Broken Sword is coming to the big screen, courtesy of Story Kitchen.
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Broken Sword is coming to the big screen, courtesy of Story Kitchen.
Variety reported that an adaptation of the beloved adventure game series is actively in the works, with writer Evan Spiliotopoulos penning the script. Spiliotopoulos is best known for writing the live-action Beauty and the Beast film and the GI Joe spin-off, Snake Eyes. As of right now, there's no director attached to the project, but franchise creator Charles Cecil is onboard to produce the film.
Details are scarce on what elements and specific games are being adapted for the film, but it is an exciting prospect nonetheless. Broken Sword is a staple in the adventure game genre, following an American lawyer and a French journalist uncovering mysteries and conspiracies. A Broken Sword 6 was announced back in 2023, but things have been relatively quiet on it since then. More recently, a Kickstarer for Broken Sword Smoking Mirror: Reforged - Collector's Edition raised an impressive £743,138 from 4,833 backers, having set a goal of just £50,000 goal.
Story Kitchen co-founders Dmitri M. Johnson and Michael Lawrence Goldberg issued a joint statement expressing their vision for the Broken Sword movie, promising to work closely with the creators of the games to bring it to life.
“Very few franchises of this era have stayed relevant, premium, and loyal to the intelligence of their audience. Broken Sword has done all three,” they said. “Our work here isn’t to adapt a game into a film. It’s to move a world that has been building for three decades into the next medium it deserves, working hand-in-hand with the people who built it.”
“Story Kitchen came to this project with a deep passion for the IP,” Revolution Software founder and CEO Charles Cecil added. “That’s rare. The creative conversations have been about translating what Broken Sword is, rather than what it can be made to look like. I am hugely excited to be working with Story Kitchen and Evan.”
This isn't the first time Cecil has tried to get a Broken Sword movie off the ground, either. In the late 2000s, the game designer was actively working with studios to bring Broken Sword to the big screen, but it never came to fruition. Video game adaptations are in higher demand now, with production company Story Kitchen being a big player in the space. Right now, Story Kitchen is developing adaptations of Split Fiction, Sleeping Dogs, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Gaming adaptations are the company's bread and butter, with some released projects including the Sonic the Hedgehog films and Netflix's Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
Final Fantasy series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has addressed the backlash against his positive reaction to an unofficial, AI-generated video for a Final Fantasy 6 remake.
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Final Fantasy series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has addressed the backlash against his positive reaction to an unofficial, AI-generated video for a Final Fantasy 6 remake.
On May 18, Sakaguchi retweeted the AI-generated video on his official X account, below, reacting with: “What is this?! It’s amazing!”
The mock trailer shows the main cast (plus villain Kefka) in current-gen graphics and covers iconic moments from FF6 such as the opera scene, Terra’s Esper transformation, and even Sabin suplexing a train, plus gameplay-like scenes of Terra walking through various towns and overworlds in a style similar to recent RPGs like Square Enix’s Final Fantasy 7 Remake Trilogy.
Although the AI video stirred up nostalgia and hopes of a modern 3D remake for the SNES classic, many commenters criticized Sakaguchi’s positive reaction. “Are you really praising something that was made without permission using generative AI?” one user reacted. Some claimed that the AI version potentially infringes on copyright in multiple ways, noting the use of Final Fantasy 6’s logo and Terra’s theme without permission).
Even SaGa series creator and Square contemporary Akitoshi Kawazu, who worked with Sakaguchi on early Final Fantasy titles, weighed in, saying: “No, Sakaguchi-san, you should have stopped after the first line,” suggesting a shocked “What is this?!” would have been a more suitable reaction from the father of Final Fantasy. In the rest of his comment, Kawazu talked about his recent run-in with an American tourist who loved Final Fantasy 6 and Sabin, adding that: “I do think that 6 would be suitable for a remake.”
In a follow-up tweet, Sakaguchi expressed surprise at the attention the Final Fantasy 6 post garnered: “Whoa, what a big reaction,” he said, adding: “I just kind of intuitively reacted to the potential” shown in the AI video. He explained that while he feels AI content isn’t good enough to use as-is, he senses potential for interesting developments in the future.
“After all, I’m the sort of person who has been propelled through the last 40 years’ work and private life solely by exciting things,” Sakaguchi concluded, acknowledging how he has always been pursuing new ideas and technology, as can be seen in the Final Fantasy series’ lasting influence on the RPG genre.
Sakaguchi’s tweet finished with a concept illustration for the Grand Staff magic research facility from his own studio’s debut game, 2008’s Lost Odyssey, with the creator adding that he “played around” with animating it (implying that he may have used gen AI to do so).
While many commenters said they understood Sakaguchi’s excitement for the potential of new technology, others still thought that as an influential figure in the games’ industry, he should have acknowledged the potential copyright infringement issues that currently make AI such a controversial topic.
Sakaguchi was one of the major creative forces behind the Final Fantasy franchise from FF1 through to FF10, including The Spirits Within movie. After leaving Square, he founded his own studio Mistwalker. Replaying Final Fantasy 6 is actually what inspired Sakaguchi to create his latest game, Fantasian: Neo Dimension.
It remains to be seen if Square Enix ever decides to revisit FF6, but reactions to the AI video show that there are a significant number of fans of the game that would like to see it get a full 3D remake in addition to the Pixel Remaster. But will Square Enix actually do it? In 2024, Final Fantasy 6 director Yoshinori Kitase said a remake akin to that given to Final Fantasy 7 could take around 20 years to complete, noting that because of the depth of the game and the sheer amount of content and characters, it would take twice the length of Final Fantasy 7 Remake to develop and release.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
Sacha Baron Cohen appears to be putting one of his most famous characters, Borat, to bed while preparing for a future in Marvel.
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Sacha Baron Cohen appears to be putting one of his most famous characters, Borat, to bed while preparing for a future in Marvel. While speaking with ScreenRant, the actor was asked which character fans will see return first: Borat or his Marvel character, Mephisto. Cohen gave a very direct answer, noting that Borat may not have a place in the world anymore: "I think Mephisto. I don't know if Borat will ever return."
Cohen made a name for himself by playing a bunch of surreal, shocking characters in real-life settings. Ali-G, for instance, was perceived as a real interviewer and was allowed to get into the room with some of the most famous people on the planet, such as Donald Trump, to ask absurd questions. Borat was another level of famous, though. The character's first film was a global phenomenon that swept the box office and was nominated for major awards, including an Oscar.
Given the character became a global icon, it meant that Borat was no longer a feasible character, as many would be acutely aware that he wasn't a real person and it was all an act. Cohen put the character on ice for roughly 15 years but brought him back for an acclaimed sequel, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, set during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. However, the sequel may be the last time we see Borat.
It's possible Borat is so recognizable now, and also creates consistently controversial situations, that Cohen realizes it's no longer feasible to wear the mustache and suit any longer. In the 2020 sequel, Cohen was rushed by a crowd of angry protestors while performing on stage. He also created headlines after staging an incident that saw Rudy Giuliani attempting to sleep with Borat's daughter. Maybe one day Borat will return as a surprise, but it seems more likely that Cohen would embrace a different, less familiar character first.
Cohen has also been pursuing roles outside of shock comedy, such as one with Marvel. He appeared in the Disney+ series, Ironheart, last year as Mephisto, a devil-like character who often tempts others with lucrative offers at a high cost. Famously, Mephisto allowed Peter Parker the opportunity to bring Aunt May back from the dead at the cost of radically changing Peter's entire life.
It's unclear where Mephisto may appear next. Perhaps he will appear in a future Spider-Man film, especially since Brand New Day appears to be loosely adapting the aforementioned storyline. He could pop up in more magical stories like the next Doctor Strange movie as well. Either way, it doesn't seem like Mephisto's time is up quite yet.
Photo by Jason Merritt/FilmMagic.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds is still talking internally about what to do in response to the game’s big killing fish debate, but players have taken the matter into their own hands, diving deeper to uncover ways of actually defending themselves.
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Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds is still talking internally about what to do in response to the game’s big killing fish debate, but players have taken the matter into their own hands, diving deeper to uncover ways of actually defending themselves.
To briefly recap, killing fish isn’t properly supported in Subnautica 2, which launched to huge success in early access form last week. You can deter fish by using a flare, but there are no tools designed specifically for causing fish damage, which means that you’re faced with having to put up with them nibbling at your heels as you go about your underwater business.
But, it turns out that there are ways to defend yourself in Subnautica 2, but you’ll have to put in a bit of work to make use of them. Across subreddits, discords, and social media, players have identified mid-game upgrades that offer some defense, and even let you kill fish in a round about way.
Warning! Potential spoilers for Subnautica 2 follow:
The Feedback Resonator, an upgrade for the Sonic Resonator that lets it fire a projectile, lets you shoot fish from a distance. You’ll need to work your way deep into the game to obtain it, but some reports indicate the Sonic Resonator can actually kill fish, so it’s certainly worthwhile.
Redditor Jeidoz suggests the Shockwave biomod upgrade, which gives you an electric discharge that can push fish away from you. And then there are the aforementioned flares when you’re in a pickle.
Jeidoz said they were able to complete the early access Subnautica 2 as it is now without taking damage, which sounds like a herculean effort. They used flares and dashed to run away from predators, then the Sonic Resonator to encourage fish to push off. Then, getting further into the mid-game, the Electric Discharge was used “for any dangerous situations,” and the Feedback Resonator was used for single-target enemies.
“In the current version of Early Access, I believe we only have mid-game (or even pre-mid-game?) options,” Jeidoz said. “With future updates, we can expect new vehicles, new bio-mods, fixed fish reactions to light, and other tools/actions. Currently, the PDA mentions some of them, but most fish only react to flares, ‘sounds’ from vehicles, the Sonic Resonator, the player, and stationary vehicles.”
So, the upshot is, the more you play Subnautica 2, the more you’ll be able to defend yourself. But this is not the outright ability to kill fish, as some want. Yes, you do kill fish “off screen” by eating them raw, cooking them, or turning them into other resources. But some players want to effectively clear the game out of fish, giving them the breathing room to bend the depths to their will.
This, though, does not sound like something the developers at Unknown Worlds will ever make possible in Subnautica 2. The developers have spoken in the past about not wanting players to conquer or dominate the environment, and that it wouldn’t feature tools that would let them slay anything that gets in their way. "We aren't a killing game," level designer Artyom "Artie" O'Rielly recently said in the Subnautica Discord. "Go play Sons of the Forest or something if you want to kill."
Still, Unknown Worlds is certainly thinking about tweaking the game in response to the debate. Also speaking in the Discord, lead game designer Anthony Gallegos said the developer can tune creature aggression to make fish less annoying to deal with.
“One thing that should help with this soon is the array of creature flinches we're doing,” Gallegos explained. “Right now they aren't communicating that you've impacted them, and that will change.
“We can do a lot without a stasis rifle for now, though," he added. "Some of it is just going to be rounds of tuning around creature aggression, downtime between when you run them off, etc. We clearly have work to do there, and we're doing it!”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which currently stands as the highest-grossing movie of 2026, is now available on digital with a slew of bonus features.
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The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is now available to rent or purchase digitally from PVOD platforms like Prime Video.
The digital release was initially scheduled for May 5 but, much like fellow box office hit Project Hail Mary, was delayed to take advantage of the film's success in theaters. It's not hard to understand why — the Mario Bros sequel currently stands as the highest-grossing movie of 2026.
If you didn't get the chance to check out the film in theaters, or have just been itching for a rewatch to catch all of those Easter eggs, here's everything we know about its digital, streaming, and DVD releases.
Super Mario Galaxy Movie Now Available Online
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie currently costs $24.99 to rent or $29.99 to purchase. If you choose to rent, you’ll have 48 hours to watch the movie from the time you hit play. If you go with the full purchase, you’ll also get over an hour of behind-the-scenes digital extras. Prime Video is also offering a bundle of both Super Mario movies for $39.99.
The Super Mario sequel expands the world of the first movie to encompass, as you can imagine, galaxies. The sequel introduced a spread of new cast members to flesh out the growing gaggle of characters, including Brie Larson as Rosalina and Donald Glover as Yoshi. One new addition Nintendo tried its best to hide away until the film’s premiere was Glen Powell's role as Star Fox, which preceded the announcement of a Star Fox remake coming to Switch 2.
The sequel didn’t quite hit the same heights as the original on the critics’ side, though Clint Gage’s review for IGN does argue that it’s “bigger and shinier” and “racks up some extra lives by stuffing Easter eggs into the runtime to the point of bursting.” What we do have is no shortage of praise for is the original Super Mario Galaxy games, both of which were re-released on Switch consoles in the lead-up to the movie’s release.
Streaming Release Date TBA, Blu-ray Up for Preorder
Peacock will be the first streaming home for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but there’s no word on a specific streaming release date. Based on the timeline of The Super Mario Bros Movie, the sequel will most likely land on Peacock later this summer. After four months on Peacock, the film will move to Netflix.
In the meantime, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will be released in 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD in just over a month. The film is even getting a limited edition 4K steelbook in the style of Rosalina’s Storybook.
Blythe (she/her) is an Audience Development Coordinator at IGN who, when she isn't following streaming news, spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.
South Park will return to Comedy Central this September with Season 29, co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have confirmed.
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South Park will return to Comedy Central this September with Season 29, co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have confirmed.
Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Parker and Stone said new episodes will be released on September 16. Comedy Central and Paramount+ followed up to say the 29th season will premiere Wednesday, September 16 at 10pm ET/PT on Comedy Central. New episodes will be available to stream on Paramount+ around the world, with next-day availability in the U.S., Canada and Australia. Additional new episodes will premiere on Wednesdays: September 30, October 14, October 28, November 11, and November 25, which means fans will get a new episode every two weeks.
Season 28 came to an end in December after a number of controversial episodes that sparked responses from a number of politicians and even the White House. Its overarching story saw Donald Trump try and fail to convince Satan not to go through with having their ‘butt baby,’ aka the Antichrist. Vice president J.D. Vance even conspired with Trump to try to murder the baby.
South Park abruptly brought Season 27 to an end after just five episodes, and Season 28 ended after the same number. It looks like Season 29 will run for five episodes, too, suggesting Season 30 will follow soon after with an additional five episodes.
Traditionally, Parker and Stone create each episode week by week, which makes for a chaotic production but topical shows. Comedy Central had delayed the Season 27 ender just hours before it was due to air, with Parker and Stone insisting the blame lay at their door. “Apparently when you do everything at the last minute sometimes you don’t get it done,” the pair told Variety. “This one’s on us. We didn’t get it done in time. Thanks to Comedy Central and South Park fans for being so understanding. Tune in next week!” As far as we at IGN are aware, Parker and Stone had missed the scheduled release of South Park just once before, due to a power outage, but never for not getting an episode done in time.
Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Parker and Stone joked about South Park's infamous depiction of Trump's penis in the Season 27 premiere, showing the simple but effective execution. In the episode, a live-action deepfake of Trump shuffles through the desert before removing all of his clothes. “His penis is teeny tiny, but his love for us is large,” the PSA voiceover says.
Parker and Stone’s lucrative deal with Paramount over the global streaming rights to South Park includes the delivery of 50 new episodes over five seasons, with the pair agreeing to produce at least 10 new episodes of South Park a year.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Microsoft has confirmed the lineup of games coming to Xbox Game Pass during the second half of May as well as the early part of June. Here's what to expect.
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Microsoft has confirmed the lineup of games coming to Xbox Game Pass during the second half of May as well as the early part of June.
It’s a quieter second half of the month after big hitters including Forza Horizon 6 hit Game Pass already, but there are still some eye-catching additions and a few day one releases. As revealed in a post on Xbox Wire, Frontier’s Jurassic World Evolution 3 is set for Game Pass following its October 2025 launch, and Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition joins the subscription service.
Day one titles include Luna Abyss, Echo Generation 2, Crashout Crew, and Kabuto Park.
Xbox Game Pass May 2026 Wave 2 lineup:
Dead Static Drive (Cloud, Console, and PC) – May 20 Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass
My Friend Peppa Pig (Cloud, Console, and PC) – May 20 Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Pigeon Simulator (Cloud, XBOX Series X|S, Handheld, and PC) – May 20 Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass
Remnant II (Cloud, Console, and PC) – May 20 Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Winter Burrow (Cloud, Console, and PC) – May 20 Now with Game Pass Premium; joining Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass
Luna Abyss (Cloud, XBOX Series X|S, and PC) – May 21 Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
Escape Simulator (Cloud, XBOX Series X|S, and PC) – May 26 Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Echo Generation 2 (Cloud, XBOX Series X|S, and PC) – May 27 Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition (Cloud, XBOX Series X|S, and PC) – May 27 Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Crashout Crew (Cloud, XBOX Series X|S, Handheld, and PC) – May 28 Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
Kabuto Park (Cloud, XBOX Series X|S, and PC) – May 28 Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Final Fantasy VI (Cloud, XBOX Series X|S, and PC) – June 2 Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Jurassic World Evolution 3 (Cloud, XBOX Series X|S, and PC) – June 2 Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
As usual, a number of games leave Game Pass this month. You can grab a discount if you buy the games to keep playing.
Everything leaving Xbox Game Pass on May 31:
Against the Storm (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Crypt Custodian (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Metaphor: ReFantazio (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Persona 4 Golden (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Spray Paint Simulator (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Steam has changed the official tags you'll find attached to games on Valve's digital storefront.
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Steam has changed the official tags you'll find attached to games on Valve's digital storefront.
Removing 28, adding 17, and merging and updating "a handful of other" tags, Valve said the changes come "with the goal of helping players identify the games that best fit their interests, and helping Steam generate more appropriate recommendations."
"Tags help developers better describe their game to players, but also help Steam understand what kind of game it is and show it accordingly to players via recommendations," the company wrote on a blog post. "Tags are also the foundation upon which each of the store hubs are built, allowing players to find all of the games tagged with their favorite genre, theme, style, or other relevant context.
"Tags can be applied to a game by the developer, by players with non-limited accounts, and also by Steam moderators. This means that a game's tags can shift over time as more customers play the game and contribute their perspective on what tags are most relevant for each game. Over time, the types of games that exist and the way customers look at games changes too — so today, we have a list of changes to our current set of tags."
Steam tags added in the May 2026 update:
Bullet Heaven - The opposite of Bullet Hell; Focus on upgrades while automatically attacking hordes of enemies
Desktop Companion - Games that only use part of your screen and keep you company while you do other things
Organizing - Tidy up, de-clutter, or unpack, carefully placing items in virtual spaces
Cleaning - Satisfying removal of grime and dirt from stuff
Decorating - Creative placement of furniture and other objects
Wuxia - Historical fantasy adventure featuring martial arts, competing sects, and inner qi
Xianxia - Fantasy adventure focused on cultivating supernatural powers and strength
Falling Blocks - Arranging, rotating, and placing blocks from above
Espionage - Spying or secretly securing valuable intel
Samurai - Japanese warriors best known for katanas, loyalty, and self-discipline
Zoo - Care for and display a park full of wild animals
Wolves - Also known as Canis Lupus
Capybaras - The largest and possibly most adorable rodent species
Animals - Cute and furry, or large and terrifying and everything in between
Cult - Small groups with extreme devotion to a person, thing, or belief
Poker - Draw, bet, and bluff
Language Learning - Learning and teaching new languages
Steam store tags removed by Valve:
3D Vision
Ambient
America
Blood
Crowdfunded
Cult Classic
Documentary
Drama
Dungeons & Dragons
Electronic
Experience
Feature Film
Foreign
GameMaker
Games Workshop
Illuminati
Kickstarter
LEGO
Masterpiece
Mature
Movie
Narration
NSFW
Roguevania
RPGMaker
Warhammer 40K
Web Publishing
Well-Written
Valve said that it doesn't often remove tags from Steam, which is why it's "built up quite a list." "The set that we've removed today are done so because they no longer serve a good purpose for establishing connections between games or describing unique and useful elements of content in the game," it explained. "Many of these tags have alternative options on Steam that better describe the content, and already have a high degree of overlap in application." Tags that are subjective – Well-written, masterpiece – have also been ditched, along with any that apply to a specific IP, such as Lego and Warhammer 40,000.
Clicker has been renamed Incremental to capture the broader essence of games that focus on numbers going up, Conversation has been renamed Dialogue Heavy for clarity, and Steam has "made a few tags plural to match other tags," including, Dogs, Foxes, Vampires, Elves, Dwarves, and Assassins.
"Pool was humorously applied to games with a swimming pool, so we've renamed this to Billiards, which is the overarching term for all games played with cue sticks anyway," the company added. It's also merged Jet into Flight, as the term Jet "was not unique enough," and Unforgiving into Difficult since these terms "mostly overlap in usage and intent."
"At least they added Falling Blocks as a tag for Tetris and similar games now," said one fan of the changes on Reddit. "Using Puzzle to try to find that kind of game before was obnoxious, just about every game that had some kind of puzzle was listed."
"There's a grand total of one game with the Capybaras tag," joked another. "And this might be the best marketing this game has ever received." Another 13 have since joined the tag.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Fortnite is back on the App Store, with Epic boss Tim Sweeney declaring "the beginning of the end of the Apple Tax worldwide."
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Fortnite is back on the App Store, with Epic boss Tim Sweeney declaring "the beginning of the end of the Apple Tax worldwide."
Sweeney’s ongoing battle to get Fortnite back on iPhones and Android phones without paying store fees is well-documented. Epic doesn’t want to pay the now standard 30% store fee on revenue made from mobile games, instead preferring to direct players to its own mobile store, the Epic Games Store, without Apple and Google getting in the way. Sweeney has been fighting this battle since 2020, spending a great deal of cash in the process, even as Fortnite was blocked on iOS. It felt as though Epic had won this time last year following a significant court ruling, but Apple ultimately blocked Fortnite's return.
Now, Epic has pushed Fortnite back onto iOS, with Sweeney saying the decision was made after Apple told the U.S. Supreme Court that "regulators around the world are watching this case to determine what commission rate Apple may charge on covered purchases in huge markets outside the United States." Epic said it was "confident that once Apple is forced to show its costs, governments around the world will not allow Apple junk fees to stand."
"We will continue to challenge Apple’s anticompetitive App Store practices of banning alternative app stores and competition in payments," Epic Games added in a statement.
"We’ve seen momentum around the world to address these practices, with regulators passing laws in Japan, the European Union and the United Kingdom - but time and time again, Apple has evaded the laws with scare screens, fees and onerous requirements. It’s time for regulators to truly enforce the laws so developers and consumers around the world can benefit from an open and fair mobile app ecosystem."
Epic boss Tim Sweeney said on X/Twitter earlier today: "Fortnite is back on the Apple App Store as we head into the final battle of Epic v Apple in court. For years, Apple has fragmented iOS features and fees by territory, taking regulatory negotiating positions in secret, and intentionally delaying the pursuit of justice."
"Apple has now told the Supreme Court, 'Regulators around the world are watching this case to determine what commission rate Apple may charge on covered purchases in huge markets outside the United States.' So we see this as the beginning of the end of the Apple Tax worldwide," Sweeney continued.
"This is a critical moment in the battle against the App Store empire to win freedom for all developers and consumers, and we'll continue the fight in every jurisdiction worldwide until competition is restored to digital stores and payment markets everywhere."
Interestingly, Fortnite has yet to return to the Australian App Store. Epic said it was waiting for a court order to "bring Apple's unlawful conduct to an end and to make orders that will benefit all app developers and iOS users."
"Epic can't return under an illegal payment arrangement with Apple, so unless Apple agrees to adopt lawful payment terms in the interim, we must wait for a Court decision," the company added.
Image credit: Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Samsung.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
PC gamers are reacting to Sony making its narrative single-player games PlayStation exclusive.
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Sony has reportedly reaffirmed its pullback from PC, telling staff its narrative single-player games will remain PlayStation 5 exclusive. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier said PlayStation studio business boss Hermen Hulst told staff on Monday, locking in the likes of Saros, Ghost of Yotei, and the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine and Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet to PlayStation. While multiplayer games will continue to launch on PC as well as PlayStation, it’s a significant change of strategy from Sony, and deprives PC gamers of the company’s tentpole releases.
PC gamers have been reacting to the news with a mix of disappointment and lack of surprise. While some had hoped to play these narrative games on their platform of choice, others have said they’re not missing out on much. Others still, have said they continue to see no reason to buy a PS5 just to play these games — especially given Sony just raised the price of its console hardware.
“I skipped buying a PS5 and I don't feel like I've missed out,” said one PC gamer on the PC gaming subreddit. “Yeah, back when Spider-Man came out, I was REALLY excited for it and was considering buying a PlayStation just to play it, but I held back,” another added. “When it finally came out on PC, it was good, but not as great as I built up in my head. Any game that comes out as PS exclusive, I'll just remind myself of Spider-Man.”
“Why would a PC gamer buy a 600 dollar PS5 for a few games?” questioned another. “Do you know what happens instead? The PC gamer simply ignores Sony games and plays other PC games. Sony forgets if people are willing to wait YEARS for a port and then LONGER for a discount that sure as s**t isn't the crowd that runs out to buy a console and games that keep going up in price.”
“As much as I love the Horizon series I just won’t be playing part three I guess,” another said. “There’s no way I’d buy a console for the few games I’d be interested in.”
“PS5 has been out for ages and still has no games, and he wants to double down,” another said in a comment that sums up much of the sentiment within the PC gaming community.
“Please tell Hermen Hulst that my wallet is exclusive to PC games (preferably Steam) and I don't want to buy a PS console to play Sony games anymore,” said another. “That worked before, when there was quality, genre variety and overall quantity. Now it's not worth it anymore.”
“This isn't going to magically make me buy a Playstation. It's just going to make me not buy your games,” another said.
Meanwhile, Peter Dalton, Head of Technology at Bluepoint Games, took to social media to say a “more interesting possibility” is that Sony is responding to the rise of a Steam-based console ecosystem, aka the recently announced and subsequently delayed Steam Machine.
Sony has in recent years expanded PlayStation to PC, but refrained from going as far as Microsoft, which releases all its games on PC at the same time as console. Sony, however, has employed a staggered approach, releasing its single-player PlayStation games on PC after a period of console exclusivity. When it comes to live service games like Helldivers 2 it’s a different story, with Sony publishing on PC day-one — and in the case of Arrowhead’s third-person action game, to record-breaking success. Sony-owned Bungie launched live service extraction shooter Marathon across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S at the same time earlier this year. Guerrilla’s live-service multiplayer Horizon spinoff, Hunters Gathering, is due out on PC and PS5. Fairgames, from Haven Studios, is down for PC and PS5 also.
Sony’s decision to return to PlayStation exclusivity comes at an interesting time. Microsoft is said to be considering some sort of exclusivity policy change as it works to win over the hearts and minds of hardcore Xbox fans. Indeed, exclusive games is the top request on a recently launched official Xbox feedback platform. The question is, can Sony and Microsoft get away with leaving multiplatform money on the table?
"In PS4 days still we are making AAA games with big budget," Yoshida said. "I somehow felt the bigger the budget, the safer in some strange way. Creating bigger, better-looking games that people are asking for. In the past it kind of worked, you know, business wise. But in the last five or so years, publishers and developers must have realized that model may not be sustainable.
"Releasing games on PC after a couple of years must have helped recoup the investment of these big budget games and help[ed] the team and company to reinvest that money into their new games," he added, "So, from a business standpoint, I think it made sense for me.
"If they were releasing new AAA games day one on other platforms, I don’t think that’s a good strategy for [a] platform holder like PlayStation. I’m not seeing any proof of them changing their strategy this generation, but if they are changing it’s going to be interesting how they are able to maintain the investment on the big budget games on the first-party side going forward."
It’s worth noting that getting into PlayStation console gaming has become more expensive this year. After price rises in March, a new PS5 now starts at $600, and a PS5 Pro now costs $900. And just this week, Sony announced PlayStation Plus price rises, blaming "ongoing market conditions."
“I hope — well, for everyone's sake, really — that 'ongoing global market conditions' drastically improve rather quickly or I expect this decision will be reversed sooner rather than later,” he said.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
The soundtrack of the original 1993 Doom has been inducted into the National Recording Registry.
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The soundtrack of the original 1993 Doom has been inducted into the National Recording Registry.
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, "with millions of books, films and video, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections." Founded over two hundred years ago, it sits as the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office.
The latest inductees, of which there are 25, have been dubbed as "audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage." Bobby Prince's "adrenaline-fueled" score is the third piece of video game history to be immortalized this way.
"Key to Doom's popularity was the adrenaline-fueled soundtrack created by Prince," a Registry spokesperson said (thanks, GI.biz). "Prince, a lifelong musician and practising lawyer, was fascinated by the MIDI technology that rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as a means for instrument control and composition, an interest that led to his earliest work composing video games.
"Taking advantage of his knowledge of MIDI, Prince worked to ensure that the sound effects he created could cut through the music by assigning them to different MIDI frequencies. The Doom soundtrack would go on to inspire countless remixes and lay the foundation for future generations of game composers."
"The sweep and diversity of the National Recording Registry class of 2026 beautifully captures the scope of the American experience as we celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary,” said Robbin Ahrold, chair of the National Recording Preservation Board. "From icons of R&B to a holiday favorite en Español, from a legendary sports broadcast to this generation’s superstars, it is a thrilling reflection of America at its best."
Doom is the third such video game score to make it into the register. The first was the Super Mario Bros. theme, which joined the archive in 2023. Daniel Rosengeld's soundtrack for Minecraft was added in 2025.
Other inductees this year include Taylor Swift's 1989, Beyoncé’s Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It), The Go-Go’s debut album Beauty and the Beat, Vince Gill’s Go Rest High On That Mountain, Weezer’s self-titled debut Weezer (The Blue Album), Chaka Khan’s hit I Feel for You, and Broadway’s original cast album of Chicago.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
One of the biggest — if not biggest — questions from fans of Warhammer 40,000 lore is: who will be the next returning loyalist primarch? In a rare Q&A video, Games Workshop actually addressed the question — but failed to provide a meaningful answer.
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One of the biggest — if not biggest — questions from fans of Warhammer 40,000 lore is: who will be the next returning loyalist primarch? In a rare Q&A video, Games Workshop actually addressed the question — but failed to provide a meaningful answer.
For the uninitiated, the primarchs are the overpowered, genetically-engineered demigod sons of the Emperor, created to lead the Space Marine legions before they were broken up into chapters following the catastrophic civil war known as the Horus Heresy. Warhammer 40,000 as a narrative operated for decades with most of the primarchs either thought dead or lost in the warp, but recent years have seen two loyalist primarchs return to the current setting, sparking speculation that more are on the way.
The two primarchs confirmed alive and active in the Warhammer 40,000 setting are Ultramarines boss Roboute Guilliman, who returned to the galaxy during the Gathering Storm event in 2017, and Dark Angels chief Lion El'Jonson, who miraculously popped back into existence as part of the Arks of Omen storyline in early 2023. These were galaxy-shaking plot developments for the Warhammer 40,000 setting, and with the upcoming release of the 11th Edition of the tabletop game, some are wondering if a third loyalist primarch will return to shake things up further.
And so, in the Q&A video, Games Workshop’s Adam Troke and Eddie Eccles brought up the question themselves: “Who will be the next returning loyalist primarch?”
“It’s a good question, but I’m really sorry to break it to you Adam, they’re actually all dead,” Eccles replied.
“All of them?” Troke said.
“I’m pretty sure they’re all dead,” Eccles insisted.
Troke then began to have a bit of fun with his response: “Well, so, we do know that Russ is back… as a tank. Rogal Dorn… as a tank. If I was a betting man, you could maybe expect a battle tank called a Khan or a Manus or a Sanguinius at some point.”
Then, finally: “Interesting that the question was ‘who,’ rather than ‘will.’ They’re dead, according to Eddie.”
While Games Workshop had a cheeky response to a question that was probably never going to include a definitive answer, many Warhammer 40,000 fans have already picked it apart, pointing out that in the lore, it’s not entirely clear that all the other loyalist primarchs are indeed dead. You see this debate pop up now and again on Warhammer subreddits, discords, and across social media. For example, Jaghatai Khan, primarch of the White Scars, is thought to be lost in the Webway, the weird area between realspace and the Warp the Aeldari use to get about the galaxy. Rogal Dorn, boss of the Imperial Fists, is presumed dead, but could be out and about doing primarch things behind enemy lines. Space Wolves leader Leman Russ, meanwhile, is said to be awaiting the Wolf Time before he makes a dramatic return to save his kin. Sanguinius though, he's properly dead. RIP.
The thing is, Games Workshop could bring back any loyalist primarch at any time, creating some lore to make it make sense within canon just as it did with Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson, and that would be that. Any new model for a returning primarch would no doubt prove to be a big seller, too. So it does feel like a question of when, not if, it actually happens. Money talks, after all.
Perhaps 11th Edition isn’t the right time, though, as fans are eagerly awaiting another momentous primarch-related moment, one Games Workshop has actually properly teased: the meeting of Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson. A new campaign book released earlier this year includes an intergalactic message written by Lion El'Jonson and intended for Roboute Guilliman that reads: “Brother. We need to talk.”
So, will the Lion and Guilliman finally meet this edition? That was another lore question Troke and Eccles brought up during the Q&A.
“I mean, the galaxy is a big place,” Troke said, once again keeping his cards close to his chest. “So, maybe. Maybe not. I kinda hope so. You’ve got to imagine the Lion’s got things to say.”
“It will be an interesting meeting for sure, whenever it happens,” Eccles added.
For me, it feels more likely that this meeting of brothers, 10,000 years in the making, will be the big narrative moment of 11th Edition, rather than the introduction of a new loyalist primarch, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong. Any new primarch turning up is a huge moment for Warhammer 40,000 lore fans and a shot in the arm of the setting. It would move things forward and perhaps even the odds against the forces of Chaos and all those daemon primarchs who are running amok.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Surprise! Nintendo has announced free-to-start Pictonico, a new mobile game that uses your phone's photo library to generate mini-games.
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Surprise! Nintendo has announced free-to-start Pictonico, a new mobile game that uses your phone's photo library to generate mini-games.
Pictonico integrates your photos and turns them into 80 minigames. "Sure, it's kind of silly… But there's no telling what will happen next!" Nintendo said.
"Here come your school's sports stars… strutting down the red carpet! Your boss is hungry and needs your help! Try to wash away those embarrassing high-school memories," the company added, describing the types of mini-games available. "Son won't quiet down? Zip his mouth! Two old friends reconnect while skydiving! Grandpa dressed like a ballerina. Can't miss this photo op."
Turn your photos into silly minigames! Your camera roll comes alive in Pictonico!, launching on smart devices May 28th.
If that all sounds a little familiar, that's because it is. Nintendo’s WarioWare games similarly bundles together very short mini-games, and you're given just seconds to complete them before moving on or losing a life. Like the WarioWare games, the experiences in Pictonico will seemingly range from "easy to pretty tricky," and while some games are free-to-start and playable as demos, you'll need to purchase additional "volumes" to play them all, which will cost between $5.99 and $7.99.
It's the latest effort in Nintendo's attempt to diversify its catalog across mobile and console. In a 2015 interview, late CEO and president Satoru Iwata remarked that his main goal with mobile games is not necessarily to make money, but to advertise Nintendo properties to a brand new market. "We want more people to become familiar with Nintendo IP through Nintendo’s smart device game apps," the former president said.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Microsoft is continuing its drive to revamp brand Xbox with the launch of a feedback platform that gives fans the chance to vote on community requests. Predictably, the request with the most votes is a return to exclusives.
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Microsoft is continuing its drive to revamp brand Xbox with the launch of a feedback platform that gives fans the chance to vote on community requests. Predictably, the request with the most votes is a return to exclusives.
Microsoft’s multiplatform push may have increased sales (Forza Horizon 5, for example, has found significant success on PlayStation 5), but it has come at the expense of alienating hardcore Xbox fans, some of whom want Microsoft to return to Xbox exclusivity.
Earlier this month, it was reported that new Xbox boss Asha Sharma was “treading carefully” as she worked out what to do with exclusive games. Sharma, who replaced Phil Spencer as boss of Xbox earlier this year, has spent her first few months in the job making a number of significant changes as Microsoft works to win back the hearts and minds of its core gaming fans. Among them was the end of the controversial ‘This is an Xbox’ marketing campaign, quickfire new Xbox console features, and a Game Pass price cut.
Fans, though, have made their feelings loud and clear already, using the new ‘XBOX Player Voice’ platform to push for exclusives.
“XBOX was built off of great game exclusives, you cannot sell any consoles without a reason to buy the console compared to your competition or even sending your tentpole games over to your competitor. BRING THEM BACK PLEASE!!!” reads the thread with the most votes so far (6,319). The comments within it are similarly vociferous. “If you really care about Xbox, you have to bring back exclusives,” one person said. “Xbox needs to have its exclusive games to differentiate itself from the competition. Exclusives work for Sony and Nintendo, so why would it be different for Xbox?” Another added: “Exclusive content and features (hardware or otherwise) make a platform stand out in comparison to the competition. Without those, why would anyone get into the XBOX platform and not other, more popular ones? Right now XBOX simply doesn't stand out from the competition.”
The big question is, can Microsoft follow Sony’s lead and retreat from multiplatform? Microsoft has a number of first-party titles due out this year already earmarked for PS5. For example, it's promised that Forza Horizon 6 will come to PS5 later this year (and if Forza Horizon 5 is any indication, not releasing the sequel on Sony’s console would mean leaving hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue on the table). Meanwhile, Microsoft has said all future Halo games will be released on Sony’s console, starting with this year’s Halo: Campaign Evolved. Playground’s Fable reboot is due out day one on PS5 this fall.
The Verge’s Tom Warren has reported that Sharma “has been evaluating a range of options for Xbox exclusive games, but is treading carefully here and isn’t yet ready to commit to any major changes.” So while hardcore Xbox fans clearly want their exclusives back, there is a question mark over whether Microsoft will agree.
Other top requests on the feedback platform reflect community concern going back years at this point. Backwards compatibility is right up there, as is making online multiplayer free to access. Another high-ranking request is for an achievement list to have a separate category for its DLC, so if you’ve got all the achievements for a game and it gets more via DLC, your 100% will remain. And then there’s the request for an Xbox Game Pass family plan, for Project Helix — the next-gen Xbox — to play discs, and the return of Xbox avatars.
Plenty, then, for Sharma to think about, although in truth none of these requests should come as much of a surprise. By opening the door to fan feedback in this way, Microsoft is creating a growing sense of hope within the community, so it will be interesting to see if Microsoft follows up by addressing the top requests and their chance of success. "We want to be clear: this doesn’t mean every piece of feedback will turn into a feature or result in a change," Microsoft clarified in its announcement on Xbox Wire. "Building across a large, global platform means weighing a lot of inputs. But better visibility helps close the gap between what you tell us and what you see happen next on XBOX."
All this talk of Xbox exclusives comes at a time when Sony has ditched PC for its narrative single-player games, which means the likes of Housemarque’s Saros, Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei, Insomniac’s Marvel’s Wolverine and, presumably, Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet will all remain PS5 exclusives. But it still leaves the door open for Sony’s multiplatform games to continue to release on PC.
Perhaps Microsoft will follow Sony’s lead here?
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
The current 2026 F1 season is coming to last year’s F1 25 as a new update.
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EA has confirmed the first details for F1 25’s 2026 Season Pack update will be made available this Wednesday, May 20. The reveal trailer for the upcoming DLC will be released at 4pm UK time, May 20 (11am EDT/8am PDT, and 1am AEST on May 21).
For the time being, EA has revealed the “cover” athletes for the update: seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, former F3 and F2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto, and veteran driver Valtteri Bottas, winner of 10 F1 Grands Prix and current owner of the greatest F1 moustache this side of Nigel Mansell.
The presence of Bortoleto and Bottas would be no accident, since they represent the two new teams on the 2026 grid: Audi and Cadillac.
The content update is set to reflect all the sport’s 2026 changes, with new cars, new drivers, and the new regulations. How the new cars are handled within the 2026 season DLC will be interesting considering how critical many current F1 drivers have been of their new characteristics. Two-time F1 champ Fernando Alonso has dubbed modern F1 a “battery world championship”, 2025 champ Lando Norris has lamented F1 has gone from “the best cars ever made in Formula 1 and the nicest to drive to probably the worst”, and four-time champ Max Verstappen has quipped that he’s swapped the simulator for his Nintendo Switch, joking that he’s now practicing with Mario Kart instead.
The next full game in the series is planned for 2027, and will be “reimagined into a more expansive experience with new ways to play for fans around the world.”
IGN’s F1 25 review noted there remain “several areas where it hovers frustratingly short of its full potential,” including its fascination with clothing and emotes over classic F1 cars and content – but that it’s “comfortably the strongest the series has been since the fan favourite F1 2020.”
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
Forza Horizon 6 managed to slip in a sly reference to Pokémon.
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Forza Horizon 6 managed to slip in a sly reference to Pokémon.
Xbox and Playground Games' beloved racing franchise has returned, and it's arguably better than ever. Forza Horizon 6 takes the series to Japan, a long-requested setting amongst fans. Not only is Japan a beautiful location for any game, but it has a very strong and thriving car culture. After years of fleshing out the franchise, Playground finally felt comfortable in taking on the setting and making the biggest Forza game yet.
As a result, Forza embraces Japan in all kinds of different ways. Of course, there's an emphasis on drifting in the game, there are cherry blossom trees that are so culturally significant they can't be destroyed, and there are all kinds of references to Japanese culture. One of the game's most notable events even sees the player racing a giant mech through the streets of Japan. It's outrageous, but right in line with the tone of Forza. Perhaps one of the most notable Japanese references is a nod to Pokémon, Nintendo's beloved video game franchise.
While listening to the in-game radio, you may hear the radio hosts suggest that players take some pictures while exploring Japan. They then use the term, "Snap 'em all," a play on Pokémon's legendary tagline, "Gotta catch 'em all."
The radio hosts then note that it's, "like that Japanese collecting game we're not allowed to name for legal reasons." It's a fun reference that has been amusing fans, especially since Nintendo is a very litigious company that will act against anyone who infringes on Pokémon's rights.
In related news, Pokémon turns 30 this year, and there's been no shortage of ways to celebrate. Target recently teamed up with Kellanova to produce a limited-edition line of Pokémon Pop-Tarts. As you might imagine, they have been the target of scalpers, who have been snatching up stock and reselling them for four or five times their normal retail price.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
PlayStation seems to be waving the white flag on its PC strategy, at least when it comes to single-player titles.
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PlayStation seems to be waving the white flag on its PC strategy, at least when it comes to single-player games.
Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that PlayStation was backing down from releasing future first-party titles on PC. There was still some ambiguity around how hard and fast those rules would be; as one example, Saros developer Housemarque dodged the question if the game would ever come to PC in an interview with Game Informer in the lead-up to the game's PS5 release. Now, things seem to be more concrete: Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reported that during a company town hall meeting this week, PlayStation studio business CEO Hermen Hulst affirmed that first-party narrative-driven single-player games will now be console exclusives for PlayStation.
That means you shouldn't expect Ghost of Yotei, Saros, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, or Marvel's Wolverine to come to PC. If you want to play those games, you should expect to buy a PS5. With that said, Hulst specifically calling out single-player games is interesting. This may mean multiplayer-centric games, like the in-development Fairgames, will still come to PC, something that would be wise given the immense success of Helldivers 2 on PC.
This news comes after roughly six years of PlayStation bringing some of its biggest games to PC, including its rebooted God of War titles, Marvel's Spider-Man games, Ghost of Tsushima, and The Last of Us series. These games often arrived months or even years after initial release, seen as a way to squeeze extra money out of these games from people who weren't going to make the jump to PlayStation. There may have even been some hope that by creating new fans on PC, it might inspire gamers to purchase a PS5 to play sequels to their favorite PlayStation games.
However, it seems the strategy hasn't been as fruitful as PlayStation may have hoped. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 had an all-time peak of 28,117 concurrent players on Steam — a fairly low number for one of PlayStation's biggest games starring one of the most iconic characters in modern fiction — while online games like Helldivers 2 peaked at 458,208 concurrents on Steam. Helldivers 2 also benefited from a simultaneous launch with the game's PS5 version, unlike many of the single-player titles.
Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida recently questioned the idea of PlayStation pulling back on PC, noting how the extra revenue from "releasing games on PC after a couple of years must have helped recoup the investment of these big budget games and help[ed] the team and company to reinvest that money into their new games."
He continued: "If they were releasing new AAA games day one on other platforms, I don’t think that’s a good strategy for [a] platform holder like PlayStation. I’m not seeing any proof of them changing their strategy this generation, but if they are changing, it's going to be interesting how they are able to maintain the investment on the big budget games on the first-party side going forward."
Similarly, Xbox is also reportedly assessing its approach to exclusivity going forward. Although PC is a big part of the Xbox ecosystem now and has been for years, many have questioned whether or not Xbox will continue to bring its games to PS5 under the leadership of Asha Sharma, the new Xbox boss. As of right now, there are a lot of rumors about what may happen next, but nothing has been concretely decided. Currently, games like Fable and Forza Horizon 6 are confirmed for PS5, with the former expected to arrive the same day and date on Xbox and PlayStation platforms.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
PlayStation fans have launched a new class-action lawsuit in an effort to claim refunds after Sony initiated price increases for the PS5 in response to tariffs last year.
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New PlayStation console owners have launched a new class-action lawsuit in an effort to claim refunds after Sony initiated price increases for the PS5 in response to tariffs last year.
The Walker et al v. Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California May 6, 2026 (via Engadget). Plaintiffs Amorey Walker and Bryce Foster-Quarles claim consumers are entitled to compensation after the console manufacturer allegedly received a "substantial windfall" following tariff policy enacted by U.S. President Donald Trump last year.
Sony announced it would raise the price of the standard PS5, as well as its Digital and Pro variants, by $50 in August 2025. It directly mentioned the "challenging economic environment" at the time, alluding to Trump's tariffs affecting its business. The tariffs were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in February 2026, raising the question of refunds for companies that had been impacted.
The class-action suit hinges on the belief that a "double recovery windfall" that Sony is set to receive should be passed on to the everyday buyer who purchased PS5s post-price-hike. It would potentially affect gamers who purchased price-hiked PlayStation hardware following the initial August increases.
Walker et al v. Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC is not dissimilar to a case filed against Nintendo just last month. The class-action lawsuit in question was filed by Gregory Hoffert and Prashant Sharan and seeks to ensure any refunds received by Nintendo are returned to customers after Nintendo Switch accessories were hit with price increases in April 2025.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers have admitted they put extra effort into Steve's fake-out death because they were "f**king with the audience."
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Five months after the Stranger Things finale, series creators the Duffer Brothers have admitted they put extra effort into Steve's fake-out death because they were "f**king with the audience."
Matt and Ross Duffer came clean during an interview with Josh Horowitz on Happy, Sad, Confused. Though the Netflix show's final episode premiered in December, that isn't stopping the duo behind the series from talking about the lengths they went to in order to mess with fans.
Warning! Stranger Things finale spoilers follow.
This is especially true when it comes to actor Joe Keery's Steve Harrington, a character who had fans fearing the worst in the months leading up to the finale. One moment in the final Stranger Things episode originally saw him suffer a brief, unimpactful fall from a great height, so the Duffer Brothers set aside a half day of reshoots to spice things up.
"We did a half day of reshoots, which we've actually never done on Stranger Things before," Ross Duffer said. "It was just little, tiny, miscellaneous things that we wanted to do, but the main reason we wanted to go back is because Steve's near-death just wasn't… It wasn't shot like that in a slow-motion way. It all happened really fast. In the edit, it's so dark that the moment wasn't going back.
"Then we went back with Joe Keery, and we just built a tiny, like, 3-foot slab of the tower because we didn't have money to rebuild it, and we just did that moment where he just dropped. Then we just milked it even more in the edit."
The finished version of the Stranger Things series finale saw Steve fall from the tower in slow motion before Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) came to his surprise rescue after a drawn-out cut to black. Matt Duffer later added that a dramatic fake-out of this level isn't something the crew behind the Netflix series would normally engage in, but with Stranger Things finally on its way out, they struck while the iron was hot.
"I don't know that we normally would have done him almost falling off the tower. That was us f**king with the audience, for sure," he said. "For sure. Which, we don't normally do, but I was like, 'This is a golden opportunity that we can't pass up.'"
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
Forza Horizon 6 makes cherry blossom trees and shrines indestructible — here's why.
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Forza Horizon 6 finally brings the racing series to Japan. Players can cruise around a highly detailed, stylized and condensed version of the country, taking in everything from downtown Tokyo, famous landmarks, and scenic country roads in all seasons as they test their mettle against other racers.
The game also rewards you with experience points for letting out that road rage by smashing your car into other vehicles or your surroundings. However, The Japan Times’ recent interview with design director Torben Ellert revealed that while you can destroy most things in Forza 6 by crashing into them (whether on purpose or because you understeered on a hairpin bend), culturally important things like shrines, temples, and cherry trees are indestructible.
“Almost all trees in the game are smashable to ensure that traversing the world map is both fun and rewarding,” Ellert explains. “However, several tree types are not — for example, the cherry blossom trees — because they’re an iconic element of Japanese culture. Certain temples or other cultural elements are also excluded so that players aren’t tempted to drive through shrines or locations of cultural importance.”
Cherry blossoms are historically and culturally important in Japan, often appearing as a key symbol in Japanese literature, art, and poetry. Their pink blossoms are a sign of rebirth and the coming of spring, but also a reminder of how fleeting life is. In ancient times, farmers made offerings and held feasts underneath the cherry trees in the hope that the spirits of the fields would bring a good harvest. In the 800s, the emperor and nobles also kicked off a tradition of holding parties to admire the cherry blossoms. These traditions have evolved into modern day hanami — cherry blossom viewing parties where people have picnics under the trees and enjoy the blossoms.
Cherry blossom trees in real life can be easily damaged. Tampering with or shaking the branches of cherry blossom trees in public parks is punishable by fines in Japan. Furthermore, some of the countries’ oldest trees are over 1,000 years old and protected as natural treasures by the government (like Uozumi Zakura in Gifu). Consideration for their cultural importance explains why UK studio Playground Games decided to make cherry trees invincible in Forza Horizon 6.
As for shrines and temples, last year, Assassins Creed Shadows received heavy pre-release backlash in Japan due to a preview that showed that players could smash up shrines. Ubisoft addressed this in a day-one patch that made shrine objects indestructible and prevented unarmed NPCs from bleeding when attacked (thus preventing bloodshed on sacred grounds). Forza Horizon 6’s devs have opted to be culturally sensitive regarding what the player can do to religious and cultural sites.
“Japan has been on our shortlist for several games now,” Ellert told The Guardian. “But we just didn’t feel like we were ready to take on the challenge of building it.” The team conducted in-depth research for the game, right down to the smallest details, hiring experts including cultural consultant and former Porsche ambassador Kyoko Yamashita to advise on their depiction of Japan and its racing scene. “Because it’s a culture we see a lot, there’s a temptation to think you know it better than you do, which is why we tried really hard to get people to course correct us if we were drifting,” added Ellert.
While those who pre-ordered the premium edition of Forza Horizon 6 are already burning rubber, the game officially releases on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on May 19. While you wait, check out IGN's Forza Horizon 6 review.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers have said they would love to redo the show's notorious Season 2 episode "The Lost Sister" but the rumors that it was supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a spin-off are "bulls**t."
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Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers have said they would love to redo the show's notorious Season 2 episode "The Lost Sister," but the rumors that it was supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a spinoff are "bulls**t."
The pair behind the hit Netflix show looked back on the highs and lows of their time in Hawkins, Indiana, during an interview with Josh Horowitz on Happy, Sad, Confused. While reflecting on the moments they'd love to take another crack at, both Matt and Ross Duffer gave an unsurprising answer for the Stranger Things episode they knew needed more love: Season 2, Episode 7.
"I think the mistake was this idea of a bottle episode," Matt Duffer said. "I think if we had threaded it in more organically throughout the season, it would have worked. It wasn't anybody's fault except ours. I just would have approached how we integrated Kali differently."
For those unaware, the seventh episode of Stranger Things' nine-episode second season pulls Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) out of Hawkins and into the streets of Chicago, where she meets a group of outcasts and soon-to-be friends. Among the new crew is Kali, a girl who happens to share connections to Eleven's past and also possesses supernatural abilities.
It's a bottle episode that has lived in infamy since it first premiered in October 2017. While the Duffer Brothers now admit the episode should have been handled differently, they don't think the idea should have been scrapped entirely.
"Matt and I got so drawn into getting those last two episodes of Season 2 written," Ross Duffer added, "and prepping because we were directing them, that it just got lost in the shuffle."
The Duffer Brothers went on to clarify that they knew even before the episode premiered that fans would find the integration of Season 2, Episode 7 a bit clunky. That said, Matt Duffer admitted the poor reception still "hit harder" than he expected. The response to "The Lost Sister" got so heated, in fact, that the pair walked into Season 3 "bummed" because so many fans remained locked on to their disappointment with that one 40-ish-minute episode specifically.
The Stranger Things Season 2 episode remains one of the least liked across the show's 40+ episodes. Some even speculated that Season 2, Episode 7 was originally meant to serve as a backdoor pilot for a spin-off. Now, nearly 10 years after its premiere, Matt Duffer wants to clear the air.
"First of all, let me just clear up some bulls**t out on the internet," he said. "There's so much bulls**t, we'd be here all day, but that was never designed as like a spinoff. That's bulls**t. That's not true. That's gross. We would not do that."
All these years later, the Stranger Things crew found themselves with fresh disappointment with the show after it came to an end with its Season 5 finale on December 31, 2025. Some fans were so displeased with the finale that they came up with theories about a secret episode that never came to be.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
Prolific voice actor Tom Kane, best known for playing Yoda in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, has died at age 64. Kane has racked up numerous credits across Star Wars, Call of Duty, and a wide variety of other animated projects. Tom Kane's talent agency, Galactic Productions, confirmed his death this morning.
"From his unforgettable performances in Star Wars to countless animated series, documentaries, and games, Tom brought wisdom, strength, humor, and heart to every role he touched," reads the agency's post. "His voice became part of our lives, our memories, and the stories we carry with us. But beyond the incredible career was an extraordinary man. Tom was a devoted husband and father who, alongside his wife, built a loving family of nine children — three biological and six welcomed through adoption and fostering. That compassion and generosity defined who he was just as much as his remarkable talent did. Though his voice may now be silent, the characters, stories, and love he gave to the world will live on forever."
Although the actor made a name for himself by playing Yoda in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, he also voiced a handful of other characters in the beloved sci-fi franchise. Kane was the voice of Boba Fett, C-3P0, Qui-Gon Jin, and several other legendary characters in Star Wars in animated shows, games, and films.
Kane also played Takeo Masaki, one of the four main characters in Call of Duty's iconic Zombies mode. The actor began his career in 1977 at 15 years old, but things really began to take off for him in the '90s and early 2000s as he booked roles in cartoons like Spider-Man: The Animated Series, The Powerpuff Girls, and The Wild Thornberrys.
His voice isn't just heard on TV, either. Tom Kane was hired for a number of voices at Walt Disney World. He was the announcer for the park's monorail system and could be heard providing health and safety announcements around the park following the COVID-19 pandemic. He's also been the announcer and narrator of numerous TV shows over the years, including various Star Wars cartoons.
Unfortunately, Kane suffered from a stroke in November 2020, prompting an early retirement in 2021. The actor struggled to speak and was therefore unable to continue his work.
Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
Don't worry, the Duffer Brothers will be happy to tell you what happened to Eleven in the Stranger Things finale…if you're willing to wait 20 years.
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Don't worry, the Duffer Brothers will be happy to tell you what happened to Eleven in the Stranger Things finale…if you're willing to wait 20 years.
Matt and Ross Duffer offered a post-mortem on their recently concluded Netflix phenomenon during an interview for Josh Horowitz's Happy, Sad, Confused. As fans continue to parse through their feelings about how Mike, Dustin, Max, Steve, and the rest of the Demogorgon-battling group's story ended, the showrunners still aren't ready to answer one of the finale's biggest questions: What happened to Eleven?
Warning! Spoilers for the Stranger Things finale follow:
The Stranger Things finale put an untied bow on the story of Millie Bobby Brown's telekinetic character when it premiered December 31, 2025. It's an intentionally ambiguous ending that sees its core group choosing to "believe" that Eleven is still out there, somewhere in the world, after seemingly making the ultimate sacrifice to save her friends.
So, is she still out there? Referencing the infamously long amount of time it took Sopranos creator David Chase to open up about his finale, the Duffer Brothers say they'll be keeping the door open three inches for at least another 20 years.
"If we're talking to you in 20 years," Ross Duffer replied with a laugh when asked if that was the timeline fans can expect for a reveal, "about Stranger Things, in 20 years… I mean I hope so. I hope people still care. That would be great, and then I'll say everything, yeah. At that point, 20 years from now."
Horowitz followed up with a joke: "20 years from now, it's a date. An exclusive on Happy, Sad, Confused, if I'm still alive."
The Duffer Brothers also spent time during the interview dodging theories related to Eleven's fate. One of the more popular pieces of "evidence" suggesting the superpowered character lives on is related to the strange heartbeat-like sound effect that plays during the finale. Matt Duffer admitted that the noise in question was written in the script to sound like a heartbeat, but it doesn't sound like that alone is definitive proof that she survived.
"It is written in the script that it is supposed to sound like a heartbeat, but it's actually just like… what do you call it? The brick," he explained. "That's what it is. It's just distorted, but yeah, you could interpret it as that. I mean, it was meant to be interpreted as that, potentially."
The pair also touched on post-finale interviews with Stranger Things cast members, like Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas), Sadie Sink (Max), and Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin), where they admitted that they did not believe Eleven survived. Again, Matt Duffer's reaction doesn't exactly spill the beans on Brown's character's fate, but he, at least, was surprised to hear their reaction.
"They have never said that to me," he said. "I gotta talk to them. I'm not saying they're wrong. It's just interesting that they all concluded that without talking to us, because that's not what the characters believe. I mean, they're good actors, so I don't know what's going on."
Stranger Things came to an end with Season 5 last year. For more on the show, you can see how cast members like Matthew Modine (Dr. Martin Brenner) and McLaughlin reacted to some of the more out-there fan theories about the finale. You can also check out our 9/10 review of the final episode.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
A bunch of mom-and-pop video game stores have received mysterious shipments of one of the PS4's rarest games, Poop Slinger.
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A bunch of mom-and-pop video game stores have received mysterious shipments of one of the PS4's rarest games, Poop Slinger. If you're unfamiliar with the tale of Poop Slinger, it's a pretty interesting one. The PS4 game was released in 2018 on PSN with a physical release in 2019. The physical release was handled by Limited Rare Games, not to be confused with the more established and well-known games distributor Limited Run Games. However, as you might imagine, there wasn't a ton of demand for a game called Poop Slinger, especially when it was available digitally.
As a result, few copies were made, and even fewer were sold. Although it was estimated there were fewer than 100 copies in circulation, Sony requires a minimum of 1,000 copies to be manufactured for physical PlayStation games. Still, no one knew where the remaining 900 or so were. Due to its rarity, it became a hot item online, and copies have been listed for upwards of $1,000 on sites like eBay.
Last week, things got more interesting. Those "missing" copies started showing up at independent gaming stores across the country. YouTuber and game store owner cakehoarder claimed that 39 stores had received six sealed copies each, for a total of 234 copies released into the wild.
Still, no one actually knows where these games came from. The return address was for another game store, which was reportedly just as confused as those who received the package. It has been theorized that someone stumbled upon excess stock of Poop Slinger in a warehouse or a storage unit and opted to give it away. Others have suggested the developer or someone involved with the game may have decided to offload extra copies they had stashed somewhere.
In 2019, VG247 reported that Limited Rare Games would have to shut its doors due to the failure of Poop Slinger, and creditors would take the unsold copies to repay the loan. However, it's unclear what the creditors did with those copies. Perhaps they were sold at an auction, or they've just been sitting on them.
However, to make things even more baffling, Limited Rare Games is back. The socials for the company and its website are operational, and it even addressed the matter with a bizarre video. The company posted a video of a content creator known as Hard Rock Nick talking about the price of an undisclosed item. He talks about the stress of the fluctuating price, but it's unclear if he's referring to Poop Slinger or something else, like crypto. Hard Rock Nick died in 2024, so this isn't a video that Limited Rare Games commissioned in response to the game's reappearance.
— LimitedRareGames.com 🤜🏻🦄🌈 (@ltdraregames) May 16, 2026
The whole situation only provokes more questions than answers. Who sent out these copies? What is the end goal? It'll be interesting to see if this story develops further or if the chronicles of Poop Slinger remain an unsolved mystery. If you're interested in playing Poop Slinger yourself, it's available on PSN for $4.99.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
Sony has announced price increases for its subscription service, PlayStation Plus.
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Sony has announced price increases for its subscription service, PlayStation Plus.
Starting May 20, PlayStation Plus prices for new customers will increase in select regions, Sony said in its announcement, blaming "ongoing market conditions."
Prices will start at $10.99 USD / €9.99 EUR / £7.99 GBP for 1-month subscriptions and $27.99 USD / €27.99 EUR / £21.99 GBP for three-month subscriptions.
This price change does not apply to current subscribers (except in Turkey and India) unless the existing subscription changes or lapses, Sony added.
Developing…
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
HBO Max has released a new trailer for DC Studios series Lanterns — and this time there’s plenty of green.
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HBO Max has released a new trailer for DC Studios series Lanterns — and this time there’s plenty of green.
Some fans criticized the first Lanterns trailer for its distinct lack of green — that is, their lack of Green Lanterns doing Green Lantern things. But this new trailer, below, shows Lantern legend Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) in a more traditional superhero light, using the power of the ring to block energy beams, create a protective bubble around him, and even create money out of thin air.
There are some space shots, too, with Hal Jordan arriving on the cracked surface of a mysterious planet in his Green Lantern costume. We also see new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) express his desire to obtain cosmic abilities for himself, which appears to put him in direct confrontation with Hal Jordan. But there’s more in the trailer: we get a glimpse of Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, fresh from his appearance in last summer’s DC Universe kickstarter Superman, and a first look at Laura Linney.
Green Lantern comic writer Grant Morrison decided to give his thoughts on erasing the pivotal color from the equation after Lindelof’s comments resurfaced.
“TV writer/producer Damon Lindelof’s comments notwithstanding, the ‘Green’ in ‘Green Lantern(s)’ is not ‘stupid.’ Why does a writer attach himself to this kind of narrative if he thinks it’s fundamentally ‘stupid’?” Morrison questioned via his Substack. “What is this jockish dismissal of superhero conventions intended to prove anyway? … The only people who give a f*** about the Lanterns TV series are Green Lantern fans. Why alienate them at the start? That feels more like ‘stupid.'”
Lindelof then responded to Morrison, apologizing to him and Green Lantern fans the world over. “I have upset Grant Morrison, which means I have now pissed off MOST of the brilliant British/Scottish comics writers that I grew up idolizing,” Lindelof said on Instagram. “To quote the bard (Otis Redding), this is nobody’s fault but mine.”
He added, “I made a dumb joke on a comedy podcast. I’m not going to bob and weave about context, the joke was dumb, the fandom is not. I owe them an explanation and a genuine reflection of my actual feelings.” Plus, Lindelof included an old photo of himself in a green Green Lantern shirt to hammer his thoughts home.
Lanterns will debut Sunday, August 16 on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max. It follows this summer’s DC movie, Supergirl, and before body horror DC film, Clayface, which comes out in October. Beyond that, next summer will see the release of Superman follow-up, Man of Tomorrow.
Here’s the official blurb:
The series follows new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Lantern legend Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
People are betting thousands of dollars on who will die at the end of the The Boys, which concludes with the Season 5 finale this week. But Chace Crawford, who plays The Deep, is keeping his mouth shut.
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People are betting thousands of dollars on who will die at the end of the The Boys, which concludes with the Season 5 finale this week.
Warning! Spoilers for The Boys Season 5 follow:
Just one episode of The Boys remains, and with many main characters left in play, fans are speculating who will die in the Season 5 finale — and whether supervillain Homelander will finally bite the dust.
One character who has survived to the bitter end is The Deep, played by Chace Crawford. And in a recent interview with Today, it was put to him that $14,000 rests on whether The Deep dies in Season 5.
“It could be my $14,000! We don’t know,” Crawford playfully replied. “Insider trading… it’s still the wild west on Polymarket, right?”
He then revealed some people are trying to prize the information out of him, but he won’t spill the beans.
“I’ve gotten some texts actually, from some people who were like, ‘Hey, really, dude, what episode is it exactly if you do?’ Can’t confirm or deny,” he said.
A cursory glance at Polymarket shows that yes, people are actually betting huge sums on who dies in The Boys Season 5. A number of main characters are already off the board, including Firecracker, A-Train, and, most recently, Frenchie. 89% of trades say yes to Homelander, 81% The Deep, and 55% Billy Butcher. It’s downhill from there for the other characters.
“A qualifying death must show the specified character dead on screen, or otherwise that character’s death must clearly be stated to have occurred, even if offscreen (e.g., characters confirm their death in conversation, the funeral of a character occurs, etc.),” reads the betting rules.
“If a death is reversed through a revival, resurrection, or reanimation that occurs after the character has died, that death will still qualify. Deaths occurring in any timeline or dimension depicted in The Boys: Season 5 will count toward resolution.
“Flashback scenes showing a character alive before their death, as well as dream sequences, hallucinations, or visions of dead characters, will not affect resolution. Characters who were already confirmed dead before The Boys: Season 5 begins will not count toward this market’s resolution.
“If a character’s fate is deliberately left ambiguous, it will not qualify toward the resolution of this market. Only deaths confirmed by the end of The Boys: Season 5 will qualify.”
It feels safe to rule out Soldier Boy, who’s now back on ice following Homelander’s confrontation with his father. Expect to see him pop up again in spinoff Vought Rising, though. Everyone else? They seem fair game.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Spider-Noir star Nicolas Cage has said he pushed for the Prime Video superhero series to be shot in color as well as black and white in a bid to appeal to teenagers, who he hopes will be inspired to seek out the great black and white films of American cinema.
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Spider-Noir star Nicolas Cage has said he pushed for the Prime Video superhero series to be shot in color as well as black and white in a bid to appeal to teenagers, who he hopes will be inspired to seek out the great black and white films of American cinema.
“Actually, it was one of my ideas to have them shoot it in color. Because I am aware of teenagers, and I’m aware they don’t have that much experience with black and white.
“So the dream is they watch it in color and then they check it out in black and white and learn something, and then maybe go, ‘Hey, I want to see some of these movie references.’ And then they open a treasure trove of wealth, of the great American cinema. That’s the dream. I hope that happens.”
Spider-Noir follows Cage as retired gumshoe Ben Reilly, who comes out of said retirement to best some baddies in 1930s New York City. The series plays up the noir element, giving audiences the choice of watching in subgenre-accurate black and white or “true hue” color.
Spider-Noir comes out on May 25 specifically on MGM+, a linear broadcast channel in the United States. The worldwide Prime Video release of the series arrives two days later on May 27. All eight episodes will be available as a binge release, and it will not be available on the MGM+ streaming platform. The only streaming platform will be Prime Video.
Spider-Noir MGM+ and Prime Video Premiere Information:
The series will debut domestically on MGM+’s linear broadcast channel on May 25, then globally on Prime Video on May 27.
All eight episodes will be available as a binge release.
It will not be available on MGM+ streaming platform. The only streaming platform will be Prime Video.
The series will air on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Games Workshop has shocked Warhammer 40,000 fans by confirming a leak of plans to sell ready-painted terrain for the upcoming 11th Edition of the tabletop wargame, dubbed Armageddon. But after a significant amount of speculation that the company was also set to sell ready-painted miniatures, Games Workshop has now ruled that out.
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Games Workshop has shocked Warhammer 40,000 fans by confirming a leak of plans to sell ready-painted terrain for the upcoming 11th Edition of the tabletop wargame, dubbed Armageddon. But after a significant amount of speculation that the company was also set to sell ready-painted miniatures, Games Workshop has now ruled that out.
Warhammer 40,000, the hugely popular sci-fi universe set in the grim dark far future, is normally played with terrain that provides cover, among other things. Official Warhammer 40,000 terrain from Games Workshop has, on the whole, not come pre-painted, but that’s about to change with the 11th Edition of the game in June.
It’s a significant change for Warhammer 40,000, but you can see why Games Workshop has made the decision. Part of the barrier to entry for Warhammer 40,000 — and indeed many of the company’s games — is the painting portion of the hobby. While a huge part of the community loves painting, some do not, and it can be a timesink. So, providing the option of pre-painted terrain (normal terrain isn’t going anywhere) will no doubt appeal to those who just want to get on and play the tabletop as quickly as possible. And, crucially, it will appeal to newcomers who are perhaps going to jump into the hobby with 11th Edition.
The next natural question is, are there any plans to sell ready-painted miniatures? But in a rare Warhammer 40,000 video Q&A, Games Workshop ruled it out. “No,” was the loud and clear response. So that’s that.
This means that while you’ll be able to save time with pre-painted terrain, you’ll still have to paint your miniatures if you want to play an official game of Warhammer 40,000. So, no change on that front, perhaps surprisingly in the context of the terrain decision.
Games Workshop spends much of the video talking about the nitty gritty of the 11th Edition rules and their impact on how the game will be played, as well as addressing burning questions about existing armies and their place on the war-torn world of Armageddon. We don’t have an exact release date yet for 11th Edition, nor a price, but we should get more information soon.
The Warhammer 40,000 universe is of course bigger than just the tabletop these days. There are video games, including the upcoming Dawn of War 4, Total War: Warhammer 40,000, and Dark Heresy, as well as animations (Amazon’s Prime Video animated anthology, Secret Level, includes a Warhammer 40,000 episode), and even an upcoming Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Universe, led by superfan Henry Cavill.
Photo by Uli Deck/picture alliance via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
The Hunt For Ben Solo fan campaign is still going, and its latest stunt saw a truck circle the Mandalorian and Grogu premiere in Hollywood.
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The Hunt For Ben Solo fan campaign is still going, and its latest stunt saw a truck circle the Mandalorian and Grogu premiere in Hollywood.
The Star Wars superfans behind the campaign have spent a year now trying to convince Disney to make canceled movie The Hunt For Ben Solo a reality, putting money into various initiatives designed to keep Adam Driver’s character front of mind.
The movie would have taken place following The Rise of Skywalker and centered on Adam Driver’s character Kylo Ren and his quest for redemption. Driver told the Associated Press that The Hunt For Ben Solo was “one of the coolest f—king scripts I had ever been a part of.”
Driver played Ben Solo / Kylo Ren in each of the three films in Lucasfilm’s Sequel Trilogy, with his final appearance in 2019’s divisive The Rise of Skywalker. “I always was interested in doing another Star Wars,” Driver said. He revealed he had been in talks about another Star Wars movie since 2021, and that then Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy had “reached out.”
“I always said: with a great director and a great story, I’d be there in a second,” Driver commented. “I loved that character and loved playing him."
Driver said Lucasfilm “loved the idea” and “totally understood our angle and why we were doing it.” However, Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney co-chairman Alan Bergman said no. "They didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that,” he said. Soderbergh told AP: “I really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m just sorry the fans won’t get to see it.”
Driver was described as feeling mystified by the decision, insisting the plan was to “be judicial about how to spend money and be economical with it, and do it for less than most but in the same spirit of what those movies are, which is handmade and character-driven.” He pointed to the much-loved Empire Strikes Back as being “the standard of what those movies were.”
The Hunt For Ben Solo sounds dead, but Brianna Johns, writer, voice actor, and self-confessed “avid” Star Wars fan, has not given up hope. Johns, alongside other members of the campaign, arranged for a mobile billboard truck to circle the world premiere of The Mandalorian and Grogu in Hollywood, CA. The truck featured large black text on both sides that said "WHERE'S BEN SOLO?" while showcasing the campaign's calling card, Ben's Missing Poster, on the back.
“This truck is our way of showing Disney we’re still here,” Johns told IGN. “We saw someone from Industrial Light & Magic posted our truck to their Instagram story and are taking that as a good sign, trusting that word of mouth spread within the event.”
The aim, Johns said, is for the fan campaign to hold one major event at least every other month “to inspire fans and engage the C-Suite.” In January, it was billboards, in March there was a presence at Toronto Comicon. They even had a professional skydiver jump out of a plane, and held a ticketed special screening of The Last Jedi in April. Now, it’s the premiere truck.
“Count on more meetups, more efforts and ways to help online and off,” Johns continued. “We’ll keep showing up and making noise however we can. Our overall goal is the same as it ever was: We want Ben Solo’s return on the big screen.”
Last year, Daisy Ridley told IGN she’d heard “rumblings” of Adam Driver’s revelations about the movie. “I have lots of friends who are crew, so things always travel like that. But, whoa! When the story came out, no, I was like, 'Oh, my God!' And it was him that said it, right?” Ridley added that she found the fan campaign that sprung up following the news heart-warming.
“I do love when there is a collective of positivity,” she said. “The way the internet seems to have rallied to try and get it to happen. I think one), it's fantastic for us all. It's good for us to all be united about something in a really positive way. Obviously, everyone knows he was a very popular character, but it was also lovely to think, 'Wow, people really, really care and want this.' I just... I like it. I like when people join forces — excuse the pun — from all around the world, all different sorts of people. I just love that the Star Wars fandom is such a huge and gorgeous array of different points of view and different people, and the fact that everyone is really behind this thing, I think, is just sort of lovely, in a time that is so f***ing nuts for probably every single person on this Earth. I think it's wonderful. So I was surprised, and honestly, I felt joyful about how it went down.”
In the short term, Jon Favreau's The Mandalorian & Grogu movie is out imminently, then Shawn Levy's Star Wars: Starfighter releases May 2027. TV wise, Ahsoka Season 2 is in development. Ridley's Rey film, assuming it actually gets made, takes place roughly 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker as she looks to rebuild the Jedi Order.
Image credit: Brianna Johns | @bananajohns.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
GTA 6 pre-orders were rumored to go live today, May 18, but it looks like those reports were inaccurate.
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GTA 6 pre-orders were rumored to go live today, May 18, but it looks like those reports were inaccurate.
Last week, GTA 6 fans lost their collective mind after reports emerged that Best Buy had potentially leaked the game’s pre-order date. During a livestream, YouTuber Frogboyx1gaming appeared to receive an email from Best Buy to his affiliate account signalling a pre-order campaign for GTA 6 that would run from May 18-21. The suggestion was that GTA 6 pre-orders would go live on May 18, potentially alongside GTA 6 Trailer 3.
As you’d expect, the GTA 6 fan community, already close to breaking point waiting for some sort of announcement or reveal for the game, has gone into meltdown — and yes, there are a number of angry posts from people who had come to expect pre-orders would go live today, despite the fact there was no official announcement that Rockstar.
The upshot of all this is that the wait goes on not just for GTA 6 pre-orders to go live, but a fresh look at the game, either in trailer or screenshot form. We still don’t know how much the game will cost. All we have to go on are rather vague comments from Strauss Zelnick, boss of Rockstar parent company Take-Two, who’s talked about GTA 6 marketing kicking off this summer, and the game itself offering incredible value whenever anyone asks him how much GTA 6 will cost.
Certainly, the wait for a new GTA 6 reveal has gone on longer than anyone expected. It’s been over a year since Trailer 2 came out. Trailer 1 came out three years ago, in 2023. Meanwhile, GTA 6 itself has suffered two official delays, first to May 2026 after it was penciled in for fall 2025, then to November 2026. In a new interview, Zelnick suggested GTA 6 was internally targeting an even earlier release window — around spring 2025 — before it was announced for fall 2025.
GTA 6 is significantly behind schedule, then, but Zelnick has gone on the record to say he’s keen to give developer Rockstar everything it needs to achieve “perfection.” And there is of course pressure on the game to deliver just that and break every sales record going.
At least Zelnick sounds really, really confident that GTA 6 won't be delayed yet again and will actually come out on November 19. When he was asked how he deals with not knowing when the game will come out, given his commitment to giving the developers all the time they need, he replied, firmly: "November 19th, I do know. It’s been announced."
We're now just six months from that date.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Warner Bros. Games has confirmed the LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight early access and full release times globally. Here's when you'll be able to play in your timezone.
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LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight sees you rise as the Dark Knight and experience the essential Batman story in a bold, action-packed adventure with hard-hitting combat, an open-world Gotham City, and the signature LEGO charm that fans know and love.
It draws on everything in the world of Batman: the movies, the 1960's TV show, and of course the comics, including the LEGO Batman version of the Batsuit from Gotham by Gaslight, the beloved steampunk-themed Elsewords comic from 1989.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is coming to Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. PC players will be able to log in from 10am PT on May 22, and console players can expect a rolling midnight launch. Those who've paid for the deluxe early access version, however, can jump in three days early.
IGN's Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight review returned an 8/10. We said: "A strong open-world Gotham and trademark Lego slapstick humour powers a fantastic plastic parody of Batman’s greatest hits."
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight early access release times
Depending on where you are in the world, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is set to go live at the following times for early access players:
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight early access release times on console:Monday, May 18, 2026:
PDT (San Francisco):
9pm
CST (Mexico City):
10pm
CDT (Chicago):
11pm
Tuesday, May 19, 2026:
EDT (New York):
12am midnight
BST (London):
12am midnight
CEST (Paris):
12am midnight
CST (Beijing):
12am midnight
JST (Tokyo):
12am midnight
AEST (Sydney):
12am midnight
NZST (Wellington):
12am midnight
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight early access release times on PC:
Depending on where you are in the world, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is set to go live at the following times for early access players on PC:
Tuesday, May 19, 2026:
PDT (San Francisco):
10am
CST (Mexico City):
11am
CDT (Chicago):
12pm noon
EDT (New York):
1pm
BST (London):
6pm
CEST (Paris):
7pm
Wednesday, May 20, 2026:
CST (Beijing):
1am
JST (Tokyo):
2am
AEST (Sydney):
3am
NZST (Wellington):
5am
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight full access release times on console:
Depending on where you are in the world, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is set to go live at the following times for all players on console:
Thursday, May 21, 2026
PDT (San Francisco):
9pm
CST (Mexico City):
10pm
CDT (Chicago):
11pm
Friday, May 22, 2026
EDT (New York):
12am midnight
BST (London):
12am midnight
CEST (Paris):
12am midnight
CST (Beijing):
12am midnight
JST (Tokyo):
12am midnight
AEST (Sydney):
12am midnight
NZST (Wellington):
12am midnight
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight full release times on PC:
Depending on where you are in the world, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is set to go live at the following times for all players on PC:
Friday, May 22, 2026:
PDT (San Francisco):
10am
CST (Mexico City):
11am
CDT (Chicago):
12pm noon
EDT (New York):
1pm
BST (London):
6pm
CEST (Paris):
7pm
Saturday, May 23, 2026:
CST (Beijing):
12am midnight
JST (Tokyo):
2am
AEST (Sydney):
3am
NZST (Wellington):
5am
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Forza Horizon 6 developer Playground has confirmed the global release times for the full launch of the hotly anticipated racing game.
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Forza Horizon 6 developer Playground has confirmed the global release times for the hotly anticipated racing game.
Confirmation comes after Forza Horizon 6 suffered a significant leak on PC that led to the game being made available to pirates well before launch. Playground and parent company Microsoft have been working to plug the leak, and even issued pirates with lifetime hardware ID bans. Some had wondered if the leak would alter Forza Horizon 6’s release plans, perhaps with it being brought forward, but that is not the case.
As confirmed in a post on social media, Forza Horizon 6’s early access launch went ahead as planned on May 15, with the full launch to follow from May 18.
As a first-party Microsoft game, Forza Horizon 6 launches day one on Game Pass (PC and Ultimate) on May 19. Preload went live on May 12 across all platforms (Steam, Xbox Series X and S, and the Xbox app for PC - a PS5 version is on the way, although it's due out later this year). Meanwhile, Forza Horizon 6 is 'Verified' on Steam Deck and other devices, including the Xbox ROG Ally and Ally X.
Steam access for everyone begins at 12:01 am on May 19 with the U.S. Eastern time zone. This is a global release pattern, Playground said, so the Steam launch will be aligned to Eastern time. Full timezone details are below.
Forza Horizon 6 Xbox global release times:Monday, May 18, 2026:
PT (Seattle):
09:01 pm
CST (Mexico City):
11:01 pm
Tuesday, May 19, 2026:
ET (New York):
00:01 am
BST (London):
00:01 am
CEST (Paris):
00:01 am
JST (Tokyo):
00:01 am
KST (Seoul):
00:01 am
AEST (Sydney):
00:01 am
NZST (Auckland):
00:01 am
Forza Horizon 6 PC via Steam global release times:Monday, May 18, 2026:
PT (Seattle):
09:01 pm
CST (Mexico City):
11:01 pm
Tuesday, May 19, 2026:
ET (New York):
00:01 am
BST (London):
05:01 am
CEST (Paris):
06:01 am
JST (Tokyo):
01:01 pm
KST (Seoul):
01:01 pm
AEST (Sydney):
02:01 pm
NZST (Auckland):
04:01 pm
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Fresh from its huge early access launch, underwater survival and crafting adventure game Subnautica 2 has sparked a significant debate among fans: to kill or not to kill the fish.
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Fresh from its huge early access launch, underwater survival and crafting adventure game Subnautica 2 has sparked a significant debate among fans: to kill or not to kill the fish.
Currently, you can’t kill any fish in Subnautica 2, and there is no weaponry to do so, and some players don’t like that at all. While you can sort of deter fish to go away by using a flare, you can’t actively kill fish while out in the deep — despite the fact they can not only pursue you, but damage you.
It’s worth noting that you can kill small fish in a roundabout way, but gathering them up as a resource and turning them into all sorts of useful things back at your base. But there’s no direct killing of any fish while out and about, making everything you encounter on the alien planet effectively immortal. Because of this, you’ll just bounce off fish if you crash into them. Indeed, this is not how it works in Subnautica 1, which does let players kill fish.
Unknown Worlds’ philosophy for the sequel is different. The developers have spoken in the past about not wanting players to conquer or dominate the environment, and that it wouldn’t feature tools that would let them slay anything that gets in their way. "We aren't a killing game," level designer Artyom "Artie" O'Rielly said in the Subnautica Discord. "Go play Sons of the Forest or something if you want to kill."
Still, with Subnautica 2 now out in the wild, the discourse around killing fish has resurfaced, and so the developers are once again chiming in. Environmental artist “uly” has had plenty to say on the topic, insisting that “the conversation around the ways fish die isn’t over.” The developers are talking about it a lot internally, uly said, and hope to provide an update soon.
“Trust me it is a HOT topic,” uly said. “There are so many opinions. Personally, I am hoping we can eventually let the little fish die. I’m team no-kill-shark-sized-stuff tho.”
“When you bump into a predator you shouldn't be going ‘uuuuuugh what a pain,’ you should be going, ‘Ah man... what tools do I have up my sleeve to deal with this guy?’”
“You do get a tool that will deter them, but it doesn’t deter them enough right now,” uly continued. “You prob wont be able to kill the shark sized stuff and larger, but you’ll get tools to deter them. Killing little fish? I’m not in charge of that stuff, but it’s an active discussion in the team.”
As mentioned, flares are an option for deterring fish, but they’re far from ideal. “I think that they take up valuable inventory space,” uly suggested, which “means most players aren't lugging them around. Inventory space is at too much of a premium.”
Clearly, Unknown Worlds is working out how to handle this issue, but don’t expect meaningful change any time soon. Uly said any change to allow players to kill fish would require “a good bit of investment” on the development side, citing game balance, mechanics, animation, sound, and AI considerations.
“We've had this conversation a TON internally,” uly said. “Regardless of where we land, we know that players don't have enough ways to deal with hostile wildlife.”
I’ve been keeping on top of the Subnautica 2 community while playing the game, and every now and then you see players ask for help on how to kill fish, unaware it’s simply not possible. For example, one person posted on the Subnautica reddit to complain about getting bit by fish, pointing out the Survival Multitool doesn’t hurt them back and asking if there is a weapon available further down the line.
“You can't kill fish, it's not in their vision,” one person replied. “I think it’s a good thing,” another added. “It’ll open up the devs to add more progression elements to deter or distract or pacify fish. Knifing them is probably the least interesting solution from a gameplay perspective.”
A change for killing fish is not on the Subnautica 2 early access roadmap, which was revealed last week. Unknown Worlds said it’s working towards a “big drop” that will expand the world with biomes, creatures, resources, tools, vehicles, and the next chapter of the story. But in the meantime, improvements will be added to the game. The first update will include quality-of-life fixes that Unknown Worlds said “should help adjust and address some areas that need a little tweaking to make your Subnautica 2 experience even better.” The second update, meanwhile, will focus on improving the co-op experience.
Unknown Worlds stressed that the roadmap is subject to change, but there’s plenty here that should excite fans — and there are a lot of them. Subnautica 2 sold an incredible 2 million copies in just 12 hours, and obliterated the first game’s Steam concurrent player peak. IGN’s Subnautica 2 early access review returned a 7/10. We said: “It’s pretty impressive that wading in the shallow tides of Subnautica 2's early access debut is as fun as it is already, and that should be a great sign of things to come, but I also wouldn’t blame anyone for waiting for these waters to rise a bit before getting their feet wet.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Borderlands’ well-documented 11th hour art style change cost Take-Two an extra $50 million in development costs and delayed the game by a year, but without it the now successful franchise would have flopped straight out the gate.
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Borderlands’ well-documented 11th hour art style change cost Take-Two an extra $50 million in development costs and delayed the game by a year, but without it the now successful franchise would have flopped straight out the gate.
That’s according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who in a sweeping interview with David Senra about his career said his approval of the last minute switch and associated extra cost was “a non-obvious decision” that no-one else would have made, but his trust in the developers was rewarded with a new hit franchise.
“We had not turned around the company yet, and we had very limited capital,” Zelnick began, speaking of Take-Two as it was after he had taken over the company in 2007. At the time, Borderlands was due out in 2008 with a realistic art style, but then Zelnick was asked to approve a significant change with the game basically done that would see it rebuilt with a cel-shaded, cartooney art style.
“We were developing a game and it was about to be released two months later, which is to say it's done. And we'd spent a lot of money,” Zelnick continued. “And the head of the division came into my office and said, ‘Look, we just don't think this is good enough and we think we screwed up and the art style is not appropriate and it's not differentiated. So, we want to remake the game.’ I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ He said, ‘It means $50 million of incremental dev costs [which was a lot of money to us], and another year.’ It was on a release schedule, which we’d announced. And I dug in. I mean, I don't give knee-jerk answers. I dug in and did my homework. In the end of it, I supported the decision. And that title became Borderlands. Had we not done that, Borderlands wouldn't have been a hit. And that was a non-obvious decision. And I can pretty much assure you no one else in the business would have done it.”
Why wouldn’t anyone else have made the same call? “Because it was insane,” Zelnick explained. “They would have said the game is done. Put out the game. Move on to the next thing. I'm not spending 50 million bucks to remake the goddamn thing in another art style. And I have no evidence that one will work either.”
Zelnick said he had to trust the intuition of the developers at Gearbox. “That's the story,” he added. “Be the most creative, be the most innovative, be the most efficient. I hired the most creative people. I said, ‘You have to pursue your passions. We will support you.’ They came and said, ‘This is our assessment. This is our passion. Are you going to support us?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’”
The rest, as they say, is history. The looter shooter franchise has now sold over 100 million units, with Borderlands 3 publishing label 2K’s fastest selling title, and Borderlands 2K’s top selling title with over 30 million sold.
While it worked out in the end, the art style switch caused a great deal of stress to a number of people. In an interview with Game Informer, Borderlands 4 creative director Graeme Timmins, who was the lead level designer on the original Borderlands, thought the idea was “f***ing insane."
"We had already been working on the game for several years at that point, and not only did we change the art style, we basically threw out all of the levels — I think only Trash Coast and, like, one other level made it through — everything else, we remade basically from scratch," he said. "From January to, like, August or September of that year, all of the level designers — at the time, level design, mission design, and level art were all just under 'level design' under me — we rebuilt the whole game to match the new art style from that time. It was an incredibly intense time, and we were like, 'What the hell are we doing?'"
In 2019, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford told IGN that while he believed it was the right move, the switch to a non-realistic aesthetic put a cap on the Borderlands franchise’s success. "I knew it was putting a ceiling on us because there's — especially back then — there's just a huge percentage of the gaming audience that does not want a cartoon," he said.
With Borderlands 4 out the door and continuing to get updates, it’s unclear what’s next for the franchise. Borderlands 5 seems like an obvious next step, but Zelnick has admitted sales haven’t met expectations.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Terraria developer Re-Logic has confirmed that updates will continue "beyond" the 1.4.6 update and the upcoming crossplay patch, and will share "other plans and ideas [...] when the time is right."
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Terraria developer Re-Logic has confirmed that updates will continue "beyond" the 1.4.6 update and the upcoming crossplay patch, and will share "other plans and ideas [...] when the time is right."
Addressing fans on its 15th anniversary in an update on Steam, the studio reflected on the staggering milestone of 70 million sales, 39.6 million of which were sold on PC, 10.7 million on console, and 19.7 million on mobile. Unsurprisingly, this has led to an average daily player count of around half a million players, and a peak of 1.4 million.
As part of the celebrations, Terraria is getting a 15th anniversary collector's edition — what, exactly, it includes remains a mystery — and Terraria Design Works, a book that takes a retrospective look at the life of Terraria, developed in collaboration with Lost in Cult.
"From the hardcore players with thousands of hours to those just discovering our 'metroidvania in a sandbox' today... from the builders to the speedrunners... from those that we interact with regularly in our community to those that just enjoy the game in silence... from those that are regular Terraria enjoyers to those that like to shake things up with all sorts of mods on tModloader... each and every one of you are precious to us," developer Re-Logic said.
"We hope that our game has brought you some joy over the years. Terraria is a unique experience one that we like to think that we have shaped together alongside the fans into the awesomeness that it is today. This is as much your journey as it is ours!"
Terraria has announced its "final" update a number of times, so many in fact that it's become something of a running joke within the community. 1.4.5 was once thought of as being the final update, but then came confirmation of 1.4.6, and now we know even more updates are planned for that.
"They just can't let the game end, and I'm grateful for that," joked one fan. "There's always more fun stuff they can add to this game." Another wrote: "Best $2.50 I ever spent was on Terraria when Steam sales still had deep discounts, I have hundreds of hours on it as well as many fond memories playing it with loved ones. Congrats to them."
Terraria 1.4.5 — dubbed the Bigger and Boulder Update — finally dropped in January, welcoming in thousands of new and returning players alike. Up until the new update, Terraria averaged around 20-30,000 players at any one time, with the occasional spike in interest when new content dropped over the years. 1.4.5, however, prompted one of the biggest spikes in over a decade, hitting a release day peak of almost 165,000 players on Valve's platform.
IGN reviewed Terraria 15 years ago (!), when it was released way back in 2011. Even then, though, we thought it was amazing, scoring it 9/10 and writing: "Though on the surface it looks like just another 'me too' indie game seeking to ride the coattails of Minecraft's success, Terraria expands on the familiar sandbox gameplay with a greater emphasis on combat and adventure that proves very satisfying. That's rare indeed."
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has said GTA 6 is about 18 months behind its original release date, suggesting spring 2025 was once the internal target.
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GTA 6 is due out November 19, 2026, but as we all know it’s suffered a number of delays. It was officially announced for a fall 2025 release, but was then delayed to May 2026, and then, again officially, to this November. But in a new interview, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick suggested GTA 6 was internally targeting an even earlier release window — around spring 2025 — before it was announced for fall 2025.
Speaking to David Senra in a new video interview about his career, Zelnick said GTA 6 was “about 18 months behind the original date… not much more than that.” That suggests the original plan, even if it wasn’t announced publicly, was to have GTA 6 out spring 2025.
Assuming that’s correct, GTA 6 is significantly behind schedule, but Zelnick has gone on the record to say he’s keen to give developer Rockstar Games everything it needs to achieve “perfection.” And there is of course pressure on the game to deliver just that and break every sales record going.
Given the expectation that GTA 6 will be the biggest entertainment launch of all time, it comes as no surprise to hear of astronomical development costs for Rockstar’s game. And it has been in the works for some time; according to Business Insider, some of the thousands of staff at Rockstar have been working on GTA 6 for over a decade now. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Zelnick said development costs have risen over the years, but Take-Two tries to give its teams “unlimited financial, creative human resources and then they aim to deliver perfection.”
Zelnick has said GTA 6 marketing will kick into gear in the summer, ahead of the planned November release date. Fans are anxiously awaiting the release of Trailer 3, as well as the launch of preorders, and there are all sorts of theories doing the rounds that will no doubt turn out to be nonsense. Such is the intense scrutiny GTA 6 is under, that even the innocuous becomes the big online talking point.
Zelnick, though, sounds pretty confident. In the interview with Senra, he said that “most people believe” GTA is the most valuable entertainment IP ever created, and while he wouldn’t say how much money the series has made over time, he did say, with a smile, “it’s a lot.” GTA 6 will surely be no different.
And Zelnick sounds really, really confident that GTA 6 won't be delayed yet again and will actually come out on November 19. When asked how he deals with not knowing when the game will come out, given his commitment to giving the developers all the time they need, Zelnick replied, firmly: "November 19th, I do know. It’s been announced."
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
The horror game adaptation grossed over $50 million at cinemas earlier this year.
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Iron Lung, the debut feature film from successful YouTuber Mark Fischbach, will be available to watch on YouTube from May 31, reports Deadline. Fischbach, who is known to his YouTube viewers as Markiplier, revealed the film’s home viewing premiere date during a panel discussion at Cannes.
It was confirmed the release will be exclusive to YouTube, with Fischbach referring to the service as his home.
“I’m pretty loyal to it,” he said.
Iron Lung, which was written, directed, and edited by Fischbach (who also self-financed and starred in the film), was released in cinemas in January this year. Based on the 2022 video game by developer David Szymanski (Dusk, Gloomwood), Iron Lung is the story of a convict who is sealed inside a submarine and forced to navigate his way through an ocean of blood on a desolate moon. The mission comes in the wake of an unexplained phenomenon that has seen all stars and planets in the universe disappear, leaving the only humans remaining those who were aboard space stations or spacecraft at the time.
While the critical response to Iron Lung was mixed, the film was a commercial success, grossing more than $50 million on a budget of $3 million. IGN’s review noted that while it was clear Fischbach “really loves Iron Lung… his sluggish movie adaption of the game feels interminable rather than serving as a compelling interpretation of this world.”
Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.
The story of the Corleone family is turning to the next page, as The Godfather is now set to continue with a new book called Connie that is set to release in 2027.
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The story of the Corleone family is turning to the next page, as The Godfather is now set to continue with a new book called Connie that is set to release in 2027.
Publishing company Random House told the Associated Press earlier this week that it had officially acquired a Godfather novel written by best-selling author Adriana Trigiani. The novel has been authorized by the estate of original book series author Mario Puzo and will follow a story from the perspective of Don Vito Corleone's only daughter.
"Connie is a novel about how a woman works to forge her own way in a world that's already decided who she is, what she's about, and how she should be treated," Trigiani said in a statement. "People underestimated Don Vito Corleone and Michael Corleone at their peril. The same will be true for Connie Corleone."
The Godfather is no doubt most widely known as the film trilogy that director Francis Ford Coppola started in the '70s. Although the movies still stand as some of the most quotable films in the history of cinema decades after their release, the Corleone family's roots actually date back to Puzo's 1969 crime novel, also called The Godfather.
He went on to continue the tale with a sequel titled The Sicilian in 1984, and although a series of additional books – including The Godfather Returns, The Godfather's Revenge, and The Family Corleone – were published all the way up to 2012, Connie will be only the third to receive approval from Puzo's estate.
Trigiani will pick up the reins as the first estate-approved installment written by a woman. It's unclear how it will expand on the story of Connie Corleone, who was played by Coppola's sister, Talia Shire, in the movies.
"We had been looking for someone to retell the story from a new perspective," Puzo's son, Anthony Puzo said in a statement. "Adriana was knocked out when I told her that the character of Vito Corleone (played in the films by Brando and De Niro) was actually based on my grandmother. We talked about how the women ran both of our families, but behind the scenes. Adriana's vision for Connie's life blew us all away. I'm very pleased and excited to have her on board."
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
Keanu Reeves is set to play the lead role in Hidari, a Japanese stop-motion "wood sculpture" samurai film whose proof of concept video blew up on YouTube three years ago.
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Keanu Reeves is set to play the lead role in Hidari, a Japanese stop-motion "wood sculpture" samurai film whose proof of concept video blew up on YouTube three years ago.
Hidari began life as a proof-of-concept film released on YouTube back in 2023. It features eye-catching stop-motion action, with characters made from wood, an arsenal of secret prosthetic weaponry, and even a towering wooden mech. The video has amassed over 4.9 million views, with plenty of enthusiasm in the comments for it to be fleshed out.
Creator, writer, and director Masashi Kawamura had said he had a much longer story to tell, and that he had been searching for production partners and investors to help turn the concept into a full length film. Now, it looks like that dream may come true.
Cannes’ Annecy Animation Showcase: The hyped Japanese stop-motion project 'Hidari' leads this year's slate. A stylized and incredibly-shot revenge tale set in Edo-era reconstruction that raised over $100,000 with its 2023 Kickstarter. Full lineup details: https://t.co/kKzBUgtG3cpic.twitter.com/SqLa1IExBP
Reeves, star of The Matrix, John Wick, and the odd samurai movie himself, voices protagonist Hidari Jingoro, who is described as “a man consumed by revenge yet unable to abandon his instinct to create.”
Here’s the official blurb:
Hidari is a stop-motion period film inspired by the legendary sculptor Hidari Jingoro, a mysterious figure whose existence remains uncertain yet who left behind countless works and tales. Brought to life through intricately carved wooden puppets that mirror his craft, the film is being co-developed by three companies: Whatever, the creative studio co-founded by director Masashi Kawamura, together with two internationally acclaimed stop-motion studios, dwarf studios and Tecarat.
Set in Edo-period Japan, Hidari weaves together real historical events and figures with original characters to tell a story of revenge.
Jingoro, a master craftsman of his time, is caught in a conspiracy during the reconstruction of Edo Castle, losing his mentor, the woman he loves, and even his right arm. Barely surviving, Jingoro is transformed into an agent of vengeance. Replacing his lost arm with a weaponized prosthetic, the tools he once used to carve wood are reborn as instruments of destruction. Accompanied by his partner, the “Sleeping Cat,” he sets out on a journey of revenge — only to find himself drawn into an even greater conspiracy.
Power struggles within the shogunate, advancing mechanical soldiers, and a transforming Edo Castle all threaten to consume him. As everything closes in, something within him begins to change. Hidari is a story of revenge and rebirth — of a man who once lived to create, only to lose himself in destruction, and ultimately rediscover both himself and the meaning of his life.
Hidari is Reeves' first role in a Japanese original production, although he is no stranger to voice work, having played Shadow in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Duke Caboom in Toy Story 4, and Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2077. He's also familiar with playing samurai, having starred in 2013 movie 47 Ronin in the lead role.
“I’m thrilled by the vision behind Hidari,” Reeves said. “From the proof of concept to the developed script, the team has created something truly extraordinary. It has all the makings of an exceptional film — one I’m excited to see and eager to be part of. I believe this project has the potential to bring something very special to audiences worldwide.”
Kawamura sounds equally thrilled that he's managed to snag Reeves for the role, saying: "One of the films we referenced while creating the Hidari pilot film and developing the screenplay was John Wick. And when I made my own personal dream list of actors I hoped could someday be part of the feature adaptation, the very first name I wrote down was Keanu Reeves. I never imagined that he would actually join the project. Even now, it still feels surreal to me. But with such an incredible actor becoming part of Hidari, our entire team is more motivated than ever to create something truly special together with him."
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Ghost of Yotei developer Sucker Punch Productions has confirmed its Legends multiplayer mode will not receive any additional major updates in the future.
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Ghost of Yotei developer Sucker Punch Productions has confirmed its Legends multiplayer mode will not receive any additional major updates after first launching in March.
Lead designer Darren Bridges announced the end of online support for developer Sucker Punch Productions' 2025 PS5-exclusive sequel in a message shared via the PlayStation.Blog. The post itself mostly serves to cover all of the big changes brought by the new Raid update, which launched April 10, but comes with the caveat that this content-packed patch will be the online modes' last.
"The Raid update was our last major planned update for Legends," Bridges said. "It finishes the story of the Yōtei Six in that mode. We’ve loved to see players playing it, continue to play it and enjoy it. It’s been great."
Ghost of Yotei launched for PlayStation 5 October 2, 2025, but Sucker Punch didn't go on to announce plans to add its Legends mode as a free DLC until February of this year. Its release date then followed March 10.
It's unclear why the studio has ceased support for any future major updates just two months removed from its launch. Although major content updates are coming to an end, Sucker Punch did not clarify how long Ghost of Yotei Legends will receive smaller patches for things like bug fixes and balancing.
It's especially shocking news considering Sucker Punch supported the Legends mode for Ghost of Tsushima long after its launch in October 2020. December of that same year brought PlayStation-themed skins based on Bloodborne, God of War, and more, for example. Then, in August 2021, the studio announced a standalone version of the experience, which also included a whole new game mode called Rivals when it launched in September.
Ghost of Yotei launched as a particularly popular PS5 exclusive, with Sony saying in February that it "significantly" contributed to its financial results at the time. We gave it an 8/10 review at launch.
"A predictable but well-executed story takes you through Ghost of Yotei's gorgeous landscapes and satisfying, fluid action – it may not be revolutionizing open world games, but it's a great distillation of the samurai fantasy," we said at launch.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
Man of Tomorrow actor Lars Eidinger has described his live-action take on Superman villain Brainiac as something that is like "an incarnation of Satan."
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Man of Tomorrow actor Lars Eidinger has described his live-action take on Superman villain Brainiac as something that is like "an incarnation of Satan."
The man behind the DC's next big movie villain gave audiences their first tease for what he's bringing to the DCU during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Although the James Gunn-directed and David Corenswet-starring Superman sequel is still more than a year out from its theatrical premiere, Eidinger is propping up his world-conquering bad guy as a threat of biblical proportions.
"Yes, the theatrical quality has actually helped me enormously in the context of Superman, too, because it involves a different register of performance, one that isn’t primarily realistic and allows for a far more expressive style of playing," he said when asked how his work in theater has helped in onscreen. "When I watch a film like James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, I find it has a great theatrical quality — in the handling of good and evil, and in a certain tendency toward allegory. Brainiac is described as the incarnation of Satan. I find that almost Shakespearean. The king, the fool — there are so many parallels for me."
Brainiac is not only a recognizable Superman villain; he's one of the most infamous comic book characters in history. Readers and movie watchers have done their best to pick up on every little detail Gunn has dropped when it comes to teases for a DCU version of the mean, green antagonist, but the truth is, most information is probably being saved for closer to the release of Man of Tomorrow.
Eidinger says his Brainiac will give Corenswet's Clark Kent a run for his money, even if we don't know exactly how quite yet. Elsewhere in the interview, the actor opened up about how he was pulled into the budding DCU in the first place. He clarified that doing a comic book movie is "not as different" from his previous work on projects like Clouds of Sils Maria or Home for the Weekend as one might think. He even goes on to praise similar films for having "a serious philosophical ambition," adding that "they carry great allegorical weight" for him.
"Take just the word 'super' — it's used as a superlative, for something excellent, wonderful," Eidinger continued. "But 'super' really only means 'over' or 'above.' So Superman is the Übermensch. You have the Super Ego. There’s already a deep psychological dimension built in."
"Last week I was on set during rehearsals and asked if I could watch some of the filming, which had already started. And I saw an actor in the Superman costume, suspended on wires in front of a bluescreen. I looked at that image and thought: This is the essence of fiction. It’s as significant an image as Hamlet holding the skull: Superman, in that Superman pose, hanging from wires in front of a bluescreen.
"Being in the Superman universe wasn’t a dream or burning desire for me. But now that it’s happening, I can see a certain inevitability in it, something almost fated."
Superman Man of Tomorrow will continue Gunn's vision for a new DCU when it brings Corenswet back to the big screen July 9, 2027. Filming began in April, and its cast also includes Matthew Lillard, Andre Royo, Adria Arjona, and more. While we wait for updates, you can catch up on all of the latest from Supergirl ahead of its premiere in June.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
"I don't understand what it's supposed to do. Every time I see a video on Instagram that's like, 'Hollywood is cooked,' what follows is, like, the most stupid dog s**t I've ever seen in my life," Rogen said with a chuckle. "And if your instinct is to use AI and not go through that process, you shouldn't be a writer because then you're not writing. Go do something else."
Rogen has helped the comedy scene flourish with his work on movies like Superbad and Pineapple Express since the 2000s. More recently, he's received critical acclaim as a director, writer, and star in Apple TV's The Studio, a show that spent its first season tackling many of the issues Hollywood faces today.
Now, he's promoting Tangles, an animated film about Alzheimer's disease that stars himself, Bryan Cranston, Pamela Adlon, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Rogen confirmed that the movie, which premieres at Cannes but does not currently have a wider release date, features no AI, adding that "every frame has a human touch to it."
"And if you don't want to go through the process, you shouldn't be a writer," he added. "The idea of a tool that makes me write less is not appealing to me. Because I like writing."
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
Prime Video has published a The Boys Season 5, Episode 8 teaser trailer, revealing one last look at Butcher, Hughie, Starlight, and the rest of the crew before they set off to go "scorched earth" on Homelander.
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Prime Video has published a The Boys Season 5, Episode 8 teaser trailer, revealing one last look at Butcher, Hughie, Starlight, and the rest of the crew before they set off to go "scorched earth" on Homelander.
The 30-second video mostly leaves the events of the finale up to viewers' imaginations. As shots of Hughie, Mother's Milk, Ashley, and even Ryan whiz by, the teaser trailer also hints at what looks to be a fight at the White House between Starlight and the Deep, as Butcher says that "superheroes are done."
"Can't show ya much without spoilin' the whole kit and caboodle," a description for The Boys finale teaser said. "But Wednesday, we're going all the way. No matter the cost. Til the job's f**kin' done."
Can't show ya much without spoilin' the whole kit and caboodle. But Wednesday, we're going all the way. No matter the cost. Til the job's fuckin' done. pic.twitter.com/yzbgI6WtdL
This is the big one. The Boys Season 5, Episode 8 will deliver the Prime Video show's proper series finale this Wednesday, and if the anti-supe crew has any luck, it'll bring the end of Homelander, too. However, the events of Season 5 prove they've got their work cut out for them.
Warning! Spoilers for The Boys Season 5, Episode 8 below.
So far, this latest and last batch of episodes saw Butcher's plan to spread a superhero-killing virus fall apart after Soldier Boy shocked Sister Sage (and audiences) by giving Homelander access to immortality with V-One. The backup plan didn't exactly turn out well, either, as the newly immortal supervillain was able to quickly find where The Boys team was hiding out, resulting in the death of series regular, Frenchie.
With seemingly no other options and Homelander more powerful than ever, things aren't exactly looking too great for everyone heading into the finale. Still, Butcher's speech in the Season 5, Episode 8 teaser trailer suggests he may have a trick or two up his sleeve.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer 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).
