If you're a Windows user who's looking for a PC version of the Apple Mac Mini, then this deal might be right up your alley. Amazon is currently offering Amazon Prime members the Kamrui Hyper H1 AMD Ryzen 7 6800H Mini PC for just $359.10 shipped with coupon code "KAMRUI119". This is a great opportunity to pick up a complete tiny PC package that includes everything - the CPU/GPU, RAM, storage, and OS - for less than the cost of a Mac Mini.

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The highly anticipated next expansion for Pokémon TCG's Mega Evolution series, Ascended Heroes, is (as per usual) increasingly hard to get hold of right now. Preorders are unavailable at most major retailers, and if you missed The Pokémon Center's latest drop, then you're hard out of luck. Well, not entirely.

Trusted resale marketplace TCGplayer has just launched its selection of Ascended Heroes sealed products (see here), giving plenty of fans another opportunity to secure the new cards, albeit at a significantly higher price than MSRP.

I'll leave a link to everything that's now available in TCGplayer's presale, ready for the January 30, 2026, release. But, if that's not of interest to you, then we can swiftly move on to discussing the latest market price data on display for Ascended Heroes' sealed products.

Just to note, while Ascended Heroes will certainly be available from January 30, several products will be part of a staggered release instead. To get you up to speed, here's when to expect everything:

January 30, 2026

• Booster Collection (2 Pack)—Erika/Larry
• Tech Sticker Collection

February 20, 2026

• Elite Trainer Box
• Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box
• Mini Tins
• First Partners Deluxe Pin Collection
• Premium Poster Collection—Mega Lucario or Mega Gardevoir

April 24, 2026

• Booster Bundle
• Mega Meganium ex Box, Mega Emboar ex Box, or Mega Feraligatr ex Box

With that out of the way, let's dig into the latest market price data on everything available right now at TCGplayer, whether it's actually worth the increased cost versus MSRP, and how it compares to the other sets from Mega Evolution so far.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a delightfully inventive and downright trippy video game. One of the hallucinogenic pieces of it is that the flowers talk to you as you run by. If you’re a fan of those talking flowers, you’re in luck: you can preorder a plastic Talking Flower of your own now. They’re available at the Nintendo Store for $34.99, with a release date of March 12.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons got a big 3.0 update earlier this month, which alongside a lot of new content for everyone included a Nintendo Switch 2 upgrade with some fancy technological buffs. One of those was the ability to play with up to 12 total people on the same island, up from eight in the original version.

Sounds fun, right? Wrong. It's a nightmare. A nightmare once again spawned by Nintendo handling online functionality in the most ridiculous way possible.

I was so foolish and naive a week ago, when I first had the idea to get 12 of us together for an Animal Crossing session. It would be easy, I thought! So easy, I originally didn't even plan on writing anything about it! Let me just call up...11 other people I know who are still playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Who also have Nintendo Switch 2s.

And somehow we'll manage to find an hour we can all do this, despite everyone being busy adults.

Okay, harder than I thought, but we did it! Last night, a group of 12 of us all logged on at once with a plan to meet up on my island. We considered using the Game Chat functionality, but decided against it due to lack of compatibility with Bluetooth headsets, the function's friending requirements, and the fact that you can't take screenshots while Game Chat is active. Discord it was, then, apparently still the second-best place for Nintendo Voice Chat (after the podcast, of course).

The plan was for an hour-long session from 9pm to 10pm last night, but I recalled that the cutscene for people landing on the island was a bit lengthy, and we'd have to watch it 11 times, so I logged on half an hour early to open my island so we could start filtering in. I was hopeful that with improved Nintendo Switch 2 loading times, it might not be so bad. And it's true, the actual loading times were notably faster, though most of the wait for people to land is a combination of said cutscene ("We'll be making a water landing, but that's OK because this is a seaplane.") and everyone saving the game each time, so we didn't really shorten the wait by that much.

But all that was to be expected. Here was where the nightmare began.

At 8:35pm, my friends began trickling in. We managed to get three people in before the entire session crashed, booting out everyone who had showed up so far and shutting my islands gates for me. I reopened at 8:46pm and we started again, this time creating a "queue" in our Discord text chat so everyone didn't try to flood in at once. At 8:58pm, one of my friends got an error that kicked her out alongside one other person, but everyone else stayed, so we brought them back and continued down the line.

At 9:19pm, I typed in Discord, "WE DID IT" as person #12 seemingly landed successfully.

At 9:21pm, as person #12 strolled in, another error occurred and two other people got kicked out. At this point, my husband (who was playing Ace Attorney next to me) started rolling his eyes.

At 9:24pm, one of the people who had been kicked out tried to rejoin, errored out, and the whole session crashed again. Every single person got booted back to their islands and my gates were closed again, just as we were finally about to taste success.

Please enjoy this timelapse video, courtesy of our intrepid Wiki writer KBABZ, of 40 minutes of us trying desperately to get everyone onto the island, only for the unthinkable to happen right at the very end:

I was undaunted. By golly, we got all these people together, we were going to hit each other with nets and drop recipe cards for each other! We started again from the top. This time I forbade everyone from doing anything once they landed aside from standing still in a line next to the airport. No menuing. No talking to villagers. Nothing. Folks started coming back in at 9:27pm. At 9:37pm, the fourth person to join crashed the island again. At 9:39pm, almost 40 minutes after our planned start time, we began yet again. Everyone posted cat pics in the Discord channel for emotional support.

This time worked. Finally, at 10:05pm, after multiple crashes and false starts, we had 12 people on my Animal Crossing island.

I'm happy to report that after the 90 minute ordeal that was getting 12 people onto one island, online play actually worked great. We all exchanged gifts, took a pic in the Town Square, explored the island, and got coffee at Brewster's. People wrote on my bulletin board and sent me letters. Some borrowed my Wario costume from the hotel. A couple people decided to play pranks, burying junk and trapping my villagers with holes. It was genuinely a pretty great time. It just, you know, took way too dang long to set up.

It's baffling to me that Nintendo's infrastructure for Animal Crossing is still set up this way. Yes, the island landing cutscene is very cute, and I do think the sea plane line is pretty funny. But why on earth do we need to sit through it 11 times, with everyone who's not traveling collectively watching a mostly-blank airport-themed loading screen? Why does everything on my island need to completely freeze and exit menus so someone can come in? Why does Group Stretching require me to be Best Friends with everyone on my island? How much worse would all this have been if we had used Game Chat? Mario Kart World doesn't have this problem!

The best explanation I can think of is that Nintendo genuinely didn't intend for anyone to use this feature in the first place. Animal Crossing: New Horizons' 3.0 update is fun, sure, but it's not creating the same massive surge in interest that existed in 2020 when we were all locked at home and had nothing better to do than ponder whatever it is that Dodos do. You're unlikely to ever need to collect 11 friends and drag them to your island all at once. Heck, given how hard this was to schedule, I'll be lucky to get four one of these weekends.

Anyway, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is still very fun to play with friends, but it's still a massive pain in the butt to actually set up the circumstances for that play to be possible. Next time I'll just get everyone together for Jackbox.

We're still checking out the big 3.0 update and all the fun new stuff that's been added. We've catalogued some of the surprising little changes, including the ability to strafe and jump, and we've got tips if you, like us, are returning to your island after a long hiatus. Oh, and check out this Zelda stuff added in the 3.0 update!

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Blogroll image screenshot courtesy of KBABZ.

Today, Game Freak's upcoming action game Beast of Reincarnation reemerged at the Xbox Developer Direct, with a lengthy segment showing off traversal, combat, its cast of characters, some dang good music, and more. Also, great news, it's apparently out this summer.

Beast of Reincarnation is a fascinating new game, and an anomaly in Game Freak's portfolio. Game Freak is, of course, best-known for developing Pokemon, a series that's grown in scope as it's transitioned to home console releases but has also seen notable declines in performance and visual quality. But Game Freak has also been increasing its other independent endeavors in recent years, with games such as HarmoKnight, Tembo the Badass Elephant, and Pocket Card Jockey.

But aside from Pokemon all of those have been fairly small-scale endeavors. Though we haven't gotten our hands on Beast of Reincarnation yet, this looks far more ambitious. It's a full-on action game, for one, with what seems to be pretty complex and multi-layered combat and movement. It's also, if the trailers are any indication, really pretty, and a departure from Game Freak's historically more cartoony style. That's led to plenty of questions as to what led Game Freak to make something like this in the first place, and whether or not the studio can pull it off. At least from what we saw today, there's reason for optimism.

I sat down with Kota Furushima, game director of Beast of Reincarnation, to chat about some of these topics, as well as get some further details on what exactly the game will be. Here's our full interview transcript, very lightly edited for clarity:

IGN: Beast of Reincarnation seems very, very different from anything Game Freak has done before. How did this game come to be?

Kota Furushima: So, it all started, I wanted to get something going. It was an original project. I wanted to try something completely different and new, unlike other stuff we've made. And it just so happened that internally, here at Game Freak, we have a program we call the Gear Project, which is sort of an internal contest run by our president, Satoshi Tajiri, to make original IP within the company. So, I entered my design doc into that contest, and I was able to get permission to start working on a project.

I should mention too, to clarify, it wasn't so much that I was trying to do something different than what we've done before. I started with the concept of the feeling that I wanted to get across to the users, the feeling of loneliness, isolation, and warmth, and the game design that we have now kind of coalesced naturally around that concept.

How long ago was it that you entered this in the contest?

Furushima: It was about six years ago.

Beast of Reincarnation does seem to be a significantly larger game than some of the other, I guess, non-Pokemon projects you've worked on before. Did the studio have to scale up significantly for Beast of Reincarnation?

Furushima: The team is quite large, as you can imagine, but I will note that it's not all folks internally here at Game Freak. We managed to seek out a lot of partner companies to work with us, companies, studios that are able to realize the vision of this game in the way that we wanted to make it, so we're lucky to have a lot of people working on it externally as well.

[PR reached out post-interview to clarify that the internal Game Freak team working on Beast of Reincarnation is "relatively small" while still playing a core role in leading the project through direction and management.]

Can you tell me about the original pitch that you entered into the contest, like what that original sort of design looked like?

Furushima: So, it was pretty simple at first. The general concept was the idea of taking a journey along with a companion. That was the main pillar of the game, and you started thinking about the feelings you wanted the player to have, and gradually, the design sort of began to coalesce around that idea of the journey with the companion.

Was there anything in particular that inspired you throughout the development of the game, other games, film, art, music, just any other art in particular that you were thinking of, as you worked on Beast of Reincarnation?

Furushima: Yeah, absolutely. I mentioned I'm a big fan of science fiction movies to start with, and because I wanted to create this new world that no one had seen before, I started really putting a lot of thought into the way world building is done and science fiction. Blade Runner was a specific one that I can mention, that does such a good job of world building. I wanted to try and create my own world in a similar sort of fashion.

So, Beast of Reincarnation, I know, was originally announced under the Private Division label when it was part of Take-Two, and then Private Division got acquired, renamed, and is now being run by different people. I'm curious if all those changes impacted the development of Beast of Reincarnation in any way.

Furushima: There's probably not much I can say about that, to be honest.

Okay, tell me a bit about the structure of Beast of Reincarnation. Is it a linear, story focused game? Is it open world, Metroidvania, something else?

Furushima: The way we created this game, it is about a journey with a beginning, middle, and end, right? It kind of conjures up images of a road movie sort of thing, so it's not open world in the purest sense. The game is comprised of different stages, but these stages I would not describe as linear either. There's quite a lot of room for exploration, a lot of radiation between the different environments and things of that nature.

What are you primarily doing in these different stages? Are you primarily fighting creatures? Are you doing more exploration? Are there puzzles? What are the main activities that you're doing as the character?

Furushima: You're doing a lot of different things in the game. I think there are no traditional puzzles to put block progress, for instance, as you saw them, but there are definitely puzzle adjacent segments of the game. For example, this game takes place in a world that's been largely destroyed, so you could come to a part where you want to get across a chasm, and the bridge has been destroyed, so you have to start thinking, "How can I get across there?" Now, luckily, Emma, the main character, has a lot of abilities at her disposal. She can extend at the vine or plant, I don't know what you call it, her hair actually. I mean, she can use that, for example, to cross a chasm instead of a bridge, right? So she has certain abilities at her disposal that can help her get through this world. Of course, battle is a huge part of the game, as well as exploration. There's definitely parts where you want to see what's off the beaten path as well.

How challenging is the combat? I'm curious if there's difficulty settings or if a casual player could pick it up and feel comfortable with counters and things like that?

Furushima: First of all, I should say that, yes, there are three difficulty settings in the game. As many people to play it as possible, there's going to be story mode. There's a little bit easier, there's normal mode, and then of course there's hard move where enemies are significantly stronger.

Even in the normal mode, it's important to note that the game is not just played through the single character of Emma. She, of course, has her companion Koo. Koo also has actions that he can use in conjunction with Emma. There's a lot of freedom and variety of what you can do in the game. Beast of Reincarnation is, of course, an action RPG. Players have the freedom to think of their own strategy and the way they're going to tap all certain situations, how to best utilize Emma's abilities and Koo's abilities to suit their own play-style with which they're most comfortable.

Can you give me an example of a type of play style you're referring to? Are we thinking the difference between close range and long range? Is it more magical or physical?

Furushima: There's a lot of variety in the game. As far as the main actions of the player that Emma is going to undertake for attacks, she largely relies on her Katana for close range attacks. She also has the ability to attack a long range with bows, crossbows, and those sorts of weapons. Koo, of course, relies primarily on what we call bloom arts, which are kind of plant-based attacks in the game. You'll find yourself up against some pretty big enemies, and the rhythm of a lot of the combat does center around pairing, countering, and things of that nature, but you also, again, have an added layer of using Koo and his abilities to your advantage as well, so there's quite a lot of variety there that different people can use in different ways to suit their own style.

What can you tell me about Emma and Koo as characters? Who are they? How would you describe them?

Furushima: One thing to note is, at the beginning of the game, Emma is kind of a blank slate. She has neither memories nor emotions or feelings when you first meet her. Koo, you'll soon discover, is what are known in this world as malefacts. He has this blight, or this corruption about him. You will notice in the game, too, that Emma herself is also a blighted one, and although this does give her special abilities, the downside of that is, of course, she's not treated well by other humans. She's living a very isolated lifestyle, essentially banished. What we have here, typically in this world, Emma would consider a creature like Koo to be an enemy because he is blighted. She typically fights against these sorts of enemies, so there's a bit of irony in this game, that she ends up teaming up with Koo and they go on this journey together.

What can you tell me about the music in Beast of Reincarnation? I really enjoyed the music that I heard in the trailer, and I was curious who was composing it and what the vision and style was.

Furushima: So, starting with the concepts of the score, again, the music is very much focused on the game's core concepts themselves, out of loneliness and isolation and learning to rely on people, that sort of motif and sort of feeling. So there's all sorts of different types of songs in the game. There's some focus on amplifying the trusting relationship that Emma develops with Koo. Some focus on the loneliness and despair of the world itself that's been destroyed. Then, we have the bosses in the game, which are called Nushi. Their music tracks tend to focus on more kind of traditional, Japanese sort of instrumentation. They give it a difference as well, so there's a lot of variety in the game.

I know Game Freak has a lot of history of delving into mythology and nature, especially with all the Pokemon designs they've done over the years to create really interesting creatures, and I'm curious if we'll see any particular myths, legends, or types of creatures in the world of Beast of Reincarnation.

Furushima: I think what you'll see in the game is a lot of the natural environments, whether it be the plant life, the flora, and the fauna in this game, the animals and the plants are very much based on the plant life and animal life that we see here in Japan and we've seen here in Japan throughout our history. Sakura, cherry blossoms would be a good example of that. It definitely has a sort of a local feel, in terms of the creatures that you'll meet.

Game Freak has received some criticism in the past few years for the performance and look of some of its 3D open world games. Beast of Reincarnation looks to be fairly ambitious. What would you say to those who are concerned that it might struggle in the same ways?

Furushima: I think when it comes to Beast of Reincarnation, and I guess we would regard it as the scale and the ambition of the title, when we approach game design, we're not looking to make, say, a title of a certain level of quality. We're looking to deliver a very specific game experience, and visual fidelity and graphics, this is something that supports that game experience, everything that goes into that. That includes things like bug fixing, optimization. Everything is there to serve the gameplay and the experience. Our focus is on that gameplay experience. Part of that, of course, is making sure that it performs really well, but our attention is more on getting the experience over to you and making sure that our vision can get to your hands and your hearts.

We just got our first lengthy, proper look at Beast of Reincarnation, the upcoming game from Pokemon developer Game Freak that, at least based on what we saw today, seems to be their most ambitious non-Pokemon game yet. But as a Pokemon fan, that does leave me with a big question: is Game Freak up for this?

Having sat wearily through Pokemon's Nintendo Switch era, I've now seen multiple releases in a row that suggest to me Game Freak has some serious struggles with home console optimization. I've written about it before, but several Pokemon games in a row have struggled with bugs, crashes, extremely distracting framerate issues, or just being generally kind of ugly. Pokemon Legends: ZA, the most recent entry, is significantly improved, but still a far cry from what Beast of Reincarnation seems to be promising.

Because that's just it: Beast of Reincarnation, at least in today's trailer, looks really nice. The environments seem lush and detailed, the action appears fluid and precise, objects and environments seem like they have texture and depth and detail. Even if you don't normally care about graphics (I sure didn't until Pokemon Scarlet and Violet), there's no denying that you need a game to run well for action combat with counters and fast reaction times to function. If Game Freak hadn't had a couple concerningly stuttery Pokemon games in a row, I wouldn't even be asking this question! But here we are.

So ask I did. I spoke with Kota Furushima ahead of today's presentation, and noted the criticisms of the performance and look of Game Freak's recent 3D open world games. I pointed out that Beast of Reincarnation seems fairly ambitious. So what would he say to those worried it might struggle?

Here's what Furushima said:

I think when it comes to Beast of Reincarnation, and I guess we would regard it as the scale and the ambition of the title, when we approach game design, we're not looking to make, say, a title of a certain level of quality. We're looking to deliver a very specific game experience, and visual fidelity and graphics, this is something that supports that game experience, everything that goes into that. That includes things like bug fixing, optimization. Everything is there to serve the gameplay and the experience. Our focus is on that gameplay experience. Part of that, of course, is making sure that it performs really well, but our attention is more on getting the experience over to you and making sure that our vision can get to your hands and your hearts.

I'm not sure that's a fully satisfying answer, but I also was warned up front that Furushima wasn't interested in speaking about Pokemon even vaguely during this conversation. Which, fair enough. And I don't think Furushima is necessarily wrong here. Pokemon is still dang fun to play, as demonstrated by my recent reviews of it as well as the sheer number of people still buying it year after year. They did prioritize the experience, in that sense. I'm just still a little concerned that they aren't concerned about the ways in which that experience can be marred by technical jank.

Regardless, I want to believe. Beast of Reincarnation looks lovely, and we'll know for sure where it stands on both experience and ambition this summer. You can read the rest of my interview with Furushima right here. And you can catch up on everything announced at today's Xbox Developer Direct right here.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

It’s a new year for Magic: The Gathering, and it’s shaping up to be a busy one with no fewer than seven sets on the roadmap. Still, if you’re looking for great cards from 2025 and before, there are some great price drops to be had at TCGplayer to see in the new year, as well as some climbers across great cards.

That’s to say nothing of Stranger Things Secret Lair cards creeping up in price, too. Come with us for a trip to the Upside Down, with this week’s Climbers and Crashers.

Climbers

Fable, the upcoming open-world fantasy RPG from Playground Games, has 1,000 fully voiced NPCs, and, if you do the right things, you can marry every single one of them.

The long-awaited fairytale follow-up to Lionhead’s original Xbox trilogy was showcased at the January 2026 Xbox Developer Direct, and finally gave us a good look at its gameplay. But, there’s more to learn yet, as IGN spoke to the founder of Playground Games, the studio crafting the Fable reboot.

When speaking about the characters that inhabit the world of this new version of Fable, Playground chief Ralph Fulton told us: “They are handcrafted, and there are a lot of things about the way we have built the living population, which I think you could be forgiven for saying is just nuts. I think we maybe once thought we could procedurally generate them, but we abandoned that idea quite a long time ago because we wanted to craft every one of these NPCs from their name, to their appearance, to their personality traits, to that moral worldview that I talked about, to where they work and where they live and what their family unit is because it's important to the player that they can get to know unique crafted NPCs.”

“There's 1,000 of them in the game”, Fulton continued. “You can go and speak to every single one of them in fully voiced conversations. You could marry, it'll be a bit of work, but you could marry them all. You can have kids with them, you can hire them, you can fire them, they are just great fun. And also they act as this sort of Greek chorus, if you like, reflecting your choices and your morality back at you. So, as you walk around, that's classic Fable, isn't it? People catcalling you in the street, telling you what they think of you. It's a brilliant thing in our game as well, but it's a great way of tracking how popular your decisions have been, your choices have been.”

It doesn’t sound like it will be easy to just pop the question to anyone you see wandering around Albion, then, with the way you’ve chosen to role-play as your hero dictating who may react positively to an offer of engagement. What if you’re playing as a goody two-shoes knight of the realm, but then a local necromancer catches your eye and captures your heart shortly after? Will you be tempted to delve into the dark arts in the name of love? Search deep within yourself; only you have the answer.

Fable is a series that lived and died by its morality system, so it's great to see an emphasis on this sort of character building returning to the reboot. But, Playground doesn’t simply want to revive the same type of obvious ‘good vs evil’ decisions seen in the Lionhead games, instead opting for a more fluid approach to how you work your way through its story’s many choices, and, in turn, how its world reacts to your decisions.

“We talk about how our morality system is more about shades of gray,” Fulton revealed. “It's more about the subjectivity of morality that, honestly, we see in the world today. There's no objective good, there's no objective evil. You couldn't get everyone in the world to agree that something is evil or that something is good. That just doesn't happen. That diversity of opinion, I think, is really clear these days. And therefore we've sort of taken that and probably in quite a gamey system-y way, we've taken that and built it into this reputation system that we talk about in the piece, which allows you to build reputations based on the things you do within Albion.”

“You could do big things once or little things lots of times”, Fulton explained. “And if people see you doing that, it contributes to you building a reputation in that particular location. But then the key thing is how the people of Albion react to that, and they react to it based on the individual, almost unique worldview that they each have. And I think that's probably a more nuanced view of morality, but it's super interesting, and it's also just packed with potential in gameplay terms.”

For more, check out IGN's interview with Playground studio head and Fable director Ralph Fulton in full. And be sure to check out everything announced at the Xbox Developer Direct. Fable is due out fall 2026 and will arrive simultaneously on Xbox Series X and S, PS5, and PC.

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

Fable is back, and back in a big way. Microsoft's reboot of Lionhead's much-loved fantasy role-playing series has had its moment in the Xbox Developer Direct showcase, leaving fans with plenty to chew on. Ahead of the reveal, IGN's Ryan McCaffrey sat down for a chinwag with Playground founder and general manager Ralph Fulton to expand on what was shown and discussed during the livestream. So, put down those chickens and settle in for our big interview on the Fable reboot. And when you're done with that, check out everything announced at Xbox Developer Direct.

IGN: So, Ralph, I wanted to start here. Number one, that was super impressive. We'll get into it. As a Fable fan, that made me very happy. But I wanted to start here, which is the beginning. How did this come to be? How did Fable come back? How did it get to be you guys? Did you pitch Phil? Did leadership come to you? Give me the origin story on this project.

Ralph Fulton: Yeah, it's almost lost in the midst of time now. It was such a long time ago. Like I say in the piece, we've been working on this game for a really, really long time. But the origin story began, I would say, in the year after we shipped Forza Horizon 3. So, I'm sure you know off the top of your head, that was 2016, 2017 kind of period. And I imagine you'll also remember that by that game in the series, the team had really hit its stride, knew exactly what it was doing, understood the franchise, had really gelled and come together as a team and really knocked that game out of the park.

IGN: Yeah, I think that's the first one we gave a 10 out of 10 to, was the third one.

Ralph Fulton: And in every respect, that was the hockey stick moment, just inflection point for that series. And we were still an independent studio back then. We talked about what the future looked like. And honestly, the intent to build a second team came out of a desire we had to learn and grow as developers, almost to challenge ourselves to see if we could go and achieve that same thing we'd done with the Horizon team in a different genre. And there was a little bit of, "Can we do this?"

IGN: Yeah.

Ralph Fulton: And I think that's super healthy. I think that as a developer, you should always be trying to challenge yourself and expand your skill set. So, that's where the idea came from. And obviously because we'd been working with Xbox for really since our inception as Playground Games, we had great relationships with them. We knew a lot of people there. The obvious first conversation for us was with them where we said, "Hey, look, we're looking to build a second team. We want to work in a new genre." We felt like the transferable skills that we had from the Horizon games were an open world. We had learned a lot about building open worlds technically in terms of streaming, in terms of game design and game flow and all that good stuff. And in lots of ways that are maybe surprisingly car agnostic. There's a ton of things about Horizon games that are about the cars, but there's a ton of principles that we'd learned there, which we felt were transferable. And I don't remember who said the word Fable first, but as soon as I heard it, I was like, "That has to be it. That fits so perfectly." It's a series that we adored here and still do.

And the conversation went from there and it went pretty fast. I think everybody felt... certainly I know the folks we spoke to on the Xbox side felt really strongly that if a studio were to start working on Fable to pick that up, it had to be a British studio. And the fact that we had this great working relationship, the fact that we were making this game that was increasingly important and successful, and had this ambition to scale and to grow, it went pretty fast after that.

IGN: That's awesome. Can you talk about the multiplatform piece? You know what's best for your game and what you're up to versus what other studios are up to, but within that example, Horizon 6 is Xbox first and PlayStation later. This one's multiplatform straight out of the gate. Can you talk about why those discrepancies between each of your games?

Ralph Fulton: Yeah, and I think it goes to the strategy all up, which is that every project team is deciding these things, deciding what's right for their particular title. And even within Playground, we have two projects which have made slightly different decisions, although the endpoint is the same. And I think as a game developer, the most important thing to me is that the greatest number of people play my games as possible. That's what we're in this for. I think that's true of most developers. We want the largest number of people to experience our games and enjoy them.

And therefore the platform piece is really a natural extension of that. And certainly looking back on Horizon, the first Forza Horizon was an Xbox 360 exclusive. We were developing for one platform, but the way of the industry and the intervening period has been platform expansion. Even within the Horizon series like going to PC, going to Steam, that has been the general progression. And it's in service of how can we bring our games to the largest audience possible?

IGN: From where I sit, it makes sense in terms of this is a reboot, you're trying to get this franchise back off the ground, and the best way to do that is to hit as many platforms on day one as possible. So, I definitely get it. This was covered a bit in the video, but can you elaborate on what you guys wanted to make sure to capture from the originals into this new one?

Ralph Fulton: That was the big question when we started this project and it dominated our thoughts and our conversations for quite a while, in the sense that we were asking what is the nature of Fable? What is the essence of Fable? What are the things, the elements without which a game is not Fable? And to be really clear there, I'm talking high level, I'm talking conceptually, I'm not talking about locations or particular features. I'm like, "What is the essence of that franchise that we love?" We talked around that a lot and we landed on a bunch of things. Choice and consequence is central to Fable. We actually wrap that up into the word "freedom" because it's about the freedom to choose, the freedom to make the choices and then have to live with the consequences of your choices. It's the freedom to go where you want, do what you want, be the hero you want to be. And that right there is at the heart of our game. We want you to be the hero you want to be. So, freedom is absolutely central to it.

We landed on two other tonal pillars, I think. And the first is fairytale. And we actually inherited this from Lionhead. We had this treasure trove of documents which had been in storage, that came originally from Lionhead. And one of them had this incredibly neat little bit of direction, which was Fable is fairytale, not fantasy, which I just think is brilliant, incredibly incisive and speaks to really tonally what Fable is. Because if you think about fairytale, when you think about fantasy, they're kind of like opposite ends of a spectrum and everyone knows what fantasy is. It's grand and sweeping and it's high stakes. And then fairytale's right at the other end of the spectrum and it's personal and it's intimate. It's about ordinary people and what happens when magic touches their lives. And then it has this moral component to it as well. And you can almost imagine the difference in color scheme. The color palette of fantasy is very different from the color palette of fairytale. And we just onboarded that as this really fantastic directional statement.

And then finally, it's about Britishness. And again, why was it important to Xbox that a British studio continued with Fable? Because Fable is this quintessentially British game, and not just because Albion is medieval Britain through a filter, if you like. And not just because the characters are British and have British accents. There's a sensibility to the games, there's a tone of voice, a way of thinking about things, a way of reacting to things. It's very British. And those things combined are for us the DNA of Fable. If you don't hit those things, if you're not true to those things, you're not making a Fable game. So, that was something that we decided right at the start.

IGN: Love it. So, I suspect I know the answer to this, but is there any narrative connection to the originals at all or is this truly a reboot?

Ralph Fulton: I'm going to avoid that question, Ryan. And I'll tell you why. We touch very lightly on story in the Dev Direct piece, but honestly, what we really wanted to do is come out and speak to the detail in the game and answer all those questions that people inevitably have about the game we haven't answered before. We're going to talk more about story later in the year, so I'm not going to say yes or no to that particular question just yet.

What I would say is with this being a reboot, it felt really imperative for us to clear the space, to tell a story that we want to tell within Albion, which is why this isn't a sequel, for example. This isn't necessarily connected to the original timeline or events or characters, but we do share lore and some of that originating lore of the Fable universe is really important to our story.

IGN: In hindsight, I think that at least as a player, the mistake I think Lionhead made was jumping the timeline around so much during the sequels. I think most people like the setting of 1 and 2 versus jumping further ahead in 3. Because man, it's gorgeous. Again, this medieval Britain inspired look is just like... don't take me to Steampunk 500 years later.

Ralph Fulton: You'll never hear me say a word against the original trilogy, but there is, I think we always felt a classic Albion, which is that really pastoral, idyllic, rural Albion. And we've absolutely tried to capture that. And hopefully you saw a bit of that in the Dev Direct piece.

IGN: Absolutely. This is a broader question, but I'll be curious how you decide to answer it. What does a Fable game need to do in 2026 that it didn't need to do in 2008?

Ralph Fulton: That's a super interesting question. I do think a bunch of things. I mean, we're, what? Two video game generations on from Fable 3 back in 2010. Technically, we're in a different world. Technology has moved on. I think game design has moved on. I think open world game design in particular has moved on. We talk about morality in the Dev Direct piece, and I think it's a great thing to point to, to show how we've taken something which was central to those original games and reimagined it. And I think in a way which is still faithful to the original games, but opens up huge gameplay opportunities, systemic opportunities almost in our game. So, we talk about how our morality system is more about shades of gray. It's more about the subjectivity of morality that honestly we see in the world today. There's no objective good, there's no objective evil. You couldn't get everyone in the world to agree that something is evil or something is good. That just doesn't happen. That diversity of opinion I think is really clear these days.

And therefore we've sort of taken that and probably in quite a gamey system-y way, we've taken that and built it into this reputation system that we talk about in the piece, which allows you to build reputations based on the things you do within Albion. And you could do big things once or little things lots of times. And if people see you doing that, it contributes to you building a reputation in that particular location. But then the key thing is how the people of Albion react to that? And they react to it based on the individual, almost unique worldview that they each have. And I think that's probably a more nuanced view of morality, but it's super interesting and it's also just packed with potential in gameplay terms.

IGN: On that note, the Dev Direct piece talked about 1,000 populated people in Albion and the word "handcrafted" was brought up. So, are those NPCs procedurally generated, or are those all the same people going to be in everybody's game?

Ralph Fulton: Yeah, so they are handcrafted. There's a lot of things about the way we have built the living population, which I think you could be forgiven for saying is just nuts. I think we maybe once thought we could procedurally generate them, but we abandoned that idea quite a long time ago because we wanted to craft every one of these NPCs from their name, to their appearance, to their personality traits, to that moral worldview that I talked about, to where they work and where they live and what their family unit is, because it's important to the player that they can get to know unique crafted NPCs. And like I said, there's 1,000 of them in the game. You can go and speak to every single one of them in fully voiced conversations. You could marry... it'll be a bit of work, but you could marry them all. You can have kids with them, you can hire them, you can fire them. They are just great fun.

And also they act as this sort of Greek chorus, if you like, reflecting your choices and your morality back at you. So, as you walk around, that's classic Fable, isn't it? People catcalling you in the street, telling you what they think of you. It's a brilliant thing in our game as well, but it's a great way of tracking how popular your decisions have been, your choices have been.

IGN: There's just a complete, not throwaway moment in the Dev Direct, but just a little quick second of gameplay when the team's talking about that where it's like you get labeled as a miserable twat or something. And I was just like, "That's Fable, that's as British as it gets there."

Ralph Fulton: Yeah. I'm glad you spotted that. It's there for half a second or something like that, but you caught it.

IGN: On this same track, the Dev Direct piece talked about the more fluid, good and evil system, morality. Will you physically change appearance like you classically did in the original three based on how you behave?

Ralph Fulton: That sort of character morphing feature, obviously a really central part of the original games. It's not in ours. And I'll tell you why. There's probably a couple of reasons. One, I guess it's about that high level principle I was talking about, that there is no objective good and evil. And the original games were predicated on there being an objective good and an objective evil, and you were somewhere along that scale, and that's what determined how your appearance changed.

IGN: Yeah.

Ralph Fulton: But for us, that doesn't really work. The way I've described our morality system working, you're never that thing, absolutely. You're different things to different people based on what they like or what they choose to value. So, that's one reason that it didn't work.

There's another reason, which is in our game, you build reputation based on the settlement, the town, the city that you're in, the part of the world that you're in. But when you go to a new place, a place you've never been to before, you walk in without any reputation and thus nobody knows what to think about you. And you can almost, through your behavior, through your choices, form completely different reputations, a completely different identity, if you like, in that place from the place that you were last time. And you can do that across all the locations in the game.

Now, you couldn't do that if you walked in with horns and a trident. Your reputation would precede you in that instance. And honestly, that ability to be completely in control of your identity and thus what people think of you felt more important to us than that legacy feature. So, it worked great in those games. It didn't seem to fit in ours, so we don't have it.

IGN: Okay, that's a good answer.

Ralph Fulton: Nice.

IGN: Based on what we've seen in the video, physically, how big is Albion? How big is your open world in this? Maybe relative to a Horizon game, I guess, would probably be just the best apples to apples comparison.

Ralph Fulton: So, I'm used to fielding that question from my time on the other game. And the comparison is useful actually because it probably won't surprise you to know that in terms of just square miles, it's smaller than an Horizon world. Horizon worlds are designed to be experienced at 250 miles per hour. So, you cover the distance far faster in those games than you do in ours. In our game, you move at the speed of a horse at most.

So, what we found is, although we took lots of world building experience and technology into this game from the Horizon titles, obviously we share a code base, we had to reevaluate the things that were important in building Albion. So, it's still massive. It'll still take you a long time to get through. There's tons to explore, but what we had to do with this game was build in far, far more detail into it than we necessarily have to in a Horizon game.

So, you move slower, but you see much more, you experience much more. I think maybe you're more immersed. Case in point, every building in the game you can go inside. So, every building needs an interior because you could rob it if you wanted, or you could buy it and live there with your family or with one of your families. So, I guess the focus just got pulled right in and we ended up building out much more rich detail at ground level, if you know what I mean.

IGN: Well, that was the correct answer as far as I'm concerned! I would much rather have a smaller, more dense world than a larger one where it's just geometry.

Ralph Fulton: I'll tell you a fun story, Ryan, about right at the start of this project. One of the first things we did was we got our Fable character running around in Surfers Paradise from Forza Horizon 3, and it took an eternity to get anywhere. And I think that if we hadn't realized already, that was the moment it dawned on us like, "Okay, we're going to have to play with some of our metrics here."

IGN: ForzaTech clearly was not originally built for this, obviously. So, how involved of a process was it to adapt the engine to what Fable specifically needs?

Ralph Fulton: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And the decision to use ForzaTech was based on a bunch of reasons. It's what we're used to working with here. We understand how to ship games on ForzaTech, and that's a big deal. And we know we can build expansive, beautiful, immersive open worlds using it. And crucially, we know we can stream them, because the Forza Horizon games have absolutely... They need to have absolutely world-class streaming technology.

What the engine didn't do was quest structure, cinematics... I mean, character-led gameplay full stop. So, yeah, we have invested an enormous amount in the engine to make it capable of making this game. But hopefully you can still see in the footage you just saw, there is a really unique look to games built with ForzaTech. There's a quality of light, there's a quality of render, which we adore, and I think makes all that effort, all that investment worthwhile.

IGN: You mentioned the horse, and we see a little bit of horse in the presentation. You knew you were going to get this question, so here it is: no dog. Talk about the dog decision because clearly there had to be one.

Ralph Fulton: Yeah. I did know I was going to get this question. And do you know what? There are some folks on the team that were relishing me getting this question because I cut it a while back. You know what? For development reasons, right? I don't need to go into any more detail than that, except to say there are a substantial number of people on the team who have yet to forgive me for that decision.

IGN: So, that's item number one for the sequel then is what you're telling me? It better be!

Ralph Fulton: I hear you on that. Hey, for those people that still bear a grudge, this is my penance.

IGN: Well, on that note, which classic Fable's your personal favorite? I'm sure different people on the team have different answers, but what's your answer?

Ralph Fulton: I love them all. Fable 2 has a really special place in my heart. For me, it's kind of a point of inspiration because I think the thing I remember most vividly from playing it is just the sense of place of being in Albion. I can remember walking up to Bower Lake like it was yesterday. The drive to try and recreate that same feeling in our world has been really strong.

IGN: 2 is my favorite as well, so I'm glad that you said 2, which makes the dog thing all the more shocking. So, if I were on the team, I would be one of those people that would be holding the grudge against you.

Ralph Fulton: I know you would!

IGN: You've mentioned and the video mentioned a clear reverence for and respect for what Lionhead built. Has Peter Molyneux seen this game yet?

Ralph Fulton: To my knowledge, he has not. He has not. But you're right. We as a team, I think, wear the responsibility of carrying on the franchise really heavily. I think it's something we're all conscious of. Everybody who's on this team, and this isn't PR, we've built a team from scratch for this project. And the thing that unites every single person is that they came here to make Fable. They didn't come here to work for Playground Games necessarily. They came here to make Fable. Everyone is first and foremost a fan. And I think everybody is really eager with anticipation to see the reaction we get from everyone, from fans all over the world when we finally show some stuff at Dev Direct.

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.

Wait, didn't Double Fine just release a game last year? Yup, sure did, and now they've got another one queued up. It's called Kiln, and it's an online multiplayer party brawler themed around pottery, with some pretty incredible customization capabilities.

Funnily enough, we've known about what's been turned into Kiln for a long time, since way back in 2017 even when Double Fine first talked about it. It looks like it's come a long way since then, and gotten sillier and more ambitious in the process. And sure, Kiln's premise seems wacky, but watching it in motion, everything really clicks.

In Kiln, you sculpt pots using a variety of tools: sponges, shapers, scrapers, your hands, all sorts of things. It's not just a customization slider, you're literally moving a cursor on a pottery wheel and shaping it as it turns. You can make pots of all shapes and sizes and types, before sending them into a 4v4 battle mode (called Quench) where they'll compete on teams with and against other pots to douse the opponent's kiln.

Based on the pot you've made, you'll have different capabilities. Bigger pots can hold more water with which to put out the fire, but they move slower. Smaller, flatter pots have sharper edges and can do more damage to opponent pots. Battlefields will include some tunnels and pathways that are limited to only pots of certain shapes and sizes. Every pot will have different movement and attacks based on how they're made. And each pot will get a different special move dependant on its shape: things like popping pop corn, turning into a sword or a metaphone, flinging pies, or more. There are also aesthetic customization options: colors, handles, stickers, and more.

The maps themselves seem heavily themed around the mythology of ancient societies that were known for their pottery, such as Greece and Egypt. The game will launch with several maps, with more coming down the line as Double Fine commits to ongoing updates. Kiln will be out in spring of 2026 for Xbox, PS5, and PC via Steam, and will of course hit Xbox Game Pass on launch day too.

You can catch up on everything announced at today's Xbox Developer Direct right here.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

As announced at the end of the Fable segment of today's Xbox Developer Direct, Playground Games' reboot of Fable will be released in fall 2026 for PC (including Steam), Xbox Series X and S, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and PlayStation 5. As a first-party Microsoft game, Fable also launches day one in subscription service, Game Pass.

Though a specific release date has not yet been confirmed, it's probably reasonable to presume that Fable will be released prior to November, so as to avoid being swallowed up by the impending release of Grand Theft Auto 6 on November 19. But the day-one release on PS5 is interesting, if only because Playground's own other 2026 release, Forza Horizon 6, will debut on Xbox first before making its way to PS5 later.

"Every project team is deciding these things, deciding what's right for their particular title," Playground studio head and Fable director Ralph Fulton told IGN in an interview ahead of the showcase.

"And even within Playground, we have two projects which have made slightly different decisions, although the endpoint is the same. And I think as a game developer, the most important thing to me is that the greatest number of people play my games as possible. That's what we're in this for. I think that's true of most developers. We want the largest number of people to experience our games and enjoy them."

Fable was previously delayed out of 2025 after being originally unveiled all the way back in 2020 and given its first proper look at 2023's Xbox Showcase. For more, check out IGN's interview with Playground studio head and Fable director Ralph Fulton in full. And be sure to check out everything announced at the Xbox Developer Direct.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

For gamers who missed out on the stellar Black Friday deal, here's another chance to get one of the very best handheld consoles at a great price. Lenovo is offering the powerful Legion Go S Ryzen Z1 Extreme SteamOS handheld gaming PC for just $713.47 with free shipping after you apply coupon code "LENOVONEWYEAR". This handheld retails for $900 and isn't discounted elsewhere. It's a bit pricier than on Black Friday, but that deal is unlikely to come back soon.

Lenovo Legion Go S Z1 Extreme SteamOS Edition

During today's Xbox Developer Direct, Pokemon developer Game Freak arrived on the scene to give a lengthy new look at its new game, Beast of Reincarnation, alongside a narrowed release window: it's planned for release in summer of this year.

Beast of Reincarnation takes place in a post-apocalyptic, future Japan in the year 4026. It's giving off big Nier: Automata vibes, with modern world ruins covered in overgrowth and plants, and the contrast of mutated natural creatures and machines. You play as Emma, a young woman who's been corrupted by the "blight", aka the force that's caused the destruction of most of the world. Emma is capable of sealing the blight within her own body, a gift that allows her to purify corrupted creatures but also makes her a societal outcast. She meets Koo, a wolf creature similarly plagued by blight, and through an unlikely set of circumstances the pair end up on a journey together to defeat the legendary Beast of Reincarnation, the monster at the heart of the blight plague.

Beast of Reincarnation is primarily an action game where you control Emma, who can fight close-range with a katana or long-range with a bow and arrow against corrupted enemies called Malefacts and even more powerful boss monsters, known as Nushi. However, she's also accompanied by a Malefact named Koo, who fights alongside her. Koo has special abilities that, when activated, will slow down time and allow access to something more like a turn-based RPG menu, where the player can pick the move they want to use next before moving on.

The trailer also gave us a look at other elements of Beast of Reincarnation, such as skill trees for both Emma and Koo, a faction of mechanical golems that used to house human souls, and three other supporting characters: Brad, Kagura, and Kunai. We also saw Emma's traversal abilities, which involve her seemingly changing her hair into vines and crossing large distances.

Beast of Reincarnation is planned for a summer launch this year on Xbox, PC, and PlayStation, and will be on Game Pass day one.

You can catch up on everything announced at today's Xbox Developer Direct right here.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Microsoft has confirmed the release date of Forza Horizon 6 during today's Xbox Developer Direct livestream — and there's only a few months to go before you'll be getting behind the wheel once again.

Forza Horizon 6 will launch for PC and Xbox Series X/S on May 19, with early access from May 15 for anyone who pays for the game's Premium Edition. The game's PlayStation 5 version is expected to arrive at a later date — though we still don't know when exactly.

As announced last year, Forza Horizon 6 will be set in Japan — a location that has long been on the wishlist of many Forza fans. Amusingly, the setting was spoiled ahead of time by a real-life car import company connected to the game — which, if nothing else, showed that the development crew at Playground Games had been busy doing its homework.

Gameplay shown today revealed that you'll initially play as a rookie racer who's just a tourist in Japan. You'll also be joined by two close friends, passionate motorsports enthusiast Jordy and experienced Japanese car builder Mei, who'll give you an insider’s perspective on your journey.

Pick up wristbands and rise up the ranks, and you'll soon be on your way around Japan — from its breathtaking rural mountains to the heart of Tokyo. 550 cars will be available in-game at launch — the most for any new Forza Horizon game — including the game's cover cars, the 2025 GR GT Prototype and the 2025 Toyota Land Cruiser.

A major new addition is the Estate — a large plot of land in the mountains you can build up from scratch, placing buildings, roads, and invite your friends in for a tour. The end of today's showing revealed the briefest tease of a hulking Gundam — though that was all we got to see for now.

Alongside the reveal that Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord will officially debut with a two-episode premiere on Disney+ on April 6, 2026, the series' official teaser trailer was also released, showcasing Maul and his terrifying double-bladed lightsaber as he works to rebuild his criminal syndicate on a planet untouched by the Empire.

As detailed by StarWars.com, this series picks up following the events of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and finds Maul on the world of Janix near the beginning of Emperor Palpatine's reign. While there, he will encounter a "disillusioned young Jedi Padawan who may just be the apprentice he is seeking to aid him in his relentless pursuit for revenge."

The padawan in question is a Twi'lek named Devon Izara, and she is on the run from the Empire after her life, and that of that galaxy far, far away, was flipped upside down following the events of Order 66. Janix will be an interesting place for these events to unfold, and executive producer Matt Michnovetz shared why.

“It's one part Gotham, one part Metropolis and a hundred percent Star Wars with all these different levels and layers,” Michnovetz said. “It's a city essentially built into a crater on this planet that is untouched by the Empire. It's got a functioning democracy and law enforcement doing a good job of policing their own community. It's a rich environment for crime and gangsters, but so far there's been a very peaceful accord between all of them in the interest of business.”

We also see a familiar face in the trailer as the First Brother Inquisitor Marrok, who first appeared in Star Wars: Ahsoka, shows up to cause trouble for Maul. It's an inspired choice as he also wields a double-bladed lightsaber, although his has a circular hilt. It was also teased that he won't be the only member of Palpatine's Inquisitorious that Maul will encounter.

“The Empire is consolidating the galaxy from the core worlds out, and the Inquisitorius is stronger than ever,” Michnovetz says. “They're hunting Jedi and other Force users, doing all kinds of nasty work. The galaxy at large is sort of dealing with this slow rise of the Empire and different groups have different understandings of what the Empire is. The same thing goes for the inquisitors. They’re secret mercenaries that show up out of the darkness.”

Sam Witwer, who voiced Maul in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and more, will return to voice the villain this time around, and he will be joined by Gideon Adlon as Devon Izara, Wagner Moura as Brander Lawson, Richard Ayoade as Two-Boots, Dennis Haysbert as Master Eeko-Dio-Daki, Chris Diamantopoulos as Looti Vario, Charlie Bushnell as Rylee Lawson, Vanessa Marshall as Rook Kast, David C. Collins as Spybot, A.J. LoCascio as Marrok, and Steve Blum as Icarus.

If April is too long of a wait for Maul, Brander Lawson and Two-Boots will star in a Marvel Comics prequel series set on Janix this March.

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord, which was created by new co-president of Lucasfilm Dave Filoni, will debut two episodes each week leading ot the finale on May 4, and it will feature "stylized animation emblematic of the gritty new cityscape locale of Janix combined with old-school filmmaking methods to capture painterly brushstrokes on glass and other physical elements."

For more, check out what else to expect from Star Wars in 2026.

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

A new Tomb Raider show is on the way (with a very cool looking Sophie Turner stepping into Lara Croft's shoes) alongside a new game, but for those with a love of the old games, Funko has a little surprise in store. Two Funko Pop versions of Lara Croft, in her original polygonal form and from The Angel of Darkness, are now available to preorder for $14.99 each.

These are set to be released on March 22, so there's still a couple of months to go before they can join your collection, but you don't have to wait to buy them. If one (or both) of the figures have caught your eye, it's worth preordering them now just in case they sell out. Check them out below.

Preorder Lara Croft Funko Pop Figures

Amazon has produced yet another brilliant Pokémon TCG deal ready for the weekend, and it's once again on the latest Mega Evolution set, Phantasmal Flames.

While we're looking forward to Ascended Heroes at the end of the month, it's a mighty bit of fresh air to finally get some reasonable prices on boosters for the popular Mega Charizard sporting set from last year.

Microsoft is kicking 2026 off with a new Xbox Developer Direct showcase, which will feature some of the biggest games it has coming out this year.

Confirmed to appear at the showcase is Playground’s Fable reboot, the UK studio’s other game, Forza Horizon 6, as well as Beast of Reincarnation, an action game from Pokemon developer Game Freak.

Could there be more to Xbox Developer Direct? Find out right here with IGN. The action starts at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK today, January 22.

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 start of a new year is a great time to settle in and boot up some new games. If Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater has been on your list to jump into, but you missed out on the holiday sales price drops, we have good news: Amazon's currently offering its PS5 version for $39.98 (see it here). What a thrill, indeed.

When it was first released, Metal Gear Solid Delta was listed for $69.99, so this deal makes for 43% in savings overall. For a game we consider to be one of the best video game remakes of all time, that's a discount worth making a move on. Head to the link below to scoop it up for your PlayStation library while the deal is still available.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater (PS5) for $40

Alongside the base game, this version also includes the Sneaking DLC Pack, which comes with an array of gear for Snake to wear in the game. Here's everything included:

• Uniform: Battle Dress (PW ver.)​
• Uniform: Sneaking Suit (PW ver.)​
• Uniform: Crocodile Suit​
• Uniform: Naked (Woodland)​
• Uniform: Naked (Ammunition Belt)
• Uniform: Gold
• Face: Glasses
• Face: Sunglasses
• Equipment: Kerotan Mask
• Equipment: GA-KO Mask

What is it that makes Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater stand out as one of the best video game remakes of all time, though? Well, it "collects together years of improvements and enhances them all with incredibly glossy modern graphics and an updated control system that finally turns Snake into the nimble operator he was always meant to be."

Our review from IGN's Michael Higham also highlighted that, "Between its old-school stealth-action gameplay and engaging spy-thriller story, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater largely succeeds as a faithful, visually impressive remake of the 2004 classic." If you've been on the hunt for a thrilling adventure to keep you occupied this winter, Snake Eater can provide. And what better time to grab it than when it's on sale, too?

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

Glorious' long-running Model O series expanded again in 2025 with the Model O Eternal, a cheaper, lighter version of the beloved original that ranked as one of the best gaming mice of its day. I had high hopes: it's a properly lightweight (55g) budget mouse with solid specs, bright customizable RGB and an excellent reputation, all for $40/£35 – or cheaper if you shop around.

It has, thankfully, lived up to those expectations, and is now my go-to recommendation for anyone on a budget looking for one of the best lightweight mice to use in a fingertip-style grip.

But it's not perfect and it won't suit everyone. Let me explain.

Design and Shape

The Model O Eternal's honeycomb holes on its top and bottom are divisive. I don't like them – I particularly dislike how those holes stretch and distort towards the base which, combined with the RGB lighting strips, make the mouse look messy to my eyes.

But the point of them is to cut weight. It's just 55g, and the haphazard looks are therefore worth it: this is one of the lightest mice on the market. Very few budget mice get below 60g, and it feels wonderfully nippy when I'm whipping it around my mousepad. The mouse feet are almost alarmingly tiny but that didn't affect the glide, and it slid as elegantly as the many high-end mice I've tested over the past year.

I was worried that its holes would irritate my palm, but I couldn't even feel them. I wouldn't recommend it in palm grip – I'll explain why in a second – but I could use this mouse for several hours at a time without it feeling uncomfortable. Its coating is less grippy than most mice, but it never slipped or shifted in my hand.

Despite the design and weight, this mouse is not flimsy. Over the years, some Glorious users have reported problems with build quality and sturdiness with other models, but the mouse I tested felt solid. I squeezed it and pushed it harder than you ever would while using it, and it didn't so much as creak. There is, of course, an inherent delicacy to having holes all over the mouse and you'll need to be careful not to spill anything inside, but the actual shell won't let you down (and a couple of blasts of compressed air will be enough to remove any dust).

I also love its main mouse clicks and scroll wheel. The buttons are responsive, easy to spam, and they sound satisfyingly crisp without being too loud. The scroll wheel feels genuinely luxurious – I usually prefer stiffer wheels but I loved how smooth this felt. Its large ridges make it more tactile than most wheels, and you get a definite bump between each increment. I'd be happy if this was on a mouse three times the price.

So far, so overwhelmingly good. But there are two things I don't like.

First, the side buttons. Their shiny coating has no grip, there's zero gap between them, and they are smaller than they have any business being – far smaller than, for example, the side buttons on the ultra-compact Logitech Pro X Superlight 2c I recently reviewed. I misclicked, or missed a click, far more often than I usually do.

Those buttons also put me off using palm grip entirely. The actual body of the mouse feels lovely in my palm, but hitting the back side button with your thumb becomes impossible. It feels like Glorious have shot themselves in the foot here. Fingertip and claw grip felt comfy, with fingertip slightly easier because of the way your index and pinky fingers sit on the right of the mouse.

And the other misstep is the cable. It's not the worst I've tried, but it kinks very easily and constantly concertinas together. It never affected me in game, but having it bunch up on my desk and mousemat in a seemingly unavoidable way was annoying.

Still, for me to have so few complaints about a mouse this inexpensive is an excellent sign.

Performance and Gaming

I tested the Model O Eternal in a wide variety of genres. I played Arc Raiders and Counter-Strike 2 to test its flicks, button spamming and aiming consistency, Hades 2 for its precision, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 for something slower.

Its sensor lags behind medium and high-end mice when it comes to maximum DPI (12K), max tracking speed (300 inches per second), and max acceleration (35G), but, as I constantly find myself writing, those numbers are partly marketing material. The key questions are whether it feels good and whether it tracks your movements accurately and consistently.

In all the games I played, it's a resounding yes. I felt I could fully trust the Model O Eternal to do what I wanted. I noticed no skips, hitches, or other errors in its tracking, and no issues with any of its button clicks – save for the occasional side button fumble.

Its lightness made me enjoy careening back and forth across my mousepad in hectic shooters, and it's smooth enough for more placid games, too.

Its polling rate – the number of times it reports its position to your computer – caps at 1,000Hz. Many mid- and high-end mice will go beyond that to 2,000Hz, 4,000Hz, or 8,000Hz, which should give you a smoother, more responsive ride. I can feel a difference between 1,000Hz and 4,000Hz, but it's small, and going up to 8,000Hz does nothing for me.

All that's to say: 1,000Hz is absolutely fine for most people, including some pro FPS players. If you're used to higher polling rate, or you want to try higher, you'll have to spend more money. For the price 1,000Hz is what you can expect, and the Model O Eternal performs as well as any other mouse at this price.

Software and RGB

Glorious' Core lacks some of features I've come to expect, such as adjusting the lift-off distance and scroll wheel speed, but if all you want is to tweak the polling rate, sensitivity, and DPI increments, it will feel intuitive. It's neatly laid out and simple to use, with no distractions.

Glorious Core is also where you personalize the RGB of this mouse. Two strips down the side are bright and because of the holes in the design, the light seeps all through the body of the mouse, fully saturating it. The result is a satisfying wash of color beneath your hand.

You can pick between nine lightning presets, and I enjoyed the variety. There's the usual gentler options, such as breathing and an always-on single color, as well as whackier modes including a "rave" option that gives me a headache. If you like RGB, you're well catered for.

Samuel is a freelance reporter and editor specializing in longform journalism and hardware reviews. You can read his work at his website.

The Academy Awards have been the pinnacle of achievement in the film industry for nearly 100 years — 98, to be exact — and now, we know exactly who is being recognized for the most prestigious set of awards of the year. Nominations for the 98th annual Oscars have been announced and they definitely reflect the best of the best… with a fair share of snubs and broken records along the way.

Let’s start there: Ryan Coogler’s breakout vampire drama Sinners was far and away the big success story of these nominations, with the film securing an incredible 16 nominations overall. That does, in fact, break the record of 14 total nominations, which was previously held by three films: 1950’s All About Eve, 1997’s Titanic, and 2016’s La La Land.

The nominations the film received represent excellence both above and below the line. Michael B. Jordan was recognized for his leading performance, while Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku were recognized for their supporting roles. Coogler also snagged two nominations himself for direction and original screenplay. From there, the film is represented in every possible category: casting, cinematography, costume design, editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, original song, production design, sound, and visual effects.

Naturally, Sinners was also nominated for Best Picture. Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another also managed to snag a Best Picture nomination and take on second place with the most nominations at 13 — but fans were disappointed to see star Chase Infiniti snubbed for a nomination for her breakout performance in the film. One person who didn’t get snubbed, however, was Timothee Chalamet for his work as the title character in Marty Supreme, but it remains to be seen if he can beat out Leonardo DiCaprio like he did at the Golden Globes.

You can check out the full list of nominations for the 98th annual Academy Awards below.

2026 Oscar nominations list:

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

• Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme)
• Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle after Another)
• Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)
• Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)
• Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

• Benicio Del Toro (One Battle after Another)
• Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)
• Delroy Lindo (Sinners)
• Sean Penn (One Battle after Another)
• Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

• Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)
• Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)
• Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue)
• Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)
• Emma Stone (Bugonia)

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

• Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value)
• Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value)
• Amy Madigan (Weapons)
• Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)
• Teyana Taylor (One Battle after Another)

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

• Arco
• Elio
• KPop Demon Hunters
• Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
• Zootopia 2

Best Animated Short Film

• Butterfly
• Forevergreen
• The Girl Who Cried Pearls
• Retirement Plan
• The Three Sisters

Achievement in Casting

• Nina Gold (Hamnet)
• Jennifer Venditti (Marty Supreme)
• Cassandra Kulukundis (One Battle after Another)
• Gabriel Domingues (The Secret Agent)
• Francine Maisler (Sinners)

Achievement in Cinematography

• Dan Laustsen (Frankenstein)
• Darius Khondji (Marty Supreme)
• Michael Bauman (One Battle after Another)
• Autumn Durald Arkapaw (Sinners)
• Adolpho Veloso (Train Dreams)

Achievement in Costume Design

• Deborah L. Scott (Avatar: Fire and Ash)
• Kate Hawley (Frankenstein)
• Malgosia Turzanska (Hamnet)
• Miyako Bellizzi (Marty Supreme)
• Ruth E. Carter (Sinners)

Achievement in Directing

• Chloé Zhao (Hamnet)
• Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)
• Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle after Another)
• Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)
• Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

Best Documentary Feature Film

• The Alabama Solution
• Come See Me in the Good Light
• Cutting through Rocks
• Mr. Nobody against Putin
• The Perfect Neighbor

Best Documentary Short Film

• All the Empty Rooms
• Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud
• Children No More: "Were and Are Gone"
• The Devil Is Busy
• Perfectly a Strangeness

Achievement in Film Editing

• Stephen Mirrione (F1)
• Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)
• Andy Jurgensen (One Battle after Another)
• Olivier Bugge Coutté (Sentimental Value)
• Michael P. Shawver (Sinners)

Best International Feature Film of the Year

• The Secret Agent
• It Was Just an Accident
• Sentimental Value
• Sirāt
• The Voice of Hind Rajab

Best Live Action Short Film

• Butcher's Stain
• A Friend of Dorothy
• Jane Austen's Period Drama
• The Singers
• Two People Exchanging Saliva

Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

• Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey (Frankenstein)
• Kyoko Toyokawa, Naomi Hibino and Tadashi Nishimatsu (Kokuho)
• Ken Diaz, Mike Fontaine and Shunika Terry (Sinners)
• Kazu Hiro, Glen Griffin and Bjoern Rehbein (The Smashing Machine)
• Thomas Foldberg and Anne Cathrine Sauerberg (The Ugly Stepsister)

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)

• Jerskin Fendrix (Bugonia)
• Alexandre Desplat (Frankenstein)
• Max Richter (Hamnet)
• Jonny Greenwood (One Battle after Another)
• Ludwig Goransson (Sinners)

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)

• "Dear Me" (Diane Warren: Relentless)
• "Golden" (KPop Demon Hunters)
• "I Lied To You" (Sinners)
• "Sweet Dreams Of Joy" (Viva Verdi!)
• "Train Dreams" (Train Dreams)

Achievement in Production Design

• Tamara Deverell, Shane Vieau (Frankenstein)
• Fiona Crombie, Alice Felton (Hamnet)
• Jack Fisk, Adam Willis (Marty Supreme)
• Florencia Martin, Anthony Carlino (One Battle after Another)
• Hannah Beachler, Monique Champagne (Sinners)

Achievement in Sound

• Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo and Juan Peralta (F1)
• Greg Chapman, Nathan Robitaille, Nelson Ferreira, Christian Cooke and Brad Zoern (Frankenstein)
• José Antonio García, Christopher Scarabosio and Tony Villaflor (One Battle after Another)
• Chris Welcker, Benjamin A. Burtt, Felipe Pacheco, Brandon Proctor and Steve Boeddeker (Sinners)
• Amanda Villavieja, Laia Casanovas and Yasmina Praderas (Sirāt)

Achievement in Visual Effects

• Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett (Avatar: Fire and Ash)
• Ryan Tudhope, Nicolas Chevallier, Robert Harrington and Keith Dawson (F1)
• David Vickery, Stephen Aplin, Charmaine Chan and Neil Corbould (Jurassic World Rebirth)
• Charlie Noble, David Zaretti, Russell Bowen and Brandon K. McLaughlin (The Lost Bus)
• Michael Ralla, Espen Nordahl, Guido Wolter and Donnie Dean (Sinners)

Adapted Screenplay

• Will Tracy (Bugonia)
• Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein)
• Chloé Zhao & Maggie O'Farrell (Hamnet)
• Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle after Another)
• Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar (Train Dreams)

Original Screenplay

• Robert Kaplow (Blue Moon)
• Jafar Panahi, Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, Mehdi Mahmoudian (It Was Just an Accident)
• Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)
• Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)
• Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

Best Motion Picture of the Year

• Bugonia
• F1
• Frankenstein
• Hamnet
• Marty Supreme
• One Battle after Another
• The Secret Agent
• Sentimental Value
• Sinners
• Train Dreams

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

Pokémon Go looks set to add another battle currency to the ever-popular mobile game, this time focused around raids for Mega Pokémon.

As Pokémon Go prepares to roll-out the first of Pokémon Legends Z-A's new wave of Mega Evolutions next month as part of its upcoming Go Tour Kalos event, the game also appears to have a major rework of its Mega Raid system in the offing.

Datamined information published by The Pokémod Group have spilled details of Link Charges, a new in-game resource that the game's files refer to as "enhanced currency." An in-game description states that Link Charges "can be used to enter Mega Raid in place of Raid passes" and will now be "required to enter Mega Raids remotely."

The addition of a new type PVE battle resource for Mega raids comes as something of a surprise, as Mega battles have existed in the game for years, accessible simply via regular raid passes.

While details remain unconfirmed and subject to change, Link Charges sound like something of a cross between existing raid passes and the Max Energy system introduced more recently specifically for use in Dynamax/Gigantamax battles. The introduction of Link Charges would certainly also delineate Mega raids from regular raid battles — similar to how the use of Max Energy sets Max battles apart.

Unreleased in-game text states that players will be able to "earn Link Charges from activities such as Weekly Challenges, Campfire Check-Ins, and opening Gifts," all of which are free. That said, images showing the Link Charges themselves (which look like futuristic USB sticks) in various bundles suggest the resource will, of course, also be sold via the game's in-game shop.

A new item called "enhanced currency" has been added, along with some variations featuring "RRP" (remote raid pass? idk).
It looks like something that could be sold in the shop, but we're not sure what it does yet.

Seeing this item alongside a remote pass is a bit scary.… pic.twitter.com/gIROUW4DlT

— The Pokemod Group (@thepokemodgroup) January 22, 2026

As ever, Pokémon Go's highly-engaged community have been reacting to the datamined details with their usual mix of excitement and healthy scepticism.

"Are we cooked?" wrote Kind_Cheesecake_8297 on top Pokémon Go reddit The Silph Road. "Asked the frog in the pot," replied EquivalentReality988. "This is just another temperature increase, we've been boiling for years."

But while the introduction of another PVE battle resource has naturally prompted questions over how plentiful it will be (and how much it will cost via the in-game shop), many others have agreed that the game's Mega raids do need some form of shakeup.

Following their most recent rework years ago, Mega raids typically provide enough in-game resource to Mega Evolve a specific Pokémon within a few battles. After that, Mega Pokémon can be set as a Buddy Pokémon to generate Mega Energy for free. Beyond hunting for a Shiny or better stat version of a particular creature, there's little need to then continue raiding — and as an active player, I have to say I don't consider Mega creatures when deciding what to spend my daily raid pass on.

While this is fine for players who have all Mega Pokémon unlocked already, this leaves newer players without others to battle Mega raids alongside (and most Megas require multiple people to take down). Providing an additional resource to battle Mega raids means players can choose to take on the battles in addition to regular raids — just as the Max Particle system works for Dynamax and Gigantamax battles now.

The Silent Hill franchise has stood the test of time for many reasons, not least of which being the haunting, ethereal soundscapes of these survival horror games. And when it came to adapting Silent Hill to film, perhaps the smartest thing director Cristophe Gans did was make sure that series composer Akira Yamaoka was still involved.

Now Silent Hill is back in theaters with the third film in the series, Return to Silent Hill, and Yamaoka is along for the ride again. IGN was recently able to speak with Yamaoka about his work, how composing a Silent Hill movie is very different from the games, and which game he’d like to see adapted next. Read on to see what he had to say. [Note - this interview was performed with the aid of a translator.]

Return to Silent Hill is effectively an adaptation of the Silent Hill 2 game. What makes Yamaoka’s involvement interesting is that this is effectively the third time he’s worked on this particular soundtrack. He scored the original Silent Hill 2 back in 2002, and he rebuilt his work from the ground up for the 2024 remake. Now he’s tackling that soundtrack from a whole new angle for the film version.

Yamaoka explains to IGN that there’s a fundamental difference between scoring for games and scoring for film. One is an interactive medium where the other is linear, and that makes a profound difference.

“One of the major differences between video games and film is, as you know, film is a linear format as opposed to video games, [which are] an interactive format where people have choices,” Yamaoka tells IGN. “People with a controller can decide how they experience the story. We have to create the music and all the elements to be interactive so that it can follow how the player plays the games.”

Yamaoka continues, “But the film is, of course, different; it's a linear format. So what that means is everybody would watch the music at certain scenes, and so it's very much predictable, or it's more pre-decided, because that's what the film experience is. That gives me the opportunity to create a much deeper emotional experience, something that we can have even deeper and sharper creative intent for each moment. That to me is a very different opportunity that I was given compared to video games.”

We asked Yamaoka if there were any particular themes or motifs from Silent Hill 2 he was eager to explore and rearrange for Return to Silent Hill, to which he pointed to a pair of classic songs.

“There are many songs that came from the games, such as ‘Theme of Laura’ and ‘Promise.’ And again, as we discussed earlier, linear format film is different from video games, so that allows us to have music for certain emotional effects that the director would like to share with the audience. To create the experience, we were able to change the tempo and spot, really just specifically have the music in a certain way at the tempo and the tone and tension and temperature so that it would support the specific scene. That is a really just wonderful opportunity that we have for the film. It's much more than the length of the scenes, or maybe just the format of the scenes, but it's just the opportunity that we have to be much more, have a micro-control, specific control to have an emotional delivery. So naturally, I enjoy the process of rearranging the themes, and again, including ‘Theme of Laura’ and ‘Promise’ and other music that came from the games to be very film-specific so that we could deliver the emotional message and vision that Christophe Gans had.”

Yamaoka makes it clear that Gans had a very specific vision for how he wanted his sequel to sound. That included selecting certain themes and songs from other games in the Silent Hill series. It was all about furthering the director’s vision for the film.

“It was a creative vision that the director had, because, of course, he focuses on the emotion and he focuses on how to deliver it” Yamaoka says. “There are certain songs from other Silent Hills that had a very good fit for what he was trying to achieve. And of course, it was not one-directional. It was a communication process where the director and myself had to come to the conclusion that there are maybe certain scenes where we could use different music.”

One of the elements that separates Return to Silent Hill from the source material is that the film includes a series of flashbacks exploring the romance between James Sunderland (Jeremy Irvine) and Mary (Hannah Emily Anderson). We were curious how Yamaoka wanted to take advantage of that new material and explore a relatively happier period for these characters.

“That's one of the very unique elements of the film, and we had a great creative opportunity to discuss this with the director,” Yamaoka says. “When I saw it, I first tried to approach it in a melancholic way, reading towards romantic music and realized that this is an impossible approach. I had a chance to share this with Christophe Gans and run it by him. He gave me really wonderful feedback, and he suggested that maybe we can shift the direction to a different way, so then I tried that direction.”

Yamaoka continues, “So it was very much a communicative, very creative process and a communication process that we had that, after the impression that I received, I ran the idea by him sometimes by presenting the music to the scenes already. We just had many of our creative thoughts, so we exchanged our ideas a lot. So it was very much a collaborative process, and I really enjoyed it.”

Finally, there’s the question of what the future might hold for the Silent Hill movie series. To date, the films have mostly adapted material from the original three games. Assuming a fourth is greenlit at some point, what game would Yamaoka like to see adapted next?

“Of course, I'd really love to see other Silent Hills become filmed, but if I were to pick one, maybe I would say Silent Hill 4: The Room, because it's the unique Silent Hill in that it was a first-person game experience. And also, the setting is very different from the previous Silent Hills from Silent Hill 1 to 3, which has been transported to a different town, but Silent Hill 4 is different. So naturally, the nature of Silent Hill is different, but still the creative essence - the experience itself - stays the same. So I think it has a wonderful opportunity to become a film and provide the core elements and experience within Silent Hill. And I certainly hope that it'll be directed by Christophe Gans. He's just really wonderful, and I really hope that we have a chance to collaborate on that too, if we have the opportunity.”

Return to Silent Hill hits theaters on January 23. Check out IGN’s Return to Silent Hill review for more on the new film.

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

Ever since the Steam Deck came out, the humble handheld gaming PC has been going through a renaissance of sorts. Because while these fun-shaped PCs have been around for a while, being made by the likes of Ayaneo and GPD, they’ve now hit the mainstream. I’ve reviewed a lot of these new “mainstream” gaming handhelds, and while they’re all varying levels of good, they’re still not all the same – especially when it comes to opening them up and upgrading the storage.

Pretty much every handheld gaming PC will let you slot in a microSD card to expand your storage, but if you want to upgrade to a faster, more capacious SSD, you’re going to have to pop the handheld open and swap out the drive. I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone, especially if you get queasy at the prospect of tinkering with your electronics, but many of these handhelds make it pretty easy to upgrade.

So I did what any sane person would in this situation, I took all the handhelds in my lab and opened them up, so I could see how easy (or difficult) they would be to upgrade. And while all of these devices do let you swap out your storage, some of them make it quite a bit more difficult than it needs to be.

A Word of Warning

This isn’t meant to be a step-by-step guide on how to upgrade the storage on every handheld. That would make this article extremely long, and I’d urge you to look up teardown guides if you need any guidance on any of these specific handhelds. Just keep in mind that there’s no shame in not being comfy with tinkering with your devices.

If you’re going to do any of this yourself, there are a couple of ground rules of sorts you need to keep in mind. The first of which is to try and work in a static-free environment. If you live in a more arid area, it won’t hurt to wear an antistatic wrist band. I luckily live in New York, so this isn’t something I typically need to worry about, but I’d definitely urge you to lean on the side of caution.

You should also aim to disconnect the battery from the motherboard whenever you’re doing any kind of work on a handheld gaming PC – this also goes for any electronic, to be fair. You don’t want to risk shocking yourself because you did something wrong.

Finally, keep your space organized. There’s nothing worse than going to reassemble a device, only to forget which screw goes where. These handhelds are relatively simple when it comes to the different screws that you have to deal with, but they can absolutely get lost if you don’t keep track of them.

MSI Claw 8 AI+

I haven’t got a chance to actually sit down and review the MSI Claw 8 AI+ yet, despite it coming out more than six months ago. But I have spent a lot of time with it, and it is a great little device, even if the software is incredibly bad. However, there’s one thing it does better than any other handheld I’ve used: its serviceability.

All you need to do to get into the MSI Claw 8 is take out the screws on the back of the device, pry off the back and the SSD is immediately accessible. You don’t have to move any cables out of the way or take out any screws. Just unscrew the M.2 retention screw, pull out the drive and replace it.

Like a lot of handhelds, though, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ uses an M.2 2230 drive. These are tiny little drives that fit in smaller spaces. They’re potentially a little slower than their bigger 2280 counterparts, but not enough that it matters for most people.

Asus ROG Ally X and Xbox Ally X

I’m a huge fan of both the original Asus ROG Ally X and its successor, the Xbox Ally X. Despite their smaller screens, they’re just so comfy to actually use. But while these two consoles look pretty distinct from each other on the outside – largely owing to the Xbox Ally X’s weird controller protrusions – they have a lot in common.

For the Ally X, you just have to remove six screws along the back of the device, three of which are captive, which means they won’t come all the way out. Then, you just pry the back open to get inside. The Xbox Ally X is largely similar, with five screws on the back, and three more along the bottom of the device. Once those are removed you can remove the back of the handheld.

On both of these consoles, though, there is a tiny ribbon cable that runs from the motherboard to the back panel, presumably to power the rear paddle buttons. Be careful you don’t just yank the back of the console off, because it’s very possible you’ll rip one of these cables – I for sure almost did.

Once the back is removed, though, you’ll be able to see the full-sized 2280 SSD right in front of the battery. Just be careful here, the battery cable runs pretty tight above the SSD, and the actual battery connector on the motherboard is very fragile. You’re going to want to take care not to snap anything when you’re disconnecting it.

Luckily, once the battery is disconnected, it’s super easy to remove the M.2 retention screw, pull out the SSD and replace it. And, because it’s a 2280 drive, pretty much anything you find on Amazon will do the job.

Lenovo Legion Go

Handheld gaming PCs would probably still be niche if not for the Steam Deck, so credit where it’s due, but Valve’s handheld is one of the hardest ones to crack open and replace the drive. Valve even went out of its way to try and warn people that opening it would make the Steam Deck more fragile, in a teardown it did with The Verge. But I did it anyway.

Getting the Steam Deck itself open isn’t hard – just take out the screws around the exterior and remove the back panel. But once that’s out of the way, it’s not immediately clear where the SSD is. Turns out, it’s hiding underneath this silver metal bracket right next to the battery and fan. After removing it via three small screws, one of which is hidden underneath silver tape for some reason, I was able to remove this little shield.

Once that’s out of the way, the little 2230 drive is right there, and just like the original Legion Go, the drive is wrapped in mylar tape, but this time it seems like it’s to stop it from shorting against the metal plate that’s placed over it. I’m not entirely sure that’s necessary, but I’d keep it wrapped up around any new SSD you toss in your Steam Deck either way – it can’t hurt.

Lenovo Legion Go S

The Lenovo Legion Go S is probably my favorite handheld, particularly the one that comes with SteamOS installed. It just has such a beautiful design, and it feels so good in the hand. Unfortunately it’s a pain in the ass to actually open it up.

I stared at the Legion Go S for a good few minutes, noting that it only has three screws immediately visible on the chassis, and decided to look up a guide. Luckily, this teardown video from WinDeck Tech was extremely helpful.

After removing the three screws on the bottom of the device, I had to pry off the little strip of plastic that runs along the buttons on the top. Then, there are three more screws under that. But that’s not all, because after those screws are gone, you have to pry the left and right bumper out of their slot to access two more screws under those. Just keep in mind that those are captive screws, and won’t come out.

Once those last two screws are loosened, I started prying it apart, but just like WinDeck Tech explained in his video, the captive screws around the triggers did get stuck a couple times, so I had to gingerly work my way around them, until I eventually got the thing apart.

Luckily, once I worked my way into the system, the SSD is sitting right in the open, right beneath the CPU fan. You just have to remove the power cable, which is also very easy, and you’re good to replace the 2245 SSD the handheld comes with. Luckily, like the Legion Go 2, this handheld is compatible with a full-sized 2280 drive. So at least it has that going for it.

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