LEGO recently announced Smart Play, a new interactive system powered by Smart Bricks and Smart Minifigures will be incorporated into LEGO sets. Now, the first Smart Play sets are available to preorder. LEGO is kicking things off with three Star Wars sets, all of which are set to launch on March 1. Here’s everything you need to know to preorder these first-ever LEGO Smart Play sets.

LEGO Star Wars Smart Play: Throne Room Duel & A-Wing

LEGO Star Wars Smart Play: Luke’s Red Five X-Wing

LEGO Star Wars Smart Play: Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter

What Is LEGO SMART Play?

LEGO SMART Play is a new system that will be incorporated into some LEGO sets. It offers interactive play capabilities that are somewhat like those found in the LEGO Super Mario sets, but quite a bit more intricate.

The key elements of SMART Play are SMART Bricks, SMART Minifigures, and SMART Tags. These three elements can interact with one another in a number of ways to make playing with LEGO sets more dynamic.

The SMART Brick is a key component in the system. A SMART Brick has various sensors, accelerometers, and a speaker that let it interact with SMART Minifigures and SMART tags. When used together, these elements can respond to sounds, light, and movement with appropriate sounds and behaviors. You can find out more at the LEGO Store page.

All of the sets come with a SMART Brick and charger, plus at least one SMART Minifigure and SMART tag. For more, check out our picks for the best Star Wars LEGO sets. And if you're worried that all future LEGO sets will be SMART Play sets, you can rest assured that standard LEGO sets will continue to come out.

Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.

Crimson Desert is an open-world action-adventure game set on the continent of Pywel. But how big is the open world, exactly? It’s “absolutely massive,” its developer has said, bigger even than that of Bethesda’s Skyrim and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2.

Speaking on the Gaming Interviews YouTube channel, Pear Abyss’ Will Powers said that describing the size of Crimson Desert’s world in terms of numbers doesn’t do it justice, because doing so fails to capture the scope and scale of the game. But he did go as far as to compare it to two of the biggest open world games around.

"I don't think numbers really do it justice because, how big is that in terms of scope and scale?” he said. “But what we can say is that the world's at least twice as big as the open world, the playable area, of Skyrim. It's larger than the map of Red Dead Redemption 2."

Powers went on to insist that the size of Crimson Desert’s open world won’t determine its quality. Rather, what you actually do in it is the key factor.

"The continent of Pywel is absolutely massive, but size doesn't really matter if there's nothing to do,” he said. “Open-world games are about doing things, having activities, having distractions. So we wanted to create a world that's not only massive, but is also incredibly interactive."

Unlike Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption 2, in Crimson Desert you can fly around on a dragon, so despite the size of its world, you’ll be able to get about quickly. And don’t expect RPG elements in terms of decision-making and choice and consequence as it relates to your character, either. The sheer amount of things to do in the world will facilitate the role-playing part of Crimson Desert, which players will form through “head canon.”

“You choose the type of character you want to play as in terms of your progression within the systems in the game,” Powers explained. “And then through head canon you’re having this very different experience than other players because of the scope and scale of the game. You’ll be distracted by something, you’ll go on this quest line, you’ll have an experience that’ll be radically different than someone else, even though they’re playing the same game and the same canonical storyline that you both are going through.”

Indeed, the part of Crimson Desert shown off to the media in previews is just "a tiny corner of the map," Powers added. Crimson Desert is due out March 19, 2026.

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.

Fans are saying farewell to Anthem, BioWare's failed live-service blockbuster, as its servers are switched off and the game disappears forever — officially, at least.

Anthem publisher EA announced last year that the jetpack-fuelled shooter had just months to live, and cautioned that the server shutdown would render the game completely unplayable, with its world, characters and lore no longer available once the plug was pulled. Now, as this day has neared, new and returning players have loaded up the game for one last flight, and to push for the game's platinum trophy while they still can.

Others, meanwhile, have begun a small push to keep Anthem alive via custom private servers — though the effort has been hampered somewhat by the game's lack of reach.

"I missed the server closure announcement last year, and just learned about it a couple days ago," wrote one belated fan, CyberpwnPiper. "I had never played it so I decided to take the game for a spin before it's too late, and the game is quite good. I'm just playing casually and I'm still a noob after about 4 hours in, but there's a solid foundation here. There are good bones. The visuals are fantastic, the combat and action are fun, and the javelin flight is phenomenal (and unique)."

Upon release, after a lengthy and troubled development, BioWare received praise for Anthem's Javelin mechsuit combat and particularly its flight mechanic, which let you zoom around the game's open world like Iron Man alongside a team of friends. But players and critics alike were less sold on Anthem's threadbare attempt at storytelling, especially when compared to the studio's beloved Dragon Age and Mass Effect games. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Anthem never convinced players of BioWare's decision to pivot towards an online-only live-service, in an apparent attempt to recapture the crowd that had flocked to Bungie's Destiny.

Still, players are continuing to find reasons to enjoy a dip into Anthem's world, even if it is just to satisfy their curiosity before the game goes for good. "I truly wish I played it when it was released," wrote BRB1993. "I knew the end was coming and I wanted to get the chance to say, 'I was there'. I can honestly say that it scratched that same itch that Destiny does. The gunplay, the different Javelins (Colossus FTW!), the differing choice of abilities, the flying, the story (still can't believe Owen did what he did!), the differing style of enemies, there's too much to list!" Added CyberpwnPiper: "I wish I had started playing sooner to at least finish most of the story quests and experience different Javelin suits."

Some returning players have meanwhile set themselves the challenge of unlocking Anthem's full list of achievements/trophies, which will become unobtainable forever when the game's servers go offline. It has been a race against time — though many have completed the feat over the past week as EA's clock runs down.

"It's a bittersweet feeling getting this platinum," said AbsolutelyNotAClone. "I didn't think I'd push away all other games and throw another work week's worth of hours into it. But damn, I missed this game, and will miss it even more. I feel ashamed, I feel sad, but I feel so much better that I pushed for this platinum." Fellow fan Rymus, meanwhile, said they'd just hit Anthem's full Gamerscore on Xbox. "From the VIP weekend to the end this game will always be one of my faves despite the flaws," they wrote. "Learning the game was shutting down I wanted to give it the honor it deserved. My ranger with the VIP decal [has] been my main from the beginning."

"I wasn’t sure if I’d make it," wrote Seeby4, who also unlocked Anthem's platinum trophy. "Sooo many collectibles. I was getting burned out there following a YouTube guide but I locked in over the last four days and got it done! I didn’t have nearly as many hours as I know a lot of others did, but man, I’m gonna miss this game so much."

"I finally got it done on time!" wrote KingExile96. "I wish they wouldn't shut down. I wish they would just sell or give the game to another company, I want it to get another chance! It's got its potential. It was stressful getting the trophies but it was so fun at the same, roaming around, fighting bosses doing elements combo, man... I'm gonna miss this game so much. Anthem will be in my heart 🫶🤘"

While there's little chance Anthem will ever be officially revived or handed off to another developer, some fans still hope the game will become playable once again via custom PC servers. Several Discord groups have been set up to explore the possibility of making Anthem playable in future, the largest of which is The Fort's Forge — a community that has been asking players to capture records of the game's communications with EA servers, so these can then be backwards engineered.

This process has been slow, with just a handful of players helping out last year, but progress has now reached a point where a good amount of data has been obtained. Still, there's no suggestion the game will be revived at any point in the near future, and it remains to be seen whether EA itself steps in to block the project's progress. IGN has contacted the team behind the effort for more.

But while a handful of fans work on one potential future for the game, many others are now simply taking the chance to say goodbye. Dozens have recorded screenshots of their characters via one reddit thread for posterity, while others are simply reminiscing and sharing their thanks to BioWare and to their fellow players who served as the game's Freelancers.

"I enjoyed it till the end and I have a lot of good memories," wrote RobRagiel, who posted a video of their final flight around Anthem's world. "It was an honor, Freelancers. For the Legion of Dawn!"

"I had played the game since launch and I loved it," concluded Remarkable-Set-3340. "I wish this game had more time. See ya’ll in the sky’s till the sun sets one last time."

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

Over two years after it was announced, Ubisoft is still working on The Division 3. And while it has yet to show off the game, its chief developer has said he thinks it will have as big an impact as The Division 1.

The Division 1 was announced at E3 2013 with a trailer that went down as one of the most talked about of the show. After a series of delays, The Division released on March 8, 2016, breaking sales records for Ubisoft. The Division 2 followed in 2019, although it failed to make as big a splash at launch as its predecessor.

While there’s no release date for The Division 3, the hope is Ubisoft will show it off at some point this year. Now, Julian Gerighty, executive producer of The Division franchise at Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment, has provided a brief but tantalizing update.

Speaking during the New Game+ Showcase 2026, Gerighty said: “So, The Division 3 is in production, right? This is not a secret. It's been announced. It's shaping up to be a monster. I can't really say anything more than that. But this is, within these walls in Massive, we are working extremely hard on something that I think will be as big an impact as Division 1 was.”

That’s not much to go on, but clearly Ubisoft is hoping that The Division 3 will rekindle memories of The Division 1, which was certainly a hot topic when it was announced and enjoyed huge sales when it eventually came out. The pressure is on to deliver, especially with Ubisoft’s recent high-profile struggles.

Meanwhile, support for The Division 2 continues with various updates, and a team in Paris is putting the final touches of a The Division mobile game. The Division Heartland, a free-to-play spin-off, entered development in 2020 but was canceled in 2024.

Two months ago, Massive Entertainment introduced what it called a 'voluntary career transition program,' (the studio asked its staff to volunteer to be laid off) as part of a move to focus on The Division franchise and its Snowdrop game engine. It came as part of significant restructuring at Ubisoft that has seen multiple studio closures and rounds of layoffs. Massive Entertainment's Star Wars Outlaws, released in 2024, was a big sales disappointment for Ubisoft, despite significant development and marketing costs.

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.

Star Wars superfans are still trying to convince Disney to make canceled movie The Hunt For Ben Solo a reality — and they’re putting their money where their mouths are.

Last year, a ‘Ben Solo Missing’ poster was plastered all over Los Angeles and was subsequently seen across the world, having been translated into over 11 languages. Now, its creator has taken the next step and fully funded a takeover of two more billboards in Times Square.

One was featured on top of a building in Times Square on January 3, 2026, the other was visible in Times Square on January 5, right above the Pele store. This location also happens to be in close proximity to the Disney store — and it’s Disney these hardcore Star Wars fans hope will reconsider its decision to ditch The Hunt For Ben Solo.

Wrestling superstar CM Punk has compared the online anger at the ending of Stranger Things to the backlash to John Cena's final WWE match, saying both fandoms sometimes display “a slight mental illness" when events don't go the way they had built them up in their heads.

CM Punk, regarded as one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, hit out at fans who “just seem to want to be angry about everything because it didn't happen the way they fantasy booked it in their head.”

Stranger Things Season 5’s finale, which left it up to the audience to decide whether Eleven was alive or dead, has proven so divisive that some fans have concocted stories about secret 'Snyder cuts' and theories about a ninth episode that would have revealed the show’s true ending. Both were proven to be fake. Still, a petition to release this supposed “unseen footage” gained nearly 400,000 signatures — despite being debunked by the cast. Some fans are even using generative AI to make alternative Stranger Things endings.

Speaking on My Mom's Basement with Robbie Fox, CM Punk noted parallels between the Stranger Things and wrestling fandoms, expressing concern about people who react with anger to events that don’t go the way they had hoped.

“I see it in wrestling. I see it with fandoms, with Stranger Things,” he said. “People just seem to want to be angry about everything because it didn't happen the way they fantasy booked it in their head. To me that’s a slight mental illness.

“Like, hey I bought tickets to go to this wrestling show and then I look on Twitter and wrestling journalist 345678910 reports that there's going to be a big surprise guest, and I go to this show and there's no big surprise guest, and I spend an unhealthy amount of time complaining about that online. And it's just like, well you weren't promised a big surprise guest. Somebody that probably knows less about what they're talking about than you do and is just a fan just like you, made some shit up on the internet and passed it off as a journalism, and you're getting mad at that.

“I see the same thing with the Stranger Things fandom. People just straight up mad about the way it ended, and I thought the 45 minute epilogue… Mind you, I'm not a feverish Stranger Things fan. I've watched the entire show and it's hard to remember what has happened because they spend way too much time in between seasons, which I feel is a valid criticism. But I thought it was so poetic the way they wrapped it up. At the heart of the movie, it's a nostalgia bomb, but it's about these kids that are bonding over playing Dungeons & Dragons. They're the outcasts, so they find each other and there's a sci-fi element to it. And the way they wrapped it up was just like a dungeon master.”

On Eleven’s ending, specifically, and the ambiguity around her fate, CM Punk added: “I was super happy about it, but people have their opinions. It's just like the John Cena / Gunther finish. I feel like it's the same thing. Some people... maybe I don't think you understand what you're watching. But if you didn't like it, I can also understand that. But to overnight make it your entire personality and spend an unhealthy amount of time talking about it… put it this way, if John won, they'd be mad about that, too. But we wouldn't be talking about it anymore. And we're still talking about that finish. The smile, the tap. ‘Oh my god, The guy who said don't give up just gave up.’

“Everybody's an expert. I thought it was beautiful.”

The John Cena / Gunther ending refers to John Cena's emotional final WWE match in December 2025, where he lost to Gunther via submission, officially concluding his legendary career with a symbolic "passing of the torch" to a dominant new champion, though fans had mixed reactions to Cena's "Never Give Up" persona tapping out.

Let me level with you folks right up top: Code Violet is a bad game. No judgement (some judgement) if you saw tasteful (and sometimes not) screenshots and trailers featuring its beautiful brunette protagonist mixing it up with dinosaurs and felt compelled to pick this up just to ogle. But if you want anything else from Code Violet, like a compelling story with interesting characters or an engrossing crucible of tense and savvy action horror to conquer, then you’ve come to the wrong raptor-infested space station. The best it can give you is terrible third-person shooting, boring level design, and technical blunders that make stalking through this futuristic bloodbath feel prehistoric.

Code Violet’s story is unapologetically tropey science fiction, mixing far future space colonization, genetic modification, and more to make this final girl survival story as impenetrable as possible. Bits and pieces of the tale are interesting, though that’s mostly limited to side stories and lore found in the journal entries of victims scattered among the wreckage. But almost everything you play through and watch in cutscene form is derivative, awkwardly animated and acted, and forgettable. Avoiding spoilers, even when things get truly bonkers towards the end (in a similar fashion to developer TeamKill Media’s Quantum Error from 2023), all the new and drastic revelations that should be monumental to the story at hand instead feel rushed and full of twists and turns that are either undercooked or entirely too convoluted. The very few other characters you meet are barely more than one-note exposition dispensers who you’ll watch your hero, Violet, worry and cry over and never really understand why.

Violet herself is a hollow shell with no motivations outside of doing what others tell her to do, as well as being incredulous and weepy when weird and sometimes difficult events arise. She’s meant to fill a sort of Jill Valentine or Lara Croft archetype of tough gals that can think their way through most challenges, and shoot their way through the rest. But while those two video game legends have agency and capability developed through their laundry lists of heroic feats, snappy dialogue, and sometimes dense inner monologues, Violet’s own thoughts about the happenings around her seem absent from most interactions. She only feels particularly good at anything when I’m in the driver’s seat, tip toeing down hallways and filling dinosaurs full of lead.

This is doubly damning. Outside of being a missed opportunity to introduce a good new character into the greater video game lexicon, it also makes Code Violet’s leering, pervy camera work and extensive dress up options feel like it's crossing the line from fun into creepy. There are tons of characters in games who successfully make being sexy or flirty a major part of their schtick, and the best ones are those that come across as completely in control of their own image while they do so. So its an unfortunate irony that in a post-Baldur’s Gate 3/Stellar Blade world, one where people have never been more ready to accept hunky himbos and skimpy seductresses, Code Violet found one of the few ways to do it wrong.

I played on a regular PlayStation 5 rather than a Pro, and at mid-to-far distances, a few parts of Code Violet really do look good. That’s especially true in the more creatively designed areas, like when you’re outside looking up as islands float in the purplish void of the sky. When you get up close, however, textures can get muddied and metallic surfaces reflect light in gaudy ways that seem off putting for the grunge and grime that sometimes smears them. And most of the heavy metal halls you’ll skulk down are uninspired sci-fi staples that don’t feel any different than any other game that asks players to escape from a locked down hellhole of a science facility. Doom 3 pulled this aesthetic off far more effectively over 20 years ago.

There’s occasional flair, some statues that would look more at home in a medieval castle than a space base, for instance. There’s no real explanation for them, though you can make inferences based on some late-game happenings, but at the moment they come off largely as “it’s here just because.” One curious thing I did always stop to look at were the soda machines and various oil paintings that stick out like a sore thumb in this setting. Not because I found them to be particularly riveting (some were admittedly cool-looking), but mostly because I couldn’t stop trying to determine if they were AI generated or not – I’m no expert, so the jury is still out on that, but they certainly give off that vibe.

Those cool outdoor skyscapes hang over the rote and bland grasslands you’ll have to trudge through to get from one building to another almost mockingly. The limited time you spend in these zones is transitory. They basically serve as long hallways with bundles of tall grass to crouch behind when enemies are on patrol. You don’t even get a map to use, and you won’t need one as it will be very obvious where you need to go next, with very little opportunity to diverge from this critical path. Maybe these sections were meant to serve as some reprieve from the dark, claustrophobic halls of the various facilities on this planet, but other than having a brighter color palette, they feel exactly the same to navigate through.

Back indoors, rooms that might have something to investigate or shoot are separated by long hallways with nothing to spice up the transition from one action zone to another. This almost never changes across the handful of maps you’ll explore, creating a predictable, slogging pace between rooms. Part of what makes games like Dead Space so tense is that any and every room feels like one you could be maimed in. In Code Violet, you can be reasonably sure that most of its rooms exist just to be walked through by you and nothing else. Scoping out extra upgrade materials to strengthen your weapons or finding hidden keys or combinations to open certain lockers are the only good reasons to stray off the path, and even then I learned to go without these things pretty early on because the effort often wasn't worth the prize – they usually meant enduring the crumbling fossil of Code Violet’s combat system for longer than necessary.

Violet herself is agile and swift in line with most third person games of this ilk, and even has a Resident Evil-style back stepping dodge, which you will use a lot to create space between yourself and incoming dinosaurs. In a straight up skirmish with these scaly foes, a well-timed dash back can really befuddle the raptors, shattering their simple gameplan of running at you, taking a big swing, pausing, and doing it again. There’s limited space before you hit a wall or a door that might have automatically closed behind you, though, so you can only backdash so much before making yourself a much easier snack to catch. The camera will collide with these barriers far sooner than Violet will, rendering any encounter that doesn’t take place in the dead center of the room a completely unintelligible mess for as long as it takes you to get the camera refocused. Indoors, this was a frequent headache, and lingered like a second, scarier jump scare waiting to pounce after a raptor bursts out of the wall.

The variety of these jurassic jerks is a let down, with large or small velociraptors and poison-spitting dilophosauruses making up the bulk of the non-boss foes. Each type has its own behaviors, but they are shallow and predictable. Big raptors just run and swipe at you until either you or it are dead. Small raptors are usually in packs and make a conga line toward you, taking a swipe before running away, only to immediately turn around and do it all over again. The spitters just stand in one place and shoot, opting to close the distance only when you do so first. You’ll encounter some gator-like creatures in the last third of the approximately six hour campaign, but they barely bother to deal with you so long as you don’t enter their waters, making them extremely easy targets.

Any challenge I got from these mouthy menaces came from how erratic and stupid they could be, often getting caught in the environment while attempting to reach me or disengaging once I simply walked the other direction. Their bullet spongy, stun resistant nature also means that they can just run up and take a bite out of you before they die, not quite becoming a danger, but definitely becoming an annoyance since any hit from them could potentially cause you to bleed, which can kill you if you don’t treat it in time. This is all true for the remarkably few boss fights as well – you may be facing a scaly man-dino hybrid now, but almost nothing about the strategy of walking backwards, dodging on time, and then countering with a face full of lead has to change.

At the same time, all these lazy lizards have a sort of supernatural omniscience. Even when you make your best attempts to sneak into or around a room, there's a great chance that they already know where you are and are on their way to kill you. On top of that, so many encounters involve you opening a door to see dinosaurs staring directly at you or are scripted events where they have the drop on you, so there aren’t many attempts to stay quiet to begin with. Unless you’re using the GlassVeil function of Violet’s suit, which can render you sometimes comically invisible for a short period, stealth is a large waste of time in most areas. I say comically because you can use it mid-fight with a dinosaur, and there’s a good chance they will simply give up any attempt to find you and return to milling around aimlessly when you do. Hilariously, this strategy even works on bosses, who will completely stop and wait for you to reveal yourself, usually with gunfire, and then make a half-assed attempt to follow up until you reappear.

The real enemy are the myriad bugs that can’t wait to bite and peck at your progress. Sometimes the sound mix will run off the rails or a very important skybox, one that might hold valuable information about a puzzle, simply won’t load. Weapons sometimes display the wrong ammo counts, or just disappear from your inventory all together – which I guess is a fair trade for the fact that every item I used directly out of my storage box didn’t actually expend it in the review build we were provided, meaning I could always heal to full at any safe room I made it to. (TeamKill Media tells us it’s already aware and working on fixes for some of these bugs, such as the infinite storage item issue, but didn't say when those might arrive.)

Warning: This review contains full spoilers for The Pitt Season 2, Episode 1!

The Pitt is certainly a refreshing blast from the past in today’s streaming TV landscape. Not only does the relatively long, 15-episode structure hearken back to a simpler time, but it’s a series that doesn’t leave us hanging for years in between new seasons. The Pitt is already back for Season 2, almost a year to the day that the first season debuted, and it doesn’t miss a beat in the process.

Clearly, creator/showrunner R. Scott Gemmill has no intention of reinventing the wheel with Season 2. Once again, we connect with Noah Wyle’s Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch at the start of what promises to be another grueling day shift at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. The real-time format that worked so well last time around is still in full effect.

Things do seem to be looking up a bit for Robby compared to where we last saw him at the end of Season 1. As far as we can tell, he’s no longer plagued by PTSD-laden memories of the COVID pandemic, and he’s even gearing up for a badly needed three-month sabbatical. Something tells me he’ll be desperate for that escape by the end of the season…

The one real notable change from Season 1 is that Tracy Ifeachor’s Dr. Collins is gone, with Sepideh Moafi stepping in as new attending physician Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. This is a bit of a disappointment, as Ifeachor was one of the highlights among Season 1’s uniformly strong cast. Moreover, it didn’t feel as though her story was finished after Season 1, despite whatever creative decisions led to this shake-up. That’s definitely a sore spot heading into the new season.

Not that Moafi struggles to float among that strong cast. She immediately makes a strong impression as a stern, methodical force trying to instill order in a sea of chaos. And as much as Robby and Collins butted heads at times in Season 1, it’s clear that Baran is meant to be a much more antagonistic presence in his life. If anything, this episode probably goes a little too hard on that front. It’s hard to react to the character as anything other than an annoying interloper, given her prickly demeanor and the way she’s so blatantly out of step with Robby’s managerial style.

Clearly, that’s the intent with her character. Robby is the closest thing we have to a focal point on the show, and we’re meant to mistrust this Gloria-approved rule stickler as much as he does. But, hopefully, over the course of this season, we’ll see different shades of Baran and come to appreciate her medical philosophy a bit more.

Easily the highlight of Episode 1 is reconnecting with Patrick Ball’s Dr. Frank Langdon. Not only is this Robby’s last day on the job before vacation, but it’s also Langdon’s first day back after completing drug rehab. He’s the character who’s grown and changed the most in the months since Season 1’s shift from Hell, and you get a great sense of that in Ball’s performance. The confidence and bravado are diminished, replaced by a man who’s unsure of himself and trying to regain some semblance of order in his life. Ball is great here, particularly during his touching reunion with Ernest Harden Jr.’s Louie (whose story I can only assume is going to take a dark turn this season).

Other than that, it’s mostly business as usual for the Pitt crew. The rest of the main cast returns, even Katherine LaNasa’s Dana Evans, the one character I would have thought was being retired after Season 1 (not that more Dana is a bad thing by any stretch). The various residents and interns have had the better part of a year to gain some experience, and it’s fun watching that evolution play out in the various subplots. Gerran Howell’s Dennis Whitaker in particular comes across as a whole new man compared to Season 1, and it’s fun watching him exercise a little authority for a change. The jury is still out on the new batch of trainees, however, and I’m sure it’ll once again take several episodes to even memorize their names.

It’s definitely the start of a slow burn for Season 2, and it’s going to take several episodes to build toward the sheer chaos and life-or-death stakes we eventually got with Season 1. If anything, this episode feels a bit more light-hearted, finding ample moments for humor and reminding us with Charles Baker’s Troy that compassion is often the best medicine. Things will get darker soon enough, and I’m very much looking forward to it.