There's certainly been no shortage of games in the last month or so, and it's easy for games to get lost in the proverbial avalanche. In a show of mutual admiration, though, two leads behind two RPGs, both of which launched in the same week, are promoting each others' games to fans.

As spotted by GamesRadar, Kazutaka Kodaka — creator of Danganronpa and co-director behind the recently released The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy — shouted out players reaching a milestone in his own game. Then, he went on to shout out another current RPG in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. "Even after you finish Expedition 33, this Japanese cult game will still be here, waiting for you!" said Kodaka.

He went on to praise Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 in a follow-up post, drawing a comparison between the two games' unique takes on their respective genres. "Expedition 33 is an amazing tribute to classic JRPG, while Hundred Line is a cult Japanese VN & SRPG," said Kodaka. "Hundred Line has its own unique charm too, so why not play!!!"

Sandfall Interactive seemed to notice the shout-outs, and the official Expedition 33 account posted a message from creative director Guillaume Broche:

"After your Expedition, check out The Hundred Line, another great turn-based RPG that was also released last week, and made with love by an awesome team. There's too many good RPGs coming out at the same time, these days!"

A note from Guillaume Broche, @SandfallGames Creative Director:

After your Expedition, check out The Hundred Line, another great turn-based RPG that was also released last week, and made with love by an awesome team.

There's too many good RPGs coming out at the same time, these… https://t.co/AmGExVxXUp

— Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (@expedition33) April 30, 2025

Kodaka followed up, with more praise for Expedition 33:

"Thank you!!!! And for those of you who finished your school life first—it’s time to head out on an expedition! Expedition 33 is the future of RPGs. With unique RPGs like these coming out at the same time, now’s the perfect time to dive in and enjoy everything the genre has to offer"

There are, frankly, a lot of games coming out every year. Per SteamDB, over 6,000 games have hit Valve's PC platform in 2025 as of this writing. Over 18,000 released on Steam last year alone. By any metric, that's a baffling number, and even games with newsworthy creators may struggle to reach audiences in the massive flood of new things to play. Factor in ever-evolving live-service games and their content update schedules, and everything, everywhere is fighting for your time and attention.

In light of that, it's heartwarming to not only see two creators acknowledging and promoting each others' games, but encouraging fans to go play them afterwards. In the never-ending battle for eyes and attach rates, encouraging players to roll credits and move on to other experiences is noteworthy.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is out now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy is also out now, for PC and Nintendo Switch. If you're close to finishing one, it sounds like you might want to check out the other, too.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

The impeccable Shōgun, winner of a whopping 18 Emmy Awards and 4 Golden Globes, is making its way back for a second season — and the plans are underway. Cosmo Jarvis, who stars in the series as pilot John Blackthorn, has officially signed on to return to the role for Season 2, as well as to join the team as a co-executive producer, according to an official press release from FX.

Additionally, lead Hiroyuki Sanada — who signed on for Season 2 last May after the show was renewed despite originally being a limited series — was upped to an executive producer after producing the original run. The show is officially set to begin production on Season 2 and return to Vancouver, where the original series was shot, in January 2026.

FX said the second season of the show is “a wholly original new chapter to the first season,” which was an adaptation of James Clavell’s novel of the same name. About the two seasons and how they connect, the network explained:

“In the first season, Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Sanada) fought for his survival as his enemies in the Council of Regents united against him. When a mysterious European ship was found marooned in a nearby village, its English pilot John Blackthorne (Jarvis) shared vital strategic secrets with Toranaga that tipped the scales of power in his favor to win a century-defining civil war.

"Part two of Shōgun is set 10 years after the events of the first season and continues the historically-inspired saga of these two men from different worlds whose fates are inextricably entwined.”

If there's any good in this world, we’ll get some new episodes of this excellent show by the end of 2026 — but for now, we can only wait and hope.

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

Woot's Spring Video Game Sale has had plenty of excellent gaming goodies to check out, and this discount is another great addition to its selection of deals. Assassin's Creed Shadows for Xbox Series X has been discounted there for the first time, currently marked down to $54.99. This is a 21% discount from its list price of $69.99.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows (XSX) for $54.99

With your hands full of guns and a warrant for the Devil’s arrest in your pocket, Shotgun Cop Man sends you on a nonstop blitz of new ideas. This short and sweet action-platformer continually reinvents itself across 10 clever worlds, leaving little room for a good idea to get stale. Once I mastered its distinct style of projectile-based movement, barrelling through the circles of hell turned into a pure power fantasy. Even though it’s harder than it should be to chase high scores and better times, I still had a blast gunning for a more optimized run after the credits rolled.

Shotgun Cop Man’s goofy vibes, flashy acrobatics, and time attack setup transported me back to my middle school days of bypassing the browser security settings in the computer lab to sneak in runs of Flash games like Fancy Pants Adventures or Electricman 2. Granted, this would blow many of those study hall time killers out of the water, but I could still easily see myself racing to the end of its first world with a friend while we’re supposed to be working on a research paper or math homework. It shares the same tight scope and paired back tone, but here those mask a surprisingly deep platformer.

Shotgun Cop Man isn’t just a standard run-n-gun shoot-em-up. Instead, the recoil from your shotgun serves as the driving force behind most of the movement. Need to take out some demons to your right? Well, you better make sure the coast is clear to your left when you pull the trigger. This challenging, but ultimately rewarding, system of ballistic blowback fills in for genre-standards like jumping or dashing midair, while firing your sidearm — which ranges from a satisfyingly snappy but weak pistol to a powerful gatling gun — allows you to hover midair or make more precise hops.

You can’t just spray and pray you wind up on the next platform, though. Each weapon has limited ammo, keeping Shotgun Cop Man relatively grounded: the shotgun itself only holds three shells at a time, so he needs to touch terra firma to reload. That said, sidearms tend to have bigger magazines, allowing for a reliable second option to fall back on when you need to get to the ground and take another shot at a tough jump. This restrained approach brings a levelheaded balance to Shotgun Cop Man that encourages mayhem and speed without leaving precision and skill in the dust.

To make matters more difficult, Shotgun Cop Man also has to contend with the armies of Hell as he chases down their leader. Aside from a few combat-focused levels that blend each circle of Hell’s unique mechanics into an arena-style showdown, as well as the requisite boss that shows up at the end of each 17-level world, Shotgun Cop Man is all about movement. Because of that, enemies play second fiddle here, being treated as platforming obstacles masterfully woven into each level. They act like the bright-red explosive barrels of a 3D shooter, providing the satisfaction of popping them while offering direction on where and when to shoot. Shotgun Cop Man bets big on its platforming acumen rather than falling in-line with other action platformer successes like Katana Zero, and it pays off in spades.

Still, this unique movement takes quite some time to get used to, especially if you’re playing with a controller: Pointing in two different directions like a twin-stick shooter (left for walking, right for aiming) makes for an unnatural platformer control scheme. Wrapping my head around it felt like being asked to rub my belly and pat my head at the same time. Unfortunately, there’s really no better way to make this specific type of movement work on the sticks, though it is much more comfortable with a keyboard and mouse. Thankfully, Shotgun Cop Man’s accessibility features allow you to skip certain inputs, like making it so you pick up new sidearms automatically, so you can tweak things to be much more comfortable.

I was halfway through the roughly five hour campaign by the time I felt like I’d fully climbed its relatively steep learning curve, mastering this propulsion-based blend of combat and movement. Normally, this initial struggle would be a knock against it, but Shotgun Cop Man constantly introduces and innovates on new ideas while rewarding your growing mastery of them. It also sets up systems that successfully encouraged me to obsessively replay levels in an attempt to shave nanoseconds off my time. This potent blend dangles an appetizing carrot-on-a-stick to gnash at in bite-sized speedruns once you’ve found your footing.

When he inevitably takes a hit, Shotgun Cop Man’s heart comically pops out of his body. Running into it will pick it up and restore health, but he’ll die in one hit without it. When that happens, the camera zooms in on his oddly detailed face as he says, “I die,” in a goofy, computerized voice. This minimal, self-aware sense of humor sets the tone overall, as there’s otherwise not much of a premise to explain here (and developer Dead Toast Entertainment even pokes fun at this in the credits by putting quotes around the word “Story”). You’re a cop with a shotgun trying to arrest the Devil. Naturally, Old Scratch doesn’t play ball. Each time our hero catches up to him, Satan tells the boy in blue to shove it, and you continue on your chase once more. It’s thin, but it works, and is just amusing enough to keep things moving.

Unfortunately, that sense of humor eventually becomes Shotgun Cop Man’s Waterloo. Each time it zooms in on his face as he points out the obvious, it takes far too long to get back into the action. It takes as many as three button presses to respawn, and even longer to restart a level. I know how silly this sounds in the face of everything Shotgun Cop Man gets right, but in a game where you’ll be dying and trying again quite a bit, these add up to completely hamper any sense of momentum. That’s especially glaring when every level in Shotgun Cop Man grades your performance on whether or not you killed every enemy, beat the par time, took any damage, or did all three of those in the same run. In what feels like a big oversight, there’s no quick level restart button when you die, so to chase that perfect run, you need to resume the level after that death, pause, and then hit the retry option from there. Because Shotgun Cop Man trades in seconds and milliseconds (most levels took me less than a minute to complete), this otherwise small bump in the road became an outsized, unnecessary part of mastering each level.

That said, for a game that only took me about five hours to see from end to end, Shotgun Cop Man crams in a staggeringly impressive range of innovations and spins on its seemingly simple run-and-shoot formula. It ricochets from idea to idea, never allowing a mechanic to get old — in fact, there are quite a few I wish got some more time to shine, like reactive floors, which alternate between safe and deadly each time they’re shot, or clever box-moving puzzles that put your understanding of each weapon’s power to the test. Most mechanics get a chance to shine before being woven into more new mechanics later on, but there’s also an impressive level creator (exclusive to the PC version) that lets you toy with some of these ideas yourself if you feel like your favorite didn’t get its time in the sun.

I’m not much of a level designer myself, but the creation suite provides a robust toy chest for dedicated designers to mess around with. It doesn’t just feature tools that enable you to recreate or expand upon any clever idea found in the campaign, it even includes wholly unique mechanics that aren’t found there, like extra enemy and NPC types. I didn’t get to try any user-created levels during the pre-release period, but I’m really excited to see what people think up once Shotgun Cop Man is out in the wild.

After years of struggle, Blizzard Entertainment has found itself in uncharted territory: Overwatch players are having fun again.

The Overwatch team knows failure well. Its massive launch in 2016 was eventually dampened by divisive balance decisions, a disastrous launch for Overwatch 2, a sea of negative reviews, the cancellation of PvE content – the list goes on. As each controversy was usually only followed by another, fans began to wonder if Blizzard would ever regain its footing or if the glory days of Overwatch were left in 2018. Following an invasion of fundamental changes, fans have determined Overwatch 2 is set up not only for the best lineup of content it’s seen in years but what might be the best state it's ever been in.

To All Agents of Overwatch

On February 12, 2025, game director Aaron Keller assembled the Overwatch team to debut an Overwatch 2 Spotlight presentation that was said to explore “what the future holds.” With years of painful decisions in the rearview mirror, fans were split between fear and cautious optimism, leaving little room for excitement as it became clear this was a make-or-break moment for Blizzard. What followed was a 34-minute breakdown that included a detailed content release schedule, copious amounts of changes players had been pleading to see implemented for years, and, most importantly, transparency.

Where false, nigh unreachable promises plagued years past, Overwatch 2’s 2025 outline felt attainable. Damage and Support heroes Freja and Aqua made their debut here, as did Stadium, a revolutionary third-person Competitive mode poised to shake up the tedium of standard matches. Loot boxes, the controversial monetization tactic left behind when the original Overwatch was shuttered in 2022, were back with tweaks that made them more rewarding without a tie to real-world money. Perks gave all 43 characters a set of four unique, game-changing abilities, and Blizzard even managed to further detail its plan to bring back 6v6. It was a weighty list of tangible additions and more content than Overwatch players had seen since the launch of Overwatch 2 – and most of it would be added within only a few months.

Not gonna lie I had a lot of fun playing 6v6 perk watch today

It makes me really happy to say Overwatch actually has found the light on this path

Post bans, 6v6 open queue perkwatch is the best state the game has been in since 2020

Looks like hero shooters will stay winning!

— Samito (@SamitoFPS) April 5, 2025

Now, in April, loot boxes, Freja, Stadium, Classic balance modes, and more have executed on Blizzard’s mission to turn the page to a new chapter of Overwatch. It’s been a much-needed break from the monotony of same-y seasonal content releases coupled with exceeded expectations for those who were, justifiably, worried the hero shooter would never be seen in a positive light again. There’s debate about what triggered such a radical change in strategy, but there is no denying Overwatch 2 is currently backed by a team that wants to see it succeed. This is a different Blizzard.

“They pulled themselves out the gutter with this one,” Reddit user Right_Entertainer324 said regarding the Overwatch 2 Spotlight. “Super excited for the future of Overwatch 2, for the first time in… Well, ever.”

Experience Tranquility

Through ups and downs, it’s been about seven years since Overwatch was the titan fans originally fell in love with. Even with the onslaught of kept promises bombarding players for both Season 15 and Season 16, Overwatch 2’s current season, your average fan has every reason to believe the other shoe could drop at any moment. It’s been that way since February, yet Blizzard is charging forward.

“Let's be honest, (Overwatch 2's) development history has been... troubled,” a popular post from Reddit user ImperialViking_ said. “When PvE was cancelled we all thought it was the end. Now, come Season 15, Overwatch has turned the corner and the future is looking super bright.”

They continued: “All in all I think it goes without saying that the devs have really been hitting it out of the park recently. People calling them ‘lazy’ is just plain wrong. There are OF COURSE still issues with (Overwatch), and there always will be, but the decisions of Aaron and the team have led the game to a healthy state of growth and competition. I think that deserves praise.”

Reddit, Discord, X/Twitter – there’s been a vibe shift on every platform where people can talk about Overwatch. Posts praising Stadium are all too likely to show up on fans’ feeds, as are comments from players thrilled Season 16 introduced Competitive hero bans. This long-requested feature finally made its proper debut last week, essentially giving players the option to never play with or against pesky heroes like Sombra ever again if they don’t want to.

Of course, Blizzard is only just lifting off when it comes to the journey to rebuild the goodwill it’s lost over the years. Overwatch fans surely won’t let it forget the damage done, but the change in attitude is undeniable.

Content creator Niandra, whose “Let’s Talk About the State of Overwatch 2” video examined the hero shooter with a fine-toothed comb last summer, remains cautious but tells us they feel “pretty good” about where things are at now. They believe fans are starting to come around, too, thanks to a few key additions.

“I think a particularly critical playerbase is to be somewhat expected with games that try to be your forever game and a part of your daily routine,” they explain, “but I think the (Overwatch) community is getting happier!

“It feels like the momentum of perks into Stadium and Freja has brought a lot of goodwill. Morale in the community felt really low during the release of Marvel Rivals and its following month, especially since Overwatch didn't immediately respond with sweeping changes. Upon reflection, that was probably the correct move as Marvel Rivals is now having its own issues while Overwatch has released big changes. I wouldn't be surprised if ex Overwatch players have curiously checked out the game again recently.”

Stadium has now established itself as a core component of Overwatch 2, but its importance doesn’t stop at the fresh gameplay it brings to the nine-year-old hero shooter. A game mode as radically different as this has players engaging in good-faith discussion about what could make it better. It will take time for the community to fully wrap its head around the value it could add to the free-to-play experience, but mostly, they’re just enjoying the ride.

One clear point of criticism has revolved around the fact that Stadium lacks a Quickplay option and, as a result, crossplay support. While it’s barred groups of friends on different platforms from testing out its many character builds and synergies, most assumed a mode in its infancy would be fleshed out with more features in future seasons. That, along with Blizzard’s usual reluctance to reveal its hand, is why it was so shocking to see concerns addressed just days after complaints emerged.

“God it is so nice seeing this,” one Reddit user commented after Blizzard promised to tackle highly requested features like crossplay. “Literal IMMEDIATE update on feedback they’ve been given. Making no promises but being transparent about what the feedback is and how they intend to handle it. I really do love this direction of community communication they’ve been on for the last year or so.”

Does This Mean Overwatch Is Back?

Overwatch has been a black sheep in gaming for a while. A once-great staple of the multiplayer world fell from grace and spent years finding new ways to fall further. Renewed faith and interest in what it can be isn’t proof that all wounds have been healed or that Overwatch 2 is now perfect, but it is a sign that it can claw its way back.

While the momentum is there, many agree that there is one trump card Blizzard could play to get its community fully invested in the future of Overwatch: traditional story cinematics. These narrative tie-ins each amassed millions of views upon release but were largely abandoned when Blizzard shifted its focus onto the game itself. Still, considering it helped draw a connection between players and the characters that hold the experience up, these videos remain one of the most desired – if not the most desired – components fans hope will return.

“It feels like Overwatch has spent the last few years focusing on just the game itself, which has been wonderful don't get me wrong, but does mean the reach outside of it feels limited," Niandra added. "Overwatch feels much like one very well-made PvP game, as opposed to the big multimedia franchise it has the potential to be, which is a shame considering all the praise its world-building and lore has gotten over the years."

Following Blizzard’s February event, Overwatch has managed to jump from being the most negatively reviewed Steam game of all time to having “Mixed” reactions from players. As the team continues to invest in additions like Stadium and the long-awaited return to 6v6, its consistency in the long term will be the key in determining if Blizzard is able to reclaim all of the ground it's lost. If the last few months are anything to go off of, it’s absolutely doable.

“I think we’ve entered a new golden age of Overwatch,” hero-shooter content creator and longtime Overwatch player Flats said during a recent livestream. “Overwatch is potentially in the best state it’s ever been, and it’s not even close. Better than the launch of Overwatch 2. Better than when the PvE missions ‘came out.’ Dare I say, better than Overwatch 1. The only time, maybe not, is 2016 hype when it first started – arguably.”

Overwatch 2 Season 16 kicked off the next phase of Blizzard’s grand scheme last week. It introduced newcomer Freja as its latest Damage hero, with this week ushering in a mech-fueled Gundam collaboration. Future seasons are said to come with a Dva Mythic skin, a Reaper Mythic Weapon skin, additional Stadium characters, and more. Time will tell if it’s enough to revive Overwatch to its former glory.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

The latest Nintendo Switch system update is out, introducing new systems like the Virtual Game Cards ahead of the launch of Switch 2. Implementing that has closed off a method for playing the same digital game online across two systems at the same time, though.

As noted by Eurogamer, Switch users could previously use the primary console to pull up a game and play it online, alongside the owner of said game logged in on another Switch. This loophole has been closed off with the new Virtual Game Cards system.

Users are reporting that you can still play a single copy of a digital game by going offline, though. By going to your profile's user settings and turning on the Online Licenses option, you can play a digital game even if you don't have the Virtual Game Card, so long as it isn't being played somewhere else, or as long as the Switch playing it is set offline. Here's the text for the setting:

"If this option is enabled, purchased digital software will be playable while the console is connected to the internet, even when the virtual game card for that software isn't loaded to the console. However, when using an online licence, only the user signed int to the Nintendo Account that was used to purchase the software will be able to play it, it will not be playable for other users on the console. Your virtual game cards can be used to play software regardless of this setting. Online licences cannot be used on multiple consoles at the same time. The online licence and virtual game card for a software title cannot be used at the same time."

Essentially, if one Switch is offline in some way, you can still play the same game at the same time across two Switches. Eurogamer tested this and verified the system works. The big change is that, if you want to play the same game online at the same time, that loophole appears to be closed.

Fans aren't too keen on the change, as users across forums like ResetEra and Reddit are frustrated that their previous game sharing set-ups aren't going to work the same. Specifically, the ability to play online at the same time is a gripe, as people mention playing games like Splatoon or Minecraft as a family or group.

Users note that for families, this would double the cost of picking up games moving forward if they have multiple kids that want to play a Switch game together. Families that previously played together will have to buy more copies. While it's essentially closing a loophole, it was a useful loophole, and it's not surprising to see people frustrated with the new system already.

This all arrives just over a month out from the launch of the Switch 2, which will utilize the same system. It's also going to use Game-Key Cards, meaning certain games — a decent number of them, actually — will not have the entire physical game on the Switch 2 cartridge, and will require an online download.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

Call of Duty is steeped in 4/20 culture. It’s something Activision has monetized for years now, doubling down on the fanbase’s reputation for kicking back and relaxing while going for those killstreaks. But with Black Ops 6 and Warzone, the 4/20 microtransactions have leveled up, and now Seth Rogen is in the game some fans have had enough.

The Season 03 Reloaded update, out tomorrow, May 1, is pretty much all about 4/20 culture, even though it arrives 11 days after the day itself. The Joint Operations (I see what they did there) Limited Time Mode is a Black Ops 6 multiplayer variant that adds modifiers, including a +420 Score Bonus (I see what they did there), 3rd Person, Visual Impairment, Double Health, Hardcore, Paranoia Sounds, Low Gravity, Double Jump, and Increased Movement Speed (I see what they did there, etc).

It’s a similar situation over in battle royale Warzone. The Verdansk Limited Time Mode High Trip Resurgence (I’m not saying it again) challenges players to “smoke” the competition (nope, I’m not saying it).

After the success of Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th kicked off the 80's by taking the slasher genre to gorey new heights. Jason Voorhees first appeared (sort of) to terrify teens at a Crystal Lake summer camp, and its safe to say the original Friday the 13th is essential viewing for any horror fan. 12 movies and 11 directors later, the hockey-mask wearing horror villain has become a zombie, gone to space, and battled a fellow slasher icon.

For anyone looking for a slasher binge, here's where you can stream all of the Friday the 13th movies right now.

Where to Watch the Friday the 13th Movies Online

The Friday the 13th movies have consistently been pretty hard to find online. This past October, the first eight Friday the 13th movies ("the original series," if you will) found a home at Paramount+, but at some point since then were quietly removed. Now, you can only find the eight original Friday the 13th movies on Pluto TV, a free streaming service with ads. The more recent Friday the 13th reboot is streaming on Max.

Otherwise, all of the Friday the 13th movies are available to rent or purchase from digital storefronts, which is the only way to get your hands on Jason Goes to Hell (maybe that one's for the best), Freddy vs Jason, and Jason X.

Friday the 13th Movies on Blu-ray

It’s a Minecraft world, folks — we’re just singing in it. A Minecraft Movie continues to hit major milestones a month after debuting in theaters and catapulting its way toward becoming the highest-grossing video game movie ever at the global box office. Now, the movie’s “Steve's Lava Chicken” song, sung by star Jack Black himself, has made its way to the coveted Billboard Hot 100 Chart in the United States. Yeah, you read that right.

At just 34 seconds, the song — which boasts deep lyrics like “la-la-la-lava ch-ch-ch-chicken” — has become the shortest ever to hit the Hot 100. It debuts on the chart dated May 3, 2025 and comes in at No. 78, which is pretty solid for a sub-35 second song. Additionally, the track, which was written by Black and the film’s director Jared Hess, has hit No. 10 on the Hot Rock Songs Chart.

Interestingly enough, this isn’t even the first chart the song has made it onto. Earlier this month, the song debuted at No. 21 on the UK’s official chart — so clearly Black’s solo is really connecting with the movie’s audience. Plus, this isn’t Black’s first time charting for a film either. He hit No. 58 for “Peaches” from The Super Mario Bros. Movie back in 2023 as well.

A Minecraft Movie screenings have been pretty rowdy affairs so far, but it seems as though fans will have an opportunity to meme and scream their way through the “Chicken Lava” song and the rest of the film as the studios are debuting specific screenings meant for audience interaction.

"Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures invite fans back to the theater to experience A Minecraft Movie together in a whole new way! You know the moments. You know the lines. You love the songs,” stated the announcement for the set of Block Party Edition screenings that will take place on May 2 across the United States and select international locations. “Now it's time to get loose, laugh out loud and belt out those lyrics like a true diamond-tier fan.”

We’ve got plenty more on A Minecraft Movie, including how the Minecraft movie team had a private server they played on.

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

I remember vividly when I first caught wind of The Outer Worlds back in 2018 – my managing editor at the time talked about his preview of what developer Obsidian was working on; an original first-person RPG with the makings of a Fallout game. As someone who still won’t shut up about Fallout: New Vegas to this day, that was music to my ears. It turned out to be one of my favorite games of 2019, but instead of expecting it to be the next coming of Fallout, I saw it more as a new foundation for Obsidian to work within.

There were certain limitations to what the first Outer Worlds could be in terms of size and scope, and that much was clear in the several conversations I’ve had with the development team when reflecting on it. But after seeing the sequel in action for the first time and interviewing key folks at Obsidian, The Outer Worlds 2 seems like that original vision fully realized. For all the details I’ve been able to dig up about the revamped gameplay systems and worldbuilding, the overarching idea was that The Outer Worlds 2 needed to be a deeper RPG where player choice has more of an impact in nearly all aspects of the experience. And from everything I’ve gathered from our month’s-worth of exclusive coverage, this sequel looks like it’s stepping in the right direction.

What I’ve seen thus far is based on an early build of the game, all of which has been through hands-off demos, and all the footage you’ve seen was provided by Obsidian. So while I haven’t played it yet, The Outer Worlds 2 is so far reminding me of some of the best parts of the studio’s long list of RPGs, where unconventional playstyles are viable and unpredictable choices and outcomes are intrinsic to the roleplaying aspect, asking you to roll with the punches regardless of whether or not it’s deemed “optimal,” and this manifests in several ways.

Attributes, which were stats that you invested in as you leveled up, have been set aside for a heavier focus on Skills – a total of 12 (including staples like Engineering, Explosives, Guns, Hacking, Leadership, and more) now dictate how your character functions. While this may seem like further streamlining, the goal is to make sure the points you put into various Skills have a more noticeable impact throughout the process of leveling up, as opposed to the minute effects you’d feel in the old Attributes system. Of course, I can’t speak to how this comes to fruition in a full playthrough, but there are other systems in place that feed into the idea that these mechanical decisions can affect your character in bigger ways.

That leads to Perks, of which there will be about 90 to choose from. There are specific Skill levels needed to gain access to certain Perks, but these are said to offer significant changes to what you can do in combat, conversations, exploration, and more. One example is a Perk that lets you aim, fire, and reload while sprinting and sliding for those who want to approach enemies with the mentality of a traditional shooter. Or the Serial Killer and Psychopath Perks that grant bonuses for those who try a much more violent playthrough. Or the Space Ranger Perk that lets you convert points in your Speech Skill into damage bonuses in battle. Dialogue branches may vary based on the Skills and Perks you have (more so than the original), or your character may pick up on things in the environment they wouldn’t be able to otherwise, so the results of your build aren't just isolated in combat scenarios. Those are just a few examples of how these systems feed into specific playstyles with the intention of rewarding you for the way in which you’re specialized.

Then there are Traits that stack additional permanent effects that you wouldn’t necessarily get through Perks. The catch is that if you want to take more Positive Traits, you have to also select Negative Traits, and that’s where things can get interesting. I’m actually curious about how I’d play with something like “Dumb” where I’d have to lock myself out from ever putting points into five of the 12 Skills, or “Sickly” where I’d take lower health and toxic resistance. It seems like a trade-off that could be worth it, depending on how I want to build out my character.

But if you want to lean more into unconventional mechanics, accounting for things you usually wouldn’t in other RPGs – enter the new Flaws system. Like in the original, the game is watching your behavior and then offering permanent bonuses at the cost of a permanent detractor depending on how you play. However, The Outer Worlds 2 goes deeper on this idea – you’re not just offered a Perk point if you take a Flaw. Flaws now have bespoke status effects and conditions that can have major ramifications for how you’ll play the game, should you take a Flaw. I only got to see two of them, but they speak to the philosophy behind them. Sungazer offers regenerative health outdoors during the day at the cost of extreme visual lens flare and reduced accuracy, and that’s activated by staring into the sun multiple times. Or if you quickly skip through dialogue choices frequently, Foot-in-Mouth offers a permanent XP bonus while forcing you to make all future dialogue choices in a 15-second window – and if that timer runs out, the game will pick for you, which can lead to some unintended consequences. There’s another Flaw that’ll force you to accept all future Flaws no matter what, and Obsidian hinted at one that will account for those who save scum, but that remains to be seen – it’s bizarre ideas like these that can shake up playthroughs. Obsidian said there are around 30 Flaws in total, and my hope is that the incentives will be worth the trade-off, and that they’re built in a way that it won’t be easy to circumvent their effects, which could diminish their impact.

All that said, it’s clear that Obsidian put a lot of thought into how to rebuild its RPG mechanics with the intention of making something that is more reactive and impactful, or at least purposeful along the progression path. And with no respec beyond the intro mission, you’ll have to build out your character with a little more care. Hands-off demos can only tell me so much, so I’m expecting everything else around The Outer Worlds 2 to bring out the best in those systems and push me to engage with them beyond the surface level.

That sounds all well and good, and the brief gameplay sequences I saw were also promising. While the first game had approachability at the forefront, The Outer Worlds 2 looks like it’s offering more variability with a web of systems that come together for something a bit more sophisticated. For example, we now have actual stealth mechanics with a better detection system, proper stealth kills, and scenarios in which this approach would make sense – and features such as damage bar read-outs tell you whether or not a stealth attack will be worth it. The N-Ray Scanner is one of the new gadgets you’ll use, and this lets you see through walls and detect cloaked enemies or key objects hidden in the environment, but it’ll expend your mana-like energy – it’s a tool that’s conducive to this playstyle, and I’m looking for how this approach can be sustained throughout.

Judging from the brief run of the N-Ray Facility, for example, I saw snippets of that in action, which leans into this particular playstyle I prefer. This level was also ripe for playing it like an immersive sim, and it gave me hints of Deus Ex or Dishonored, especially with how you navigate the level and find different paths. I know the DNA of those games will always find their way into first-person RPGs, but it’s something that wasn’t quite as present in the first Outer Worlds, and very much apparent in this sequel.

And while I’m excited for stealth options and wielding the environment to create paths forward, the punched-up gunplay and addition of gadgets shows an improvement in combat approaches across the board. The aforementioned sprint-slide-firing Perk – along with the returning Tactical Time Dilation (TTD) – looks to be a deadly combo in a firefight, but some wild unique weapons like the crank-powered sniper rifle called the Planet Killer or the advertisement-blasting Pop Gun that’ll distract enemies, widen your toolset. When all hell breaks loose, the triple-barrel shotgun will probably be an old reliable in my playthrough. And I’m sure I’ll be saving those rare shots I’ll find for this game’s version of the BFG for the toughest fights.

But with Obsidian looking to games like Destiny in terms of reworking gunplay, I think it’s a net-positive for how the game feels on a moment-to-moment basis. There’s an emphasis on better mobility, smarter enemy behavior, and varied enemy types, along with that wider, more creative arsenal. But there’s also no more level scaling, and so there’s been more consideration in how difficulty works in The Outer Worlds 2 with tiered enemies and static levels for encounters across the game, letting encounters be designed with more intent, especially with where the designers will funnel players and create friction.

The more intimate details of level design excite me, and seeing interiors like the Zyranium Lab be noticeably bigger and intricate with multiple paths has me thinking about the gameplay possibilities. But its large open zones are also a key point in this sequel. I’ve said in previous coverage that bigger doesn’t always mean better, and Obsidian is aware of that. So, The Outer Worlds 2 has an emphasis on density and rewarding players who poke around its areas with more side stories and useful loot in a way that the first game didn’t. Points of interest out in the distance are built intentionally and are said to be placed for a reason and draw players to those locations and discover quests off the beaten path. This is all based on a brief walkthrough of Golden Ridge, which is the only open zone I saw, and it does seem like there’s a lot more going on at the ground level. And I hope that this design philosophy extends to the rest of The Outer Worlds 2's open regions.

Finally, Obsidian wasn’t ready to share many details on story or companions, but game director Brandon Adler hinted at a world-changing event happening early on when landing on Golden Ridge, and that being indicative of the types of narrative swings they’re going for. Creative director Leonard Boyarsky, who was one of the original Fallout developers, spoke to how the team is thinking about The Outer Worlds 2’s story. He mentioned being sharper with its humorous tone while going deeper on its commentary about how corporations, and those in power, will exert and abuse their power on those seen below them. It seems a major factor in conveying these themes will be through factions – The Protectorate, The Order of the Ascendant, and Auntie’s Choice (a merger between Auntie Cleo and Spacer’s Choice from the first game). While companions are optional, it appears they’ll be an important lens through which you navigate and understand the world. Boyarsky also emphasized the intention of making a story that can stand the test of time with its dissection of the human condition, rather than directly reflect the times in which it was made – and that’s largely been the philosophy that guided the old Fallout games, including New Vegas.

Overall, I get the impression that Obsidian is trying to avoid homogeneity in its gameplay systems, and build worlds with questlines and encounters that tease out the varied options you have this time around. You can have complex and creative systems to toy with, but ultimately, it’s a means for engaging with the captivating stories tucked within where we have a distinct role to play. If the original Outer Worlds was Obsidian building the framework, my hope is that this sequel is the series reaching its full potential. And that’s something we’ll have to see when The Outer Worlds 2 comes out later this year.

Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is set to leave early access and launch on May 21, Netmarble and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have announced.

The action-adventure role-playing game based on George R. R. Martin’s much-loved fantasy universe is set for release on all mobile platforms as well as on PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Windows.

Game of Thrones: Kingsroad launched in early access form in March, and has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam. Most of the negative reviews revolve around its monetization, which some have called “greedy.” “It’s like a mobile game on steroids and kinda not in a good way,” reads the current ‘most helpful’ review on Valve’s platform.

In a release date FAQ posted to Steam, Netmarble addressed the expected gap between the progression of early access and new players. It said that Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is “fundamentally designed with a focus on single-player gameplay,” and that it had worked to “minimize any feelings of imbalance or unfairness that might arise from differences in progression.”

Testing was conducted to improve the game, the development team continued, "to improve the game and make it more enjoyable and accessible for everyone."

“We encourage all players to focus on the inherent fun of progressing through the later stages and reaching the endgame content, rather than comparing progress with other characters,” Netmarble suggested.

Netmarble went on to apologize for its prior communication and patches, which it admitted were “somewhat lacking.”

“Moving forward, we are committed to more frequent and transparent communication through regular AMA sessions and Developer Notes,” it added. “We kindly ask for your continued anticipation and support as we approach the official launch.”

As you’d expect from a game like this, there’s a premium Founder’s Pack that offers Early Access and other exclusive in-game content. Mobile players can pre-register through the App Store and Google Play store on iOS and Android devices ahead of the grand launch.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

When it comes to the Great American Novel, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more quintessential pick than Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. The book's unflinching depiction of a soldier's life during the Civil War made it unique in the literary world upon release, and it also makes it a natural fit to be adapted into a graphic novel. Abrams ComicArts has done just that.

Ahead of its May release, IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of The Red Badge of Courage. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

The Red Badge of Courage is adapted from Crane's original prose by writer/artist Steve Cuzor. Here's Abrams' official description of the graphic novel:

Written by Stephen Crane when he was just 24, The Red Badge of Courage is a Civil War story that captured the imaginations of readers worldwide and made its author an overnight literary icon. Now artist Steve Cuzor and Abrams ComicArts are publishing a powerful graphic novel adaptation of the classic and genre-defining war novel. Cuzor’s stark yet detailed artwork in The Red Badge of Courage perfectly captures the realistic prose of the original novel, presenting a lushly illustrated, unflinching depiction of war through the eyes of a young, inexperienced soldier.

A groundbreaking and realistic examination of the psychological effects of war, The Red Badge of Courage draws from firsthand accounts and research and has been continuously in print since its publication in 1894. Crane’s depiction of his main character, Henry Fleming, and his internal monologue, ring so true that many readers mistook Crane for a veteran himself. The realistic prose and visceral descriptions of battle that Crane used marked the first shift away from uncritical patriotism in war literature. It would take until at least the 1920s and the wake of the horror of the First World War for the rest of the genre to catch up. In the years following its publication, The Red Badge of Courage was hailed by Crane scholar Henry Wertheim as “unquestionably the most realistic novel about the American Civil War,” while Ernest Hemingway called the novel an “American classic.”

“By illustrating Crane’s classic story, Cuzor pulls readers into the midst of the action, making Henry Fleming’s experience feel all the more visceral,” said Abrams ComicArts' Publisher Joseph Montagne in a statement. “Literary aficionados and students alike will find another layer of this classic story to appreciate in this new adaptation of Crane’s magnum opus.”

The Red Badge of Courage will be released in bookstores on Tuesday, May 13 and in comic shops on Wednesday, May 14. You can preorder a copy on Amazon.

In other comic book news, iconic TMNT villain Shredder is getting his own solo series, and we've got an exclusive look inside the new Heavy Metal series.

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

The buzz around preordering a Nintendo Switch 2 has also come with its reputation for more expensive new games, but getting to grab the physical version of Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition for £60 on the upcoming system is a nice surprise.

Available at Monster Shop's eBay store, the outlet has introduced a "LOOPY20" discount code that, when applied at checkout, will take the titular 20% right off the game's price tag to £59.99.

With The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered out and millions of players enjoying Bethesda's much-loved open-world role-playing game, its army of fans are coming together to issue advice to those who might have missed out on the fun 20 years ago.

Oblivion remastered is a remaster, not a remake, Bethesda has stressed, and so many of the quirks of its ageing design remain. One of those quirks — or frustrations it might be better called — is Oblivion’s level scaling system.

Oblivion’s original designer recently called the game's level scaling a “mistake,” but it made it into Oblivion Remastered anyway. It means loot acquired is tied to the level of your character at the point you acquire it. Similarly, enemies will still spawn according to your level.

It’s this latter point that has sparked a fresh round of advice from Oblivion veterans to newcomers, and it all revolves around Castle Kvatch.

Warning! Spoilers for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered follow.

Breaking the Siege of Kvatch is the fourth main quest, and tasks you with defending the city of Kvatch against the Daedric hordes. It involves going through an Oblivion gate where you’ll face off against multiple high level enemies. Once you've done that and closed the Oblivion gate, you have to clear out the Daedric invasion in the main plaza of Kvatch itself.

If you waited too long and leveled up a lot, you'll find that all of your helping friends are quickly killed because the enemies you're facing are extremely difficult. Due to Oblivion’s level scaling system, the higher level you are, the tougher those enemies will be. At higher levels, Kvatch will throw every variety of Daedra at you, rather than easy-to-kill Scamps. You might encounter a room full of Daedroth (strong crocodile-headed bipedal Daedra), Daedric Princes, or other monstrosities.

Breaking the Siege of Kvatch leads into The Battle for Castle Kvatch, should you take it on. Here you battle to retake the town's castle, defeating the Daedra along the way. Like Breaking the Siege of Kvatch, level scaling can be a real problem here.

Enter helpful Oblivion veterans who are recommending players take on Kvatch before they hit level 10.

“I'm like panicking now…” said redditor IsThatHearsay. “First time playing Oblivion, didn't even know you had to sleep to lvl up until just before I got to this mission.

“Closed the Kvatch Oblivion gate right before this mission still as lvl 1, then read online to sleep and I jumped from lvl 1 to 9 immediately with hour sleep increments. Met Martin there and decided to escort him to the Cloud place to take a break from fighting, followed by deciding to cheese some skills like Conjuration, Acrobatics, Sneak, and whatnot quickly and climbed to lvl 15.

“Now have to go back to do Kvatch at lvl 15+, when I'm hearing I probably should've just done it while still lvl 1…”

“I just tried it at level 20 and let me tell you, that shit is fucking rough,” said frontadmiral.

“Completed at lvl 21 on a mage, god it was tough,” said Ranaki_1967. “Had to in the field recharge my staff, drink potions escape down the ladder, have maximum shield armour, a Dremora champion.

“The framerate was bad.”

“Bro im doing it at 27 rn and im NOT having a good time, Xivali are EVERYWHERE,” Mother_Bid_4294 said.

Even Oblivion experts have been caught by taking on Kvatch at too high a level. “I've oblivioned extensively in the original but I still made the same mistake, went back to Kvatch level 13, just about manageable,” Various-Jellyfish132.

“Make use of sneak for bonus damage and retreat through loading doors to recover if needed, if you have a bit of space, their attacks are easily dodged. The daedroths don't seem to follow you through the doors so you can pick them off one at a time.”

“Oblivion scaling is just wild though because you will level up once and suddenly Scamps transform into Daedroths and Clannfear Runts turn into Daedric Princes,” Groosin1 said.

“Because the scaling cap is only 17-18. And the way leveling works, at 17-20 you could be anywhere from a guy with middling combat skills for what you're using and getting obliterated, to being God.”

Part of the issue here is that players are leveling up faster in Oblivion Remastered than they did in the original Oblivion. That’s because the developers changed the leveling system to modernize it, but kept the level scaling the same.

This has had the knock-on effect of causing some players to be a higher level than they would have been in the original when taking on tough quests such as Kvatch.

For the first time ever I decided to do Kvatch before level 10. It was cool to see it actually functioning as an even battle instead of a horde of overleveled demons one-shotting all the guards. Really makes you wonder if they ever tested it at higher levels. pic.twitter.com/VeQH3xst0b

— Entropy Phi (@entropy_phi) April 27, 2025

As you’d expect, modders have once again come to the rescue. Fresh from tackling PC performance issues in Oblivion Remastered, modders have also released balanced NPC level cap mods and balanced unleveled rewards mods, so if you’re on PC, you can change the way Oblivion Remastered works significantly. If you’re on console, however, you’re stuck with level scaling.

We’ve got plenty more on Oblivion Remastered, including a report on a player who managed to escape the confines of Cyrodiil to explore Valenwood, Skyrim, and even Hammerfell, the rumored setting of The Elder Scrolls VI.

We've also got a comprehensive guide to everything you'll find in Oblivion Remastered, including an expansive Interactive Map, complete Walkthroughs for the Main Questline and every Guild Quest, How to Build the Perfect Character, Things to Do First, every PC Cheat Code, and much more.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

We're just over a month away from the much-hyped arrival of Nintendo Switch 2, which means Nintendo has been busy behind the scenes, updating its OG Switch firmware and getting the digital eShop ready for June 5. Part of those changes, however, has evoked a surprisingly strong reaction in fans — the eShop has switched from orange to red.

Not only has the orange background — which has been the shop's primary color since the Nintendo 3DS days of June 2011 – been refreshed to a bright red, but the shop icon on the Home screen's taskbar has also been given a coat of paint. Previously, the red background color had primarily only been used to mark key Nintendo anniversaries.

RIP orange eShop. Lasted from 2011 to 2025 across 3DS, Wii U and Switch 🫡 pic.twitter.com/Gv9bBUKJ2H

— It's-A-Mii, BoTalksGames! (@BoTalksGames) April 30, 2025

That's not all, either. Nintendo has also straightened the 'e' on eShop and removed the little "eyelashes" from it, too, and changed the font, as demonstrated by the 't' in Nintendo.

"Going to be sick…" cried one alarmed Twitter respondent, while others descended into a "It's bread" frenzy, riffing on the viral Silent Hill 3 meme.

"Yeah I miss the orange already, lol," said another commenter on Reddit, to which another joked: "NOW it’s next gen."

THEY KILLED HIM

HES ALL RED NOW pic.twitter.com/4v2QiXboZv

— Nathan (@NSuperGamerGuy) April 30, 2025

Interestingly, though, this is actually not the first time the eShop has been red, as some players have also been reminiscing about. It also aligns the console store with the color palette you see when visiting the Nintendo eShop via your browser.

On the plus side, players are reporting the updated eShop seems to be responding faster since the most recent firmware update.

As IGN reported earlier today, Nintendo Switch Firmware Update Version 20.0.0 makes a number of key changes to the eight-year-old console in preparation of the launch of its successor, the Switch 2, in June, according to the patch notes released on Nintendo's official website. It includes the addition of a system transfer to Nintendo Switch 2, which you’ll now find in System Settings, so you'll be able to transfer from your Switch to Switch 2 using local communication.

This is all leading towards the hotly anticipated release of the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5. Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders went live on April 24, with the price still fixed at $449.99 — and they went about as well as you'd expect. Meanwhile, Nintendo has issued a warning to U.S. customers who applied for a Switch 2 pre-order from the My Nintendo Store, saying release date delivery is not guaranteed due to very high demand.

Check out IGN's Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order guide for more.

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Lost Soul Aside is delayed three months, from May 30 to August 29, 2025, its developer has announced.

After roughly a decade in development, the PC and PlayStation 5 single-player action game was finally scheduled for llaunch next month, but a statement from developer Ultizero Games revealed the delay to late September to add polish.

"We are truly grateful for the positive response we've received from players all over the world since we announced Lost Soul Aside," Ultizero Games said.

"We remain committed to delivering a high-quality game experience. To match the standards Ultizero Games have set for ourselves, we are going to take some additional time to polish the game. Lost Soul Aside will now release on August 29, 2025. We want to express our heartfelt thanks to our fans waiting for the launch."

Originally the passion project of solo developer Yang Bing, Lost Soul Aside has grown to become a major Sony-published title under the company's China Hero Project, with Bing now the founder and CEO of Shanghai-based studio Ultizero Games.

IGN recently had the opportunity to sit down with Yang Bing to discuss the long road to launch. So many years of development went into Lost Soul Aside, escalating from a solo creator's vision to a trailer reveal at Sony's State of Play broadcast. Through it all the hype has built up, with some calling Lost Soul Aside an exciting mix of Final Fantasy characters and Devil May Cry combat — even from the moment Yang Bing's initial reveal video went viral in 2016.

The main character Kesar wields a shape-shifting weapon you can swap between, which changes your playstyle, and you have a dragon-like companion named Arena who can summon abilities to support Kesar.

Like its inspirations, Lost Soul Aside emphasizes aerial dodging, precision timing, combos, and countering along with large-scale boss fights. The game blends its sci-fi premise with a variety of contemporary aesthetics that fit into a campaign that takes you across multiple dimensions. Although it's tough to glean where the story is going based on its trailers, Bing describes Kesar's journey as one of "redemption and discovery."

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Regardless of age, every gamer remembers when they suffered their first save game data loss, be it a corrupted console/PC harddrive, or a PS1 memory card suddenly showing blue blocks of damaged data. Japanese gamers were reminded of these painful feelings on April 30, when actor Shinya Okada’s dramatic reaction to losing all his original Pokemon Red save data from 1996 was captured in a YouTube video. The actor’s stunned facial expressions and fans’ outpourings of sympathy even led the incident to be featured on Japanese entertainment news outlets.

A familiar face in Japanese TV dramas, 77-year-old actor Shinya Owada is also a huge Pokemon fan, regularly playing through various games from the series on his YouTube Channel “Shinya Owada’s Hideout.” Often accompanied by his trusty Squirtle plushie (that he recently took on an adorable trip to the aquarium), Owada’s warm-hearted enthusiasm for the games, plus his dramatic narration of the dialogue has earned the veteran gamer over 56.4K subscribers.

Pokémon TCG fans are getting a strong lineup today, with multiple Elite Trainer Boxes on sale. That includes an early discount on the Journey Together set, which is rare this soon after release.

Regardless of being in it for the promos or looking to crack packs, this is a great time to grab sealed product, not ot mention singles dropping in value across the board.

There's also a deal on Iono’s Bellibolt Premium Collection, and the Iron Leaves ETB from the Temporal Forces expansion is holding steady at a fair price.

TL;DR: Deals For Today

Outside the world of cards, AirPods Pro 2 are available for $169, a significant drop from their usual $249 price tag.

If you just picked up a Switch 2, there’s also a quick-install screen protector available for under $10.

Humble has a 17-title XCOM bundle starting at just $10, and the IGN Store is offering a limited Oblivion collectible ingot for pre-order, perfect for Elder Scrolls fans and collectors.

Journey Together Elite Trainer Box

Journey Together Rare Cards

Iono’s Bellibolt ex Premium Collection

Journey Together IRs

Oblivion Gates

Temporal Forces: Elite Trainer Box

Temporal Forces Chase Cards

XCOM Complete Bundle

Screen Protector for Nintendo Switch 2

Apple AirPods Pro 2

id & Friends Humble Game Bundle

Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet - Surging Sparks Booster Bundle

Pokémon TCG: Scarlet & Violet—Twilight Masquerade Elite Trainer Box

Twilight Masquerade Single Cards

Surging Sparks Single Cards

Pokémon TCG: Shining Fates Collection Pikachu V Box

Shining Fates Single Cards

The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Remastered Dark Brotherhood Medallion

Pokémon TCG Paldean Fates Booster Bundle

Paldean Fates Single Cards

Pokemon TCG: Azure Legends Tin - 5 Packs

Surging Sparks Single Cards

Lexar Sale

Pokémon Game Sale

MSI Desktops & Components Sale

Samsung Pro Plus 512GB MicroSDXC + Reader

8BitDo Retro 87 Mechanical Keyboard (Xbox Edition)

8BitDo Retro R8 Mouse (Xbox Edition)

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been out little over a week, but you can already grab Sandfall Interactive's critically acclaimed RPG, and potentially an early GOTY shout, up to £10 off on console at Amazon and £8 off on PC.

With these discounts, you can now grab it for just £40.99 on PS5 and £39.99 on Xbox physically, while a digital Steam copy for PC is currently priced at £33.59 during Fanatical's Level Up Sale.

Titanfall fans are reeling from the news EA has canceled another incubation project at Respawn Entertainment, and simultaneously laid off a number of individuals across its incubation, Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, and EA Experience teams.

Bloomberg reported the canceled game, codenamed R7, was an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe. And while that is not the Titanfall 3 sequel fans have been clamoring for, some are devastated that the fan-favorite Titanfall 2 is still without a sequel almost a decade later.

"I just fell to my knees at Walmart," said one player, while another simply wrote: "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE."

"How many more times will this happen before they finally give it up and leave us to our sorrow?" lamented another.

Not all fans are taking it as bad news, however, as some think an extraction shooter based in the Titanfall universe could have failed, killing the franchise for good.

"Best thing that could've happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned," posited this redditor. "A Titanfall extraction shooter would probably flop and the c-suite executives would say 'see, the people just don't like Titanfall anymore,' instead of the obvious reason being nobody asked for a Titanfall XTS."

"I’m fine with this one being canceled," responded someone else, followed by: "Extraction shooter lmao. Good riddance."

"So sick and tired of 'extraction shooters'. They're so formulaic and boring. I don't want to loot bunch of useless shit and camp in an attic or sit in a bush for 20 minutes or risk getting shot moving thru big open fields. Give me quick matches, wallrunning and titans blastin'," suggested this fan.

"Got sad. Read extraction shooter. Was literally okay," summarized someone else.

The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other thought to have been the aforementioned extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe.

These cuts follow a number of other layoffs over the last few years at EA. Earlier this year, it restructured BioWare, moving developers to other projects and laying off others. It also eliminated 50 jobs at BioWare in 2023 and an unknown number more at Codemasters, and in 2024 a larger restructuring that resulted in 670 workers laid off company-wide, including around two dozen workers at Respawn.

In 2023, it emerged that Respawn Entertainment worked on Titanfall 3 "in earnest" for 10 months before ditching it for Apex Legends.

Mohammad Alavi, who became narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3 before it was cut, told The Burnettwork that much work on the sequel had been done.

“Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about 10 months, right? In earnest, right?

"We had new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right? But I’ll make this clear: incrementally better, it wasn’t revolutionary. And that’s the key thing, right?

“And we were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were making something revolutionary, y’know what I mean?”

So, what happened? According to Alavi, it was a combination of the multiplayer team having issues making an experience that didn’t burn players out quickly, and the explosion of the Battle Royale genre with the release of PUBG in 2017.

“The multiplayer team was having a hell of a time trying to fix the multiplayer, because a lot of people love the multiplayer. People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer,” Alavi said.

“But the people who love Titanfall 2 multiplayer is a very small number of people. And most people play Titanfall 2 multiplayer and think it’s really good, but it’s just too much. It’s cranked up to 11, and they burn out a bit fast. And they’re like, ‘That was a great multiplayer, that’s not something I continually play a year, two years,’ right?

“So we were trying to fix that. We were trying to fix that from Titanfall 1 to 2, trying to fix it from Titanfall 2 to 3, the multiplayer team was just dying.

“And then PUBG came out.”

Respawn developers were seemingly more interested in playing a Battle Royale map with Titanfall 3 classes the team had put together, than any of the standard Titanfall multiplayer modes they were working on. This prompted a realisation: ditch Titanfall 3, which may or may not have ended up a better game than its predecessor, to create a Battle Royale that was wonderful.

“And at the time, I had just literally become [the] narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3. I had just pitched the story, the whole game, that me and Manny [Hagopian] had come up with. We made this big presentation and then we went off at break, and came back from break, and we talked about it and we were like, ‘Yeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game.’

“We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves ’cause we were like, ‘We can make this game, and it’s going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.’

“And don’t get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall. I love that game. Titanfall 2 is my most crowning achievement, but it was the right call. That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didn’t even know about it for another six months until we had a prototype up and running that we could show them!”

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Gearbox development chief Randy Pitchford has insisted the decision to release Borderlands 4 earlier than planned had nothing to do with any other game’s release date, amid speculation the shooter might have moved due to games such as Marathon or Grand Theft Auto 6.

Co-op focused FPS Borderlands 4 was due out September 23, but will now release on September 12 across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch 2.

This 11-day shift sparked speculation that GTA 6’s release date had come into focus and that parent company Take-Two, which also owns GTA developer Rockstar, had shuffled its pack in a bid to give Borderlands 4 more breathing room. GTA 6 is currently still down to launch in the fall of 2025.

There was also talk that Borderlands 4 might have moved due to a clash with Bungie’s Marathon, a co-op focused extraction shooter. Marathon is a crucial game for Bungie, which is owned by Sony, and was set to go up against Borderlands 4 by releasing on the same day, September 23, 2025. Borderlands 4 is getting its own PlayStation State of Play broadcast today, April 30, at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 11pm CEST.

But in a tweet, Pitchford denied any game’s release date influenced the decision to bring Borderlands 4 forward, insisting it had to do with “confidence” and “development trajectory.”

“Borderlands 4 shipping early is 100% the result of confidence in the game and development trajectory backed by actual tasks and bug find/fix rates,” Pitchford said. “Our decision is literally 0% about any other product’s actual or theoretical launch date.”

While many games have brought their release dates forward, it remains an unusual occurence (delays are more likely). Chris Dring, Editor-In-Chief and Co-Founder of The Game Business, said that if other games' release dates really did have nothing to do with bringing Borderlands 4 forward, then the decision is "a bit odd."

"They’ve gone out with a date," Dring tweeted. "It’s on calendars, market materials, social assets... Put ‘Borderlands 4 release date’ into Google and it still says Sep 23. There’s surely got to be a good commercial reason to shift a date."

In a video message apparently published early yesterday, Pitchford revealed the surprise Borderlands 4 release date news. “Everything is going great, actually,” he said. “In fact, everything is going kind of the best-case scenario. The game is awesome, the team is cooking, and so the launch date for Borderlands 4 is changing. We’re moving it forward. The launch date is now September 12.”

“What?! This never happens you guys! This never happens! We’re moving the launch date forward! You’re gonna get Borderlands 4 earlier!”

It’s worth noting that Borderlands 4 is published by 2K Games, which is owned by Take-Two. Gearbox itself and the Borderlands IP are also owned by Take-Two. Meanwhile, Take-Two is the parent company of GTA developer Rockstar. At a high enough level, right up to CEO Strauss Zelnick, there will be a knowledge of all the company’s games, where they’re at in development, and a desire to give them all the best chance of success.

In an interview with IGN in February, Zelnick said Take-Two is planning its releases to avoid a risk of cannibalization, insisting launch timing is driven by a desire to “respect the consumer's need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next.”

“No, I think we will plan the releases so as not to have that be a problem,” Zelnick said. “And what we found is when you're giving consumers hits, they tend to be interested in pursuing other hits. In other words, I've said this many times, even when the hits aren't ours, they're a good thing for the industry. In this case, we hope that the hits will largely be ours. So we feel really good about it and I think that we will time our releases so as to respect the consumer's need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next.”

Amid all this speculation is of course the prospect that GTA 6 will be delayed either into early winter, or at some point in the first quarter of 2026.

"Look, there's always a risk of slippage and I think as soon as you say words like absolutely, you jinx things," Zelnick responded when IGN asked how confident he was that Rockstar would hit fall 2025 for GTA 6. "So we feel really good about it."

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Nintendo has released a new firmware update for the Switch ahead of the release of the Switch 2.

Nintendo Switch Firmware Update Version 20.0.0 makes a number of key changes to the eight-year-old console in preparation of the launch of its successor, the Switch 2, in June, according to the patch notes released on Nintendo's official website.

Chief among them is the addition of a system transfer to Nintendo Switch 2, which you’ll now find in System Settings. This lets you perform a system transfer from your Switch to Switch 2 using local communication.

If you lose access to your Switch before getting your Switch 2, there is an option to upload system transfer data to a dedicated server which can then be retrieved on your Switch 2.

It’s worth noting that once you’ve done this, the Switch will be initialized to factory settings. Nintendo warned you should only do the transfer if you’ll be able to complete the transfer on Switch 2. Otherwise, just do the system transfer using local communication after you have your Switch 2.

Some Switch owners who intend to sell or trade in their OG console against a Switch 2 are already saying they’ll make use of this system transfer system as they don’t need to hold onto their old consoles to do the transfer. Others are questioning the need for the transfer to trigger a factory reset, and have expressed concern about potentially losing their Switch data on Nintendo’s dedicated server.

Meanwhile, the update changes the appearance of some user icons, which the community has already revealed. Of note here is Donkey Kong’s new icon is the new design from upcoming Switch 2 exclusives Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Kart World.

There's also new icons on the Home menu for Virtual Game Cards and GameShare, both also in anticipation of the launch of Switch 2.

Nintendo Switch Firmware Update Version 20.0.0 patch notes

Ver. 20.0.0 (Released April 29, 2025)

• The following icons for new features have been added to the HOME Menu:
  • Virtual Game Card
    • Purchased Nintendo Switch digital software, DLC, and some free software, are now virtual game cards and displayed in a list in this menu.
    • You can virtually load and eject virtual game cards between up to two Nintendo Switch systems.
    • Virtual game cards can be lent to others in the same Nintendo Account family group. For more information, see Virtual Game Card Guide.
  • GameShare
    • Compatible software can be shared from a Nintendo Switch 2 system to other nearby system(s) to play together.
      • You can only play together via local wireless, and the Nintendo Switch 2 system must initiate GameShare.
      • This feature cannot be used between two Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch – OLED Model and/or Nintendo Switch Lite systems.
• User-Verification Settings has been added under User > User Settings.
  • You can restrict access to the Virtual Game Card menu by requiring entry of a PIN or signing in to your Nintendo Account.
• Online License Settings has been added.
  • When turned on, you can play downloaded software or DLC you've purchased while the system is connected to the internet, even if you don't have the virtual game card loaded.
  • For more information, please refer to the details about the option on the System Settings screen.
• The Nintendo eShop and Nintendo Switch News icon colors on the HOME Menu have been changed.
• Multiple save data can be selected and transferred at once in “Transfer Your Save Data” menu.
• System Transfer to Nintendo Switch 2 has been added under System Settings > System.
  • You can perform a system transfer from your Nintendo Switch to Nintendo Switch 2 using local communication.
    • For users that will lose access to their Nintendo Switch before receiving their Nintendo Switch 2, there is an option to upload system transfer data to a dedicated server which can then be retrieved on their Nintendo Switch 2. After you upload your system transfer data to the dedicated server, the Nintendo Switch system will be initialized to factory settings, so only perform this transfer if you’ll be able to complete the transfer on Nintendo Switch 2.
    • If you want to continue using your Nintendo Switch until you have a Nintendo Switch 2, we recommend completing the system transfer using local communication after you have acquired a Nintendo Switch 2 system.
  • An internet connection and Nintendo Account is required to complete both local and the server-based system transfer service.
  • For more information, see System Transfer from Nintendo Switch to Nintendo Switch 2.
• The appearance of some user icons have been updated.

For detailed information on Nintendo Switch 2, see the Nintendo website.

Note that the use of “Primary Console” has been deprecated with the transition to virtual game cards, and “Pass-enabled console” will be used instead. On a console set as the “Pass-enabled console” for a user, all users on the console can access certain subscriptions or passes for some software. For more information, see How to Set or Change the Pass-Enabled Console for a Nintendo Account.

This is all leading towards the hotly anticipated release of the Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5. Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders went live on April 24, with the price still fixed at $449.99 — and they went about as well as you'd expect. Meanwhile, Nintendo has issued a warning to U.S. customers who applied for a Switch 2 pre-order from the My Nintendo Store, saying release date delivery is not guaranteed due to very high demand.

Check out IGN's Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order guide for more.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Diablo 4 has launched Season 8 and with it kicked off a series of free updates that will, eventually, lead into the action role-playing game’s second expansion, due out at some point in 2026.

But not all is well within Diablo 4’s ravenous core community. It is a player base hungry for significant new features, reworks, and fresh ways to play the near two-year-old game, and it’s not shy about letting Blizzard know how it feels. Yes, Diablo 4 is more than its core community, with a significant number of casual players who just like to blast monsters without too much thought on how they’re doing it. But the foundation of Diablo 4’s community is made up of veteran fans who play week in, week out, fuss over meta builds, and want Blizzard to give them much more to think about.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Diablo 4’s recently released 2025 roadmap — the first Blizzard has released for the game — suffered a backlash. In the wake of the roadmap’s release, Diablo 4’s community expressed concern about what's coming up in 2025, including Season 8, and questioned whether there’s enough new content to keep them coming back.

TV these days offers you a choice of freaky apocalypses. Want to see human society collapse due to deadly mushrooms? Watch The Last of Us. Want to see the world end in a blanket of deadly snow? Watch The Eternaut, Netflix’s gritty and moody adaptation of an influential, nearly 70-year-old Argentine comic book. A thoughtful and twisty take on the post-apocalyptic survival genre, this series makes terrific use of its South American locations to tell a story about people too stubborn to die.

The Eternaut’s doomsday begins when a mysterious snow-like substance that kills anyone who touches it starts falling from the sky in Buenos Aires, a place not exactly known for frosty winters. In less than a day, the city’s population is decimated. One of the few survivors is lumpy, gray-haired, middle-aged Juan Salvo (Ricardo Darin) who puts on a gas mask and a heavy coat and ventures out into the fallen capital, searching for people to save.

The basic concept and approach of The Eternaut should be familiar to fans of The Walking Dead and similar shows. The series’s writer-director-producer Bruno Stagnaro begins the story on day one, documenting a society that rapidly collapses and then just as quickly tries to regroup. This season’s pacing can feel slow, as Stagnaro tells a story that, at times, feels like a minute-by-minute recounting of Juan’s adventures. In the first three episodes especially, there are a lot of scenes of people in darkened rooms, talking about their fears and worrying about their futures. These characters are good enough company, but you’ll need to exercise a little patience early on, as the plot gradually develops.

The Eternaut really comes to life whenever the action moves outside. The images of a broken Buenos Aires – filled with crashed cars and corpses, all covered in snow – are visually striking. The tension heightens dramatically too whenever Juan is out in the streets, encountering other explorers with masks and guns, having to figure out which of them he can trust. In one of the most memorable early scenes, he comes across a group of people huddling in one corner of a crashed commuter train, and he is torn between his instinctive feelings of compassion and the realization that there is no way to save all of them from the snow. These are the kinds of moments that you look for in tales of armageddon: the ones where the heroes wrestle with tough choices, and we wrestle along with them.

By the fourth episode, the true nature of this particular apocalypse becomes clearer, and (no spoilers here) The Eternaut becomes more obviously a science-fiction story. There are more sequences involving special effects – all very polished and impressive – as Juan and his band of survivors find themselves racing through the city, scrambling into makeshift shelters and fighting for their lives.

Where The Eternaut takes place matters, for a couple of reasons. This show is about people who, even before their world turned upside-down, sometimes felt isolated and forgotten, in a country with a rickety infrastructure and a complicated political history. The Argentine setting gives a tried-and-true plot a fresh look and feel. But it also provides a reason why some neighbors might look at each other warily (perhaps due to past unrest), and why there is enough analog technology around to mitigate against power outages. The setting also matters because of the source material, which could be considered one of the first serious graphic novels. Its complex and sophisticated story in comic book form influenced artists worldwide, and it especially inspired Argentinians, who had never seen their own country depicted in a science-fiction epic. It remains an astonishing backdrop in this new, televised form.

You don’t have to be Argentine, though, to be awed by The Eternaut’s depiction of an ordinary city, ravaged by disaster. Juan is an everyman for everybody. What gives this show its juice are all the scenes of him venturing into the unknown, step by wary step, trying to stay alive long enough to make a difference.

The following is a non-spoiler review for six (out of eight) episodes of the second season of The Walking Dead: Dead City, which premieres Sunday, May 4.

Dead City is the most conceptually interesting of The Walking Dead's many offshoots: Uneasy allies Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) take Manhattan, getting tangled up in the fallen metropolis' warring factions and post-apocalyptic conflicts along the way. But the first six episodes of its second season prove why this is also the franchise's most forced and clumsy spinoff. After several key players got off the island in season 1, everyone needs to get shuffled back into Dead City now. And it's not just Maggie, mind you, but people who have no business returning – if you can even make the argument that Maggie herself should be returning.

In case you need a reminder, since it's been nearly two years since the first-season finale: Maggie sold out Negan, leaving him a captive figurehead for The Dama (Lisa Emery) and The Croat's (Željko Ivanek) Big Apple machinations, and returned her son Hershel (Logan Kim) to The Bricks community. With all that in mind, I could certainly feel Dead City strains to reunite the gang in the same zip code. There's nothing smooth or natural about it. This is a show that favors plot over character, so it's threats and blackmail, rather than more internal forms of motivation, that get the chess pieces where they need to be.

There are some wise moves that help treat Season 1's bumps and bruises, while also exploring a great new angle on Hershel. But it ultimately fizzles out under action scenes too dark to comprehend or appreciate, characters' kids constantly getting used as leverage or collateral, and an overall fatigue when it comes to Maggie and Negan's complicated relationship. The original Walking Dead series basically said most everything that needed to be said about the duo's uneasy reconciliation, and one of Season 1's big flaws was that it seemed to ignore the emotional work that brought them to that conclusion.

Dead City is still buckling under this particular trauma bond, but it also does a few things to alleviate the heaviness. Maggie and Negan are no longer on an adventure together – they're separated for most parts of the season, dealing with their own turmoil involving mini-tyrants making rash choices. For Maggie, it's the soldiers of New Babylon, which we discover is a rather fiendish outfit. For Negan, it's the eloquent sadism of Ivanek and Emery's methane-powered Midtown monarchs. The charming psy-ops Negan works on his opressors are more fun to watch than Maggie's constant anger and befuddlement at her New Babylon bullies, so putting distance between our two headliners works way better for the story.

Hershel Rhee, meanwhile, remains an angsty apocalypse teen (the worst sub-category of TV teen) who constantly whines and operates on self-serving levels despite larger, urgent things happening around him. And so we get, for the most part, the worst Hershel in season 2: The one who can never live up to his beloved namesake and has been made a worse character by the burden. But there's a hitch, because he isn't all bad. I mean, there are definitely some terrible teen traits, but with Hershel this season, we get a fascinating mix of Stockholm syndrome and the younger TWD generation's disregard for the pre-zombocalypse world.

Everything adults do on these shows is an effort to reclaim past safety, knowledge, and comfort. But what does that mean to the characters too young to ever know "how things were"? Hershel's story this season allows that question to echo through the concrete canyons of a Manhattan that's been returned to nature (give or take a few dozens walkers). Are the things the grownups are doing for their kids really just for them? Hershell will forever be a polarizing character, but there are a few moments in season 2 where he makes a good point.

Ginny (Mahina Napoleon) on the other hand? No such luck. Her journey here, barring whatever happens in the last two episodes (which weren't made available for this review), is just as flat and ill-fitting as it was in season 1. A couple more episodes could save things, but for six episodes all she gets to be is a sullen side teen who's somehow, still, supposed to morph into Negan's surrogate daughter – even though he has a wife and kid elsewhere who love him. (There's an unintentionally hilarious scene in season 2 regarding Negan's family that feels born out of laziness, relying on TV characters' exceedingly poor communication skills. I think I uttered the words "you gotta be f***ing kidding me.")

New faces this year include Orange is the New Black's Dascha Polanco as hardline New Babylon enforcer Narvaez and Sons of Anarchy's Kim Coates as seedy Manhattan merchant Bruegel. The latter grows tiresome quickly; the former slowly becomes more fun and interesting. New Babylon wants The Croat's methane factory, The Croat and the Dama want to protect what's theirs by convincing the New York gangs to form a united front, and most everyone else plots and schemes for their own individual ends. It's all fine, and we get to explore the dangers and secrets of Central Park this year, but humming in the background is Hershel just sort of loving Manhattan the way it is – all ruined and reclaimed by nature. His story's job – which unfortunately sacrifices our enjoyment of him as a character – is to poke at everyone else's motivations and, maybe even, the viewers' need to see this hellscape become colonized. In the tradition of many, many young people who've come before him (in real life and on TV), Hershel looks forward not back.

With sales this good, your pile of shame's about to become a colossal pillar of discounts. This last-gasp-of-April haul packs a punch across all platforms, whether you’re craving tactical drama, nostalgic chaos, or sprawling open worlds. Let’s cut straight to the gems lighting up the digital shelves this week. It's the usual case of grab 'em before they're goneski.

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro news, today's a day of sombre remembrance for two consoles. 28 years ago, we witnessed the discontinuance of Sega's Game Gear, a battery-guzzling beast that sold 10.62M units and I fondly remember for its Sonic games and extravagant TV Tuner attachment. It's also been 23 years since we bade farewell to the Nintendo 64, which delivered phenomenal four-player action, groundbreaking 3D AAAs, and a highscore of 32.93M units sold. I am not shedding a sentimental tear over it. That's just...Control Stick dust in my eye.

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Andor season 2’s second batch of episodes picks up another year later, swapping out action for some proper tragedy as the rebellion gets too big for either side to control. But as we get closer to reconnecting with the larger Star Wars universe as a whole, Andor keeps proving itself to be a truly unique addition to the galaxy far, far away.

You know, it occurred to me that in the two reviews I've done for Andor so far, I haven’t yet mentioned one of my favorite characters: ISB’s spymaster, Major Partagaz. Partially, it’s because his first name is Lio and I’ve got a thing for regular ass sounding names in sci fi and fantasy (see also: the main character of Dune named Paul), but mostly old Lio is such a calm and incredibly smart presence at the center of the Empire’s counterintelligence operation. He’s also responsible for one of my favorite lines – one of the most representative bits of dialogue in this second chapter.

The line comes in episode 6, when Partagaz assigns the task of keeping watch over the expanding interrogation program, the torturous tactic used on Bix in season 1. When his subordinate says it’s an honor, Partagaz is almost disgusted and reminds the guy to “calibrate his enthusiasm.”

It’s another one of this season's sneakily funny moments, but it’s also important for me in understanding what this second chapter is about. In this scene, it’s ISB Supervisor Hiet treating an assignment with an overabundance of importance. This rebellion is getting too big to track. There are so many threads being pulled together the signal-to-noise ratio is unbearable. But, my guy Lio is smart enough to see it, and happily dresses down an underling whose excitement needs some adjustment.

This second chapter is dedicated to the idea of losing control. There’s a leveling of the playing field that happens here in what amounts to the dog days of this rebellion. Everybody is getting worn down by the scope of the fight as it’s starting to transition into something bigger. The ISB is complaining about arresting so many people they can’t properly ingest all the intel they’re gathering. Meanwhile, Luthen can’t keep track of how many bugs he and Kleya have planted around Coruscant and it’s starting to freak him out. The climactic moments of these three episodes are built around them retrieving a listening device from Sculden’s art collection in full view of several Imperial officers – including the father of the Death Star, Orson Krennic.

That’s also why a story about spycraft and espionage is the perfect vehicle for what Tony Gilroy and company are trying to do with this show. This season is inherently a little less mysterious than the first, simply because we know all these people a little better. The question is shifting from “What are they planning?” to “How are they getting away with it?” and the complications that arise are all to do with not being fully in control.

This does a couple things: Number 1 is that this idea trickles down to every character and every storyline which, like in the first batch of episodes, really pulls together otherwise disparate storylines. We get to watch unconnected groups deal with very similar things. Number 2 is that it slows the proceedings down a little bit, which has a good and a bad side.

First, the good: I think Bix has a wonderfully tough arc in these episodes. Her version of losing control is managing the drug use she turns to in order to get through her nightmares of Dr. Gorst and that awful sonic torture. She’s also getting left behind while Cassian is out on assignments, which is obviously difficult but also a far cry from the place we first met her in season 1. She’s paid a steep price for this rebellion after having been swept up into it in ways that I’m sure she wasn’t planning on a few years ago.

But the real highlight of this batch of episodes I think is getting to meet Ghorman, the planet that’s home to all those spiders and all those sweet underground Death Star minerals. It’s no small thing that its inhabitants speak their own language and are subtitled, either. I love the decision to do that. Their culture is portrayed so thoroughly that it makes what the Empire is doing to them about more than just a show of fascism or the brutal lengths they’re willing to go to. It’s about the tragedy of a rich and distinct society being fed to the machine of the Empire. They’ve even got their own middle finger-style gesture that apparently is beyond the pale for town hall meetings. It’s a great detail on par with good set design or the right costume. It fleshes out this world we’ve never seen before and immediately communicates that these are a people worth acknowledging.

And of course the key to the Ghor’s story in these 3 episodes is that they are not in control of their own destiny. Ghorman is just another battlefield the Rebellion and the Empire are fighting over. That’s what’s so brilliant about how the planet is used as a story point. We now have an emotional tie to this place that’s a symbol for what this whole arc is about: trying to get a handle on this conflict.

It’s a lens through which we see Cassian realize the would-be rebels there aren’t ready – but what can he do about it? We get to see Luthen say he’s willing to sacrifice them if it makes the Empire look bad and inspires rebels elsewhere in the galaxy. We get to see Vel and Cinta trying to manage their own destinies, though ultimately they can’t because of the role the rebellion asks them to take in situations like Ghorman. We get to see the Empire with a plan to just nudge the planet into chaos, which is actually a back-up plan for them in case they can’t find an alternative to the mineral.

Ghorman is stuck in the middle, with little to no agency in how things are playing out, but its people want to try. It’s a perfect story to illustrate the push and pull of the rebellion while also getting us emotionally invested in their survival. And ultimately that’s what Star Wars has always been. Rooting for the rebellion used to be painted with a much broader brush, but it’s never quite been so nuanced and intriguing as what the team behind Andor is doing here.

Syril and Dedra’s relationship also continues to be maybe the most fascinating thing to watch in season 2. Particularly with how clever the writers are about lining Syril up right next to Ghorman. There’s a great scene between Syril, Dedra, and Major Lio where you can see him being set up in exactly the same way Ghorman is. It’s such an insidious thing, taking advantage of Syril’s ambitions. He’s being manipulated by Dedra and the ISB in a way that starts to make me feel properly bad for the guy. And I don’t think Dedra feels great about what she’s having to do either. Regardless, the situation is out of their hands.

Meanwhile in the senate, Mon is losing control as well. There’s a great montage of her failing at the politics of it all while her fellow senators won’t budge because they’re afraid of an Imperial reaction. Mon’s effectiveness is waning even in how she presents as a troublesome but ultimately harmless senator. Her line about “are we finding criminals or making them?” is very good. It’s her trying to more directly and openly stand up to the Empire and it’s proving to work less than the more casual obstructionist thing that she had been doing.

The only guy in this arc who’s really not stressing about being in control is Saw Guerra. Where the dramatic irony of his character is concerned – the fact that we see him get blown up along with the rest of Jedha in Rogue One – he’s a guy that’s absolutely thriving in this environment. It’s a great touch to have one character be very aware and very okay with the fact that this will not end well for him. You need that contrast in telling this story. The point of Andor is to largely avoid being as cut-and-dried, good-versus-evil as the original Star Wars, to dig into the gray areas and the infighting that emerge when organizing a revolution.

Having said that, you also need the contrast of this storyline. Saw’s part in this batch of episodes is the one that feels most like a bit of business leading into Rogue One. We don’t learn anything new about Saw, and the way he radicalizes Wilmon doesn’t push the character too much farther from where he already was. Seeing them at D’Qar, a location we know from The Force Awakens, was an Easter egg that threw me a little. I feel like Andor is so devoid of that sort of thing that those grass covered hangers pulled me out of the episode. I mean, it’s not like Yoda showed up out of nowhere, thank the maker, so they’re keeping those larger franchise connections to a minimum.

So as I mentioned up front, there’s some positive to pumping the breaks a little with these three episodes, but there is also something I think I might be missing: Some good old-fashioned Star Wars action sequences. We got a little bit in chapter 1, with Cassian stealing the TIE Fighter and the fleeing the farming planet. But six episodes in and we don’t have anything quite as thrilling as Luthen evading the Empire like he did in the first season, or the heist and escape through the Eye of Aldhani.

But regular thrills and chills are not what Andor is about, very much by design. This is the forgotten side of the rebellion. The side that won’t get a medal on stage in front of the whole squad and that we as an audience aren’t as familiar with. So in that respect it shouldn’t look like the Star Wars that we’ve known since the ’70s. This is a show about smaller wins that have bigger implications.

Yet there’s a side of me that needed a little more action out of these episodes. Admittedly, I could very well be wrong, but it feels a little strange to end the week with Kleya struggling to remove a microphone from an ancient stone book. As tragic as Cinta’s death was, the very deserved thrashing that Vel gives to the Ghorman rebel who killed her is undercut a bit by Luthen and Kleya laughing on their way out of the party. And I was very excited for Bix to get her revenge on Dr. Gorst, because I’m both invested in her as a character and it’s a wonderful little bookend to the idea of taking a certain amount of control back at the end of this arc. Still, episode 6 wraps up in a fairly uneven way.

Cassian and Bix get to walk away from an explosion, which is nearly always cool, though, so that’s at least something. But if I need more action out of this series in particular, it’s probably time to calibrate my enthusiasm.

With May the Fourth fast approaching, otherwise known as Star Wars Day, there's no better time than now to pick up some new goodies to transport you to a galaxy far, far away. If you're a fan of puzzles there are plenty of different Star Wars-themed options to choose from, whether you're an experienced puzzler or looking for a smaller, simpler option to complete with the whole family.

In this list we've gathered up just a few of our favorite Star Wars puzzles that are worth dropping some money on in 2025. These include a couple of exciting 3D builds for those who love a challenge as well as more standard jigsaw puzzles that create a lovely final image that's worth putting up on a wall. Some of these puzzles are even on sale right now, so there's no better time to add them to your shopping cart. Many of them even come from some of our favorite puzzle brands, so you know they're worth the investment.

The Best Star Wars Puzzles to Buy in 2025

Buffalo Games Star Wars 'You Were The Chosen One' Jigsaw Puzzle (2000 Pieces)

Best Puzzle for Adults

For a limited time, Amazon is offering the 7th generation Apple iPad Air M3 tablets at the lowest prices I've seen so far. The 11" model is down to $499 and the 13" model is down to $699, both after a $100 off instant discount. That's the best price we've seen for this 2025 model with the M3 chip and a wonderful gift idea for Mother's Day, which lands on May 11.

New 2025 Apple iPad Air M3 Tablet From $499

Fans hoping to catch the first few episodes of Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld will have to drop into Fortnite if they want to watch the series before it comes to Disney+.

Epic Games unveiled how it will expand upon its existing Star Wars offerings today, revealing that the upcoming animated spinoff’s first two episodes will premiere exclusively through Fortnite. It’s part of the studio’s efforts to double down on Star Wars content for its upcoming Galactic Battle season, which focuses on delivering Star Wars-themed goodies.

You’ll be able to see Tales of the Underworld kick off with two episodes starring Asajj Ventress via the Star Wars Watch Party island starting at 10 a.m. ET on May 2 – two days before the show comes to Disney+ subscribers. Epic encourages fans to link their Epic Games and MyDisney accounts, too, with eligible players being gifted a First Order Stormtrooper outfit in return. It’s unclear how else connecting the accounts will benefit those who participate, though Epic teases that there are “more benefits to come.”

“Disney and Epic are pioneering the future of social entertainment together, and this expansive Star Wars collaboration offers a glimpse into the type of interactive experiences we envision,” Epic Games President Adam Sussman said in a statement. “We are reimagining what’s possible with immersive storytelling in Fortnite with one of the world’s most beloved franchises - stay tuned for a lot more to come.”

You’ll have until May 11 to watch both Tales of the Underworld episodes, at which point Star Wars Watch Party island will no longer be live. It will also feature a Battle Arena for players to duke it out as they use lightsabers to cut down waves of enemies. Those who watch both episodes will earn an Asajj Ventress loading screen.

Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld is a six-episode series animated in the style of The Clone Wars that follows Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane. An official description for the show teases that the former will find herself face to face with a new chance at life and a new ally, while the latter is forced to confront his past.

Disney’s ties with Fortnite extend far past its upcoming Galactic Battle season. The House of Mouse acquired a $1.5 billion stake in Epic in March 2024, positioning itself to collaborate with the game developer for many years to come. It was a move that will see the two powerhouses working together in more ways than one while also resulting in the addition of more Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar outfits in the hit battle royale video game. Some highlights from its next season including Darth Jar Jar and Emperor Palpatine.

Fortnite has continued to dominate the space since its launch in 2017. Other recent collaborations have helped it maintain its status, including a Sabrina Carpenter crossover that had players putting down the pickaxes and putting on their dancing shoes.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Fans of the Alien and Predator franchises have a lot to look forward to in 2025. Not only are we getting two new Predator films from Prey director Dan Trachtenberg with the live-action Predator: Badlands and the animated Hulu offering Predator: Killer of Killers, but we’re also set to receive another major entry in the Alien universe from Fargo and Legion showrunner Noah Hawley with the FX show Alien: Earth. Although these projects are not officially connected yet, fans know that Alien and Predator have a long history as part of a shared universe, with the two iconic monsters crossing paths in numerous films, comic books, and video games.

Examining the latest promotional materials for Predator: Badlands and Alien: Earth may provide clues that Disney is laying the groundwork for a new crossover between Alien and Predator. Let’s take a closer look at the developments in these franchises and why we might see AVP return to the big screen sooner rather than later.

Evil Easter Eggs

The first teaser trailer for Predator: Badlands already made some fans wonder if a new Alien vs. Predator was on its way. The trailer revealed that Elle Fanning will be playing a Weyland-Yutani synthetic who has a connection to a new Predator named Dek, who Trachtenberg confirmed will be the film’s protagonist. Although a Weyland-Yutani android being an important figure in a Predator film doesn’t necessarily mean the film is setting up a major Alien crossover–the two franchises have long since cross-pollinated enough where this reveal isn’t a huge shift in the status quo–it does take on greater significance now that we’ve received new promotional videos for Alien: Earth.

In the Gestation Complete teaser, there are multiple Easter eggs relating to Alien lore. We see the black liquid mutagen from the opening of Prometheus that is used to seed life on Earth by the Engineers. This eventually leads to an egg sac that looks remarkably similar to one attached to a wall in Alien: Romulus. Although the creature that spills out of it resembles a facehugger in shape, it appears to be mutated in new ways. This specimen is revealed to be contained on a ship resembling the Nostromo from the original film, although this vessel is called the Maginot. The creature is designated “Species 37” (a Mass Effect reference?!) and marked as having unknown DNA by the ship’s computer, MU-TH-UR. Since we know the show takes place two years prior to Alien in the series’ timeline, this indicates that Species 37 was what clued Weyland-Yutani into the Xenomorphs in the first place, since the Nostromo’s MU-TH-UR and Ash knew what it was before they landed on LV-426.

A related teaser called Crate features specimen containers, with a narrator stating that the ship “collected five different life forms from the darkest corners of the universe,” and that each one is a unique species. Although a classic Xenomorph crawls over the central crate, the fact that we’re getting five different species means the show appears to be expanding the roster of alien creatures in this universe by a wide margin. Could one of them be related to the Predators? That would certainly track with Badlands being set on an alien world where the lead Predator Dek seems to be hunting extraterrestrial monstrosities. Perhaps Elle Fanning’s android was searching for some of the specimens featured in the show? Or maybe one of these monsters will mutate into something we’ll see in Badlands or Killer of Killers. We won’t know for sure until it premieres, but we wouldn’t be surprised if there’s Predator DNA somewhere in Alien: Earth.

Alien and Predator’s Long, Intertwined History

Alien and Predator have been part of the same world for longer than you might remember. Although the first AVP film was released in 2004, the two space monsters first clashed in a 1989 Dark Horse comic series called Aliens vs. Predator. Predator 2, released the next year in 1990, famously featured an Easter egg referencing Alien by including a Xenomorph skull on the trophy wall of the Predator’s ship. Many other AVP comics and video games were released throughout the ‘90s, cementing the idea of these two creatures having a shared universe long before that idea was popularized in the mainstream by the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

However, they may have gotten to the trend too early. Although there were two AVP films released in the 2000s, Paul W. S. Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator in 2004 and The Brothers Strause’s Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem in 2007, the series failed to catch on because of poor critical and audience reception (even though they made money at the box office). Although serialized superhero and science-fiction blockbusters were starting to take over the world at the time in large part because of a series of trends set in place by the Star Wars prequel trilogy, not every franchise in the genre space was given the love and care it needed to last long term. AVP was treated as a B-tier property by 20th Century Fox even though both Alien and Predator had excellent films to their names in the past.

Ridley Scott’s original Alien is one of the greatest horror films ever made, James Cameron’s Aliens is among the most iconic movie sequels, and John McTiernan’s original Predator is one of the best action films of the 1980s. Now, we’re not saying AVP needed to aim for an Oscar (or are we?), but few would argue that the two films we received stood up with the best the individual franchises had to offer. The 2010s only made the situation worse with Ridley Scott’s Prometheus series never getting a third entry after the commercial disappointment of Alien: Covenant, and Shane Black’s attempt to rejuvenate the Predator franchise with The Predator falling flat on its face. But after the success of Prey in 2022 and Alien: Romulus in 2024, Alien and Predator have seen their fortunes turn around.

And now that we’ve seen teases of their upcoming projects, the idea of a new AVP seems closer than ever.

Converging for Carnage

We also have to keep in mind that a sequel to Alien: Romulus is currently in development, and that director Fede Álvarez is not just attached to return for that film, but has also outright stated he would be interested in directing an Alien vs. Predator film. Romulus was a big critical and commercial success for Disney, relaunching the franchise after the Prometheus series fell apart while still keeping that part of the brand alive with the Engineer-alike monster in the third act. Cailee Spaeny’s Rain Carradine and David Jonsson’s Andy are currently in stasis heading to Yvaga III, with a direct sequel presumably picking up with those two and their continued voyage in the dark reaches of space. But with Badlands also set in the stars, could we see some cameos or Easter eggs in that film hinting at a Romulus connection?

In fact, Álvarez recently said that the best way to do an Alien vs. Predator movie would be to have it be a surprise to audiences:

“The best AVP will be the one that you don’t know is AVP until the other guy shows up,” the filmmaker recently told Collider. “You think you’re watching a Predator movie, and then they land in some place and there are creatures, and fucking hell, it’s a Xenomorph. That would get me. … Or vice versa, you’re in an Alien movie, and then suddenly a mysterious creature is there, and you can hear that sound, and you see the cloak, and you go, ‘Is that a fucking Predator?’”

Álvarez coming across excited by the idea of AVP gives us hope that a new take on the mash-up will succeed where the previous ones fell short. Setting both of those films on a contemporary Earth limited their scope considerably, and they struggled to get the audience invested in any of their two-dimensional characters. The films were so rejected by the fanbase that an AVP relaunch could throw those movies out of continuity without any hassles and start over with a clean slate. With Badlands switching up the Predator formula by casting a Predator as the lead character, perhaps Dek (provided he survives Badlands) could be the main hero of a new AVP. As well, another entry in the crossover series could finally expand on the Predalien concept introduced in those films. Maybe some Engineer mutagen could create a being that’s part Alien, part Predator, and part Engineer? Now that would be terrifying.

Whatever happens with all of these upcoming projects, both Alien and Predator are in a much healthier state now than they have been in years. Yet that also means that the idea of making a proper crossover film between the two almost certainly has to be on Disney’s radar, especially since an Alien vs. Predator match-up is just about the biggest “event” you can get within this franchise. With cinematic universes and cross-medium integration more popular than ever, a new AVP feels more like a question of when instead of if. Especially with talented filmmakers like Álvarez and Trachtenberg now associated with the property, perhaps these two iconic monsters will finally get the big screen battle they so rightly deserve.

Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.

Note: This review specifically covers the multiplayer mode of Tempest Rising. For thoughts on the story mode, check out the Tempest Rising single-player campaign review.

The problem with Tempest Rising's multiplayer is that while it's perfectly competent at recreating a slice of the old Command & Conquer multiplayer with a pair of new and interesting factions, it's just that: a slice, rather than the whole pie. With only two factions, nine maps, and the most basic of options for customizing its two or four-player matches, just about everything here screams "minimum viable product." Combine that with the fact that Tempest Rising doesn’t aspire to be anything more than a revival of C&C’s gameplay, and there's not a tremendous amount to get excited about. It may well expand over time – such as whenever the Veti faction arrives – but like a vehicle factory that's only half built, it won't be super useful until you're certain you'll have enough harvested Tempest in the bank to complete it.

I could try to comment on unit balance, but like with any fresh-out-of-the-gate multiplayer game, anything I say will almost certainly soon be obsolete. My anecdotal experiences with the community's apparent preference for GDF over Dynasty, probably thanks to their self-replenishing drone swarms, is likely to either be nerfed in a patch within a week or proven completely wrong. Soon, I'm sure someone way smarter than I am will figure out a devastating counter that reduces the seemingly unbeatable (and admittedly pretty cool) strategy of loading Skycrane transport helios with drone operating infantry to automatically barrage anything in range to a garbage-tier strategy for fools.

So I'll leave that to the folks who are busily hashing out the best build orders and counter strategies for the unique characteristics of each faction, which are mostly remixes of C&C ideas with a few twists to get a hang of. I’m a big fan of the Dynasty’s Scrap Trucks, which let you quickly unfold a vehicle-repairing turret anywhere on the map and start plopping down structures that you can pre-construct at your con yard. Naturally, there's no end to the opportunities for showing off your micromanagement skills by deftly controlling the transforming Trebuchet tanks, picking targets for your long-range artillery and airborne units to clear the way for flamethrowers and armor, activating special abilities to disable groups of enemies and leaving them vulnerable, laying mines, scouting, calling in support abilities, etc. – all while building and protecting your own resource economy and climbing the tech tree.

Because of Tempest Rising's retro style and adherence to time-tested tech trees I've found it instantly familiar and easy to slip back into old habits; I've been enjoying going back to the classic engineer-rush where I steal the enemy's construction yard out from under their noses while a handful of infantry distracts them from the opposite flank. (That'll only work for a short while after launch, so I'm getting that trollish thrill while I can.) If it worked in C&C, it'll probably work here.

There are a few features that feel like they're built almost exclusively for the hyper-competitive set, such as the Doctrine tech tree that invites you to dump thousands of precious Tempest credits into upgrades that, for the most part, don't get all that good until you're several tiers deep. Boosting my infantry health by 15%, for instance, doesn't seem all that worth it until I have a lot of infantry in play (as opposed to building more infantry). At my skill level – and probably that of most people who aren't hardcore players – the vast majority of my games thus far haven't lasted long enough to build up the kind of excess cash I'd need to invest in that sort of thing, with most of them wrapping up before the 15-minute mark. But I'm sure that plenty of people will find uses for these to get the upper hand with specific builds, so it's good to know there's more depth to be mined if you put in the time to train up.

However, if you are a competitive player looking for your next RTS fix, know that Tempest Rising doesn't have a ton for you to play with at the moment. For one thing, if you play ranked, there are only 1v1 matches available. Even if there were 2v2 ranked matches (it's actively being worked on, the developers promise), there would only be three maps available that support four players in teams or free-for-all. 1v1 isn't much better in that regard, with just six options. Combine that with there only being two factions until whenever the Veti expansion comes along – which could be a while given the lack of a published timeline – and it feels pretty slim compared to a lot of the games that inspired it.

There's nothing wrong with the maps that are here – each is a symmetrical layout with areas of high and low elevation, plenty of bottlenecks and alternate routes, all dotted with capturable neutral structures that can give you a "free" (for the cost of an engineer) foothold to build defenses and forward production off of, as well as a few that generate resources. It's simply that there's nothing unexpected – good or bad – at all, and that gives it a very bog-standard feeling. It’s hard to make the argument that Tempest Rising has gone for quality over quantity when there are no big standouts.

Infinity Nikki and its multiplayer-focused 1.5 update are out on Steam and a parade of drama is walking hand in hand with them.

Infold Games’ stylish dress-up adventure made its way to Valve’s digital storefront yesterday following months of Epic Game Store exclusivity. What could have been a moment for fans to celebrate has instead been marred by a wardrobe of technical issues, perplexing design changes, and demanding outfit requirements. The developers have since apologized while promising compensation for those who feel wronged – but the battle for Infinity Nikki is far from over.

Infinity Nikki PC players were excited to hop into its Steam release yesterday but were met with technical issues that range from an inability to launch the game due to crashes and general instability. Infold’s darling dress-up game is far from the first project to suffer from technical issues at launch, but as players began to flood in, they took issue with more than its performance.

Two new five-star Infinity Nikki outfits, Snowbound Ballad and Undying Ember, contain 11 pieces, meaning you’ll be spending quite a bit of time (up to 220 pulls) – and money – to collect full sets. It’s more than the usual size players are used to, and it arrived without warning. The fear is that these outfit piece requirements will only increase past the already big ask associated with collecting 11 pieces.

Meanwhile, Infold moved to swiftly extend its Crown of Miraland: Peak Arena event to last three weeks instead of two, a shakeup that sent a wave of confusion through the community. With technical issues abound and Infold slowly implementing monetization practices that demand more from its fans, members of the Infinity Nikki Chinese player base took to social media platform RedNote to speak up as the issue quickly ballooned into a full-on movement. Now, large portions of its community across the globe are calling on others to not only boycott Infinity Nikki on Steam but also leave negative reviews and uninstall it on all available platforms.

“What I am reminding people of is a decent amount of Chinese IN stylists pledging to not spend/pull on the banners to send a message to the digital income trackers for the game,” Reddit user kiaxxl said in a call-to-action post they published earlier today. “For gacha games, tracking how successful a new batch of content is usually measured on the first few days. Holding back your pulls for a couple of days can help show we want IN to remain fun and fair for all players.”

Infinity Nikki users across social media have taken note of Infold’s strategic changes, and there have been results. It currently sits with a “Mixed” rating on Steam as players leave negative reviews warning newcomers to stay away until demands are met and grievances are addressed.

The Infinity Nikki boycott snowballed to the point that Infold eventually moved to issue an apology letter across its official channels. It comes with the reassurance that many of the more prominent technical hiccups have already been addressed as the company promises to improve communication about adjustments in the future.

“Thank you again for your support,” Infold’s message says. “We know we still have shortcomings, but it’s because of your companionship that Nikki can keep pushing the boundaries of imagination. Please give us another chance to let Nikki’s starlight continue shining for all of us, ensuring our sincerity never fades.”

Apology Letter Regarding Version 1.5 Gaming Experience

Dear Stylists,
Hope this message finds you well.
First and foremost, we would like to extend our sincerest apologies. We are truly sorry that we were unable to provide you with a stable experience upon the release of the new… pic.twitter.com/YEjpGQpKho

— Infinity Nikki (@InfinityNikkiEN) April 29, 2025

Included in the message were promises to revert Mira Crown to end May 16 and kick off the next season the same day, while also ensuring players will receive compensation in the form of 10 Revelation Crystals, 10 Resonance Crystals, and 1200 Diamonds. It’s all an important step in the right direction but far from the complete overhaul many were hoping to see.

While some took Infold’s concession as an undisputed victory, others remain concerned about the team’s decision to keep its new outfits at 11 pieces. What’s more, while the studio has promised to maintain communication in the future, it appears as though some five-star outfits will still reach that dreaded 11-part requirement.

I wish you would finally chance the drop rate.. it cant be that i need 200 pulls to get a 5star and then you drop like 5 banners within weeks?! Make the rate lower or give us more diamonds to be able to get crystals.. this is not fun!

— Denise92 (@nikkie92denise) April 29, 2025

Infinity Nikki stylists have already started celebrating the quick turnaround they undeniably had a hand in bringing to life, even if it isn’t exactly the win they were hoping for. Boycotters want one thing from the rest of the community now that some changes are being made: keep up the pressure.

“Think about it: CN players are pointing out that if we accept the 11-piece outfits and pity as it is, most new 5 stars will be 11 pieces,” Reddit user EdensAsmr said. “Imagine if every new major update has two 11-piece 5-star banners? That means you have to save even more to be able to handle it, and 70-80 pulls per patch will not cut it.”

Infinity Nikki Update 1.5 is live now, and we’ve got all the details you need to know in our Infinity Nikki 1.5 Bubble Season hub. Players can get 100 pulls for free, and there are also new codes that can be redeemed for rewards, including Resonance Crystals and Diamonds. If you’re exploring the new Sea of Stars area, head to our Infinity Nikki interactive map, where you can track your exact progress with checklists.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Season 3 is continuing its line of weed-themed additions with a full-on Seth Rogen Operator.

Activision unveiled how the marijuana enthusiast and Hollywood star will join the iconic FPS’s string of cameo characters in a blog post on its website today. He’ll bring his memorable laughs and colorful attire to Call of Duty players as part of the High Art event pass, which is set to roll into Black Ops 6 Season 3 Reloaded come May 1.

High Art is available from May 1 – 15 and has two tiers: one free and one premium. You’ll miss out on the Rogen Operator if you stick with the free pass, which comes with seven goodies that pay homage to pot in different ways, including a Casual Ops Operator skin. The premium pass, meanwhile, is packed with references to The Studio and Superbad star, with both the Fired Up and Host Rogen Operator skins being its biggest highlights. There’s also the “Ha!” emote, which suggests players will be able to bring the moviemaker’s iconic giggle to both Multiplayer and Warzone.

Walmart is currently offering the lowest price I've seen this year for a 75" Samsung 4K smart TV. Right now you can pick up a 75" Samsung DU7200B Crystal 4K smart TV for only $399 shipped (you'll see the price when you add the TV to your cart). It's sold and shipped by Walmart direct, not a marketplace vendor, so it comes with a 1-year Samsung warranty.

75" Samsung DU7200B Crystal 4K Smart TV for $399

In addition to the roughly 100 job cuts IGN reported earlier today at Respawn Entertainment, EA has made wider cuts across its organization today, impacting around 300 individuals total including those already reported at Respawn.

IGN understands that these wider cuts largely impacted EA's Experiences team, which includes groups such as EA's Fan Care team and various others working on customer support and marketing, though other EA departments saw reductions as well. As with other cuts at EA, those impacted will be given the opportunity to apply for other roles internally prior to being let go.

"As part of our continued focus on our long-term strategic priorities, we’ve made select changes within our organization that more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth," an EA spokesperson said in an official statement.

"We are treating our people with care and respect throughout this process, working to minimize impacts by helping affected employees explore new opportunities within the company when possible and providing support during the transition."

The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other of which was, per Bloomberg's reporting, a new Titanfall game.

These cuts follow a number of other layoffs over the last few years at EA, including the elimination of 50 jobs at BioWare in 2023 and an unknown number more at Codemasters, and in 2024 a larger restructuring that resulted in 670 workers laid off company-wide, including around two dozen workers at Respawn.. And earlier this year, EA restructured BioWare, moving developers to other projects and laying off others.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Here's your best opportunity to sign up for an Audible membership at a stellar price. Starting now and running through April 30, you can sign up for three months of Audible Premium Plus for just $0.99 per month. Premium Plus is Audible's highest tier plan and normally costs $14.95/mo. As a additional subscription perk, you get a free audiobook of your choice for each of those three months and you get to keep them indefinitely.

Both new and currently expired Audible customers are eligible

Anyone who doesn't currently have an active Audible membership should be eligible. That includes new subscribers as well as existing members whose subscriptions have since expired. There's always a small your-mileage-may-vary disclaimer with these types of promotions, but fortunately it's easy to check if you qualify: log into your account, and if you see the $0.99/mo banner right on Amazon's Audible page then you're eligible for this promotion.

3 Months of Audible Premium Plus for $0.99 per Month

Diablo 4 Season 8 gives us our first true look at one of the franchise’s Great Evils, as Belial, Lord of Lies, descends on Sanctuary and takes his place at the top rung of the revamped Boss Ladder. Lay claim to his and other seasonal Boss Powers by traversing the world and defeating Hell’s greatest threats. Blizzard has thrown down the gauntlet with this new season, increasing difficulty across the board while tamping down top-end outliers. To combat this, IGN and Maxroll have teamed up to bring you a fresh set of guides to help you claim the immeasurable power of Diablo IV’s toughest enemies and fight back against the demonic hordes.

Diablo 4 Seasonal Theme: Boss Powers

Season 8 allows you to harness the powers of Diablo IV’s toughest foes. There are 24 Boss Powers available, and the first time you defeat each of these Bosses, you claim their power for yourself.

Boss Powers each have a Main and Modifier effect to boost your build. You can equip 1 Main Power and 3 Modifiers, and all powers can be upgraded to increase the potency of both effects. Use ‍Spectral Ash to upgrade them, dropped from Apparition Incursions and by defeating any Boss.

Apparition Incursions

The new seasonal mechanic, Apparition Incursions, is available at any difficulty level, and gives you the opportunity to unlock a subset of the available Boss Powers very early on. Various Apparition Monsters appear in these timed boss rush events throughout Sanctuary. Defeating these monsters spawns 1 of 10 possible Apparition Bosses and defeating them grants you their Boss Power.

After defeating the first Boss, continue the event for a chance to fight a second Apparition Boss, after which Belial himself joins the fray.

Reworked Diablo 4 Boss Ladder

Beginning in Torment difficulty, you can now challenge Diablo IV’s Boss Ladder without collecting any prerequisite materials. This means you can claim the remaining Boss Powers as soon as you’re strong enough. The items previously used as summoning materials have been rebranded as Lair Boss Keys, and instead unlock a chest after defeating each boss to grant the associated Uniques and Mythic Uniques. Stygian Stones make their return in Season 8 with a new functionality. Namely, they can be converted into Lair Boss Keys for Greater Lair Boss (Duriel, Andariel, and Harbinger of Hatred).

When any Initiate or Greater Boss Hoard is unlocked, there is a chance for an apparition of Belial to ambush the player. Defeating this “mini-Belial” rewards the player with a second instance of that Lair Boss’s loot, as well as Betrayer’s Husks, the Lair Boss Key for Belial. Belial’s Loot table is special in its own right: though you won’t be afforded a chance to double it, you can select rewards from any other Lair Boss’s Hoard upon his defeat.

New Diablo 4 Lair Bosses

You may have noticed some new but familiar faces in the infographic above. While Belial sits atop the Boss ladder as the sole Exalted Lair Boss, two more Bosses from Diablo IV’s Vessel of Hatred expansion slot as a new Initiate and Greater Lair Boss.

Urivar

Urivar can be found in the Fields of Judgement in Nahantu. Wielding ethereal swords and calling on his formidable Knights Penitent, this formidable commander is not to be trifled with! For more info on Urivar’s location, loot table, and abilities, check out Maxroll’s Urivar Boss Guide.

Harbinger of Hatred

This demonic doggo makes his den in the Lingering Hatred region of Nahantu, and channels Mephisto’s dark energy to lunge, bite, and spew fire in an attempt to thwart any would-be adversary. Be wary of his many ground effects and next of kin. For tips to overcome the ladder’s newest Greater Boss, see Maxroll’s Harbinger of Hatred Boss Guide.

The Best Diablo 4 Season 8 Leveling Builds

Barbarian - Upheaval

The newest skill added to the Barbarian’s arsenal, Upheaval provides screen-clearing AoE on a short delay, as do its Cooldown-based counterparts in Ground Stomp and Mighty Throw. As early game Fury generation is the Upheaval Barbarian’s nemesis, it employs Leap and Aspect of the Relentless Master along with the Walking Arsenal Key Passive to stay in the fight.

Druid - Lightning Storm

The Lightning Storm Druid is by far the easiest Druid build to get off the ground. With relatively low Spirit costs and no real dependency on Codex aspects, its screen-wide AoE is excellent at most farming activities. It employs the full suite of Companions for their strong early game damage and to leverage the Clarity passive. Given time to set up, this passive allows the build to channel at near-max Critical Strike Chance from a very low level.

Necromancer - Minion

Minion Necromancer is one of the most simple and efficient leveling builds to gear and play. With your Minions carrying the majority of the weight, you can comfortably level up with ease. During the early levels you use Sever to aid your undead forces, but later you lead an army of Skeletal Warrior Reapers and Cold Skeletal Mages to victory across Sanctuary.

Rogue - Dance of Knives

Do you want to easily Spin2Win to Torment 1 and beyond? Then this is the build for you. This ‍Dance of Knives build does not need to manage Energy, nor does it rely on any aspects. You utilize the power of snapshotting ‍Concealment and ‍Shadow Imbuement to scale your ‍Dance of Knives. Dark Shroud handles your defenses while leveling, and provides a nice Movement Speed bonus.

Sorcerer - Firewall

Lure enemies into your Firewalls to burn them to death. Combine this with powerful Conjuration skills like Familiar and Hydra for supporting fire, and Spark to restore mana and you have a well-rounded offensive package. Defensively, you use Ice Armor while Teleporting across the battlefield to avoid damage. Keep moving and watch enemies burn to death in your wake.

Spiritborn - Quill Volley

Quill Volley Spiritborn is a ranged powerhouse. You fire several feathers that fan out while being able to shotgun enemies at close range, creating a superb mix of AoE and single target damage. Add in the Rebounding Aspect to hit enemies up to 16 times in a single attack! Between Soar, Rushing Claw and the Seeker this build has mobility for days, ensuring you’ll be in endgame in no time.

The Best Diablo 4 Season 8 Endgame Builds

Barbarian - Earthquake

Play HotA Quake with Mantle of the Mountain’s Fury to smash your enemies so hard the world itself shatters around you! Leap onto foes, unleash devastating ground stomps and even use Call of the Ancients to summon your ancestors to aid you in battle. If you are looking for a build that prefers to be in a target-rich environment, then Earthquake Barbarian is the build for you in Season 8.

Druid - Cataclysm

Even after a myriad of nerfs, the Cataclysm Druid returns as the top option for Druids in Season 8. As it can no longer maintain snapshotted buffs through successive casts, the build instead relies on the Provocation passive to guarantee overpowers on a per-cast basis. It recovers the Critical Strike Chance lost from the Xan rune through gear tempers, runes, and Boss Powers. Despite the setbacks, it’s still capable of clearing most endgame content before you even notice the mobs are there.

Necromancer - Blood Wave / Bone Spear

With two of the top builds across all classes, Necromancer is an incredibly strong choice for Season 8. Blood Wave or “Shadow Surfer” fills the screen with Blood and Darkness using AoE moves that cover the entire screen in devastation. Alternatively, as a Bone Spear Necromancer you impale your foes with massive spears of blood thanks to Indra’s Memory. Place your enemies in a Bone Prison to guarantee an Overpower from the Bone Duster’s Aspect for even more damage. So, whether you prefer Shadow Surfer or Bone Spear, you can’t go wrong with Necromancer in the Season of Belial’s Return!

Rogue - Death Trap

Stack Cooldown Reduction to spam the Rogue’s powerful Death Trap Ultimate Skill and deal huge damage to anything caught in the blast. Then watch as your Death Trap re-arms itself to fire again thanks to the Eyes in the Dark Unique Pants. This build has been a rogue staple since the release of Diablo 4 and it’s still going strong.

Sorcerer - Lightning Spear

Summon Spears of living Lightning, use the Aspect of Splintering energy to ride the lightning and deal massive damage. Then activate Unstable Currents to spawn even more Lightning Spears. This build scales well into the late game, benefiting from Mythic Uniques like Heir of Perdition and Ring of Starless Skies.

Spiritborn - Quill Volley

The endgame Quill Volley Spiritborn build rapidly fires shotgunning feathers to deal with both groups of foes and dangerous bosses. Harmony of Ebewaka enables a massive damage bonus by combining the Gorilla and Jaguar Spirit Halls. With Rod of Kepeleke and Ring of the Midnight Sun you create an infinite resource loop, immediately spending and restoring all of your Vigor with each attack.

Season 8 Tier Lists

Bossing

As the theme of Season 8 centers around Bossing, we’ll bet you’re wondering about which archetypes are the best to take down these worthy adversaries and claim their Powers. Well, the folks at Maxroll have highlighted the most effective Bossers in their Bossing Builds Tier List.

Leveling

Perhaps you have a particular class fantasy in mind but don’t love the top picks for leveling above. No worries, for a complete list of all of Maxroll’s leveling builds and how they’re ranked, see their Leveling Builds Tier List here.

Endgame

By endgame, most issues a build will typically run into can be solved by advanced gear, runes, and paragon. This opens up a wide array of build possibilities across all classes, but their ability to push Diablo IV’s endgame system, the Pit, to its limit varies. To see how the builds stack up, check out Maxroll’s Endgame Builds Tier List.

Speedfarming

Any ARPG enthusiast knows that speed is the great differentiator in terms of character progression and gearing. When you’re not pushing your build to its limits in the Pit, activities such as Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, and Tree of Whispers bounties play a key role in boosting your character. To see which builds tackle this task the best, click on Maxroll’s Speedfarming Builds Tier List.

Written By IGN Staff, with help from the Maxroll Diablo 4 Team.

The Champions League continues to heat up as the semi-finals get underway from Tuesday, the 29th of April, starting with Arsenal vs Paris Saint-Germain to kick off the first leg.

The Arsenal vs PSG Champions League semi-final will start at 8:00pm BST / 3:00pm ET. Depending on where you planning on watching from across the world, though, exactly where you need to go to watch the match will differ. In the UK, the match will be ready to stream on Amazon Prime — which has a 30-day trial available for new subscribers.

While Arsenal has once again laid out the various viewing options available in each country, the best among the handful of choices in the United States is watching it on Paramount+ US, which still has a seven-day trial available.

How to Watch the Champions League Semi-Final Online

How to Watch for Free

However, if you've already used the free trial for each streaming service in your country, respectively, you can use a VPN so you can get around the geo-blockers and make use of the other country's service where the match will also be available.

For example, sporting events like Champions League Matches aren't available on the US' version of Amazon Prime. However, if you use a VPN to change your location to London—like SurfShark, which is running an 87% off sale until the end of the month—you can sign up for a 30-day Amazon Prime trial, watch the match, cancel your membership, and enjoy the rest of the semi-final matches still due for the Champions League.

Just the day after Arsenal vs Paris, Barcelona will be facing Inter Milan on Wednesday, the 30th of April—with the second leg match taking place on Tuesday, the 6th of May. Then, to finish the second leg, Paris will be facing Arsenal once again.

In-between games, you can make the use of either your UK Amazon Prime or US Paramount+ subscriptions for expert pre- and post-match coverage. You can even check out replays of past games you missed, giving you one of the best-value deals you can get out of a free trial and modestly priced VPN subscription.

How to Watch Arsenal vs. PSG in the UK

There’s a good argument to be made for Doom’s inclusion among the most influential game franchises of all time. It’s widely considered the progenitor of the first-person shooter genre that’s dominated the market for decades, paving the way for franchises like Call of Duty and Halo while retaining its relevance with excellent modern shooters.

As we near the release of the series’ next chapter, we’ve compiled a chronological list of every Doom game in order.

How Many Doom Games Are There?

There are six Doom games, excluding add-ons and enhanced versions of previously released games, though those are noted within each blurb where applicable. Doom: The Dark Ages will be the seventh mainline Doom game. This list excludes mobile games like Doom RPG, Doom Resurrection, and Mighty Doom.

Which Doom Game Should You Play First?

There are two logical starting points for new players: Doom (1993) or Doom (2016). Most players are better off starting with the 2016 version given its modern design. However, if you’re hellbent on experiencing the full story, your starting point has to be the 1993 original.

Every Doom Game in Chronological Order

The blurbs below contain broad spoilers for the plot of each game.

1. Doom (1993)

Following the release of id Software’s first two games — Commander Keen and Wolfenstein — the developer introduced Doom to the world in late 1993. The shooter was released with three episodes: Knee-Deep in the Dead, The Shores of Hell, and Inferno; the fourth episode, Thy Flesh Consumed, was released in 1995 as part of The Ultimate Doom.

Doom begins the saga by introducing the series’ original protagonist, an unnamed marine known as Doomguy, and sending him on a demon-slaying mission up to Mars before descending to hell. It ends with Doomguy’s discovery of a demon invasion on Earth, setting up the following year’s sequel.

2. Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)

A year later, id Software released Doom II: Hell on Earth, picking up with the demon invasion of Earth seen at the end of Doom. Doomguy helps the survivors escape into space, leaving him as the last man on Earth, before descending back into hell to close the portal between the two realms.

Two add-on episodes were later released for Doom II: No Rest for the Living in 2010 and Legacy of Rust in 2024. Final Doom was a separate, two-episode game created by a community of mappers in 1996, though its content has since been consolidated into modern versions of Doom II.

All of the post-launch episodes mentioned above are set between the events of Doom II and Doom 64.

3. Doom 64 (1997)

Doom 64, id Software’s third entry in the franchise (and the third chronologically), sends Doomguy back into space to deal with an escaped demon and its reincarnated army. To defeat the threat, our hero eventually returns to hell, where he chooses to live out his years protecting humanity from the potential of future invasions.

The 2020 remaster of Doom 64 added The Lost Levels, which is set after Doom 64 and serves as a bridge between the original games and the rebooted series that began in 2016.

4. Doom 3 (2004)

There’s no definitive answer as to where Doom 3 exists on this timeline. Arguments have been made that it takes place before Doom (1993), after Doom 64, or in an alternate timeline altogether. We’re placing it after 64 given its later release date and our best understanding of the timeline, though its placement is ultimately inessential to understanding the ongoing narrative.

In Doom 3, players step into the boots of Doom Marine, an unnamed soldier who is not Doomguy from the previous games. The marine is tasked with investigating strange incidents at a remote laboratory on Mars. What follows is a demonic invasion of the Red Planet and the uncovering of a conspiracy to destroy humanity.

An add-on/sequel called Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil was released the following year. It’s set two years after the events of Doom 3 and follows a different unnamed marine’s attempt to return an artifact to hell.

A remastered version called Doom 3: BFG Edition was released in 2012 and included a new expansion called The Lost Mission, which takes place within the events of Doom 3. This version is also playable in virtual reality as Doom 3: VR Edition.

5. Doom (2016)

The 2016 reboot of Doom introduced Doom Slayer and began a new set of stories within id Software’s Doom universe. The story begins with Doom Slayer being awakened from a sarcophagus to deal with a new demonic threat on a Martian research facility. Doom Slayer, traveling back and forth between hell and Mars, again thwarts the demons' attacks, before being betrayed and teleported to an unknown location.

A VR spinoff called Doom VFR was released in 2017. It’s set after the events of Doom and follows a Union Aerospace Corporation employee named Dr. Peters.

6. Doom Eternal (2020)

The latest game in the chronology is Doom Eternal. Set after the events of Doom (2016), Eternal sees Doom Slayer return to end another demonic invasion of Earth by killing the three Hell Priests. The story includes a key piece of series lore, revealing the connection between the original Doomguy and Doom Slayer.

Doom Eternal extended the timeline with two expansions: The Ancient Gods Part 1 and The Ancient Gods Part 2. The two-part story picks up after the events of Eternal, with the demons gathering strength in other dimensions and Doom Slayer enacting a new plan to destroy them. Part 1 culminates in the summoning of the Dark Lord; Part 2 is Doom Slayer’s pursuit and confrontation of the Dark Lord, revealing further details about the hero’s past.

Every Doom Game By Release Date

• Doom (1993)
• Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)
• Doom 64 (1997)
• Doom 3 (2004)
• Doom (2016)
• Doom Eternal (2020)
• Doom: The Dark Ages (2025)

Upcoming Doom Games

The next game will be Doom: The Dark Ages, due out May 15. Doom: The Dark Ages stars Doom Slayer, a new and more powerful iteration of Doomguy that debuted in Doom (2016). The Dark Ages is a prequel to Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal, according to Bethesda, in which players “step into the blood-stained boots of the Doom Slayer, in [a] never-before-seen dark and sinister medieval war against Hell.” You can check out more of IGN's coverage ahead of the game's release:

• Doom Is Having Its Halo Moment With The Dark Ages
• How Doom's Combat Evolves Alongside Modern Metal Music
• Doom: The Dark Ages Developers Discuss the Future of Doom

Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.