It’s taken five years for Pablo Clark to design and refine and illustrate The Old King’s Crown, his very first board game. Over that time, whispers have been growing among playtesters and convention crowds that this title, where players take the role of asymmetric factions competing to win the rulership of a fantasy kingdom, was something special. Something, certainly, that was better than we had any right to expect of a first-time designer. Now after a self-publishing Kickstarter run, it’s finally here, and we can explore Clark’s kingdom in all its glory.
What’s in the Box
There’s no discussing The Old King’s Crown without first talking about the art. It’s right there on the box lid, after all, and it is stupendous. Rich with color and detail, stylized yet recognizable, bringing to life in glorious precision a world that has never existed. The fact that the designer is also the artist just makes you wonder how he got to the front of the queue when talent was given out.
Even when you slide off that sumptuous box lid, the art is everywhere within, almost every picture adding to the story and the setting. It’s on the board, which is a window from a high tower looking down on the provinces of a kingdom in civil war, as though players are plotting in their fastnesses while the people suffer. It’s on the deck of tarot-sized cards for each faction, filling in the wide narrative gaps in the brief rundown given to the setting in the rulebook. It’s on all the kingdom cards, faction-neutral buffs available for players to pick up. And it’s all astonishing: every time you play, you’ll notice something new.
All the graphic design and component quality here is sumptuous and spellbinding. The layout of the rulebook with its pictorial examples, the way the board carefully walks you through the stages of each turn, the pleasing color and layout of each faction's markers and central board, embossed with pockets to hold cards and chunky, printed wooden pieces of the matching color. The remaining few generic items: a turn marker, clash order markers and a few other bits and pieces are simple black-and-gold wood.
Assembled as a whole, it takes up a massive chunk of table space – but it looks incredible, a wood-and-cardboard invitation to stop and stare, a whole world laid out in squares and circles for those who take the time to look and appreciate.
Rules and How It Plays
This is quite a complex game, but the complexity is in the sheer information density available rather than the core flow of play, which is relatively straightforward. Games last a fixed number of turns, normally five, and each turn is broken down into four seasons. The meat of proceedings takes place in summer, where players will fight over three locations, each of which has two possible rewards, to be chosen by the victor. First, in turn order, players place their herald into one of the victory spots, which will bring them bonus points if they win there. They can then place some of their small pool of supporters in a location, which provide a small combat bonus. Then it’s time for the card play.
All players start with functionally identical card decks from which they draw a hand of six. Everyone places a card, face down, next to each location. Then they’re resolved one at a time, with everyone flipping over a card and adding the number on that card to the number of supporter pieces there. Highest total wins. Except, very often, it doesn’t.
There’s no discussing The Old King’s Crown without first talking about the art... It is stupendous.
The reason for this is that many cards have action icons which can be invoked to complicate matters. Ambush, for example, lets the owner play a second card into the melee. Flank lets that card slide out of the current combat and into a future one. There are others, but most terrifying of all is Deadly, which takes place after all other actions and kills enemy cards, putting them out of the game and into the dreadful “lost pile” for the remainder of play unless they have a helmet or shield icon, the latter of which also keeps them in the fray for that location.
It’s hard to overstate quite how taut this is. Someone flips the cards and all at once everyone’s craning over the massive board, desperate to decode the game’s intricate array of symbology to work out who’s in contention and what the next steps might be. Combats that are decided by ambush, or value ties which are resolved with additional card play, crank the excitement up even more, as do deadly attacks which can see critical cards assigned to the lost pile forever. And then when it comes to heralds, the stakes just go through the roof.
All the locations score you influence, the game’s name for victory points. But if you win in a space where you’ve placed your herald, you get an extra point. And if you win in a space where you and others have placed their heralds, you get to take a victory point off each of those poor unfortunates. This is a game where a winning tally can be 15-20 points, so actually taking points off other people to add to your own is huge. A well-calculated herald placement can swing you from last place to first in one fell swoop, ensuring that everyone is in contention, right up until the end.
Naturally, this invites all kinds of scheming. Discard piles are public information, so you can grub around in people’s trash, seeing if they’ve played that deadly card or whether it might be lurking in their hand, still, to screw you over. It’s also possible for players to buy additional cards to add to their deck, which not only come from asymmetric stacks tailored to your faction, but can add even more wrinkles to the formula, like making it lowest card wins instead. You’ll need to keep an incredibly sharp eye on what everyone else is doing if you want to minimize the chance of nasty surprises.
Buying new cards is only one way in which the game’s asymmetry shows. Each faction has a set of four special one-use powers, plus a fifth that you can invoke if you win a particular location. They’re all unique, and roughly aligned to that faction’s thematic play style. The Gathering, which represents the cult-like state religion, can swap the positions of two cards in combat, or sacrifice cards into the lost pile in order to gain resources to buy more cards. The uprising, by contrast, which is a revolution of the state’s common folk, can give cards the deadly effect, or the retreat effect.
As you begin to weave together the various unique card effects, asymmetry, special powers, and location victory effects you can begin to see all sorts of ways you can influence not only individual clashes but the game state as a whole. Your hand size will drop as the game progresses, except you can arrange things so it doesn’t. You’ll lose supporters, unless you find a way to gain them back. If you buy enough new cards you’ll get a point bonus, but you’ll have to make big sacrifices to do it. The number of ways you can approach The Old King’s Crown and still win is absolutely jaw-dropping, almost mind-crushing in its loops within loops within loops.
The number of ways you can approach The Old King’s Crown and still win is absolutely jaw-dropping.
And still there’s more! We’ve only really covered the summer turn so far. In spring, players use cards to bid in a selection of kingdom cards, most of which are game-breaking in their own right. They can let you swap cards you’ve drawn for one in the lost pile, steal other player’s special powers, or give your cards extra effects. Each is easily enough to build a strategy around by itself, but you can hold up to two of them. Except that after the initial bid, you can steal kingdom cards off other players instead of taking a fresh one, forcing them, and you, to replan on the fly.
In the autumn you can send cards journeying, which gives you the chance to buy more cards, or you can send them to council, where they stay and give a long-term special ability. This can mean potentially more points if you win with your herald, the chance to grab supporters back, or other effects. Finally winter is just a bookkeeping phase and, frankly, a chance to catch your breath after the absolute strategic and social insanity of an entire round of The Old King’s Crown.
This is not an exaggeration. While there’s a staggering amount to enjoy here, the sheer quantity of detail you need to take into your stride to maximize your chances is almost overwhelming. You need to be on top of your own special powers and special cards, along with everyone else’s, what they’re buying, what they’re playing, what’s in their discard pile or the lost pile. You need to be cognizant of each player’s kingdom cards, what they do and what you need to bid to steal them, or protect your own. Initially this seems impossible. It gets easier with practice but you’ll need to play an incredible amount of this game if you want to properly internalize it.
You don’t, however, need to do all that in order to win. It’s perfectly fine to play from the hip more, although the reams of detail will nag at the edges of your thought processes as you do so. And you can get away with it because, fundamentally, you can check every discard pile in the game and still not be certain whether a player has just thrown down their deadly card into a herald location or whether it’s a tricky bluff. You can do very well just by reading faces, voices, and body language. And that creates a strange tension at the heart of The Old King’s Crown: it’s a game that gives you the most astonishing range and leverage to build strategies, and then lets other players pull the rug out from under you with a cunning bluff.
Marvel star Brie Larson cast her vote in yesterday's elections while covering her hair and telling fans they should absolutely, definitely "ignore the wig!!" she was wearing. Which, of course, has led the internet to do exactly the opposite.
The Captain Marvel actress posted an Instagram story last night letting her followers know she had voted — while dressed in a large hooded sweatshirt pulled up to hide her clothes and as much of her blonde wig as possible.
It is, frankly, a remarkably suspicious caption for an actress who regularly sports similar hair — and something that has only drawn attention to the fact Larson is clearly hiding whatever character she is currently playing.
Naturally, this has only fuelled the flames of fan speculation that Larson is indeed secretly filming scenes for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday — which, it's important to remember, she was conspicuously left out of the main cast reveal for.
Fans certainly expect Larson's character to turn up within the movie at some point — not least because it would be weird to leave out such an important MCU figure. But there's a more important connective tissue here, too, as Avengers: Doomsday will feature many faces from Fox's X-Men cast, while Captain Marvel's best friend Monica Rambeau was last seen getting stuck in the X-Men universe.
While principal photography for Avengers: Doomsday has wrapped in the UK, fans expect additional scenes to continue to be filmed over the coming months in secret, as Marvel attempts to squeeze as many heroes into its next blockbuster as possible.
Alternatively, of course, Larson could simply be playing another character with hair that looks very, very similar to her Marvel character — but try telling the internet that.
"Ignore the wig is hilarious promo cause I don't think people would've noticed," wrote Marvel fan remerdy1 on reddit. "Yep, exactly, it's like she wanted us to notice," another fan, KostisPat257, agreed.
That said, not every Marvel actor seems likely to appear. Earlier this week, X-Men veteran Famke Janssen insisted that Marvel hadn't asked her to play the superhero again since the end of Fox’s X-Men movies. Other Fox X-Men veterans set for Doomsday include Kelsey Grammer, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Alan Cumming, and Rebecca Romijn. Avengers: Doomsday is currently set to arrive in theaters May 1, 2026.
Image credit: Brie Larson.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
While we’re still waiting for Disney and Epic Games’ connected universe to arrive in Fortnite, a big step has been taken towards that goal as Disney Parks has arrived in Fortnite for the first time with Disneyland Game Rush. We had the chance to try out this Fortnite Creative island and discovered it to be an incredibly authentic experience that celebrates Disneyland’s 70th anniversary through enjoyable yet forgettable mini-games and environments inspired by beloved attractions such as Haunted Mansion, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, and more.
Disneyland Game Rush is a limited-time offering in Fortnite that officially launches on November 6. You can simply search for the game title or jump right in by using the island code, 4617-4819-8826, to experience this new adventure for free.
When you first enter Disneyland Game Rush and in-between mini-games, you are welcomed into an esplanade that is modeled after the one between Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, complete with the 70th anniversary castle structure in the middle. On the perimeter, you can see Sleeping Beauty Castle, Haunted Mansion, Pixar Pier, the Matterhorn, and more, and all of these pieces make a very visually appealing Disney puzzle that I loved exploring.
You can also open up presents that are each inspired by attractions or Nighttime Spectaculars, participate in Disneyland trivia for points, trade in the tokens you’ve earned in the mini-games for island-exclusive Disneyland 70th-inspired cosmetics like Mickey Ears, a Spider-Bot hat, the head of a Disneyland 70th-themed R2-D2, and even a Hatbox Ghost Back Bling, among others. One of my favorite touches is that you can find one Disneyland Key in each land and redeem it for a golden version of these cosmetics. For those unfamiliar, the Disneyland Key is a physical toy key you can use on locks around Disneyland during its 70th anniversary celebration, and it is represented here in a clever, fun way.
Speaking of the mini-games, there are seven that you and up to 11 others can randomly compete in, and they are Disney Haunted Mansion: Scavenger Haunt, Matterhorn: Slip-and-Climb, Space Mountain: Rocket Race, Indiana Jones: Tomb Runner, Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Sneakout!, Star Wars: Stormtrooper Showdown, and WEB Slingers: Spider-Bot Blaster.
Disney Haunted Mansion: Scavenger Haunt was my favorite of the bunch, as it gives me an excuse to run through the spooky halls of one of my favorite attractions with a flashlight and a freedom you don’t have on the real thing. It also gets many bonus points for starting with the Stretching Room with that iconic welcome speech and paintings that are Fortnite versions of the real thing. While there really isn’t an objective besides collecting coins, it just made me smile so much with Grim Grinning Ghosts blasting through my speakers while I stumbled upon the Dining Room and got to dance with a group of ghosts that included Peely.
Star Wars: Stormtrooper Showdown was my next favorite, as it put you aboard a First Order Star Destroyer and tasked you with taking down as many Stormtroopers as you can. This was made even more fun as you could take on Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma and, if you defeat them, you can take their weapons as your own. There are even lightsabers hidden around the level, which is always a welcome addition. Fans of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will be happy to know the AT-ATs and laser cannon can be found as well.
I’d place Matterhorn: Slip-and-Climb third because it is perhaps the most chaotic. You have to climb the Matterhorn with a Grappler, but the twist is that your feet become blocks of ice when you do. It’s fun to swing and climb up the face of the mountain, but there was a lot of slipping, falling, and friends hilariously soaring down next to you in agony. Once I got the hang of it, though, it was an enjoyable experience with some good strategy thrown in, especially when I swung right into a Disneyland Key!
Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: Sneakout! takes spot number four in large part because it began with the welcome surprise of Jackson 5’s I Want You Back. What followed was a 2D adventure through a space prison where you had to avoid guards and make it to the Collector’s office on the top level. There were some nice touches in this level, with the Milano floating outside and the ability to throw Boogie Bombs at guards and friends to make them dance, but it wasn’t particularly exciting and the guards took you out way too fast.
Indiana Jones: Tomb Runner was next, and it’s a race through a trap-filled level that features a ton of nods to Indy’s adventures, including giant boulders, spikes coming from the floor, and poison darts being launched from the walls. There are also speed boosts you can get to help you on your mission, but anytime you touch a hazard, you slow down. It was tough to get good momentum as the traps seemed very tricky to avoid, but maybe I’m just not yet very good at being a treasure hunter.
WEB Slingers: Spider-Bot Blaster was second last for me, even though I loved how the team used the same models and animations as the Spider-Bots in WEB Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure in DCA. It’s a shooting gallery with multiplying Spider-Bots - normal ones, golden ones, and even a giant boss one - but it’s not as engaging, as you are mostly standing still in a window and shooting bots and exploding barrels instead of running and jumping all over the place.
Lastly, we have Space Mountain: Rocket Race. I love how this mini-game starts in a space modeled after the actual attraction, but the mini-game itself is just grinding on rails for a couple of minutes. The sense of speed is nice and I do love that classic Space Mountain music, but it didn’t feel like I really had control of whether I was winning or losing and I fell off a few times and had to wait for a respawn while I was slowly gliding down into nothingness.
All in all, these mini-games are fun distractions and I’m very excited to bring my friends with me into this experience until we can reunite at the real Disneyland. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine coming back to them after the luster of living in these incredibly well-done homages to some of Disneyland’s top attractions wears off.
What this does most of all, however, is make me even more excited for this partnership between Disney and Epic. As someone who has extensively covered Disney and visited Disneyland during its 70th anniversary celebration, I think they captured the feel of these attractions and parks in a very special way. I mean, there are even popcorn carts hanging about, a railroad circling the hub area, and a party at the end where you can dance with Mickey in his 70th-anniversary best.
Disneyland Game Rush, despite its name, doesn’t feel like a game that was rushed. It feels like a project lovingly created by Disney to celebrate Disneyland’s big milestone and give fans a way to celebrate even if they can’t make it out to Anaheim. While I hope they can improve the actual gameplay of these Disney experiences in the future, I couldn’t be happier with how faithfully Disney Parks has been brought into Fortnite for the first time.
Dante’s Inferno celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. Not that there’s been any fireworks or cake. Visceral Games’ 2010 hack-and-slash, which saw a crusader named Dante battle through the nine circles of Hell in an attempt to save his fiancee Beatrice from Lucifer, didn’t leave the massive, zeitgeist-defining impact that publisher EA had hoped for. Plans for an even bigger, more ambitious sequel were unceremoniously laid to rest.
For more than a decade, the game’s sizable cult following has wondered what the next steps of the journey would have looked like. Dante’s Inferno was very loosely based on the first third of Dante Alighieri’s epic 14th century poem The Divine Comedy, which imagines its author journeying towards Heaven, and so a sequel would presumably have carried the story into Purgatory and, finally, Paradise. Aside from the fact that it would have involved some kind of war between Heaven and Hell, no details of the cancelled project have ever escaped onto the internet. All that remains of it has been kept under lock and key by EA, gradually fading into legend.
That is, until today. After talking with a number of sources close to the project, IGN has obtained an assortment of hitherto unpublished internal documents, including concept art, cutscene storyboards, screenshots of rudimentary level geometry, and – last but not least – a 240-page script penned by Assassin’s Creed 2 co-writer Joshua Rubin that outlines every stage, boss battle, and plot point planned for Dante’s Inferno 2: Purgatorio (or, more elegantly, simply Dante’s Purgatorio.)
Taken together, these materials not only show that Dante’s Inferno 2made it further into the pre-production process than previously thought, but also that Visceral had planned to take the sequel in a slightly different direction than expected. The plot, for example, would have blended The Divine Comedy with another Biblical epic, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which reimagines Lucifer as morally ambiguous as opposed to a thoroughly evil figure.
The sequel’s underlying design philosophy would have been retooled as well. “The first game was heavily influenced by God of War,” one former Visceral employee told IGN. “At the time we were working on the second [game], Uncharted 2 was having a big influence on single player games: cutscenes and quick time events were being replaced with scripted gameplay sequences where the player has full control over the character.”
“So much of the original game was classic hack-and-slash in the arcade, Mortal Kombat tradition,” Jonathan Knight, the original game’s creative director, told IGN, hinting at what he wanted the sequel not to be. “Here’s an arena, some gameplay happens, then you move through a tunnel to the next part of the level. Some of that’s inevitable in a game, but the really great ones figure out how to make believable, natural environments.”
Had the developers been allowed to realize their creative vision, Dante’s Inferno 2 was planned to be to Dante’s Infernowhat Assassin’s Creed 2 was to Assassin’s Creed, or God of War 2018 to the original trilogy: a sequel that dared to go above and beyond the confines of its predecessor.
We cannot show you a game that was never made. But we can offer you an unprecedented insight into Dante’s Inferno 2’s entire campaign. What follows is a comprehensive (but by no means complete) written reconstruction of what playing this game would have looked like, from start to finish.
Dante’s Inferno 2: Purgatorio - The Complete Story
Level 1: Dream in Eden
According to the script, Dante’s Inferno 2 would have opened in the Garden of Eden. Dante, lying in the grass, awakens next to Beatrice, cradling a baby girl who – she tells him – is their daughter. “Tell me this is real,” he says, but when he looks again, both the baby and Beatrice have disappeared.
This is when you’d be given control of Dante, who looks for Beatrice in the garden as the opening credits roll across the screen. You’d be able to press a button to call out her name, prompting her to respond and, in turn, allowing you to follow the sound of her voice. By the time you catch up with her, Eden has grown uncharacteristically dark and moody.
The game’s opening boss, an enormous snake made of black smoke, appears from nowhere. Armed with your trusty scythe and cross, you battle to free Beatrice from its grasp, only when you get to her, she’s no longer herself. Having reassumed her corrupted, Queen of Hell-form from the original game, she speaks in Lucifer’s voice: “You’re dead, Dante!” The ground beneath you opens up, and you disappear into a bottomless chasm.
Level 2: At the Shores of Purgatory
One title sequence and “previously on” montage later, you resume from where the ending cutscene of the original game left off: with Dante emerging from a cave and being too awestruck by the glory of Mt. Purgatory to notice that the cross-shaped tapestry he tears off his chest transforms into a small, red snake upon hitting the ground.
“Though defeated at the end of the first game,” Knight recalls, “Lucifer is able to come back through this device of the tapestry, which is really a representation of Dante’s sins. He’s not forgiven, and he’s still carrying his wrongdoings with him.”
As the snake slithers away unnoticed, Dante sets off in search of Beatrice, who – he informs via voiceover – awaits him somewhere up the mountain.
On a beach at the foot of the mountain, Dante encounters Cato, a Roman senator who serves as a guardian of Purgatory. Giant and half-embedded into the cliffside, he welcomes a group of newly arrived souls that includes Beatrice’s brother Francesco, a fellow crusader whom Dante defeated – and absolved – back in Inferno.
Dante tries to follow Francesco to the mountain, but Cato – sensing the former is “besmirched by the blackness of Hell” – stops him. When they clash, however, the red snake from earlier inexplicably bursts forth from Cato’s mouth, splitting his face in half. The beach itself splits also, giving way to a hellfire-filled crevice. “So it begins,” Lucifer’s voice announces as his army of demons launches a full-scale invasion of Purgatory.
A cutscene introduces us to Michael, the senior of God’s archangels. Looking down from Heaven, the divine magistrate sizes up Lucifer’s forces before sending down an army of his own. “Angelic airships” pierce through the clouds above Eden and make their way down the mountainside, where Dante has now found himself in the midst of a chaotic battle between angels and demons.
Attacked from both sides, Dante comes face to face with Lilith. The original wife of Adam, she was seduced by Lucifer and now serves as his second-in-command. Similar to the boss fight against Death in Inferno, your battle ends with Dante taking Lilith’s weapon: another scythe, but with a unique move set.
As Lilith reports to Lucifer that everything is going “according to plan,” another key character makes their first appearance. It’s Dante’s guardian angel, Saint Lucia. First Introduced in the original game’s Trials of St. Lucia DLC, she rescues Dante from a burning airship by teaching him how to perform a Spirit Jump.
Level 3: Ante-Purgatory
Once they reach safety, Lucia tells Dante he should not blame himself for unknowingly helping Lucifer escape from Hell. Introducing the game’s central plot point, she reveals that “there is a larger power at work.” The invasion is part of a plan that God communicated to her and her alone, one that ends with Dante defeating Lucifer once and for all.
If only God had clued in Michael, too. Taking no chances, the chief archangel decides to close the Gates of Heaven that connect Eden to Paradise – a drastic, irrevocable measure that would keep out not just Lucifer and his demons, but also worthy souls like Beatrice. To make sure she can enter Heaven, Dante must find her and bring her to Eden before the gates are shut.
Fortunately, he won’t have to do it alone. To show Dante the way up, Lucia summons an old friend: Virgil. Temporarily freed from Limbo, the Roman poet who guided you through Hell in Dante’s Inferno explains that, if you succeed, he too will be allowed to go to Heaven. With goals, stakes, and ticking timebombs established, the journey officially begins.
Access to Mt. Purgatory proper is monitored by the Vicar of Saint Peter, a “massive angel with five wings” which he uses as legs “like a giant spider.” As with Cato, ordinary souls are let through, but Dante and Virgil are not. A boss battle – the “biggest and most exhaustive” yet – ensues, and despite Virgil’s protests, Dante ends up killing the Vicar: a crime guaranteed to place them on every angel’s radar.
Levels 4 and 5: Pride / Envy
From here, the game falls into a consistent rhythm. On each terrace, Dante and Virgil interact with souls, some of whom Dante recognizes from his mortal life in Italy. Unlike in Hell, where people are tortured as punishment, the inhabitants of Purgatory suffer in the hope of earning redemption: the prideful carry giant boulders on their backs, while the envious wander around with their eyes sown shut, just as described in the poem.
Before they can leave the Terrace of Envy, Dante and Virgil are ambushed by Gabriel, the second archangel. Once God’s primary mouthpiece, Gabriel hasn’t heard from his Lord in eons, so why would He speak to Lucia? “If God truly commands you,” he warns Dante, “let’s see Him protect you from me.”
In truth, it’s God who ought to protect Gabriel from Dante. After losing a tag-team boss battle in which he fights against you with his fellow angels – and witnessing your impressive spirit powers – Gabriel’s skepticism dissipates. Believing in Dante’s mission (“I feel Him in you…”), he orders his underlings to help rather than hinder us. From here on out, the player will be fighting alongside Gabriel’s angels, not against them.
Level 6: Wrath
On the next terrace, Wrath, Dante and Virgil find Beatrice. Greeting Dante by punching him in the face, she’s still angry about everything that happened to her in the first game, and although – pious Christian that she is – she’d rather earn her way into Heaven through honest penitence, news of Lucifer’s approaching army convinces her to come along.
On this terrace, Dante and Beatrice enter a Vision Cave together. Inside, they are confronted with two episodes from their past: one of the night Dante slept with another woman while he was out fighting in the crusades, and another of the night Beatrice, having learned of Dante’s betrayal, spitefully agreed to marry Lucifer. Afterwards, Dante battles not a sin-demon, but Beatrice’s Queen of Hell-form, vanquishing her for good.
With Lucifer’s forces hot on their tail, Dante, Beatrice, and Virgil head for the next terrace. On the way, they again run into Gabriel, who offers to give them a ride. Before they can take off, however, they are interrupted by another archangel, Uriel, who is in a very bad mood. He’s recently discovered that neither Michael nor Gabriel have heard from God in a very long time, and so every order he’s obeyed since Lucifer’s exile has been based on lies.
Gabriel tries to explain himself, but Uriel didn’t come looking for answers: he tears off his brother’s wings and cuts off his head with a flaming sword.
Separated from Virgil and Beatrice in the ensuing chaos, Dante runs into Lucifer. To everyone’s surprise, he’s not here to fight you but to thank you. After all, you helped him escape from Hell, opened the gates of Purgatory, and mowed down hundreds of angels standing between him and Heaven. You aren’t fulfilling God’s plan – Lucifer doubts He even exists. Instead, you’re a pawn in Lucifer’s plan, and have been from the very moment you first followed Beatrice into Hell.
“Know the truth, Dante,” he says. “It has always been I, guiding you in your darkest moments, destroying everything you loved. Your entire life leading you to this moment has been shaped by me, and no other!”
Having dented Dante’s spirit, Lucifer vanishes. Alone and full of doubt, Dante is eventually discovered by Lucia, who – once she’s been filled in – can neither confirm nor deny what you have heard. She has no proof – only faith. It’s enough for her. But is it for you?
Levels 7, 8, and 9: Sloth, Greed, and Gluttony
Reuniting with Virgil (Lucia has taken Beatrice with her up the mountain), you discover that Lucifer’s forces have overtaken you, turning the remaining terraces of Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust into apocalyptic wastelands littered with dead angels, downed warships, and enemies Dante previously faced in the original game.
As the duo hurries to catch up, a cutscene set in the demon camp shows Lucifer telling Lilith that, from here on out, she is no longer second-in-command, but will be taking orders from Uriel, who has officially crossed over to the dark side. When Lilith protests, Lucifer – suggesting he never loved her – casts her out.
The next three terraces all revolve around big set pieces. In Sloth, you have your final encounter with Lilith. Determined to hit her ex-boyfriend where it hurts, she’s decided to kill Dante herself. The boss battle – which sees her trick Dante by pretending she’s actually an innocent person under Lucifer’s spell – ends with her death.
On the climb to Greed, you fight a Phlegyas – one of those gargantuan fire-demons you encountered in the Anger level of Dante’s Inferno – which is scaling Mt. Purgatory like the Titans from God of War 3. Climbing its body, you defeat it by triggering a Possession-powered explosion that leaves a “Death Star”-sized hole in the mountain.
On the Terrace of Gluttony, Virgil is captured by vine-mouthed demons. They imprison him inside a cage dangling from the Tree of Knowledge, the same tree that bore the fruit which Lucifer used to drive Adam and Eve out of Paradise. Corrupted by Hell, it now resembles the love child of a hydra and a Venus flytrap. To save Virgil, you have to fight the tree and restore it to its original form.
Level 10: Lust
On Lust, the final terrace, Dante and Virgil finally catch up to Lucifer’s army, which is trying to break into the Garden of Eden. After they explore the final Vision Cave and confront Dante’s lustful desires (complete with.. ahem… a love-making QTE sequence), Lucia shows up with an airship to take you to the summit.
Before you can reach your destination, a furious Uriel reappears. Despite hurling his flaming sword at Dante, it’s Virgil instead who takes the fatal blow. After the poet dies in his arms, Dante battles the archangel, killing him in the same way he killed Gabriel. Part of this boss fight takes place in the skies above Eden, with Dante sprouting angelic wings made of light and circling his foe.
Level 11: The Garden of Eden
Uriel may be dead, but Lucifer’s forces push onwards. In an attempt to buy himself more time to find Beatrice in the Garden of Eden, Dante helps the angels hold the line in a two-phase tower defence minigame. After blasting the approaching horde with a cannon and washing away demons by redirecting waterfalls, you’re finally able to make it to the top of the mountain.
Beatrice awaits Dante inside the garden. Searching for her in a gameplay sequence reminiscent of the opening act, their reunion is once again interrupted – not by a giant snake, but Michael, descending from Heaven in a chariot drawn forth by a griffin.
Dante begs Michael to hold open the Gates of Heaven so Beatrice can pass through. But the archangel won’t budge, having concluded that God has abandoned him in favor of Dante. “For what does it matter who rules in Heaven, if God has forsaken me?” he says, grabbing Beatrice and ordering his champions, a 24-strong team of elite angels, to kill Dante.
Over the course of the fight, Eden is gradually consumed by hellfire. Eventually, you are interrupted by Lucifer. He wields a spear, and on it – the severed head of Saint Lucia. Realising the scale of the threat on his doorstep, Michael reluctantly promises to let Beatrice enter Heaven if Dante manages to defeat Lucifer.
With Lucifer defeated, Michael lets Dante and Beatrice pass through the Gates of Heaven just before they close, as promised. Seeing the dazzling City of Paradise in the distance, they hardly have a chance to breathe before Beatrice walks up to Michael and, to everyone’s surprise, slits his throat. Smoke spews out of her mouth, and Lucifer rematerializes. Thanking you once more for carrying out his plan, he takes your scythe – his scythe – and kicks you off the edge of Paradise.
Dante falls. Past the Garden of Eden, past the terraces of Mt. Purgatory, past the beach, past the nine circles of Hell, all the way down to the frozen surface of Lake Cocytus, where Lucifer was originally imprisoned. A new traitor – Uriel – has now taken his place.
Utterly defeated, Dante doesn’t move until he notices the deepest parts of Hell being illuminated by golden light. The spirit of Saint Lucia, descending from Heaven, tells him something that changes everything: “Don’t fear, Dante. Even this is part of God’s plan.”
The credits roll on Dante’s Inferno 2.
Dante’s Inferno 3: Paradiso - The Not-So-Complete Story
But there’s more. Another internal document acquired by IGN outlines what God’s plan entails, and how it would have factored into the plot of the third game, Dante’s Inferno 3: Paradiso. Put simply, God’s plan is to destroy the Christian afterlife we’ve journeyed through, to tear down the unfair, overly strict system of punishment and redemption administered by Michael and his fellow angels, and establish a new order based purely on love.
“I remember thinking that if Lucifer’s invasion is part of God’s plan, then that plan cannot result in the maintenance of the status quo,” says scriptwriter Joshua Rubin. “On the contrary, God saw his system corrupted by his angels, over-administered, overly bureaucratic. He wanted everything torn down, and the only way to do that was to make a man fight his way through it all.”
According to the aforementioned document, the war between Heaven and Hell would spread to Earth, with a large part of the third game taking place in medieval Florence. This time, it seems, it’s Dante – joined by his daughter, born while he was off on the crusades and left behind in Italy – who would have played the role of the invader, storming Paradise with an army of people and angels to fight Lucifer and save Beatrice one last time.
For those involved, looking back on the early development of Dante’s Inferno 2is bittersweet. On the one hand, the sequel, cancelled in its infancy, is a representation of lost potential, an invitation to imagine what could have been. “The number of games that don’t get a sequel but should,” Rubin muses. “It takes an entire game for a team to gel, to figure out how to work together. Often, it’s only in the second game where things really come to life.”
On the other hand, the work that Visceral poured into the Dante franchise was not for nothing. While the sequel ended up in Limbo, the people who had worked on it went on to apply what they had learned to other projects, from Visceral’s Dead Space 3, to Uncharted 3 and God of War 2018. It is through these franchises – the very franchises that inspired Visceral – that the spirit of Dante’s Inferno lives on.
Tim Brinkhof is a freelance writer specializing in art and history. After studying journalism at NYU, he has gone on to write for Vox, Vulture, Slate, Polygon, GQ, Esquire and more.
Terminator 2D: No Fate — the new retro game that blends scenes from Terminator 2: Judgment Day with original scenarios and multiple endings — has been delayed for a third time, this time to December 12, 2025.
Terminator 2D: No Fate sees you play as Sarah Connor and the T-800 as you try to put a stop to Skynet's plans before the human race is annihilated. It's coming to PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and last-gen console systems. It was initially slated to release on September 5 before being delayed to the end of October, then November 26. And now it's been delayed again.
Last time, publisher Reef Entertainment said the release date had been pushed back from the original October 31 date due to "ongoing global trade and tariff changes that delayed shipment of the components for our Day One and Collector's Editions." And while the "physical components" necessary for all editions have now "finally arrived," the company needs "some time." And even though this only impacts the physical editions of the game, Reef has confirmed this delay also applies to digital editions, too.
"First of all, we want to start by saying thank you. We know you’ve waited longer than expected for the release of Terminator 2D: No Fate, and we truly appreciate your patience and support throughout this journey," the team said. "The physical components for all editions have now finally arrived, following the ongoing delays that pushed us off our previous schedules. However, we now have to assemble the physical editions, which we need some time to do.
"Because of this, we are moving the launch date of Terminator 2D: No Fate to December 12, 2025, for all physical and digital versions of the game.
"We are sincerely sorry for the repeated delays. We don’t take your patience for granted, and we never want to disappoint our community. Our goal has always been to deliver the game that you deserve, and we're almost there. Thank you again for standing by us."
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.
A "Cross-Buy" graphic spotted on the PlayStation Store has sparked speculation that Sony is set to announce cross-platform purchasing for its games across consoles and PC.
References to a "crossbuy-tag" seen via the PlayStation Store and a PS5 console store graphic featuring the word "Cross-Buy" were recently spotted by social media user Amethxst and investigated by Dealabs.
Now, Dealabs has verified both the PlayStation Store code and image are legitimate, confirming — if nothing else — that Sony is indeed thinking about some kind of Cross-Buy offering.
New Symbols will be added soon (website & tool), but here some nice new features from PlayStation (yes, some are old, other are unseen): - A kind of "echo mode" - PS5/PC games - "Cross-Buy" pic.twitter.com/YxIAXp750g
How exactly this offering may work remains to be seen, however. Would Cross-Buy only be available for first-party games currently released on PC? Would access be granted free for future PC launches? And what about third-party titles?
Indeed, there's no formal confirmation this Cross-Buy feature relates to PC at all. Amid reports of a future PlayStation handheld being in development, perhaps the scheme will simply be offered for games that work across the PS5 and a new PS5 portable?
One thing seems certain, however — these are relatively new images, added by Sony in June 2025, according to Dealabs. That rules out this latest development as relating to anything left over from Sony's last foray into cross-buy schemes — back during the PlayStation Vita era.
Cross-buy is of course offered on Xbox, where owning a game on console also allows you to play the same title without further charge on PC (or via streaming on your phone, or Ally X handheld, or wherever else you're playing that's an "Xbox").
By comparison, Sony has been more protective over its first-party games. Sony ported Horizon Zero Dawn over to PC in 2020, three years after it released on the PS4, and has sporadically launched a swathe of other first-party titles on PC since. But, crucically, it has typically held off from launching its biggest blockbusters outside of PlayStation until a year after their original console launch.
Get your first look at Chicken Chicken, a new eight-player online multiplayer party game for PC and mobile (and later, consoles) from the makers of Kiborg in which everyone plays, as the name implies, as a chicken. You'll compete against your friends in racing cars, climbing mountains, catching flies, and more. A playable demo is now available on Steam.
Additional minigames will be added to Chicken Chicken in 2026. Kiborg says, "Some will require smart thinking with your team while others will involve one chicken vs. the flock." Check out the announcement trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below.
“We come from a background of dark, violent action games like KIBORG, so Chicken Chicken might seem a bit unusual,” said Sobaka Studio head Dmitry Kachkov. “But when you feel the pain of reaching the top of the mountain in Climbing Up…and someone hits you with a rocket launcher and sends you all the way to the bottom, you will understand.”
You can wishlist Chicken Chicken (and/or play the demo) on Steam if you're interested.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
Capcom has just revealed the official PC system requirements for Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. And, to the surprise of no one, this new MH game will use the Denuvo anti-tamper tech. Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection tells the story of two nations, Azuria and Vermeil, heading toward disaster. Strange crystals are spreading … Continue reading Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection Will Have Denuvo, PC Requirements Revealed→
Modder ‘Darko P’ has been working on an RTX Remix Path Tracing Mod for Max Payne 2 for a while now. And yesterday, the modder shared a new video, showcasing over 8 minutes of gameplay footage from it. While this mod is not 100% complete yet, it will soon come out on ModDB. As the … Continue reading Here’s another look at Max Payne 2 with RTX Remix Path Tracing→
Hot on the heels of Nintendo's handheld success with Switch 2, Sony is ramping up the capabilities of its own PlayStation Portal device with the ability to stream thousands of games without being connected to a PS5 console.
Starting today, PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers can stream a long, long list of games that they may already own, including big hitters such as Grand Theft Auto 5, Borderlands 4, and the newly-launched Ghost of Yōtei.
Hundreds of games from the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog and Classics Catalog will also be streamable, including existing titles such as Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077 and God of War Ragnarök. Sony has a long list of every title supported, which stretches to more than 2,800 games.
Of course, this isn't a new idea — and cloud streaming via the PlayStation Portal has already been available to some users for almost a year in beta form. But today the feature launches officially, and Sony is keen to highlight the different play possibilities that Portal offers.
Having a Portal as well as a PS5 doesn't just let you stream games while playing on the toilet. Using the handheld device, you can also play a game together with a friend who's using your main TV and PS5 setup. Or, play a game while someone else uses the TV to watch KPop Demon Hunters for the umpteenth time on Netflix.
Additionally, cloud streaming leaves beta with a handful of all-new features attached: 3D Audio Support, a passcode lock, a network status screen, game invites, accessibility options, and the ability to make in-game purchases while cloud streaming.
Interested? PlayStation Portal is priced at $199, and comes in either white or black colors. The device is "the best PlayStation 5 Remote Play solution available," according to IGN's PlayStation Portal review.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Battlefield 6 developer BF Studios has announced a “major” overhaul of Challenges and Assignments, with “substantial” adjustments across the board.
BF Studios said that these changes, outlined in patch notes below, build on the recent updates that increased the XP earned in official matches and reduced the XP needed for the first 20 attachment ranks.
“This update makes significant reductions to challenge requirements, cutting down on time investment while maintaining a focus on skill-driven progression that rewards consistent play,” BF Studios explained. “Challenges and Assignments are tuned around defined playtime targets, and these changes bring their requirements in line with those goals to make them more achievable within a reasonable session length."
BF Studios continued: "Assignments will continue to range from goals you can complete through regular play to a few that reward true mastery, particularly those tied to cosmetic items. Some of the original criteria did not fully reflect that intent, and we have updated them to make their difficulty and purpose clearer.”
The first set of changes went live today, November 5, through a server-side update and are available immediately. Any progress you’ve already made will automatically be applied when you enter a match, unlocking any challenges or assignments you now meet based on the updated criteria.
BF Studios said the scale of its plans for Challenges and Assignments is “large and will take place over multiple server-side and client-side updates,” so players can expect additional updates in the future.
Community Update - Challenge & Assignment Changes patch notes:
In this first set of changes we made a total of 90+ adjustments to Challenges and Assignments. Below we’ve highlighted a few examples.
Class Challenges
Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon challenges now complete much faster.
Assault 2: Have Squadmates deploy on your Spawn Beacon.
Reduced from 50 deploys to 5.
Support 2: Revive teammates as Support.
Reduced from 200 revives to 60.
Weapon Assignments
All weapon-type assignments (ARs, SMGs, LMGs, Shotguns, DMRs, Snipers, Carbines) have been significantly simplified.
Rapid Fire 1/Assault Rifle: Inflict damage with Assault Rifles.
Reduced from requiring 10000 inflicted damage to 3000.
Mode & Unit Assignments
The majority of our mode-specific assignments (Conquest, Rush, Breakthrough, Domination, and others) have been standardized to require two wins per tier. This change makes it easier to pursue these challenges with clear intent.
Conquest 2: Wins in Conquest.
Reduced from 5 wins to 2.
Conquest 3: Objective kills in a round of Conquest.
Reduced from 30 objective kills in a round to 10.
Gameplay & Mastery
General “Expert” and “Master” assignments that require multi-kills, headshots, kill streaks, or revives have been adjusted to better match the natural rhythm of gameplay. For example, multi-kill and streak goals now align with average round performance rather than rare, outlier achievements.
Explosives Expert 2: Get Multi Kills (2+ Kills Onwards) with explosives.
Reduced from 20 Multi Kills to 5.
Adaptable 2: Repair damaged Vehicles in a life.
Reduced from requiring 3000 damage to 500.
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.
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