Walt Disney World has officially kicked off its Cool Kid Summer - a celebration that includes new Little Mermaid and Villains shows, a nighttime parade called Disney Starlight, big discounts on tickets and Disney resorts, indoor dance parties with arts, crafts, games, and characters, and so much more.

Disney invited us to check out the big Cool Kid Summer offerings, and we’re here to break down the reasons why a trip down to The Most Magical Place on Earth this summer may be worth it for your family and your wallet.

1. Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever After

Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever After is one of the two big shows to debut during Cool Kid Summer and replaces Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy at Hollywood Studios’ Sunset Showcase Theater. This show puts the spotlight on Disney’s beloved Villains, and it's led by Cruella de Vil, Captain Hook, and Maleficent.

This show is all about giving these villains the chance to tell their side of the story, and the Magic Mirror summons the audience to help choose which of these three villains is the most misunderstood of all. In a fun twist, guests get to cheer for the villain they think is the most misunderstood, and they get to take center stage in victory. This lends to the rewatchability of the show as the ending will vary depending on the crowd’s response.

While there are only three performers in Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever After, a ton of Disney villains make appearances on the many portraits that adorn the stage and its striking curtain. These three villains have “broken through the glass” into our world, and it’s a moment that’s been a long time coming.

“To me, this show just has a sense of inevitability,” art director Matheus Fiuza told me. “It has always meant to have been there. We've always meant to have a beautiful show about villains and now they're getting to have their moment in glory and it's just one of the most thrilling things to be able to do.”

This is just a taste of the Villains takeover at Disney World, as it was already announced that Magic Kingdom will be getting its very own Villains land in the future.

2. The Little Mermaid - A Musical Adventure

The other big new show for Cool Kid Summer at Walt Disney World is Hollywood Studios’ The Little Mermaid - A Musical Adventure. This show is a fully reimagined production that has replaced Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which ran from 1992 to 2020, and it even includes a new song titled ‘Daughters of Triton.’ This new show is a roughly 18-minute retelling of The Little Mermaid that is a mix between live-action performers, puppets, and animation.

We had the chance to speak to Katrina Mena Rick, senior creative producer at Disney Live Entertainment, and she shared that what’s different about this version of the show is that it is “told through Ariel's eyes, which is why it's so whimsical, bright, and colorful. It's through the lens of a 16-year-old girl’s view and the excitement that she feels wanting to enter the human world.”

Speaking of Ariel, we were also able to speak to Jodi Benson, Disney Legend and star of The Little Mermaid, and she is thrilled to see this show come to life and said it was a “lovely surprise” to have Kiss the Girl included this time around. However, this show is important to her for more than just the addition of a song.

“We want the audience to have joy, love, and hope,” Benson said of the show. “We want people to leave the theater feeling lifted up and encouraged, and it definitely does that. It definitely brings back all those beautiful memories of the original for me.

"I'm just so happy that the show is back, and the new and technical aspects are breathtaking and it's wonderful to see the combination of live action and animation. It really is a magical show."

3. Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away

Disney Starlight: Dream the Night Away is the much-anticipated nighttime parade that will officially debut at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom on July 20, 2025. Fans of the Main Street Electrical Parade and Disneyland’s Paint the Night Parade will understand how beloved these parades are, and this one looks to celebrate both the past and modern eras of Disney.

The story of Disney Starlight is told through the power of the Blue Fairy’s magic and guests will watch “dreams and wishes come true” with such characters as Peter Pan, Wendy, Asha, La Familia Madrigal (Mirabel, Isabela, and Bruno), Elsa, Aurora and Prince Phillip, Tiana and Prince Naveen, Belle and the Beast, Cinderella and Prince Charming, Miguel and Pepita, Moana, Goofy, Pluto, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck, Snow White and Dopey, Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, Aladdin and Jasmine, and Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse.

4. Cool Kid Summer at Disney World’s Four Parks and Resorts

The fun of Cool Kid Summer extends to each of Disney World’s four parks and some select hotels, and a lot of these activities and parties are indoors, which means there are plenty of excuses to enjoy some A/C while your kids have a great time.

• Magic Kingdom
  • Those visiting Magic Kingdom have two big things to look forward to for Cool Kid Summer, including the Galactic Blast at Tomorrowland that will turn Rocket Tower Plaza Stage into a space-inspired DJ dance party with appearances by Stitch. The nearby Merchant of Venus will also be a place to cool down with indoor crafts inspired by Elio.
  • The second thing to look out for at Magic Kingdom for Cool Kid Summer is the Big Top Bash at Storybook Circus, as guests can join DJ Ringmaster and Pluto for a summertime dance party with kid-friendly midway-style games and hands-on activities inside Big Top Souvenirs.
• Disney’s Hollywood Studios
  • Get Animated at Animation Courtyard is the big Cool Kid Summer activation at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, as it’s a big indoor DJ dance party featuring Mickey Mouse, Disney Junior characters, magicians, jump rope performers, games and crafts, and much more.
• EPCOT
  • Goofy has turned EPCOT’s CommuniCore Hall into GoofyCore and it's a place for kids and kids at heart to get a break from the sun and dance and play games. DJs will lead the party that’s filled with games like Loopy Limbo, Parachutes ‘n’ Pipsqueaks, four corners, Goofy Says, and much more.
  • Phineas and Ferb will also join Cool Kid Summer on June 1 near the entrance of EPCOT in celebration of their new season that is set to debut on Disney Channel on June 5.
• Disney’s Animal Kingdom
  • Cool Kid Summer at Disney’s Animal Kingdom is all about exploring and adventuring, as guests can explore nature-based adventures with their favorite Disney Characters and hands-on activities while earning a limited-time Wilderness Explorers badge.
  • There will also be a chance to celebrate with a Dino Institute Intern at A Celebration Sing-Along at Discovery Island, which will have songs that highlight both the real and mythical creatures that can be found at the park.
• Disney Resort Collection Hotels
  • Guests staying at Disney’s Pop Century Resort, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort, Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, and Disney’s Wilderness Lodge will be able to enjoy character visits, family games, music, and more during Cool Kid Summer.

With Danny Boyle returning to the world of 28 Days Later with next month's 28 Years Later, there's one particularly salient topic on the minds of zombie... uh, infected fans everywhere: What is the state of the Rage Virus victims in the film's post-apocalyptic world almost 30 years after the catastrophe first hit?

I spoke to Boyle about 28 Years Later earlier this week, and he filled me in on a few details regarding those poor, fast-running SOBs. (Some of whom, it turns out, aren't so fast-running anymore.)

"There have been evolutions [of the infected] because we didn't want to just stand still with them," Boyle tells IGN of the creatures in the new film. "There has been kind of mutations that have developed, if you like."

Don't forget, while the infected of the 28 Days/Weeks/Years series fit nicely into the zombie subgenre, technically speaking they're not dead. Rather, they're living humans who have been infected by the Rage Virus. As such, that means that they would need to find ways to survive over the years. Hence the evolution that Boyle is hinting at.

The director shot 28 Years Later in a 2.76:1 widescreen aspect ratio, which is typically reserved for 70mm epics, and part of his reasoning for going that wide was to create a feeling of dread in the viewer regarding the infected. With that wide frame, the things could be practically anywhere in your field of vision.

"You hope that it gives a sense of unease really ... that they could be anywhere, because we know they move very fast," he says, before clarifying that most of the infected move fast these days... but not all. "Apart from these new ones, the 'slow-lows' which of course move very slowly, but they're still dangerous."

Indeed, they are quite gross, and as Boyle says, there's a reason for their name. "They're very slow. They hang about low level," he laughs. "So they're called the slow-lows. I wouldn't advise messing with them."

Boyle and his team used a variety of production methods and cameras to achieve various effects in the film, including how they photographed the infected. In the case of the slow-lows, sometimes that meant attaching cameras to the actors playing them in an attempt to put the audience right down in the mud with the creatures.

The film's production notes also hint at some other variations on the infected. The first generation that have managed to survive the past 28 years now roam the UK naked and like animals. And then there are "berserker" and "alpha" infected, seemingly super-charged with strength and also, perhaps, carrying a semblance of intelligence as well.

"Just in technical terms, we still wanted to capture them in a brittle, almost unreliable way, because that was what we found [worked] with the first film," says Boyle.

Unique rigs carrying as many as 20 iPhones at the same time were also used for key sequences involving the infected, with Boyle going for what he calls "a poor man’s bullet time.” But that was just one method used to capture the grisly, startling images of the film's monsters.

"We would use special shutter angles to enhance that reliability, that very kind of rapid motion, that slightly staccato motion to create a kind of brittleness," he says. "We also used this old Panasonic camera called an EVA1, I think it's called, which is a kind of red with its filter out. It becomes a red camera really, which allows us to see almost like an infrared look, which is the look we wanted to create for some of the nighttime material."

Slow-lows, three-decade-long infected, berserkers, and alphas... One has to wonder what other horrors await the characters of 28 Years Later. We'll find out when the film arrives on June 20.

Late last month, mega publisher EA fired 300 workers, including around 100 at developer Respawn. The studio, founded by ex-Call of Duty developers, is responsible for Apex Legends and the Star Wars Jedi games, and was reportedly working on a third game in its beloved Titanfall series before its staff roster was cut. Now cancelled, the rumours suggest that this Titanfall project was an extraction shooter – a difficult-by-design PvPvE genre that currently only enjoys niche popularity. But an extraction shooter set in the world of Titanfall and Apex Legends could have been the genre’s ticket to the big leagues. So if not EA, who will take the “Tarkov-like” beyond its enthusiastic niche and into the mainstream? The answer may be just months away.

"As part of our continued focus on our long-term strategic priorities, we’ve made select changes within our organization that more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth," an EA spokesperson said of the layoffs that cut away at Respawn. It’s a sentiment EA employees have heard before. This move follows a rash of downsizing in other segments of EA’s portfolio, including at developers Codemasters and BioWare, and a more general 670 company-wide employees back in March of last year. This trend has many decrying the state of the games industry as unsustainable and calling for unionization.

But what of that rumored Titanfall extraction shooter? Naturally, its apparent cancellation has many fans disappointed; the existence (and lack of public appearance) of a new Titanfall game has become something of an in-joke in recent years. Further, rumors of a new extraction shooter from a triple-A studio has shone a spotlight on a style of game that has struggled to garner a significant audience thus far. And whether or not the cancelled Respawn title was indeed an extraction shooter, more people are discussing the potential of a genre that is in its infancy.

“This is an enthusiast genre which has, thus far, not significantly broken out to the mass market player,” Mat Piscatella, Video Games Industry Advisor at Circana, tells IGN.

Last month, developer Bungie finally revealed gameplay footage for Marathon, the upcoming extraction shooter that some predict will launch the genre into the mainstream. It's a game that's already found itself in hot water, accused of plagarising art assets. But while there are ethical questions around Marathon's production, the response to the game itself after press went hands-on with it seems largely positive. Perhaps this is to be expected from the studio with a reputation for stellar first-person shooter experiences like Halo and Destiny. But, come September, Marathon will be launching into a very different market, and the extraction shooter is a relatively untested genre. Will pedigree and tight FPS design be enough to carry the game to success? Analysts say: perhaps.

“If I were to bet on any developer being able to bring this genre to the mass market it would be Bungie,” Piscatella says.

For those unfamiliar, extraction shooters tend to be made up of a combination of player-versus-player and player-versus-environment gameplay loops. Small squads of players are dropped into a world, where they fight AI enemies and sometimes other player-controlled squads, to complete goals and gather resources, then escape the map. The genre was popularized by Escape From Tarkov, an incredibly unforgiving take on the formula characterized by its high-risk, high-reward firefights, which garnered a respectable audience during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Since then, a number of other developers have tried their hand at the genre with varying degrees of success. One of the most prominent is last year’s Helldivers 2, developed by Arrowhead Game Studios and published by Sony. It leans heavily on a campy schtick, community engagement, and in-game events, which has made it a standout among extraction shooters. Also, and perhaps most importantly, it’s a co-op only affair, with none of the tense PvP encounters that make games like Escape from Tarkov so challenging. According to Piscatella’s data, Helldivers 2 was the eighth most-played game on Steam in April, and ranked 34 on PlayStation.

“Helldivers 2 is the outlier success among this group,” Piscatella explains. “In April, approximately 9% of US active Steam users played Helldivers 2, while around 3% of PS5 players engaged with the game at least once. No other [extraction shooter] reached more than 2.3% of active players on any platform on which that particular game was played.”

It’s immediately obvious that these stats are small when compared to more popular genres like battle royale or multiplayer FPS games. As hugely popular as Helldivers 2 seems to dedicated PlayStation owners, the mainstream is Fortnite, Call of Duty, and EA’s FC – games that garner much, much larger audiences. But Piscatella is quick to point out that the extraction shooter is a burgeoning genre with a great deal of potential, and it faces the same challenges as any other genre does in its early days.

“Small or developing genres often only get big after one game makes it so,” he says. “The dance/music genre was a pretty small niche until Guitar Hero showed up. Console FPS games didn't usually sell all that well at all until Halo. MMOs comprised a relatively small portion of the market until World of Warcraft became the biggest thing in the world. Maybe Marathon does that for extraction shooters. Maybe it doesn't. Nothing is guaranteed for any new game in today's market.”

Other popular games in the extraction shooter genre include Deep Rock Galactic, Hunt: Showdown 1896, and Delta Force. The latter is a free-to-play title launched late last year and has been enjoying a steady rise in popularity in recent months: as of this writing, it ranks 15th in daily players on Steam, with somewhere around 135,000 players at peak. This is a respectable number, but nowhere near the numbers consistently put up by the battle royale genre and its titans. And let’s face it: executives have exhibited a certain amount of tunnel vision chasing the high monetization bars set by the Fortnites, Warzones, and PUBGs of the world.

There’s an argument that this sort of fixation has led to a certain amount of creative stagnation in the development space, and studio heads are less willing to take a chance on an unproven genre such as extraction shooters (it’s perhaps telling that Call of Duty’s attempt at it was an under-supported, now abandoned mode added to Warzone, rather than its own flagship release). In that way, Marathon represents the first significant triple-A effort to bring the genre to the masses. And it’s going to need all the help it can get along the way.

“Bungie being the developer certainly does not guarantee Marathon success,” Piscatella says. “In order for [it] to break through it would certainly help if the game could win over dedicated fans of the genre so they could advocate for the game among family and friends.”

Beyond word of mouth, Bungie will need to ensure smooth onboarding for prospective players. In particular, converting core players familiar with first-person shooters will likely figure into Bungie’s rollout strategy, but long-term retention will all boil down to the gameplay.

“It would…be helpful if Marathon were to have a ramping path for people that are more familiar with the big FPS titles like Call of Duty to help initiate trial and conversion,” Piscatella explains. “It would also have to nail the whole ‘easy to pick up, difficult to master’ trick that many mass market hits are able to pull off.”

The reality is that these are all the same problems faced by any new title, and the one true decider of success or failure is the market, which, as Piscatella points out, is extremely unwelcoming.

“It is a very fickle market at the moment. People have their favorite long-running games that are constantly being updated, are familiar, have significant social and monetary hooks, and many of these titles are free-to-play or easily accessible without an upfront purchase price. So, the challenges facing Bungie and Marathon are not dissimilar to those facing any new game.”

Fickle market notwithstanding, the biggest challenge facing Marathon is the untested nature of the extraction shooter genre as a whole. Escape From Tarkov has enjoyed its accolades, but that game benefitted from an audience inflated by pandemic lockdowns, as well as a gameplay loop that appealed to the core gamer segment. Subsequent titles have only seen middling performances (with Helldivers 2 being the outlier), so it’s easy to understand why studios have been reticent to devote significant resources to such a project, especially when the battle royale genre has proven its dominance.

In that way, Marathon should prove to be a useful litmus test for the rest of the industry. It’s surprising to see a studio like Bungie going all-in on an extraction shooter in this environment, and if it receives a strong reception you can expect other developers and publishers to take its lead. Of course there are dozens of factors to account for - things like monetization and market trends - and nobody can predict how things will unfold. But Bungie certainly has the clout and design chops to make something special. And it’s going to take something special to take the extraction shooter genre from niche to mainstream. You can be sure that, come September, the industry will be eagerly watching the launch of Marathon.

If you're looking for Infinity Nikki codes, IGN has you covered! In this article, you'll find a list of active and working Infinity Nikki codes that you can redeem for free rewards and bonuses in May 2025, including Diamonds and Energy Crystals.

Active Infinity Nikki Codes (May 2025)

Below, you'll find all the active and working Infinity Nikki codes in May 2025, the free rewards you get for redeeming them, and their expiry date (if known):

• NIKKISFAVORITERICEDUMPLING - 200x Diamonds, 18.8k Bling, expires June 4, 2025 (NEW!)
• AAp9Q8KWF8b - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApyBTE8RY9 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AAp4BHuBhmC - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AAp7DKNerwR - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApt6d2sv89 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApnynNUpc7 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApE9cuaMxM - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApP4EqVj2a - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApHBskxdEh - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApscJCWy6w - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApAAnFjMpK - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApCapPmYvp - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApNj9MT2Uy - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• AApUBFedaQy - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• InfinityNikki429 - 75x Shiny Bubbles, 75x Threads of Purity, and 30k Bling
• AApUB2cpQ6h - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 20k Bling
• BUBBLESEASON0429 - 50x Thread of Purity, 15k Bling
• POCKETMONEYFORNIKKI - 200x Diamonds, 18.8k Bling
• Handinhand - 10x Revelation Crystal
• DREAM&REBIRTH - 100x Diamonds, 100x Shiny Bubbles, 50x Thread of Purity
• SEAOFSTARS - 100x Diamonds, 50x Shiny Bubbles, 30k Bling
• BUBBLESEASON - 100x Diamonds, 50x Thread of Purity, 20k Bling
• Sidebyside - 10x Revelation Crystals
• INFINITYNIKKISteam - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling
• RevelrySeasonRe - 50x Thread of Purity, 30k Bling
• RevelrySeasonGroup - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 30k Bling
• 1.2VERDISCORD - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling
• 1.2VERREDDIT - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling
• 1.2VERGLOBALGROUP - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling
• ハイキングDISCORD - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling
• PEARFECTGUIDES - 10x Shining Particles, 15k Bling
• NIKKIXWEBTOON - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling
• ニキプレゼント1205 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling
• おめでとう - 50x Threads of Purity, 15k Bling
• リリース - 10x Shining Particles, 15k Bling
• インフィニティニキ - 15x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling
• 無限暖暖公測開啟 - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling
• 無限暖暖公測FB社團限定 - 10x Shining Particles, 15k Bling
• インフィニキDISCORD - 50x Threads of Purity, 15k Bling
• INGIFT1205 - 50x Threads of Purity, 15k Bling
• GROUPSTYLIST - 50x Threads of Purity, 15k Bling (expires December 5, 2025)
• REDDITSTYLIST - 50x Shiny Bubbles, 15k Bling (expires December 5, 2025)
• DISCORDSTYLIST - 10x Shining Particles, 15k Bling (expires December 5, 2025)

Expired Infinity Nikki Codes

The Infinity Nikki codes listed below have expired and are no longer working as of May 2025:

• NOSTRANGELINKS
• WARMSPRINGBONUS
• RevelrySeasonDC
• GIRLPOWER25
• 100THDAYCELEBRATION
• MAYEVERYGIRLHAPPINESS
• Newstoryawaits
• Newyearbliss
• NIKKIFIREWORKS
• NIKKIEXCURSIONTIME
• NIKKINEWBLOOM2025
• HEARTFELTGIFTS
• NIKKIBEWITHYOU
• NIKKIRELEASE
• dreamweavernikki
• NIKKI20241022
• infinitynikki1205
• BDAYSURPRISE
• GIFTFROMMOMO
• GIFTTONIKKI
• nikkihappybirthday2024
• NIKKITHEBEST
• QUACKQUACK
• AAbNxRNMmSm
• AAbQjjYKwbH
• AAb7xf6hWuS
• AAbtWkna3V7
• AAbaEyDU4EX
• AAbMNJX8hxF
• AAb5S3RSK8M
• AAbUfWnYUtd
• AAbUa8e2U3a
• AAbtk9jmpnV

How to Redeem Infinity Nikki Codes

To redeem Infinity Nikki codes, follow the steps below:

1. Unlock your Pear-Pal during the Chapter 1: Wishes Without Wings - Land of Wishes main quest. It's about 20 minutes into your Infinity Nikki adventure.
2. Open the Pear-Pal menu by pressing ESC on PC (or the Menu button when using an Xbox controller on PC), the Menu button on PlayStation, or by tapping the Pear-Pal icon in the top-left corner on mobile.
3. Click on the gear icon to open the Settings menu.
4. Scroll over to the Other tab.
5. You’ll see a “Redeem Code” option here. Click on “Apply” and a Redeem Rewards pop-up menu will appear.
6. Input your code into the “Enter the redeem code” field and tap “Apply.”
7. If successful, a pop-up will appear showing your free rewards.

Why Isn't My Infinity Nikki Code Working?

If the Infinity Nikki code that you're trying to redeem isn't working, it's likely due to one of the following reasons:

• There's a typo in the code.
• The Infinity Nikki code is expired.

When inputting a code into Infinity Nikki, make sure there are no typos (Os instead of zeroes, capital Is instead of lowercase Ls, etc.) and that there are no accidental spaces before or after the code. If your Infinity Nikki code still doesn't work, it's probably expired and can no longer be redeemed. You'll get a message informing you that the code is wrong if it's expired.

How to Get More Infinity Nikki Codes

The best way to get more Infinity Nikki codes is to join the official Infinity Nikki Discord server. Once you're in, head to the #self-assign-roles channel and opt-in for the Redeem Code role. You'll receive a notification when a new code is released so you can receive your free rewards ASAP!

Alternatively, bookmark this Infinity Nikki Codes article, as we update it each time a new code comes out. The Discord server has missed a couple of codes posted to other channels, so we'd recommend checking our article every so often.

What is Infinity Nikki?

Developed by Infold Games, Infinity Nikki is a cozy, open-world RPG. You play as Nikki, as she's whisked away to the world of Miraland, a place where people make Wishes with the help of Stylists. You'll find and create a plethora of outfits and accessories, take on quests, and gather many types of collectibles with the help of Momo, Nikki's adorable feline companion. As you play, you earn Diamonds, which can be spent on Revelation and Resonite Crystals, which are used to pull on the limited time and permanent outfit banners for 5-star and 4-star clothing.

Meg Koepp is a Guides Editor on the IGN Guides team, with a focus on trends. When she's not working, you can find her playing an RPG or spending time with her corgi.

When George R.R. Martin crafted the world of Westeros back in the 90s, he probably didn’t think his words would go on to spawn graphic novels, TV shows, action figures, video games, and more. Moreover, I doubt the author expected his works to be adapted into a mobile-friendly action-RPG built to prioritize predatory microtransactions over the rich lore he’d spent decades perfecting. Yet in 2025, we have Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, a visually striking open-world exploration game that looks compelling in motion, but hones in more on menus and currency than fantasy adventure. And, as you push deeper into its sizable campaign to uncover a plethora of in-game currencies and progress-halting hurdles, the neo-medieval jaunt starts to feel more like a lesson in asset management than a thoughtful RPG.

Kingsroad takes place during season four of the HBO TV series, putting you in the fur-lined boots of a northern-born bastard of House Tyre. With your father sickly and your inheritance caught up in the strict succession rules of the realm, the only hope for the safety of your people is to borrow, beg, and steal your way into the hearts of the lords and ladies of Westeros. Naturally, things aren’t as simple as just asking, and you’ll have to go round the houses (literally) to solve land disputes, find missing soldiers, and knock together the heads of vassal-house warriors on your way to earning your flowers. Alongside a cavalcade of curious NPCs, there are also White Walkers, mythical beasts, and traitorous Boltons to butt heads with. Thankfully, Westeros’ misfortune makes for an enticing landing pad for you to start from.

Before you dive into the cobbled streets and open roads of Westeros, though, you’ll first need to pick a combat archetype to play as: a brutish Sellsword, a skilful Knight, or a nimble Assassin. Fuelled by my love of Brienne of Tarth and Dungeons & Dragons’ Barbarian class, I opted for the axe-wielding Sellsword, whose heavy strikes can easily wind gaggles of enemy forces. Indecisive? Good news: Kingsroad does allow you to switch between archetypes at any time, and your inventory is shared across your three possible characters, so you can boost your alts with your main’s hard-earned loot. That said, I was disappointed to find that once you finalise a character, you can’t delete them and start that class over, or change their name, a feature that bit me in the butt when testing how unsightly I could make my Knight.

With your combat destiny chosen, Kingsroad’s decently impressive character creator lets you use a mixture of face-contorting sliders and colour-pickers to specialise your plucky hero. It doesn’t have the depth of something like Dragon’s Dogma 2 (although that’s an admittedly high bar), but I am glad I was able to bestow my characters with an identity that felt personal to me – which is to say moody, and tastefully adorned with smudgy eyeliner and edgy facial scars.

Kingsroad wastes no time teaching you the basics of its combat and platforming with a tight but comprehensive tutorial, which takes you beyond the wall and back again. That’s where you’ll meet the first of many familiar faces for any fans of the show, as Jon Snow and Samwell Tarley do a decent job of filling in the narrative gaps for those in need of a season four recap. While the digital renditions of these well-known characters aren’t the most flattering, their conversations felt thoughtfully written and helped to establish my lowborn place within the setting.

Soon enough, though, Kingsroad lets go of your hand and allows you to roam free across the countryside, providing a choice of campaign quests and side missions to follow, as well as plenty of points of interest to chase on your map. The open world of Kingsroad gave me the freedom to explore this (mostly) faithfully reimagined Westeros, and I enjoyed riding across snowy plateaus and uncovering the secrets of curious stone architecture nestled on the horizon. But the initial exhilaration of high fantasy galavanting wore off quickly as the edges of developer Netmarble’s fantasy panopticon started to show.

For every delicate snowflake at Castle Black or butterfly dancing in Winterfell, there were plenty more low-poly fruit trees, bouncy grass patches, and possessed weapons to pick at the sheen. I admire the sheer scale of the open world Kingsroad is offering, but it’s lacking the visual consistency to make it realistic and immersive. As I soon noticed those cracks in the facade, Kingsroad started to feel like a game full of pulled punches, despite how promising it seemed at a distance.

This lack of polish extends to your movement on both foot and horseback – ice skating would be the most fitting comparison. When exploring the frosty reaches of the North, this sensation is strangely fitting. However, it became wholly frustrating when it persisted while charting the sunny coastal areas near Highgarden, especially when attempting to complete the occasional platforming puzzles dotted around the icon-covered map. Typically, I was only one slip away from falling down an unscalable hillside, or worse, into a camp of fierce opponents with no way out. Up close, the animations also err on the eerie side in cutscenes. My character would often deliver a wide-eyed death stare, and I couldn't take them seriously as they’d burn holes in the townsfolk’s skulls as they explained their heart wrenching tragedies.

Speaking of the citizens of Westeros, their heads and eyes wobble around like strange marionettes during conversations, which dampens the atmosphere considerably. It’s a shame, because their dialogue does a great job of affirming the grim, corrupt cloud that hangs over the continent as winter approaches. I felt particularly bad laughing when an old lady thanked me for saving her daughter from being eaten by Ramsay Bolton’s dogs. Unfortunately, the most egregious offenders are often Kingsroad’s recreations of characters from the show. Memorable players, like Nymeria Sand and Varys, surface as uncanny valley clones of their likenesses. I’ll be seeing yassifed Cersei in my nightmares for many moons to come…

Beyond exploration, the bulk of your time in Kingsroad is split between investing in complex resource management systems at your homestead and completing multi-stage quests and battles out in the world. As such, you can find a plethora of challenges that boost both of these areas, like dungeon crawls, bandit camps, occupied villages, and giant mythical beasts, all of which reward you handsomely for spilling blood by the gallon. How efficiently you blend your time between these two aspects is integral to maintaining a solid pace within the grind-heavy progression system – alas, a lack of technical balance makes succeeding in this endeavour profoundly painful.

The trouble begins with the combat, which is a total mixed bag. While your actions feel pleasantly grounded, and rugged blows always arrive with flashy particle-heavy animations, the process begins to feel overfamiliar fast. Despite the solid variety of moves available – light, heavy, and special attacks, as well as decent dodge and parry options – inaccurate hit boxes consistently hampered my attempts at strategy. Occasionally, I would need to use my head a little and skulk around an area to remove edge threats, though those tactical moments arrived few and far between. It says something unflattering that Kingsroad feels almost identical at 60 hours as it did at 20.

You can specialise and upgrade your moveset in combat with traits and skill trees, too, but they do little to impact how the combat feels in motion. Kingsroad gives the impression of having useful Traits by putting options like learning to parry and crafting arrows up at the top of the trees, but as you work your way down, many of the lower options offer small percentage-based improvements to defense and attack that barely make a dent. So as your sparkly slashes lose their lustre, you’re often left cycling through the same few enemies and combos until the battle is won. It seems as though the architecture of a solid combat system is there, but much like the rest of Kingsroad, it’s all facade with no foundation.

Still, what hampers the fun of Kingsroad most of all are the frequently appearing and appropriately-named Momentum roadblocks. Similar to Destiny’s Gear Score, Kingsroad tallies up the quality of all your equipment, accessories, and skills into one neat number called your Momentum Score. These pesky little digits are the cruel gatekeepers of story content, forcing you to scour the map for dull side objectives that can juice the numbers and shuffle you towards the next episode.

While I’m more than happy to invest in grind-heavy games like World of Warcraft Classic and no stranger to mobile-minded progress gating, the Momentum system in Kingsroad is a particularly brutish arbiter that doesn’t allow you to get crafty or punch above your weight by taking on more challenging enemies. Instead, imposing forces appear with a skull icon over their head, their damage and health ratings untouchably high. But as soon as you inch over the Momentum line, the fight shifts dramatically in your favour. This black and white process neutralises any sense of gamesmanship, and frequently forced me into hours of toil to get back to the story I was, for the most part, enjoying.

When you’re ready to take some time out from the combat, you can invest more in the slower-paced aspects of Kingsroad, namely the tedious Estate Management side game. As the last remaining heir to Lord Tyre, his homestead, Renan’s Rest, becomes your project. As is to be expected, helping this dilapidated village flourish rewards you with the tools necessary to beef up your arsenal, and gives you a place to spend all those resources you’ve been hoarding by completing missions – though the process of cleaning up this town is about as much fun as cleaning your actual room.

While the jeweller and the forge are convenient additions that allow you to craft wearable items, the most valuable activity is embarking on gacha-based Artefact Expeditions. You’ll spend resources to hire workers and send them into the wild to find more resources, as well as historical items called Relics you can then leverage to further bolster your Momentum. Similar to other gacha game systems, you’re guaranteed a high-quality item after a set amount of runs, but a standard expedition takes eight actual hours to complete, which is a frustrating turnaround when not every run guarantees a good haul. That is, unless you’re willing to pay real money to speed things up.

That brings us to the elephant in the room. Almost every activity in Kingsroad can be expedited with the use of cold hard cash, which translates to Iron Bank Marks in-game. Of course, you can pay to complete an aforementioned expedition early, or buy higher-rarity expedition wagons by the dozen that don’t take time to complete. Stuck behind a Momentum block? Just purchase Gold to speedrun your jewellery maker’s upgrades and smelt higher-rated necklaces and rings to jolt your score. Typically, you can only fast travel by making your way to a special signpost first, and there’s a copper fee for each warp – but you can fast travel from anywhere for free if you pay for the premium option. Behind nearly every aggravating system in Kingsroad is a far more user-friendly one, but only if you’re willing to cough up the dough. It seems intent to toe the line between being intentionally frustrating and passably functional, subtly egging you on to pay up rather than sit through the repetitive, time-consuming activities necessary to proceed.

While it’s to be expected that there will be premium aspects in a free-to-play game available on mobile devices (in addition to Steam), the overwhelming flood of paid subscriptions, resource packs, and confounding currencies feels like a heartbreaking affront to Game of Thrones fans, like myself, who have been begging for a fully-fledged Westeros RPG similar to this. Across the 60 hours I’ve played so far, I’ve felt guilty for slashing down innocent defectors and filled with joy for feeding the starving smallfolk. It's clear Netmarble wants you to feel like you’re making a difference in this world, but it’s also just as keen to remind you that you can make a difference quicker if you’re willing to enter your credit card details first. It’s sad to see so much effort put into the underlying concept of a Game of Thrones adventure like this only for it to be tarnished by microtransactions and the repetitive gameplay loops that enable them.

Let's make this simple: You want to know if there are any post- or mid-credits scenes in Karate Kid: Legends. The answer is yes!

Well, what do you call it when a movie ends, they cut to a title card, but then they immediately cut to another scene? Let’s call it a starts-credit scene. It would be hard to miss, but if you had to pee and were thinking of leaping out of your seat the second it seemed the movie was over, well, you shouldn’t.

Full spoilers for the entire movie follow!

The prophecy of six movies and six seasons of a TV show – wait, was that a thing? – has been fulfilled, as the Karate Kid franchise returns to theaters in Karate Kid: Legends. Though it is opening just a few months after the conclusion of the hit Netflix series Cobra Kai, the filmmakers have stressed this is a standalone story and that while Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) is in both, fans shouldn’t expect the film to continue Cobra Kai storylines, as we shift focus to a new Karate Kid, Li Fong (Ben Wang). Still, it was hard not to wonder if there would be any overt connections between the two beyond Daniel’s presence - or if fans should actually worry that the film would outright contradict the series in any way.

Ultimately, while the movie sticks to that standalone promise pretty strongly, and Daniel actually has a relatively small role, there are two scenes that touch upon other aspects of the larger Karate Kid franchise - specifically tied to The Karate Kid Part II and, yes, Cobra Kai.

The Karate Kid Part II Connection (and Continuity Error)

Karate Kid: Legends has been marketed as a movie where Li Fong gets trained by two legends from Karate Kid history - Daniel LaRusso and Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han. This is pretty notable because Mr. Han’s only appearance prior to this was alongside Jaden Smith in 2010’s The Karate Kid, a film that was intended at the time to be an outright remake of the 1984 original. And while it changed the character names and locations, it used nearly every notable story beat from the 1984 film. All of which makes it pretty funny that it’s now been retconned to be part of the larger Karate Kid/Cobra Kai universe, since it means we just have to accept Mr. Han and Mr. Miyagi had remarkably similar experiences as widowed handymen who were secretly martial arts masters that ended up mentoring and befriending a bullied young boy who moved into the building they worked in… And then entered them in a tournament where they could face their bully… And one night drunkenly broke down and spoke about their dead family to the kid they were training... And so on…

But hey, the universe works in mysterious ways, and I guess maybe it’s even more cosmic that Han and Miyagi lived such similar lives since it turns out they were really good friends whose families had been bonded together for literal centuries! Legends reveals that the two were longtime pals and we even get a photoshopped image of Pat Morita and Jackie Chan in the mid-1980s together to prove it.

Legends actually opens with a flashback scene pulled from The Karate Kid Part II to dive into the bond between the Miyagi and Han families. In Part II, when Daniel traveled with Miyagi to Okinawa, Miyagi explained to him how in the year 1625, his ancestor, fisherman Shimpo Miyagi, got drunk on his boat and woke up to find himself off the coast of China. He would return to Okinawa a decade later with a Chinese wife and two children, also now knowing the secret of Miyagi family karate, bringing karate to Okinawa for the first time in the process.

However, Legends transitions from this scene between Daniel and Miyagi into animation accompanied by a soundalike for the late Pat Morita (is it an actual human or AI? Who can say these days?) that goes into specifics we didn’t hear in The Karate Kid Part II. Here, Miyagi says that it was the kung fu experts in the Han family who Shimpo encountered and learned from, and that is what forged a bond that has lasted to the present day between the two families.

Oh, and a side note fanboy rant: Karate Kid: Legends literally begins with this flashback scene, alongside onscreen text that says “Okinawa, 1986.” 1986 is the year The Karate Kid Part II was released, yes, but that’s not the year that movie took place in! The Karate Kid Part II is set the summer after Daniel won the All-Valley in December 1984 in the first movie. Hence, it’s the summer of 1985. They make sure to get this right on Cobra Kai when referencing Part II’s events (and hell, when referencing The Karate Kid Part III as well, which takes place later in 1985), so it is odd and annoying that no one noticed this error in the entire process of completing this film, when plenty of Karate Kid/Cobra Kai fans can spot it instantly. Sigh… End rant.

Li’s Three Dads (Can Fight)

Karate Kid: Legends is actually rather misleading in terms of marketing, because yes, Li ends up being trained by Mr. Han and Daniel together for this film’s big tournament, the New York-based 5 Boroughs. But none of that happens – and we don’t even see Daniel outside of that old Part II footage – until the second half of the movie. The first half follows Li moving to New York with his mom (Ming-Na Wen) where, at first, he’s having the traditional Karate Kid new kid in town path of falling for a friendly cute girl he meets (Sadie Stanley as Mia) whose ex-boyfriend (Aramis Knight as Connor) turns out to be a bullying a-hole who’s also a seemingly unbeatable karate champion. But one big difference this time is that Li actually is a rather formidable kung fu fighter already, thanks to the training he received back in China from Mr. Han - he’s just not ready for someone as skilled as Connor yet.

But the other big difference is that the film then takes a huge detour from other Karate Kid films for quite awhile when Li bonds with Mia’s dad, Victor (Joshua Jackson), an ex-boxer turned pizza place owner who’s attempting a boxing comeback in order to quickly make money he needs to pay back a loan from the dangerous O’Shea (Tim Rozon). O’Shea is also the guy who runs the Demolition karate school that trains Connor, so basically think of him as Kreese from the original Karate Kid… if he also had a side hustle as a mobster/loan shark type.

After Li helps Victor fight off some of O’Shea’s goons, Victor is amazed at his fighting prowess and asks the kid to help him train to get back into fighting shape - and pass on some of his kung fu techniques for punching and dodging. Li accepts, and for a surprising amount of the first half of its run time Karate Kid: Legends does a fun twist on the usual underdog story, with the young teen character mentoring the older character on how to fight.

However, in Victor’s big comeback fight, his opponent goes for some brutal sucker punches at O’Shea’s orders, sending Victor to the hospital. With Connor still harassing Li and Li now wanting to help Victor and Mia get the money they still need to pay off Victor’s debt, he is convinced by Mr. Han – who comes from China to see him – to enter the 5 Boroughs tournament, which comes with a snazzy $50,000 prize for the winner. Mr. Han will of course help train him, but he can’t do it alone, because the 5 Boroughs is a karate tournament, not kung fu. So it’s off to Los Angeles and to Mr. Miyagi’s house (AKA Miyagi-Do Karate Dojo to Cobra Kai fans) to recruit a reluctant Daniel LaRusso to help, with Han explaining his friendship with Miyagi - though you’d think Daniel might already know about him?

Karate Kid: Legends Ending Explained

Soon enough, as Han predicts, Daniel does come to New York and he and Han team up to get Li ready for the tournament in just a few days time, using his foundation of kung fu to build upon to teach him Miyagi karate. Daniel also gives Li a headband he found among Miyagi’s belongings that he believes is connected to the bond between the Hans and the Miyagis and the idea of “two branches, one tree.”

And then Li gets his ass kicked in the tournament and loses to Connor!

Just kidding, Li beats Connor, and it being a Karate Kid movie, he does it using a special move he’d practiced earlier, of course - this one a fancy kick his late brother taught him, with an added second slide move suggested by Daniel, since Connor already has seen and countered that kick on its own in a previous skirmish the two had.

Does Karate Kid: Legends Have a Mid- or Post-Credits Scene?

As mentioned above, Karate Kid: Legends does have an additional scene – two, actually – though they appear almost immediately after the film appears to end, rather than true “mid-credits” scenes, since no credits actually run before they appear.

After Li wins, Victor holds him up triumphantly to the cheering crowd and we get the traditional Karate Kid freeze frame on Li and then cut to the movie’s logo filling the screen… Except then, instead of the closing credits beginning, we get the two back-to-back scenes that actually wrap up the story.

In the first scene, Victor is opening a new second location for his pizza place, with Li and Mia assisting. Han is there too alongside Li’s mom, though he mentions he will be returning to China soon, while Li says something about a pizza delivery to a notably far address.

With both the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro, the visual experience on Sony’s console is incredible, especially when paired with the right TV for gaming. Playing games at 4K resolution and 60fps on that new PS5 Pro is fantastic, but to really get in the game, you need the audio experience to match. You’ll do justice in a home theater setup with the proper 7.1 speakers or a great soundbar, but you probably don’t want to be rattling your walls at all times. That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice sound quality – one of the most important PS5 accessories is a good gaming headset, and there are plenty out there.

Here, I’ve rounded up my recommendations for the best PS5 headsets you can buy now. I’ve also split my picks into several categories to make the choice easier for you since prices vary and each headset emphasizes different features and qualities that may matter more to you than others. For example, the Pulse Elite is one of the best picks for PS5 since it’s a Sony first-party product that features some nice platform integration. But if you’re willing to spend more for pure audio quality, the Audeze Maxwell is an easy choice. And if you want to ditch having something clamping over your head, the SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds elevate earbuds to the headset levels of performance.

TL;DR - These Are the Best PS5 Headsets

It's worth noting that from now until June 11 is Sony's PS5 Days of Play sale, which features several deals on hardware and games. This includes accessories like headsets and controllers; unfortunately, it does not include the Pulse Elite or Pulse 3D headsets. However, you can get deep discounts on the Pulse Explore gaming earbuds, the Sony InZone H9 headset, and the InZone noise-cancelling earbuds, all of which we have reviewed and gave high marks.

When it comes to our picks, you may notice some crossover in our best overall gaming headsets roundup since many of them have PS5-specific models that take advantage of the console’s specific features. There are also a few first-party options that make the most of the PS5 with features like Tempest 3D spatial audio and further customization that’s native to the platform. Regardless of what you choose to pick up, you’ll end up with something great, which I can attest to since I have first-hand experience with every product I recommend. Everything from sound quality and comfort to ease-of-use and feature set are all factors in deciding which headsets get my stamp of approval. Below, you can read my detailed explanations behind each pick to help you decide which one is right for you. As new headsets come out and I test more of them, I’ll update this list to make sure you’re looking at the top picks.

If you're looking for discounts on the best PS5 accessories, check out our picks for the best PS5 deals.

This guide contains contributions by Danielle Abraham.

1. SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro

Best Overall PS5 Headset

2. PlayStation Pulse Elite

Best First-Party PS5 Headset

3. PlayStation Pulse 3D

Best PS5 Headset for 3D Audio

4. Audeze Maxwell

Best High-End PS5 Headset

5. Turtle Beach Stealth 500

Best Budget PS5 Headset

6. HyperX Cloud III

Best Wired PS5 Headset

7. Alienware Pro Headset

Best Noise-Canceling PS5 Headset

8. Turtle Beach Atlas Air

Best Open-Back PS5 Headset

9. SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds

Best PS5 Earbuds

PS5 Headsets FAQ

How do you determine sound quality on a gaming headset?

There are ways to extract audio data from a headset to get a look at how they handle various frequencies, like artificial ear and audio analyzing software, but that alone won’t be able to tell you what the actual audio experience is like. Admittedly, it can be quite abstract to have someone describe what games, music, or movies sound like. Paying attention to descriptors like distortion, drowning, cleanliness, or balance when talking about frequencies are common ways to explain the sound quality of a device, and at some point you need to trust the reviewer’s trained ear.

There’s also the factor of driver size, the actual hardware that delivers the audio. Generally, bigger drivers means better potential for cleaner and bolder sound, but again, that alone isn’t going to determine whether or not a headset sounds good. Quality can also come down to spatial or positional audio which gives the impression of sound effects having distance and direction – it’s important for competitive settings but can make for audio more suited for cinematic games.

As I talk about further down, the PS5 in particular has embraced 3D audio in a way other platforms have not. It may seem like a gimmick at first glance, but when done right, it can give you a genuinely immersive experience – not just for direction and distance, but also verticality in the sound design. This gives headsets like the Pulse Elite and Pulse 3D an advantage when picking out the best PS5 headset since 3D audio definitely affects how good games can sound.

What makes gaming headsets different from headphones?

Gaming headsets tend to pack additional features that support the actual gaming experience, some of which may be gimmicky, but many that I would call essential. Not everyone wants to have a standalone microphone, for example, but the key feature that separates a headset from headphones is a built-in microphone. While most headset mics are passable in terms of clarity that can suffice for in-game communication, some go the extra mile to provide better clarity or mitigate ambient noise spilling through.

Good gaming headsets are generally tuned to pick up on certain sound effects and have a more intimate sound profile since you’re an active participant in the experience rather than a passive observer (especially in competitive games). When it comes to wireless capabilities, most gaming headsets come with 2.4GHz USB dongles for the lowest latency possible – something that wireless headphones rarely include. As you’ll see in the next section, software suites for USB-based headsets (wireless or otherwise) have gotten sophisticated and sometimes offer a level of customization for specific gaming scenarios.

Should I go wired or wireless for a gaming headset?

Of course, it depends on your needs. On PC, I still gravitate towards wired headsets and headphones since I tend to prefer the sound profiles of a properly-tuned analog audio device (I also tend to forget about charging devices until it’s too late, but that’s a me-problem). However, battery life and latency of modern gaming headsets have come so far that you rarely, if ever, see them being issues on the latest releases. Good software suites and apps can also help you get more out of your headset by letting you customize EQ settings or swap sound profiles for certain games.

Wireless headsets are also sometimes capable of multi-device connectivity and simultaneous Bluetooth, which makes them versatile and opens them up to more use-cases (especially swapping to a mobile connection within seconds). Even though they tend to be more expensive, there’s a lot of upside to going with a wireless gaming headset, just be sure you know what you’ll be getting out of it.

On PS5, you're better going off with a wireless headset, though. Since 3.5mm analog wired audio devices have to go through the DualSense controller's, there's an upper limit to how good they can sound. Don't get it twisted, though – headsets and headphones can still sound great when fed through the DualSense, but it'll be diminishing returns when using audiophile-type gear. After all, the console experience is best when free of wires.

Is 3D audio worth it?

Made specifically for the PS5, Tempest 3D AudioTech to simulate 360-degree audio in supported PS5 games. That means you can tell the direction the audio is coming from, be it a helicopter overhead or enemy fire coming from whichever direction, it's an experiential marvel more so than an advantage. It’s similar to Windows Sonic on the Xbox Series X/S, but Sony has embraced it to greater extent and its implementation on the PS5 is a really neat perk. And to boot, plenty of the best PS5 headsets support Sony’s 3D audio, including the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7P, Sony Pulse 3D, and PlayStation Pulse Elite wireless headset.

The Sony Pulse 3D does a good job showing off the PS5’s next-gen 3D audio tech, whereby noises and sounds are emulated to appear in a 360-degree space around your ears, and even expressing a greater level of verticality to positional sound in some instances. It’s straightforward to set up, comfortable, and surprisingly affordable for an official PlayStation headset, and a great choice if you want to see exactly what the PS5’s 3D audio can do.

Do you need a Bluetooth adapter for your PS5?

If you're hoping to connect wireless headphones and headsets to your PS5, you will need a compatible Bluetooth adapter. The PS5 does not currently support direct pairing with any Bluetooth headphones for audio output. However, when it comes to latency, you're best served using headsets with 2.4GHz dongles, which all our recommended headsets come with.

What is PlayStation Link?

PlayStation Link is Sony’s latest wireless connectivity standard that provides a lightning-fast connection, lossless audio, and ultra-low latency with easy switching between different devices. The PlayStation Portal is the only gaming device with the technology built-in. So, you’ll need the PS Link USB dongle when using the PS5, PS5 Slim, PS5 Pro, and PC. Still, at the moment, only a couple of Sony’s peripherals have this technology, including the PlayStation Pulse Elite wireless headset in this guide.

Ariana Grande is continuing her acting run with a starring role in Meet the Parents 4 alongside Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro.

Details on Grande’s latest flick come from THR, who says the pop artist-turned-Wicked star will be a part of the comedy run’s newest installment. Universal is currently set to reunite the Focker and Byrnes families on November 25, 2026.

Elden Ring Nightreign is upon us! Time to choose your Nightfarer and set out into Limveld in hopes of defeating the Nightlord before you’re lost to the rains. We’ve teamed up with Maxroll to bring you a variety of guides to help you get started, introduce you to each of the Nightfarers and help you navigate the dangers of Limveld.

Getting Started in Nightreign

Maxroll’s Nightreign beginner's guide goes over everything you need to get started: an introduction to each of the 8 playable characters, an explanation of the game's central hub, nagivating Limveld, the basics of combat, and how to handle the Nightlords, before wrapping everything up with a bit of information on Nightreign's metaprogression systems.

Maxroll Nightreign Character Guides

Learn more about each of the game’s Nightfarers, how their skills work, and some additional information about each of their unique playstyles.

Wylder

Wylder is a well-rounded character, suitable for beginners. His Sixth Sense passive allows you to cheat death and stay up through one instance of fatal damage. As a generalist, he doesn't excel with any specific weapons, but can use most martial armaments. His favorite weapon is the Greatsword.

Wylder Character Guide

Guardian

The Guardian is Nightreign's tank class. He's most comfortable wielding a large shield and a weapon that can be used while guarding, such as a Halberd, Rapier, or Hand Crossbow. The Guardian deals less damage than the other Nightfarers, but has immense durability and multiple ways to disrupt foes.

Guardian Character Guide

Ironeye

Ironeye is the bow specialist, though his high Dexterity makes him proficient with a variety of other melee weapons such as daggers and curved swords. Unfortunately, his low durability makes him a poor choice as a front-line fighter, so use melee weapons with caution. Overall, his abilities are simple to use, making him an excellent choice for beginners.

Ironeye Character Guide

Duchess

The Duchess is a dagger-wielding Nightfarer who excels at evasive action to weave in and out of combat. Her starting weapon comes with a potent character skill, enchanting your blade with the Magic affinity for extra damage. In addition, she can adeptly wield Glintstone Sorceries due to her high intelligence, and she has decent Faith scaling for Incantations as well. For the Duchess, look out for weapons with the Magic or Frost Affinity, and those that can trigger statuses like Frostbite or Blood Loss.

Duchess Character Guide

Raider

The Raider has high Strength and uses large/colossal weapons to smash his foes. While he can use a variety of martial armaments well, his FP is extremely low, making it difficult to use weapon skills. The Raider's inherent durability makes him difficult to stagger, helping him ensure that his blows connect.

Raider Character Guide

Revenant

The Revenant is a support class, though her high Faith allows her to use offensive Incantations with ease. However, her ability to deal damage is limited as she has no method of FP recovery. Her passive ability summons the shades of foes to fight at your side, distracting enemies and dealing damage.

Revenant Character Guide

Recluse

A spellcaster adept who can use her character skill to restore FP, the Recluse excels at unleashing devastation from afar. Her stats favor Sorceries and Incantations, but she can use Magic, Frost, Fire, Holy, and Lightning affinity weapons. This character is a bit more difficult to play as you don't have as many defensive options, and need to manage FP in addition to your Health and Stamina. However, if you do everything correctly, she deals significant damage.

Recluse Character Guide

Executor

The Executor excels in single combat. He has high Dexterity and Arcane, giving him access to a majority of the game's smaller weapons. Look out for Katanas in particular, as these scale off of Dexterity while also triggering the Blood Loss status to enemies. Position carefully because the Executor has low durability.

Executor Character Guide

Nightreign Map Guides

The Limveld map is teeming with points of interest to explore. Maxroll’s Limveld Map & Key Locations guide teaches you about the various encounters, what mob types to expect, and the rewards you can earn for clearing them.

As you explore, you'll encounter random events known as Raid Events which often involve fighting a challenging foe. If you clear the raid, you earn a valuable Power for the remainder of your run; learn more with Maxroll’s Raid Events guide.

Defeating Nightlords unlocks Shifting Earth events. Each of these events transforms a quadrant of the map into a unique zone, frequently filled with lots of bosses to fight - and similar to Raid Events, they award a special power when cleared. Learn more with Maxroll’s Shifting Earth event guide.

Nightreign Resources

Explore Roundtable Hold, Nightreign’s main hub area. Here, you can switch your characters, perform Relic Rites to prepare for the next expedition, test things in the Sparring ground, read up on the game with the Visual Codex, explore your character’s story at the Journal, and set out from the Table of Lost Grace to do battle against a Nightlord. Learn about all this in Maxroll's Roundtable Hold guide.

Relics and Vessels are part of Nightreign’s metaprogression system. At the end of each run, you earn Relics and Murk, which you can spend at the Small Jar Bazaar. Some Relics have random affixes that may or may not be useful, whereas others (often earned through character quests or by defeating bosses) have fixed stats and are quite powerful. As you progress in the game, you also unlock additional Vessels, letting you equip a different Relic combination on your Nightfarer. Learn more about this system with Maxroll’s Relics and Vessels guide.

Many of the Sorceries and Incantations in Nightreign belong to a specific Spell School. The Spell School determines which modifiers buff your spells - for example, a Glintstone Sorcery won't benefit from bonuses to Godslayer Incantations. This isn't very clearly explained, though, so if you’re curious on how to buff your Spells, check out Maxroll’s Sorcery and Incantation School Guide.

Maxroll's Nightreign Database

Browse Maxroll’s Elden Ring Nightreign Database to learn more about the Weapons, skills, spells, Relics, Vessels, Relic modifiers, Talismans, passive traits, and Nightfarers available in the game. Each item has a page with expanded tooltip information, which you can use to discover hidden secrets about Nightreign’s weapons (or just look for fun lore tidbits).

• Armaments include Daggers, Swords, Thrusting Swords, Curved Swords, Axes, Hammers, Spears, Halberds, Staves, Seals, Fist Weapons, Bows, Crossbows, and off-hand items.
• Then you have Skills, weapon arts that consume FP to trigger additional effects.
• Sorceries and Incantations offer buffs, healing, and ways to unleash devastation on your foes.
• Vessels and Relics are Nightreign's metaprogression systems.
• Talismans, found during your run, give your Nightfarer a small bonus.
• Weapon Passives and Passive Character Traits function similarly to boons in most roguelikes, adding temporary power during a run.

Written by IGN Staff with help from Maxroll.

King of the Hill enjoyed a long, respectable run on the air, spanning well over a decade and 13 seasons in total. But fans still crave more propane and propane accessories, and creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels aim to deliver. We’ve just gotten our first look at King of the Hill Season 14, a streaming revival debuting on Hulu on August 4.

King of the Hill is hardly the first animated sitcom to rise from the grave in the streaming era, but perhaps more than any other revival, it’s one with a lot of storytelling potential. In fact, Season 14 has an opportunity to address the original show’s greatest flaw. Let’s explore what that flaw was and why things are so different now.

King of the Hill’s Unchanging Continuity

King of the Hill is similar to its animated sitcom contemporaries like The Simpsons and Family Guy in that the series features a mostly static and unchanging continuity. These shows are procedural comedies, not episodic. The sleepy town of Arlen, Texas remained largely the same from the premiere to the series finale. Hank Hill (Judge) was always the stalwart family man who struggled with displays of affection and connecting with his oddball son. His wife Peggy (Kathy Najimy) was always the ambitious overachiever who overestimated her own abilities. Their son Bobby (Pamela Adlon) was always the precocious preteen who strove to live up to his father’s rigid expectations.

In some ways, that eternal, unchanging continuity could be an asset. It made King of the Hill an easy series to watch and enjoy. You never had to worry about missing an episode and losing track of the tangled web of the characters’ kooky lives. The series was animated comfort food, like a burger cooked with the clean-burning power of propane.

But the problem with staying on the air for 14 years and never changing is that the formula, no matter how good, inevitably grows stale. That was certainly a problem that increasingly came to dog the series in its later seasons. How many episodes revolved around some variation of this theme - Bobby finds an unlikely hobby he excels at, and Hank comes to grudgingly approve of his son?

At some point, the unchanging nature of the series became grating rather than comforting. Will Hank ever get in touch with his repressed emotions? Will deranged conspiracy theorist Dale (the late Johnny Hardwick) ever wake up to the truth about Nancy (Ashley Gardner) and John Redcorn (Jonathan Joss), who had an affair right under his nose for much of the original series? Will Bill (Stephen Root) ever fill the gaping void in his life? Because the counter always reset to zero at the end of each episode, the answers to all of these questions remained “No.”

King of the Hill may be similar to The Simpsons and Family in this regard, but there was never any reason that needed to be the case. This is a much more low-key, character-driven alternative to those shows. King of the Hill’s genius was always in how it found depth and nuance in these goofy protagonists while never punching down or settling for cheap “Look at these dumb hillbillies!” humor. But the series also held itself back by not allowing for more evolution and change over time.

As it is, there were occasional instances in the original series where time did pass and things did change slightly. Early on in the series, Bobby and his friends aged up a year, allowing them to deal with the throes of puberty. Hank’s cantankerous father Cotton (Toby Huss) was eventually killed off. Luanne (the late Brittany Murphy) eventually married and gave birth to a daughter. Those were all moments of genuine change and progression. But ultimately, they were just the exceptions that proved the rule. Nothing ever really changes that much in Arlen.

What’s Different in Season 14

Until now. Having been off the air for 15 years, King of the Hill is finally coming back and actually reflecting that large gap in time. We know that Bobby is 21 years old now, suggesting there’s about eight years separating the timeline of Season 13 and Season 14. Here’s Hulu’s official summary of the new season:

“The season 14 revival picks up several years after we last saw the Hill family - Hank and Peggy Hill are now retired and return to a changed Arlen after years of working in Saudi Arabia; and Bobby is 21 and living his best life while navigating adulthood as a chef in Dallas.”

The newly revamped intro sequence hints at some of the major changes that have unfolded in those eight years. We see Hank and Peggy make their big move to Saudi Arabia. The street deals with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. A new neighbor moves in and takes Hank’s place. Dale apparently runs for mayor (whether he was successful or not will surely be revealed in the premiere).

Right away, there’s a lot of meat for the writers and actors to chew on now that time has genuinely passed. Presumably, Hank and Peggy’s struggle to reintegrate into Arlen life is going to be a big focus going forward. Saudi Arabia seems like the last place the stuffy Hank would ever want to live. How did that experience change him? Is he more open to new people and new experiences after having spent significant time halfway across the world.

And what of Bobby? How has he fared after moving to Dallas, pursuing his dream, and no longer living under his father’s roof? Has he found his calling in life, or is something still missing?

Dale is also a subject of intense curiosity, and not just because Huss will be taking over for Hardwick. There’s, of course, the big elephant in the room in terms of his relationship with Nancy and whether he ever put two and two together about John Redcorn. Honestly, it’s debatable whether the series could ever deliver a satisfying conclusion to that love triangle. But beyond that, how is Dale faring in a world where ridiculous conspiracy theories have become the norm? Is he thriving in this post-Pizzagate climate, or does he view his fellow conspiracy nuts with disdain? And is there a sliver of a chance that he’d actually make for a decent politician?

There are so many other questions that the revival can explore now. Did John Redcorn ever achieve any resolution with Joseph (Breckin Meyer)? Did Strickland Propane crash and burn without Hank around to put out Buck’s (Stephen Root) fires? That’s to say nothing of how Judge, Daniels, and the writers intend on handling the fates of Luanne and Lucky (the late Tom Petty) and their daughter, Gracie.

Clearly, there’s no shortage of compelling material for the revival to mine in Season 14. The series wasted so much potential in its original run by refusing to progress the story. Finally, that’s no longer an issue.

There are a great many questions that need to be answered in these ten episodes. And with any luck, there will be more new seasons to come. But the danger here is that King of the Hill could stick around long enough to fall back into old habits. Once the new status quo is established, the series could become just as resistant to change and the passage of time.

Let’s hope that won’t be the case. Let’s hope the series is now more willing to maintain an overarching continuity that evolves with time. The show doesn’t need to suddenly become deeply plot-driven or progress in real time, but some connective tissue between episodes would be ideal. After so many years of watching life in Arlen revert back to normal each week, let’s see what happens when Hank and the gang actually have to contend with change on a regular basis.

For more, check out the biggest TV shows coming in 2025.

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

It’s been exactly two years since we said goodbye to Succession. Now, series creator Jesse Armstrong is back to fill that Waystar Royco-sized hole in your heart. Mountainhead, a new movie starring Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, Jason Schwartzman, and Cory Michael Smith, hits HBO and Max this weekend.

The film tells the story of four ultra-rich tech titans who huddle up for a luxe mountain weekend as the world reels from the AI-induced consequences of one of their creations. Smith portrays Venis, the Elon Musk-esque richest man in the world and head of the catastrophe-causing social platform in question. He says the immature mogul bears a striking similarity to one of his previous characters.

Speaking with IGN Smith, who also played The Riddler in the series Gotham, agreed when co-star Youssef asked him point-blank: “Are you The Riddler of this group?”

“I think there are some similarities,” Smith says. “I really appreciate how insular both of those characters are. They're really sort of stranded away from people and alone and backed in a corner, and all their behavior is sort of born from that. They're incredibly narcissistic people."

But that’s where the similarities end. As opposed to The Riddler, Mountainhead’s Venis doesn’t come across as overtly malevolent. And that may be even scarier. “It's like it doesn't feel evil," Smith continues. “It just feels like a kid who's out of control.”

Smith’s co-stars tried to bring some of that innocence to their own characters, who are hell-bent on upending the global order for the sake of their own bank accounts.

“In a lot of ways it was just this 14-year-old version of me,” Youssef says of his character, Jeff. “(He doesn’t) know when to stop joking about something that was annoying. The whole thing kind of does feel like a bunch of high schoolers. They're still underdogs in their own mind and they never developed emotionally. They're actually incredibly adept at pushing technology, but they don't understand people.”

Armstrong wrote, produced, shot, and edited Mountainhead in just a few months. And that urgency feels particularly relevant in a time when AI is threatening to burrow its way into every aspect of daily life. The speed in which the movie was made proved to be beneficial to the actors on set.

“Everybody felt very present the whole time,” Carell says. “Excited, happy, energized, and prepared. It was like a perfect experience. I was surprised how quickly and how efficiently something can be made. Jesse Armstrong just knows what he's doing. Everybody trusted one another. And I think my biggest takeaway was sometimes it's best not to overthink or second guess."

Schwartzman says shooting on location helped the cast immerse themselves completely in the story. “What Jesse did was (set up) the house like a (real) house. You could go anywhere you wanted, you could open a pantry, (and) there was food in it. Everything worked. You could (go to the bowling alley in the basement and) bowl (with) fruit. He made it available to us. It almost was not like a movie. It was like we were in this house and they were filming us.”

Carell, for his part, agrees. “We forgot we weren't billionaires.”

Mountainhead premieres May 31 at 12:01am PT / 3:01am ET on Max and 8pm PT/ET on HBO.

Let's make this simple: You want to know if there are any post- or mid-credits scenes in Bring Her Back. The answer is no, there are none.

Warning: The rest of this article contains full spoilers for Bring Her Back.

After making a distinct impression with their critically and commercially successful 2023 debut feature Talk To Me, all eyes were on twin filmmakers Danny and Michael Phillipou as they prepared their next project. That wound up being Bring Her Back, now premiering in theaters, but that wasn’t always going to be their second film. They were actually in talks to direct a live-action Street Fighter movie, but that fell through because of scheduling issues, leading the twins to refocus their efforts on their comfort zone: discomforting, low-budget horror films. Reviews for Bring Her Back, including IGN’s, have skewed positive, although with maybe not quite as unanimous praise as Talk To Me received.

Starring Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt and newcomer Sora Wong, Bring Her Back is high on gore and unsettling implications, but it also leaves a few too many things unexplained. Let’s dive in and explore all the details and questions we have about Bring Her Back.

Bring Her Back Ending Explained

If you’ve ever had concerns about the foster home system, Bring Her Back isn’t going to allay them. The film stars Sora Wong as Piper and Billy Barratt as Andy, an Australian younger stepsister and older stepbrother duo who are placed in foster care after the death of their father. Despite originally intending to place them in separate homes, Andy succeeds in convincing their caseworker Wendy (Sally-Anne Upton) to keep the pair together by emphasizing Piper’s blindness. With only three months until he turns 18, Andy plans to apply for guardianship of Piper once he comes of age so the pair can live on their own. Seems easy enough, until Sally Hawkins’ Laura comes into the picture as their new foster mother.

Initially presenting herself as a kind, temporary solution to Andy and Piper’s problems, Laura has several red flags flying over her head. She’s taking care of another child, Oliver, who doesn’t speak and seems to have unresolved violent tendencies. She is constantly dismissive of Andy while doting on Piper. She lets the kids get drunk after their father’s funeral just because it will be fun. And it quickly becomes clear she’s trying to mess with Andy’s mind by pouring her own urine onto his sleeping body so he thinks he’s wetting the bed. Anyone who’s seen a movie before will be able to tell Laura is bad news within her first few minutes of screentime, and if you were waiting for a twist on that… well, no, there isn’t one.

The big reveal here is that Laura is performing some kind of Satanic ritual she got off a VHS tape (do they just sell those at the corner store down in Australia?) that will allow her to resurrect the soul of her deceased biological daughter Cathy. Apparently you need three bodies to do it: the body of the person you’re trying to resurrect (Cathy, being kept in a freezer in Laura’s shed), the person you’re going to put the soul into (Piper, who is blind just like Cathy), and an intermediary in which to store the soul until the transfer is ready (Oliver, which is why he’s mute and also voraciously hungry). The movie is fuzzy on the details, but it appears that the intended vessel to take in the soul needs to be similar to the deceased and also needs to die in the same way, here, meaning drowning in Laura’s pool. But Laura first needs to get rid of Andy, so she frames him for attacking Piper in her sleep.

Despite having a troubled past, Andy insists to Wendy that Laura is up to no good. Wendy and Andy go back to Laura’s place, where Oliver has gone off the rails with hunger. He’s eaten all the food in the house, chowed down on the wooden countertop, and even taken bites out of Laura’s arm (and his own, for good measure). Wendy notices that Laura is bleeding when she arrives, leading Laura to freak out and demand that Wendy let her finish what she’s doing so Cathy can be resurrected. When it becomes clear that Wendy and Andy will expose her, Laura runs both of them over with her car, killing Wendy instantly, and then drowns an incapacitated Andy in a puddle in her driveway.

Laura goes to perform the ritual, which involves Oliver eating pieces of Cathy’s corpse that seem to contain her soul (?). Laura then takes Piper and tries to drown her in the pool. But she stops at the last second because a struggling Piper calls out “Mom!”, apparently awakening some level of remorse in her. Piper escapes, running out to the road where some passersby find her. Oliver, who is a missing child that Laura kidnapped, vomits up some brownish fluid (the soul, we guess) and returns to normal as police find him. Laura then takes what remains of Cathy’s body and cradles it in the pool as the authorities raid her house. The end.

Does Bring Her Back Have a Post-Credits Scene?

As mentioned above, Bring Her Back has no mid- or post-credits scenes. You're free to leave the theater once the credits start rolling. Those expecting some sort of final twist or even a tease for the Phillipous' next project (similar to what Osgood Perkins did in The Monkey), may come away disappointed. That's all there is.

Wait, Is That It?

The biggest surprise of Bring Her Back is that there isn’t much of a surprise at all. Just going by the premise and title, the exact movie you’re likely expecting is what takes place. A dark maternal figure is driven to incredible violence by her grief over a lost child, intending to resurrect them even if it means killing other children. The film doesn’t elaborate on Laura much outside of her past as a counselor, which is a detail that’s seemingly only there so we can have a scene where Andy lowers his guard and tells more of his backstory to her. Andy and Piper’s father being abusive and Andy hitting Piper once when she was younger are also just thrown in but not fully dealt with within the narrative.

We’re also curious about what this ritual entails and how it all works. We can broadly guess at the mechanics based on evidence in the film, like Oliver not being allowed to leave an area designated by a white painted circle around Laura’s property. But why is Oliver so hungry, to the point of chomping down on wood and a steak knife? Doesn’t he just need to eat part of Cathy to get the soul? Speaking of which, why does he only eat a small part of Cathy and not the entire corpse? And if he’s so violently hungry to the point of attacking Laura and even eating part of his own arm, how has Laura kept him under control all this time? And if he’s so important to Laura’s plans, why did she ever leave Oliver home alone with Andy? That last one was seemingly only done so that Andy (and the audience) can learn how messed up Oliver is by trying to eat the steak knife, but it makes no sense given Laura’s motivations.

Perhaps these questions were answered in deleted scenes, or maybe we’re thinking too hard about it. After all, it seems that Bring Her Back is more interested in freaking its audience out than making sure all of its logic is consistent. Either way, the movie is creepy and gory enough that we’re curious to see what comes next from these up-and-coming horror filmmakers.

What did you think of Bring Her Back? Let us know in the comments!

Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.

Directed by Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, Mountainhead exists in the same “eat the rich” satirical mode as the hit HBO series but hits a wall at every turn. A contained, stage-like production, it follows the reunion of four tech industry leaders and rips its plot from contemporary headlines about deep fakes and AI. However, it doesn’t engage with its characters, or its political material, beyond glancing blows. The result is a film that – despite its strong performances – constantly meanders, and feels distinctly malformed.

In a lavish mountain mansion above Park City, Utah, tech up-and-comer Hugo (Jason Schwartzman) – aka “Souperman,” or “Soups” – plays host to a gathering of his old friends, collectively known as the Brewsters. Eager to please, Hugo slots comfortably into the backdrop. Schwartzman is impressive at making himself feel small, though the flimsy writing leaves Hugo feeling like a vestigial tail, lacking any real purpose in the story.

Schwartzman’s co-leads, on the other hand, play immediately more well-rounded startup moguls, though this doesn’t necessarily make their characters good fits for Mountainhead either. Corey Michael Smith plays Venis, a character who skillfully hides the way critical news headlines affect him. Before he even arrives at the snowy getaway, he learns that his social media website has platformed so much misinformation that it’s led to violent outbursts worldwide (an allusion to Facebook’s admission that its lack of moderation resulted in real-world violence in Myanmar), allowing Smith to capture a mounting pressure en route to a potential explosion.

The oldest member of the closed circle is Randall – played by an intentionally distracted, disconnected Steve Carell – a successful investor whose secret illness shifts all his concerns towards uploading his consciousness to the Cloud (a technology still far in the future). And the fourth and final member of the group is Ramy Youssef’s altruistic Jeff, an unexpected arrival – given the words he and Venis have indirectly exchanged in the media – whose AI company excels at separating fact from fiction, potentially holding the keys to Venis’s problems.

As the quartet catches up – exchanging profanity-laced barbs that struggle to be snappy or amusing – global news headlines pushed to their phones and broadcast on television hint at a growing financial crisis, owing to violent hate crimes in volatile regions and a slew of other causes that feel tossed into the mix at random. What’s happening on the other side of characters’ screens isn’t as important as the impact it has on them – which is to say: their public image and their bottom lines. However, Mountainhead’s alignment between how the characters see the world and how the camera presents it to us – Hugo’s diminished importance, the half-baked news items, and so on – leads to a near-constant disconnect. In crafting a flimsy world outside the characters’ windows, Armstrong seldom clarifies the impending domino effects for them, resulting in empty drama when they begin making rash decisions.

Rather than letting the characters' thoughts, actions, and flagrant regulation-skirting speak for themselves, the mounting absurdity of their denial and desperate financial decisions is generally explained away in dialogue – as is the Randian significance of the title. Laying one’s thematic cards on the table isn’t inherently a bad thing, but in Mountainhead this usually takes the form of Jeff’s moral sermonizing, as though he were an embodiment of the movie’s conscience, directing us towards exactly how to feel about the unfolding turmoil. Any reaction shot that might’ve been given room to breathe (or to be awkwardly funny) instead finds its emotional pause filled with Jeff’s didactic explanations of why the other characters are in the wrong.

Beyond a point, it’s hard to wonder why Jeff is even part of this story – both as a character who, in all likelihood, wouldn’t associate with any of these people (or lead the kind of industry he does), and as a piece of the dramatic puzzle. It’s hard to truly classify Mountainhead as a satire, given how much it over-explains itself. It’s more of a straightforward PSA – but at least it has a fun musical score to prevent things from getting totally boring.

Armstrong may be a prolific writer and television showrunner, but this is his first real directorial effort beyond two short films in the 2010s, and his inexperience shows. Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind’s camera may be loose and free-flowing, but the filmmaking lacks the energy and urgency needed to make a story like this one click. The drama rarely contains a sense of clashing perspectives, or any real shared history beyond a few allusions to Venis and Jeff’s past disagreements. It plays, on the surface, like a late Succession episode in which existing tensions come to a head, only without the all robust pre-existing relationships to make the financial jargon interesting or the moral conundrums remotely challenging.

To fixate only on Wes Anderson’s whimsicality, as detractors and fans alike so often do, is to miss the moonrise kingdom for the trees. Yes, the man loves his fancifully artificial worlds, but they are not as airtight as they appear: The darkness of real life keeps breaching their colorful dollhouse walls. That was true of The Grand Budapest Hotel and Isle of Dogs – delightful capers that smuggled in timely warnings about creeping fascism. And it’s true, in a wry and almost perverse sense, of the writer-director’s latest concoction, The Phoenician Scheme, the first Wes Anderson movie in ages that feels less than the sum of its meticulously arranged parts. Though set, like many of his other films, in a hyper-stylized recreation of the past, this zany comedy feels awfully topical in its focus on a wealthy mogul pursuing profit without scruples, screwing over business partners, and subjecting the markets to his whims. What could be more provocative, right at this moment, than asking audiences to root for one of the richest men in the world?

Not that there’s anything terribly modern (or Muskian) about Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda, the dashing, amoral 1950s Euro industrialist Benicio del Toro plays with a deadpan squint in this spinning top of a movie. Our contemporary, real-life robber barons, the titans of tech, have no style or mystery to speak of. Korda has both to spare. He is a classic Andersonian protagonist: incorrigible, inscrutable, impeccably dressed, an absentee father of the kind Bill Murray and Gene Hackman memorably devised for Anderson. He may well be immortal, too. The Phoenician Scheme opens with a dramatic attempt on his life and premature report of his death – a plane crash that leaves him battered, bruised, but still breathing. It won’t be his last close call over the 100 minutes that follow. Unsuccessful assassination is a running gag.

Korda emerges from the hospital temperamentally unfazed but with a sudden conviction to pass down his empire to his only daughter, Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who he shipped off to a convent when she was young and who has devoted her life to the church. Can this novice really accept an inheritance of blood money, especially given the rumor that her father murdered her mother (and his other ex-wives as well)? Dramatically speaking, The Phoenician Scheme should really revolve around their tense reunion, and the clash of her moral principles with his lack thereof. But the relationship gets a little lost in Anderson's busy and, truth be told, rather arbitrary plot: an episodic road trip in which Korda dodges hired guns while attempting to rescue his business interests (including an investment in a fictional Middle Eastern territory called Greater Independent Phoenicia) from a cabal of price-fixing competitors working together to sever his hold on the economy.

Got all that? One could go on. The Phoneician Scheme certainly does, into bartering and banking and accounting. International finance is about as odd a fit for Wes Anderson as it was for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Truthfully, Korda’s quest to piece together enough investment money to stay afloat is really just an excuse to arrange variably amusing cameos from the director’s ever-growing troupe of regulars; there’s a diverting “who’s next” quality to this parade of familiar faces, as Anderson cues up appearances by Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Riz Ahmed, and a mightily bearded Benedict Cumberbatch. (While the costuming is as outrageously ornate as we've all come to expect of an Anderson production, this is among his more restrained dioramic recreations of a half-imagined past.)

Of the newcomers, Michael Cera makes the most memorable and funny impression as a lovestruck, goofily accented Norwegian entomologist moonlighting as Korda’s traveling assistant. Can this really be his first trip to Wes World? The Scott Pilgrim actor has an exaggerated neurosis that’s a perfect fit for Anderson’s gallery of melancholic cartoons, and he gets a fuller arc than most of the other there-and-gone caricatures. Meanwhile, Threapleton, a scion just like her character (she’s the daughter of Kate Winslet and filmmaker Jim Threapleton), pouts and glowers radiantly; if Liesl is the moral voice of this pop-up book, the young actress playing her complicates any saintliness, managing to make her religious conviction look at once earnest and inextricably tied to her resentment for her estranged bad dad.

For all the balls it puts in the air, The Phoenician Scheme is fairly straightforward, even a little flimsy compared to this great director’s body of drolly singular comedies. I found myself missing the intricacy and structural sophistication of his other recent work, like the movingly meta Asteroid City or the under-appreciated omnibus The French Dispatch. If there's a tension, it's between Anderson’s affinity for silly slapstick (including a hilarious game of horse in an underground train tunnel) and his more macabre sensibilities. Somehow, this is both his breeziest confection in years and his darkest, treating sudden death as comic punctuation. Is that a reflection of the ruthless worldview of a man like Korda, who sees almost everyone as expendable to his appetites and ambitions? Or is Anderson simply getting in touch with his creative debt to the morbid illustrations of Edward Gorey (emphasis on gory, given one splattery sight gag)?

Korda keeps disappearing into afterlife hallucinations – little defend-your-life tribunals that Anderson shoots in milky black-and-white and populates with more of his favorite actors. Not just an eccentric flourish, these moments are meant to offer a window into the tycoon’s conscience, maybe his soul. There might lie the problem. It’s one thing, even a gutsy thing, to engender sympathy for the oligarchic devil when so many men like him are presently waging class warfare in broad daylight. But Korda, as del Toro plays him with a perpetual poker face, never reveals any hidden layers, any reason to hate or love him. He’s too thin a character – a Royal Tenenbaum without that crucial spark of son-of-a-bitch moxie and mischief. And so The Phoenician Scheme remains an amusing lark, and little else.

“For all the little boys and girls who look like me, watching tonight, this is the beacon of hope and possibilities. This is proof that… dreams do come true. And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up.”

38 years after her first lead role, this is how Michelle Yeoh began her Best Actress Oscar acceptance speech for Everything Everywhere All At Once. A historic moment as Yeoh is the first Asian actress ever to win the award, as well as her first Oscar win.

Many considered her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once as a breakthrough for Yeoh, catapulting her into the upper echelons of Hollywood stardom and making her a household name — but in my household, the question of “Do you know Michelle Yeoh?” to my Chinese immigrant parents never created any confusion. “Oh yeah, from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!"

They are, of course, referring to Ang Lee’s 2000 wuxia epic, which Yeoh starred in alongside Chow Yun-Fat, Zhang Ziyi, and Chang Chen. 25 years ago, way before Everything Everywhere, the movie broke records to become the highest-grossing foreign-produced film in American history. Critically acclaimed and winner of numerous awards, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon not only introduced the wuxia genre to western audiences, but also challenged the status quo of what was “successful” in Hollywood.

By the time the dust settled, Crouching Tiger won 4 Academy Awards and 2 Golden Globes, and proved that there was an audience in the US for a foreign language film in a wuxia genre (a fantastical, high-flying Chinese martial arts fiction genre with often supernatural elements) that was already a cornerstone of Chinese media and culture for over half a century. There’s no doubt that the success of the film sparked a change, paving the way for the success of following films like Hero and House of Flying Daggers, while its stars would go on to appear in Hollywood blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean and Rush Hour. But despite Crouching Tiger opening the door towards change, real progress has been slow. In a 2022 interview, when asked about Crouching Tiger’s groundbreaking success, Michelle Yeoh cut to the point: “It didn’t change things for us.”

Despite the numerous accolades, none of the actors were recognized, “Were we not participating? Are we invisible? It’s very interesting. And it’s happened again and again”, referencing a similar situation with Parasite in 2020 where the film was lavished with praise but none of its actors were nominated for top acting prizes.

25 years after Crouching Tiger, Yeoh’s point stands. Despite being cast in several Hollywood blockbusters, Chow Yun-Fat’s Captain Sao Feng is a villainous side character whose death serves to progress the character development of Kiera Knightley’s Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, while Zhang Ziyi’s Hu Li is a “crazy-ass bitch” who blows herself up in Rush Hour 2. Combined with Yeoh’s own numerous roles as the token mother/grandmother/mentor figure, these types of stereotypical Asian roles were still the norm until 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians became the first majority Asian cast film since 1993’s The Joy Luck Club, 25 years ago. Despite Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon seeming like it was ushering in a new era of Asian representation — and by all counts should have launched a meteoric rise of its stars’ careers — Michelle Yeoh wouldn’t win her first Oscar until 25 years later.

In a marginalized community that’s starving for recognition and representation, we feel an almost-familial sense of pride for those who’ve made it, and once word of such success spreads, the community really shows up in support and passion, regardless of any other context. All of a sudden, every Asian person I know wants to see a film, any film, because it has an Asian character who does more than just exist as a foil to another character, who doesn’t lean into old, tired stereotypes, that has AANHPI talent behind the camera who created something beautiful, or simply looks familiar to us.

My self-proclaimed “not-a-superhero-movie-fan” mother and all her friends went to see Shang-Chi in theaters with Mandarin subtitles. She could tell you where Nomadland director Chloé Zhao grew up, but she couldn’t tell you who the star of the film was - legendary, multi-award winning actress Frances McDormand. My entire family watched Crazy Rich Asians, and we even visited a couple of filming locations when we travelled to Singapore. These films spread like wildfire to the furthest reaches of the community because they make us feel seen — we understand the cultural context, we relate to the common struggles, and we share the experience of watching stories about our community unfold on screen, with those in our community. We grasp onto them with almost a desperate, protective fervor, because they’re so few and far between that every one of these experiences is a bridge between us and the rest of the world.

Though there’s still a long way to go and a lot of work to be done, it does feel like recent years have seen a significant increase in AANHPI representation in Hollywood, and studios are slowly starting to recognize the value of diversity in storytelling. From being pleasantly surprised at Park Seo-joon in the MCU’s The Marvels and Choi Soo-young in the John Wick spinoff Ballerina, to rejoicing in Manny Jacinto’s viral portrayal of Qimir in the Star Wars franchise’s own wuxia-inspired The Acolyte, there’s been more to celebrate in Hollywood than ever before as an Asian American. Rich storytelling comes from diversity - the lived experiences of people different from yourself, told by those who lived it, both in front of and behind the camera.

I look forward to a future where Dev Patel doesn’t have to make and fight for Monkey Man himself to be an action star, or Manny Jacinto collaborating with Filipino writers himself to ensure his career moves forward, and I didn’t have people tell me all the time that I looked like Lucy Liu growing up because she was the only prominent Asian actress at the time, even though we look nothing alike. As Michelle Yeoh said in that 2022 interview, “We don’t want to be unnoticed anymore. We’ve waited for such a long time, there are so many stories to be told. We want to see our faces on screen[.]” I hope it doesn’t take another 25 years.

Sarah Wang is a Senior Account Executive at IGN. She is an Adventure RPG and FPS enthusiast, passionate fangirl, foodie, and massive supporter of women's sports. She is also a huge nerd for Legos, puzzles, and boardgames.

Roblox farming simulator Grow a Garden is attracting millions of players across PC, mobile, and console devices, eclipsing numbers achieved by some of the most popular games on any platform – so what exactly is it?

If you load up Roblox at any time on any day in the next week, there’s a good chance around 2 million people will be playing Grow a Garden in some capacity. That’s according to the official user tracker found on all Roblox experiences, which plants the colorful free-to-play game firmly atop trending charts in a variety of categories. These are numbers that see the free-to-play game leaving other Roblox projects in its dust, with the second-most-popular “Playing Now” experience, Brookhaven RP, showing 590,000 players at the time of this piece’s publication.

Pulling 1.5 million players is an impressive feat, and it’s also on the low end for Grow a Garden.

The farming simulator peaked at more than 8.8 million active users last weekend, annihilating only competing experiences but multiple active user records, starting when it crossed the 5 million active users mark earlier this month. The 16-year-old behind Grow a Garden released it March 25, 2025. It has since been visited 3.4 billion times.

For comparison, Counter-Strike 2, currently the most popular Steam game, reached its all-time peak just last month at just under 1.86 million players (via SteamDB). PUBG: Battlegrounds holds the trophy for the highest-ever active player count on Valve’s PC storefront, and even its peak topped out at 3.25 million players in 2018.

Grow a Garden is still trailing behind the free-to-play battle royale megaton that is Fortnite, which boasts a peak active player count of 15.3 million from an event held in 2020. Grow a Garden isn’t quite at the top of the mountain, but it is climbing – and fast. It’s at least another significant piece of evidence that the Roblox platform is one to be taken seriously, as millions continue to flock to the dense forest of content it offers.

What Do You Do in Grow a Garden?

In Grow a Garden, you – if you can believe it – grow a garden. There’s little complexity to the gameplay formula currently setting Roblox ablaze. It’s not yet another anime tie-in or tower-defense experience but instead a straightforward farming game with a tutorial that lays out everything you need to know in just a few seconds.

Today, over 300 unionized quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Media, who work on everything from The Elder Scrolls to Doom, have announced they have reached a tentative deal with parent company Microsoft on their first contract since forming their union two years ago.

ZeniMax Workers United, which is unionized under Communications Workers of America (CWA), said the agreement includes "substantial across-the-board wage increases," minimum salaries, protections against arbitrary dismissal, grievance procedures, protections around use of artificial intelligence that could impact workers, and a crediting policy to ensure QA workers are appropriately credited in games they work on.

ZeniMax Media owns publisher Bethesda Softworks and development studios Bethesda Game Studios (The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield), id Software (Doom, Quake, and Rage), Arkane (Dishonored, Prey, and Redfall), MachineGames (Wolfenstein, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle), and ZeniMax Online Studios (The Elder Scrolls Online). Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media for $8.1 billion in March 2021 and operates it under the Microsoft Gaming division.

“Video games have been the revenue titan of the entire entertainment industry for years, and the workers who develop these games are too often exploited for their passion and creativity," said Jessee Leese, a member of the bargaining committee.

"Organizing unions, bargaining for a contract, and speaking with one collective voice has allowed workers to take back the autonomy we all deserve. Our first contract is an invitation for video game professionals everywhere to take action. We’re the ones who make these games, and we’ll be the ones to set new standards for fair treatment.”

ZeniMax QA workers first unionized in January of 2023, following groups at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany, after Microsoft made a public commitment to labor neutrality. However, the road to a contract has been challenging. In November of last year, workers went on a one-day strike, citing a lack of progress at the bargaining table over remote work protections and allegations that Microsoft was outsourcing QA work without bargaining with the union. Then, in April, workers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, again citing concerns over remote work and low compensation.

The tentative contract is contingent on ratification by the union members in a vote which is expected to be concluded by June 20.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

IGN is proud to celebrate AANHPI Heritage Month (also known as AAPI Month), a national cultural event which recognizes the Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander community in May. In addition to celebrating this historic event each May, we also have a mission to celebrate our own Asian heritage and AANHPI people at IGN and Ziff Davis at large.

With the explosion of AANHPI representation in media from both the United States and abroad, we asked the AANHPI community on staff what their favorite movies and TV shows to watch are, with Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander voices in mind. So, in no particular order, here are some of our favorites available to stream in the U.S. right now, spanning genres and services. Take a look and help us continue to celebrate AANHPI voices all year round!

When Life Gives You Tangerines (2025)

Based on a true story and real-life couple – played by K-pop idol IU and actor Park Bo-gum – from Jeju Island in South Korea, this new Netflix show brings a sweet love story to life throughout chapters of challenges and changes.

“The show is a slow and sweet reminder about the importance and appreciation of family and love.” – Aimee Carr, Ziff Davis Sr. Manager of Client Services

Shaolin Soccer (2001)

Although it's a longer movie clocking in at nearly 3.5 hours, this iconic sports action-comedy is filled with tons of fun special effects with hilarious fight scenes. Shaolin Soccer is a unique combination of kung fu and soccer, and if you're a fan of either of those or just great comedies in general, it's worth adding to your watch list.

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Another perfect watch for action-comedy fans, Kung Fu Hustle stars writer-director Stephen Chow who plays Sing, an aspiring gangster trying to be part of the Axe Gang. His fighting tactics and attempts to intimidate lead to a chain of events that will keep you entertained. Check it out on Amazon Prime to rent or buy the English subtitled version.

Perfect Days (2023)

Directed by Wim Wenders, this drama centers on Hirayama, a toilet cleaner in Tokyo whose mundane life reveals hidden depths everywhere. See how his routine is broken with new surprises and how he continues to find beauty in the world. Actor Koji Yakusho won the prestigious Cannes Award for Best Actor for his performance.

Kim’s Convenience (2016-2022)

Kim’s Convenience is a delightful family comedy where a Korean-Canadian family navigates the daily life of running a convenience store in downtown Toronto. The show stars Simu Liu (Marvel’s Shang-Chi) as Jung Kim, one of the actor’s first big roles, in the show. You can catch all five seasons of the sweet sitcom on Netflix in the U.S. Fun fact: Did you know the series is based on a play? Ins Choi is the writer behind it!

Ne Zha (2019)

Ne Zha is an action-packed adventure featuring a strong boy who must learn how to harness his powers, whether for good or for evil. Although the sequel was in U.S. theaters for a couple of months – and shattered global box office records – it is not yet available to stream in the U.S. Stay tuned!

Rocketry: The Nambi Effect (2022)

The Nambi Effect is a biographical film about Nambi Narayanan, an aerospace engineer at ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) who is accused of espionage after a series of strange events. The movie begins with a present-day interview diving into Narayanan's past and significant moments in his studies and career leading up to the investigation.

Reply 1988 (2015)

Reply 1988 is the third installment of the Reply series, a South Korean TV drama. Following not one, not two, not three, not four, but five families who are neighbors in Seoul, the impressive cast brings these characters to life as they look back to what 1988 was like on their street. Actor Park Bo-gum from When Life Gives You Tangerines also stars in this heartfelt show.

“One of my favorite K-drama series!” says Dean Kim, Software Architect from the Ookla team, while Karen Oh from Ziff Davis leadership also says: “It’s the best! I tried the other spin-offs from it (and they are worth watching), but this is still my fave.”

The best Studio Ghibli movies offer gorgeous hand-drawn animation and heart-tugging stories, mostly from the imagination of Hayao Miyazaki. The good news is that almost all of 25 Studio Ghibli movies are available to stream online. You can see what the IGN team at large voted as the 10 best Studio Ghibli movies ever.

One of our team members, Ziff Davis recruiter Kunie Prak’s faves include:

• Ponyo
• Howl's Moving Castle
• From Up on Poppy Hill
• Kiki's Delivery Service
• When Marnie Was There

Rescue: Hi-Surf (2024)

“Sometimes I just like the formulaic format of procedurals, but this one is unique in that it highlights the Ocean Safety Hawaiian lifeguards, which isn't commonly featured. The show stars a bunch of Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander actors/actresses, which are still underrepresented even amongst other Asian heritages.” – Sarah Wang, Ziff Davis Senior Account Executive

Culinary Class Wars (2024- )

When you take 100 Korean cooks, pitting 20 celebrity chefs against 80 "unknown" chefs competing under alises, you get one fierce cooking battle called Culinary Class Wars. Exclusive to Netflix, this is an exciting show for anyone who enjoys food competition TV.

“If you want the class war of Squid Game mixed with the high-stakes kitchen contests of Top Chef, don’t miss Culinary Class Wars.” – Matt Kim, IGN Sr. Features Editor

NCIS: Hawaii (2021-2024)

If you haven’t been living under a rock, then you have heard of the CBS TV series and franchise, NCIS. With 22 seasons in the original series, NCIS: Hawaii came in 2021 as the fourth series in the police crime franchise. Although it only lasted a few seasons, this series is still worth the watch. NCIS: Hawaii has an incredible and diverse cast, starring Vanessa Lachey as Jane Tennant, the first female Special Agent-in-Charge in the Hawaii Field Office and the first female-led cast in any NCIS show at that time.

“I’m still mad this was canceled by CBS because it had the most diverse cast of the NCIS franchises, was set in Hawaii and showcased local culture, and was one of the higher rated shows for CBS." – SW

Laapataa Ladies (2023)

From IGN India’s movie synopsis from their top movies of the year in 2024: “Laapata Ladies, also known as Lost Ladies internationally, is a Hindi comedy-drama that combines humor with a sharp societal critique. Directed by Kiran Rao, the film explores the lives of women in rural India, addressing hefty themes of individuality and marriage in a light-hearted yet impactful manner. With witty dialogue and likeable characters, Laapata Ladies delivers comedy while also highlighting the struggles and resilience of women in the context of gender roles and freedom in India. It’s an important film in Indian cinema this year, effortlessly mixing poignant moments with entertainment.”

“I love the movie as it has fun take on mistaken identity and walks us through an innocent bride's journey of learning about independence and self-discovery.” – Alekhya Pulavarthy, Ookla Product Manager

Rookie Historian Goo Hae-Ryung (2019)

CNET's Senior Producer Numi Prsarn says: “Rookie Historian on Netflix was kind of a comfort show for me (after the first watch, I'd put it on in the background while I work). Historical romance that somehow also turns into an office comedy with nice little touches of history, like Dutch being the only Western language they'd know because of traders. It's cute.”

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

Consider this an honorable mention because it's not currently available to stream, but it's been streamable in the past and have a good hunch it'll be available again in the future. Directed by Ang Lee, this Oscar-nominated film explores the complicated family dynamics between three women who live at home with their widowed father in Taiwan. With each character battling their own version of loneliness, self-expression, and/or survival, the family must find hope and strength in themselves and in each other. The father is an incredible (retired) master chef, giving the viewer something to drool over as he prepares fabulous meals for his family (even in the opening scene, for example). There are so many layers to this film, you may end up watching it multiple times to take it all in.

For more streaming recommendations, check out: Raya and the Last Dragon: Creating Disney's First Southeast Asian-Centered Movie, Upcoming Disney and Pixar Movies, and how to watch the Pixar Movies in Order.

Ever since Sydney Sweeney showed up taking a sexy bath in an ad for small brand Dr. Squatch’s body wash back in October 2024, fans have wondered how far the actress would go in her collaborative endeavors. Now we know that she really will do whatever she needs to do to get her bag — and good for her, honestly. The Euphoria and Madame Web star is collaborating with the brand again, this time on a soap that allegedly contains her bathwater. Yes, you read that right.

"You kept asking about my bathwater after the @drsquatch ad… so we kept it," reads a post on Sweeney's Insta account. "Introducing Sydney’s Bathwater Bliss! A very real, very limited-edition soap made with my actual bathwater."

Mike Judge and Greg Daniels’ King of the Hill revival series has cracked open a first look at its new time-lapse intro, along with a Hulu and Disney+ release date of August 4.

The official X/Twitter account shared the news today, posting what appears to be the entire opening credits sequence for the first King of the Hill episodes to release since 2010. While the audience has aged, so too have Hank, Peggy, and Bobby, as the clip below shows the Texas family seemingly move away and eventually return to Arlene.

Better than an Alamo and almost as good as propane. An all new season of #KingOfTheHill drops Aug 4th on Hulu and with #HuluOnDisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/U8wAkHHg7E

— kingofthehill (@kingofthehill) May 30, 2025

"After years working a propane job in Saudi Arabia to earn their retirement nest egg, Hank and Peggy Hill return to a changed Arlen, Texas to reconnect with old friends Dale, Boomhauer and Bill," an official description from Hulu says. "Meanwhile, Bobby is living his dream as a chef in Dallas and enjoying his 20s with his former classmates Connie, Joseph and Chane."

While an aged-up Bobby and Dale Gribble’s mayoral campaign are two topics hinted at in this refresh of what has become a classic sequence in TV history, we don’t know much about what Judge and Daniels’ comedy revival will tackle. Details about a potential return to the life of Hank Hill were first shared by THR in 2022 before Hulu acquired the rights to stream what would eventually become Season 14 in 2023. King of the Hill, known for its iconic time-lapse intro, was confirmed to pick up after a significant time-jump later that same year.

Much of the original cast has returned to the animated Hulu revival, including Judge as Hank Hill, Kathy Najimy as Peggy Hill, Pamela Adlon as Bobby Hill, and Stephen Root as Bill Dauterive. Dale Gribble actor Johnny Hardwick died at 64 in August 2023 but managed to record some material for the new show before he passed.

King of the Hill will take viewers back to Arlene’s famous picket fence this August. While we wait, you can check out another early look at an older Bobby that was revealed late last year.

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

In The Fantastic Four: First Steps we’ll no doubt get to see Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and The Thing show off their powers as they battle to defend Earth against the might of Galactus. But could we also see Franklin Richards get in on the action, too?

In an interview with Empire Magazine, Vanessa Kirby, who plays Sue Storm, dropped an interesting tease that’s set tongues wagging within the MCU fandom: “It’s not just adults that have superpowers.”

Kirby’s Storm is pregnant in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which means the MCU will introduce Franklin Richards at some point. This is a huge deal for the MCU, as IGN has explored. As we said in April:

Anyone familiar with the Fantastic Four comics will know that this is a big deal for the team. Marvel Studios is about to introduce arguably the most powerful mutant in existence. And maybe his super-genius sister for good measure? Let’s take a closer look at why Sue’s pregnancy has major implications for the MCU and the Marvel movie multiverse.

Franklin is easily one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe. He has the ability to warp reality and matter at will, a power that even allows him to create entire pocket dimensions out of nothing. This power also manifests in other ways, giving Franklin everything from telepathy and telekinesis to the ability to project his consciousness across the astral plane.

Essentially, Franklin is the one being on Earth whose power is so great it rivals that of cosmic entities like the Celestials and Galactus. And he’s destined to only grow more powerful with age. The FF have met multiple adult versions of Franklin from the future, suggesting that he’ll one day grow to become an immortal defender of the entire Marvel Universe.

So, with this in mind, could Franklin be the one to fend off Galactus? Kirby’s comment certainly suggests we’ll see the character demonstrate his powers to some degree.

Ubisoft's heading into the weekend dropping a big tease about Splinter Cell.

As for what it's teasing, who knows? The Splinter Cell series has been sadly dormant for years now, the last game being 2013's Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Since then, we've heard very little until Ubisoft remembered Splinter Cell existed by adding Steam achievements to a 12-year-old game just a couple of weeks ago.

If we're honest, today's tease doesn't provide much more information — we've got a close-up of Sam Fisher's face and a hashtag, Splinter Cell — but interestingly, the alt description is a little more revealing.

"Close-up of Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, showing a stern expression with focused eyes, short dark hair, and a rugged beard, set against a blurred high-tech background," the description explains. "He's locked in."

👁️👄👁️#SplinterCell pic.twitter.com/Uh47DxdNQu

— Ubisoft (@Ubisoft) May 30, 2025

It's also interesting that Ubisoft specifies this screenshot is from Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and not from the upcoming Splinter Cell Remake, so make of that what you will.

The Splinter Cell series is set to sneak back into action with a remake of the classic first game in the franchise, Splinter Cell Remake. We still don't know very much about it other than the new version will be built from the ground up using the advanced Snowdrop engine. Our last meaningful update came in 2022 when IGN met with Ubisoft Toronto developers to discuss their design philosophy behind the game.

“20 years later, we can look back at the plot, the characters, the overall story of the game [and] make some improvements — things that might not have aged particularly well,” said creative director Chris Auty at the time. “But the core of the story, the core of the experience will remain as it was in the original game.”

Perhaps Ubisoft is priming fans for a Summer Game Fest announcement, but without confirmation, it's hard to know for sure. On the plus side, we don't have too long to wait — Summer Game Fest and IGN Live are right around the corner. The Last of US Season 2 will be at IGN Live, as well as Sonic Team, Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2, Norse: Oath of Blood, and more.

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

No matter which platform you prefer, there's an excellent variety of video game deals to check out right now. Whether you're gaming on PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, or PC, we've rounded up the best offers to help you get more for your money. This includes a variety of deals for PlayStation fans from Days of Play, like the new PS5 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 bundle and a discount on the PS5 Pro.

On top of that, PC players can also score discounts right now on Doom: The Dark Ages at Fanatical and GMG and Elden Ring Nightreign at Fanatical, which is out today. These deals just scratch the surface of what's available, though. Have a look through our favorite video game deals at the moment below.

PS5 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Bundle

PS5 Pro Gets Its First Discount

Best PC Game Deals

Last Chance: Humble Choice Games for May 2025

PS5 DualSense Controllers Are $20 Off

• Amazon | Best Buy | PS Direct | Target | Walmart

If you've been waiting for a good time to pick up a new controller (or an extra for co-op), now's your chance. Thanks to Days of Play, several different colors of DualSense Controller are marked down at the moment. The DualSense Edge has also received a discount, which you can see below.

PS5 DualSense Edge Is Also on Sale

Best Physical Video Game Deals

If you're looking to save on physical games right now, there are plenty of deals worth checking out across PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. We've included just a few of our favorites above, but if you'd like to see more game deals for each platform, check out our individual roundups for these consoles: the best PlayStation deals, the best Xbox deals, and the best Nintendo Switch deals.

PSVR 2: Horizon Call of The Mountain Bundle Deal

Best Xbox Accessory Deals

Best PS5 SSD Deals

Best Gaming PC Deals

Do you prefer to play on a dedicated PC tower? Navigating the options online can be quite the ordeal. Desk space, portability, and price point are often factors in the decision. However, there are some great PC deals that pop up every now and again that are worth jumping on. One of our favorite deals at the moment is on the Alienware Aurora R16 RTX 5070 Gaming PC (32GB/2TB) for $2,199.99. To see even more PC deals, check out our roundup of the best gaming PC deals.

Elden Ring Nightreign is out, and players are already diving into the shifting lands to fight the Nightlord. If they warmed up a bit on the original Elden Ring, though, they might be finding themselves a little turned around by some control changes.

While the controls in Elden Ring Nightreign are mostly the same as the original Elden Ring, a few changes have been made, either to accommodate new abilities or simply move things around a bit. Some of these are just for new moves, or updated versions of old tools. One in particular, though, seems to be causing at least a little confusion: the flask.

In FromSoftware's Souls games and Elden Ring, the "flask" is a mainstay of your kit: a refillable potion holder that acts as your main source of healing in combat. Usually, the flask is one of several consumables, and you'd cycle through them and use them mid-combat. In Elden Ring Nightreign, the flask is a static element. You hit the left-most face button (X or Square, depending on your controller) to drink it, by default, while Up on the D-Pad becomes your 'use item' option.

Well, it seems like some folks are already reporting some muscle-memory confusion. It is a little bit funny that players who have been playing Elden Ring, either to warm up for Nightreign or just happened to line it up that way, are now re-learning muscle memory thanks to the change.

Alongside the flask, there's now the Nightreign-specific super-sprint mapped to L3. Though you won't have your trusty steed Torrent in Nightreign, FromSoftware has instead given players a surprisingly fast sprint option. The wrinkle is, there's also a sprint option from the traditional method of holding your dodge button. And as one player notes, they keep defaulting to the original Elden Ring sprint, rather than the new one.

The really odd change, though, is that there doesn't seem to be a way to crouch now. I booted up Elden Ring Nightreign myself just to check and, sure enough, I couldn't find a crouch option anywhere in the controller settings. While it was clicking in the left-stick on controller, by default, it seems like the option didn't just move, but was completely ejected. Granted, Elden Ring Nightreign does seem like it's more about moving fast and wiping out enemies than sneaking around.

Other players report that mouse-and-keyboard default controls also feel strange in comparison to the original Elden Ring. Granted, this is not the first time FromSoftware has shifted control schemes. Every Souls or Souls-like usually has some degree of change, especially for games like Bloodborne, which have very notable mechanical and systemic differences from other FromSoft Souls-likes.

Ultimately, controls are re-bindable, so you can still make things fit as comfortably in your hands as you'd like. Maybe take this article as a PSA, then, to spend some time acquainting yourself with your control scheme for Elden Ring Nightreign and fine-tuning it before heading out on your first venture. And maybe spare some sympathy for a player who keeps accidentally chugging their Estus mid-fight. We've all been there.

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.

Destined Rivals is officially here, and boy, it’s already a bloodbath. From the stunning Cynthia’s Roserade to the menacing Team Rocket’s Mewtwo ex, prices on chase cards have been crashing faster than you can say “preorder regret.”. Let's not even start on the folks who shelled out over a grand for an ETB.

TL;DR: Deals For Today

Beyond Destined Rivals, the Pokémon TCG scene is a minefield. Prismatic Evolutions and Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic are still absurdly overpriced at big-box stores, while TCGPlayer remains the go-to for cheaper singles and sealed products. Meanwhile, the MTG Marvel’s Spider-Man and Final Fantasy sets are prepped to drain wallets, and SteelSeries gear is still on sale for anyone wanting to upgrade their gaming setup.

Need a killer Borderlands collectible? That Psycho and Claptrap Diorama from the IGN Store is calling your name. And let’s not forget about the Elebase USB-C Adapters (a must-have for your messy cable life) or the Anker USB-C Cables for fast charging. Oh, and if you’re up for some gaming on the cheap, the Xbox Game Studios Bundle on Humble is stacked with hits like Wasteland 3 and Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Let’s get into it.

Destined Rivals Launches Today

If you'd like to pay for sealed product in this climate to rip open boosters and find your chase card, go mad and have a blast. But if you'd like to save some money long term and guarantee that chase card, TCG Player has Destined Rivals single cards available right now.

. It's insane how much this set has already crashed on release day, with some chase cards crashing beyond 50% since yesterday. Looking for the best market values on Destined Rivals sealed products instead? I've got you covered with crashing prices on sealed product. Imagine being the one person in the world who paid over $1000 for a Pokémon Center Elite Trainer box? Madness:

Pokémon TCG Stock Update

Long story short; things are looking bleak at retail for Pokémon TCG right now. Almost everything is way above MSRP and seems to becoming the new normal for big box retailers. I could write a whole article and why this is and what should be done to stop this practice, but here we are. If you have your heart set on opening booster packs, have at it, but you might want to check out the sections below to save money.

TCG Player Has The Same Products For Less

TCG Player and the Pokémon TCG secondary collectors market is significantly cheaper than big box retailers at the time of writing. This will likely be the case unless you can secure preorders on new sets such as Destined Rivals, Black Bolt and White Flare. Make no mistake products are still over MSRP, but If small businesses can undercut large retailers on TCG Player, there's something fundamentally broken in the supplier-distributor-retail chain.

This Weeks Pokémon TCG Crashers and Climbers

The Single Pokémon TCG market on the other hand is going through a grand reset right now, which is down to a few factors. The crypto bro mentally to reselling products is dying down a little and more product is becoming available thanks to reprints. We're not out of the woods yet by any means, but this weeks Crashers and Climbers show recent cards going down in price and cards from the X and Y era shooting up in value. We're 100% moving in the right direction.

MTG Marvel's Spider-Man Preorders

Whilst there's only the Play Booster Box and Scene Bundle for MTG: Marvel's Spider-Man live on Amazon right now, TCG Player has every sealed product that will hit the market on launch day. I've even found some pricing on cases of sealed product for those looking to rip open a tonne of boosters, so get on it before the market value on these products shoot up.

MTG Spider-Man Single Cards

Unfortunatley there's no listings for Spider-Man single cards right now considering we're a few months out from release, but I've managed to round up the listings for cards currently sitting on TCG Player waiting for presale allocations, so keep your eyes peeled.

MTG Final Fantasy Bundle Walmart Preorder

SteelSeries Sale

Amazon has a solid sale going on right now for a bunch of SteelSeries gear, and if you’ve been waiting for a good excuse to upgrade your gaming setup, this is it. You can grab essentials like the SteelSeries New Apex 9 TKL, which is down to $109.99, or go all-in with the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless Multi-System Gaming Headset, which is $269.99 right now (23% off). For Xbox and PC gamers, the Arctis Nova 5X is also a solid pick at $122.99. And if you’re looking to upgrade your audio setup, the SteelSeries Alias USB Mic for PC is a steal at $107.27. Whether you’re after a sleek new keyboard, a high-end headset, or a pro-level mic, these deals are worth a look before they’re gone.

Borderlands 3 Psycho and ClapTrap 1/6 Scale Diorama

Anker USB C to USB C Cable

Xbox Game Studios Bundle

Elebase USB C to USB Adapter

Badass Brawlers Bundle

Apple iPad 11-inch: A16 chip

DOOM: The Dark Ages Saw Shield Medallion and Art Card

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Officially, we don't know if there's going to be a remake of Persona 4. But if there was such a thing, we know now at least three of the original voice actors aren't coming back for it.

Earlier this week, Yosuke Hanamura voice actor Yuri Lowenthal took to BlueSky to say he would not be reprising his role for "the Persona 4 remake." You know, the one that no one's officially announced yet.

"And for those who keep asking, no, I will not be returning as Yosuke for the Persona 4 remake," said Lowenthal in a since-deleted post. "I asked. Maybe I even begged, but they don’t want me to come back."

Since then, two more actors from the original game have spoken up, saying they won't reprise their roles. Two days ago, Erin Fitzgerald, the English voice of Chie Satonaka, said she hadn't been asked to come back. And then just yesterday, Amanda Winn Lee chimed in to say she wasn't coming back as Yukiko Amagi:

Since, I've had several people ask me: No, I wasn't asked to voice Yukiko in the P4 remake

— Amanda Winn Lee (@amandawinnlee) May 30, 2025

All these comments are leading Persona fans to suspect that maybe there is actually a Persona 4 remake coming imminently. There have been rumors to this tune bubbling up over the last year, with a recent domain registration fueling hope that its announcement might be coming soon.

That said, assuming a Persona 4 remake is real, it's unclear why the beloved actors who originated the voices of these characters haven't been asked back. One possibility is that it's related to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA voice actor strike. Another is that this is simply what developer Atlus does, for cost or other reasons. After all, it recast the English voices for Persona 3: Reload, including Lowenthal.

However, some fans have another, zanier theory: that this is all a marketing stunt. As one fan noted on Twitter/X, the voice actors announcing they're not in the remake have made these statements in the exact order you recruit them to your party in Persona 4: Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko.

This is definitely a marketing stunt

First Yosuke
Then Chie
Now Yukiko

They're talking in order of who joins the party in p4. They're definitely in P4 remake. https://t.co/GesYoNva4O

— Re (@Reismyname2) May 30, 2025

A few people on social media have taken it further, suggesting that if either Troy Baker or Matt Mercer (both of whom have played Kanji Tatsumi at different times) announces they're not in the remake next, that all but confirms that all four actors actually are in the remake. It sounds nuts, but given that Persona 4 deals with themes of rejection and acceptance of one's true self, it's not totally off-base. One suggestion is that the original actors will actually be voicing the Shadow versions of their original characters, effectively making their original statements true... if misleading. All that said, most fans seem to find this theory a bit too wild. It's more likely that Atlus simply recast everyone for whatever reason.

With so much smoke around a Persona 4 remake, hopefully we'll get an official announcement soon that will clear it all up. Perhaps at Summer Game Fest or the Xbox showcase next week?

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Calling all fans of Firefly. The 2005 feature film Serenity is getting a 20th Anniversary Limited Edition 4K Steelbook. It's officially set to release on July 22 this year and comes with 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and digital copies of the film. Not to mention, a ton of different bonus features to keep you busy with, which we've detailed below for you to check out.

Preorder Serenity 20th Anniversary Limited Edition Steelbook

MultiVersus, the 2024 free-to-play crossover fighting game, will shortly go offline for good.

Player First Games announced that MultiVersus Season 5 will be its last back in January, confirming the brawler would close down permanently at 5pm PDT (12 noon EDT), on May 30, 2025. It was reportedly seen as a major failure for Warner Bros. Discovery; in a financial call from November 2024, the company admitted MultiVersus performed far worse than expected, resulting in a $100 million writedown for its games business. That brought the total loss of the business to $300 million after the disappointing launch of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League in January.

Just a month after this announcement, Warner Bros. announced it was canceling its planned Wonder Woman game and shutting down three studios: Monolith Productions, WB San Diego, and MultiVersus developer Player First Games.

In a thread called "Tomorrow Multiversus shuts down, what are the final things you have to sat about the game," hundreds of players left a comment, celebrating their favorite moments.

"Multiversus was a dream. It was a platform fighter which focused on a quick offensive and 2v2 play that supported team synergy," wrote one player. "Even outside of its idea, the casting was great. A lot of the characters’ VAs reprising their roles (like the late Kevin Conroy reprising his role as Batman, Matthew Lilard as Shaggy, Kate Micucci as Velma, John DiMaggio as Jake, Eric Bauza as Bugs and Marvin, etc) and interactions between characters during and after a match.

"While some roster choices and move decisions were perplexing (like Banana Guard and Shaggy being based on Ultra Instinct Shaggy), I can’t deny that a vast majority of movesets were inspired. There will never be a game quite like Multiversus."

Hard to believe it's actually over.#Multiversus #MVS pic.twitter.com/Zw8nfKrUCN

— John Guerra (@Scourgey) May 30, 2025

The entire community the morning of the #Multiversus Shutdown: pic.twitter.com/uSYn95mjh8

— DeeGenie |Supes| (@DeeGenie_) May 30, 2025

"Nothing will beat that feeling playing the beta back in 22. I was absolutely hooked on the fast paced nature of the game," replied another. "I remember I got sick and all I played was this game. I will miss it and hopefully it gets revived in the future with a sequel or something."

"This game will always hold a special place in my heart. Right next to PlayStation All-Stars," lamented someone else, while another said: "Tom and Jerry was one of the most unique and fun fighters in my life and brought my love back to fighting games."

Others are trying to be a little more optimistic, but the majority of players accept its gone, not least because of "how much of an IP nightmare it would be to bring it back." That said, some are even trying to preserve it once the servers go dark.

"MultiVersus may not be a must-play at social gatherings, but its refreshing team-based battles make it a great platform fighter online," we wrote in IGN's MultiVersus review, giving it an 8.

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

Elden Ring Nightreign sold 2 million copies on its first day.

“Pre-orders and early sales have pushed the game beyond the incredible 2 million units milestone,” publisher Bandai Namco announced.

The multiplayer co-op spin-off released overnight and soon shot up the Steam most-played chart, with an impressive 313,593 peak concurrent users.

That doesn’t tell the whole story, of course, with both Microsoft and Sony withholding Xbox and PlayStation player numbers. But FromSoftware has now given us an idea of just how big Elden Ring Nightreign is, with the announcement of 2 million copies sold already.

Elden Ring was a massive hit, selling 30 million since going on sale in 2022, and it seems unlikely that Nightreign will come close to matching that success. For better context, the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion sold 5 million copies within three days of its release in 2024. It will be interesting to see if a sales figure is announced for the same period for Elden Ring Nightreign.

Despite the huge player numbers, not all is well with Elden Ring Nightreign. It has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, where complaints revolving around the lack of duos, or two-player co-op, and voice chat. Players are also complaining about the brutally difficult solo experience, and how hard it is to find friends to make up enough numbers to fill a three-player squad. A patch to make solo play easier is due out next week.

As explained in IGN's Elden Ring Nightreign review: "Let’s get the most important caveat out of the way first: if you are hoping to tackle Nightreign entirely solo, and are anything less than a hardcore Elden Ring player that actively seeks out ways to make that already difficult game even more challenging, Nightreign isn’t for you. Yes, there is technically a single-player option, but it is so poorly balanced that I would be shocked if it isn’t patched and adjusted within the first month of release. And this is coming from someone who lives and breathes these types of games."

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.

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.

If you’re a Keanu Reeves fan, you’ll be happy to know a sequel to his hit film Constantine has been in the works for some time — but recently, one of Reeves’ co-stars from the original film revealed that the actor isn’t too thrilled with the scripts that have come about during the development process.

"[There's] a lot of back and forth, because... I think Keanu [Reeves] is not so happy with the scripts," actor Peter Stormare revealed in a recent interview with The Direct. "Because the first one wasn't that successful in the beginning, it became a sleeper and became a cult movie, and now it is one of the biggest cult movies ever... To do a sequel, the studios want to have, you know, cars flying in the air. They want to have people doing flip-flops and fighting action scenes."

Stormare, who appeared as Lucifer in the 2005 original and is set to reprise his role in the sequel, added that Reeves wasn’t interested in making the next installment an action-heavy project.

"And I think Keanu says, 'I've done 'John Wick.' This movie is spiritual. It's about demons and regular people. And I wanted to keep it that way.' And we talked about that. I want to do God coming down exactly the same way, but in a black suit and looking more or less like Lucifer from the first one. I'm 12 years older, so it's going to be hard to, you know, completely imitate the first movie. But, I think from Keanu, he wants to do a sequel that is very close to the first one."

Plus, it seems as though Reeves is concerned that Warner Bros. is looking to turn the production into something unnecessarily grand, akin to a Marvel project, which makes sense to a certain degree, considering Constantine is loosely based on the DC and Vertigo comic series Hellblazer and we know everyone wants a piece of a popular comic book property. Plus, Reeves recently had a meeting with DC Studios about the project. But the movie ultimately wouldn’t benefit from that kind of grandiose treatment, and it seems Reeves is well aware of that.

"It took a long time for [the original] to become a cult movie. It really worked, and it will work on the audience again," Stormare said. "You don't have to add a lot of action and shootouts. You have other movies. Don't turn it into big Marvel... [Don't turn it] into us flying around in harnesses all the time and shooting each other up. Don't bring in the big guns. Let it be."

Director Francis Lawrence is set to return for the sequel, but it remains to be seen when exactly it’ll start shooting, let alone be released.

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

One should really never the doubt the tenacity of modders. Elden Ring Nightreign is now live, and within 24 hours of its launch, one well-known FromSoftware game modder has already demonstrated a Duos mode mod.

Luke Yui, the modder behind popular co-op mods for games like Elden Ring and Armored Core VI, uploaded a short video to their YouTube channel yesterday. It shows off an Elden Ring Nightreign two-player mod, allowing just two Nightfarers to team up rather than forcing the choice between one or three.

It's important to note that, as of this writing, this is not a public or playable mod, but a short demonstration from Yui. They noted that the mod runs without connecting to the matchmaking server, so while it's possible to use additional mods during gameplay, that also means you're not running through the normal channels. Whether this becomes a real solve or just an interesting curiosity, we'll have to see.

While Elden Ring Nightreign can be played solo or in a group of three, there's no option to run it with just two players; you'd need to either kick your friend and run solo, or matchmake and find a third. It might sound like a small hindrance, but for those who like to play with just one pal, it can be a frustration.

It's also a prevailing issue in the early hours of Nightreign's public reception. The lack of a duos setting has been cited in early negative reviews, and players seem to be struggling with the restriction. As one user on the Elden Ring subreddit pointed out, the Nightreign-specific subreddit is "looking like a threesome sub" with the number of people seeking one additional player.

Speaking to IGN, Elden Ring Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki said the team "kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect," but it was something the Nightreign team was looking at and considering for post-launch support. With this much desire for a duos-specific mode, I'd imagine it's hard not to take notice.

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.

With the launch of Call of Duty Season 4, Activision quietly put adverts inside loadouts for Black Ops 6 and Warzone, sparking a backlash in the process.

Activision already has a bad reputation for the aggressive monetization of the premium Black Ops 6 and its free-to-play battle royale Warzone, but this latest move may have tipped some players over the edge.

Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts.

Elsewhere, Activision has added bundle and Battle Pass advertisements to the Events tab, another controversial change that has caused complaints.

Here’s a snippet of the response, sourced from across Call of Duty subreddits, Discords, and social media:

• I wouldn't even be mad if this was just in Warzone, a free game, but putting it in a pay-to-play premium title, with how expensive they're getting? F**k off.
• This game is still 80€ I get that they make most of their money from the store, but I feel like the bare minimum for a premium product would be to not have ads clogging the menus right?
• At this point it really feels like opening up a mobile game with how much more you see an option to buy anything in this game.
• Anyone who wanted this bundle would've checked the store and bought it. Putting it here isn't gonna make more people buy it, its just annoying.
• Just wait until they add pop up ads for bundles while you are playing the game.

Call of Duty has had its monetization crises in the past, of course. Players are used to battle passes, premium battle passes, and even more expensive versions of premium battle passes on top of the $70 (soon to be $80) cost of entry. But there is a growing feeling that the franchise’s microtransaction strategy has become even more aggressive following Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

And it’s worth noting that earlier this month, Activision abandoned Warzone Mobile, the game that was meant to lead the battle royale into a new era, with an admission it had not met expectations.

IGN has asked Activision for comment.

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.

It’s early days for Elden Ring Nightreign, but already developer FromSoftware has announced a patch that will make solo play easier.

Patch 1.02, due out next week, will include bug fixes as well as improvements for solo expeditions, FromSoftware announced in a post on social media.

Elden Ring Nightreign drops players into the shifting lands of Limveld, exploring and fighting for survival either solo or in groups of three. There is no way to play two-player co-op. We’ve already reported on Elden Ring Nightreign’s ‘mixed’ Steam user review rating, with most of the complaints revolving around a lack of a duos option as well as no voice chat.

Playing Elden Ring Nightreign solo is proving to be a particularly difficult experience. As explained in IGN's Elden Ring Nightreign review: "Let’s get the most important caveat out of the way first: if you are hoping to tackle Nightreign entirely solo, and are anything less than a hardcore Elden Ring player that actively seeks out ways to make that already difficult game even more challenging, Nightreign isn’t for you. Yes, there is technically a single-player option, but it is so poorly balanced that I would be shocked if it isn’t patched and adjusted within the first month of release. And this is coming from someone who lives and breathes these types of games."

It seems FromSoftware is moving fast to address solo play. According to the early patch notes, below, next week’s update will add the effect "Automatic Revival Upon Defeat,” which allows revival once per night boss battle, to solo expeditions, and will increase the amount of runs gained.

No doubt this patch will just be the start of Elden Ring Nightreign’s balance journey as FromSoftware reacts to fan feedback. It has also suggested it will release a duos mode for the game at some point in the future, although there’s no timeframe for that.

Despite these issues, Elden Ring Nightreign has enjoyed a massive launch on Steam, with an incredible 313,593 peak concurrent users on Steam overnight. That was enough to make Elden Ring Nightreign one of the most-played games on Valve’s platform.

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.

Elden Ring Nightreign update 1.02 early patch notes:

The following improvements for solo expeditions will be added to the game:
- The effect "Automatic Revival Upon Defeat", which allows revival once per night boss battle, will be added to solo expeditions.
- The amount of runes gained will be increased.
Thank you for your support.

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.

Microsoft has reportedly pulled back on developing its own Xbox handheld console.

Microsoft was reportedly planning to launch its own handheld device sometime around 2027, potentially alongside its next-gen Xbox. Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer recently indicated a first-party Xbox handheld was years away.

However, a new report by Windows Central now claims Microsoft's priorities have "shifted," with the team now focusing on improving Windows 11 gaming performance for third-party devices, working alongside partners like Asus on its Xbox-branded handheld device, codenamed Project Kennan. According to Windows Central, staff were internally informed that "priorities are moving more deeply towards third-party OEM handhelds in the interim."

Photos of Asus' Xbox-branded handheld device leaked online earlier this month. Two images of the Asus ROG Ally 2 device — one white, one black — went public via the Indonesian certification office, which linked to a (now deleted) listing on the U.S.'s FCC website. Interestingly, Windows Central's report adds "the hardware side is essentially finished," and is thought to be one of the first devices to use the AMD Z2 Extreme processor.

The tech specs at this time are a little piecemeal, so it's not entirely clear how it'll run or if there's any meaningful difference between the black and white versions. Rumor has it the devices are "currently being tested at Microsoft HQ rather openly as we speak."

Last month, Asus Republic of Gamers' X/Twitter account shared a teaser offering a brief glimpse at both a Republic of Gamers (ROG) Xbox controller and handheld system. The official Xbox account acknowledged the tweet with a cheeky wide-eyed gif, suggesting it was gearing up for a formal reveal.

The successor to the Xbox Series X is reportedly "fully" in production and due out in two years, tying in with Xbox president Sarah Bond's recent comments that Microsoft was "moving full speed ahead on our next generation hardware, focused on delivering the biggest technological leap ever in a generation."

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

It may only be 23 years since audiences were first wowed by director Danny Boyle’s genre-shattering post-apocalyptic tale 28 Days Later, but the upcoming sequel 28 Years Later can’t arrive fast enough. So who’s gonna quibble if Boyle and writer Alex Garland shaved five years or so off to get us there?

And while 28 Years Later looks to maintain the unique and at times severe visual style of its predecessor, which shook zombie fans and mainstream audiences alike to their core with fast-running “infected” and a shot-on-digital-video aesthetic, the new film also carries a scope and grandeur that belies its predecessor’s more humble origins. I watched the first 30 minutes of the film this week and then jumped on a call with Boyle to discuss his return to the land of the Rage Virus.

“We used a very widescreen format in this one,” Boyle tells IGN. “We thought we’d benefit from the unease that the first film created about the speed and the velocity, the visceral [aspect] of the way the infected were depicted. If you're on a widescreen format, they could be anywhere… you have to keep scanning, looking around for them, really.”

Indeed, the goal for Boyle with 28 Years Later, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Alfie Williams, was to embrace both a “big” feel while also finding time to narrow in on the smaller moments of character that made the original work so well… and, of course, find new and really freaking creepy ways to depict the infected as well.

From 28 Days to 28 Years Later, With a Brexit Along the Way

In the years since 28 Days Later’s release, Boyle and Garland have periodically considered a follow-up to the film (and of course there was a 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later, which the pair served as executive producers on). Boyle recalls going to a revival screening of the original at the British Film Institute a few years ago and being shocked by how well received it was that night.

“You realize, ‘Wow,’” he laughs. “And so each time we had a kind of feeling like that, Alex and I would get together and we'd talk about doing a furtherance of it in some way.”

They had some ideas on where they wanted to take the story next, but they’d typically sputter out eventually.

“In fact, Alex wrote one script at one point, but they were kind of what you'd expect,” he says. “And by that I mean things that you expect from a sequel, like the virus is weaponized by a military or a government or a shady [organization]... That kind of thing. And neither of us were very taken by it. But then we began to discuss this idea of doing a much bigger project, which was a series of films that sort of did the opposite of spreading it to Europe and the world.”

The pair’s thinking was the traditional approach to expanding a series like this would be to go bigger and wider - the Rage Virus overtakes country after country, infects the whole planet, etc. They wanted to avoid that, and real-world events helped them figure out the angle they wanted to take.

“We turned back and looked at ourselves and we thought … it was very much like an England [type] film,” he continues. “So we kind of narrowed it down. We did the opposite of what you'd expect and it was because we had a lot to think about. And certainly in terms of Britain, not uniquely, but certainly in terms of Brexit, it's unique. There's a couple of things that have happened to us in the intervening period since the first film that you thought, ‘Well, this is the opportunity to look at that.’”

This article contains spoilers for both Lilo & Stitch (2002) and Disney’s 2025 live-action adaptation.

Last weekend, the live-action adaptation of Disney’s much beloved Lilo & Stitch hit theaters to a banger three-day box-office opening and an unexpected controversy for the House of Mouse. Fans frustrated by the film’s ending, which has been altered from the original version, took to social media en masse to decry what they say are questionable choices made by the creative team. And they’re right! Here’s the problem though: if the filmmakers had done it correctly, they could have made Nani’s decision to ultimately relinquish custody of Lilo – a major departure from the original, where she stays home with Lilo and Stich – hit in the way they intended. But the issues with the new movie started from the very beginning, and each one contributes to why the ending has been such a miss with the audience.

2002’s Lilo & Stitch is a story about finding your family. Both Nani (Tia Carrere) and Lilo (Daveigh Chase) are off-kilter after losing their parents in a tragic accident, as is Stitch (Chris Sanders), who was made in a lab by the mad scientist Jumba (David Ogden Stiers) and doesn’t know what family is. It is a deeply meaningful story to all of us misfits without blood relatives whose families are made up of those that we choose and choose us in return. The entire point of the movie is finding that family after the one you were given is suddenly gone or in disrepair. Lilo, Nani and Stitch start the story alone in their own corners of the universe. The entire purpose of the film is that they build their broken little family and then they grow it with others who are similarly fractured and missing families of their own.

The live-action Lilo & Stitch starts with Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and Nani (Sydney Agudong) already part of a community. David’s mother Tutu (Amy Hill) — a new character created for the live-action adaptation — spends much of the film caring for Lilo and supporting Nani. Hill’s performance as Tutu is wonderful, and the character is both endearing and warm, but her very presence as a supportive mother figure to the girls destroys the central premise of the film by establishing their connection early on. She is so engrained in their lives that it is Tutu who takes Lilo to adopt Stitch (still voiced by Sanders) rather than Nani, furthering the rift between the older sister and their new companion in a way that does nothing to serve Stitch’s connection to Lilo, establish his quest for a family, or his eventual discovery that he had found his ohana all along.

The divide between Nani and Stitch is so broad in the adaptation that the finale features the older sister actively choosing to leave the alien at the bottom of the ocean despite getting Lilo safely onto David’s surfboard. It’s only after they’re halfway to shore that she has a crisis of conscience and returns to rescue the creature that was meant to be a part of their family. Additionally, having Tutu buy Stitch for Lilo rather than Lilo buying the alien with her own money (Nani’s money) pulls some teeth from the finale with the Grand Councilwoman (Hannah Waddingham). In the animated film, the character is instead pleasantly outsmarted by David and Lilo because Lilo is the rightful owner of Stitch via an adoption certificate. Aliens are very persnickety about rules, you see.

Worse still, many of the changes made in the live-action adaptation are done to create more Stitch-related hijinks rather than engage with the emotional story that is meant to happen alongside the alien’s destructive ways. As a result, the tears that still come (I am weak, I am not sorry) are the result of cheap shots rather than earned emotions, leaving you feeling more manipulated than warm.

Even the depiction of Cobra Bubbles (Courtney B. Vance), who is broadly replaced with social worker Ms. Kekoa, played by Carrere so she can continue to be involved with the franchise (Hill is also returning after voicing Mrs. Hasagawa in the original film), removes any meaningful connection he has to the family, despite still being shown as a member of the ohana by the end of the film.

Meanwhile, the decision to make Jumba (Zach Galifianakis) an actual, true blue villain instead of Stitch’s complicated but reformed father figure continues to cheapen things further. By erasing the continued partnership with the cross-dressing Pleakley (voiced by Kevin McDonald in the 2002 film and played by Billy Magnussen in the remake), they have removed Stitch’s meaningful ties to his world and instead left him with the shell of Pleakley they went with for the adaptation who barely has any connection with the family and only begrudgingly helps them before being accepted into their ranks. (And yeah, I’m still annoyed they all but removed his cross-dressing. Cowards.)

All of which takes us to the controversial ending, in which Nani decides to relinquish custody of Lilo to Tutu so that she may chase her dreams and go to school to become a marine biologist.

Here’s the thing about this ending: it is not inherently bad! You can see the intention of giving Nani more autonomy than she had in the original film, where being happy and spending time with her messy new family was enough and Lilo was her primary priority. The reason the decision to end the film this way is so dang frustrating is because the idea of ohana at the end of the film isn’t earned in any capacity. So instead of it feeling like Lilo was merely left with her family so Nani could chase her dreams, we get Lilo left with a glorified bunch of strangers that have no business being so closely integrated into her life.

There is no justifiable reason for Cobra Bubbles to be checking in on Lilo at night after spending less than a day with the family he barely cared about; Pleakley is hardly integrated into their lives, with the new film not bothering to show him constantly going out of his way to protect Lilo in the way he did in the animated version; David is an afterthought in the movie as a whole, which is a rude thing to do to one of the least problematic Disney love interests of all time! Tutu’s connection is, at least, slightly understandable, albeit still cheap in the way that the rest of the film is emotionally bankrupt.

The ending isn’t awful because Nani dared to do something for herself. It’s awful because the live-action Lilo & Stitch seems to have been created by a bunch of people who went out of their way to misunderstand why the original matters. The animated film hasn’t stood the test of time because we like watching Stitch blow stuff up; it stood the test of time because it showed all of us without families that we wouldn’t just find one, but that we deserved it, too. It continues to matter to people because it illustrates that even at our worst and most destructive we are still worthy of love. Stitch doesn’t sell toys because he’s a chaos demon. He sells toys because he means something to people (and he is oh so cute and fluffy!). The idea of ohana hasn’t stood out to mainlanders with little to no understanding of Hawaiian culture because of cheap connections and manipulative monologues, it stood out because it elicited an earned emotional response from children and adults alike.

This movie will probably make a billion dollars. They’ll likely churn out a sequel as soon as humanly possible. And it’s all a real pity, because they have made it abundantly clear that they don’t understand why “this is my family. I found it, all on my own. It’s little, and broken, but still good. Yes, still good” is so significant no matter how many times they soullessly parrot it back at the audience.

Helldivers 2’s ongoing Galactic War appears to have reached another turning point, with the Federation declaring victory over the Illuminate.

“The Illuminate have retreated from Super Earth battlespace,” reads the in-universe message to the game’s community. “The Heart of Democracy has been defended. The Battle of Super Earth is won.”

The Illuminate’s invasion certainly took its toll on Super Earth, with only two Mega Cities left standing: Prosperity City and Equality-on-Sea.

“Remaining Illuminate forces were last observed making FTL jumps from Super Earth orbit,” the message continues. “The enemy has also vacated New Haven, Pilen V, and Widow's Harbor, burning the surface of those planets as they fled. No stations detect Illuminate forces — the enemy has gone into hiding. They will be found.

“After days of nonstop fighting, Super Earth stands. The mettle of Managed Democracy has been tested; the will of the people has overcome the enemy. The Helldivers have achieved victory.”

The thing is, no-one actually believes the Helldivers have achieved a long-lasting victory here. As is developer Arrowhead’s way, Federation communication is by default propaganda, and further turmoil is almost certainly coming down the pipe. And players really want to chase the Illuminate as they retreat, potentially to their home planet to stamp them out for good.

Meanwhile, an in-game message revealed the President of Super Earth was killed while fighting back the Illuminate forces. But again, there was a healthy dose of scepticism from players, with some saying it might have been an Illuminate communication in disguise. What’s really going on here?

It’s worth noting that Helldivers 2 suffered a controversy this week surrounding the invasion, leading to a fresh flood of negative reviews.

In the days since the Heart of Democracy update went live, players have fought to hold the various Mega Cities of Super Earth, which correspond to major cities in real-life. York Supreme, for example, corresponds roughly to New York, and Remembrance to Buenos Aires. As the invasion continued, more and more cities fell, leaving only Equality-On-Sea (Shanghai) and Super Earth's capital, Prosperity City (Stockholm) standing.

Efforts rallied behind Equality-On-Sea to make a last stand. But Equality-On-Sea never hit 100%; the current arc closed with the cities' percentage meter at 99.9783%. Many of the negative reviews are in Chinese, and while the machine translation doesn't seem accurate enough to quote, there are some recurring points one can easily glean: frustration over driving the narrative, the perception of a thumb on the scale from Arrowhead, and repeat mentions of "99.9783%."

What’s next? Well, for a start, the Federation needs a new president. Let’s see what Game Master Joel has up his sleeve.

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.

The Witcher 3 is getting one more patch later in 2025, bringing cross-platform mod support to the game and making mods available on consoles for the very first time.

CD Projekt announced the patch as part of the celebrations of The Witcher 3’s 10th anniversary. It will introduce cross-platform mod support for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S later this year. “For the first time, creating, sharing, and enjoying mods for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be easier and more accessible than ever,” CD Projekt said.

Cross-platform mod support will be released in a game update released later this year. You’ll need to have a mod.io account and connect it to your CD Projekt Red account in order to access cross-platform mod support. Existing modding services can still be used, meaning players do not need to use mod.io to upload and download mods for The Witcher 3. However, to access mods on consoles, mod.io is required.

It’s worth noting that while Xbox Series X and S and PS5 players can enjoy playing the myriad mods available through cross-platform mod support, mods must be created with a mod creator like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt REDkit on PC.

It’s a fantastic update for the 10-year-old game, which remains hugely popular and maintains a healthy number of players even now, a decade after launch.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is now up to an incredible 60 million copies sold. The 60 million figure includes sales of the base game and the GOTY version, but excludes expansions sold separately. It’s close to overtaking the latest sales figure we have for Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In a June 2023 interview with IGN, Bethesda development chief Todd Howard said Skyrim had sold over 60 million copies. So, we now have a potential tie for the best-selling role-playing game of all time.

Here’s Adam Badowski, joint CEO of CD Projekt, on The Witcher 3 sales milestone:

Without a doubt, the third part of Geralt’s adventures marks a pivotal point in our history. The game earned hundreds of awards and solidified our studio’s standing, but more importantly, it brought untold hours of adventures and emotions to millions of games the world over. I am proud to announce that since its release The Witcher 3 has sold over 60 million copies, securing a place among the bestselling video games in all history, and motivating us to carry on with intensive work on the next trilogy set in this universe.

That’s a reference to The Witcher 4, which is currently in full production. 422 out of 730 developers at CD Projekt are working on the sequel, which won’t be out until 2027 at the earliest.

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.

It’s early days for Elden Ring Nightreign, but already players have run up against their toughest challenge so far. No, it's not a classic FromSoftware boss, it’s the struggle to find friends to play with.

Elden Ring Nightreign drops players into the shifting lands of Limveld, exploring and fighting for survival either solo or in groups of three. There is no way to play two-player co-op. We’ve already reported on Elden Ring Nightreign’s ‘mixed’ Steam user review rating, with most of the complaints revolving around a lack of a duos option as well as no voice chat.

Playing Elden Ring Nightreign solo is proving to be a particularly difficult experience. As explained in IGN's Elden Ring Nightreign review: "Let’s get the most important caveat out of the way first: if you are hoping to tackle Nightreign entirely solo, and are anything less than a hardcore Elden Ring player that actively seeks out ways to make that already difficult game even more challenging, Nightreign isn’t for you. Yes, there is technically a single-player option, but it is so poorly balanced that I would be shocked if it isn’t patched and adjusted within the first month of release. And this is coming from someone who lives and breathes these types of games."

So, solo players are faced with matchmaking with random players, which itself is presenting problems because of a lack of coordination required to defeat Elden Ring Nightreign’s bosses.

As a result, players are turning to the Elden Ring community for help. The Elden Ring subreddit, for example, is packed with requests from duos looking for a third player (yes, the community is having fun with this situation).

“There’s like a zero % chance I’d find one other person to play with much less two,” said redditor trickponies. “Is the game even worth it solo?”

Players are pointing out that Elden Ring Nightreign does have matchmaking, so you can play trios if you do not have friends to play with. But, as others have countered, playing this game with randoms isn’t always the best experience.

“I have seen too many videos on this sub to trust randoms with anything more than the newspaper,” said one player. “I love you all. But from a distance. My blood pressure can only take so much.”

Players are turning to Discords and other online platforms as they hunt for like-minded fans to team up with. Elden Ring Nightreign hasn’t even been out 24 hours, but this is proving to be a big hurdle for the community as they work their way through the game.

Nightreign solo cuz my friends have a 9 to 5 and I'm unemployed pic.twitter.com/t47UrYoDSv

— Raph (@RaphDeee) May 29, 2025

Some Elden Ring fans are even saying they won’t buy the game because they don’t have any friends to play with.

“Yeah, as disappointing as it is, Imma have to pass on this game, purely because I don't have any friends to play it with and I can't play solo,” said Twinkie454.

Others are calling on FromSoftware to rebalance the solo experience so it’s more manageable. “We'll see what FromSoft does to re-balance it, so maybe have some patience,” one person said.

And, as you’d expect, some fans are offering to help others out. “.... Did we just become best friends?!” said one Elden Ring player. “Get the game bestie, I'll see you tomorrow when I get off work!”

Despite these issues, Elden Ring Nightreign has enjoyed a massive launch on Steam, with an incredible 313,593 peak concurrent users on Steam overnight. That was enough to make Elden Ring Nightreign one of the most-played games on Valve’s platform.

And it sounds like FromSoftware may add a duos option at some point in the future. In IGN's interview with Elden Ring Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki, the Nightreign lead developer discussed the choice to lean on solos and trios as the core experience options. When asked why there's no option for a pair of players to drop in together without a matchmade third player, Ishizaki said it was overlooked.

"The simple answer is that this is simply something that was overlooked during development as just a two-player option, so we're very sorry about that," said Ishizaki. "As we said before, we set out to make this a multiplayer co-op game for three players, balanced for three players, so that was the main focus and it's at the core of Nightreign.

"Of course, I myself as a player understand that and often want times where I'm just playing myself, so this is something that we considered from the start," Ishizaki continued.

"And so we did put a lot of effort into creating this experience that was playable for solo players in as much as the rules and new systems allowed. So in putting all our efforts into that aspect, we kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect, but this is something that we are looking at and considering for post-launch support as well."

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.

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.

Since its reveal, Hell is Us has been something of an enigma. As an action-RPG that hones in on detective-style investigations within a hauntingly alluring world filled with weird monsters to explore, it's a type of game that tasks players to meet it on its strange and unorthodox terms. For its developers, Hell is Us also represents a game that pushes back against contemporary trends of gaming that places its story and gameplay in a neat package and instead trusts players to piece together just what the hell is going on within the corrupted land of Hadea, and how to survive it.

After playing several hours of the opening of Hell is Us along with some mid-game dungeon crawling, I came away with a clearer idea of developer Rogue Factor's new-weird-influenced take on an action-adventure game that pushes players to mind the finer details of the world and maintain poise during some of the intense engagements. So far, Hell is Us is a game that makes charting out into a familiar yet deeply alien world feel captivating.

Hell is Us takes place in an alternate 1990s where the fictional European country Hadea is in the midst of a civil war following the events of a mysterious, supernatural incursion known as the "calamity." Playing as Remy, a United Nations peacekeeper and former resident of Hadea, he's detained by a mysterious organization following his mission into Hadea to find his parents. With the organization and its leader pressing down on Remy, he has to recall the fateful decisions he made with the surviving factions and how he fought off the seemingly otherworldly creatures known as Hollow Walkers.

The main plot of Hell is Us reminded me of a mix between Death Stranding and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which focuses on immersing players into a world that takes a sudden and violent turn to the weird and with a seemingly unreliable protagonist recounting his interpretation of events. Hell is Us fully commits to its premise of a bleak setting and being a stranger in an even stranger land, one that feels familiar with its backwoods and small towns clinging onto survival, but feels so disorientingly strange with the rise of Hollow Walkers and portals that have turned the European countryside into an alien landscape.

What immediately drew me into Hell is Us was its unusual approach to storytelling and immersing players within its strange world. The sense of mystery is palpable in Hell is Us, and I was constantly walking into areas that had grotesque monsters or strange anomalies that drew my eye. I was especially taken in by the plight of the surviving characters, who struggled to endure in their ramshackle sanctuaries held together by duct tape and dwindling hope. This story very much chucks you into the deep end with its narrative and gameplay flow as you explore the different open zones filled with their puzzles and points of interest.

What I found most intriguing, and what I suspect many players will have to come to grips with, is how Hell is Us takes a largely unguided approach to gathering intel and charting out to complete quests with no mini-maps or waypoints to help you in your trek. This very '90s adventure game approach puts the onus on players to listen to the details that the surviving characters bring up in conversations and read the well-organized intel from Remy's personal datapad. It's the type of game that demands a certain level of attention, or else you can find yourself wandering at length to figure out where to go next.

Outer Wilds is a particular example that inspired the dev team for its approach to a largely unguided adventure game that gradually expands in scope as more players use their growing knowledge. Speaking with creative director Jonathan Jacques Belletête, the approach the devs took with Hell is Us was all about trusting players with figuring out the mystery and embracing the campaign's more methodical approach to progression.

"So at first we really wanted to go full hardcore with this game, like players would have a little notebook and a pen to write notes, because that's where we came from when we played games in our youth, but what inspired us was the general fatigue we've felt with this new contemporary era, like games should never have a problem too big for players to solve because you have to reach every type of player possible," said the creative director.

Hell is Us is equal parts an investigation game and an action-RPG, and there's a surprising amount of combat to engage with while you're on the desolate road. On the surface, Hell is Us has the makings of a soulslike – and it certainly has some of those elements under the hood – but it goes in a direction with combat and power progression that's more about managing your poise and picking the best moments to strike against enemies that can easily take you out. Some of my favorite moments came using my powered-up weapons to dish out some chunky damage while sending in my drone to stun other enemies off in the wings.

The Hollow Walkers in Hell is Us are some of the most visually distinct and unnerving video game enemies I've seen in a long time. They're highly aggressive and can come in large numbers. Still, things get more unnerving once you face off against the powered-up walkers that can summon support enemies that were very much giving The Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion vibes. Once these enemies appear, you'll have to switch up to take them down fast before you can finish off the main walker.

Much like a souls game, stamina management is critical for survival, and I found myself constantly having to be decisive with my skills so as not to overexte nd myself against unforgiving enemies. One interesting wrinkle that took me time to get used to was the fact that health and stamina share a single bar. With your health being your primary source, the more health you lose in a fight, the less stamina you'll have to fight.

While you have limited health items, the Lymbic Pulse skill is the best way to help you stay in the fight. Similar to Nioh 1 and 2, activating the pulse immediately after seeing a glow around Remy will instantly restore health and stamina based on the attacks you dish out. It's a very risk-reward approach to combat, and depending on how intense the combat gets, it can be easy to forget to hit the pulse and lose out on health. I found the engagements surprisingly challenging and unrelenting, yet I still felt good about scraping through once I figured out how best to clear out the foes.

Combat took the most time for me to get used to, as it's far more survival- and resource-driven than Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Some battles were so unforgiving that I felt unfairly outmatched by the numbers and aggression of the walkers. Still, I managed to rally and rethink my approach by going for it. According to the creative director, he likened their approach to combat with the act of boxing, which is also about managing stamina and dealing with decisive blows when you can.

"This is us trying to put our own spin on third-person melee combat, and we're always a bit inspired by From Software, but it was important for us to put our spin on," he said. "Like in real life, you pretty much just have one hit point, right? It's all stamina, and when once you're tired and you get hit, you're done. Like, I boxed for a very long time, and when your stamina is done, you're done. So that's where we were coming at it. The more damage you take and the more health you lose, that'll directly affect your efficiency in combat, but we also added in our balance to that with the Lymbic Pulse, to help your restore your health when you do take those risks to lay in damage – and that gives us a bit of a signature to the game as well."

I was thoroughly impressed with the visuals and atmosphere of Hell is Us, and it presents such a compelling yet still bizarre mix of fantasy and science fiction. Along with the other games mentioned, another piece of media that served as a key influence was Alex Garland's 2018 film Annihilation, which dealt with exploring an environment that underwent radical and violent change. It presents such an intriguing setting, but at times, the hardened and traditional adventure game approach Hell is Us takes to taking in the details and surviving this world felt a bit too stoic for its own good.

Still, I was very invested in the bizarre, new-weird setting that Rogue Factor has crafted, and it so far has the makings of being one of 2025's more original and creative takes on the action-RPG experience. Given that this year saw the rise of Blue Prince's reinvention of a roguelite puzzle adventure, it'd be fitting for Hell is Us to succeed with its own reinvention with its new type of role-playing experience.