If you know anything about gaming, you probably know the name ‘Mario Kart.’ Since 1992, the series has been a pillar of Nintendo’s output and a quintessential example of the company’s “easy to pick up, difficult to master” philosophy. The series has now become so popular that it’s arguably eclipsed the Mario platformers as the principal arena from which people know the red-capped Italian plumber.

The series began back on the SNES with Super Mario Kart, which introduced a formula that fans fawn over to this day. But while the core of that first game has remained intact over the years, many of the components have been completely reinvented with the series’ latest title, Mario Kart World for the Switch 2. With that new game now out in the wild, it's a great time to look back on each game in the series to see how they iterate on the formula, how they reflect the state of Nintendo at the time of their release, and whether or not they hold up to this day. Here’s every Mario Kart game, ranked.

11. Mario Kart: Super Circuit

Despite being one of the handheld’s best-selling games, Super Circuit goes down as one of the least replayable Game Boy Advance titles. Considering the series had gone 3D five years earlier with Mario Kart 64, Super Circuit feels like a significant step backward. The character models and backgrounds have a bit more depth than what’s showcased in the original SNES Mario Kart game, but the courses themselves are tarnished by flat, ugly textures that fall short of the handsome results the GBA proved itself capable of elsewhere.

What Super Circuit did have going for it at the time was being the first handheld game in the series. Its bare-bones approach to character selection and game modes reflects its jump-in/jump-out philosophy, which trades expansiveness for approachability – something that came in clutch when an hour needed to be killed on a car ride. Super Circuit had its place back in 2001 and was never supposed to be in significant competition with the console versions, but that means there’s no real reason to return to it today.

9. Mario Kart Tour

It’s easy to discredit Mario Kart Tour for being a mobile game, but this micro version of the classic formula has genuine merits. Chief amongst them is the visual flare the game boasts, with some simply gorgeous course designs. Being so close to the screen allows you to fully appreciate the details on each unlockable kart, character, and race track, which makes even the slow 50cc races that bit more engaging.

Additionally, the return of character-specific items is very welcome and something fans had been wanting to see in the console games since the days of the GameCube. What Tour misses out on is the feel of the console Mario Kart games. Sliding your finger across the screen is nowhere near as satisfying as pressing physical buttons, even if Mario Kart is just pressing A, R and L most of the time.

10. Super Mario Kart

It's hard not to appreciate what a winning formula 1992’s Super Mario Kart introduced. Over 33 years later, the core of the game remains intact. Grand Prix and Battle Mode aren’t in every subsequent Kart entry for the sake of tradition – they just never stopped being entertaining. The fact that this game not only launched the franchise but also an entire genre of games is nothing to be sniffed at.

However, most of the praise you can heap on Super Mario Kart is because of its legacy rather than its ability to hold up in the modern age. Looking back, it's difficult to get over the simplistic graphics and lack of mechanical depth, even if you can appreciate how cutting edge it was at the time. Still, it provided a platform for one of the biggest brands in gaming, and who knows what Nintendo would look like today without it.

8. Mario Kart 64

The second game in the Mario Kart franchise feels instantly more dynamic than its predecessor. The 3D graphics allow for more interesting course design, shifting camera angles, and an enhanced sense of speed, especially thanks to the boost you can get from drifting. The extra detail in the character animation also goes a long way to immersing you in these races, which feel more like grand and intense sporting events than simple video game laps.

In the modern day, Mario Kart 64 suffers from issues similar to what Super Circuit and Super Mario Kart do; this same thing has simply been done better by subsequent games, and there aren’t enough unique qualities about this one to routinely go back to it (which is perhaps the key issue with a series that remains so faithful to its core – the new one with its minor improvements is so frequently the best). Still, MK 64’s transition to 3D and its capacity for 4-player co-op means it’s cemented in the hearts of many fans, and often nostalgia is worth more than technical progress.

7. Mario Kart 7

Coming in at number seven is — you guessed it — Mario Kart 7. While it may not hold up as a standout today, it did introduce elements that are now difficult to imagine the series without. Hang gliders feel so core to the flow of MK8, as does the ability to drive underwater and customise your kart, but those features all arrived on the 3DS first with Mario Kart 7. The underwater sequences, in particular, are a visual treat that really hammer home the generational gap between the DS and 3DS. Meanwhile, kart customisation adds a level of strategy to a series that revels in chaos, perhaps in response to the outrageous unpredictability of Mario Kart Wii.

However, going back to the game in a post-MK8 Deluxe world makes all these elements less impressive. When a handheld game with better graphics, many of the same gameplay mechanics, and 64 more courses is readily available, the reasons to play Mario Kart 7 in 2025 are few. It’s a vital part of any 3DS library, though, even if it does lose points for not having Waluigi in the game. What was Nintendo thinking??

6. Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart Wii cemented this franchise as a household name. The Wii, of course, vastly expanded the gaming population and Mario Kart had one of the lowest barriers to entry, coming with the Wii Wheel to further accommodate the new motion-controlled gameplay. Though not the preferred way of driving in subsequent entries for a lot of players, there’s a reason why tilt controls are still an option in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and MK World – so many players had their first Nintendo karting experience this way.

Mario Kart Wii has always stood out for being more loose and chaotic than other games in the series, gaining a reputation for rampant blue shells taking out players seconds away from finishing first. But MK Wii has other unique flavours; it includes the series’ first truly robust online play system, improving on MK DS’s slim first iteration, and adds bikes to the list of vehicles. The latter has less concrete impact than the former but does add to the iconic status of the game. It’s impossible to imagine Princess Peach using anything else now.

5. Mario Kart 8

Nintendo’s philosophy during the Wii U era was wrought with overwhelming tones of vanilla, and the company’s most successful franchise was a victim of it. Mario Kart transitioned to HD well, with MK8’s graphics being absolutely gorgeous, and the series’ core gameplay held intact, making for a game that you could never call bad.

But the original version of Mario Kart 8 is, dare we say it, dull. It is too safe. The best Mario Karts put a unique spin on the formula, but MK8’s introduction of anti-gravity is barely noticeable. Instead, the big hitters are the hang gliding and underwater sections, which means it all feels a bit too much like Mario Kart 7, but in HD.

Additionally, Battle Mode is stripped down to almost nothing, which robs gamers of a beloved way to play. All this meant that MK8 didn’t really have its own identity until the improved Deluxe version hit the Switch three years later in 2017. But that Deluxe package would be nothing without a truly solid foundation, and that's what you get in Mario Kart 8.

4. Mario Kart DS

The Mario Kart formula has existed for 33 years, so any game that alters it in any significant way is going to stand out. Mario Kart DS may offer the classic Kart gameplay in Grand Prix Mode, but it experiments wildly in the unique and brilliant Mission Mode. These objective-based activities range from simple time trials to genuine boss battles, and each asks you to master a whole new set of skills beyond just flying through courses and understanding shortcuts. As a result, Mario Kart DS is more enduring than many of its peers as a purely single-player experience.

Mission Mode is just one of the things that helped Mario Kart DS achieve its iconic status, though. Its integration with DS Download Play introduced a social element unseen on a handheld prior, allowing multiple DS consoles to join a race using just one copy of the game. And in addition to introducing original courses like Waluigi Pinball and Peach Gardens, MK DS is the first in the series to feature retro tracks, an idea now at the core of what people look forward to with any new Mario Kart. It was a triumph back in 2005 and Mission Mode makes it a unique and highly replayable entry in the series to this day.

3. Mario Kart World

Despite being the newest entry on this list—like, it’s a week old—Mario Kart World successfully covers a lot of new terrain for a franchise that’s over thirty years old. First off, it is undeniably the best-looking game in the series and an immediate contender for the most graphically impressive game Nintendo has ever developed. Playing on handheld and taking in every detail of MK World’s vast, interconnected courses is a dream. It’s a magical experience when you’re driving along and can spot the outline of a familiar track out in the distance.

But it's what World introduces mechanically that sees it rise so high on our list. The ability to drive on walls and grind on rails feel like what MK8’s anti-gravity should have been: new skills that take a lot of practice to be fully mastered. It’s something that you cannot say for new mechanics introduced in almost any previous entry. These skills add great texture to the new modes, such as Free Roam and Knockout Tour, which are great additions that will hopefully remain important cornerstones of future games. The last-one-standing Knockout Tour ramps up the chaos that we’ve always loved from Mario Kart games, while Free Roam’s open world adds a completely new exploration flavour to the series. There’s also some of MK DS’ Mission Mode to be found in the snackable (and often fiendishly difficult) P-Switch challenges. Throw in all the familiar modes we know and love, as well as an instant classic of a soundtrack, and you have one of the ultimate Mario Kart experiences.

2. Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is packed full of personality in a way the majority of the games in the series are not. Having not one, but two exclamation marks in the title makes that clear. The principle feature of having two racers per kart is a stroke of genius, and it's sort of unbelievable that it’s not been a mode in every Mario Kart since. The double driver system, and the unique items each driver is assigned, allows for so many new styles of play and strategy that prove far more interesting than customising the vehicle you’re using – for example, Mario’s special items provide a speed boost that helps balance out the heavier characters who have more destructive items unique to them. The imagery of it all is also so goofy and fun… maybe a little too much fun for Nintendo to have fully committed to it in the games since.

Even with different characters, Mario Kart gameplay can eventually feel a little too similar after several hours of play, and so having Bowser’s giant shells rampage across the tracks definitely helps with that. Mario Kart needs more risk takers and rule benders like Double Dash!! – let's hope the formula-breaking Mario Kart World is a sign of things to come.

1. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe showcases Nintendo’s ability to take a decent game and turn it into a cultural juggernaut. Fixing the original version’s anaemic Battle Mode and allowing players to hold an extra item were easy wins, but nobody could have expected just how much the game’s scope would increase. When launched alongside the Switch in 2017, there were fun additions to the character roster like King Boo, Bowser Jr. and the Inklings from Splatoon, but it was the Booster Course DLC that would really cement MK8 Deluxe’s superiority amongst other games in the series.

Now boasting 42 characters and an eye-watering 96 courses, MK8 Deluxe has become a fan favourite through sheer variety. If there was a course you loved from Mario Kart past, chances are it's been given a new lease on life in HD. Not every course is a winner, and the mechanics don’t reinvent the wheel in any significant way (again, this is essentially a bigger and better MK7), but 68 million copies sold more than shows the fan appreciation for this brilliant iteration.

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Ryan Gaur is a freelance writer who has worked with the likes of RollingStone, Empire, Polygon, IndieWire, Skwigly, CartoonBrew, OkayPlayer, Animation Mag and more.

The long-awaited Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond crossover with Final Fantasy is finally out, blending one of the most iconic RPG franchises with the most legendary trading card game in the world.

Whether you're here for FF6’s Terra, FF7’s Cloud, FF10’s Tidus, or FF14’s Warrior of Light, this set is stacked with heroes and villains from across the series. And that’s just the Commander Decks, the full release runs deep.

If you managed to lock in a preorder before they vanished, congrats. For everyone else, here’s where you can still buy the Final Fantasy MTG cards now that the set has officially launched.

Where to Buy Magic: The Gathering - Final Fantasy Cards

I'm going to give it to you straight right from the off. It's painfully hard to get hold of any of these sets from major retailers right now. While we saw some big restocks over the past month, pretty much everywhere is sold out of Final Fantasy MTG at the time of writing.

I can provide some handy links to bookmark so you can check back in, but for now, your best chance of securing anything will be via the most trusted third-party resellers like TCGPlayer.

Starter Kit

• See at Amazon

This bundle contains 1 Collector Booster, 9 Play Boosters, 2 Traditional Foil Extended-Art cards, 16 Traditional Foil and 16 nonfoil Full-Art Basic Land cards, 1 oversized Spindown life counter, 1 special foil Final Fantasy card storage box, and 2 reference cards. A serialized card may be found in <0.1% of English-language Collector Boosters only.

Best Cards to Chase and Buy Today

With the brand new set already breaking sales records all over, with a huge set encompassing all sixteen mainline games in Square Enix’s long-running RPG franchise, but not all cards are created equal. Some cards are already seeing astronomical prices from pre-release, but we imagine they’ll settle down at least a little bit in the coming days and weeks.

Still, with some chase cards currently worth well over a thousand dollars each, you’ll naturally want to know which cards are worth looking out for, and which you might want to pick up standalone rather than ripping over hundreds of sealed boosters.

Or perhaps, collectors will instead be most interested in the new Final Fantasy x Secret Lair drops, instead. It’s been a busy year for Wizards of the Coast’s limited-time mini-sets, and while the company sold out of all three Final Fantasy drops in record time (leaving many disappointed), you can still get them via third-party sellers... if you're willing to pay the inflated costs, that is.

There are a trio of Final Fantasy Secret Lair sets, Weapons, Grimoire, and Game Over, each offering unique art and names for Magic: The Gathering cards. Everything is available in standard and foil, alongside the Japanese variants as well.

But, since they've sold out, you won’t find Secret Lair drops at the same price as you’d find them directly from Wizards of the Coast (standard $30 nonfoil, $40 rainbow foil), with most being listed anywhere between $80-$150 or above.

This is a huge markup, so if you're looking to buy, be sure you're 100% informed of what you're paying for. You can buy them from eBay, but we’ve always found TCGPlayer, while still eBay-owned, to be the most secure and trustworthy way to nab Secret Lair drops post-release.

Robert Anderson is a deals expert and Senior Commerce Editor, for IGN. You can follow him @robertliam21 on Twitter/X or Bluesky.

The Malcolm in the Middle reboot series is, in fact, happening with the entire original cast returning — that is, with the exception of our favorite TV little brother Dewey. Erik Per Sullivan, who originally played the character, will not be returning to the show, with Caleb Ellsworth-Clark taking over the role for the revival.

The show’s patriarch, Bryan Cranston, recently revealed the news in a conversation on Dana Carvey and David Spade’s Fly on the Wall podcast. “I talked to Erik and I said, ‘Hey, we got the show! It’s going to come back,’” he explained. “He goes, ‘Oh, that’s fantastic!’ And I go, ‘Yeah, so we’re looking forward to having you back.’ He goes, ‘Oh, no, no, I don’t want to do it. But it’s fantastic.'”

FromSoftware has cryptically teased "enhanced fights" against the big bosses of Elden Ring Nightreign, due to arrive sometime this month. But one modder has found some already real building blocks for the new fights, and made their fights playable in the process.

On June 3, the official Elden Ring account confirmed that, alongside Nightreign's DLC (arriving later this year) and the upcoming Duo Expeditions option, Nightreign would be getting "enhanced fights against existing Nightlords" starting this month. No more details were shared, but it clearly acted as a Bat-signal for people to start digging.

Modder TerraMag (as spotted by PC Gamer) managed to find the boss content currently in the game, and built a mod to make it accessible. Importantly, these are unfinished versions based off the enhanced sets already found in the files.

Notably, what TerraMag found (and documented so far in YouTube videos) seems to be third phases for a number of the Nightlords, including those like Adel, Libra, and Caligo. These can introduce new moves, new models for the bosses, and any number of new ways to annihilate Nightfarers.

Of course, these are unfinished and not officially implemented, so it's only a glimpse at what could be when the enhanced fights arrive sometime this month. For those already getting weary of the existing boss runs, though, this might make for a decent challenge, and a reason to dive back into some more runs in the ever-shifting Lands.

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

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

In Japan, Nintendo Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World has sold more physical copies in the first three days on sale than Switch 1 launch title The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild managed in its first three days.

According to Famitsu, Mario Kart World has sold a huge 782,566 copies in Japan already, making it the top-selling game for the week from June 2 to June 8. It is worth noting, however, that Famitsu’s figures only cover physical, preinstalled-on-console, and Game-Key Card sales from retail outlets. They do not include digital downloads direct from My Nintendo Store, so the total number of Mario Kart World sales is likely far higher.

In contrast, the Switch edition of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sold an estimated 193,060 copies in Japan over the first three days after the original Switch’s launch back in 2017, according to Famitsu’s figures. This means that in Japanese retail sales alone, Mario Kart World has sold around four times more copies than Breath of the Wild initially did on Switch 1.

This is hardly surprising, considering the Switch 2 is Nintendo’s fastest selling hardware to date, shifting over 3.5 million units worldwide in the first four days. In fact, Nintendo’s latest console is outselling the original Switch 2-to-1 (no pun intended). The supply-constrained Switch 1 got off to a much slower start, selling 2.74 million units globally in just under a month.

Over the first three days post-launch, physical Switch 2 games saw strong sales in Japan. Switch 2 titles accounted for half of Famitsu’s top 10, with Switch 2 editions of Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma (No. 6, 10,877 copies), Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (No. 7, 7,992 copies), Zelda: Breath of the Wild (No. 8, 7,529 copies) and Yakuza 0 (No. 9, 7,486 copies) entering the charts. Elden Ring: Nightreign (PS5) was the only non-Switch title at No. 5.

Although Mario Kart World may be racing ahead of Breath of the Wilds’ initial launch figures in Japan, it remains to be seen if it will eventually catch up with the critically acclaimed Zelda game’s total sales. Especially considering that BOTW just got a Switch 2 HD rerelease, which may prompt fans to purchase the game all over again.

Check out our Mario Kart World guide and learn how to unlock every hidden Mario Kart World character, plus how Kamek Unlocks work — you’ll need them to unlock NPC Drivers. We’ve also got a guide to all the Mario Kart World food scattered across the open world and where to find it, which will help you get all the Mario Kart World outfits and costumes permanently.

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

The new live-action How to Train Your Dragon may have just opened in theaters, but if you simply can't wait to secure a copy for your physical media collection, we come with good news: the movie's 4K steelbook is already available to preorder. It's currently up at Amazon and Walmart (see here at Amazon, where it's listed for $39.99) and comes with a 4K UHD and Blu-ray copy of the film alongside a collectible magnetic medallion.

How to Train Your Dragon - Steelbook (4K UHD + Digital)

Preorder How to Train Your Dragon 2-Film Collection

Alongside new looks and details about Toy Story 5 and Hoppers, Pixar has announced that Luca director Enrico Casarosa will lead the charge on Gatto, a film set in Venice, Italy, that follows a black cat named Nero who is indebted to a feline mob boss.

The news was revealed at France's Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it was also shared that Nero hates water, which is very unfortunate considering where he calls home. He'll also meet a lonely street musician named Maya and be "forced to forge an unexpected friendship that may finally lead him to his purpose." Gatto will be released in summer 2027.

JUST ANNOUNCED: Coming to theaters in 2027 is Disney and Pixar’s "Gatto.” 🐈‍⬛ From “Luca” director Enrico Casarosa, the film returns to Italy, following a black cat named Nero. Indebted to a feline mob boss, Nero finds himself forced to forge an unexpected friendship that may… pic.twitter.com/gCEUocT8kx

— Pixar (@Pixar) June 13, 2025

As for 2026's Toy Story 5, we got a new look at the much-anticipated sequel and it was confirmed that Joan Cusack will return as Jessie. The concept image shared shows Jessie, Buzz, and Bullseye talking to a tech tablet called Lillypad. Ths iPad-like device looks friendly enough, but we know all won't turn out well as its been previously annouced that Toy Story 5 will be all about "toys going against electronics" and "toy meets tech."

Bonnie, who is now eight-years-old, has finally reached an age where her parents have gifted her a tablet, and Woody, Buzz, and all our favorite toy friends will have to navigate this new world of technology that is taking over the attention of this new generation of kids.

As reported by THR, Pixar also gave a sneak peek at the film's opening scene, in which "a container full of Buzz Lightyears awakens on an isolated desert island and struggled to reconnect with Star Command."

The British Film Institute just screened the first print of the original Star Wars, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy was on hand to make sure fans knew the screening of George Lucas’ sci-fi masterpiece was not, in fact, illegal.

As spotted by GamesRadar, Kennedy joked during her introductory remarks before the iconic movie screened at the BFI Film on Film Festival in London on June 12: "I'm here to… make sure that you don't think that this is an illegal screening."

She added about the print: "It's incredible folklore. I have to say that even when I came into the company, there was endless conversation about where everything was, and what was in fact the first print? And it's quite remarkable, what you're going to see is in fact the first print, and I'm not even sure there's another one quite like it. It's that rare. There's so much tinkering that's gone on over the years, and things that George [Lucas] decided, 'I'm gonna change this, I'm gonna try that.' And then, everybody kind of lost track of what it was."

Star Wars fans, Kathleen Kennedy wants to assure you the BFI screening of the original cut is not illegal pic.twitter.com/0a1Pa6FXDI

— Jacob Stolworthy (@JacobStolworthy) June 12, 2025

This showing was the first time the first print of the 1977 classic was publicly screened since 1978, though this particular cut had been made available on VHS a few times over the years. According to a report from The Telegraph back in April, the reels were stored at 23 degrees Fahrenheit to preserve quality and the viewing experience.

"In these very special screenings, we present the film exactly as experienced by audiences on its original 1977 release," the BFI explained.

After scoring a major win with the critically-lauded Silent Hill 2 remake, Bloober is ready to show the world what they can do next – with a slight change of pace – in an action-oriented horror game called Cronos: The New Dawn. I got a chance to sit down with Bloober’s time-hopping latest and find out what makes the world of Cronos so compelling.

Cronos puts you in control of a character called The Traveler, a woman tasked with going into areas ravaged by a human-eliminating virus that is rapidly transforming them into monsters. The Traveler’s goal is to not only log her observations and find human survivors, but also to lay a path for Travelers that come after her – just as those who came before her did. But that task is easier said than done.

“The theme of this game is merging and changing into something new,” co-director Wojciech Piejko explains, before adding, “Hey, this is not a good way to actually play this game, but watch this.”

Piejko proceeds to wake up a sleeping enemy with a stomp that can only be described as Dead Space-esque. Upon waking, the enemy noticed that the corpses of other monsters were littered around, and quickly went to consume one. Then another. Then a third. By the time the infected human had finished feasting (uninterrupted by Piejko), it had “merged” several times, essentially leveling up its monster type. In doing so, it became stronger, harder to kill, more aggressive, and had access to new abilities to take The Traveler out, such as spitting toxic bile at her. After a fair amount of ammo, it finally goes down.

The only way The Traveler could have prevented this happening is to kill the monster before it has a chance to feast or rid the area of corpses using fire, a precious resource that can’t be used capriciously. That said, bigger monsters mean bigger rewards, so it is sometimes a good choice to burn some resources for a bigger payday of crafting materials.

“This is the core of Cronos,” Piejko says. “Manage your resources, take risks when appropriate, and survive.”

Just because a monster does not awaken does not mean The Traveler is safe, however. Anyone that tries to hoard resources will soon discover when backtracking through areas that enemies have a tendency to pick inopportune moments to pop up and start merging with other corpses on the ground. Not being aware of your environment can be a deadly mistake in Cronos, but wasting resources may be even worse.

The demo I participated in takes place in Nowa Huta, an eastern district in Krakow, Poland that was once an industrial hub of the former Soviet Union. In the future, it has been torn apart by the monster-plague infecting the world. It is the Traveler’s duty to identify important people that live or lived in the city and employ time-travel to rescue them from the pre-plague age of the 1980s. Since only The Traveler can hop through time, rescuing them involves digitizing their souls to carry around with her to take back into the present.

The Traveler is limited in how many souls she can carry with her, which leaves the choice up to the player to decide who gets saved and who does not. This can affect Cronos’s narrative, as different people will have different reactions to things The Traveler encounters and places she goes. As an example, The Traveler can rescue someone in the past and bring them to the future, wherein she visits that person’s apartment decades later and the former tenant describes their life before it all went to hell.

In another example given, two of the souls in possession have a history and go back and forth with each other.

Bloober says that Cronos will contain an emphasis on the studio’s trademark psychological horror despite the action bent. After Silent Hill 2 released, which was developed in parallel with Cronos, the Cronos team absorbed their colleagues (or “merged,” to keep it thematically on-brand) to help finish the game out.

Oh, and throughout Nowa Huta, The Traveler will come across some less conversational survivors: cats. Kitties are locked away safely in various rooms throughout the game and, upon being rescued, help with resources for The Traveler. All the cats in the game are based on the pets of the developers at Bloober.

“We had so many submissions we had to start casting for them to decide who would get in,” Piejko says.

As part of their 1-2 punch with Silent Hill 2, Bloober is hoping Cronos proves the studio’s mettle as an industry-leading horror game developer. The New Dawn’s premise and designs are helping it start off on an interesting foot as part of Bloober’s journey there.

Warhammer 40,000 video games have been on a great run lately, with the likes of Space Marine 2 leading the charge of well-received, successful titles. The recently released Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition, however, may be Warhammer 40,000’s first video game misstep in some time.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition is a re-release of Relic Entertainment’s 2011 action game, Space Marine. Both Games Workshop and publisher Sega are not calling this a remaster. Instead they point to quality-of-life and graphical improvements "that take the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine experience to the next level."

These include higher fidelity and improved textures, 4k resolution, "improved" character models, a modernized control scheme and interface overhaul, and remastered audio.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition launched on June 10 across Xbox Series X and S and PC, and straight into Game Pass (there’s no word on a PS5 version). It’s going down better on Game Pass, where gaming is often more disposable and subscribers are free to try games out and discard them on a whim if they don’t like what they see. On Steam, however, where Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition costs $39.99 / £34.99, it’s getting destroyed.

Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition currently has a ‘mostly negative’ user review rating on Valve’s platform. Complaints revolve around the high price of the game relative to the changes it makes over the Anniversary Edition, and, on those changes, bemusement in response to what many believe is worse usability.

This, coupled with struggles to find others to play with online, has caused some to call Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition a "cash grab."

“I was very excited for the idea of this being updated but honestly? I prefer the older version,” reads one negative Steam user review. “It feels better and looks better. Why couldn't this just be an update or something? And for the price tag it just feels very meh. And this is one of my all time favourite games too. Just gonna install the older version and play through that.”

“Too bad, I really wanted to play this game,” reads another. “No players in PvP multiplayer. No players in co-op Exterminatus horde mode. FOV problem, aiming down sight makes 1000000x zoom. No option to change FOV. Maybe get it on sale after upgrades and updates and working enabled crossplay matchmaking. Refunded, sadly.”

“I bought and get refund” said one disgruntled customer. “Buy the Anniversary Edition, it's almost the same but it isn't a cash grab (around 7€ for a key).”

“Look how they massacred my boy,” declared another.

It’s a similar sentiment across social media, Discords, and subreddits. “Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Master Crafted Edition is a mess,” said redditor KitsuneLynx, highlighting problems even on Xbox.

“This game came out a few days ago and has shown itself to be an absolute mess and disappointment. When I heard this remake was coming out, I was so hyped, I was curious what they'd do and was excited to play it on Xbox after having played it on PC a while back. I was disappointed to say the least.

“This game is a buggy, janky mess that didn't bother to fix anything and instead made a worse UI, odd visual changes, etc. Why make the Orks all Goffs now? The colors helped recognize each unit, now they all blend together to the point it's hard to decipher which is which. WHERE ARE THE DEDICATED SERVERS? Not to mention the NEW jank and bugs that came with this release that weren't present in the previous remaster. It didn't bother to fix the jank or make the game feel revitalized, this IS the definition of a lazy cash grab. Charging this game for 40+ USD is criminal.

“Crossplay is off by default which just leads to the game shooting itself in the foot when it comes to vacant servers. My wife also just experienced a bug which is more common than it should be where when you boot up the game, there is a chance for your save file to corrupt and reset ALL OF YOUR PROGRESS. Why hasn't this game received a patch yet? I can't imagine all the other bugs I haven't seen yet.

“If you're planning on playing this game, either get it on Game Pass or wait for a sale and mega patch, otherwise stay on Space Marine 2 or play the remaster on PC.”

It’s worth noting that there are players who are having a reasonable time with the game, although anecdotally most of them appear to be on Game Pass. Similarly, those who have never played Space Marine before seem to be enjoying experiencing the events that lead into last year’s blockbuster hit, Space Marine 2. Steam, then, appears to be the focal point of the backlash.

The hope is that Sega will announce incoming improvements sooner rather than later, as Space Marine is generally remembered fondly by those who played it back in the day. In 2025, with Warhammer 40,000 at the peak of its popularity and with a flood of newcomers sparked by the success of Space Marine 2, it’s important Space Marine gets it right. The Inquisition, after all, is always watching.

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.

Developer Supermassive Games really made their mark on the horror game landscape with 2015's Until Dawn, but the Dark Pictures Anthology really brought the heat by offering gaming's closest analog to Netflix's Black Mirror series. With the latest installment on the way, the developers have plans for an ambitious return that finally ventures into sci-fi horror while also putting players in more direct control of the tense encounters that await the characters in this dark story.

At Summer Game Fest 2025, we got to play a particularly fateful encounter from the upcoming Directive 8020, which continues the Dark Pictures saga. We also saw just how the sci-fi horror adventure game mixes things up with more real-time gameplay encounters that bring the series and its strong narrative hooks closer to a true survival horror experience.

Taking place in the far future, where Earth is on the verge of collapse, a crew of scientists and space colonists travel to a distant planet poised to become humanity's next home. But as you'd guess for a horror game, the planet is home to another malevolent entity, and the crew is forced to survive against a mysterious alien presence that can mutate and take the form of any living person on board their ship.

Actress Lashana Lynch – seen in The Day of the Jackal and Captain Marvel – leads the cast of characters as the pilot of the ship, and her early scenes in Directive 8020 make her such a compelling lead in this bleak story. The game leans into similar themes of paranoia, isolation, and fear of the unknown – which makes for an excellent setup for a Dark Pictures game. The developers were particularly inspired by sci-fi films like Event Horizon, Alien, and John Carpenter's The Thing, which helped establish the style of horror and sense of dread that Directive 8020 goes for.

According to game director Will Doyle, who guided me through the SGF demo, Directive 8020 will still feature many of the hallmarks of a Dark Pictures experience. Still, it will also mark the start of more active gameplay sequences and choices that aim to increase the fear factor within this extended episode.

"I've had this idea for more real-time threats in my mind for a long time and throughout season one of the Dark Pictures, and the main reason we wanted to do it was to increase the fear factor for the games," said the game director. "There's nothing more scary than when you're in direct control and the creatures are trying to hunt you down and kill you. That gets your heart pumping, and that was a significant part of our motivation. We also wanted to expand our audience with more engaging gameplay. It's still a cinematic, story-driven game, but it does have moments where you are making those decisions and actions with more direct control."

I got to see this real-time action sequence during a story segment where the Captain and another crew member were confronted by their alien impostors. Playing as the second crew member, the imposter mutates into a grotesque monster, and I have to evade it from within the maintenance area of the ship. This played out in a tense and unnerving stealth sequence that felt similar to Dead Space or Resident Evil, which lends Directive 8020 a classic survival horror-like feel. As this is a Dark Pictures game, permanent death is a thing, and if I hadn't gotten this character out away from his imposter, the main story would have evolved differently.

However, Directive 8020 heightens the sense of paranoia and tension when making fateful survival choices. Given that Supermassive Games' pedigree of horror adventure games is about making decisions to keep a group of survivors and friends alive to the end of the story – the added twist in Directive 8020's story with your crew being replaced by alien imposters presents an unsettling wrinkle.

A fateful moment occurred when the Captain returned to the crew and had to decide where to shoot a crew member who had seemingly come in contact with the alien entity. Much like the games from the developers, these flashpoint moments are among the most consequential points in the story. Without giving away spoilers, I made a decision that I would come to regret. Still, according to the game director, these moments can also be rolled back using the turning point system – which acts as an optional story tracker and rewind system, allowing players to view different moments and choose a different path if they wish.

So far, Directive 8020 is set to be a welcome return to the Dark Pictures series. And with the focus on giving players more direct control of the action while also heightening the sense of distrust in your dwindling party of survivors, the next game looks to offer one of the more unique and game-changing episodes the series has seen yet.

Remember way, way back in March of the year 2025 when a bunch of people were declaring that the era of beloved animated movies being remade in live-action was done? That’s when Disney’s Snow White opened and promptly bombed. Then, very shortly after, Disney put a live-action version of Tangled they were developing on hold. Whether the timing of that decision was coincidental or not, many began to speculate that Snow White’s performance had a massive ripple effect that could finally put an end to these remakes so many sneered at.

…Except then the live-action Lilo & Stitch came out and became an instant massive hit.

And now Universal is getting in on this trend with the release of their first remake of an animated movie in their own library, as the live-action version of DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon arrives in theaters this weekend. And while anything could happen, it’s tracking to open quite well.

Oh, and next year Disney has a live-action version of Moana coming out. And based on the animated Moana 2 making over a billion dollars at the box office just a few months ago, it seem likely that will be a success too.

So yeah, it feels like this isn’t going to just stop in its tracks anytime soon. Sure, you might see Disney become more selective about which films they remake, especially since it’s pretty apparent that, exceptions aside, there’s a much better chance of success in remaking a movie that first opened in the 1990s (or even more recently than that) – and thus has a lot of relevance to a relatively younger audience who grew up with it, not to mention any modern little kids it’s been passed on to – versus something like Snow White, which is nearly 90 years old now. But there is still clearly money to be made from this practice, and word on the street is that, shockingly, movie studios like money (I predict in the not too distant future we see live-action takes on the likes of Frozen, Encanto and, yes, Tangled, which can just as easily stop being on hold).

Financial success doesn’t equal quality of course, and this entire “remake the vault!” endeavor is inarguably a pretty cynical one as far as the overriding corporate drive towards putting out movies believed to most likely sell a bunch of tickets, even as few of them begin life for artistic reasons. And some of them have had painful results to be sure, like Disney’s Pinocchio remake. Or there’s a case like 2019’s The Lion King (technically still animated, but now “photo realistic”), which was a huge hit, yes, but was also a movie which contained all the plot points of the original with little of its heart and emotion.

And yet, I do think people go overboard in how angrily they react to these movies. I remember a few years ago when a friend of mine lamented that Disney was trying to replace all of the original versions with these new ones. But I’ve never felt that was the case, and I think that’s pretty obvious looking at how they merchandise these titles in the long run, even when the remakes are clear-cut blockbuster hits. Consider 2017’s Beauty and the Beast, which was a huge, billion dollar-grossing success (Did you know that movie made $90 million domestically in its second weekend? That’s one of the best second weekend takes ever). A few years later, if you go to buy Beauty & the Beast merch, which version are you going to find represented? It sure ain’t the live-action one, since just about everything is again based off the original version of the characters.

I guess that can add to the cynical, bottom line-driven thoughts fans have about the whole remake idea, since I think Disney knows this will always be the case in the long run, even when these movies make them a ton of money upon release. They are produced because people love this story already and, often, will show up for a new version of that story. But regardless, it’s the original that remains the core version for most fans, and that’s also the one that Disney themselves understand is the “real” version if one had to pick.

That’s even the case when a remake is better than the original. And yes, that’s happened, including for Disney! 2016’s The Jungle Book and that same year’s Pete’s Dragon (I know, I know, both versions of that one are live-action/animation hybrids) were done better the second time around and feel like stronger artistic achievements. But at Disney Parks, when Mowgli is represented, he still looks like the cartoon kid from 1967.

When it comes to the current crop of remakes we’re getting today, yeah, Snow White was a big mess (on top of being way less relevant to a younger audience), but I’m one of those people who thinks the new Lilo & Stitch is a damn good version of what we already knew was a great story (just like I said in my review). There are even a couple of aspects of the new version I like better in this one, like Nani’s expanded role (no, sigh, I don’t think she “abandoned Lilo to the state” at the end of the movie), even though, sure, if I was told I could only watch one version for the rest of my life, I’d stick with the original.

But good news - I don’t have to make that choice and neither do you! You can see the new one or skip it. It can be a huge hit or a bomb. But they’ll still let you see the original and still make sure it’s readily available because they know people will always want to, and they, per usual, like making money.

I’ve also seen How to Train Your Dragon, 2025 edition, and it’s one of those cases where a wonderful story is once again told well and, thankfully, there are some genuine emotions to be felt by the end of it - though in that case, there is a bit of a bigger obstacle in the early scenes if you know the animated film, since the new one replicates the original extremely closely in a manner that does feel way too constrained and boxed in by choices from 15 years ago, even though it’s actually one of the same directors of the animated version behind the remake this time.

And yet I saw people cry at my screening who I discovered had never seen the original before. The story still works in this version so the story still got them. You could say, “Well, those people should just watch the original!” And I agree, that would be ideal, while also knowing some of those folks might not anytime soon and that it’s the release of the shiny New Movie that gets them to finally check it out - but then hopefully leads them to the animated version after that.

Universal has already ordered a sequel to the live-action How to Train Your Dragon, so they’re clearly feeling quite optimistic about the performance of the film. And yet just this past month, in the midst of the studio hyping up the live-action movie, the large new How to Train Your Dragon - Isle of Berk land opened as part of the new Epic Universe theme park at Universal Orlando Resort. And which version of How to Train Your Dragon is that land and its multiple attractions and shows based on? The animated one, of course! Because the new version is good, yes, and Universal is hopeful about turning it into its own multiple-film series, but the animated film is already timeless and one they can count on resonating for years to come.

The new version doesn’t hurt the original, whether it’s good or bad, because regardless of how we feel about the remake, those of us who love the original are reminded of why we love it by the remake’s mere existence - whether it’s because the new version successfully recaptures the warm feelings the original always evoked or, by failing to recapture them, it just really pisses us off. But either way, the original is always there, waiting for us to revisit it as often as we want.

For even more on this topic, check out our ranking of the live-action Disney remakes.

MindsEye has the first in a series of emergency hotfixes designed to improve the performance of the game amid what has been a disastrous launch.

Yesterday, embattled developer Build A Rocket Boy said it was “heartbroken” over the issues players had faced with the recently released game, and promised to release a series of patches to fix the significant performance problems, glitches, and AI behavior issues.

All the while, MindsEye’s troubled launch saw the developer cancel sponsored streams, and reports of players securing refunds, even from the normally stubborn Sony.

Hotfix #1 is out now on PC (5.7GB) and PS5 (2GB), with Xbox Series X and S (4GB) to follow, Build A Rocket Boy said in a post on Discord that also included patch notes.

“Today we’ve deployed Hotfix #1 tasked on an expedited timeline as the first in a series of patches aimed at addressing your feedback and enhancing the game experience,” it said.

Across all platforms, the hotfix aims to implement CPU and GPU performance improvements and memory optimizations. It also reduces the difficulty for the CPR mini-game, adds a new setting to disable or modify Depth of Field, and fixes missing controls in the MineHunter and Run Dungeon mini-games.

On PC, there are new pop-up warnings for PCs that have Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling disabled, and PCs with CPUs that have potential crash issues.

Build A Rocket Boy said this patch also fixes the memory leak issue that had been causing most crashes reported by players. “Performance optimisation is our number one focus and an ongoing commitment that will take further time,” it added.

“We will continue to provide frequent and transparent updates. Our team is committed to do everything possible to urgently action your feedback,” Build A Rocket Boy said.

Build A Rocket Boy has said that by the end of June, players can expect ongoing performance and stability improvements, a rebalanced ‘hard’ difficulty setting, animation fixes, and AI improvements.

The question is whether the developer, which was founded by former Rockstar North chief Leslie Benzies, can turn MindsEye around. On Steam, which does not paint the whole picture of MindsEye’s current popularity, the game hit a peak concurrent player count of 3,302 on launch, but had a 24-hour peak of just 786 players. At the time of this article’s publication, 435 people were playing on Steam, with a 'mixed' user review rating.

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.

Dune: Awakening developer Funcom said there's a fix coming for players sick of getting squished by helicopters — known in-game as Ornithopters — in PvP.

As admirably reported by redditor Bombe18 in the video below, there's pretty much nothing you can do if an Ornithopter sets its sights on you, as the moment you self-revive, the Orni will be back to rinse and repeat. It's a particularly egregious way to die given there's very little you can do to stop it unless you have a missile launcher with you.

"Dune developers, I agree to have a defeat in PvP," Bombe18 wrote (thanks, Eurogamer). "But been [sic] crushed by orni that do[es] not take any damage? No." They even suggest a couple of solutions: either let the Orni take damage when it crashes into players like this or, you know, just disable crushing and its ability to make aerial assaults.

The good news is it didn't take long for Funcom to notice Bombe18's (and many others') plight.

"Sorry about this," replied Funcom's Chief Creative Officer, Joel Bylos. "We have people working on fixing the goomba stomping ASAP."

It's not just the Ornithopters that take no damage, either — it's the same with all vehicles. So unless Funcom addresses them simultaneously, players fear the PvP meta will simply roll from Ornis to something else. Fingers crossed we get a solution soon.

Apart from this PvP griefing, Dune: Awakening has enjoyed a superb launch, with a 'very positive' user review rating on Steam. Within hours of going live on June 10, Funcom's survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent players on Valve's platform, and that peak is expected to swell this weekend. You can also see what we make of it so far in our Dune: Awakening review in progress.

To help you survive on Arrakis, we've got Dune: Awakening resource guides that'll help you find iron, steel, aluminium, and more. If you're just getting started, check out all the Dune: Awakening classes you can choose from, and keep an eye on our in-progress Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step guide to the story.

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

Devil May Cry 5 has hit the impressive sales milestone of 10 million, with Capcom pointing to the recently released Netflix anime as helping push the video game over the line.

DMC 5 launched in Mar 2019 across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and was a hit with fans and critics. IGN's Devil May Cry 5 review returned a 9.5. We said: "Devil May Cry 5's trio of outstanding combat styles set a new high bar for the series, and its mysterious story keeps things interesting along the way."

Six years later, Devil May Cry 5 must go down as a blockbuster success for Capcom. “The title has garnered strong support from users due to its exceptional gameplay experience, leading to expanded sales as a catalog title since its release,” the company said.

“Capcom provided an even more advanced story and action elements in the game with the addition of a new playable character, and more recently, on April 3, 2025, the company released the new Devil May Cry animated series on Netflix, in line with the company’s Single Content Multiple Usage strategy.

"The animated series has garnered critical acclaim from around the world, and with more than 5.3 million views it ranked fourth during its first week globally in the "Shows | English" category, while also ranking in the top 10 for seven consecutive days in Japan. As a result of the game’s exhilarating action, and due to efforts to enhance brand awareness by leveraging the title beyond the scope of video games, including television adaptations, the title has now exceeded 10 million units in cumulative sales worldwide.”

Devil May Cry 5’s success (the franchise as whole has sold more than 33 million units since the first game came out in 2001), begs the question: when will Devil May Cry 6 be released? It seems inevitable that another game will be greenlit, if it hasn’t already, given DMC5 has sold 10 million in the six years since launch in 2019.

Capcom isn’t giving anything away at this point, of course, and it has a lot on its plate already. Apart from continuing to work on already released games such as Monster Hunter Wilds and Street Fighter 6, it has the just announced Resident Evil: Requiem on the way as well as the re-revealed Pragmata.

But Devil May Cry 5 is by some margin the best-selling Devil May Cry game, and has now cracked the top 10 best-selling Capcom games ever list. Dante and friends will return at some point. The question is, when?

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.

My Nintendo Store UK has finally dropped its preorders for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and it’s by far the biggest selection of preorder bonuses we’ve seen for the upcoming Switch 1 & Switch 2 RPG so far.

Any version of the game you buy also comes with a PokémonLegends: Z-A Partner Figurine, with Tepig, Chikorita, and Totodile in one collective pose, as a bonus item.

Other retailers had already put their preorders up with their own incentives. Amazon UK’s at £52.95 is still among the cheapest for the Switch 2 version, and the Pokémon Center UK is bundling starter Pokémon plushies with copies of the game.

The UK Nintendo store, however, is offering three separate bundles, each offering various new Pokémon merchandise, ranging from £56.99 to £78.99.

That’s along with the standard editions of the game. For instance, the Switch 1 version of PokémonLegends Z-A is selling for £49.99 both physically and digitally.

The physical version on Switch 2 is selling for £58.99, but you can buy it digitally for £57.99 through the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade pack. If you buy the Switch 1 version physically, you can also buy the Switch 2 upgrade pack for higher frame rates and resolutions, for £7.99.

For an added £7/8 of each version, though, you can buy the very good-looking Pokémon Legends: Z-A Mega Evolution Bundle. Each variation contains both a Z-A starter Pokémon pin set, enclosed in a snazzy case, and a figurine each of Mega Charizard X (8 x 10 m) and Mega Charizard Y ( 8 x 8cm).

As far as the promo images go by, they seem like decent figurines considering the added price and included pins. On the other hand, if Pokémon swag is more your thing, then the Legends: Z-A Trainer Bundle is more for you.

For an extra £13/14 from the standard editions, £62.99 for the Switch 1 version & £71.99 for the Switch 2 version, you’ll also get a Mega Evolution-themed umbrella, cap, and mug featuring Tepig, Chikorita, and Totodile.

The huge Champion’s Choice Bundle, for an added £20, though, gives you the entire lot from the Mega Evolution and Trainer Bundles. With the bonus figurine included as well, the Champion's Choice Bundle by far gives you the best value.

If you're as excited for Pokemon Legends: Z-A as Nintendo could hope following the boosted performance of Scarlet & Violet on the Switch 2, the biggest set wil grant you the largest bang for your buck.

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

MindsEye may look like an exciting, GTA-adjacent action-adventure in short clips and GIFs, but actually playing it through to the end of its story has revealed an unfinished, overly ambitious project that’s plagued with performance problems, makes precious little use of its open world, and is crippled by unconvincing combat and dull mission design.

While it’s natural to draw comparisons with GTA, in basic terms MindsEye is more akin to the Mafia series. That is, it’s a tightly linear, single-player story where the open world largely exists as a backdrop for you to drive from mission to mission. That doesn’t end up serving it very well. Mafia is great. MindsEye is not.

You are Jacob Diaz, a former soldier and drone operator who has been railroaded out of the military after a botched mission, albeit with an extremely rare piece of tech still embedded in his neck. He’s a pretty thinly drawn amnesiac hero overall, with no especially memorable characteristics beyond his ability to follow instructions. After securing a security job at mega-company Silva Corp in the Las Vegas-inspired city of Redrock, Diaz is quickly embroiled in an AI-gone-bad, robots-gone-wild adventure that starts slow, gets a little more intriguing a few hours in, and then ends like someone’s yanked the plug out of the wall.

Credit where it’s due, MindsEye does have style, and its near-future setting is accomplished and credible. It fuses locations like normal homes and strip malls that wouldn’t look out of place in the present day with the proliferation of high-tech robotics and drones. The result is a world that appears appropriately futuristic, but doesn’t feel alien or unrecognisable. From an aesthetic perspective, it really does appear a few years from now in a well-executed way.

It also includes a genuinely impressive fleet of vehicles – and there’s a practicality to them that makes them look like real cars from, say, five to 10 years in the future. It basically takes modern trends – like today’s massive, chunkily-accented pick-up trucks, teardrop-shaped electric sedans, and battery-powered retromods – and successfully projects a decade of tweaks onto them. More importantly, the handling is actually genuinely good in a way open-world action games rarely manage. The cars you actually get to drive are weighty and really love to be whipped into high-speed handbrake turns through the realistically thick traffic. There’s none of that stickiness that’s typical of GTA clones like Sleeping Dogs (which I love regardless) or Saints Row (which I do not). You know, the kind of superficial handling that feels like you’re turning the world under the car, rather than the car itself.

Unfortunately, this is largely where the praise stops.

Mind Over Matter

The very first mission is a short drive into the desert to shoot four robots who barely have the vigour to fire back, and the second requires you to track a slow-moving thief by monitoring a security console and… switching cameras. It’s not exactly an explosive opening stanza, but things don’t get that much better when the bullets really start flying. It’s around 10 hours of the most boringly straightforward missions from the past decades of open-world action games.

Combat against the handful of bot types and human soldiers is mostly just plain, and dud enemy AI doesn’t make for particularly satisfying shootouts. Humans are the least sensible. Sometimes they take cover; sometimes they just walk towards you waiting to get shot. Run out to meet them and they’re confusingly slow to react (not that this is a particularly strong tactic, as there is no melee attack).

It’s just janky. On the one hand, you can actually shoot individual pieces – including weapons – off the bots. That’s nice. On the other, put a round into a human standing behind some scenery and they’ll often blink back into cover with no linking animation whatsoever. That’s shoddy.

It’s not due to a lack of firepower, because MindsEye does feature plenty of guns, although it mostly just chucks them into your arsenal with so little fanfare I usually didn’t notice. I’d just spot something new in my weapon wheel, like another assault rifle, or some kind of energy blaster. It’s rarely clear about what you should be using at any given moment, and it doesn’t seem to matter much.

The action does improve towards the back end of the story, as Diaz gets access to all his partner drone’s special perks. The ability to zap an enemy robot and turn it into an instant ally gives the action some zest that it absolutely lacks out of the gate. Your drone’s grenade ability is also neat for a while, but it’s probably a bit too effective at clearing out enemies ahead. I spent most of the late game missions as my drone, dropping endless grenades on soldiers and robots from high above. It made what turned out to be the penultimate battle into one of the easiest because the bad guys just have no defense against this.

The primary problem I had with MindsEye, though, was its drastically uneven performance on my high-end PC (RTX 4080, Intel Core Ultra 9 185H). While the auto settings placed the bulk of the configurable options at ‘High’ – and capped the frame rate at 60fps – my playthrough was rife with issues. It’s regularly blurry and choppy when panning, and the frame rate would flutter and sometimes hang. During one car chase performance chugged to a crawl and was only barely playable. Sometimes even the cutscenes would stutter and display ghosting. Experimenting with lowering the settings hasn’t yielded much in the way of positive results. It’s in really rough shape technically.

To be fair, there are definitely moments in MindsEye when it looks quite stunning. Explosions are excellent. The sunlight piercing through Redrock’s glitzy hotels is seriously snazzy. I liked the sheer scale and complexity of the Silva factory’s rocket loader, and at one point the metallic sheen of a parked jet in the desert glare stopped me in my tracks. When it runs well and looks good, it looks very good. But six months ago I played through Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on this machine and it performed fabulously. MindsEye does not. It’s like Steven Seagal circa 1990: Looks cool – just doesn’t know how to run properly.

Performance optimisation won’t solve MindsEye’s myriad other issues, though. A lot of these are really just baked into how it’s designed. Too often, the missions are simply restrictive and dull. All you can do is drive a pre-assigned vehicle to a marker. That triggers a cutscene. Then you shoot everything. Then drive somewhere else. It’s all so rigid and leaves no room for the kind of goofing around or antics you can get into in comparable games, and there’s certainly none of the emergent fun you constantly get in something like GTA. MindsEye rarely trusts us to even park at a mission marker; it generally just splutters into a cutscene when you get close enough.

It doesn’t help that there are no radio stations or songs to listen to as you’re commuting between missions. Travel time from A to B mostly seems to exist to feed you phone calls to prod the story along a little further. Exploration is actively disencouraged, and you’ll be constantly scolded for not heading directly to your destination, or failed out. There’s no reason to explore anyhow, as it isn’t the sort of living world you might have expected. Police don’t even respond to Diaz’s crimes, so what’s even the point?

And there’s not really anything out there to find. Hunting for a cool vehicle to use? Don’t bother. Other vehicles are off-limits. Wreck the car you were assigned? That’s a mission fail. You won’t even be able to get out of it if it's burning. It’s a baffling choice for a game like this – the entire genre is built around stealing cars.

MindsEye has some good ideas. An effective stealth mission mid-way is a positive change of pace, and there are some unexpected puzzles late in the piece that gave me a break from blasting. But it relegates the rest of them to its roughly two hours of cutscenes and wastes their potential. At one point a squad of robots are set sprinting after my car at highway speeds. While I was preparing myself for a potentially thrilling chase, the robots caught the car and destroyed it before the cinematic finished. This kind of thing is a real rug pull in a game that, a few hours earlier, made me play through a frustrating, one-off CPR minigame that could’ve just been a cutscene.

GameStop is doubling-down on trading cards.

In its 2025 Annual Meeting, CEO Ryan Cohen told shareholders that the company had seen its first profitable opening quarter since 2019 due to "reducing costs, cutting excess inventory, streamlining headcount, closing unprofitable stores, exiting under-performing geographies, and focusing on the core fundamentals of the business."

And those fundamentals, it turns out, are trading cards, which Cohen called a "natural extension" of a game retailer with a chain of physical stores.

"We are focusing on trading cards as a natural extension of our existing business," Cohen said. "The trading card market — whether it's sports, Pokémon, or collectibles, is aligned with our heritage — it fits our trading model, it appeals to our core customer base, and it's deeply embedded in physical retail. Unlike software, it's tactile. Unlike hardware, it has high margin potential. It's a logical expansion." The announcement sent stocks tumbling 22%.

While running around in a match of Elden Ring Nightreign, it's not exactly easy to stop and carefully think about numbers and details. In fact, the leveling system for the characters in Nightreign is streamlined compared to the more-freeform point-system of Elden Ring. So what do they all mean, and what numbers are worth chasing over others?

YouTuber Zullie the Witch recently dove into the behind-the-scenes numbers to figure that out. While Nightreign simplifies progression down to level-ups, these pre-assigned values can be looked at and charted, as Zullie has done in their video.

One fascinating detail they found was that the jump from level 1 to level 2 adds "far more" than any other level up, making that first Site of Grace a big one. On the other hand, levels 13 through 15 apparently add fewer attributes for most characters, imposing a "softcap" around level 12. You'll get more stats, but they won't be as drastic as those early levels.

They also note statistics seem to have different scales between the different properties. Duchess, for example, has a B in Dexterity and A in Intelligence, but her point values across the levels end up fairly even. Also, strangely, no one gains points in Arcane across their levels.

If you're curious, the highest total level character if one were to build them in Elden Ring would be Recluse. Per Zullie, this is due to the Recluse having the same stat growth for both Intelligence and Faith; her points cap out at 51 on both values, at level 15.

There's some actionable advice here for build-crafting. Zullie found that each point of Vigor always adds exactly 20 HP at any level. Additionally, it looks like Relics that raise attack statistics will seem stronger at lower levels, but get outpaced by "other damage bonuses" as the game goes on.

It's some fascinating datamining that's sure to help with build-crafting, as you put together your Relics and aim for different rewards in the field. If anything, just remember: that first level-up is big, so don't delay it. And if you're curious about other details, it's worth looking into Zullie's videos about what lies behind the mask of the Nightfarers and other videos, which you can find on their YouTube channel here.

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

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Sony has said it remains committed to live service video games despite high-profile failures such as Concord, and insisted Marathon will be out before April 2026 despite admitting the recent alpha had seen “varied” feedback.

Sony’s live service hero shooter Concord is one of the biggest flops in PlayStation history. Amid disastrously low player numbers, Sony pulled Concord offline just two weeks after launch, with one estimate suggesting it sold just 25,000 copies. It has proved a costly failure for Sony, with hundreds of millions of dollars wasted amid the closure of its developer, Firewalk Studios.

What has Sony learned from the Concord disaster, and how does that relate to Marathon, Bungie’s in-development extraction live service shooter? Hermen Hulst, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Studio Business Group, was asked that question during an investor focused interview. Responding, Hulst admitted that feedback to Marathon’s recent alpha test had been “varied,” but insisted the game will be released during Sony’s current fiscal year ending March 31, 2026, and promised that the mistakes it made with Concord would not be repeated.

“Live service, we really see that as a great opportunity for us,” Hulst said. “But with this great opportunity are some unique challenges associated. We talked about some early success as with Helldivers 2. We’ve also faced some challenges, as with the release of Concord.

“I think some really good work, actually, went into that title, some really big effort. But ultimately that title entered into a hyper competitive segment of the market. I think it was insufficiently differentiated to be able to resonate with players.

“And so we have reviewed our processes in light of this to deeply understand how and why that title failed to meet expectations and to ensure we’re not going to make the same mistakes again.

“As I said earlier, we’ve introduced much more rigorous processes for validating, for re-validating, our creative, our commercial, our development assumptions and hypotheses, and we now do that on a much more ongoing basis. That’s the plan that will ensure we are investing in the right opportunities at the right time, all while maintaining much more predictable timelines.

“For Marathon, it’s our goal to release a very bold, very innovative, and deeply engaging title. It’s going to be the first new Bungie title in over a decade. So we’re really excited for that release. We’re monitoring, we’re going through the test cycles. We’re monitoring the closed alpha cycle the team has just gone through. We’re taking all the lessons learned, we’re using the capabilities we’ve built and analytics and user testing to understand how audiences are engaging with the title.

“Some of that feedback, frankly, has been varied. But it’s super useful. That’s why you do this testing. The constant testing, the constant re-validation of assumptions that we just talked about, to me is just so valuable to iterate and to constantly improve the title, so when launch comes, we’re going to give the title the optimal chance of success.

“This cycle of test, of iterate, test again, that is such a key component of the live service success, both leading up to launch but also throughout the life of the game. And we’re committed to continuing to leverage our learnings, to maximise engagement and player satisfaction throughout the lifecycle of the title.”

Hulst failed to address the recent art plagiarism scandal that embroiled Bungie and Marathon, however. Last month, Bungie was left scrambling to recover its reputation after yet another independent artist accused the studio of "lifting" their artwork in Marathon.

The accusation prompted an "immediate investigation" and acknowledgement from the studio that a "former Bungie artist" had indeed used Fern Hook's work without compensation or credit. Soon after, Marathon game director Joe Ziegler and art director Joe Cross apologized on a painfully uncomfortable livestream that featured no Marathon art or footage at all, as the team was "still scrubbing all of our assets to make sure that we are being respectful of the situation."

Sony’s live service plan has seen significant success but also catastrophic failure. The Concord flop came after Sony had already canceled Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer game. And earlier this year, Sony reportedly canceled two unannounced live service games, one a God of War title in development at Bluepoint, the other in the works at Days Gone developer Bend, which recently suffered mass layoffs as a result.

Sony announced plans in February 2022 to launch more than 10 live service games by March 2026, later saying the push would bring games of different genres to different audiences. It spent big on studio buyouts as part of the drive, bringing in Destiny developer Bungie, Jade Raymond's Haven Studios (Raymond has since left the company), and the now shuttered Firewalk Studios.

But in 2023, Sony president Hiroki Totoki said the company was reviewing the 12 live service PlayStation games it had in the works, and committed to launching only six of them by the end of financial year 2025, meaning by the end of March 2026. Totoki said Sony was still working on when the other six live service games would come out, adding: "It's not that we stick to certain titles, but for the gamers quality should be the most important.”

Earlier this month, Sony announced a new PlayStation studio called teamLFG and teased its debut game, which is a live service incubation project. Guerrilla’s Horizon multiplayer game is also in development, as is Haven's Fairgames.

Speaking more generally about Sony’s live service ambition, Hulst said the company remains “very, very committed to building a diverse and a resilient live service portfolio.” He pointed to MLB The Show, Destiny 2, and Helldivers 2 as “really good examples of the type of titles we’re looking to develop.”

“These titles have already established an enduring set of player experiences and communities across quite a wide range of different genres,” he said. “Together that provides a really good foundation for our ambitions in this category.

“I would say additionally we are continuing to invest in new live services, with Helldivers 2 providing such a great example of the level of success we can achieve — if we get everything right.

“That game has been a true breakout success, it’s been attracting and retaining significant community and very engaged players since we launched that back in February 2024. And its ongoing success I think is further evidence in how we deal with the monetization. Microtransactions now in that game make up more than half of the revenue.”

And then, the kicker: a commitment to releasing Marathon by the end of March 2026: “We’re also very excited about Marathon’s anticipated launch in this fiscal year,” Hulst confirmed.

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.