâs release date influenced the decision to bring Borderlands 4 forward, insisting it had to do with âconfidenceâ and âdevelopment trajectory.â
âBorderlands 4 shipping early is 100% the result of confidence in the game and development trajectory backed by actual tasks and bug find/fix rates,â Pitchford said. âOur decision is literally 0% about any other productâs actual or theoretical launch date.â
While many games have brought their release dates forward, it remains an unusual occurence (delays are more likely). Chris Dring, Editor-In-Chief and Co-Founder of The Game Business, said that if other games' release dates really did have nothing to do with bringing Borderlands 4 forward, then the decision is "a bit odd."
"Theyâve gone out with a date," Dring tweeted. "Itâs on calendars, market materials, social assets... Put âBorderlands 4 release dateâ into Google and it still says Sep 23. Thereâs surely got to be a good commercial reason to shift a date."
In a video message apparently published early yesterday, Pitchford revealed the surprise Borderlands 4 release date news. âEverything is going great, actually,â he said. âIn fact, everything is going kind of the best-case scenario. The game is awesome, the team is cooking, and so the launch date for Borderlands 4 is changing. Weâre moving it forward. The launch date is now September 12.â
âWhat?! This never happens you guys! This never happens! Weâre moving the launch date forward! Youâre gonna get Borderlands 4 earlier!â
Itâs worth noting that Borderlands 4 is published by 2K Games, which is owned by Take-Two. Gearbox itself and the Borderlands IP are also owned by Take-Two. Meanwhile, Take-Two is the parent company of GTA developer Rockstar. At a high enough level, right up to CEO Strauss Zelnick, there will be a knowledge of all the companyâs games, where theyâre at in development, and a desire to give them all the best chance of success.
In an interview with IGN in February, Zelnick said Take-Two is planning its releases to avoid a risk of cannibalization, insisting launch timing is driven by a desire to ârespect the consumer's need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next.â
âNo, I think we will plan the releases so as not to have that be a problem,â Zelnick said. âAnd what we found is when you're giving consumers hits, they tend to be interested in pursuing other hits. In other words, I've said this many times, even when the hits aren't ours, they're a good thing for the industry. In this case, we hope that the hits will largely be ours. So we feel really good about it and I think that we will time our releases so as to respect the consumer's need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next.â
Amid all this speculation is of course the prospect that GTA 6 will be delayed either into early winter, or at some point in the first quarter of 2026.
"Look, there's always a risk of slippage and I think as soon as you say words like absolutely, you jinx things," Zelnick responded when IGN asked how confident he was that Rockstar would hit fall 2025 for GTA 6. "So we feel really good about it."
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
FromSoftware has revealed the official PC system requirements for Elden Ring: Nightreign. Elden Ring: Nightreign is a standalone 3-player co-op game, set in the world of Elden Ring. Basically, think of it as a standalone spin-off. So, letâs see what PC youâll need to run it. PC gamers will at least need an Intel Core ⌠Continue reading Elden Ring: Nightreign Official PC System Requirements â
The post Elden Ring: Nightreign Official PC System Requirements appeared first on DSOGaming.
Nintendo has released a new firmware update for the Switch ahead of the release of the Switch 2.
Nintendo Switch Firmware Update Version 20.0.0 makes a number of key changes to the eight-year-old console in preparation of the launch of its successor, the Switch 2, in June, according to the patch notes released on Nintendo's official website.
Chief among them is the addition of a system transfer to Nintendo Switch 2, which youâll now find in System Settings. This lets you perform a system transfer from your Switch to Switch 2 using local communication.
If you lose access to your Switch before getting your Switch 2, there is an option to upload system transfer data to a dedicated server which can then be retrieved on your Switch 2.
Itâs worth noting that once youâve done this, the Switch will be initialized to factory settings. Nintendo warned you should only do the transfer if youâll be able to complete the transfer on Switch 2. Otherwise, just do the system transfer using local communication after you have your Switch 2.
Some Switch owners who intend to sell or trade in their OG console against a Switch 2 are already saying theyâll make use of this system transfer system as they donât need to hold onto their old consoles to do the transfer. Others are questioning the need for the transfer to trigger a factory reset, and have expressed concern about potentially losing their Switch data on Nintendoâs dedicated server.
Meanwhile, the update changes the appearance of some user icons, which the community has already revealed. Of note here is Donkey Kongâs new icon is the new design from upcoming Switch 2 exclusives Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Kart World.
There's also new icons on the Home menu for Virtual Game Cards and GameShare, both also in anticipation of the launch of Switch 2.
For detailed information on Nintendo Switch 2, see the Nintendo website.
Note that the use of âPrimary Consoleâ has been deprecated with the transition to virtual game cards, and âPass-enabled consoleâ will be used instead. On a console set as the âPass-enabled consoleâ for a user, all users on the console can access certain subscriptions or passes for some software. For more information, see How to Set or Change the Pass-Enabled Console for a Nintendo Account.
This is all leading towards the hotly anticipated release of the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5. Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders went live on April 24, with the price still fixed at $449.99 â and they went about as well as you'd expect. Meanwhile, Nintendo has issued a warning to U.S. customers who applied for a Switch 2 pre-order from the My Nintendo Store, saying release date delivery is not guaranteed due to very high demand.
Check out IGN's Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order guide for more.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Lost Soul Aside was meant to come out on May 30th. Sadly, though, the game has been delayed by around three months. As such, itâs now scheduled for release on August 29th. The devs stated that they are going to take the additional time to polish the game so that it will meet their standards. ⌠Continue reading Lost Soul Aside has been delayed until August 29th â
The post Lost Soul Aside has been delayed until August 29th appeared first on DSOGaming.
Diablo 4 has launched Season 8 and with it kicked off a series of free updates that will, eventually, lead into the action role-playing gameâs second expansion, due out at some point in 2026.
But not all is well within Diablo 4âs ravenous core community. It is a player base hungry for significant new features, reworks, and fresh ways to play the near two-year-old game, and itâs not shy about letting Blizzard know how it feels. Yes, Diablo 4 is more than its core community, with a significant number of casual players who just like to blast monsters without too much thought on how theyâre doing it. But the foundation of Diablo 4âs community is made up of veteran fans who play week in, week out, fuss over meta builds, and want Blizzard to give them much more to think about.
Perhaps itâs no surprise, then, that Diablo 4âs recently released 2025 roadmap â the first Blizzard has released for the game â suffered a backlash. In the wake of the roadmapâs release, Diablo 4âs community expressed concern about what's coming up in 2025, including Season 8, and questioned whether thereâs enough new content to keep them coming back.
The debate online got to the point where a Diablo community manager stepped into the main thread on the Diablo 4 subreddit to address the complaints: âWe added fewer details to the later parts of the roadmap to accommodate for things the team is still working on,â they insisted. âThis isn't all that's coming in 2025 :)â Even Mike Ybarra, former president of Blizzard Entertainment and corporate boss at its parent company, Microsoft, waded into the debate with a few choice words.
Season 8 launches not only with all this in mind, but with a number of controversial changes of its own. Chief among them is a significant change to Diablo 4âs battle pass to bring it more in-line with Call of Dutyâs, offering players the chance to unlock items in a non-linear fashion. But the battle pass now pays out less virtual currency than before, leaving players with less currency to put towards subsequent battle passes.
In this sweeping interview with IGN, Diablo 4 lead live game designer Colin Finer and Diablo 4 lead seasons designer Deric Nunez respond to the reaction to the roadmap, confirm plans to update Diablo 4's skill tree (something players have wanted for some time now), and explain those changes to the battle pass.
IGN: How is the team feeling about the rollout of Season 8? Are there any challenges you're predicting that you might have to tackle?
Colin Finer: Season 8, we're feeling really good about it. The thing we're really looking out for is anything crazy that happens in the first week. We're looking to see if there's anything that's gonna be underperforming as part of the boss powers, which is the big marquee seasonal thing that we've introduced in this season. So anything that might be underperforming, we're looking to make buffs. To anything that's massively overperforming, that's just breaking the game in terms of, you get one boss power and now everything is easy, we're probably gonna be toning down.
It's nothing that weâre too scared about. We find on Diablo the harder something is to balance, the more fun it is. So I think it's in a pretty good spot. We're excited for this season to come out and really have players become bosses.
IGN: Has the team's philosophy around buffing and nerfing following a season rollout changed over the course of Diablo 4âs lifetime?
Colin Finer: Absolutely has evolved and changed, and a lot of it has been revolving around what we try and uphold and respect, which is player time investment and where players are having fun and meeting them there.
So just to give a history on it, in the very first season of Diablo 4, we made a bunch of changes, sweeping nerfs to the game because we wanted it to fit more within our launch vision of the game, where combat was a little bit slow and methodical, and you're gonna take monsters one-on-one, and bosses are gonna be really challenging and difficult. Obviously, that didn't go super well because it felt like were defining what the fun of the game was for the players.
Over time we've become a lot more hands off once a season goes live. We don't want to necessarily make any big changes in the middle of a season, for example, to nerf or do big buffs to classes, because we again want to respect player time investment.
For a while we had a thought after Season 1 where it was like, âOK well, we won't nerf at the start of a season, but we will make big nerfs in the middle of a season, or will make big buffs in a season.â As we saw progression became more deep and we added more ways to min-max your characters, we felt like doing big sweeping changes in the middle of a season would disrespect player time investment. You might work your way up to a really powerful Necromancer build with tons of minions, you've tempered your gear, you've masterworked it, and then if we found that it was too powerful in the middle of a season, it was way overperforming, if we nerf that, that meant all that time you put into that character was essentially being thrown away. So we didn't like that.
And we didn't like the other part where we were going to massively buff a class, for example, in the middle of the season, because you might have wanted to play that. But now, now that you haven't invested in that build, now it presents this obnoxious challenge where it's like, âWell, I wanted to play this, it wasn't strong at the start of a season, and now it's this big climb to get to that point where you've unlocked this new build for me.â
In Season 8, what we're really looking at now is being a little bit more reactive early into a season and then taking a step back. What that changes now in terms of our philosophy is if we see something in the start of a season that is crazy or overperforming â and how we define overperforming is that it's just short-cutting a lot of the challenge and progression of the game.
Season 7, to give you a clear example of that, we felt like Blood Wave Necromancer was doing this, where you get one unique item on the Necromancer, and now all the bosses in the game are falling over. You're one-shotting everything in the game. We like getting to that point. We like when players can become God-like powerful. We don't like when it's cheapened by one item or one interaction that invalidates everyone else's journey to get to that spot.
So we're going to be looking in Season 8 for early outperformers like that, taking S-plus builds to just an S. And if there's anything new that we've added â for example, we've added this really cool unique item on the Sorcerer that allows you to fan out Ice Shards â if, for example, that underperforms we will also be buffing those early into a season.
So it's really just being a little bit more reactive earlier into a season and then taking a step back and letting players have fun with all the stuff that we've added.
IGN: I'm big into Diablo lore, and so it's exciting to see Belial arrive in Diablo 4 as part of Season 8. Why Belial now? And for Diablo lore fans, is there anything meaningful here they should keep an eye out for?
Colin Finer: Absolutely. Diablo, the genre and the IP, greater and lesser evils always have a way of somehow coming back into Sanctuary, right? You thought you had banished them, like Lilith was banished to the abyss but she somehow came back. So Belial is another great example of that. In Diablo 3, he took over Caldeum, throughout the Iron Wolves, which you now see in the outskirts of Diablo 4, and they've been cast out. They're sort of outcasts.
In terms of why Belial now? In Vessel of Hatred, Mephisto is walking the earth in his human form, all hell has broken loose, and Belial, who's a lesser evil, obviously can't pass up this opportunity to try and wreak havoc, take advantage of the chaos, take advantage of the fact that the gates of hell are open, Mephisto is walking the earth. And this felt like the proper time for someone like Belial, who's such an incredibly cool villain, incredibly cool demon, to want to come in and take advantage of this chaos.
So overall, the narrative that we're really pursuing and interested in is that Diablo 4 is evolving with these expansions and the Vessel of Hatred kicked off this... you never know who's going to come back. So we have a ton of big bads up our sleeves who are looking and eager to come back into Sanctuary to take advantage of this madness.
IGN: You'll obviously be keenly aware of some of the reaction to the roadmap among the core community. I think it's fair to say there's been some mixed reaction there. Were you surprised by some of the reaction about what was coming to the game this year?
Colin Finer: I don't know it was necessarily surprising. You know, if you ask our fans, 'What is it you want more of?' It's more details, more content, more things. So we know we have an obligation and we're in service of the player in terms of really getting them a fantastic experience and adding and evolving Diablo 4 over time.
What we are talking about more on is ensuring that the players understand that this is just a starting point and that it is a conversation with the player base. Part of the seasonal model that we really enjoy is that seasons are a place for us to try really big, crazy, bold new ideas that we then can use community interaction and conversations to validate what's working for them, to then bring it into the eternal game and to evolve Diablo 4 over time.
So a good example, if you think back to our past, we did this crazy Blood Harvest in Season 2 where all these vampires were running around, it was all hell broken loose on the overworld, and we took a lot of those lessons learned and things that players really enjoyed and pulled that straight into Season 4 with our updates to Helltides. So we're always looking to have a conversation with the community and hearing their thoughts on what's working for them and to pull that back into the broader game of Diablo 4 to make it feel like it's evolving over time.
Part of this was, we have Nightmare Dungeons and Infernal Hordes, we have a couple of features called out on the roadmap, and again, it's a starting point. We'd love to hear some of the community thoughts and feedback when they see these things in terms of like, âOh, I wish this thing was changed in Infernal Hordes,â for example. That gives us a lot of great validation in the direction that we're heading on that particular feature.
Deric Nunez: My initial reaction to the reactions of the roadmap, it was all definitely very fair feedback. We see the roadmap as the kickoff for a conversation that we're looking to have with the player base. Obviously things get a bit more obfuscated the further out we get. We're really excited that some element of what the fans are looking for will definitely be revealed as we get further along. When it's all said and done, I think we'll be in an overall very strong place for Diablo 4, as we make the road towards the next expansion and refining that foundation and seeding in the new seasonal fun that we'd like to inject season after season.
The fact we're getting so much feedback from a broad spectrum of the player base, the hardcore blasters and the casuals alike, is definitely all very important for us as we make decisions moving forward, and also validating some of the decisions and directions that we're already taking with the roadmap yet to be revealed.
IGN: I play a lot of Diablo and I play a lot of Call of Duty, and it looks like Diablo 4âs new battle pass has taken some inspiration from Call of Duty with the way you can now pick what youâre working towards. Can you talk about why youâve changed it in this way?
Colin Finer: We are updating the battle pass in Season 8 with a new system called Reliquaries. A lot of this was driven by, the battle pass just felt like a pretty long and tedious grind through 150 levels to get the things that you wanted. And we felt like that wasn't necessarily servicing our players in the best way that we could.
Diablo, there's a lot of different ways to target or get chances at the types of loot that you want in the game. There's a lot of control, there's a lot of ways for players to manipulate the odds, or target something they want, just like the Lair Boss system where maybe there's a specific boss you want and you can farm that boss to get the unique item of your dreams.
The Reliquary system aims to inject some of that choice and allow players to drive and work towards the things that they actually want out of the battle pass. The high level was, how do we get players more in the driver's seat in terms of claiming some of the stuff that they actually want out of the battle pass? We think it's just a lot more flexible now.
IGN: Iâve seen negative feedback to some of the changes to the battle pass where you get less virtual currency back from it now than before. That wonât have passed you by. Can you talk about the reasoning behind those changes?
Colin Finer: Yeah, I think it's definitely fair reaction. We're always listening. I think the thing that we think works a lot better as part of the system is, again, you're able to really work towards and pick the things you want out of the system. I believe also the Platinum that you gain out of the entire system is available to everyone now. So you don't even need to buy the battle pass necessarily to gain some of those things back. So it's a net win for everybody overall, in that sense.
IGN: For Season 9, is there anything on the roadmap that people can expect might change either as a result of feedback or because things have become clearer internally? Or is everything on the roadmap that we're seeing now still what people can expect? I'm talking about Season 9 there but that can extend to Season 10 as well.
Colin Finer: At a high level, it really sets the expectation for what is the big major thing that we're gonna work on. But just like Season 8, how it has tons of quality of life changes, tons of updates, tons of details, each future season is also going to have that level of detail, content, and variety.
I'll give you a great example: because it was the Season of Bosses in Season 8, we thought what better time and opportunity do we have to actually update a lot of the bosses that exist in our game? So we took a look at Duriel. He's been in the game for quite a while. We've completely changed the fight. We've added some new attacks. We've added a lot of fun new ways for him to eat you and kill you. Those level of details all coalesce into one really solid, incredible package for a season that the roadmap just isn't really able to capture at this point. Because it's really just trying to say, 'We're going to be investing and looking into Nightmare Dungeons... how do we level up that system and feature?' And there's just going to be so much that goes into it that really is hard to sell with just a few bullet points in terms of telling players where we're actually heading.
Deric Nunez: The devil will definitely be in the details when we reveal more. There's a lot more beyond the veil, the broad stroke of what was revealed.
IGN: Generally, there is a desire from players for brand new skills and build variety. What's the thinking there about whether or not to do it either way?
Colin Finer: This is a really meaty question, so I'll dive into a couple sections. Our goal every season is to completely refresh the meta and make it feel like there's tons of exciting new ways to play the game. A great example of this is you might have played a Whirlwind Barbarian last season, but you can still play it this season, and our hope that the boss powers that we've added that are unique to this season have ways to actually make that Whirlwind Barbarian feel completely different and get you to care about different things, and to have it change the way you play.
So a great example is one of the boss powers has essentially a power that when you're channelling, it's going to fire a death laser beam. It's the Wandering Death. If you fought that one, you get to rip the power out of it, and now while you're Whirlwinding it's going to shoot that death laser. So that's a really cool way for you to have a really big impact on your overall build while still having a similar playstyle.
As far as the skill tree changes, I can confirm we are talking about updates to the skill tree, but I don't have any details. It's something the team is taking very seriously, and we are talking about, what is a major change that we think would create more build variety and more build diversity going forward?
The reason why it's going to take us quite a while is it's kind of a big problem to entangle. So right now, just to dive into some of the details, Legendary aspects are two parts that we consider problematic. It's both customization, which is like, 'I want my â for example, if you played Rogue â Twisting Blades to orbit around me.' We think that's a really cool thing and really cool playstyle customization choice.
But because it's a Legendary item, it also has what we call power growth, which is, now Twisting Blades deals more damage. And what that means is if you want to play a Twisting Blades Rogue, you have to play with the Twisting Blades orbiting around you playstyle, right? We've just sort of said because there's both power on this as well as customization, this is the only way you're allowed to play Twisting Blades Rogue.
So we want to separate some of that out. We want to pull more of the customization into the skill tree and allow aspects to be more power growth. That's a lot to entangle and that's why it's a lot of conversations that we're having right now. And it's a lot of work on us to make sure we get it right, so that we release it into a high quality state. That's just like a little insight into the philosophy that we're working towards as part of that.
The TL;DR to that is we do want to do something to the skill tree, no plans that I can share now, but it's something that we're definitely talking about.
Diablo 4 Season 8 is live now.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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Š Intel
Š Intel
TV these days offers you a choice of freaky apocalypses. Want to see human society collapse due to deadly mushrooms? Watch The Last of Us. Want to see the world end in a blanket of deadly snow? Watch The Eternaut, Netflixâs gritty and moody adaptation of an influential, nearly 70-year-old Argentine comic book. A thoughtful and twisty take on the post-apocalyptic survival genre, this series makes terrific use of its South American locations to tell a story about people too stubborn to die.
The Eternautâs doomsday begins when a mysterious snow-like substance that kills anyone who touches it starts falling from the sky in Buenos Aires, a place not exactly known for frosty winters. In less than a day, the cityâs population is decimated. One of the few survivors is lumpy, gray-haired, middle-aged Juan Salvo (Ricardo Darin) who puts on a gas mask and a heavy coat and ventures out into the fallen capital, searching for people to save.
The basic concept and approach of The Eternaut should be familiar to fans of The Walking Dead and similar shows. The seriesâs writer-director-producer Bruno Stagnaro begins the story on day one, documenting a society that rapidly collapses and then just as quickly tries to regroup. This seasonâs pacing can feel slow, as Stagnaro tells a story that, at times, feels like a minute-by-minute recounting of Juanâs adventures. In the first three episodes especially, there are a lot of scenes of people in darkened rooms, talking about their fears and worrying about their futures. These characters are good enough company, but youâll need to exercise a little patience early on, as the plot gradually develops.
The Eternaut really comes to life whenever the action moves outside. The images of a broken Buenos Aires â filled with crashed cars and corpses, all covered in snow â are visually striking. The tension heightens dramatically too whenever Juan is out in the streets, encountering other explorers with masks and guns, having to figure out which of them he can trust. In one of the most memorable early scenes, he comes across a group of people huddling in one corner of a crashed commuter train, and he is torn between his instinctive feelings of compassion and the realization that there is no way to save all of them from the snow. These are the kinds of moments that you look for in tales of armageddon: the ones where the heroes wrestle with tough choices, and we wrestle along with them.
By the fourth episode, the true nature of this particular apocalypse becomes clearer, and (no spoilers here) The Eternaut becomes more obviously a science-fiction story. There are more sequences involving special effects â all very polished and impressive â as Juan and his band of survivors find themselves racing through the city, scrambling into makeshift shelters and fighting for their lives.
Where The Eternaut takes place matters, for a couple of reasons. This show is about people who, even before their world turned upside-down, sometimes felt isolated and forgotten, in a country with a rickety infrastructure and a complicated political history. The Argentine setting gives a tried-and-true plot a fresh look and feel. But it also provides a reason why some neighbors might look at each other warily (perhaps due to past unrest), and why there is enough analog technology around to mitigate against power outages. The setting also matters because of the source material, which could be considered one of the first serious graphic novels. Its complex and sophisticated story in comic book form influenced artists worldwide, and it especially inspired Argentinians, who had never seen their own country depicted in a science-fiction epic. It remains an astonishing backdrop in this new, televised form.
You donât have to be Argentine, though, to be awed by The Eternautâs depiction of an ordinary city, ravaged by disaster. Juan is an everyman for everybody. What gives this show its juice are all the scenes of him venturing into the unknown, step by wary step, trying to stay alive long enough to make a difference.
The following is a non-spoiler review for six (out of eight) episodes of the second season of The Walking Dead: Dead City, which premieres Sunday, May 4.
Dead City is the most conceptually interesting of The Walking Dead's many offshoots: Uneasy allies Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) take Manhattan, getting tangled up in the fallen metropolis' warring factions and post-apocalyptic conflicts along the way. But the first six episodes of its second season prove why this is also the franchise's most forced and clumsy spinoff. After several key players got off the island in season 1, everyone needs to get shuffled back into Dead City now. And it's not just Maggie, mind you, but people who have no business returning â if you can even make the argument that Maggie herself should be returning.
In case you need a reminder, since it's been nearly two years since the first-season finale: Maggie sold out Negan, leaving him a captive figurehead for The Dama (Lisa Emery) and The Croat's (Željko Ivanek) Big Apple machinations, and returned her son Hershel (Logan Kim) to The Bricks community. With all that in mind, I could certainly feel Dead City strains to reunite the gang in the same zip code. There's nothing smooth or natural about it. This is a show that favors plot over character, so it's threats and blackmail, rather than more internal forms of motivation, that get the chess pieces where they need to be.
There are some wise moves that help treat Season 1's bumps and bruises, while also exploring a great new angle on Hershel. But it ultimately fizzles out under action scenes too dark to comprehend or appreciate, characters' kids constantly getting used as leverage or collateral, and an overall fatigue when it comes to Maggie and Negan's complicated relationship. The original Walking Dead series basically said most everything that needed to be said about the duo's uneasy reconciliation, and one of Season 1's big flaws was that it seemed to ignore the emotional work that brought them to that conclusion.
Dead City is still buckling under this particular trauma bond, but it also does a few things to alleviate the heaviness. Maggie and Negan are no longer on an adventure together â they're separated for most parts of the season, dealing with their own turmoil involving mini-tyrants making rash choices. For Maggie, it's the soldiers of New Babylon, which we discover is a rather fiendish outfit. For Negan, it's the eloquent sadism of Ivanek and Emery's methane-powered Midtown monarchs. The charming psy-ops Negan works on his opressors are more fun to watch than Maggie's constant anger and befuddlement at her New Babylon bullies, so putting distance between our two headliners works way better for the story.
Hershel Rhee, meanwhile, remains an angsty apocalypse teen (the worst sub-category of TV teen) who constantly whines and operates on self-serving levels despite larger, urgent things happening around him. And so we get, for the most part, the worst Hershel in season 2: The one who can never live up to his beloved namesake and has been made a worse character by the burden. But there's a hitch, because he isn't all bad. I mean, there are definitely some terrible teen traits, but with Hershel this season, we get a fascinating mix of Stockholm syndrome and the younger TWD generation's disregard for the pre-zombocalypse world.
Everything adults do on these shows is an effort to reclaim past safety, knowledge, and comfort. But what does that mean to the characters too young to ever know "how things were"? Hershel's story this season allows that question to echo through the concrete canyons of a Manhattan that's been returned to nature (give or take a few dozens walkers). Are the things the grownups are doing for their kids really just for them? Hershell will forever be a polarizing character, but there are a few moments in season 2 where he makes a good point.
Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) on the other hand? No such luck. Her journey here, barring whatever happens in the last two episodes (which weren't made available for this review), is just as flat and ill-fitting as it was in season 1. A couple more episodes could save things, but for six episodes all she gets to be is a sullen side teen who's somehow, still, supposed to morph into Negan's surrogate daughter â even though he has a wife and kid elsewhere who love him. (There's an unintentionally hilarious scene in season 2 regarding Negan's family that feels born out of laziness, relying on TV characters' exceedingly poor communication skills. I think I uttered the words "you gotta be f***ing kidding me.")
New faces this year include Orange is the New Black's Dascha Polanco as hardline New Babylon enforcer Narvaez and Sons of Anarchy's Kim Coates as seedy Manhattan merchant Bruegel. The latter grows tiresome quickly; the former slowly becomes more fun and interesting. New Babylon wants The Croat's methane factory, The Croat and the Dama want to protect what's theirs by convincing the New York gangs to form a united front, and most everyone else plots and schemes for their own individual ends. It's all fine, and we get to explore the dangers and secrets of Central Park this year, but humming in the background is Hershel just sort of loving Manhattan the way it is â all ruined and reclaimed by nature. His story's job â which unfortunately sacrifices our enjoyment of him as a character â is to poke at everyone else's motivations and, maybe even, the viewers' need to see this hellscape become colonized. In the tradition of many, many young people who've come before him (in real life and on TV), Hershel looks forward not back.
Š Future
With sales this good, your pile of shame's about to become a colossal pillar of discounts. This last-gasp-of-April haul packs a punch across all platforms, whether youâre craving tactical drama, nostalgic chaos, or sprawling open worlds. Letâs cut straight to the gems lighting up the digital shelves this week. It's the usual case of grab 'em before they're goneski.
In retro news, today's a day of sombre remembrance for two consoles. 28 years ago, we witnessed the discontinuance of Sega's Game Gear, a battery-guzzling beast that sold 10.62M units and I fondly remember for its Sonic games and extravagant TV Tuner attachment. It's also been 23 years since we bade farewell to the Nintendo 64, which delivered phenomenal four-player action, groundbreaking 3D AAAs, and a highscore of 32.93M units sold. I am not shedding a sentimental tear over it. That's just...Control Stick dust in my eye.
- Dr. Mario (GB) 1991. Get
- Sega Game Gear discontinued 1997. eBay
- Nintendo 64 discontinued 2002. eBay
- Fight Night 2004 (PS2,XB) 2004. eBay
- Super Street Fighter IV (PS3,X360) 2010. Get
- Child of Light (PC,PS3,X360) 2014. Get
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Andor season 2âs second batch of episodes picks up another year later, swapping out action for some proper tragedy as the rebellion gets too big for either side to control. But as we get closer to reconnecting with the larger Star Wars universe as a whole, Andor keeps proving itself to be a truly unique addition to the galaxy far, far away.
You know, it occurred to me that in the two reviews I've done for Andor so far, I havenât yet mentioned one of my favorite characters: ISBâs spymaster, Major Partagaz. Partially, itâs because his first name is Lio and Iâve got a thing for regular ass sounding names in sci fi and fantasy (see also: the main character of Dune named Paul), but mostly old Lio is such a calm and incredibly smart presence at the center of the Empireâs counterintelligence operation. Heâs also responsible for one of my favorite lines â one of the most representative bits of dialogue in this second chapter.
The line comes in episode 6, when Partagaz assigns the task of keeping watch over the expanding interrogation program, the torturous tactic used on Bix in season 1. When his subordinate says itâs an honor, Partagaz is almost disgusted and reminds the guy to âcalibrate his enthusiasm.â
Itâs another one of this season's sneakily funny moments, but itâs also important for me in understanding what this second chapter is about. In this scene, itâs ISB Supervisor Hiet treating an assignment with an overabundance of importance. This rebellion is getting too big to track. There are so many threads being pulled together the signal-to-noise ratio is unbearable. But, my guy Lio is smart enough to see it, and happily dresses down an underling whose excitement needs some adjustment.
This second chapter is dedicated to the idea of losing control. Thereâs a leveling of the playing field that happens here in what amounts to the dog days of this rebellion. Everybody is getting worn down by the scope of the fight as itâs starting to transition into something bigger. The ISB is complaining about arresting so many people they canât properly ingest all the intel theyâre gathering. Meanwhile, Luthen canât keep track of how many bugs he and Kleya have planted around Coruscant and itâs starting to freak him out. The climactic moments of these three episodes are built around them retrieving a listening device from Sculdenâs art collection in full view of several Imperial officers â including the father of the Death Star, Orson Krennic.
Thatâs also why a story about spycraft and espionage is the perfect vehicle for what Tony Gilroy and company are trying to do with this show. This season is inherently a little less mysterious than the first, simply because we know all these people a little better. The question is shifting from âWhat are they planning?â to âHow are they getting away with it?â and the complications that arise are all to do with not being fully in control.
This does a couple things: Number 1 is that this idea trickles down to every character and every storyline which, like in the first batch of episodes, really pulls together otherwise disparate storylines. We get to watch unconnected groups deal with very similar things. Number 2 is that it slows the proceedings down a little bit, which has a good and a bad side.
First, the good: I think Bix has a wonderfully tough arc in these episodes. Her version of losing control is managing the drug use she turns to in order to get through her nightmares of Dr. Gorst and that awful sonic torture. Sheâs also getting left behind while Cassian is out on assignments, which is obviously difficult but also a far cry from the place we first met her in season 1. Sheâs paid a steep price for this rebellion after having been swept up into it in ways that Iâm sure she wasnât planning on a few years ago.
But the real highlight of this batch of episodes I think is getting to meet Ghorman, the planet thatâs home to all those spiders and all those sweet underground Death Star minerals. Itâs no small thing that its inhabitants speak their own language and are subtitled, either. I love the decision to do that. Their culture is portrayed so thoroughly that it makes what the Empire is doing to them about more than just a show of fascism or the brutal lengths theyâre willing to go to. Itâs about the tragedy of a rich and distinct society being fed to the machine of the Empire. Theyâve even got their own middle finger-style gesture that apparently is beyond the pale for town hall meetings. Itâs a great detail on par with good set design or the right costume. It fleshes out this world weâve never seen before and immediately communicates that these are a people worth acknowledging.
And of course the key to the Ghorâs story in these 3 episodes is that they are not in control of their own destiny. Ghorman is just another battlefield the Rebellion and the Empire are fighting over. Thatâs whatâs so brilliant about how the planet is used as a story point. We now have an emotional tie to this place thatâs a symbol for what this whole arc is about: trying to get a handle on this conflict.
Itâs a lens through which we see Cassian realize the would-be rebels there arenât ready â but what can he do about it? We get to see Luthen say heâs willing to sacrifice them if it makes the Empire look bad and inspires rebels elsewhere in the galaxy. We get to see Vel and Cinta trying to manage their own destinies, though ultimately they canât because of the role the rebellion asks them to take in situations like Ghorman. We get to see the Empire with a plan to just nudge the planet into chaos, which is actually a back-up plan for them in case they canât find an alternative to the mineral.
Ghorman is stuck in the middle, with little to no agency in how things are playing out, but its people want to try. Itâs a perfect story to illustrate the push and pull of the rebellion while also getting us emotionally invested in their survival. And ultimately thatâs what Star Wars has always been. Rooting for the rebellion used to be painted with a much broader brush, but itâs never quite been so nuanced and intriguing as what the team behind Andor is doing here.
Syril and Dedraâs relationship also continues to be maybe the most fascinating thing to watch in season 2. Particularly with how clever the writers are about lining Syril up right next to Ghorman. Thereâs a great scene between Syril, Dedra, and Major Lio where you can see him being set up in exactly the same way Ghorman is. Itâs such an insidious thing, taking advantage of Syrilâs ambitions. Heâs being manipulated by Dedra and the ISB in a way that starts to make me feel properly bad for the guy. And I donât think Dedra feels great about what sheâs having to do either. Regardless, the situation is out of their hands.
Meanwhile in the senate, Mon is losing control as well. Thereâs a great montage of her failing at the politics of it all while her fellow senators wonât budge because theyâre afraid of an Imperial reaction. Monâs effectiveness is waning even in how she presents as a troublesome but ultimately harmless senator. Her line about âare we finding criminals or making them?â is very good. Itâs her trying to more directly and openly stand up to the Empire and itâs proving to work less than the more casual obstructionist thing that she had been doing.
The only guy in this arc whoâs really not stressing about being in control is Saw Guerra. Where the dramatic irony of his character is concerned â the fact that we see him get blown up along with the rest of Jedha in Rogue One â heâs a guy thatâs absolutely thriving in this environment. Itâs a great touch to have one character be very aware and very okay with the fact that this will not end well for him. You need that contrast in telling this story. The point of Andor is to largely avoid being as cut-and-dried, good-versus-evil as the original Star Wars, to dig into the gray areas and the infighting that emerge when organizing a revolution.
Having said that, you also need the contrast of this storyline. Sawâs part in this batch of episodes is the one that feels most like a bit of business leading into Rogue One. We donât learn anything new about Saw, and the way he radicalizes Wilmon doesnât push the character too much farther from where he already was. Seeing them at DâQar, a location we know from The Force Awakens, was an Easter egg that threw me a little. I feel like Andor is so devoid of that sort of thing that those grass covered hangers pulled me out of the episode. I mean, itâs not like Yoda showed up out of nowhere, thank the maker, so theyâre keeping those larger franchise connections to a minimum.
So as I mentioned up front, thereâs some positive to pumping the breaks a little with these three episodes, but there is also something I think I might be missing: Some good old-fashioned Star Wars action sequences. We got a little bit in chapter 1, with Cassian stealing the TIE Fighter and the fleeing the farming planet. But six episodes in and we donât have anything quite as thrilling as Luthen evading the Empire like he did in the first season, or the heist and escape through the Eye of Aldhani.
But regular thrills and chills are not what Andor is about, very much by design. This is the forgotten side of the rebellion. The side that wonât get a medal on stage in front of the whole squad and that we as an audience arenât as familiar with. So in that respect it shouldnât look like the Star Wars that weâve known since the â70s. This is a show about smaller wins that have bigger implications.
Yet thereâs a side of me that needed a little more action out of these episodes. Admittedly, I could very well be wrong, but it feels a little strange to end the week with Kleya struggling to remove a microphone from an ancient stone book. As tragic as Cintaâs death was, the very deserved thrashing that Vel gives to the Ghorman rebel who killed her is undercut a bit by Luthen and Kleya laughing on their way out of the party. And I was very excited for Bix to get her revenge on Dr. Gorst, because Iâm both invested in her as a character and itâs a wonderful little bookend to the idea of taking a certain amount of control back at the end of this arc. Still, episode 6 wraps up in a fairly uneven way.
Cassian and Bix get to walk away from an explosion, which is nearly always cool, though, so thatâs at least something. But if I need more action out of this series in particular, itâs probably time to calibrate my enthusiasm.
Š de_husk
Š OpenSea
Š Embark Studios
With May the Fourth fast approaching, otherwise known as Star Wars Day, there's no better time than now to pick up some new goodies to transport you to a galaxy far, far away. If you're a fan of puzzles there are plenty of different Star Wars-themed options to choose from, whether you're an experienced puzzler or looking for a smaller, simpler option to complete with the whole family.
In this list we've gathered up just a few of our favorite Star Wars puzzles that are worth dropping some money on in 2025. These include a couple of exciting 3D builds for those who love a challenge as well as more standard jigsaw puzzles that create a lovely final image that's worth putting up on a wall. Some of these puzzles are even on sale right now, so there's no better time to add them to your shopping cart. Many of them even come from some of our favorite puzzle brands, so you know they're worth the investment.
This puzzle from Buffalo Games is a nice challenge, coming in at 2,000 pieces, and features an incredible final image for Star Wars fans to take in. It features numerous different characters from episodes 1-6 along with a variety of machines, ships, and the Death Star looming in the background. You'll spend ages afterward taking in all of the little details contained in the art work. This is a great puzzle for adult fans of the franchise to dive into.
If you're looking for more of a challenge, Ravensburger is here to help with this 1,000 piece puzzle that features many different Stormtroopers surrounding Darth Vader. This largely black and white puzzle that uses the same style of character over and over again is sure to give your brain a workout as you're piecing it together, but it'll feel mighty satisfying when you're done to look back and see what you've accomplished.
For those looking for something a little different to piece together, 3D puzzles can offer a new form of challenge. This one from IncrediBuilds allows you to assemble a mini model of an X-Wing with 73 pieces. Once you're done you can even paint it, making it a fantastic addition to a Star Wars collectible collection if you have one.
This puzzle is both a nice challenge and a great piece of art to admire once it's finished. It features Yoda on Dagobah, rendered in a painterly style that uses a variety of soft blues and greens. If you're looking to get a puzzle that'll make for a nice display piece once it's all put together, this is a great option to keep on your radar.
Alongside the X-Wing model, this is another 3D build that deserves a spot in among you collectibles. Coming in at 201 pieces, this puzzle from 4D Build brings everyone's favorite droid R2-D2 to life. It also comes with glue and a stand so you can finalize your creation after piecing it together and find a nice spot to display it. This is a great alternative to LEGO if you aren't looking to drop big money on the more popular LEGO Star Wars sets.
If the original trilogy has your heart, this vintage art puzzle is a great pick-up. Featuring a variety of characters from across those three films and bursting with vibrant color, this 1,000-piece puzzle from Buffalo Games is sure to be a challenge to piece together but it'll be rewarding to see the final result. Taking in all of the details around it will have you wanting to go back in for a re-watch of those movies, too.
Looking for an option that the kids can enjoy just as much? This Mandalorian puzzle from Ravensburger comes with 200 pieces and features more of an animated style for the characters that kids are sure to love. It's recommended for ages eight and up, making it a great pick for the family to work on together for a puzzle night.
Finding the best Star Wars puzzle for you depends on what you're looking for. Buffalo Games and Ravensburger have a big variety of Star Wars puzzles to choose from, so you can find an option centered around your favorite film from the franchise, character, and more from them. We also consider these brands to be among the best to buy in 2025, so you know they're worth your time and money. 4D Build is another great company to turn to if you enjoy the 3D puzzles. They offer some incredibly cool models alongside the R2-D2 option listed above, including an Imperial AT-AT and the Millennium Falcon, which are great for people who love collectibles.
If looking through these puzzles has you wanting to pick up even more, we're here to help. We have quite a few roundups that are worth checking out if you want to stock up. If you're looking for more franchise-based puzzles, our selection of the best Lord of the Rings puzzles features some excellent picks from Middle-earth. Or, if you'd prefer to be pointed in the direction of some more general options, our roundup of the best jigsaw puzzles for adults features a little bit of everything for older puzzlers to enjoy. We even have a breakdown of the best jigsaw puzzle brands that highlights some of the best picks from top puzzle sellers.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.