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I’ve been playing video games since about 1982, and Primal Planet stands out among the most charming I’ve ever encountered. While there’s not a lot about it that’s especially new, the components are so lovingly tuned and crafted that I could barely bring myself to stop playing. The designer injected Primal Planet with an inexhaustible reservoir of creativity, color, motion, and wonder, and the combination delivers an absolutely captivating play experience.

Its charm starts with the hugs. I’ve been in love with superfluous embraces in games since the WayForward remake of A Boy and His Blob deployed a deeply rewarding hug button. With a tap, you could reach out as the Boy and squeeze your best friend the Blob to your heart’s content. The sweetness of the animation and sound design compelled me to hug my little extraterrestrial friend whenever he succeeded, and often to comfort him when he failed. Primal Planet operates from the same emotional playbook. It doesn’t give you much manual control over displays of affection, but works in plenty of opportunities to warmly embrace and interact with your wife, daughter, and the adorable Sino the Dino. It’s deeply committed to integrating utterly unnecessary but deeply rewarding moments of humanity, where your little pixel people feel truly human.

The caveman protagonist has a family of bot buddies accompanying him on his journey, and thankfully these AI companions are genuinely helpful. They follow you without getting lost and contribute meaningfully to combat. You can opt to carry your daughter or put her down for support, and your wife is a menace to enemies with her bow and arrow. They’re also deeply emotive characters, enough so that you get attached to them... an emotional hook that Primal Planet finds plenty of opportunities to exploit.

Of all my friends and family, I bonded most with Sino the Dino, a baby dinosaur that acted as a sort of friendly attack dog fighting alongside me. Some of that attachment is that Sino really is useful, and part of it is that the poor little guy is an orphan and I feel a bit responsible for him. I also love that unlike my caveman, Sino can eat small enemies to restore his health on the fly, making him remarkably durable.

The day and night cycles dynamically alter the visibility and danger in the sprawling world. Locales that at dawn are gorgeous vistas transform after dark into menacing hunting grounds. The backgrounds are absolutely crammed with visual splendor. Almost every pixel has a sense of motion to it, from blades of tall grass blowing in the wind to the gentle breathing of immense, sleeping dinosaurs.

Speaking of the dinosaurs: they’re undeniably awesome. Look, dinosaurs are simply the coolest creatures to ever walk this earth, and Primal Planet knows that, presenting these astronomical ancient avians with a Jurassic Park-like level of enthusiasm. The dinos are diverse in appearance and behavior, deeply colorful and behaviorally distinct. Compys scurry about like the little scavengers they are, raptors attack in packs and from hiding, and the big fellas are genuinely terrifying. The pixel art style and careful color choices richly infuse these colossal beasts with grandeur, beauty, and terror.

Mechanically, Primal Planet is rock solid. It’s a side-scrolling Metroidvania that gets platforming, combat, and exploration right. The levels are artistically lush but also cunningly designed to hide (and tease) secrets, alternate paths, and environmental puzzles. Curiosity is always rewarded, sometimes with jarring (but terrific) surprises.

It’s a world of quick death and constant twists and turns, but it doesn’t feel brutal or unfair, instead merely challenging. You’ve got a potent dodgeroll to keep you out of harm’s way, and your little dude is delightfully agile. Whether you’re battling dinos, rival tribes, or space aliens, encounters feel thoughtfully designed and balanced.

Primal Planet includes well-designed progression and crafting systems. XP gathered through battle and exploration fuels Skill Points, which in turn can be used to unlock double jumps, weapon proficiencies, and more. You share your Skill Point pool and XP with Sino, and can considerably upgrade his mobility and combat abilities as the game goes on.

Resources found can be crafted at bonfires into weapons, tools, and medicine. The resources are neither too abundant nor too scarce... distribution feels just right. And some items double as equipment. Craft a spear from flint and wood and you’ve got a decent melee and ranged weapon, but you can also toss it against walls and use it as a climbing platform, or dip it in a fire to create a torch useful for clearing thorns that block your path.

As the campaign continues, you meet new allies that help you unlock more crafting abilities, allowing you to create potent traps and weapons to scale with the ever-escalating threats. Resource gathering never felt like a chore, but rather as a reward for exploring and following hunches to hidden areas where rare items and components waited to be found.

I feel like Primal Planet was designed especially for me. It combines several of my favorite reagents in gaming into one glorious magic potion. When I boot up Primal Planet I arrive at an intersection of prehistoric beasts, science fiction, excellent exploratory platforming, incredible art, a light progression system, and a dash of the feels.

The beating heart of Primal Planet is the incredible attention to detail and environmental storytelling. Show-don’t-tell is the name of the game in Primal Planet, and it’s splendidly executed. Whether it's UFOs beaming up dinosaurs in the background or your family stopping to create a cave painting together after a major story beat, Primal Planet just keeps intriguing and surprising.

Even though Primal Planet doesn’t really do anything revolutionary, I have rarely enjoyed a game more. Its creator seems to have surveyed the spectrum of components that make up a compelling video game adventure, and fine-tuned them into a deeply rewarding experience that evokes great Metroidvanias while feeling new and distinct. I absolutely cannot wait for the full release. Don’t sleep on Primal Planet.

Jared Petty really, really, really likes dinosaurs. You can find him at Bluesky as pettycommajared and at Threads as https://www.threads.com/@pettycommajared.

Microsoft announced significant company-wide layoffs on July 3, impacting its games business. With in-development titles like Rare’s Everwild and The Initiative’s Perfect Dark reboot getting cancelled, Microsoft's cuts have generated a lot of attention and discussion online. One of the industry professionals to lament Microsoft’s decision is EA Japan’s general manager Shaun Noguchi. In his personal comments, which he insisted "do not represent the position of EA," Noguchi criticized overseas companies’ increasing tendency to prioritize short-term results to please shareholders, and spoke out against games being cancelled after many years of development.

These gaming layoffs also saw the closure of Perfect Dark developer The Initiative, and the cancellation of an unnanounced MMORPG at the developer of The Elder Scrolls Online. Overall, Microsoft cut around 9,100 employees. For perspective, Microsoft had around 228,000 employees worldwide as of June 2024, according to official data.

In a memo shared with affected staff, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer talked of “focusing on strategic growth areas” and “removing layers of management to increase agility and effectiveness.” Talking about games in particular, he added that “our platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger. The success we're seeing currently is based on tough decisions we've made previously. We must make choices now for continued success in future years and a key part of that strategy is the discipline to prioritize the strongest opportunities.”

Microsoft’s reasons for the cuts are framed as restructuring to streamline management and, when it comes to games, to focus on the strongest titles. Commenting in Japanese on this reasoning via X, Noguchi said:

“The word ‘restructure’ contains positive connotations such as rebuilding or boosting efficiency, and tends to be used in a comparatively vague way overseas. However, in Japan 'restructure' is very directly perceived as meaning ‘layoffs’ and its significant impacts are more strongly perceived. Particularly in recent years, foreign-affiliated firms have increasingly demanded short-term results for large-scale investments.”

Noguchi explained that this results in many cases in which “a change in direction is made to meet shareholder expectations before sufficient time has been invested. I perceive this reported incident (Microsoft’s recent layoffs) as something that occurred within such a structure.”

While EA also has a history of laying off workers overseas, mass layoffs of the kind seen in game companies abroad rarely happen in Japan. This is due to the country’s labor laws making it impossible to lay off employees instantly or at short notice. Companies are more likely to gradually decrease their workforce, for example by not renewing the fixed-term contracts of their temporary workers, and by offering financial incentives to permanent employees to encourage them to resign voluntarily. When Final Fantasy Brave Exvius developer Gumi faced financial difficulties back in June last year, for example, it offered buyouts to employees in Japan to encourage them to resign (source: Automaton).

Less scrupulous ways of laying off staff in Japan do exist, however. These include the use of ‘expulsion rooms’ — a passive-aggressive method that basically aims to bore employees into quitting by putting them in a room and giving them nothing to do (note that ‘non-performance of work tasks’ could potentially be used as justification to cut any severance pay when the employee eventually leaves). Bloomberg alleged that Bandai Namco used the ‘expulsion room’ method to try to cut 200 employees last October.

EA Japan’s general manager Noguchi expressed sympathy for the Microsoft employees impacted by the recent layoffs. “The game industry is held up by every single creator and member of staff who diligently develops games on the ground. As someone in the same industry, I feel deep pain regarding this decision.”

Regarding the cancelled games, Noguchi described it as “truly regrettable” both for the developers who have spent years working on titles that will never get released, and the players, who have no chance to experience said games.

However, sometimes games get stuck in “development hell” and in some cases, it might be best for companies to cut their losses. Announced in 2019 and 2020 respectively, both Everwild and the Perfect Dark reboot had been in development long before then. Asked by X user Tayetalks about whether games under development for a long time with no end in sight should continue to be supported or be cancelled, Noguchi replied:

“This is just my personal opinion but if a game was in development for 7~10 years, canceling feels like the worst move. That’s a decade of work, potentially a quarter of someones (sic) entire career completly (sic) lost. Even if the final product isn’t what people originally expected, I think it still deserves to ship. Something is better than nothing for both the team and for the players. But also, don’t announce games when they’re still half baked,” adding that “hype with no follow through burns trust both for fans and the studio.”

Co-creator and designer of the original Xbox, Seamus Blackley, expressed similar sentiments in a post addressing the cancellations on Bluesky: “Think of the number of great games that had troubled development histories. All of them? Now consider how often executives cancel troubled games. Smooth development comes only when you take no risks. Greatness comes only when great risks are braved.”

Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.

At its summer Unpacked event, Samsung announced its first "budget" foldable smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip FE, for a price that doesn't exactly scream "budget" to most people.

This phone, which costs $899.99, seems largely the same as the Galaxy Z Flip 6 I reviewed last year, which still costs $1,100. Samsung hasn't revealed much about the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE, but one thing we do know is that it doesn't support the same full-screen apps on the smaller outside screen that the full-fat Z Flip 7 does.

If you want to grab this allegedly budget smartphone, the Z Flip 7 FE starts at $899 for a 128GB option, and jumps to some higher price for the 256GB version. The phone comes in two colorways, Black and White, so you also don't get the vivid colors that makes the regular Z Flip 7 so appealing.

A Budget Foldable?

With the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 starting at $1,099.99, the Z Flip 7 FE at $899 is certainly a lower price, but I don't know that I'd call a "budget" device. We've basically been living in a world of $1,000-plus smartphones for nearly a decade, since the iPhone X came to store shelves in 2017.

Foldables are also kind of in their own league at this point. Yeah, the Z Flip 7 starts at $1,099, but the flagship Z Fold 7, also announced at Unpacked, starts at $1,999.99. That kind of price tag has lost some of its shock value at this point, but it still nevertheless stings. It's not surprising, then, that Samsung isn't even pretending to launch a budget version of that phone.

From what I've seen, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE might be the version of the phone to get, especially if you're going to put a case on your device anyways. You still get a 50MP camera, along with an almost-as-powerful chipset, even if the screen is a little smaller than the main device.

Unlike the more pricey Z Flip 7, which is powered by the new Exynos 2500, the Z Flip 7 FE features the Exynos 2400. This is still a 10-core CPU, but it's built on a chunkier 4nm process, instead of the 2500's 3nm process. In everyday workloads, this shouldn't make too much of a difference, but it could lead to slightly worse efficiency and battery life, especially with its slightly smaller 4,000mAh battery (the Z Flip 7 has a 4,300mAh battery).

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE does seem like a great entry-level foldable, but a "budget" device with a $900 price tag just rubs me the wrong way. It seems like just yesterday that the iPhone X came out and made everything more expensive, and while we're mostly all numb to $1,000 flagships by now, I don't think I'm ready for entry-level devices to cost this much. But with everything getting more expensive this year, that might be something I just have to learn to get used to.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

Ne Zha 2, the highest grossing animated film of all time, will receive an English language release this summer from A24 — plus, it’ll now include none other than Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh in the voice cast.

The English version of the film will premiere in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand on August 22 and will be available in premium formats like IMAX and 3D.

According to the official synopsis published by Variety, the film follows Ne Zha, who “is feared by the gods and born to mortal parents with wild, uncontrolled powers. Now faced with an ancient force intent on destroying humanity, he must grow up to become the hero the world needs.”

Amazon's buy 2, get 1 free promotion during Prime Day is one of the best deals we've seen for physical books. Included in this deal are a couple of our favorite Legend of Zelda books, namely Hyrule Historia and Art & Artifacts. Oddly, the Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia is omitted from the bundle deal, but it is still available at a nice discount.

Fun fact: You don't actually need to be a Prime member to take advantage of this deal. Simply add the three items you want to your cart and Amazon will automatically remove the cost on the cheapest one.

The Legend of Zelda Books Are Discounted for Prime Day

Hyrule Historia is the first of these to be published and, to a lot of fans' dismay (or pleasure, you do you), details the official timeline up until The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. It's 280 pages of never-before-seen concept art, lore, history, and background. Pick it up for $23, 42% off its list price of $39.99

Art & Artifacts is a whopping 427-page catalogue of some of the most iconic weapons, gear, items, and more from throughout the Legend of Zelda series up to Breath of the Wild. It's currently 45% off for Prime Day, setting you back $27.49.

The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia weirdly isn't part of the buy 2, get 1 free promotion, but it's still marked down at a nice 55% off. You'll pay $18.09, and with the attached coupon can save an additional $3.43. This 328-page book essentially combines the contents of the previous two books and expands upon them, has more art, maps, and rare development sketches, and even an exclusive interivew with series producer Eiji Aonuma.

Even More Legend of Zelda Books Discounted for Prime Day

Aside from The Legend of Zelda encyclopedia-style books, you'll also find some official Zelda manga and guides included in the buy 2, get 1 free promotion. Though, oddly, volume six of the Twilight Princess manga is the only one included from that series. Check out what's available below.

Myles Obenza is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Bluesky @mylesobenza.bsky.social.

The opening moments of Gachiakuta introduce a fascinating universe of wealth and excess, a place where a busted seam in a brand new stuffed dog means getting rid of the toy altogether. Located on a floating island calld The Sphere, this walled city is beautiful because its inhabitants simply throw everything they no longer want in the trash – first into large, heavily guarded collection sites beneath their feet, and then onto the ground below. “Below” is a key term on Gachiakuta: The dystopian anime is built on a ladder of haves and have nots running from the city to its slums to a surface world (a.k.a. The Pit) populated by exiled criminals and monsters made from high society’s garbage. It’s a solid and timely observation about an unjust society where a select few hoard wealth and comfort, while everyone else scrambles to get one rung closer to the top. It’s just too bad that the first two episodes can’t realize the full potential of that premise.

Gachiakuta’s setup is interesting, with fantastical scene-setting that nonetheless brings to mind real places and issues. The protagonist, Rudo, regularly risks his life to scavenge through the city’s rubbish. He’s not afforded luxury: he’s one of the “tribesfolk” who lives outside the city walls. His father, an alleged murderer, has been cast down into The Pit (tellingly, The Sphere disposes of people and things with the same level of thoughtlessness); Rudo himself is treated as an inevitable murderer-in-the-making by the people around him. Unfortunately, Gachiakuta is so heavyhanded at this point, it feels less like we’re getting a peek into these societies and more like a tour guide is shouting facts about The Sphere and The Pit at us. There’s often dialogue where silence could’ve said more, and episode 1 includes awkward scenes where clumsy exposition is mistaken for casual conversation.

At the same time, these early passages sail right over intriguing storytelling opportunities that could’ve used more time to simmer. By the end of the first episode, Rudo is banished to The Pit, which means that in the span of 23 minutes, we’re introduced to The Sphere and all of its intricacies, only to leave it far, far behind for the foreseeable future. As Rudo falls, he vows revenge on the society that abandoned him. His anger is valid in this situation, and although I understood it intellectually, I failed to feel it because it all happened too quickly, with little dialogue-free time to actually process it.

That could also be because, by the end of episode 2, Rudo still isn’t a full-fledged character. He starts out feeling like too many other shonen heroes – particularly Bakugo from My Hero Academia. (My Hero Academia, like Gachiakuta, is produced by esteemed anime studio Bones.) These episodes try to endear us to Rudo through a series of stock stories: “tough guy has a crush,” “child witnesses a parent’s death,” “boy discovers his magic power” etc. But anime fans have seen these stories before – and seen them told more strikingly, too.

In fact, despite having what seems like a novel premise, the beginning of Gachiakuta merely reminded me of anime and games from the past. The relationship between the beautiful city and the slums recalls Goa Kingdom in One Piece. Its “humanity sucks” outlook is pure Attack on Titan. The floating island hovering above monster-ridden depths recalls The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. These kinds of thoughts kept coming. Of course, any creative work can be broken down into the sum of its influences and inspirations. But early on, Gachiakuta’s characters and emotional core feel too shallow to sell itself on its own terms.

Perhaps this will change as the series proceeds. It feels like we need more than two episodes to warm up to a character as bitter as Rudo. After a few promising moments of vulnerability in episode 1, he’s flattened by his anger in episode 2. It doesn’t take long for Gachiakuta to establish its all-encompassing sense of rage: it depicts an unfair world that makes the people who live in it feel a lot of hate. It’s a misanthropic show. That could be cathartic, but combined with the heavy-headedness, the pill feels hard to swallow.

Unfortunately, the animation has some flaws, too. Like Bones’ work on My Hero Academia and Mob Psycho 100 (the latter of which is arguably one of the best looking anime series of all time), Gachiakuta boasts some moments of striking artistry. The animation style occasionally shifts to imaginative shots that effectively and interestingly communicate Rudo’s state of mind.

But while most of the animation is 2D, the trash monsters are 3D. It’s understandable: there are so many moving parts to these characters, it only makes sense that they’d be CG. But the 2D and 3D don’t blend. The monsters feel like they’re from a different show, and that diminishes some of The Pit’s hellishness. (And they’ll surely become recurring baddies, which makes their incongruity extra frustrating.) There are still some very effective 3D shots in the series, though (like Rudo falling into The Pit), so hopefully, it evens out over time.

The reveal of Gachiakuta’s magic system arrives at the end of episode two, though it’s teased in the opening narration: an object cared for over a long enough time develops a soul, which can be wielded by the person who cared for it. In a world that treats people like trash, the idea of keeping and caring for something is a radical act. It’s a great idea, and that contrast is welcome. It just needs to aim for the heart as well as the head.

That idea sums up the first two episodes overall. In all its anger and disgust, Gachiakuta wants to convince us that it’s edgy. But perhaps that’s the whole issue. It has room to grow into a great series once it settles in. But for something so dark, it leaves very little impression.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered finally has a new update with much-needed performance improvements and tweaks to the difficulty settings.

Bethesda said update 1.2 focuses on fixes for quests, gameplay, and performance, and includes new damage settings. 1.2 won’t roll out to all platforms just yet, Bethesda added, but it will be released today, July 9, on Steam Beta.

A performance patch was much needed. Oblivion Remastered has enjoyed a hugely successful launch, with over 4 million players and a ‘very positive’ user review rating on Steam (although that's since fallen to 'mostly positive'). However, if there’s one issue that continues to crop up, it’s performance problems.

The tech experts at Digital Foundry found Oblivion Remastered on consoles to have significant problems across the board. DF’s Thomas Morgan said of Virtuos’ Unreal Engine 5 overhaul:

No platform is spared of issues: whether it's PS5, PS5 Pro, or either Xbox Series machine, all struggle with traversal hitches while roaming the open world. Secondly, there's major sub-60fps frame-rates, where I've also discovered that performance slowly degrades with more playing time — quite possibly down to a memory leak. And finally, software freezes are the icing on the cake, with all PlayStation and Xbox platforms crashing to the system menu on loading a save one too many times.

How does this manifest itself in-game? According to DF, a “charged” playthrough with more continuous play time behind it performs worse than a fresh boot. Cycling through saves also introduces bugs in the charged playthrough, Morgan revealed.

And this is particularly curious: this also leads to the camera position being too high while riding horseback. You can fix this by resetting the game. The update 1.2 patch notes, below, include "Fixed player character height scaling," which may be a fix for this specific issue.

“It's a dire position for any remaster to be in and developer Virtuos needs to address the game's stability - the crashes - as a priority,” DF continued. That’s a damning assessment of Oblivion on console, but what about PC? DF called PC performance “dire.” It’s worth checking out DF’s analysis in full for more.

Oblivion Remastered, developed by remake specialist Virtuos using Unreal Engine 5, has a long list of visual and feature improvements. It runs at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second, as you'd expect, but other changes are more meaningful. Everything from the leveling systems to character creation, and combat animations to in-game menus have been improved. Meanwhile, there's lots of new dialogue, a proper third-person view, and new lip sync technology. The changes are going down well with fans, some of whom believe Oblivion Remastered would be more accurately described as a remake. Bethesda, however, has explained why it went down the remaster route.

Soon after launch, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered players started warning newcomers to do Kvatch before the level scaling makes it an absolute nightmare. We’ve also got a report on a player who managed to escape the confines of Cyrodiil to explore Valenwood, Skyrim, and even Hammerfell, the rumored setting of The Elder Scrolls VI.

And be sure to check out our comprehensive guide to everything you'll find in Oblivion Remastered, including an expansive Interactive Map, complete Walkthroughs for the Main Questline and every Guild Quest, How to Build the Perfect Character, Things to Do First, every PC Cheat Code, and much more.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered update 1.2 patch notes:

SETTINGS CHANGES

• We’ve added additional difficulty settings to allow players to further tune their “Player Combat Damage” & “Enemy Combat Damage”. Players can now select from “Novice”, “Apprentice”, “Adept”, “Journeyman”, “Expert”, and “Master” options in the Gameplay menu. We hope the “Journeyman” setting, specifically, will act as a better bridge between “Adept” and “Expert” for players.

UI

• Fixed map markers disappearing
• Fixed missing punctuation in Simplified Chinese text
• Fixed “Toggle All” button on Map screen to work as a 'Hold'
• Various fixes to localized text
• Fixed controller issues in Spell making menu
• Fixed menus being cropped incorrectly in 1280x1024
• Fixed the incorrect player stance in the inventory menu after fast travel
• Fixed rebinding keys for Lock Picking
• Fixed keybinds not updating in AZERTY
• Fixed soft lock with controller in Enchanting menu
• Fixed stats not updating when equipping enchanted items
• Fixed a character skin glitch when closing the inventory menu

CRASHES

• Fixed crashes that could occur while fighting Jyggalag
• Fixed crashing when killing a paralyzed NPC with an arrow
• Fixed crashing when paralyzing an already-paralyzed NPC
• Fixed crashing in Spellmaking menu when rapidly removing & implementing effects
• Fixed various GPU crashes
• Fixed crashes that could occur during auto saves

AUDIO

• Fixed underwater SFX persisting after leaving exiting water
• Fixed missing ambient SFX in Shivering Isles

QUESTS

• Fixed NPCs floating after being knocked down during Priory of the Nine quest
• Fixed crashing when entering Flooded Mine during Final Justice quest
• Fixed pathing for Shaleez in Flooded Mine during Final Justice quest
• Fixed crashing when opening Gate to The Fringe during Retaking the Fringe quest
• Fixed mages loading without clothes in Fort Ontus during The Necromancer's Amulet quest
• Fixed NPC pathing issues in Gardens of Flesh and Bone during ‘Through the Fringe of Madness’ quest
• Fixed missing VFX during the closing of the Great Gate
• Fixed Ilav Dralgoner's missing facial animation during ‘Saving Time Itself’ quest
• Fixed Sir Thredet's speech during ‘Umaril the Unfeathered’ quest
• Fixed NPC pathing issues during ‘Baiting the Trap’ quest
• Fixed Obelisk Crystals spawning disconnected during ‘Baiting the Trap’ quest
• Fixed crash at end of ‘Through a Nightmare, Darkly’ quest
• Fixed wall crumbling in Malada during ‘Nothing You Can Possess' quest
• Fixed misaligned food at the Castle Leyawiin County Hall dinner party during ‘Sanguine’ quest
• Fixed an issue with visibility of ghosts during ‘Ghosts of Vitharn’
• Fixed cutscene not playing during ‘Light the Dragonfires’
• Fixed missing textures in Cropsford Campsite after finishing ‘Goblin Trouble’

PERFORMANCE

• Fixed frame rate drop in Deepscorn Hollow
• Fixed frame rate drops in Black Rock Caverns
• Fixed frame rate drop between Skingrad and Skingrad Castle
• Fixed frame rate drop south of Bravil Castle courtyard
• Reduced the frequency of hitches in the open world.
• General improvements to frame time in many locations.
• Optimize updating of character attachments.
• Optimize rendering of water volumes in the open world.
• Optimize light/shadow updates in several lairs.
• Optimize waterfall particle FX and rendering.
• Optimize the weather system.
• Optimize character animation system.

GAMEPLAY

• Fixed player character height scaling
• Fixed armor items hiding Argonian and Khajiit tails
• Fixed slow camera movement when initiating NPC dialogue
• Fixed soft lock when a player with a high bounty goes to jail
• Fixed Orrery animations
• Fixed physics bug with floating necklaces
• Fixed vampire sleeping animations
• Fixed NPC beards not following facial animation.
• Fixed ghost NPCs being completely invisible
• Fixed missing animation when talking to Shamada in Leyawiin
• Fixed occasional very long load times when fast traveling
• Fixed missing facial animation for Snak gra-Bura
• Fixed falling unconscious in water preventing player from getting up
• Fixed NPCs losing collision when swimming
• Fixed NPCs stopping combat when player is blocking
• Fixed female Dremora teeth clipping
• Fixed soft lock after choosing player class
• Fixed Amber weapons clipping in first person view
• Fixed vines clipping into columns
• Fixed helmets clipping into player character's head
• Fixed missing textures on Daedric statues
• Fixed duplicated pages between Oghma Infinium and Mysterium Xarxes

SYSTEM

• Fixed flickering shadows when using XeSS Upscaling
• Fixed title properly restarting after purchasing the Deluxe Upgrade on PC
• Fixed settings properly migrating between PC and XBOX
• Fixed water disappearing after fast travel
• Fixed cursor slowdown when enabling high frame rate V-Sync
• Fixed shaders not preloading due to cloud save replication
• Fixed long blackout during loading screens
• Fixed weather VFX flashing while outside
• Fixed motion blur artifacts while in the Oblivion Plane
• Fixed NPCs not obeying the Wait action from the player

This update will be in the Steam Beta. If you would like to opt in to the The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Beta update, please follow these instructions:

1. Open your Steam Library and navigate to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered

2. Right click on "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered" and select "Properties"

3. In the new properties pop-up window, select "Betas"

4. In the beta drop down to opt into, select "[beta]"5. Wait for app to download new build and launch.

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.

As James Gunn prepares to kick off the rebooted DC Universe with Superman, the DC Studios co-CEO has said each movie in the works will be tonally different — so don’t expect an All-Star Superman-inspired DCU.

Speaking to IGN on the Superman red carpet, Gunn said that every DCU project “has its own stamp,” so Grant Morrison’s hugely influential All-Star Superman, which heavily inspired his new Superman film, won’t be used as the basis for the DCU overall.

“I mean it’s this movie,” Gunn said of All-Star Superman’s influence. “It’s really important to me that every project has its own stamp on it. This movie is very different from the R rated movie we're making, a body horror movie with Clayface. It’s very different from the Sgt. Rock movie we’re developing. It’s very different from Supergirl, which is a space fantasy — Craig Gillespie just walked by here a second ago, who directed that. So every one of these movies is completely different.”

As well as casually confirming the Sgt. Rock movie is still in the works amid development trouble, Gunn pointed to the strategy employed by DC Comics, which sees works of various tones released within its own universe, as the template he wants to employ for the DCU.

“What I love about DC Comics and the graphic novels is that they allowed the individual artists and writers to create their own projects, and they each had their own voice," Gunn said.

"The Long Halloween, All-Star Superman, Dark Knight, Watchmen, those things have very little tonally in common with each other, except for they’re a part of the set of communal characters that are in the DC Comics universe. And now, we’re doing that same thing in the DCU.”

In our chat, Gunn namechecked the Clayface movie, due out next year. In February, Gunn, alongside co-CEO Peter Safran, confirmed its DCU canon status and R rating. Clayface, a former criminal in Gotham City with the power to change his clay-body to become anyone or anything, is one of Batman's oldest foes. The first iteration of the character, Basil Karlo, first appeared in Detective Comics #40 (1940). The Clayface movie is due out September 11, 2026. Gunn called Clayface “pure f***ing horror, like, totally real. Their version of that movie, it is so real and true and psychological and body horror and gross.”

As for Supergirl, also out in 2026, Gunn calls that one a “space fantasy.” Expect Jason Momoa’s Lobo to star alongside Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El / Supergirl. Presumably Gunn's new Batman movie, which is causing him trouble, will have a unique tone, too.

Superman of course launches July 11. Gunn recently said rumors surrounding exactly how much money it needs to make in order to be considered successful are wide of the mark. Check out IGN’s Superman review to find out what we think of the film.

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.

Amazon UK is giving Pokémon TCG fans another chance to secure the highly anticipated Destined Rivals Elite Trainer Box, this time as part of its Prime Day restock. The special box is now available again for just £44.99, marked down from its usual market value of £84.95, but you’ll need to request an invite to purchase.

Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Destined Rivals Elite Trainer Box

Stalker 2 is set to launch on PlayStation 5 late 2025 a year after it hit PC and Xbox Series X and S.

GSC Game World’s Xbox Game Studios-backed open world horror shooter launches on PS5 with full support for the DualSense controller’s features, including haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. Further technical enhancements for the PS5 Pro are also in development, the developer said.

Stalker 2 launched in November 2024 to a positive reception on Steam and 1 million sales. It’s a success story for the Ukrainian studio; a miracle, really, considering the harrowing circumstances that followed Russian’s full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

But Stalker 2 launched with well-documented bugs and issues, chief among them A-Life 2.0. A-Life was a key feature of the first Stalker game that governed AI behavior across the game world. At a high level, it is a system for simulating life in the Zone that works its magic seemingly independently of the player’s actions or whereabouts. It helps to create convincing AI and the emergent gameplay Stalker is famous for.

GSC had said A-Life 2.0 would make the Zone feel alive as never before, that it would fuel emergent gameplay on a scale previously thought impossible. Indeed for some fans, A-Life 2.0 was Stalker 2’s biggest selling point. But when Stalker 2 actually came out players discovered that A-Life 2.0 didn’t work properly, with some questioning whether it was even in the game at all.

In an interview with IGN in December, GSC explained what went wrong with Stalker 2’s A-Life 2.0, and vowed to fix the system. They've been working on doing that ever since, and the expectation is that the PS5 version will include all the latest updates and fixes the developer has released for the PC and Xbox versions.

Read more on how Stalker 2 has changed everything for the studio here.

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

Star Wars: Battlefront 2, a game that came out in 2017, shot up to become the 12th best-selling game in the U.S. by dollar sales for the month of May, likely thanks to renewed interest from fans of the TV series Andor.

This data comes from analytics firm Circana, which puts Battlefront 2 at No. 12 for the month of May, up from No. 135 the month before. Popularity of Battlefront 2 spiked in May thanks to Andor and other Andor-related Star Wars promotions, giving the game the best Steam player count it's seen in years, aided by Andor actor Ben Amor's calls for a Battlefront 3 on social media.

"The player surge for Battlefront 2 started with Revenge of the Sith's 20th anniversary re-release back in early May, then really picked up with Andor," Circana analyst Mat Piscatella confirmed to IGN. "Players peaked in the week of May 25 and then started to fall back a bit. There was another bump in mid- to late- June as the game was put into various sales and things as well but that's a story for two weeks from now."

Elden Ring: Nightreign, meanwhile, debuted at the top of the charts for May, and became the 11th best-selling game of 2025 so far, topping the PlayStation, Xbox, and PC storefronts. When we asked Piscatella for comment, he noted that Elden Ring: Nightreign and the original Elden Ring weren't really comparable sales-wise, due to being very different games sold at very different prices. "That being said, Nightreign launch unit sales did not reach the same neighborhood as those of Elden Ring."

It was followed closely by debut game Doom: The Dark Ages at No. 2, which is also now the 16th best-selling game of 2025. As with Nightreign, The Dark Ages didn't hit the sales heights of its predecessor, Doom: Eternal, but according to Piscatella, "this is more timing than anything. Doom Eternal launched in March 2020... and nothing is going to ever comp well to any new game that launched in March of 2020."

New games F1 25 and Capcom Fighting Collection 2 debuted at No. 15 and No. 19, respectively.

Overall, spending on video game content was up 2% year-over-year to $3.7 billion, largely driven by subscription spending on non-mobile platforms, according to analysis by Circana.

Hardware spending dropped by 13% year-over-year in May, to $172 million, with Nintendo Switch dollar sales dropping 44%, Xbox Series dropping 30%, and PlayStation growing 3%. The PlayStation 5 was the best-selling hardware in both unit sales and dollars. Next month's charts for June will show the impact of the Nintendo Switch 2's release on this landscape.

Overall, video game spending was up 1% year-over-year to $4.1 billion.

May 2025 U.S. Top 20 Best-Selling Games:

1. Elden Ring: Nightreign (NEW)
2. Doom: The Dark Ages (NEW)
3. Forza Horizon 5
4. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Remastered
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
6. MLB: The Show 25*
7. Minecraft*
8. Grand Theft Auto V
9. NBA 2K25
10. EA Sports FC 25
11. Assassin's Creed: Shadows
12. Star Wars: Battlefront II
13. Split Fiction
14. Red Dead Redemption II
15. F1 25 (NEW)
16. Helldivers II
17. The Last of Us: Part II
18. WWE 2K25
19. Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (NEW)
20. PGA Tour 2K25

* Indicates that some or all digital sales are not included in Circana's data. Some publishers, including Nintendo, do not share certain digital data for this report.

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.

In a densely packed summer movie season, James Gunn's Superman is easily one of the most hotly anticipated releases. But if you want a real deep dive into the development of this ambitious reboot, you'll want to pick up Abrams Books' Superman: The Art and Making of the Film.

IGN can exclusively debut a new excerpt from Superman: The Art and Making of the Film. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

Superman: The Art and Making of the Film is written by James Fields, who previously penned The Art of The Batman. The book also features an introduction by Gunn and a foreword by Superman actor David Corenswet.

This 176-page book features a wealth of concept art and unit photography, showcasing character and costume designs, sets, and other elements of the film. It also features extensive interviews with the cast and crew, offering insight into the production of the film as well as the early development of Gunn and Peter Safran's DCU.

Superman: The Art and Making of the Film is priced at $50 and will be released on November 18, 2025. You can preorder the book on Amazon.

IGN also recently got an exclusive look at Abrams' X-Men '97: The Art and Making of the Animated Series.

For more on Superman, check out the utterly bizarre history of Superman's powers and see our ranking of the live-action Superman films released so far.

Excerpt from the upcoming book Superman: The Art and Making of the Film (Abrams) by James Field, available wherever books are sold on November 18, 2025

Copyright (C) 2025 DC and Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

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

The actor behind Squid Game hero Gi-hun (Player 456) has discussed how he prepared for his character's final scenes mentally and physically — including by losing 22 pounds to show the toll being taken.

Warning: Spoilers for Squid Game Season 3 follow.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Korean star Lee Jung-jae said Gi-hun's last scene was "without a doubt, the most challenging" to shoot of the entire series, requiring he mentally prepare for the character's toughest choice, and physically show the stress he had been under.

"To get that scene just right — all of the effort that went into mentally preparing for it and maintaining that psychological state — all of that process was really not easy," Jung-jae said. "Physically, I had gone on a very strict diet for about 14 months, which actually got more strict by the day, up until the day we shot Gi-hun's final scene."

"Over that time," he continued, "I lost about 10 kilograms (22 pounds). I wanted to portray the character in a way where, even if you just saw Gi-hun standing there, you'd be able to feel how much anguish and pain he was going through."

Within Squid Game's final two seasons, which tell one continuous story and were filmed back-to-back, an increasingly desperate Gi-hun re-enters the series' deadly tournament with a plan to bring it down from the inside, but repeatedly fails to upend the plans of its organiser, Front Man.

Gi-hun is on a self-imposed quest to demonstrate the humanity of his fellow players, but can never convince a majority to end the games early. The biggest blow to Gi-hun then comes after the character stages an armed coup, not realising Front Man himself has sabotaged his plans. The loss of numerous allies, including Gi-hun's childhood friend, sends the character into a near-catatonic state — with the hero barely uttering a line throughout the third season's opening episodes.

But, by the series finale, Gi-hun has rallied himself somewhat, after being made the protector of a newborn baby. It's something of an abrupt change and, Jung-jae said the infant's introduction was initially a shock when first reading the season's scripts.

"When I first read that part in the script, it was such a horrible page to read — very painful," Jung-jae recalled. "I thought, 'How did [Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk] come up with this?! Why have a baby be born under such cruel circumstances?'

"I believe it was the birth of the baby that sparked something again in Gi-hun. I think if not for the baby, Gi-hun probably would have just let go — maybe even of his own life. But with the birth of the baby, he had something he wanted to protect."

Lastly, Jung-jae said he agreed with his character's fate — his sacrifice that ensures the baby lives and ultimately survives the season as the games' winner. Asked whether he had discussed an alternative plan — an option that might have seen Gi-hun survive — with the show's creator, Jung-jae said he had trusted in the ending that viewers ultimately saw.

"If this project had been more focused just on the entertainment side of being a death-game genre, I don't think the director would have wanted to end it this way," Jung-jae concluded. "But Squid Game is different. It's not just spectacle — it's about the themes of our inner humanity and societal relationships. I think Director Hwang wanted a very clear and complete ending — one that fits his overall message — even if it meant signaling that there won't be a season four. I believe he felt strongly that Gi-hun's final decision was the right end for his arc."

Squid Game Season 3 has launched to a mixed viewer response but record-breaking viewership overall, sparking speculation that Netflix will pick up on its finale tease for a U.S.-based spin-off.

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

The live service bloodbath continues — this time the casualty is Steel Hunters, the mech shooter game from the people behind World of Tanks.

Steel Hunters launched on April 2 in early access form on Steam. Some had hoped for Titanfall vibes from this free-to-play, PvPvE shooter, but it fell completely flat. And just three months later, developer Wargaming has announced plans to sunset the game.

In a post addressing Steel Hunter’s community, Wargaming said the game’s servers will live on for another three months before the game goes dark permanently from October 8.

“Today we share difficult news: we've made the decision to sunset Steel Hunters,” Wargaming’s statement began. “You've given us so much passion and support but unfortunately we've come to the conclusion that continuing development is not sustainable. We know this isn't the news anyone wanted to hear and we genuinely share in your disappointment.”

So what went wrong? Amid the difficulties so many live service games have endured in recent times, Steel Hunters failed to capture an audience. It launched on Steam with a peak of 4,479 concurrent players and a ‘mixed’ user review rating, and it was downhill from there. At the time of this article’s publication, the 24-hour peak was 97, with just 52 concurrent players — that’s devastating for any free-to-play game.

The top user review on Steam, from a player with over 300 hours on Steel Hunters including its various pre-launch forms, lamented the potential of the game, and praised its mech design and maps. However, they critisized Wargaming's lack of a roadmap, slow pace of updates, and various bugs.

"Early access should have never happened," they said. "We should have never left beta. Time and time again the players have been vocal about changes or fixes that were needed and have come to the table with very helpful solutions only to be met with 'we are moving forward' only to then react with 'why did it go south?'"

Live service video games are enduring a tough time right now, with a number of titles falling by the wayside or finding themselves canceled before launch. Sony’s Concord is perhaps the highest-profile example of that, a PlayStation disaster that cost the gaming business hundreds of millions of dollars. But only last week, Microsoft canceled an unannounced MMORPG from the developer of The Elder Scrolls Online, resulting in hundreds of layoffs.

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 Last of Us and Intergalatic: The Heretic Prophet development chief, Neil Druckmann, is enjoying his time away from the HBO series by indulging in a LEGO set based on the latter's spaceship.

Last month, 2Bricks — who specializes in custom (MOC) LEGO builds — released a YouTube video documenting a custom build of "a sleek Porsche-designed red ship" inspired by the next Naughty Dog game franchise, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. And apparently, it caught the eye of one very intrigued fan.

I've been covering Amazon Prime Day sales for years now and some of the most popular deals are always Kindle deals. As someone who owns two of them, I can definitely see why. With the e-Ink display and access to thousands of books, they are by far the best reading tablet I've ever used. And despite Amazon owning the devices, the retailer has consistently been stingy with their Kindle discounts over the years.

In 2025 that is not the case at all, though. Amazon has dropped prices on the entire Kindle lineup, and these are the best deals I've ever seen on the latest models. If you've been waiting for Prime Day to pick up one of these popular e-readers for yourself or a loved one, I can honestly say there's never been a better time to do so.

The Best Kindle Deals at Amazon Today

Like I mentioned above, the entire Kindle lineup is currently discounted for Prime Day. These are the latest 2024 models, and these prices are the absolute lowest we've ever seen them go. The Paperwhite sitting at $125 is unheard of and actually cheaper than it was during Black Friday last year. Meanwhile, the standard Kindle for $85 is pretty much a steal, and a great place to start if you're just looking for an entry level e-reader. The closest competitor that offers similar technology would be Barnes & Noble's Nook, which is actually $50 more for essentially the same thing.

Which Kindle should you buy?

If you've never used a Kindle before, you may be wondering which one is right for you. The answer to that really comes down to what sort of functionality you're looking for. First up, there are the three standard e-ink reading tablets: Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, and Kindle Paperwhite Kids. All of these pretty much function the same if you're just looking to read some words, so the main difference is the size of the screen and added accessories. The Kindle Paperwhite deal is what I'd recommend because it has a larger 7-inch screen, but if you have smaller hands then the regular Kindle works just fine for a lot cheaper. The kids' version of this tablet is pretty much the same thing, but with the option for parental controls and a free case.

Then there's the other two higher-end Kindle models: Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe. The new Colorsoft is a great choice if you're specifically looking to use the device to read comics or graphic novels. It's the only full-color Kindle currently available. The Scribe is what I'd recommend if you plan on using it as a notebook, rather than just an e-reader. It's great for taking notes or writing down ideas as you read or review documents.

Consider Taking Advantage of Kindle Unlimited

Dune: Awakening developer Funcom has apologized after "patching out" a layout change in the Deep Desert that briefly transformed PvE territory into PvP, leading to "an unfortunate amount of lost bases and equipment."

Yesterday, Funcom released another patch for Dune: Awakening, with more tweaks to improve the endgame experience for players who'd prefer to spend time in PvE activities, including the ability to farm Tier 6 resources and a better chance of getting Unique drops in PvE loot in Deep Desert.

It follows on-going efforts from the developer to improve PvP in the Deep Desert after an AMA revealed many players branded the endgame "toxic" due to griefing even after the ability for players to squish each other with their Ornithopter was supposedly patched out. Later, griefers intentionally landed their Ornis on other players' own thopters to prevent them from farming.

However, the change — which was "intended to only occur with the next Coriolis cycle and not impact the ongoing cycle" — resulted in an "oversight in the development process and internal communications," resulting in heavy losses for some players.

"We're incredibly sorry that this happened and we want to acknowledge that this should have been handled better. We’ve changed our internal processes as a result of this and will be better in the future," the team said in a statement.

"We are working to reimburse vehicles and items (to the best of our ability) to players who were impacted by this. You can expect the reimbursed materials, items, and vehicle components to show up in the in-game ‘Claim Rewards’ tab by the end of this week."

In the same statement, the team also revealed it was working hard to eliminate cheaters from Arrakis, writing, "our primary focus, which continues over the next weeks and months, will be to remove all identified exploits (third party cheat engines, client hacks, or in-game exploitation of game mechanics). In addition, we will be hard at work improving the game, adding quality of life features, and addressing critical gameplay issues.

"We have zero tolerance for the type of player behavior that has an impact on the experience of other players, and we will continue to focus on ensuring that players can enjoy the game as it is intended," the statement added. "If you see someone cheating or exploiting, please report them to us using the available reporting channels."

Funcom said that so far it has taken action on "several hundred" cheats caught using exploits, cheats, and hacks, with "more waves of bans coming as we identify further culprits."

"We have a team dedicated exclusively to fighting hackers and fixing exploits. Over the next few patches, they will be introducing additional efforts to prevent exploits by increasing security on several client/server communication layer, performing additional penetration testing against common attack vectors, and auditing our item and inventory systems to make sure they are resistant to item duplication," Funcom stated.

Finally, the team also apologized to players who had lost "vehicles or other resources" due to in-game bugs. Though admitting some issues are hard to replicate and resolve, Funcom said it is now working on tools to "better reimburse players for vehicle losses due to bugs."

Dune: Awakening has enjoyed a superb launch, with a 'very positive' user review rating on Steam. Within hours of going live on June 10, Funcom's survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent players on Valve's platform, and hit a new high earlier this month of 189,333 players. And it's already clocked up over 1 million players, too, making it Funcom's fastest-selling game ever, and securing a Great 8/10 in our review.

If all that's got you interested but you're not sure where to start, make sure to check out all the Dune: Awakening classes you can choose from, and our Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step guide to the story. We've also got Dune: Awakening resource guides that'll help you find iron, steel, aluminium, and a Dune: Awakening Trainers locations guide to help you survive on Arrakis.

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.

Amazon has been delivering price cuts on its gaming products left and right for the Prime Day sale this week, but this deal on a 256GB microSD Express Card is a huge surprise, especially for Nintendo Switch 2 owners.

Normally £49, the 256GB Sandisk model microSD Express Card has been dropped to £45.49, while the 128GB version has gone from £41.99 to £39.98. While these are only 7% and 5% price cuts, respectively, these are still considered bargain prices given the scarcity of deals on microSD Express cards in general.

A little bit of Mario Kart trivia for you — what is the one Nintendo track you can't play anywhere but the series' smartphone spin-off Mario Kart Tour?

The answer is Piranha Plant Pipeline, a fun, waterslide-esque level set within the bowels of various Mushroom Kingdom warp pipes that for some reason never got ported over into Switch entry Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Mario Kart Tour's lengthy track roster is a mix of classic tracks and new courses that also arrived in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as part of the game's Booster Course Pass. These included Squeaky Clean Sprint, a level partially set in a toilet, and Sky-High Sundae, which was immediately brought back for Switch 2 as part of Mario Kart World's open-world map.

For unknown reasons, Piranha Plant Pipeline never made the jump to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and because of Mario Kart Tour's rotating track selection it is only rarely playable. Indeed, Nintendo celebrated the track's return with a post today on X/Twitter, while Nintendo Life notes that the course's reappearance now marks only the third time it has ever been playable, and its first appearance this year.

"Well hello Piranha Plant Pipeline," one fan wrote. "Missed you so much."

If you want to try out what may be Mario Kart's rarest track, you have until 22nd July to do it, before Piranha Plant Pipeline goes back in Nintendo's content vault.

Could we ever see it return in another Mario Kart game? Much will likely depend on Nintendo's plans to keep Mario Kart World fresh over the coming years — something the company is currently keeping schtum on. Fans strongly suspect that Nintendo will at some point detail a post-launch content roadmap for its hugely-popular Switch 2 launch title, though Nintendo is yet to say anything of how it may keep its racer refreshed over the coming generation.

The Pipe Tour starts today and it features Piranha Plant Pipeline! #MarioKartTour pic.twitter.com/6X76J0X7w0

— Mario Kart Tour (@mariokarttourEN) July 9, 2025

Indeed, Nintendo's only major update to Mario Kart World so far has been its unpopular move to further limit the chances of racing on the franchise's standard looped courses, rather than so-called open-world 'intermission tracks'.

While Nintendo wrapped up launching new content for Mario Kart Tour back in 2023, the game remains playable on iPhone and Android devices. Originally launched in 2019, Mario Kart Tour made millions for Nintendo, though its gacha-style system for unlocking characters and karts was heavily criticised, and was later removed.

Nintendo smartphone has a mixed track record on keeping its smartphone games online, with several notable titles such as Miitomo, Draglia Lost and Dr. Mario World no longer playable. The original free-to-play version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp was shutdown, meanwhile, but replaced with a pricey paid-for alternative. Should Mario Kart Tour ever get retired, Piranha Plant Pipeline will disappear forever with it — so maybe give it a go now, while you can.

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

What happens when Falcon, The Thing and US Agent walk onto a spaceship? Well, you get a big leak from the set of Avengers: Doomsday, for one.

Photos showing three members of the upcoming blockbuster's cast together on set in costume have been posted online, and shared on X/Twitter by MCUnewsrumors. And while the images depict a set mostly surrounded by a bluescreen backdrop, this is still our first look at three major superhero teams interacting.

The images show Danny Ramirez's Joaquin Torres/Falcon from Sam Wilson's new Avengers team, Wyatt Russell as John Walker/US Agent from the Thunderbolts/actual "New Avengers", plus Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Ben Grimm/The Thing of The Fantastic Four.

Of course, all three of these actors were previously announced by Marvel as being in Avengers: Doomsday, and of course the fan expectation has been that we will see the film's various heroes in a grand team-up against Doctor Doom (with numerous members of the Fox universe X-Men also included, too).

Still, it is remarkable to see these characters together, especially considering the fact that Thunderbolts/The New Avengers ends with the suggestion of conflict between its new team and the hero squad that Sam Wilson's Captain America says he's setting up at the end of Captain America: Brave New World. Seemingly, then, that rivalry gets sorted out quickly.

So too with The Fantastic Four, who are expected to be consigned to their own, separate reality for much of their upcoming debut film The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Though, as fans will know, Thunderbolts/The New Avengers already teased the quartet's arrival in the main MCU universe via a post-credits scene.

⌚️ Danny Ramirez, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Wyatt Russell behind the scenes of 'AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY'.

📲 https://t.co/Enm4ekuO6V pic.twitter.com/gfGdzkQMk5

— MCU News and Rumors (@mcunewsrumors) July 8, 2025

Ultimately, then, while these characters may not be Marvel's biggest stars, fans are excited to see representatives for three of the film's big teams interact, on a set that looks like the bridge of a spaceship.

Is this the Fantastic Four's spacecraft, with the Avengers and New Avengers onboard for a pow-wow? There's a retro feel to some of the consoles and screens we can see. Falcon looks to be fully recovered from his injuries at the end of Brave New World. US Agent now sports a black beret. And The Thing... well, Moss-Bachrach is in a mocap suit, and there's not much more to say about that.

Of course, fans have plenty of theories to this scene's context. Based on previous rumors of the Avengers Doomsday plot, many believe we're seeing a trio of characters left behind to defend Earth while some of the MCU's bigger stars pop over to the X-Men's dimension, ready for the big battle at the X-Mansion seen in the film's earlier leaks.

Avengers: Doomsday is currently being filmed in the UK, ahead of its eventual launch in on December 18, 2026. Other production images that have leaked out have suggested we'll see more of a key location from Thunderbolts/New Avengers, while a separate set is surprisingly named after a member of The Defenders.

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

Here's some good news for superhero-loving Minecraft fans — there's a new Superman skin pack up for grabs.

And best of all, the pack — which contains skins for Superman, Lois Lane, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific — is available now from the Minecraft Marketplace for free.

It's all to tie in, of course, with James Gunn's new big-screen take on Superman, which is out later this week (July 11) and sees Superman fighting to balance his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as the new DCU properly kicks off.

Superman stars David Corenswet as the titular hero — who replaces prior leading man, Henry Cavill — Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, as well as Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, and Isabela Merced.

In our Superman movie review, we slapped it with a healthy 8/10, writing: "Superman is a wonderfully entertaining, heartfelt cinematic reset for the Man of Steel, and a great start for the DCU on the big screen."

Last week Minecraft announced a raft of new features to make use of the copper resource — including the long-awaited debut of copper golems. Not only will Minecraft now let you craft copper tools and armor, the copper golem from Minecraft's 2021 Mob Vote is finally being added, after remaining a fan-favourite concept over the years.

And don't forget that last month, Minecraft got a big graphical update courtesy of its Vibrant Visuals update — but only on supported platforms for now.

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.

I have fairly recently started collecting both puzzles and playing cards as an adult, and one brand I've been frequently coming across is theory11. I was first drawn in by their Lord of the Rings puzzle thanks to its really cool design and only later found out they also make some awesome playing cards. As a brand, theory11 focuses on creating unique art based on popular franchises. Everything they creat has a faithful design that feels both ornate and substantial.

Since I usually only like to buy things when they are on sale, I had yet to actually purchase any theory11 puzzles or playing cards for myself. Now that these collector's items are on sale for the first time for Prime Day, I finally decided to pull the trigger on the puzzle that first caught my eye. Below I've laid out everthing this sale currently has to offer.

theory11 Jigsaw Puzzle Deals

This brand has some of the coolest puzzles for adults you can find on Amazon right now. Although it isn't as well known as some of the more recognizable puzzle brands, like Ravensburger, each puzzle appears to offer a high level of quality. The image is one that is meant to be displayed once you're done, rather than put back into the box. These 1000-piece puzzles are essentially a really cool poster that you'll definitely want to frame immediately after placing that final piece.

The only options currently featured in the sale are from four fairly popular fandoms. The Lord of the Rings puzzle and Harry Potter puzzle options are my top picks here thanks to how book-like they feel.

theory11 Playing Card Deals

I've collected a few different sets of playing cards I've found at a few different shops and have found that the outside image is usually a lot cooler than the individual cards themselves. These theory11 playing cards do not have that problem at all. The outer sleeve of each of these decks all feature a design unique to the franchise its representing, and the cards within all match that design perfectly. The characters and little easter eggs from these popular stories are sprinkled throughout the cards.

Board Games Are on Sale for Prime Day Too

Although it isn't exactly the same thing as puzzles and playing cards, it's worth noting that Amazon is also having a pretty big board game sale for Prime Day 2025. If you have a love of puzzles and card games that transfers over to other tabletop ventures, I recommend you check out these deals as well.

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Amazon Prime Day is in full swing and all of the best book deals are still live. The massive buy two, get one free sale has been runing since monday and it includes a ton of popular titles, box sets, and even some manga. If you've been looking forward to Prime Day to stock your bookshelf with some awesome reads, now is the perfect time to do so.

The buy two, get one free sale is fairly simple: Amazon has a huge list of items included in the sale and you need to add three of them to your cart to activate the promotion at checkout. The cheapest of the three items will be the one you get for free, so it's best to make purchases at similar price points to maximize the savings. You can even shop outside of books if you'd like to mix and match – there are a ton of 4K Blu-rays also included in the promotion.

I've sorted through this huge selection and picked out some of my favorites below, but I encourage you to just dive into the full sale yourself and do some digging. Amazon hides a lot of the best inclusions pretty deep.

Buy 2, Get 1 Free Books at Amazon

There are a ton of books in this sale, so making recommendations is both very easy and very difficult at the same time. I'll reiterate once again that it's absolutely worth just going into the sale and doing a bit of digging to find what you're looking for. If you have a specific series or title in mind, a quick search will be able to tell you if it's included or not. In some cases, individual books will be available or you may be able to find a full box set. Amazon seems to organize the list based on overall sales, so a lot of things get pushed way down.

As for my actual recommendations of what to pick up during this sale, I'll start with some of the more popular books included. First up, there's Sunrise on the Reaping, the latest Hunger Games novel from Suzanne Collins that was already being adapted into a movie before it even came out. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir is also a great option that is getting a movie adaptation with Ryan Gosling as the lead. It's from the same author who wrote The Martian and is generally fantastic. In the same vein of popular sci-fi, the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown is an easy recommendation as well. Finally, there's Onyx Storm, which has topped most bestseller charts all year. As the latest in the popular romantasy series, it's a fun read and easy to recommend if you've already read the first two books.

Now if you're looking for collector's editions, quite a few options are available in this sale. My overall top picks would be any of the Lord of the Rings illustrated editions in here. Not only are they heavily discounted, they are also all included on Amazon's list. The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings books, and the Silmarillion illustrated editions include drawings from Tolkien himself and are a must-have LotR gift for any fan's shelf. Along these same lines, the MinaLima interactive Harry Potter books are included in the sale. I own these and they are surprisingly fun to play around with, though you do have to be careful reading them.

There's surprising amount of box sets included in this sale as well. All of the Lord of the Rings books, as well as the Game of Thrones books, are included in the promotion. And if you're a fan of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books, there are various box sets worth checking out here. It's also worth mentioning that there are ton of great box sets for kids, though I only included the Dog Man series here.

Finally, one of my overall favorite LitRPG books is included in the sale. The Dungeon Crawler Carl books only recently received hardcover editions, but they are almost all included here. I'd definitely recommend picking up a copy if you are looking for a modern sci-fi read with a bit of video game slant. The audiobooks are also excellent if you'd prefer to take advantage of the Audible free trial for them instead.

Do you need to be a Prime Member to shop this sale?

It's worth noting that while this particular sale is adjacent to Amazon Prime Day, you don't actually have to have an Amazon Prime Membership to take advantage of it. The only downsides of not having a Prime Membership is that you'll need to hit a minimum of at least $35 to activate free shipping on your order. There are also some deals that are only available for Prime members, so the added discounts on top of the promotion might not always be something you're eligible for.