If you've been hoping to add them to your physical media collection, all six The Karate Kid films are releasing in a massive 4K collection set, complete with collectibles. The Karate Kid Ultimate Six-Movie Collection is available exclusively at Amazon for $219.99 and includes each film on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and as a digital copy, including the latest release, Karate Kid: Legends.

The release date is still to be announced, but if you want it, it's worth preordering now just in case it sells out. Head to the link below to get your preorders in for this awesome collection.

Preorder The Karate Kid Ultimate Six-Movie Collection

Alongside the movies, there's plenty for Karate Kid fans to enjoy from this collection. The box itself has a great design, opening up to reveal a pop-up display from the first film with the movies slotted on each side of it.

You'll also get a collection of character cards, three patches, and a Miyagi-Do headband. Bonus features are yet to be announced for it, but we'll be sure to add them in once they're revealed.

Movies Included in the Box Set

Here's a breakdown of what films are included in the set as well:

• The Karate Kid (1984)
• The Karate Kid II (1986)
• The Karate Kid III (1989)
• The Next Karate Kid (1994)
• The Karate Kid (2010)
• Karate Kid Legends

If you're looking for even more movies or shows to add to your physical media collection, there are quite a few releasing over the next few months that are worth keeping on your radar. In our breakdown of upcoming 4K UHD and Blu-ray releases you can see what's coming out soon to start planning ahead. Some of our most-anticipated at the moment include Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning on 4K and a 4K steelbook for season two of The Last of Us.

More Upcoming Physical Releases

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

Walt Disney World's upcoming Cars land will be called Piston Peak National Park and will be part of the "largest expansion in the history of Magic Kingdom," Disney has announced.

As detailed by the Disney Parks Blog, work on Piston Peak National Park begins this summer, which means the Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island, and the Liberty Square Riverboat will close beginning July 7.

As for what will be in this new part of Magic Kingdom's Frontierland, Disney has shared more of its vision and what fans can expect.

"Imagine an awe-inspiring wilderness filled with towering trees, snowcapped mountains, breathtaking waterfalls, roaring rivers and impressive geysers," Disney said. "While fictional, Piston Peak is inspired by the Rocky Mountain area and the history and iconic sights of the American Frontier and its national parks."

Piston Peak also includes places to visit inspired by Disney and Pixar's Cars, including a visitor lodge, Ranger HQ, and trails. In keeping with the theme of being a National Park, Imagineers uses a style of architecture called "Parkitecture," which was actually developed by the National Park Service to "create structures that harmonize with the natural environment."

There are also plenty of trees that provide a natural cover between Piston Peak and the rest of Frontierland and Liberty Square, and "rugged mountains with dramatic peaks will be nestled along a calming waterway across from Grizzly Hall and soaring geysers from the famed Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will stretch into the trails of our off-road rally."

This Cars-themed area was first announced at D23 2024, where it was also revealed it would feature two new attractions. The first is a rally race through the mountains. As Disney puts it: "take on wild terrain as you race across the landscape climbing mountain trails, dodging geysers, and — Mater's favorite — splashing through mudholes." The second ride is geared more towards kids, but it is meant to be "fun for the whole family."

At SXSW 2025, Disney Parks shared a look at the new type of ride vehicle being made for the rally race attraction, noting it needed to invent something new as these cars are meant to convey a "feeling when you ride in it." In line with Cars, each vehicle comes with its own personality, name, and number.

Piston Peak National Park is one part of the big new plan for Magic Kingdom, as it will one day be joined by the first-ever land inspired by the Disney Villains. In the shorter term, guests will be able to look forward to the opening of the Disney Starlight nighttime parade on July 20 as part of Disney World's Cool Kid Summer and the Pirates of the Caribbean-inspired tavern called The Beak and Barrel later this year.

Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst, Instagram, and TikTok, and listen to his show, Talking Disney Magic.

Warner Bros. reportedly wanted Transformers director Michael Bay to make a Man of Steel sequel starring Henry Cavill before the DC Universe was overhauled and James Gunn set about rebooting Superman.

According to TheWrap, execs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy attempted to pull together a "standalone Henry Cavill-led Superman film going in 2022, with Michael Bay eyed to possibly direct.” This effort was made prior to bringing James Gunn and Peter Safran in as the new co-heads of DC Studios, which was announced in October of the same year Warner Bros.' reported attempt to give Cavill back the cape.

That said, those attempts clearly fell through, which gave way to bringing Gunn and Safran in to reimagine the DCU — which, in turn, quickly led to Cavill’s exit from the Superman franchise in December 2022, just two months after the co-heads were instated.

Obviously, since then, Superman has gone in a completely different direction from the days of Cavill past. David Corenswet, who is perhaps best known at this point for his roles in Ti West’s Pearl and the Ryan Murphy Netflix series Hollywood, is taking over the coveted role in James Gunn’s reinvention of the franchise, with Marvelous Mrs. Masel star Rachel Brosnahan starring as Lois Lane alongside him. Plus, Nicholas Hoult rounds out the core three as Lex Luthor. That said: it’s hard not to imagine what Bay and Cavill would’ve done with one more shot into the sky.

For their parts, though, those two are plenty busy. Cavill is set to appear in several upcoming projects, including a live-action Voltron movie and a live-action reboot of Highlander, while Bay recently put out a parkour documentary called We Are Storror. He’s also said to be doing the Skibidi Toilet movie that we’re all trying to forget was announced, but he took to social media to deny directing that, uh, thing last month.

James Gunn’s Superman arrives in theaters on July 11, 2025.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has praised Nintendo Switch 2, and said the upcoming console realises the vision of the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who worked on the concept for the original Switch platform before he passed away in 2015.

Speaking as part of a Nintendo-published Creator's Voice video, Huang said he had worked personally with Iwata on Nintendo's then-audacious plans for a hybrid console capable of playing home console-quality games while on the go.

Now, after working with Nintendo again on the chip that powers Switch 2, Huang said the new console boasted the "most advanced graphics ever in a mobile device", and offered "a new chapter worthy of Iwata-san's vision."

"We've worked with Nintendo for more than a decade, drawn together by a shared belief — that technology should serve creativity, and that joy is worth engineering for," Huang began.

"I still remember the day Iwata-san shared his dream with us. He wanted to create something no-one had seen before: a console powerful enough for big cinematic games, but small enough to take anywhere. It sounded impossible, but that vision became the original Nintendo Switch.

"We lost Iwata-san before the launch, but his clarity, his purpose, it still inspires our work everyday," Huang continued. "Together, we poured everything into that system. The Nintendo Switch took over 500 engineer years at Nvidia. We rethought the entire stack, chip architecture, OS, APIs, game engines, so the magic could travel with you. The results speak for themselves: over 150 million consoles sold."

With Switch 2, Huang added, Nvidia and Nintendo not only offered the best visuals ever found in a portable gaming device, but hardware that also enabled support for ray tracing and HDR, while maintaining backwards compatibility for most Switch 1 games.

Nintendo is yet to reveal the Switch 2's final technical specifications itself, though our friends at Digital Foundry recently did the job for them. One particular point of interest remains the impact to Switch 2's hardware capability gobbled up by GameChat, which Digital Foundry reported had a "significant impact" on system resources to the point where some developers are said to be concerned.

"Switch 2 is more than a new console," Huang concluded. "It's a new chapter worthy of Iwata-san's vision. To our friends at Nintendo, congratulations. We're honoured to be on this journey with you."

Nintendo Switch 2 launches this week, on Thursday June 5, and is expected to sell out upon launch. Indeed, Nintendo is already shipping 'Out of Stock' signs to some stores to advertise the console's lack of availability amid high demand.

IGN has been hands-on with Switch 2 and reported back today that Mario Kart World's open world isn't what you think it is — so don't go in expecting a Nintendo version of Forza Horizon. We've also played the $10 mini-game collection Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, and while enjoyable, it should probably have been free.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

The challenge of playing Elden Ring Nightreign solo has been a hot-button issue since the game's launch, but director Junya Ishizaki has confirmed solo clears are quite doable. He knows, because he's cleared every boss in Nightreign already, by himself.

Speaking to CNET in a recent interview, Ishizaki was asked whether he has beaten every boss, including the final one, himself.

"Yes. I can hopefully give you reassurance to know that I have beaten all of the game's bosses," said Ishizaki. "I've seen everything it has to offer, both in multiplayer and as a solo player. So I want you and players to know that this is very possible, and I want you to have the confidence to give it a try yourself."

CNET followed to clarify that Ishizaki was saying he had soloed every boss in the game. "Yes," Ishizaki confirmed. "And without relics."

While that's a pretty dang impressive accomplishment in and of itself, I do like the notion that Ishizaki's clears are also meant to be encouraging for other players. If he can do it, essentially, then you might be able to as well. I don't know about the "without relics" part, though. You can give yourself a little bit of leeway on that.

There have been other players who have been clearing both individual bosses and the full roster of Nightlords solo as well. Still, the solo experience of Nightreign has been under scrutiny, and not just for its difficulty, but also for how some mechanics (like revival) feel more oriented around teamplay than solo.

It's clear FromSoftware is both hearing and addressing those concerns, too. The most recent patch, 1.01.1, arrived days after Elden Ring Nightreign's launch and took aim directly at the solo mode, increasing the runes gained by lone players and adding one free automatic revival for night bosses.

Even if the difficulty is getting tuned down, though, Ishizaki's clears can still be inspiring for those struggling against the Nightlords in their own runs. When the rains pick up and the storm closes in, you can know someone else has already done it, and so can you.

We’ve got plenty of Nightreign tips and tricks to help you take down all the eight Nightlord Bosses, and if you’re wondering how to unlock the two locked Nightfarer Classes, check out How to Unlock the Revenant and How to Unlock the Duchess, plus How to Change Characters.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Following the release of AI Darth Vader into Fortnite, Epic has announced plans to let people create their own AI NPCs in the all-encompassing battle royale.

AI Darth Vader hit Fortnite last month. He can serenade you, join and leave squads at will, respond intelligently to the player, issue impromptu dialogue, summarize gameplay events, and warn the player if something's about to go down.

Darth Vader is voiced by the inimitable James Earl Jones, who died in September 2024 at the age of 93. This AI version of his voice, powered by Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash model and ElevenLabs' Flash v2.5, is used with the Jones family's permission.

If you were sad that Squid Game is finally coming to a close, dry those eyes — because we just might be getting a spin-off series of the Netflix hit. That is, if creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has anything to say about it. The series boss recently opened up about what he would do if he was able to make a spin-off show, and honestly, we’re into it.

“If I make [a] spin off, it will be a story happening between Season 1 and 2,” Hwang revealed to Indiewire on the Gotham Awards red carpet recently. “There [was] a three years gap between Season 1 and 2. So, I want to show what they did for those times.”

We also want to know. Hwang also noted that his brain was processing the story as a whole while writing Season 2, so he couldn’t help but come up with Season 3 as well. “After I finished the whole season, the first season,” he explained to the outlet. “... I tried to come up with the idea of Season 2 and 3 at the same time.” In that way, it makes complete sense that he’s already coming up with ideas for a spin-off.

That said, Season 3 is about to be so scary that we’re not even going to be able to focus on the idea that we might be getting a spin-off series.

“In Season 1, we had lots of games like Tug of War that really utilized height and the fear that this height gives, but in the case of Season 2, we didn’t have that element,” Hwang told Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview. “That is why in Season 3, I decided to introduce games that could really infuse fear in people with sheer height.”

He also explained to the outlet that he wanted the characters of Season 3 to have to do things no human being would ever want to do — which certainly ups the stakes for the final season. “In the case of Season 3, I wanted to introduce games that could really show the lowest bottom of human beings, because the series itself is reaching its climax,” he said. “I wanted very intense games to bring out the bottom parts of human nature.”

Squid Game Season 3, which Hwang has confirmed is the last entry for the show, returns to Netflix on June 27, 2025.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

Sony's PlayStation Days of Play sale is in full swing, offering big discounts on PS5 consoles, PS VR2s, PlayStation games, DualSense controllers, accessories, and more.

Running from now until the 11th of June, there are not only bargains to be found at PlayStation Direct, but among plenty of retailers getting in on the offers as well:

• Amazon UK
• Currys
• Argos
• HMV
• EE
• ShopTo
• Smyths

While a lot of the products getting price cuts are quite similar across these online stores, some have trimmed off more than others, presumably to undercut the competition. On the other hand, there are some particular gems to find at certain outlets as well.

Although you can click any of the store links above to browse through their full selections yourself, we've scoured them all on your behalf and listed the best deals below.

DualSense Controllers as Low as £44

While a DualSense controller comes with every PS5 console, you usually need around £60 for another to either add a player #2 or add one of the new colourful designs to your set-up.

Every retailer has taken at least £10 off all their DualSense listings, but EE is the big winner here by selling their White and Black controllers for only £44.

Added Discounts on the DualSense Edge

The pro-grade DualSense Edge controller for the PS5 has had at least £10 taken off across listings at multiple retailers, too. In this case, though, Currys and Smyths give you the best value for money, with around £40 taken off to now only be £159.99 each.

Price Drops on PS5 & PS5 Pro

While Xbox has been boosting Series X prices, the PS5 Pro has had 45-£60 taken off its original £699.99 price off at retailers like HMV, ShopTo, Smyths, Argos, and PS Direct.

Smyths currently has the best price at £639.99, but HMV and Currys is your next best bet if it sell out there. If you need a disc drive, many retailers have finally lowered their prices to £69.99, following Sony's announcement earlier this year.

Meanwhile, EE will give you the best price on a standard PS5 Slim (with disc drive) at only £379.99, a whole £100 off.

Deals on the PSVR2

After having already dropped by £130 in March 2025, Days of Play is cutting the price on the PSVR2 even further to now go for as low as £349 at almost all of our mentioned retailers (except EE), with Amazon and Currys giving the best price on the individual system.

PS Direct, however, gives you the best deal overall at £354.99, since it you can buy the bundle including Horizon Call of the Mountain for just over an extra fiver.

The Best Deals on PS5 & PS4 Games

Participating Days of Play retailers have added a lot of deals on PS5 & PS4 games, but the biggest slash is currently almost 50% off The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered. Well-timed for season 2 of the HBO adaptation just ending, this is the perfect opportunity to dive into what's arguably Naughty Dog's best game in recent years.

However, an equally amazing yet surprising deal is £90 off the Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Collector's Edition, including the iconic 'all 19 inches of' Venom statue — dropped from £219.99 to £129.99 at PS Direct.

Price Cuts on PlayStation Accessories

Like in the US Days of Play sale, a good number of pounds have been taken off premium accessories like the PS5 Pulse Earbuds, the accessiblity controller, and console covers.

Money Off a 12-Month PS Plus Membership & Gift Cards

Normally £119.99, PS Direct has taken 33% off its year-long PS Plus Memberships to now only £80.39.

What's more, ShopTo has reduced prices on PlayStation Store gift cards. So, for example, you could buy the £100 gift card for £87.85, buy your 12-month membership, then save the remaining £20.61 to spend on a game in the PS Store's Days of Play digital game sale.

Ben Williams – IGN freelance contributor with over 10 years of experience covering gaming, tech, film, TV, and anime. Follow him on Twitter/X @BenLevelTen.

After spending the last 30 years grazing the fields of Moo Moo Farm and Moo Moo Meadows, Cow has taken the spotlight as the biggest breakout star of Mario Kart World's enormous character roster. So when Nintendo invited us to a roundtable interview with Mario Kart World Producer Kosuke Yabuki, we knew we had to ask him about the beloved bovine.

"Thank you for that question about Cow," Yabuki began, which is one of the best openings I've ever heard in an interview. "The decision to include Cow was something that we considered in terms of if we added that, I think people would be really happy about it. And so we did. But honestly, the reaction to that by the public was much bigger than we possibly could have anticipated. So that was a wonderful surprise. Thank you."

Yabuki's surprise at Cow's popularity matches what we heard from Nintendo of America's Bill Trinen, who told us in an interview that their internal expectations for Cow were "perhaps not as big as the cow has become."

Cow's origin story makes her inclusion even better. In last month's Ask the Developer series about Mario Kart World, Yabuki confirmed that it was a developer's "silly sketch" of Cow driving a truck that convinced him and the rest of the team to add Cow as a playable character. I asked Yabuki about the evolution during development of what they're now calling "NPC Drivers", which grew to include characters like Snowman, Penguin, Swooper, and many others.

"I have to say, adding in Cow really opened the floodgates for us because once you've got a character in like that, you start to think, 'well, maybe we should just add who we can,'" Yabuki continued. "And so that was the point at which the designers got really excited. Once they realized all of these characters were possibly up for grabs, that's when you start to see Penguin come in, Pokey comes in, one after another, these new designs for characters keep coming. And so because all of these characters came in such a rush as the designers were getting kind of carried away, it's actually a little hard for me to remember which specific character would've come immediately next in the sequence after Cow. Sorry about that! Because honestly, I have this memory of approving the concept for Cow, and then maybe the next day I had 10 proposals for other characters on my desk."

There's a potential darker side to this story, too, as one of Mario Kart World's other new additions is Dash Food, which characters pick up from Yoshi's drive-thrus around the open world. Shortly after Mario Kart World was unveiled, IGN's Brian Altano noticed at a preview event that Cow was able to eat products that traditionally include beef, like steak kabobs and hamburgers. So, we asked Yabuki the ultimate question: Are those veggie burgers, or what's going on there?

Yes, Cow CAN eat steak in Mario Kart World. pic.twitter.com/qN5PZ9IIM4

— IGN (@IGN) April 4, 2025

"Sorry, that's top secret," Kabuki said with a laugh. "I can't say."

Well, the mystery remains, as does the question of if Diddy Kong will appear in Mario Kart World sporting his new redesign, to which Yabuki simply said, "I'm afraid I can't say anything at this time." But the rest of Mario Kart World's mysteries will soon be solved, as we're just two days away from the release date of Nintendo Switch 2 and its flagship launch game. For more, check out our final hands-on preview of Mario Kart World, where we were impressed with the racing, but still haven't been sold on Free Roam. And, check out our preview of that $10 launch game, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour.

Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN's Database Manager & Playlist Editor. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he is patiently awaiting the day Nintendo announces a brand new F-Zero. You can find him online @LoganJPlant.

I may only have played three hours of it, but I’m already starting to get the feeling that Mario Kart World should really be called Mario Kart Knockout Tour. The new last-one-standing race mode, really is the star of the show, adding yet another layer of tension and mayhem to the already chaotic kart racer, and such a new addition deserves to have its name up in lights. And so I find it a curious decision that Nintendo has settled on the Switch 2 launch game’s open world as the main draw. I get it on an optics level – a Mario Kart unbound from the confines of pre-determined tracks has been long desired by fans – but after getting my hands on its free roam offering recently, it sadly left me feeling underwhelmed. Let me explain why.

When thinking of an open-world racing game, it's by no means unfair to make comparisons with Forza Horizon. Developer Playground Games has mastered this specific subgenre, even earning itself an IGN Game of the Year award with its most recent effort. Each game in the series features a delicately sculpted open world that packs in challenge, wonder, and, most importantly, fun. I’d be lying if I said I found much of any of those qualities in the roughly half an hour I spent speeding around Mario Kart World’s sizeable map. It’s largely empty, lacks atmosphere, and feels bizarrely devoid of activities to get stuck into.

Much of my time in free roam consisted of dashing along expanses of flat grassland, desert, or lightly choppy seas, looking for something to do. There are some challenges to get your teeth stuck into, but I found them largely repetitive and little more than trivial distractions. They mainly consist of P Switch challenges which, when activated, create short time trials to complete. I found these fun at first, but quickly realised they’re mostly rinse and repeat efforts involving collecting a certain amount of coins or whizzing through checkpoints within a time limit. And when these rarely take more than 10 or 15 seconds to finish, they soon lose all novelty. It’s not a promising sign to walk away from a demo feeling as if you’ve already exhausted the amount of entertainment you can get from a game’s side activities. And while I do hope that a more in-depth scouring of the world reveals more hidden fun, there’s another factor that has me concerned about how it all plays out.

You do get rewarded with a shiny new sticker to place on your chosen kart when completing these P Switch challenges, but this is pretty much as far as unlockables go. It feels weird that progression is still largely locked behind the series’ long-term tradition of racing in Grand Prixs, as this open world seems the perfect opportunity to hide new characters and karts in secret corners. New outfits can be found by driving through one of Yoshi’s many restaurants on the island, but they’re just as, if not more accessible, in race scenarios.

Barn finds – explorative missions in Forza Horizon that involve hunting down a hidden vehicle within a section of the map like a piece of buried treasure – are some of my favourite things to do in Playground’s series. If there really isn’t anything similar in the final game (and, unfortunately, no signs at my preview event suggest there is), then it feels like a missed opportunity, especially when 3D Mario platformers are so packed with secrets. That sense of wonder you so often feel when discovering something off the beaten track just doesn’t seem to exist here; instead, the closest I ever got in this demo was stumbling across a big green warp pipe that did nothing more than send me 20 metres down the road. Why don’t these lead to hidden areas with challenges of their own to complete?

It’s this apparent lack of any sort of progression or meaningful activities that has me wondering how little time I’ll actually spend in this open world. Yes, there are Peach Medallions to collect, which can prove a fun challenge to reach – you’ll need to demonstrate a mastery of the new rail grinding and wall riding mechanics – but, again, they can only unlock stickers. This in itself isn’t an issue (fun for fun’s sake is largely the name of the game for Nintendo), but I can’t help but feel like I would like something more substantial to use them on, such as how excess moons can be used on cosmetics in one of Super Mario Odyssey’s many stores.

Maybe I’m just a grumpy man disillusioned with the world he lives in now that he’s hit his mid-thirties, though. Because, despite these grumbles, I do need to remind myself that kids big and small will have a great time roaming around this colourful paradise, zooming around and taking in the sights of its sandy beaches and winding city streets. Plus, I’d be lying if the seven-year-old part of my brain didn’t activate when I drove into the back of a massive truck, took over its controls Cappy-style, and wreaked havoc by ploughing into every other vehicle and breakable coin-filled brick in sight. It was a rare moment of wonder and Nintendo creativity that seems worryingly lacking elsewhere. Yes, there’s a dynamic weather system, day/night cycle, and morphing toe-tapping soundtrack that shifts depending on what biome you’re in, but none of these delightful presentation touches truly added to the fun factor.

The open world is crucial to Mario Kart World outside of its free roam mode, though, and that can’t be ignored. The way these open spaces connect tracks together is very clever, and allows for more varied course combinations to be created. Plus, the exciting new Knockout Tour just wouldn’t be the same without it. The way it snakes cross-country through the many different environments is impressive, and I could see this mode being nowhere near as fun if it took place on an extensive number of laps of the same track. This world does have its merits, it’s just not in the exploration of it.

When treated like a toy box, as opposed to an open world on the scale of Forza Horizon or even Burnout Paradise, there is some joy to be found in Free Roam. I just wouldn’t go in expecting that open world to leave a lasting impression – perhaps a hard pill to swallow considering the $80 price tag. The racing is still the highlight of Mario Kart, and the new Knockout Mode makes it feel as exciting as it has in a long time. So much so that it really deserves to be placed front and center, and not buried in its relatively underwhelming world.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

Mario Kart World is just two days away, and fan expectations are rightfully high. It’s the flagship launch game for Nintendo Switch 2, the first open world in the series, the follow-up to the hugely successful Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and on top of all that, it’s Nintendo’s first $80 game since the N64 days, which has caused no shortage of internet discourse. There’s a lot riding on this one, so I’m pleased to report that after spending roughly five hours with unrestricted access to the final build, I’m confident Mario Kart World’s thrilling racing will kick off Nintendo’s eighth generation with a rocket start, even if I’m still not completely sold on its open-world exploration.

My first hands-on preview back in April was very limited. Steering assist was turned on, the demo was locked to 100cc, and we only got to see a couple of modes. But this time, the training wheels came off and I played what appeared to be the version you’ll be able to buy on June 5, complete with an enormous roster of characters (including everyone’s favorite, Cow) and freedom to choose any mode or settings I wanted.

So I first chose to play as Mario (basic, I know) and swapped between multiple karts – including the incredible R.O.B. bike – to try out Free Roam, which is still the biggest question surrounding Mario Kart World. In a series first, Free Roam takes the spotlight off of racing and shines it directly on exploration, allowing players to drive across the wide, interconnected highways. Nintendo promised hundreds of P Switch missions in Free Roam, and while I won’t spoil the final total, I can confirm that it only takes a few seconds of driving in any direction to spot one of these challenges. They are littered everywhere, and after worrying they’d all be too easy based on the footage Nintendo has released so far, I was pleasantly surprised that I failed a couple of the P Switch missions on my first attempt – by either running out of time or missing a key jump – and some of them felt like they demanded mastery of Mario Kart World’s new Tony Hawk-inspired parkour mechanics.

One mission in the Bowser’s Castle area had me driving on walls and flipping off the side at the right moment to transform into an airplane, and the timing was genuinely tricky – but you’re thankfully given the option to retry a challenge immediately after failing rather than having to drive back to the start on your own. P Switch missions can also summon temporary objects and creatures to the terrain, like one where I had to steer my airplane around a few dinosaurs that showed up. I only tried a handful of the hundreds of challenges that await, and I’m not entirely sure the novelty will last through the time required to tackle them all, but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen to this point.

Sadly, the rest of Free Roam hasn’t gripped me yet. IGN’s Simon Cardy wrote a feature sharing his concerns about the open-world mode, and while I think I’m a little higher on it than he is so far, I agree with the general sentiment that there’s just not that much to do outside of the P Switches. There are collectibles scattered throughout by way of Peach Medallions and ? Block Panels that unlock one of hundreds of stickers you can slap on the side of your kart, but the ones I found felt neither special nor difficult to discover, and I missed the feeling of surprise and delight that other Nintendo games like Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Odyssey completely nailed.

Even driving around itself can feel a bit too slow when you go off road into grass or sand. This limitation makes sense for the racing in Mario Kart where veering off the intended path without a Mushroom has punishing consequences, but the feeling of diminished speed across tougher terrain made me less inclined to explore. I’ve still barely sunk my teeth into Free Roam, so maybe there’s a game-changing discovery waiting to be found, but I’m not counting on it. So far, Free Roam feels decidedly like a side dish rather than the meaty, transformative open-world experience many are hoping for.

And perhaps that’s fair, because the main course of Mario Kart World was always going to be the racing, which felt completely right the second I started my first lap on 150cc. The turning, drifting, and boosting all feels as tight as you’d hope, and the open-world design fully shines in this bold new take on the formula. Knockout Tour remains the star of the show, as driving cross-country against 23 other players while doing everything you can to stay out of the bottom four before the next cutoff point is exhilarating. Every shell I threw felt critically important, and whether I was in the front or the back of the pack, my heart was pounding as I desperately tried to qualify for the next segment.

These six-part races take place almost exclusively on the highways in between Mario Kart World’s dedicated courses, and as I passed through fun reimaginings of returning tracks like Mario Kart 7’s Shy Guy Bazaar and brand-new locations like the adventurous, Uncharted-like Great ? Block Ruins, I began to recognize the impressive amount of alternate paths that I’m excited to perfect once the full game is out. A well-timed Golden Mushroom can catapult you from the back to 1st in the blink of an eye, as some of the shortcuts presented on the highways allow you to cut a huge amount of the track. I can already tell that hardcore players (myself included) are going to have a blast finding the optimal routes and pushing these courses to their limits.

I’ve been concerned that the long stretches of very wide straightaways – present in both Knockout Tour and the revamped Grand Prix – could be boring compared to the twists and turns of the courses, but Nintendo has covered the interstate with cars to avoid, enemies that spew projectiles, and plenty of opportunities to grind on rails and make use of the new Charge Jump technique to reach optional areas. In most straightaway sections, there was always something demanding my attention – although there were a few select times I was just holding A and not doing much else, and the wide road design made things feel a bit slow compared to the close-quarters racing on the dedicated courses. Still, my fears have largely been squashed, and now I’m just waiting to see how these sections will hold up over dozens of repeat play sessions.

For all you Mario Kart purists who just want to do three laps around the 30+ courses in Mario Kart World, that classic option is one of the main draws of VS Race and Time Trials, and I was very satisfied to find that the quality track design fans have come to expect hasn’t been sacrificed in favor of the open-world elements. The reimagined Peach Beach took me through familiar waterfront straight from Double Dash before exploring an entirely new village, while DK Spaceport is a fantastic homage to the arcade game that started it all – complete with final lap music any Donkey Kong fan will feel nostalgic for. If you’ve been worried the courses wouldn’t feel as special as in past Mario Kart games, I think you can breathe a sigh of relief.

Speaking of the music, Mario Kart World might just have one of the greatest soundtracks in Nintendo history. Each course has its own dedicated theme as usual, but beyond that, the remixes that play during Free Roam and Knockout Tour make Mario Kart World feel like a proper celebration of Super Mario’s 40th anniversary. In my short time with the game I heard references to Super Mario Bros., Yoshi’s Island, Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario 3D World, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, pretty much every past Mario Kart, and a lot more. Each track I heard was beautifully remixed to fit Mario Kart World’s adventurous road trip vibe, and I can’t wait to hear every tune it has to offer. And I won’t have to wait long, because Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 will be here in less than 48 hours. Stay tuned later this week for our review in progress followed by our full review of Mario Kart World as we get more laps under our belts.

Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN's Database Manager & Playlist Editor. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he is patiently awaiting the day Nintendo announces a brand new F-Zero. You can find him online @LoganJPlant.

Nacon is taking another jab at the Xbox Elite Wireless Series 2, this time with a wireless option. The $199 Nacon Revolution X Unlimited brings loads of customization potential for both the hardware and the input response. It’s a seriously adaptable controller, and it’s ready for gaming on PC, Xbox, and Android. It stumbles here and there, but never quite lands on its face. The $199 Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra offers similar performance in a cleaner design, but Nacon definitely takes the cake for customization.

Nacon Revolution X Unlimited – Design and Features

Nacon has taken a step in the right direction with the Revolution X Unlimited controller. It has not only upgraded a lot over the Revolution X Pro, but it has rejiggered the design to look a little more refined and classy. It still retains some of the same flair though, with the signature RGB light ring around the right thumbstick still intact.

The new design has a smoother line around the perimeter of the controller. And while it may make little difference for ergonomics, it does give the controller a cleaner silhouette. The grips appear slightly narrowed compared to its predecessor, though. For my large hands, that’s meant slightly less comfortable handling, but not enough to impede lengthy gaming sessions. The grips are also coated with a rubbery, ribbed material to help me get a good hold on the controller. There are some seams between various panels on the controller, and these are guaranteed to accumulate grime and dead skin over time, so the controller will take some maintenance to keep clean.

Like its predecessor, the Revolution X Unlimited goes heavy on customization. The grips still have removable panels on the bottom that let you add or remove small metal weights (included in a carrying case) to adjust the heft of the controller. What functional benefit this offers, I do not know, but sometimes heavier just feels better.

That’s just where the customization begins. Nacon includes tall convex, short convex, and short concave thumbstick options for both joysticks. It has a 4-way and 8-way controller for the D-Pad, as well as extra collar rings for the joysticks – perhaps to limit range of motion, but the purpose again evades me. It has trigger locks to shorten the trigger travel. There’s a switch to disable the start/settings buttons for tournament play. There are also shortcut buttons for cycling through profiles and selecting from Advanced and Classic profiles (more on this later).

And then there’s all the extra buttons. The Revolution X Unlimited includes all the controls for a standard Xbox layout, and they’re right where you’d expect them (except the various menu buttons, which are spaced out to accommodate a screen). But it also includes six custom shortcut controls. Four of the shortcut buttons are on the underside of the controller, similar to where they were on the Revolution X Pro. Two of these are right about where your middle fingers would rest, and that makes them both easily accessible and potentially easy to hit by accident. I had no trouble with this, though. The other two run down the stems of the grips though, and I found these much harder to reliably hit without adjusting my grip on the controller. With my ring fingers already firmly curled around the controller just to hold it, it was tricky to then shift and squeeze a different area to trigger that extra button. Yet another pair of extra buttons sits to the inside of the triggers. You can think of these like extra shoulder buttons, and if your fingers are long enough, you can tap them with your index fingers without having to shift away from the triggers.

Beyond these extra buttons and remapping options, the Revolution X Unlimited supports a bunch of customization to get the controls feeling how you want them. You can adjust joystick sensitivity curves, dead zones, trigger responsiveness, vibration levels, and gyroscope behavior and dead zones. Most of the adjustments require Nacon’s software to tweak, but the controller has a built-in screen that allows you to make some settings and remapping tweaks on the controller itself.

The Revolution X Unlimited includes Bluetooth connectivity for gaming on Android devices or receiving audio from them (not both simultaneously). There’s a headset combo jack on the bottom of the controller for this purpose as well. And Nacon supports various game EQ settings as well as chat-game volume balancing for Xbox. The controller supports wireless audio from Xbox and PC using its dongle, and it (thankfully) doesn’t present to PC as an audio source unless headphones are actually plugged into the controller.

Nacon includes a semi-hard shell for the Revolution X Unlimited, and while it’s great to have (especially to keep from losing the adjustable weights), it gets a few things wrong. For one, making space for the weights makes it about twice as large as it needs to be. That’s a big blow for portability. And though it includes a space for the controllers charging stand inside, Nacon neglected to put a USB-passthrough slot in the case so the charging stand could function inside of the case – something both the Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra and Xbox Elite Wireless Series 2 Controllers offer with their cases.

I’ve also found the Revolution X Unlimited’s stand design tedious to use. It’s much bigger than the stand of the Turtle Beach Steal Ultra controller, and it’s fussy about how the controller gets set into it. Where I can just about drop Turtle Beach’s controller and have it link up with the stand (magnets help line things up), the Nacon controller requires careful lining up. It’s more than possible to set it down on the stand without getting the charging pins to engage.

Nacon Revolution X Unlimited – Software

Nacon’s software for adjusting the settings of the controller is fairly in-depth but somewhat annoying. For one thing, on the PC it only operates in fullscreen. There's no shrinking it down or setting it to running a window. Software also only allows you to customize the controller in wired mode. This can mean unplugging the dongle, finding a cable for the controller, and flipping a couple switches on the underside of the controller (and then of course reversing the process afterward to use the controller and see if you like the changes you’ve made).

Well you can do a lot to change the controls some of the adjustments are not entirely in. The controller comes with a handful of preset profiles for PC and for Xbox (each presents as a discrete mode), and you can't make adjustments to these. You can make new profiles but they won't automatically go on to the controller. Instead once you've made a new profile you have to set it to replace one of the other presets that's already loaded on the device. You can have eight controller profiles loaded onto the Revolution X Unlimited at a time (four for Xbox and four for PC modes). The key difference between the two is that PC settings have the option to use gyroscopic controls, keyboard assignments, and custom “Communication speed” (wired/wireless connection speeds), while the Xbox doesn’t.

Confusingly, the profiles created through the PC software apply only when the controller is set to Advanced mode. So these profiles are separate from the profiles available in Classic mode. Classic mode profiles are also saved on the device, with 12 available (four for Xbox, four for PC, and four for Bluetooth). Nacon’s software also doesn’t always do a great job walking you through things or explaining settings and how they’ll work. Fortunately, the software includes a test area to at least get some sense of how the controller is responding to your changes.

While this may be an edge case, I was frustrated by the fact that the controller allows you to turn off the gyroscope through its built-in menu. While that may seem sensible, it doesn’t allow you to turn the gyroscope back on. To do that, you have to again reconnect to a computer and enable it in the desired profile.

Nacon Revolution X Unlimited – Gaming and Performance

For its missteps, faults, and eccentricities, gaming on the Revolution X Unlimited is quite excellent. The sticks feel great – no grinding, awkward resistance, or discomfort from the caps. Better still are the buttons. The ABXY buttons have a bit of lateral wiggle to them, but they’re nice and large, and the microswitches underneath are delightfully clicky and responsive. They’re easy to press and click with a clear actuation. I’ve enjoyed the Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra’s buttons, and this steps that up with larger buttons. It’s a similar story for the D-Pad, shoulder buttons, and shortcut buttons.

Having the option to switch between short-travel hair triggers and longer trigger pulls is nice, though I found the shorter travel ended up feeling a lot stiffer to use (and wore on my finger over time). While I can’t say it’s affected the experience over the short term, the use of Hall effect sensors in the joysticks and triggers should mean they remain accurate in the long run.

I tend to be a bit lead-thumbed when it comes to aiming on the joysticks, so having the ability to adjust the response curves helps me avoid constantly overshooting my aim. I also enjoyed the option to enable gyroscopic aiming on the fly with a toggle assigned to one of the shortcut keys, so I could make extra aim adjustments that way, though I never found it quite as responsive or reliable as the gyro aiming on Nintendo Switch, particularly because it has a way of ignoring subtle movements no matter how much I messed around with its deadzone settings and joystick response curves.

Between the quick microswitches and the low-latency wireless connection, responsiveness was never an issue. I battled my way through some enemies that were way out of my level in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, such as the Grosse Tete and Chromatic Abbest – two enemies I only managed to beat through the precise timing of dodges and parries, which the controller had no trouble enabling.

Comfort using the controller was largely great. The only real snag was the slightly narrow grips for my large hands and a tighter curve I found pressing into my pinky finger a bit. But it wasn’t uncomfortable enough to stop me from engaging in several-hour gaming sessions. The battery also held up quite well, easily meeting the 10-hour battery life suggested by Nacon, and that’s without making some of the battery-saving adjustments available (like display dimming).

I was surprised not to hear much audio degradation using headphones with the controller. There were occasional artifacts, presumably from the rather extreme RF environments I work in, but listening to music and game audio was largely clean and clear.

Without question, the biggest discussion surrounding Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour has been its price point – meaning, that it has one at all. Welcome Tour will sell for $10 on the Nintendo eShop on Switch 2 launch day, and for a piece of software mostly focused on teaching players about the new console they just spent at least $450 on, many people – myself included – have argued that it should have been a pack-in game. Price drama aside, I recently spent about 45 minutes with Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, and to be completely honest, came away somewhat intrigued and maybe even a little bit excited to play the full thing on June 5.

Before you call me a shill in the comments, let me be perfectly clear: I’m not totally in love with this game, and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is not going to interest most players, in my estimation. But if you’re a mega Nintendo enthusiast like me, who follows the company’s quarterly financial results, reads every Ask the Developer article on Nintendo’s website, and could tell you the differences between a DS, 3DS, New 3DS, 2DS, and New 2DS XL, this is for you. Welcome Tour is an edutainment game with the goal of teaching you everything about Nintendo Switch 2 through exploring, minigames, tech demos, and quizzes, and it has just enough of that Nintendo charm to make it work.

After selecting my character from a seemingly endless line of honey-I-shrunk-the-kids-sized avatars (I really wish Welcome Tour featured Pikmin running around the console instead!), I was set loose to explore the left Joy-Con 2 and the Nintendo Switch 2 console itself. To progress to the next area of the console, I needed to find all of the hidden stamps in these locations, which are tied to specific parts of the unit like the touch screen or the cooling vents. But during the search, I stopped by activity stations laid out on each part of the map.

One minigame had me test out the mouse controls by piloting a UFO trying to survive against an endless stream of spiky iron balls. In true Nintendo fashion, there is a completionist element to all of it, where I was awarded one or two stars depending on how long I lasted in that endless challenge. The mouse controls felt good, and after just missing out on the top rank, I felt the drive to try again for the high score. Earning more stars grants access to harder minigame difficulties, and the menus indicate there are plenty of medals to hunt down.

The most memorable tech demo so far had me play World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. from the NES in 4K, in its original resolution. Since the NES worked with so few pixels compared to modern technology, this results in the entire level stretched out across the 4K TV screen I was playing on, and it’s a cute way to look at how far we’ve come. This demo had five achievements to complete, which should be a breeze for anyone familiar with the course. Other demos showcased Switch 2’s HD Rumble, 120fps, and HDR capabilities. It’s clear Nintendo is very proud of the new technology it’s embracing this generation, and Welcome Tour shows it off in a way that’s accessible to all audiences, including those who aren’t super tech savvy.

Elsewhere, Welcome Tour’s Insight Quizzes shared some fascinating information about things like why they settled on the U-shaped kickstand and how Switch 2’s front-facing speakers are an improvement over the OLED model. Nintendo doesn’t want us to show you the information in these quizzes before launch, but I found it genuinely interesting to get a look at Nintendo’s thoughtful design behind multiple aspects of the new hardware. Again, your mileage will greatly vary depending on how much you care about these minute details, but as someone who covers this company that’s generally incredibly secretive, this level of knowledge and transparency was refreshing. After Welcome Tour’s announcement, I assumed the information presented within the software would be common knowledge to hardcore Nintendo fans and come across as an advertisement for a product you already bought, but it legitimately doesn’t feel that way in practice thanks to how in-depth and niche some of the details are.

Even though I enjoyed Welcome Tour more than I expected to, I walked away feeling more strongly that it should have been included with the console. It’s a charming, light experience that grants fascinating context to the hardware it’s designed around, and it’d be great if all Switch 2 owners could check it out in between Mario Kart World sessions on launch day. Instead, everyone has to decide if it’s worth their $10 to learn about the Switch 2 cartridge slot and watch an HDR fireworks display, and the whole conversation surrounding Welcome Tour has suffered because of Nintendo’s irritating decision to charge for it. To help you decide if you want to spend your $10, stay tuned for our full review of Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour coming shortly after launch.

Logan Plant is the host of Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN's Database Manager & Playlist Editor. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he is patiently awaiting the day Nintendo announces a brand new F-Zero. You can find him online @LoganJPlant.

Another iconic '90s franchise is making a comeback in 2025. IGN can exclusively reveal the first details about IDW Publishing and Mattel's upcoming Street Sharks comic.

Street Sharks is a continuation of the original animated series, which lasted for three seasons from 1994-97. This five-issue limited series is written by Stephanie Williams (Trial of the Amazons) and illustrated by Ariel Medel (TMNT vs Street Fighter). The first issue features cover art by Philip Murphy, Elizabeth Beals, Kevin Anthony Catalan, and Khary Randolph.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for a closer look at the cover art to Street Sharks #1:

Here's the official summary for Street Sharks:

Based on the classic animated series, the upcoming comics will thrill readers as the Sharks protect Fission City from a range of gene-slammed threats, including super-strong and monstrous lobsters and squids, and diabolical mad scientists that transform into vicious piranha monsters. The comic will deliver on everything fans loved from the hit show and the tone of its era, from the Sharks riding cool motorcycles to eating a lot of burgers and metal while swimming through the city’s concrete to take down the bad guys.

“Celebrating over 30 years of the animated series, Street Sharks has become a cult-favorite and fans have been chomping at the bit to see more of the crime-fighting brothers Ripster, Jab, Streex, and Big Slammu,” said Ryan Ferguson, Global Head of Publishing at Mattel, in a press release. “We are thrilled to continue the legacy of this franchise and dive deeper into the waters with IDW to extend the world of Street Sharks through new comic books.”

”It is so exciting to introduce a new generation of fans to the Street Sharks,” added series editor Nicolas Niño. “The Sharks epitomize '90s adolescent X-treme sensibilities and that makes them translate so naturally to comics. Stephanie and Ariel are putting together a series that serves as a beautiful love letter to the original cartoon that old fans and new are sure to adore.”

Street Sharks #1 will be released in September 2025.

This is hardly the only classic '90s series making its return as a comic in 2025. AHOY Comics is set to revive the Toxic Crusaders, while BOOM! Studios recently revealed a VR Troopers comic spinning out of the pages of Power Rangers Prime.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.

As fans wait for a crumb of news on Mass Effect 5, the game's director has suggested at least one small returning feature will remain in the upcoming sequel.

A small team at BioWare is now in the early stages of work on the next Mass Effect, following the disappointing launch of Dragon Age: The Veilguard and the subsequent downsizing of the studio, which included layoffs.

Mass Effect 5 was first announced years ago, of course, via an eye-catching trailer released back in December 2020. But the project has remained very much on the back burner since then, while The Veilguard struggled through its rocky development. Now, it is BioWare's sole focus — but updates on its progress remain few and far between.

This is the background, then, to a fan's plea for confirmation that Mass Effect 5 would once again feature the series' bombastic lens flare. And lo, Mass Effect 5 director Mike Gamble has sought to answer this plea on social media — albeit with a single emoji.

"Mass Effect 5 better stick to tradition and have an excessive amount of lens flare," wrote Mass Effect fan Specre_Gray on social media — to which Gamble responded with an "OK" emoji.

👌🏻 https://t.co/FNXq5S9XcD

— Michael Gamble (@GambleMike) June 1, 2025

Over the years, BioWare has issued repeated teasers, including artwork stuffed full of Easter eggs and secrets hinting at Mass Effect 5's eventual story.

BioWare has suggested that the game will be set hundreds of years after the original Mass Effect trilogy, with a story that spans the events of both the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy featured in the series' fourth main game.

There's no word yet on when Mass Effect is likely to launch, but with production still in its early phases, it seems likely the game is still years away. When it does arrive, however, we at least know that lens flare will be included.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Epic Games and CD Projekt have shown off a stunning tech demo of The Witcher 4 running on Unreal Engine 5.

Epic’s State of Unreal 2025 event revealed a technical demo showing off "some of the cutting-edge tech powering the new Witcher saga." Epic stressed this was not The Witcher 4 itself, rather a tech demo only, but it does give us a good idea of what to expect from the game.

“When we launched Unreal Engine 5 three years ago, CD Projekt Red announced they would collaborate with us to bring large open-world support to the engine,” Epic said. “Together at the State of Unreal, we revealed what we’ve been working on.”

The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 tech demo follows Ciri as she explores the never-before-seen region of Kovir in the midst of a monster contract (CD Projekt confirmed Kovir is a playable area in The Witcher 4). The demo provides an early look at a number of Unreal Engine 5.6’s new open-world features in action. It's all running on base PlayStation 5 at 60 frames per second with raytracing, Epic said, including the new, faster way to load open worlds via the Fast Geometry Streaming Plugin. At one point in the demo, CD Projekt upped the NPC count in the market scene to 300 individually animated characters. The showcase ended with a first look at Lan Exeter, the winter capital and a major port city in Kovir.

Here’s the official blurb from Epic:

As Ciri explores the bustling market of Valdrest, we see how 5.6 handles busy scenes full of high-fidelity characters and visual effects like ML Deformer. The tech demo also showcases Nanite Foliage — which provides a fast and memory efficient way to achieve gorgeous foliage density and fidelity, slated for release in UE 5.7.

And here's a note from CD Projekt:

The tech demo takes place in the region of Kovir — which will make its very first appearance in the video game series in The Witcher 4. The presentation followed main protagonist Ciri — along with her horse Kelpie — as she made her way through the rugged mountains and dense forests of Kovir to the bustling port town of Valdrest.

While this tech demo offers a tantalizing glimpse into the visual experience we can expect from The Witcher 4, the game itself is still years away from launch. CD Projekt has indicated The Witcher 4 won’t be out until 2027 at the earliest.

That rules out a launch this year, which no-one really expected, a launch next year, which some had hoped for, and sets 2027 as the earliest The Witcher 4 will come out. But that’s if everything goes to plan, and as we all know, the video game industry has a hard time with its plans. Could The Witcher 4 end up being a 2028 game?

Some had wondered whether The Witcher 4 might end up exclusive to the next generation of consoles (Sony is no-doubt working on its PlayStation 6 plans as we speak, and Microsoft is rumored to be targeting a 2027 release for its Xbox Series X successor and an Xbox handheld). This Unreal tech demo suggests The Witcher 4 is a cross-gen game, as Cyberpunk 2077 was when it was released in December 2020.

Here's what we know: The Witcher 4 is the first in a new trilogy of Witcher games set after the events of The Witcher 3. But rather than star Geralt as protagonist, Ciri is the main character this time around.

Speaking exclusively to IGN ahead of The Witcher 4 reveal, executive producer Małgorzata Mitręga said Ciri was “the very organic, logical choice.”

“It was always about her, starting from Saga when you read it in the books. She's an amazing, layered character. And of course, as a protagonist we said goodbye to Geralt previously. So this is a continuation. I guess for all of us it’s like she was meant to be. That was always her.”

In January, speaking to IGN as part of a wider interview on Netflix’s upcoming animated film, The Witcher: Sirens of The Deep, Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle backed CD Projekt’s decision, even though it sees Geralt take a back seat.

“I'm really excited,” he said. “I think it's a really good move. I mean, I always thought that continuing the Saga, but shifting to Ciri would be a really, really interesting move for all kinds of reasons, but mostly because of things that happen in the books, which I don't want to give away because people, I want people to go read. So yeah, I think it's really exciting. I can't wait. I can't wait to see what they've done.”

We’ve got plenty more exclusive content on The Witcher 4, including a trailer breakdown and an interview with CD Projekt where the developer explains why The Witcher 4 will avoid a Cyberpunk 2077-style launch disaster.

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

Sony has confirmed a State of Play showcase for tomorrow, June 4.

In a PlayStation Blog post, Sony Interactive Entertainment content communications manager Tim Turi said fans will get "news and updates on must-play games coming to PS5." Turi continued: “The show highlights a selection of great games from creators across the globe.”

The 40+ minute show begins June 4 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 11pm CEST.

That’s not much to go on, but it seems likely we’ll see more of Sucker Punch’s PlayStation 5 exclusive sequel, Ghost of Yotei, which launches in October.

Could we also see Insomniac’s Wolverine game, or what’s next from Sony’s other development studios, such as God of War maker Sony Santa Monica, Days Gone developer Bend Studio, and Horizon studio Guerrilla, which is working on a multiplayer spin-off?

Sony-owned Bungie also has Marathon in development, although the extent to which Bungie will be willing to show the game off following its art plagiarism scandal remains to be seen, and Fairgames — without Jade Raymond at the helm — is still in the works. Last month, Sony announced a new PlayStation studio called teamLFG and teased its debut game, which is a live service incubation project.

We may also see games from external developers Sony has signed to publish, such as Phantom Blade Zero.

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