Welcome back to yet another week of being unable to resist clicking Add To Cart. Discounts this steep are basically permission slips from the gaming gods, and I’ve spotted some gems worth locking in. It's time to reshuffle the backlog once again and make space for a few favourites that deserve the spotlight. So let's get to it!

Contents

• Retro
• Nintendo
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC
• LEGO

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro news, I'm using this lascannon to light a 13-candle cake for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, Relic's third-person orc slashin' shooter. At the time, it felt like a bold attempt to bridge the tabletop universe of Warhammer into a visceral action experience, and I reckon it largely succeeded. Playing as Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, we waded into those green hordes with a brutal mix of ranged gunplay and meaty melee finishers. It may not have been the game to launch an empire, but for fans of the IP, it was the first time the fantasy of being an Ultramarine truly clicked on console.

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The Conjuring: Last Rites got off to a huge start at the box office, pulling in $187 million globally during opening weekend. It’s not only the best start for a Conjuring movie theatrically, it’s the second-biggest global box office debut for a horror movie ever, with only 2017’s It ahead with $190 million.

Domestically, The Conjuring: Last Rites enjoyed a huge $83 million haul, but it went one better internationally, pulling in a whopping $104 million. That’s the largest international opening weekend ever for a horror movie.

The Conjuring: Last Rites, directed by franchise veteran Michael Chaves and produced by franchise architects James Wan and Peter Safran, was also huge at IMAX, securing $14.3 million in what was the biggest IMAX global opening ever for a September release.

The Conjuring Universe, as it’s called, presents a dramatization of the supposed real-life adventures of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The films revolve around their work to help people harassed by spirits. The franchise kicked off with 2013’s The Conjuring, which was quickly followed by spinoff Annabelle a year later. The Conjuring 2 came out in 2016, with Annabelle: Creation keeping the pattern going by launching in 2017.

2018 saw another spinoff, The Nun, before Annabelle Comes Home came out in 2019. Two years later, in 2021, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It hit theaters. The Nun 2 followed in 2023, and now, two years after that, The Conjuring: Last Rites has been released.

The Conjuring franchise has enjoyed enormous box office success despite mixed reviews from critics. Indeed it’s the highest-grossing horror franchise in history with more than $2.3 billion. IGN’s The Conjuring: Last Rites review returned a 6/10. We said: “After a strong first act, The Conjuring’s intended finale disappoints, keeping its central duo of Ed and Lorraine away from the action for too long.”

Given the success of Last Rites, it seems inevitable that more The Conjuring movies will eventually make their way to theaters. If you want to know if there are any post- or mid-credits scenes in The Conjuring: Last Rites, check out IGN’s The Conjuring: Last Rites Ending Explained.

Meanwhile, Zach Cregger’s horror film Weapons is now up to $251.5 million globally after weekend five. Freakier Friday is up to $142.9 million, also after five weekends.

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.

With Hollow Knight: Silksong’s huge launch in full swing, community debate about its qualities and flaws has gone back and forth, with some players insisting their criticisms about things like the game's difficulty are valid and shouldn’t be instantly dismissed as "hate."

Silksong launched over six years after it was announced amid huge excitement, and early indications are that it’s a critical and commercial success. At the time of this article’s publication, the Steam concurrent player count was over half a million, with English language user reviews sat on a ‘Very Positive’ rating.

However, as more players work their way through the game, some are expressing criticism across social media, subreddits, Discords, and Steam reviews. Most of this criticism revolves around Silksong’s difficulty scaling, which is causing players problems, and brutal runbacks. There’s even one very early miniboss causing a lot of players a whole heap of trouble, too.

“Is it just me, or are some of the things that make Silksong ‘difficult’ just cruel?” wondered redditor Machi-Ato.

“The game has artificially inflated difficulty and playtime due to overtuned numbers and menial tasks/runback,” reads a post on Steam.

It’s the reaction to these sorts of criticisms that has sparked a debate within the gaming community. Take that Steam post, for example. “Maybe you just got older and your skills have declined,” is the first response.

I love reading the negative reviews of Silksong because its just people complaining the game is too hard and doesn't baby them pic.twitter.com/65Fv9lBtAx

— Johann (@LookAtMyMeat1) September 6, 2025

“It’s okay that Silksong is hard,” declared redditor jacked-deMamp in a thread upvoted 1,400 times. “It’s already getting old seeing that every other post online about this game is someone complaining about the difficulty, especially when there are so many incredible things to talk about like the quest system and the new mechanics.

“The amount of love Team Cherry put into this game is insane and you can feel it when you play, I wish people would get over the fact that it’s challenging because there’s nothing you can do about it other than get better. The game is finally out, and it’s hard - just like the original. I personally love that the mechanics are so different and require a lot of learning again, because after playing hundreds of hours of HK I didn’t want to just breeze through Silksong.

“I think we just need to realize the game is the way it is and cherish these early days with a very special piece of art. It’s okay to get frustrated but don’t make those feelings overshadow how great of an experience this game is.”

This sentiment has pushed the debate even further, with some players pushing back against the "git gud" and "skill issue" comments to insist it's perfectly fine to point out flaws in Silksong, however, beloved and important a release it may be.

“Criticism isn't hate,” countered redditor bboy2812 in a thread upvoted 5,200 times. “Most of the criticism I've seen on here and the Steam discussions is consistently dismissed as hate. Bad rosary economy, insane difficulty scaling, very few meaningful unlocks/upgrades, runbacks, locked into fighting bosses, contact damage stacking with normal hits, etc.

“The only ‘hate’ I've seen are from people who spam ‘git gud’ and ‘skill issue’ whenever they encounter valid complaints against their perfect little game that cannot possibly have anything wrong with it.”

If this sounds familiar, it’s perhaps because we’ve been through this sort of debate multiple times before with FromSoftware’s Souls games. The typical ‘Souls Cycle’ usually kicks off with adulation, followed by complaints the game is too hard, then more insight into why they’re too hard, then the ‘git gud’ accusations. Silksong, it seems, is following the same path.

Meanwhile, the debate about Silksong’s difficulty shows no sign of slowing down, which you’d expect for a game so popular. Thankfully, IGN is here to help. Here's how to unlock and use the map, how to get Rosary Beads, Achievements and Trophies list, and our ever expanding Silksong Interactive Map. Also, you may need the Bell Beast boss fight guide. It's a hard one!

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.

On Sept. 27, 2005, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight was published. Of course, a novel that spurred a cultural movement like people wearing Team Jacob and Team Edward shirts in public deserves a celebration.

While we learned several weeks ago that the Twilight Saga will be returning to theaters in October, anyone tempted by the fall weather to start a rewatch sooner rather than later is in luck: The entire Twilight Saga is streaming for free on YouTube all week long.

The Twilight Saga Is Streaming for Free on YouTube This Week