RuneScape maker Jagex has insisted it will never use generative AI to make content players actually see in-game, in one of the hardest stances on AI yet seen from a video game developer.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Jagex SVP of product, James Dobrowski, said that the UK company is “open” to using genAI for development processes, such as “tooling efficiency.” But he promised Jagex will never use genAI to "drive creativity."
"We've got a pretty hard line stance with the team, which is a commitment that no generative AI will ever be present in any asset that a player can touch, hear or feel,” Dobrowski said. “There will be no generative AI in the game that they experience.”
That rules out the likes of AI-generated art, which we have seen in games such as Call of Duty, AI-generated voices, which we have seen in Arc Raiders, and AI-generated text / dialogue, which, again, we have seen pop up in a number of games.
"Where we are open to the use of AI is in things like tooling efficiency,” Dobrowski continued, “how do we make the way we work more efficient in order to make our staff's lives easier and allow us to produce better content. But we do not want to be using AI to drive creativity." Jagex is even speaking with its external partners to make sure no genAI is being used in “inappropriate ways in any of their work that might filter through to the end game."
The use of generative AI in game development is one of the hottest topics in the industry, and it has sparked a number of controversies. Following the reveal of Divinity at the 2025 The Game Awards, Swen Vincke, boss of developer Larian, met with a backlash after he said the studio was using genAI in various capacities. Larian ended up having to address AI concerns in a reddit AMA in which the studio confirmed a U-turn on some aspects of its use.
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.
Last year, IGN broke the news that the wildly popular web series Murder Drones is making the jump to comics, with Oni Press releasing a graphic novel adaptation of the first season. That comic was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter, but now it's making its way to comic shops as it sees a wider release in 2026.
IGN can now exclusively debut an extended preview of Murder Drones #1. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:
Murder Drones is a collaboration between Oni and animation studio Glitch Productions. The comic is written by Wyatt Kennedy (Nights, Marvel United) and drawn by Jo Mi-Gyeong (Eve, Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance). The comic serves as an adaptation of the first season of the Murder Drones animated series.
Here's Oni's official description of Murder Drones:
In the far future on the desolate exoplanet designated Copper 9, the humans are long gone but the robotic worker drones they created to mine the planet’s resources are still hard at work. Together, they have managed to forge their own makeshift society . . . or so they thought until a previously unknown kind of robot - the dreaded “Murder Drones” - are activated by a long-forgotten possibly-eldritch protocol to disassemble any worker that deviates from its original programming. But when a rebellious young worker drone named Uzi forms an unlikely alliance with two disassembly drones—Serial Designations N and V—can they, together, uncover the secrets of their origins . . . and survive the deep twisted horrors awaiting them?
Murder Drones #1 will be released on February 11, 2026. You can preorder a copy at your local comic shop.
Developer Hoothanes and publisher 4Divinity have announced The Defiant, an upcoming story-driven, cinematic, single-player World War II-set first-person shooter that sees players take part in China’s War of Resistance against Japan.
Powered by Unreal Engine 5 and created by "a veteran team of filmmakers and game developers," according to its publisher, The Defiant clearly aims to mix things up from the usual WWII FPS fare we've seen a hundred times now. "Missions shift fluidly between stealth infiltration, close-quarters firefights, sniping, urban espionage, code-breaking operations, vehicular combat, and sudden large-scale assaults," 4Defiant said. Check out the first trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below.
The Defiant's developers said they're aiming to convey a reverence for history, noting that "weapons in The Defiant are treated as historical artefacts, not just tools" and that the campaign "aims to reframe how the FPS genre approaches history, offering a perspective rarely seen in interactive entertainment." The team added, "The game unfolds across occupied villages, frozen forests, fortified supply routes, and enemy-controlled urban zones, where every environment is shaped by the realities of guerrilla warfare and survival behind enemy lines."
You can wishlist The Defiant on Steam if you're interested.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
Embark Studios’ Arc Raiders and The Finals are suffering from what the studio has described as “extensive, coordinated” Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.
The attacks were said to be “ongoing” today while the studio battles to mitigate their impact on each game.
Arc Raiders players have been complaining of server issues all morning, with some unable to reconnect to or abandon matches. Some affected players are hoping they will see lost loot return once the issues are fixed. “Was just rubber banding and died because it was of course in front of a shredder, and now stuck on the loading screen while trying to join a new lobby,” said one affected player.
It's unfortunate timing for Arc Raiders in particular, given the DDoS attacks come hot on the heels of Arc Raiders’ Headwinds update, which added a solo vs. squads matchmaking option, a Bird City map condition, and much more.
Meanwhile, Embark said it’s working on a hotfix that will “solve some of the issues and unintended changes” made by the Headwinds update. That should be out later today.
Arc Raiders is one of the biggest games in the world, having sold an incredible 12.4 million copies in just 10 weeks. The enormously popular extraction shooter has seen impressive staying power, too, setting a new concurrent player peak of 960,000 in January 2026. To put Arc Raiders' success into context, the similarly priced Helldivers 2 set a record for the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time by selling 12 million in 12 weeks. Arc Raiders, which launched on Xbox as well as PC and PlayStation, hit the 12 million sales mark even faster. It's done so well so quickly, that it crossed over into the world of South Park with a surprise appearance that was put together in just a few days.
Headwinds is the first of a four-phase roadmap that has content scheduled out through April 2026. Next on the docket is the Shrouded Sky update, which adds a new map condition, Arc threat, player project, map update, Raider Deck, and more sometime in February. Flashpoint will then arrive in March with another map condition and Scrappy update, with Riven Tides rounding things out with a new map and a new large Arc in April.
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.
Well, it turns out that it’s such a small overclock that it barely impacts performance, and even leads to slightly worse multi-core performance over the original 9800X3D. I’ve spent most of the week testing this processor asking myself why AMD felt the need to even release the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. The only answer I can think of is that it costs slightly more and people are going to buy it just to have a higher number in CPU-Z.
Specs and Features
The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is practically the same processor as the 9800X3D, only with a slightly higher boost clock. You still get 8 Zen 5 cores, 16 threads and 96MB of L3 Cache, only now it boosts up to 5.6GHz instead of 5.2GHz. That’s a decent boost, but the real magic of the Ryzen 9850X3D is the same magic that makes the 9800X3D great – the 3D-stacked V-Cache.
Cache is essentially memory that’s built into your processor, and it’s a lot faster than system memory, or RAM. Essentially, the more of it is there, the more efficient your CPU is in workloads that demand rapid access to data – like gaming. What makes AMD’s X3D processors, like the 9850X3D, special is that instead of having it on the same physical layer of the chip as the CPU cores, it’s printed on its own layer.
Not only does this allow the Ryzen 7 9850X3D to have more cache than other processors, but it also cuts down on the latency. Because by having the cache located right above the CPU cores, the data simply has less physical distance to travel. This is why the 9850X3D is a great gaming processor, because it can load more game data at any given time, which leads to better performance, especially when paired with a powerful graphics card.
There’s only one problem, though. The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D already exists with the same exact cache configuration and core layout. So unless you’re playing a game that solely relies on single-core performance – which is becoming rare – you don’t really gain anything by shelling out an extra $30 for the Ryzen 7 9850X3D.
Of course, there is the higher boost clock, but it’s important to keep in mind that the processor will only ever hit those speeds in lightly threaded workloads. In anything that uses many cores at the same time, the clock speeds will even out to a much lower limit in order to control temperatures and power consumption.
Throughout my testing, I found that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D reaches the same peak power of 161W as the 9800X3D. That does mean that temperatures stay under control, only peaking at 85°C, but it also means that when all the cores are being used, there isn’t much that the processor can do to get extra performance over the 9800X3D.
It is important to keep in mind, though, that because the 9850X3D comes out of the box with a higher clock speed, while keeping the same power consumption and temperatures as the original chip, it likely means it has more headroom for overclocking. That’s not something I test here at IGN, but if that’s something you’re into, this might be the chip to grab.
Performance
Because the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and 9800X3D are so similar, I was expecting the performance difference between the two chips to be small, but I was still surprised by how little that 400MHz boost clock increase matters. Throughout most of my test suite, the two processors were extremely close, trading blows depending on how heavily threaded the workload is.
The most disappointing bit, though, is that despite the higher asking price, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D turns out to be a little slower than the 9800X3D in multi-threaded workloads like Cinebench and Blender. It’s not a huge gap, to be sure, but it’s a gap that, if anything, should be the other way around.
Specifically, in the Cinebench R23 multi-core test, the 9850X3D gets 22,404 points, compared to 23,195 points from the Ryzen 9800X3D. That’s about a 3% lead for the slightly cheaper processor. This is flipped, however, in the single-core test, where the 9850X3D outperforms the 9800X3D with a score of 2208 to 2082. That’s where that single-core boost increase shows itself.
Likewise, in the 3DMark CPU Profile test, the 9850X3D gets a multi-core score of 10186, compared to 10274 from the 9800X3D. That’s another tiny gap in favor of the 9800X3D. But, again, just like Cinebench, the 9850X3D pulls ahead slightly in the single-core test, with 1265 points to the 9800X3D’s 1210.
Blender repeats the multi-core performance pattern. In the Monster workload, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is able to manage 153 samples per second, compared to 157 from the 9800X3D. That’s a difference so small that it’s within the margin of error, to be fair, but it still leans in the wrong direction for a CPU that AMD is charging more for.
In Adobe, the 9850X3D beats the 9800X3D in Premiere, getting 13773 points in the Puget benchmark, compared to 13025. However, that’s reversed in Photoshop, with the older 9800X3D getting 12929 points, compared to 12167 points from the 9850X3D.
When it comes to real-world gaming, the 9850X3D disappoints again. In Cyberpunk 2077, at 1080p, with the Ultra preset, with no ray tracing or upscaling, the 9850X3D gets 229 fps, compared to 231 from the 9800X3D. Again, that’s within the margin of error but leaning in the wrong direction.
Total War: Warhammer 3 is no different. In this CPU-heavy game, the 9850X3D squeezes 261 fps out of the RTX 4090, compared to 265 fps with the 9800X3D. Another win for the cheaper chip.
I’ve been racking my brain trying to make sense of this performance. I re-ran the tests across the 9800X3D and 9850X3D multiple times, and each time got the same results. There are likely games out there where the 9850X3D does pull ahead of the 9800X3D, particularly in older single-threaded games. But in the games I’ve tested here, the 9850X3D consistently fell short – however small that gap might be.
Even according to AMD’s claims, which you should take with a grain of salt, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is only expected to boost performance by as much as 6% in some esports games. And, then we’re probably talking about the difference between 300 fps and 318 fps in something like Counter-Strike 2. I don’t think that’s worth the extra $30.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
Shelter will be released in theaters on January 30.
"No man is an island, entire of itself," John Donne once wrote, "every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." That's certainly the thematic core and literal setup for Shelter, Jason Statham's latest actioner. We know the drill by now: stoic killer, trying to live out his life in peace, but forced to dust off his knuckles and roundhouse kicks when a covert conspiracy knocks on his door.
This time he's playing Michael Mason, a former elite assassin for the British government who’s hiding out on a gloomy island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland with his dog sidekick, playing chess against himself and pencil drawing to pass the time. There's a lot of staring out at the sea and into space, as well as one-sided conversations with his mutt to hammer home his self-inflicted isolation.
That is, until he's forced to save precocious orphan Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), who's been delivering food to Mason by way of her uncle's trawler. On her way back to shore, her uncle's boat gets caught in a storm, leading to quite a preposterous "save the cat" scenario when he urges Jessie to return in a rowboat against 10-foot waves – seriously bad caregiving, unc! But there is some joy in seeing the former competitive diver battle the sea in a knitted jumper.
With Jessie injured and in need of medical supplies, Mason must re-enter society, where the plot unfolds, and a venerated cast of British actors enters the frame. It shows just how much affection there is for Jason Statham back home that Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie and Harriet Walters all signed on to this film. Their presence as former MI6 chief Steven Manafort, his replacement Roberta Frost, and Prime Minister Fordham, respectively, does bring some gravitas to his typically low-brow proceedings.
Fordham and Manafort represent the murky machinations of the establishment. The Prime Minister is in hot water over an unethical surveillance system called T.H.E.A., the exact computer program that captures Mason's image and launches a shoot-to-kill operation against him. Manafort wants Mason dead for so-called treacherous desertion, keen-eyed Roberta wants answers, but as much as Ackie, Nighy and Walters can imbue their characters with cool charisma, the hackneyed dialogue fails to meet them at their level.
There lies my main grievance with Shelter. Ward Parry's screenplay might offer a serviceable story in the shadowy spy-thriller genre, but it lacks finesse or depth, instead serving up clichés at every corner. Lines like "Mason isn’t just an assassin, he’s a precision instrument," and "you don't want this life" function as stock dialogue in a script divorced from subtext. Everything is just too on-the-nose, especially when it comes to Mason.
Shelter is a serviceable story in the shadowy spy-thriller genre, but it lacks finesse or depth, instead serving up clichés at every corner.
There are moments where Statham reminds us he is more than just an action star, but also a penetrating, emphatic actor. Behind his eyes, he conveys the anger, the menace and growing affection he has for his young ward as they fight their way from Scotland to London. He and an enterprising Breathnach, who was recently seen in Chloe Zhao's Hamnet, share a believable chemistry. Her sparky gumption against his rugged fatalism hints at Léon's Natalie Portman and Jean Reno.
But Léon this ain't, as the movie struggles to bolster Jessie's motivations as to why she'd want to hitch her wagon to Mason's murderous star. And instead of trusting in Statham's silent ability to communicate that internal struggle, of a man let down by his country and brought back to life by a traumatised girl, both are given banal sentences to utter that flatten the emotional core.
Where Shelter does succeed is in the creatively brutal fight sequences laced through Mason and Jessie's journey. Angel Has Fallen director Ric Roman Waugh offers bruising stakes, beginning with an island invasion evoking the ingenious spirit of Home Alone – think boulders and flame throwers – and ending with a claustrophobic nightclub bust-up.
In between, Statham faces off against Manafort's asset Workman (Bryan Vigier), a no-nonsense assassin who, one character quips, is "Mason 20 years ago." Their hand-to-hand combat is punishing, packed with so much brute force and rigor you might worry our hero won't make it out alive. These sequences do rely a little too much on tightly framed close-ups and repetitive moves, but props to the sound department as well as David Buckley's thumping score, both of which maintain that intensity with every kick, punch, stab and shot amplified to formidable levels.
Shelter is certainly a safe action vehicle for Statham, but it could have benefited from more narrative risks.
If you like mandatory co-op games, this one's for you: introducing WheelMates, a new two-player co-op action-adventure where each player controls an R/C car in the house of an eccentric scientist, working together in order to clear challenges and obstacles. It's in development for Steam for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and it's due out this year.
This is no sim, though. You'll have power-ups like jump boosters, magnet wheels, and grappling hooks in order to help you navigate the house and try to find the scientist homeowner, who's missing. Play in split-screen or online, but you'll need two players. Check out the announcement trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below.
The developers at FireVolt cite Re-Volt and classic metroidvanias as inspirations for WheelMates. You'll be able to try it out soon, FireVolt said it's planning a playtest for next month. Wishlist it on Steam if you're interested.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
DC Universe chief James Gunn is once again having fun on social media with a cryptic tweet referencing Martian Manhunter.
The tweet, below, includes a picture of a pack of Chocos, DC’s take on Oreos. Fans of DC comics know that Martian Manhunter, one of the seven original members of the Justice League of America and one of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe, is addicted to Chocos, which makes this tweet a thinly veiled reference to the much-loved superhero.
Wait a second, are those the cookies that Martian Manhunter loves? Are we getting The Martian Manhunter in Man of Tomorrow????😃 pic.twitter.com/ASYVORZpWe
The suggestion here is that Martian Manhunter will appear in an upcoming DCU movie or TV show. This year’s Supergirl doesn’t feel like the perfect fit. Could next year’s Man of Tomorrow be the right place for the character’s debut?
By the way, the pictures in Gunn’s tweet appear to show the office Ultraman destroys in Superman, so we’re not looking at Man of Tomorrow set photos here. Or maybe the office was rebuilt and repurposed? At this point, it’s anyone’s guess.
— Starlight 💫 (twitch.tv/x0starlight) (@x0Starlight) January 27, 2026
Man of Tomorrow is the 2027 follow-up to Superman, and will see Brainiac, played by Lars Eidinger, enter the fray. Indeed, Superman and bitter rival Lex Luthor look set to put their differences aside (temporarily) to fend Brainiac off. Could Martian Manhunter lend a hand?
In previous interviews, Gunn has teased that Man of Tomorrow is “as much a Lex movie as it is a Superman movie.”
Speaking on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio, Gunn confirmed shooting begins in April 2026 ahead of the film’s planned July 9, 2027 release date — just two years after Superman came out.
"It's gonna be out in two years, July 9, 2027, which is a relatively short time between sequels, because we knew immediately where we were going," Gunn said.
"And it is a story about Lex Luthor and Superman having to work together, to a certain degree, against a much, much bigger threat. And it's more complicated than that. It's as much a Lex movie as it is a Superman movie. I relate to the character of Lex Luthor, sadly."
"That's the center of Lex for me," Gunn continued. "Three years ago, before Superman came along, he was considered the greatest guy in the world, even with other metahumans and superheroes in the world. And then in one fell swoop, this guy comes in wearing a silly costume, with dimples, and a charming smile, and a great chin, and he's forgotten."
Photo by CBS via Getty Images.
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.
Marvel fans are discussing new rumors that Avengers: Secret Wars could be split into two parts to create a truly super-sized finale to the MCU's Multiverse Saga.
To be clear, the suggestion we could get a Secret Wars Part 1 and Part 2 is far from confirmed — instead, the suggestion here is that this is something Marvel is simply considering. Still, the idea that fans might get even more Avengers over the next few years has many very excited.
Over the past week, word that Marvel was toying with turning Secret Wars into two movies was discussed on the Hot Mic podcast with entertainment insiders John Rocha and Jeff Sneider, and again online by veteran Marvel tipster Daniel Richtman.
Richtman suggested Marvel would make a decision on splitting Secret Wars after seeing how successful this year's Avengers: Doomsday ended up being. Rocha, meanwhile, said a source had told him Marvel was "considering" the idea, while Sneider added that the move would also allow Marvel more runway to ready up its next phase of films due afterwards.
Now, fans are excitedly discussing the idea — but also questioning how exactly this could work, production-wise, with Avengers: Secret Wars set to begin filming later this year. Marvel is no stranger to filming with fluid scripts, but the idea that it would have a large chunk of Secret Wars already shot by the time Avengers: Doomsday debuts this December would still make for an unusual mid-production pivot.
"If they do decide to make this a trilogy, they're going to do that during the production of Secret Wars," riegspsych325 said in a lengthy reddit thread on the subject. "There certainly is a bevy of characters and story arcs that could benefit from this. But it's a choice that'd backfire if they decide too late into the game."
Some fans cautioned that the move felt risky after the mixed response to Warner Bros. stretching the Hobbit films into a full trilogy, when Peter Jackson had initially only planned to make two. Others fans, however, pointed to the successful split of other concluding films in movie franchises such as Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. And, certainly, no one is doubting the extra money this would make for Disney if it released three movies near-guaranteed to earn a billion dollars, rather than just two.
"If they're thinking about making this decision, then they'll likely make it before the start of filming on Avengers: Secret Wars," Pomojema_The_Dreamer wrote. "For that to happen, they'd have to figure out the best place to split one script into two before figuring out how to pay the talent involved... plus how to manage the sheer amount of stuff that they'd need to film.
"They opted to split The Hobbit from a two-parter into a trilogy mid-production and before the first one released, so it isn't without precedent," they continued. "Wicked and Michael are both examples of this happening recently (the latter has yet to be confirmed but is extremely likely). But the decision is likely not pending on reaction to [Doomsday] because I think they know this movie is going to 1) be good and 2) make them all of the money."
One thing's for certain — with an already huge cast for Avengers: Doomsday and the expectation of an even bigger roster for Secret Wars, Marvel has plenty it needs to cram into its upcoming films. As well as big returns for legacy characters like Fox's X-Men, previous Avengers such as Steve Rogers, the current Avengers line-up led by Sam Wilson, the "New Avengers" AKA The Thunderbolts, The Fantastic Four and others, Marvel still has a long list of unconfirmed characters that fans want to see appear.
Fans have enormous expectations for Avengers: Secret Wars as the finale of Marvel's Multiverse Saga. Many see it as having the unique potential to finally unite comic book movie veterans such as Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man and Hugh Jackson's Wolverine on the big screen, elevate TV heroes such as Charlie Cox's Daredevil to fight an Avengers-level threat, answer lingering questions from this cinematic phase such as the fate of Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch, and finally feature more of the MCU's next generation of heroes, such as Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop and Iman Vellani's Kamala Khan. Oh, and it needs to have a cohesive story that deals with Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom.
As well as pay off decades of Marvel nostalgia, Secret Wars is also expected to establish a tweaked version of the MCU, ready for new iterations of the X-Men and potentially other core characters in the decades to come.
"What's compelling about these two new Avengers movies is they're a beginning," director Joe Russo said previously. "It's a new beginning. We told an ending story [with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame] and now we're going to tell a beginning story. Who knows where we'll go from there?"
Time will tell if Marvel can do all of that without splitting Secret Wars. Until then, Avengers: Doomsday arrives this December 18. Avengers: Secret Wars is currently set to launch a year later, on December 17, 2027.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Helldivers 2's next Warbond 'Siege Breakers' will release on February 3.
As detailed in a recent PlayStation Blog post by Arrowhead's social media and community manager, this Warbond is for players needing "something to smash through [...] towering foe with impenetrable fortifications."
The Warbond includes the "new and improved version" of the "beloved" LAS-16 Trident, which now fires six beams instead of the original three, plus the CQC-20 Breaching Hammer, which "can do straight smashing, or it can have an explosive charge attached to its head to drive the point home." There's also the GL-28 Belt-Fed Grenade Launcher that lets you "continuously fire grenades in a non-stop explosive barrage," as well as skins, armor sets, capes, banners, and a throwable shield, too.
Helldivers 2's latest patch, Into the Unjust: 5.0.2., dropped last week and introduced a new mission type: Commando, the Redacted Regiment Warbond, and "important updates" to suppressed weapons. "Democracy doesn’t always need to shout," Arrowhead said on Steam. "This patch is deploying some important updates to suppressed weapons, allowing Helldivers to eliminate threats with reduced detection and tighter tactical control. Expect quieter kills, cleaner engagements, and new opportunities for coordinated strikes before the enemy knows you’re there. Remember: stealth is a tool, not a substitute for overwhelming firepower. Use it wisely, Helldivers!"
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 250 hours I've logged in extraction shooter Arc Raiders tell you I'm hooked, but last week I read a comment on the game's subreddit that perfectly encapsulated one of its few flaws.
"If the game is about getting good loot, but the good loot is actually bad, what are we doing?"
When you're searching a container, a rare augment – the devices at the heart of your loadout — or epic gun reveals itself in a burst of purple, a catchy jingle, and a big boost to the value of your stash, the place where you hoard and organise your items. But actually usingthese weapons and augments is far less satisfying.
The rarest guns in Arc Raiders should feel like a glorious reward for all that time you spent hunting blueprints, or for that risky fight you picked with a fellow raider. But the epic weapons are barely better than common ones – and in certain situations, they're actually worse.
There's very little to choose, for example, between the ultra-rare Vulcano shotgun and the Il Toro, which you can find all the time across Arc Raiders' maps. Yes, the Vulcano kills quicker when you spam the trigger. But the Il Toro deals more damage per shot, so when you're dancing on the edge of cover, peeking out and firing before slithering back again, it shines.
There are plenty more examples. The Bobcat, the epic SMG, shreds up close. But so does the Stitcher, which you can get as part of a no-risk free loadout or craft for next-to-nothing in your workshop. The Sticher's "effective DPS", taking into account reload time, is actually higher than the Bobcat's, and against certain shields the Stitcher can kill in one magazine where the Bobcat can't.
And don't even get me started on the Bettina, a weapon endlessly memed the community. Yes, I get that it's for killing Arc, but you need to take eight stacks of ammo for it to be worth equipping. Give me an Anvil or Trailblazer grenade instead.
If these epic guns were 10% more lethal, 15% less expensive, and wore out 20% slower, they'd feel so much better.
In a recent interview with GamesRadar+, lead designer Virgil Watkins said that "any given weapon in capable hands should be capable of winning a fight if you're playing smartly". That makes sense. Newer or more casual players shouldn't lose just because they're carrying a worse gun. But this also isn't a team-based shooter that requires perfect balance. When you find something rare, it'd better feel special to use.
It doesn't help that maintaining these weapons is so expensive. Despite being the most polished guns in this apocalyptic world, their durability burns fastest, and repairing them munches through ultra-rare crafting parts. So rather than leveling the playing field, the current status quo actually does the opposite: the only players that can afford the risk of using and losing these weapons are people who, like me, have spent far too much time topside, have found the blueprints of these guns, and have a mountain stash of rare crafting parts ready to go.
In the same interview, Watkins did say "we're definitely a bit off on some of the cost to benefit ratios." It's promising to see him recognise that, and I actually don't think it needs a massive adjustment to fix. If these epic guns were 10% more lethal, 15% less expensive, and wore out 20% slower, they'd feel so much better.
The rarest augments pose a different problem, though. Before Tuesday's Headwinds update arrived, only two out of the six epic augments were strong – the Looting Mk 3 survivor can stop you bleeding out so that you have the chance of crawling to an extraction point with your loot, and the Tactical Mk 3 defensive has a built-in shield recharger for PvP runs.
The other four aren't worth the crafting components once you finally find their blueprints. I've equipped them when I've found them, but never felt compelled to actually make one. The so-called "aggressive" combat augment, for example, regenerates a mere two health every five seconds. On top of that, it pauses for 30 seconds when you take damage, rendering it virtually useless for its one purpose, aggressive combat.
Unlike the weapons, augments don't need a rebalance. They need a total rethink. Top-tier augments should have a defining attribute that enables new playstyles, and Embark knows this: the studio added two new epic augments as part of the Headwinds update, including one that lets you stick a gun in your safe pocket. That's a start, but I think the useless ones need to be culled and replaced by more imaginative ideas. I love the fact that the more common tactical augment deploys a smoke when your shield breaks, and that the level-two looting augment makes you immune to face-hugging ticks. More of that, please.
Clearly, I find Arc Raiders compelling despite this problem with rare loot (and despite its insistence on genAI voice acting). But there's no doubt in my mind that late-game balance is a problem, one Embark needs to get a grip on as new players continue to join and as experienced players, like me, look for reasons to stick around beyond its first few months.
Samuel Horti is a journalist with bylines at the BBC, IGN, Insider Business, and Edge.
Some Fallout fans believe the latest episode of Season 2 of the Amazon show confirms a New Vegas ending is canon, while others believe the showrunners have kept their word and avoided picking an ending.
Fans of the Fallout video games had wondered how Season 2 might reflect the endings of Obsidian’s much-loved Fallout New Vegas, given the show is canon and is set 15 years after the game.
Depending on the choices the player, aka The Courier, makes throughout the course of the game, New Vegas can end with victory for the player during the Battle of Hoover Dam, which drives out all factions including Mr. House himself, a victory for Mr. House in which he remains in control of New Vegas and takes over Hoover Dam, a victory for Caesar's Legion, or a victory for the New California Republic.
Fallout fans think ‘The House Always Wins’ ending is now canon after the events of the show. The Ghoul meets Maximus, and he uses the Cold Fusion diode that Maximus stole from the Brotherhood to power up the machine we saw back when Cooper met House in a flashback on the top floor of Lucky 38. The big terminal boots up, House appears on screen and says: "Well hello, old chum."
A lot of people think that confirms "The House Always Wins" ending, which saw House survive. But there are some important points to consider. Until the show actually shows House’s body, there's still potential for all sorts of explanations. Either this meeting between the Ghoul and House, plus whatever happens in the Season 2 finale, pulls the big trick of finally canonising an ending despite the showrunners saying they weren’t going to, or this is, for example, an AI version of House, rather than the weird husk from the New Vegas video game, which would leave us technically still left in the dark about what actually happened.
Fans are already debating the point, with some going so far as to already accepting The House Always Wins ending as canon. Some are even wondering what the point of New Vegas itself was, given the suggestion of a canon ending.
“What was the meaning of the game Fallout NV supposed to be and what was it trying to accomplish if none of the possible actions of The Courier had any lasting impact?” asked one fan. “With the newest episode of the Fallout Tv show, we find out House is alive. So what was the point of playing the game if none of the decisions would have mattered anyway? In the game the biggest consequences are, we get rid of House, give the power of hoover damm [sic] to the NCR, the Legion, or back to the Strip.
“But in the show the NCR is gone, the Legion is disconnected and in-fighting, the BoS is in the middle of a civil war with the East Coast, The strip became overrun with deathclaws. So what’s the point?”
Countering this, some fans have pointed to other explanations for what we see in the show, as mentioned above, but others have insisted that whatever happens on the show, it shouldn’t devalue your enjoyment of the games and how they work.
“The House we see at the end of episode 7 is a digital copy,” another fan added. “It doesn’t matter what happened to the real House’s body, this copy is separate from that. I don’t think there’s anything in the show that contradicts any of the four endings.”
“Seeing the House AI really doesn’t change anything,” said another fan. “The state of the Lucky 38, including a Securitron lying exactly where Yes Man does when you upload him, points strongly towards House’s death as a human at some point.” “I mean House is dead. He just uploaded himself to the Cloud,” joked another.
All eyes are now on the final episode of Fallout Season 2, which, given Season 3 is already confirmed, will no doubt pose just as many questions as it answers. While you wait, be sure to check out IGN’s Fallout Season 2, Episode 7 review.
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.
Sony has released the first PlayStation 5 system update of the year, which includes several new firmware features.
The catchily-named Update 26.01-12.60.00 is available to download today and actually includes a couple of notable changes, beyond the usual vague improvements to performance and stability.
Today's headline addition is the ability to turn on read receipts for your messages, which you can opt into via your Settings menu. With this, you'll allow others to see you've read their DMs. Sony has said it's switching this feature on gradually even if you have the update installed — so don't be surpised if it still takes some time to show up.
Another new addition today is the ability to jump from Friends Activity directly into a game that a friend is playing.
Today also brings the first PlayStation 4 system update of the year. PS4 system software version 13.04 is available now, though includes no major changes. Full patch notes for the two console updates lie below.
PlayStation 5 System Software Version 26.01-12.60.00.06
You can now jump directly from the Friends Activity widget in your Welcome Hub to the games your friends are playing.
You can now turn on read receipts to show other players when you’ve read their messages.
To turn on your read receipts, go to Settings > Users and Accounts > Privacy > View and Customize Your Privacy Settings. Under Communication and multiplayer, set Show read receipts to other players on PS5 and PlayStation App to Allow.
This feature will be rolled out gradually, and some users will be able to use it when the system software update is released.
We’ve improved the messages and usability on some screens.
We’ve improved system software performance and stability.
PlayStation 4 System Software Version: 13.04
We’ve made some security fixes to the system software.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
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