Exciting and repulsive, Aditya Dhar’s star-studded gangster epic Dhurandhar (“Stalwart”) is the latest in Bollywood’s recent wave of jingoistic action films skirting the line of Islamophobic propaganda. Yet it stands apart from its peers by being not just adequate, but at times brilliant – perhaps that’s what makes it dangerous – resulting in a three-and-a-half hour spy odyssey with enough blood, torture, and butchered limbs to put a Saw movie to shame. It’s ugly and enthralling in equal measure.

Touting itself as “inspired by incredible true events” (a claim that stretches credulity), Dhurandhar follows an Indian military operative who goes deep undercover in Pakistan in the mid-2000s, adopting the name Hamza Ali Mazari (a stoic, lion-maned Ranveer Singh). Working his way up from a juice stall through Karachi’s communal politics, he embeds himself within a local mafia network with ties to both national parties and international terrorism, transforming this espionage saga into one of vicious, bone-crunching action, and complicated emotional loyalties. On the flipside, this grand character opera leaves very little room for actual spycraft. Boo! Hiss!

As the years go by, Hamza grows more attached to his targets. However, it soon becomes clear – to the audience, if not to the conflicted anti-hero – that his cohorts are setting the stage for a real-world 2008 terror attack in Mumbai. Until now, these events have never been the subject of a remotely competent feature, whether it was Bollywood’s cartoonish The Attacks of 26/11 (2013), the French-Belgian snooze Taj Mahal (2015), or Hollywood’s sensationalistic Hotel Mumbai (2019). Dhurandhar might technically change that, though it invents some pretty tall tales of its own in the process.

However, its adjacency to reality also makes Dhurandhar a thorny prospect. Many of its characters are real people, like Akshaye Khanna’s intense Rehman Dakait, a Karachi gangster and family man who takes Hamza under his wing, and Sanjay Dutt’s Chaudhary Aslam, a revered Pakistani police officer taking on gangs and terror cells (portrayed here as a corrupt opportunist). Others are closely based on real people, like Arjun Rampal’s magnetic military operative Major Iqbal (based on real terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri) and R. Madhavan’s stern spymaster Ajay Sanyal, who sends Hamza on his way from India, and bears intentional resemblance to the country’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval. Hamza, however, has no known real-world equivalent; some connections have been rumored, but subsequently denied.

This makes the movie’s premise, and its invocation of archival footage and phone recordings from various terror attacks, dubious at best. There are times when it plays like an evil twin to The Voice of Hind Rajab, the recent Venice drama that uses real phone calls to dramatize the IDF killing of a Palestinian child. By repeatedly yanking reality into its fictitious purview, Dhurandhar attempts to stir up the volatile emotions currently engulfing India’s political milieu when it comes to tensions with Pakistan, and its continued antagonization of Indian Muslims. Early lines of dialogue position Sanyal’s negotiations with terrorist hijackers as a battle to maintain a Hindu-centric national unity under attack from Islamic invaders. Similarly, key emotional beats see Hamza not only chancing upon known terrorists mid-call to prayer, but later, recalling their proclamations of “Allahu Akbar” when he’s beaten down, their Muslim-ness fueling his hatred and bringing him back to his feet like an Islamophobic Rocky. You’re unlikely to see another December release with such hostile nihilism coursing through its veins. Even its lone hint of optimism is secretly cynical – Sanyal’s anticipation of a more stringent anti-corruption government, which is practically a campaign banner for India’s current strongman Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, the BJP, who would come to power in the years following the film’s events.

Still, Dhar’s commitment to craft is as undeniable as his capitulating to Hindutva politics. Hamza, although a reactionary revenge fantasy, is an alluring centerpiece in what turns out to be a mile-a-minute thriller in which he ping-pongs between major political players in an effort to rise through the ranks. As Hamza navigates Lyari, a Karachi neighborhood beset by ethnic tensions, the otherwise highly-animated Singh shows uncharacteristic emotional restraint, but moves through scenes with muscular momentum. He observes and schemes (and smolders) in plain sight en route to ferocious explosions while developing a genuine camaraderie with his mobster marks, and eventually, a predatory romance with Yalina (Sara Arjun), the much younger daughter of a political rival.

Another distinction between Dhurandhar and other works of its ilk, like Dhar’s own Zero Dark Thirty-esque Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), is that Hamza isn’t an unequivocal hero. He’s framed as a manipulative scumbag through and through, thanks in part to the way Dakait’s gang is humanized right down to the most minor henchmen, who are all pretty fun to be around. This ensures that Hamza’s eventual turn against them feels halfway between righteous vengeance and heinous betrayal. Khanna, a romantic lead from several decades ago, is especially charismatic as a father first and foremost, and an urban militant second; it’s a career-best role. The film is so dramatically fine-tuned that even when it ends on a cliffhanger, falling victim to the duology disease infecting both Indian and American blockbusters (Part 2 arrives March 19th), the result is less exasperation and more eager anticipation, with adrenaline that carries even through its mid-credits teaser.

Buoyed by contemporary Indian and Arabic hip-hop and upbeat remixes of Bollywood classics, Dhurandhar not only sees Dhar tap into his signature brutality, but allows him to imbue it with delirious exuberance born from repugnant moral impulses. If you can stomach the cognitive dissonance, it might be worth your while. People get stabbed, riddled with bullets, pressure-cooked, blown to bits, strung by meat-hooks, de-limbed, decapitated, dragged through the streets by motorcycle, have their skulls caved in, and meet pretty much every grisly outcome you can imagine, as cinematographer Vikash Nowlakha’s camera captures the mayhem at lightspeed, and editor Shivkumar V. Panicker cross-cuts between high melodrama and grounded barbarism as though they were sides to a rapidly spinning coin. The movie’s cool blue hues give it the appearance of perpetual twilight, as though the sun were constantly setting on Hamza, forcing him to shed his personal ethics in favor of a more abstract, nationalistic morality that permits any kind of violence or transgression if it translates into jaw-dropping, stylized action. It’s disturbingly good…in every sense of the phrase.

It’s kind of insane that I never realized how perfectly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would work as a VR game. VR action games famously feature loads of jumping and climbing, which our turt bros do a whole bunch of on Manhattan rooftops. Sneaking around to do melee combat, and having to learn how to parry and dodge incoming attacks is also something the reptilian heroes are known for that has been done well in many VR games. And because these heroes in a half-shell appear most commonly as cartoons, you don’t have to worry about shooting for photorealistic graphics and the technical VR bottlenecks that sometimes come with it. In other words, why in the heck did it take us so long to get this pizza-powered quartet into a VR game? No matter the reason, I’m glad it’s finally happening with TMNT: Empire City, and the 15-minute demo I played was enough to sell me on this tubular action-adventure.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is exactly the kind of action game you’d expect from the titular masked heroes. I spent my time fighting members of the Foot Clan as each member of the TMNT crew (including their iconic weapons of choice, like Leonardo’s katanas and Donatello’s bo staff), running and jumping across city skylines in pursuit of justice, and hanging out back in my sewer base and eating pizza. Doing all of that in VR is exactly as fun as it sounds (meaning, it’s super fun!), and it’s especially amusing to look down at your turtle body and remember, “Oh, yeah. I’m an anthropomorphic mutated reptile.”

Unfortunately, the section I played was limited entirely to the tutorial, so I was mostly just learning the ropes, like how to hack into electronic devices as Donatello (since he does machines) or how to perform parries on those pesky Shredder-following Foot Clan. The fundamentals were definitely strong, as I was grinning ear-to-ear pretty much the whole time, but I’ll be curious to see if Empire City can build on that to keep it interesting across an entire campaign. For example, I only got to fight one boss at the very end of this introductory mission, and it lasted all of – I kid you not – five seconds as I dodged her opening attack and then whaled on her until she tapped out. Obviously this fight was also a part of the tutorial, so it’s hard to tell if things will get more challenging, but here’s hoping.

Building a Better Turtle

Something that would seem to indicate a deeper level of challenge is the fact that back at the base there’s a whole menu of upgrades to deal with. None of these were unlockable in the build I played from what I could tell, but it reminded me a bit of the upgrade system in Half-Life: Alyx, where you’re collecting parts throughout levels, then funnel it all into a machine to craft certain upgrades for your character. It’s also just great to see them using Donatello’s propensity for crafting gadgets brought to life via all the junk he stuffs in his pocket along the way, which his brothers made fun of him for doing, of course.

Which leads me to one of my favorite parts of the demo: how perfectly Ninja Turtles it was! The banter between the brothers and their recognizable idiosyncrasies left me smiling, whether it was Leonardo’s tendency to be way too serious all the time, Michelangelo’s wise cracks, or Raphael’s intensity and impatience. The unique weapon aside, I never forgot which of the brothers I was because Empire City did such a good job or reminding me with its banter that was completely on point with the surprisingly good writing for which the series is known. I could easily imagine a world where this thing felt like a reskinned ninja game that felt completely generic, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Huge relief.

They also do a really good job capturing the comic book/Saturday morning cartoon art style, with environments that look cel-shaded and goofy voice performances that are over-the-top and amusing. Sure, lots of the textures are fairly undetailed, but that works pretty perfectly with the straight-from-a-comicbook vibe that this game is clearly shooting for. I could easily see myself spending a lot of time just hanging out in this world, exploring and fighting alongside friends. Which reminds me: will there be skateboarding in this? Why haven’t they let me skateboard yet?!

(Multi-)Turtle Power?

One pretty huge thing I didn’t get to see in action is how this will all work in four-player co-op. I can only imagine how much of a blast it’s going to be to roll through with the full shell squad smacking enemies around, but the section of the demo I played felt pretty designed for a single player and it’s a bit difficult to imagine how this kind of gameplay might scale up for four-player bouts. Presumably there’d need to be many more enemies and fewer linear paths than the ones I crept through to make it work. Also, I can only imagine how silly it’ll look to have teammates running around as big ol’ green cartoon characters while swinging around nunchucks.

I’ll still need to see a fair bit more of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Empire City before I can speak definitively on it, but so far I’m pretty stoked by the potential here and am absolutely flabbergasted that it took us this long to get a first-person TMNT game.

A day after GameStop celebrated its Trade Anything Day event, the retailer's staff have shared their experiences of handling everything customers brought in — including numerous items deliberately designed to shock or gross out employees at the cash register.

Yesterday, GameStop shared a bizarre list of items it proudly said it had accepted in exchange for store credit, including a taxidermied bobcat, a painting of someone's dog with hair like Snoop Dogg, and a physical Netflix disc for the Nintendo Wii.

But, it turns out, the list of items GameStop couldn't accept was even weirder — and staff have now recounted how they had to deal with customers looking to cause trouble or go viral on social media by filming their store visits, all while carting a range of dubious items in tow.

Numerous examples have been posted to TikTok and X showing encounters between customers and tired-looking GameStop staff as they are presented with objects clearly designed to cause them discomfort.

One such interaction sees a female employee get told they have "something big" for her, before the customer hands over a small potrait with the words "I Love Epstein" on it, complete with a photo of President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein together. "I want at least $5 million," the customer states, as the employee responds that she's unsure what to do with it.

Another example sees a customer bring in a Sonic the Hedgehog plushie, which a GameStop employee then begins the trade-in process for. "It's hard to give up, I use him every night," the customer states. It's eventually revealed that the Sonic plushie has a Fleshlight inserted in its bottom.

@special_kram power to the players #gamestop ♬ original sound - Special_Kram

"Had someone come to the store and they full on slapped it on the table," yet another GameStop employee wrote on reddit, recalling an incident where a man had brought in a dildo. The man was told to leave, though the incident escalated to the point where the employee said they were now worried they were in trouble with their regional manager.

"There were a lot of kids in the store and so I got upset and kicked him out," the employee continued. "I don't care if I get let go at this point. How tf is this man going to defend a dude for bringing a literal dildo into the store?"

Many employees have suggested that GameStop management clearly encouraged this behavior by designing a deliberately jokey promotion that prompted customers to push the boundaries of what was acceptable to trade-in.

Others called out the chain's decision to play loud sound effects and background noise throughout the day, annoying both customers and staff alike. "To the corporate geniuses who had the frequently sped up voice sound effect, alarms, and klaxon noise on GameStop TV for Trade Anything Day," wrote one employee, "I hope you all stubs your toes so hard. I had to work 11 hours today and it was horrible hearing this crap in the background while trying to process four dozen trade-in games."

Amid all the awful experiences, there were some more positive interactions. GameStop has said that some customers brought in "canned food donations for local food banks and pet shelters." Another employee said a customer traded in a box of donuts for store staff to enjoy. Still, with the likelihood that Trade Anything Day will now be repeated, there remains concern among many staff about what may be brought in next time.

Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.

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

A major investor in Final Fantasy maker Square Enix has published a 100-page document criticizing the company's performance and calling for a "fundamental reassessment" of its business, citing perceived "sluggish" revenue and profits.

In a press statement, 3D Investment Partners — Square Enix's third-largest investor, holding around a 14% stake — claims there has been a "significant deterioration in earning power" despite the company owning some of the world's biggest franchises and being a "preeminent Japanese game developer."

"What Square Enix once brought to life was a 'culture' that shaped an era, and an 'industry' that fascinated the world. Is Square Enix really giving birth to something genuinely new, or has Square Enix turned away from the challenges before it and let its steps falter?" the document asks, imploring that the firm "surprises us, moves us, and ignites that passion we once felt," as "gamers across the globe have been waiting, endlessly, for that irreplaceable experience.

"However, under the newly established management structure, the past three years have been marked by a pronounced stagnation in both revenue growth and profitability, with a significant deterioration in earning power, as evidenced by declines in operating income, return on equity, and other key performance metrics."

Calling this "the most critical management challenge" currently faced by the Japanese company, 3D1P calls for the firm to "devise and rigorously implement concrete countermeasures addressing critical management issues," including the "excessive fragmentation of the development portfolio, product design, and promotional strategies that have led to declining tie ratios, and inflated expenditures such as development costs."

"We respectfully urge a fundamental reassessment of the medium-term management plan, with the objective of fully unlocking the potential of Square Enix's distinguished intellectual property and thereby maximizing corporate value."

After directly comparing Square Enix with Japanese competitors like Capcom, Sega, Konami, Bandai Namco, and Nintendo — and cherry-picking "harsh" responses from Metacritic of both new and established IP — the investment firm revealed that it had been "engaged in ongoing dialogue" with Square Enix since last summer.

"Since July 2024, we have been engaged in ongoing dialogue with SQEX HD. In October 2025, we explained to President Kiryu and Outside Director Abdullah the management issues of SQEX HD as seen from the market. We also presented to President Kiryu our proposals.

"However, in response to this request, President Kiryu replied only with a brief email stating, without addressing any of the specific management issues or solutions we had raised, and without providing any concrete explanation of his reasoning."

3D Investment Partners is now sharing its views on the perceived management issues "with all shareholders" to "collect [their] frank views, and, based on the views we receive, engage in constructive dialogue with SQEX HD to enhance its corporate value again."

IGN has asked Square Enix for comment.

Former Square Enix exec and CEO of Genvid, Jacob Navok — the same exec that recently claimed "Gen Z loves AI slop" — also weighed in, saying that the presentation from 3DIP essentially has two themes: "sales are bad" and "dev costs are high."

"These are the same issues I addressed in 2024 when discussing the problems with Square Enix's sales for FF16 expectations for sales were set correctly," he added. "They were not met because Square Enix sales were poor, and the game cost too much to make."

The very public complaint comes just weeks after Square Enix announced mass layoffs, impacting over 100 individuals, alongside a broader effort to consolidate its publishing organization and focus its development work in Japan. It had also already sold Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, Square Enix Montreal, and a number of associated IPs to Embracer Group, and laid off workers across its western operations in 2024.

Square Enix also expects 70% of its QA work to be handled by generative AI by the end of 2027. The company has stated in the past that it intends to be "aggressive in applying AI" across both development and publishing.

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.

The first official The Boys video game is a virtual reality exclusive for Meta Quest 3 and PlayStation VR2.

Sony Pictures Virtual Reality and developer Arvore announced their collaboration for The Boys: Trigger Warning, which is due out spring 2026 priced $23.99. It’s described as a stealth-action VR game that puts players “on the front lines of the war against Supes.” The debut trailer is below.

You play an original character who accidentally uncovers a “grotesque Vought secret that turns a family outing into carnage.” You’re then forced to become a Supe, and join forces with The Boys to infiltrate Vought and “take revenge in the most chaotic way possible.”

There are a number of familiar characters in the game, and cast members from the hit Prime Video show reprise their roles. Expect to see Laz Alonso as Mother’s Milk, Colby Minifie as Ashley Barrett, as and P.J. Byrne as Adam Bourke. Jensen Ackles also appears as a “twisted interpretation” of Soldier Boy, created exclusively for the game.

In the trailer we also see Homelander and Billy Butcher, although there’s no word on whether Antony Starr or Karl Urban reprise their roles.

Arvore is the developer behind the likes of The Line, YUKI, and the Pixel Ripped series — including Pixel Ripped 1989, Pixel Ripped 1995, and Pixel Ripped 1978.

“From day one, we wanted to build an adaptation hand-in-hand with the people who defined this universe," said Ricardo Justus, founder and head of studio at Arvore. “Working with the show's writers and cast allowed us to bring the edge, humor, and brutality that made the series iconic, delivered with the spark of magic only Arvore can create.”

The spring release window for Trigger Warning means the video game launches around the same time as Season 5 of the show, which has an April 8 release date. The Boys fifth and final season starts with two episodes, followed by a new episode each week, with the series finale coming out on May 20.

Here’s the official blurb on The Boys Season 5:

In the fifth and final season, it’s Homelander’s world, completely subject to his erratic, egomaniacal whims. Hughie, Mother’s Milk, and Frenchie are imprisoned in a “Freedom Camp.” Annie struggles to mount a resistance against the overwhelming Supe force. Kimiko is nowhere to be found. But when Butcher reappears, ready and willing to use a virus that will wipe all Supes off the map, he sets in motion a chain of events that will forever change the world and everyone in it. It’s the climax, people. Big stuff’s gonna happen.

There's more to come from The Boys universe after Season 5 ends, of course. While Gen V Season 3 remains up in the air, prequel spinoff, Vought Rising, is confirmed. Vought Rising is said to explore the early days of The Boys’ nefarious mega corporation, Vought International. And then there's The Boys: Mexico, executive produced by Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal and written by Blue Beetle scribe Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer.

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.

At long last, Leon S. Kennedy has been confirmed to appear in Resident Evil: Requiem — via a leaked image on the PlayStation Store.

The reveal of new cover art for the game featuring Leon finally puts to bed one of this year's biggest gaming mysteries — something developer Capcom has itself refused to address — just days ahead of Requiem's appearance at The Game Awards. Presumably we'll see Leon announced officially there.

This morning, Resident Evil fans began spotting the new cover art appearing on PlayStation 5 consoles in the pre-download screen for owners of the standard (non-Deluxe) version of the game. IGN has now verified this ourselves, and can confirm the image is legitimate. Leon is real.

Thieves keen to steal Pokémon cards have struck again in Southern California, turning over a Burbank store and taking more than $100,000 of stock.

The robbery is just the latest in a string of similar incidents across the region, KTLA5 reports, where three masked figures were seen raiding card shops and escaping within minutes.

LA Sports Cards' Burbank shop was hit last week, on December 2, in a high-speed theft that was over in just three minutes. During that time, the thieves crowbarred open the outlet's door and made multiple trips to a waiting vehicle, all while carrying armfuls of Pokémon merchandise.

NEW: Burglars ransack card shop and steal $100,000 worth of rare Pokémon and sports cards

The owner believes the thieves knew exactly where the merchandise was and planned the job ahead of time

They got away with about $100,000 in merchandise

Police believe the same crew may… pic.twitter.com/zMIurJ86U9

— Unlimited L's (@unlimited_ls) December 6, 2025

"[For the] vast majority, they were targeting Pokémon cards," store owner Kiet Nguyen said. "They did take some locked boxes from the back that had sports cards... They were targeting liquid assets, Pokémon is so easy to sell these days that sealed product, everyone has it. So it wouldn't raise any suspicion if someone was to sell it, it's available everywhere."

Alongside new Pokémon decks and collectible sets, the thieves also got away with a handful of rare sports items including a signed Ronaldo card. But it's clear that Pokémon cards were the key draw — with suggestion that this gang has struck several times before.

"It seemed like they had it down pat," Nguyen continued. "They knew what they were doing... We thought this was a very safe, secure, very busy street. We had preventive measures in place, we thought the deterrance was good enough."

KTLA5 stated that the group were now suspected to be behind "half a dozen" similar store raids within Southern California in recent weeks — during which, one of the trio had his face partially caught on CCTV. Police have appealed for anyone with further information to contact the Burbank Police Department on 818-238-3000.

This recent spate of thefts is just the latest example of how Pokémon cards are now considered high-value goods by thieves. In December 2024, it was reported that Japanese crime syndicates were now using Pokémon cards to launder money. And in the US, this is just the latest incident similar to many others over the past 12 months. Until Pokémon's popularity fades — and there's no sign it'll do that anytime soon, with a big new wave of games expected next year — it seems likely this will continue.

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

Final Fantasy's Cloud has one of the most recognizable weapons in gaming history, but the Final Fantasy 7 Remake team actually considered resizing his iconic Buster Sword to make it more realistic before deciding to stick with the original design.

In a new interview alongside Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director Guillaume Broche, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi opened up about the decision, admitting that while rescaling Cloud's sword did come up, "it was just too iconic" to change.

"While making Remake, there was this aspect of the weight and how Cloud swings it around with one hand that sort of felt like it would weaken the sense of realism, you know?" Hamaguchi said, according to a translation by a Final Fantasy fan account on X/Twitter (thanks, GR+).

"So at the time, when we were making Remake, there was some discussion about whether we should give Cloud a more realistic version of the Buster Sword," Hamaguchi added. "But it was just too iconic, and if we'd made it just a regular old sword, players wouldn't accept it."

He closed, stressing: "In the end we stayed faithful to the OG. A whole new generation of people fell in love with it, so I think it was the right call."

As for the latest on Final Fantasy Remake Part 3? Well, in the same interview, Hamaguchi teased that the "core game experience is almost complete," and while he "really want[s] everyone to play it as soon as possible," the team has now moved on to "refining and polishing."

Curiously, he also warned the team "never intended to make all three parts feel like the same game."

"As the director, I feel a very strong sense of the game’s final form," the director said. "Honestly, I really want everyone to play it as soon as possible, but of course, since it’s a game, it needs to be carefully crafted before it can be delivered to players.

"Once we go through this phase properly, we’ll be able to present it in a form we’re satisfied with. So I ask everyone to wait just a little longer, and we’ll be able to share more information soon."

Interestingly, he also teased that "Highwind" will be an important keyword for the third instalment. "As for the third part, introducing new gameplay experiences and a new scale is key to successfully delivering the project to players. 'Highwind' is certainly an important keyword here, there's no doubt about that," he teased.

Meanwhile, Briana White, the actress who portrays Aerith in Final Fantasy 7, has called on fans to stop tagging voice artists in spicy material featuring their characters.

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.

Pokémon Go now finally lets players trade creatures from afar — a feature that fans have wanted for almost a decade.

Since Pokémon Go launched in 2016, the game has been hesitant to allow gameplay that does not encourage players to meet up in person. Remote raiding was only added to the game during the era of Covid lockdowns, and trading has remained locked within a small location radius — until now.

Remote trading will still require some work to unlock, with the feature available when in-game friends hit a fresh, fifth interaction tier — Forever Friends — that will require a couple of months more levelling beyond Best Friends (though this can be heavily reduced by completing Weekly Challenges).

Once Forever Friends, you'll get to make a Remote Trade — and there's a clever system for selecting three creatures you'd be happy to swap, while picking one from your friends' selection. Only when both parties are happy with the matchup will the trade take place.

Subsequent Remote Trades will then require a similar wait to unlock again, but this length of time is not terrible — it will give more of a chance to roll the Lucky Friends status, and for many, Remote Trading will be most useful for existing Lucky Friends in other countries who have been sat with that status in place for years. Another positive change includes a major increase in friend list size, from 450 to 650.

"Hot damn!" wrote Plus-Pomegranate8045 on Pokémon Go reddit TheSilphRoad. "Huge shout out to whoever it was at Niantic/Scopely that got this pushed through."

"Finally, I can trade with the guy ive been lucky friends with for 4 years," added another fan, Abject-Sector-2167. "He lives on the other side of the globe."

Of course, not everyone is happy. "Welp, that's just ruined the point of regionals," wrote HappyTimeHollis. "This sucks."

Months of datamines have suggested that Remote Trading has been in the works for some time, and initially fans had expected more of a system that required payment via in-game currency to use the feature. Its arrival now, as simply another part of free gameplay, has been greeted warmly. Though, of course, there remains the possibility that some new mechanic might be introduced in future to speed the process up.

For now, though, the announcement of Remote Trading is being received positively. Levelling up to Forever Friends is now live for the game's loyal audience in New Zealand, where new features are regularly tested first, before it is rolled out more widely.

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

There’s been a lot of chatter in the seven weeks since Adam Driver dropped a bombshell to the Associated Press that he’d spent the last few years developing The Hunt for Ben Solo. The Lucasfilm-approved but Bob Iger-nixed direct follow-up to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was confirmed by attached director Steven Soderbergh, and on multiple occasions the fanbase has hired planes to do fly-overs of the Walt Disney Studio lot in Burbank to rally support.

Up to now, one voice that hasn’t weighed in yet is actress Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey in the latest Star Wars trilogy. She’s also been in Star Wars feature development limbo since her character film was announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023. But I recently spoke to Ridley for her upcoming zombie drama, We Bury the Dead (in theaters January 2, 2026) and asked whether she knew about The Hunt for Ben Solo, which the fandom has surmised would include her character in come capacity due to Ben Solo and Rey’s dyad status.

“I knew a piece of it. I heard rumblings,” Ridley shared of her reaction to Driver’s news. “I have lots of friends who are crew, so things always travel like that. But, whoa! When the story came out, no, I was like, 'Oh, my God!' And it was him that said it, right?”

“Him” being Driver, who is notoriously quiet about all things outside of formal press junkets. She continued, “It was funny because, like, 'Oh, wow, Adam is saying it,' and that's the big surprise of the year,” she laughed.

With Star Wars fan discourse, especially about the sequels, always divisive, Ridley said witnessing the outsized reaction has been heartening.

“I do love when there is a collective of positivity,” she said about the consensus of everyone who seems to want The Hunt for Ben Solo to happen. “The way the internet seems to have rallied to try and get it to happen. I think one), it's fantastic for us all. It's good for us to all be united about something in a really positive way. Obviously, everyone knows he was a very popular character, but it was also lovely to think, 'Wow, people really, really care and want this.' I just... I like it. I like when people join forces — excuse the pun — from all around the world, all different sorts of people. I just love that the Star Wars fandom is such a huge and gorgeous array of different points of view and different people, and the fact that everyone is really behind this thing, I think, is just sort of lovely, in a time that is so f***ing nuts for probably every single person on this Earth. I think it's wonderful. So I was surprised, and honestly, I felt joyful about how it went down.”

Asked if it’s galvanized her to push harder for her Rey film, or if she’s learned to be patient with all things Star Wars, Ridley said she has trust in everyone still developing it and that it will be “worth the wait.”

“Honestly, there are scripts that I read five years ago, and now I've gone, 'Oh, maybe they will actually happen,’” she said of many non-Star Wars projects she’s been attached to, including We Bury the Dead. “I think over the years, I've learned how the reality of getting any film made is so massive. The hurdles are vast… But with this particularly, I know that incredible voices and creatives are part of it, and I know the wait will be worth it.”

In the short term, Jon Favreau's The Mandalorian & Grogu movie comes out May 2026, then Shawn Levy's Star Wars: Starfighter releases May 2027. TV show wise, Ahsoka Season 2 is in development but without a release date.

Ridley's Rey film, assuming it actually gets made, takes place roughly 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker as she looks to rebuild the Jedi Order.

Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images.

Tara Bennett is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering film and television. She has over 20 years of experience covering the film and television industries with bylines at SFX Magazine, Paste Magazine, and SYFY WIRE. She is a New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 official movie and TV companion books including The Art of Avatar: The Way of Water and The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Find @TaraDBennett on Twitter.

Nintendo has released its latest system software update for the Switch and Switch 2, bringing both consoles' firmware up to Version 21.1.0.

Today's patch is a minor one — at least, according to the official patch notes. Still, it's interesting to note that it has arrived just two weeks after the last update, Version 21.0.1, which fixed a number of system transfer and Bluetooth accessory bugs.

This patch, on the surface at least, looks to change less. But then why does it have a bigger change in version number? For now, the usual datamining sources are yet to discover what else may have been updated behind the scenes, but we'll keep an eye and update if more is discovered.

A month ago, Nintendo's last major update to its console firmware was also widely criticized for appearing to break compatibility with a range of third-party Switch 2 docks. In a statement to IGN on the issue, Nintendo claimed it had no "intention to hinder or invalidate legal third-party dock compatibility."

Today's update also arrives a week after the launch of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, the long-awaited next entry in Nintendo's classic first-person shooter series, and the company's last big game launch of 2025. The title arrived to a solid, if not spectacular response. "Not all of Prime 4’s additions work, but this is still an excellent comeback," IGN wrote in our Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review, scoring the game 8/10.

Nintendo's full patch notes for today's minor update lie below:

Switch Update Version 21.1.0 (Released December 8, 2025)

• General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience.

Switch 2 Update Version 21.1.0 (Released December 8, 2025)

• General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience.

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

Sorry, puzzle geeks. Don't expect a Blue Prince 2 any time soon. Or, ever, really.

That's what we learned from speaking with Blue Prince creator Tonda Ros last month. We asked him loads of questions and you can read our full interview right here, but one big mystery we wanted to clear up was if he'd ever make a sequel to Blue Prince. And, no, he won't. No sequel to Blue Prince, nor to any other game he makes in the future.

But he is going to make something else.

"I can say I will never make a sequel to my work because I love creating something standalone and then going on to something completely different," he said. "It will likely not even be in the same exact genres. I will probably be mixing it up. You'll start to see overlap. You'll start to see overlaps with some of my interests. So it will be familiar, and hopefully I'll inadvertently have things that really worked with Blue Prince that I'll carry on in terms of at least technicals. But yeah, we'll see. I'm hesitant to do another 3D game because for my first game, 3D was so difficult. I really wish I did a 2D game. I probably could have done it in five years instead of eight. But yeah, I think it'll be something totally different."

This might be disappointing to hear for Blue Prince fans, especially for those still mulling over the game's remaining unsolved mysteries and wishing there was some sort of answer to them. It also sounds like, from our interview, he won't be doing any more major content updates to Blue Prince after the upcoming so-called "final update." "I do love complete games," he said. "And I do love when something is definitively done. So I had tried my best to get everything into the game at launch because that was something I just really wanted. I didn't want to eternally be updating this."

Whatever it is Ros is working on next, it will be a while before we see it. He says he still expects to be working on Blue Prince in small ways for the next year, finishing the final update, bug fixes, and such. And given that Blue Prince took about eight years to create, he'll need a lot more time on top of that to create something brand new. At least Blue Prince fans have already completed a serious exercise in patience by finishing the game at all.

You can read our full interview with Ros here, and check out our review where we gave Blue Prince a 9/10. As our reviewer wrote: "If The Witness, Portal, and Myst are already emblazoned on the Mount Rushmore of first-person puzzle games, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Blue Prince carved alongside them soon enough."

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