Ubisoft has detailed its plans for the future of Assassin's Creed, and said it is already winding down support for last year's Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Later this month, Assassin's Creed Shadows will celebrate its first anniversary — but it sounds like a muted affair, with a community livestream, a competition, and not a lot else.

Today's update from the new Assassin's Creed leadership team makes it clear that Shadows will not receive any major new content additions in future, following earlier confirmation that there would be no second expansion similar to last fall's Claws of Awaji. It's a disappointing end for Shadows, which has limped to the end of its first year of post-launch support and offered fans only a fraction of the continued adventures afforded to the franchise's previous blockbuster, Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

"As we reach this [first anniversary] milestone, Shadows will be moving into its final phase of support," Ubisoft said. "We're winding things down with smaller, less frequent updates... but still a few surprises! At the same time, our teams will begin shifting more focus toward what's next for Assassin's Creed."

Fans already have a fair idea what's next for the series, though today brought a reminder of that. In terms of scope, the next big all-new Assassin's Creed game is Codename Hexe, which will be set in mainland Europe and feature witchcraft-esque vibes. Until last month, the project was being overseen by Ubisoft veteran Clint Hocking — though following the brand's leadership reshuffle it is now being managed directly by Assassin's Creed head of content Jean Guesdon, with Hocking now out of the company again.

"We are taking the time to deliver on its ambitious vision, which means we'll be quiet for a while longer," Ubisoft said today, setting expectations that the game was still a while from launch. "We love seeing all the enthusiasm happening on our channels and can't wait to unveil more when the time is right."

The company has not confirmed it, but fans suspect Hexe was one of the many projects to receive a delay in January this year, at the same time Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake was cancelled.

A flurry of other brief updates provided a reminder that Ubisoft has plenty of other Assassin's Creed things in the works, though without any firm news on any of them today. The multiplayer-focused Codename Invictus, announced years ago alongside Hexe, is still "progressing steadily with a test and learn approach," Ubisoft said, "led by a dedicated team of For Honor veterans."

"We understand there's a lot of curiosity around this project: yes, it's a new approach to multiplayer in the franchise, but it isn't quite what the rumors have suggested," Ubisoft continued. "With player feedback at the heart of our approach, we're exploring ways to bring the community in earlier so we can shape the experience together."

Separately, Ubisoft acknowledged it was investigating "bringing co-op back to Assassin's Creed" and "recently chose to pivot away from an early project." This was, reportedly, a co-op idea that would have continued Shadows' story, which sadly sounds like it will no longer see the light of day.

In terms of what you can play today, Ubisoft announced a 60fps patch for the French Revolution-set Assassin's Creed Unity would arrive for Xbox and PlayStation today.

Wrapping up, Ubisoft namedropped the Ancient China-set smartphone game Assassin's Creed Jade (which again was announced years ago, with nothing heard of it now in a long time), the Assassin's Creed live-action Netflix series (which sounds like we'll see something concrete of soon, following recent casting announcements), and then, lastly, dropped yet another hint at Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remake that everyone knows is set to launch this year.

"Some whispers have a little more wind in their sales," Ubisoft teased, just weeks after seemingly confirming the Black Flag remake was real via a GTA meme on social media. "Keep your spyglass on the horizon."

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

Like Cuphead before it, I am pleased to report that, as it turns out, Mouse: P.I. for Hire isn’t just all sizzle. There is plenty of steak there too. Just as Cuphead built an incredibly good bullet-hell, boss-rush shooter underneath its hand-drawn, hand-animated exterior, so too – at least, based on what I’ve played so far – is Mouse underpinning its 1930’s-era, black-and-white, rubberhose-animated facade with a mechanically sound first-person shooter. In fact, while its own developers have referred to it in conversations and interviews with me as a boomer shooter, I’d argue they might be selling their creation a little short: there’s a lot more going on in its campaign than I thought. The end result is an action game that seems like it’ll have the gameplay to match its sublime looks.

The Look

By now you’ve probably seen at least a bit of gameplay from Mouse, and thus you know, at its core, what it is: a first-person shooter with a deep commitment to looking and sounding like a Steamboat Willie-era cartoon. I’ve already taken one test drive with Mouse last summer, and I was impressed with it then. I’m even more excited for it now after playing a chunk of a case – meaning, a mission – from an advanced build ahead of its April 16 release date for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

Mouse starts out in a rather unexciting way, if I’m being honest. The intro level acts as a tutorial, introducing you to its uniquely animated but ultimately familiar weapons: a pistol, shotgun, Tommy gun (called a James gun here, which is either a clever way to sidestep a potential Tommy gun trademark, a nod to the Guardians of the Galaxy director and head of DC Studios, or both), and sticks of dynamite. It doesn’t take too long before you get your hands on the Turpentine gun, which melts the skin off your animated enemies’ bodies like The Dip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

The Sound

It also doesn’t take long before you see how developer Fumi Games leans all the way into its 1930’s cartoon setting. See, it’s not just the look that screams “hyperviolent Steamboat Willie,” it’s the sound. The ubiquitous and ultra-talented Troy Baker lends his voice to the player character, the titular P.I. for hire named Jack Pepper. This isn’t a role that Baker completely disappears into, like Joel or Indiana Jones. But what he delivers as a stereotypical hard-boiled detective is perfect for the self-aware tone that Mouse proudly flaunts.

The sound design also follows the visual aesthetic, with a jazzy soundtrack that, again, fits like a glove. But I even love the little things about its audio, like the way Jack Pepper slurps and gives an over-the-top “Ahh” when popping the cork and guzzling down a bottle of health-replenishing tonic. Or the “ding” of the bell on the typewriter that you save your game at. Everything that hits your eardrums seems to perfectly fit what your eyes are seeing on the screen, and it added to how much fun I was having with the game.

The Play’s the Thing

But let’s talk about gameplay, because the depth there is what really surprised me about Mouse. And before I get to the nuts and bolts of it, I want to talk about the structure. Mouse is split into cases. And no, that’s not just a synonym for “missions” here. Instead, again (are you sensing a theme yet?), Mouse leans all the way into its choices. Between levels you’ll return to a noncombat hub area – a seedy corner of Mouseburg that’s home to Jack’s office, where you’ll piece together clues from your current case; the Little & Big Bar, where you’ll talk to various people in Mouseburg; and down a dark alley, Tammy’s Bearings, where you can upgrade your weapons, money for which is accumulated by scouring each level and collecting all the cash you can find.

I had a blast setting my weapons down and just walking around the Mouseburg hub talking to people (and by people, of course, I mean fellow anthropomorphic mice). It added a lot of life and character to Mouse that I think make the entire experience more appealing if I picture what it would be like just going from one combat-focused mission to another, with no break in-between. It’s not that it would’ve been bad, necessarily, but I do like that these literal inter-missions give you a chance to let your guard down and enjoy the worldbuilding that Fumi Games has done here. And there are even secrets to discover, which is a nice little bonus. I do have one minor complaint that did particularly annoy me, though: having to button through every single line of dialogue. It’s all fully voiced, which is great, but my goodness did I get tired of clicking through every last one of them. I’d love an option to get rid of that for the final game, please.

Getting back to the combat: the early mission I played was clearly not showing off every trick in Mouse’s arsenal. Most of the fights were fairly simple, against no more than two or three foes, but I nevertheless had a good time with them for a couple of reasons: first, the full-on cartooniness of this world. Remember how I said earlier that Mouse leans into everything it’s trying to do? That even applies to the kill animations. If you headshot an enemy mouse robot, their head will simply pop in over-the-top cartoon style, with drops of oil spewing out of the pencil-thin neck stump. (Side note: there’s a sentence I’ve probably never typed in my entire career or life before.) There’s even lockpicking, in which you cleverly use your mouse tail to maneuver inside the lock and hit the pins correctly.

Rubberhose Guns

And second, it’s the weapons. I simply love using them. I’d wager that there are more first-person shooters in history that have used a pistol, shotgun, and machinegun of some variety than ones that haven’t, so I recognize that it’s not exactly novel. But the weapons all have an appropriately over-the-top feel and sound to them. My favorite so far is the shotgun, which has a nice kick to it, and I’d be remiss not to mention the satisfying reload animation of the James gun, which sees Jack Pepper click a new drum of ammo into the bottom of the weapon.

That’s not to say there aren’t original ideas in Mouse’s arsenal, however. The Turpentine gun, as I mentioned earlier, fires blobs of ink-dissolving solvent that melts these cartoon bad guys, leaving their bones on display before they too dissolve into a pile of dust. It is one of my favorite first-person shooter weapons in a good little while now – maybe since Doom: The Dark Ages’ Skullcrusher gun from last year.

Also, not only do I really enjoy using Mouse’s weapons, I get a kick out of just watching them in action. The rubberhose animation makes your guns look like they’re constantly wiggling, and the firing and reload animations are equally satisfying. I can’t wait to see what other squirmy firearms are waiting for me in the rest of this single-player-only campaign.

Robo-Boss

Mouse is also promising plenty of boss fights, and though I only got to experience one of them over three separate stages, it definitely made me up my game a little bit. I wouldn’t say I felt particularly threatened – I didn’t die at all – but this was also an early mission on Normal difficulty. Anyway, I faced off against a robo-mouse called the Watchamacallit (whose identity will be properly revealed when you played the game for yourself). I had to jump to avoid bolts of electricity spinning around the floor and take cover behind glass panels that would pop up when she moved to another phase of her attack. The encounter definitely kept me on my toes, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the challenge ramps up in later boss fights.

As I mentioned at the top, I’d already had the privilege of playing Mouse last summer, so I came into this new hands-on session with some earned optimism. But when I was done with this newest preview build, I was left even more impressed than I’d expected to be. Mouse: P.I. for Hire, based on what I’ve played so far, is far more than its distinct 1930’s rubberhose-animated look. It sure seems to have legitimate gameplay depth and mechanics to it as well, and it’s moved up my list of anticipated games in a year that’s already packed with some serious potential. Here’s hoping that Mouse can sustain this over its entire campaign when it drops next month.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Microsoft has patented a method for an AI model to take control of your game, should you need a helping hand.

The idea, which Microsoft initially registered back in 2024, is designed for players who might be stuck in a video game. Patent documentation dug up by Tech4gamers shows a Clippy-style pop-up that suggests another player who can "take over your game."

Players would be able to see the name and identity of this player, as well as a rating for how helpful they had been in the past. Associated notes confirm that Microsoft is exploring the idea of this player either being human — another Xbox gamer keen to help — or, alternatively, an AI model.

The Humble Choice lineup for March is officially live. If you’re looking for a new selection of games to add to your Steam library, this month’s drop is led by Tempest Rising, Chants of Sennaar, Sworn, alongside five more games.

For just $14.99 when you sign up for a Humble Choice membership, you can add all of these games to your PC library. On top of that, you get a bonus month for free of IGN Plus. It’s a pretty sweet deal. Head to the link below to sign up, and further down you can see this month’s full lineup. Keep in mind this selection of games only lasts for the month, so be quick to make a move on it if they interest you.

Humble Choice March 2026 Game Lineup

Apple has refreshed its most popular laptop: the 2026 MacBook Air comes with an M5 chip, double the storage (512GB), and “improved wireless connectivity.” The M5 chip sports a faster CPU and GPU, making it more capable of handling tasks like video editing and AI. The extra storage ought to appeal to anyone running out of space on their current machine, and it can be upgraded to up to 4TB. It starts at $1099 (at Best Buy it comes with a free $50 gift card) and is available for preorder now. It’s out March 11.

Preoder MacBook Air with M5 Chip (2026)

If you played the Marathon server slam, you might have found Bungie’s extraction shooter a challenging experience. It’s designed to be a “dangerous climb,” as the developer behind Halo and Destiny calls it, but Marathon’s difficulty curve can be overcome.

Part of the challenge comes from the very nature of Marathon as an extraction shooter. If you die, you lose all your gear. And not just what you looted while out on the battlefield, but what you brought in. And given how easy it is to die in Marathon, at least as it was in the Server Slam when players were just getting started, it could feel like a brutally punishing video game.

Could people bounce off Marathon because of this? Could some find its steep learning curve too hard of a climb and seek fun elsewhere? Might the Server Slam have separated the wheat from the chaff, leaving Marathon’s actual launch tomorrow, March 5, with a loyal, hardcore fanbase, but few casuals to swell its playerbase? (Check out our guide to when Marathon unlocks in your timezone to find out the exact release times.)

Bungie offered some words of reassurance to players in its latest blog post, and as a Marathon Server Slam player who struggled for motivation at times after yet another crushing failed extraction, I found comfort in them.

While pointing to Marathon’s seasonal model, and how all players will start each season fresh after a sweeping progression wipe, Bungie said everyone will find themselves under “the constant threat of death in a world more lethal and powerful than you are.”

From there, the idea is to improve your base stats and gain access to better items in the Armory by completing contracts and progressing your faction upgrades. In this way, Marathon isn’t just about extracting with better loot. You need to play the long game and think of the bigger picture. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so to speak.

“Over the course of the season, you’ll complete contracts and progress your faction upgrades, granting you access to stronger base stats and better wares in the Armory,” Bungie explained. “It’s not just about what you loot, it’s about raising your power floor and the options available to you. Over time, recovering from a bad loss will get easier, and crafting your ideal build will be more accessible.

“As you master survival and grow your available resource pool, you’ll be able to take on increasingly challenging contracts, zones, and enemy Runners. Climb the Ranked ladder, prep for high-stakes Cryo Archive runs, and secure the most lucrative loot and prestigious rewards of the season.

“Then as the season comes to a close and the feeling of ‘$@%& it let’s ball’ settles in, roll with your best loot knowing a fresh start for everyone, with more to discover and a new climb to master, is just around the corner.”

I’ve seen plenty of debate about Marathon’s difficulty curve in the wake of the Server Slam, with some suggesting the game could do with a balance tweak here and there. The enemy AI feels particularly powerful, so one wrong turn can end your run in the blink of an eye. Some say this will become less of a problem as players bring more powerful gear and items into the fray. Others think Bungie needs to make ammo more readily available to cope with the challenge (you run out of ammo a lot in this game). And I haven’t even mentioned other enemy human players, who are, usually, even harder than the AI.

"It doesn't surprise me that some people quit the game after one hour because to understand it you need at least 4-5 hours to know what each thing does, and the UI doesn't help at," said one player who called on Bungie to add a tutorial.

Bungie has acknowledged player debates about all this, including the ultra fast TTK. It will be interesting to see if Marathon launches with a balance pass. Until then, perhaps we can take solace in the fact that all players are in the same boat. We can all suffer Marathon together.

We’ve got plenty more on Marathon, including one Bungie developer’s commitment to “fontslop.” Check out IGN's Marathon review so far to find out what we think.

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.

Apple has taken the wraps off a brand new entry to its MacBook line of laptops: the MacBook Neo. It will come in four vibrant colors, feature a 13-inch display, and be driven by an A18 Pro chip, the same that powers the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max. Best of all, it'll be cheap: It starts at $599 (or $499 for those with education discounts).

The price and the fact that this thing uses a smartphone chip instead of a laptop- and- desktop-class M-series Apple silicon chip are the obvious headliners, putting the laptop in competition with budget Windows machines and Chromebooks. But make no mistake: While this won't go toe-to-toe with the finest gaming laptops, the A18 is no slouch. Just looking at basic Geekbench scores, the A18 Pro in an iPhone 16 Pro put up single-core performance that’s within striking distance of an M4 MacBook Air, and outdid the M1 MacBook Air in multicore scores.

Apple says the Neo will be "up to 50 percent faster for everyday tasks like web browsing and up to 3x faster when running on-device AI workloads like applying advanced effects to photos compared to the bestselling PC with the latest shipping Intel Core Ultra 5." It comes with either 256GB or 512GB of storage, 8GB of RAM (with Apple Intelligence support, to boot), and a 36.5-watt-hour battery that Apple says is good for up to 16 hours of use at a go. The laptop comes with a 20W USB-C power adapter and USB-C charging cable (unless you're in the UK or EU, where the adapter is not included).

The Neo will weigh 2.7 pounds and come in a 0.50-inch thick aluminum chassis – that's a touch thicker than the 0.44-inch-thick MacBook Air – with four colors that Apple is calling Blush (pink), Citrus (yellow/green), Indigo (blue), and Silver (uh, silver). It won't have the MagSafe charging port from other MacBooks, but will feature two USB-C ports (one USB 3 and the other USB 2) for both charging and data – good to see Apple not repeating the single-port mistake it made with the 12-inch MacBook – leaving one for power and one open for accessories. It'll have a color-matched Magic Keyboard, but you'll need to upgrade if you want Touch ID, as that's not available in the base model. Below the keyboard, a Magic Trackpad, which means multi-touch and gesture support.

The retina display will lack the notch from other MacBooks, meaning a thicker bezel, and will feature a 2408x1506 resolution and 500-nit brightness. In the top of the bezel, a 1080p webcam, and on the side of the machine, a headphone jack and dual side-firing speakers with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos support. And, via the rear USB-C port, the laptop can drive an external 4K display at 60Hz.

Apart from the A18 Pro, which has a 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine for AI tasks, the MacBook Neo features Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 6 compatibility. The MacBook Neo is in preorder on Apple's website now, and will be available to purchase for $599 and up and starting March 11.

Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.

Cillian Murphy remains keen to make another movie in the 28 Days Later franchise, despite its latest entry ending up as a box office bomb.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, in which Murphy only has a cameo, launched in January — just seven months after last year's 28 Years Later. Series creator Danny Boyle planned the two movies as the beginning of a fresh trilogy for the franchise, though its financial performance has left its future somewhat unclear.

While last year's 28 Years Later performed well in theaters, The Bone Temple did not. Despite positive reviews, it failed to earn back its $63 million production budget, let alone the further costs spent on its marketing.

Will the series' last film still be made? Murphy himself has previously stated that it would only be greenlit if the second was successful, though it was reported in December last year that Sony Pictures had given the third entry a green light. Since then, nothing has been said — but in a new interview with The Times, the actor struck a more upbeat tone.

"Hope so!" Murphy said, when asked for an update on the movie, which is believed to still be in the planning stages. "I'm ready anyway," he concluded.

Cillian starred in the original 28 Days Later back in 2003, though did not return for its 2007 sequel 28 Weeks Later, or last year's follow-up 28 Years Later. Fans of the franchise finally caught a glimpse of him once again at the end of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, reintroducing him to the series' story in advance of a planned starring role in its sixth entry.

Next up for Murphy is this week's return of Peaky Blinders, this time on the big screen, in Netflix movie Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man. Murphy will not, however, be taking on the role of Voldemort in HBO's Harry Potter TV series — despite various rumors to the contrary. "I'm categorically not," Murphy told The Times.

Image credit: Jacob King/PA Images via Getty Images.

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

RPGs don't always require compelling stories or innovative trappings to be fun. Sometimes, all you want or want are a few engaging systems, some brought colors, and a delightful loop of grinding, exploration, and reward. Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection seems to deliver all that in spades based on what I’ve played so far, matching a fairly innocuous, almost infantile narrative with well-tuned mechanics to create something thoroughly enjoyable in the early going.

The three Star Force games included in this collection don't even try to hide the influence Pokemon clearly had on their design. All three are split into multiple versions clearly inspired by ye olde Blue and Red. A total of seven variants exist across the trilogy, and they're all represented well here, with some content unique to each.

The Star Force games share a lot of DNA with the earlier Battle Network titles while reflecting the mid-2000s hardware migration from Game Boy Advance to Nintendo DS. Capcom has solved most of the two-screen play issues fairly elegantly, miniaturizing the second screen to an upper corner and allowing the player to instantly bring it full-screen with a trigger hold. This works remarkably well. Environments have been colorfully and crisply translated from the low-resolution DS screen. The designers wisely maintained a close to 4:3 form factor, so graphics don't display any appreciable stretching or distortion. The Wave World dungeons seamlessly overlap the human world. The vibe and feel of all three optimistic meladramas appears to be lovingly preserved.

Combat, though, is the gravity that holds Star Force Collection on its winning trajectory. Fundamentally, all these games are combat-centric action-RPGs. Though cards, abilities, and other nuances vary, the 3x5 battle grid where you take on enemies is the most fleshed-out part of the the Star Force trilogy, a formula perfected all the way back on the GBA with the Battle Network games. You can rig clever card combos, juggle timing counters, sprint forward for melee attacks, nimbly dodge attacks, and snipe with your P-shooter. It's a sprightly, light action-RPG combat system that rewards focus but is also fairly forgiving of miscalculation, and the battles are quick enough you likely won't mind the random encounters.

Capcom did a good job updating these titles for the modern player, but for my tastes are less successful at contextualizing their place in the Mega Man pantheon. Some effort was put into visual or audio museums, but there's nothing here comparable to, say Digital Eclipse's Gold Master series, where the history and legacy of each game is celebrated by curated timelines or original documentaries. The historic features stack up poorly even next to the original Mega Man Legacy Collection, which allowed players to pop directly into certain gameplay moments directly from museum boss art. No such luck here.

As for the plot... well, that's probably not really why you're here. Plucky hero, quirky friends, buddy aliens made of electromagnetic energy, and maybe a dark conspiracy or two. You know, the usual stuff. It carries the collection and the combat forward, and for these games, that's enough.

Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection doesn't seem poised to shake up the world, but it doesn't really have to, nor did it likely set out to. It's appropriate for anyone who remembers whittling away hours on their GBA playing Battle Network or their DS playing Star Force. It’s also a perfect pastime for eleven-year-olds (or kids at heart) who love deck building, combo breaking, and diving into complementary, overlapping gameplay systems. Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is, based on my time with it, shaping up to be a real winner.

Jared Petty does all kinds of things with video games. When he’s not marketing with Other Ocean or writing for IGN, he’s creating new episodes of The Top 100 Games Podcast. Find him on Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky as @pettycommajared.

Resident Evil: Requiem is the first in the horror franchise to be released solely for current-generation consoles, but what really makes it special is the engine that runs it. The RE Engine was built initially for Resident Evil 7, and Capcom has since used it to power everything from Monster Hunter: Wilds to Exoprimal – remember that one?

But while the engine has had issues in open-world games, it’s still incredible for the franchise it was created for. As a result, Resident Evil Requiem looks exquisite on the PS5, and runs smoothly no matter which version of the platform you’re using.

I was particularly interested to see how the first Resident Evil game designed first and foremost for the current generation of consoles would perform across all its platforms, but I only got pre-release code for PS5 and PC. So while I’ll be looking at the Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch 2 after launch, I went ahead and dove into the PS5 and PC versions to see how they compare.

The Display Modes

While it’s become the norm for console games to have multiple display modes that prioritize quality or frame rate, the base PS5 only has one mode. That will get you a 4K image upscaled from roughly 1080p, but running at an incredibly stable 60 fps. Capcom probably could have scaled the game down a bit more to add a high frame rate mode to the basic PS5, but it really does strike a nice balance between resolution and performance.

The PS5 Pro is a little more flexible. There are two display modes here, revolving entirely around ray tracing, or the lack thereof. Without ray tracing, the PS5 Pro looks very similar to the base PS5 version of the game, but it does appear to be upscaling from a higher resolution – 1300p from my count.

Instead of changing too much about the visual quality, the ‘RT off’ mode instead focuses on delivering a high frame rate, targeting up to 120 fps – though it didn’t quite reach that mark in my testing.

The ray tracing preset takes the place of a “prefer quality” type of preset in Resident Evil Requiem on the PS5 Pro. The underlying quality settings and resolution don’t seem to change too much here, but ray tracing is turned on, which enhances the lighting, reflections and shadows. And while early ray tracing modes on the PS5 dropped performance down to 30 fps, Resident Evil Requiem still targets 60 fps with the fancy lighting enabled.

What’s particularly impressive about this mode, though, is how close it looks to the PC version with ray tracing set to “high”. While a gaming PC with a high-end GPU will get better performance with these quality settings, it’s still awesome that a console can deliver this level of visual fidelity while still hitting a solid 60 fps.

Performance

More than anything, it looks like Resident Evil Requiem is continuing the trend of 60 fps gaming being the floor. Even on the base PS5, the game doesn’t drop below 60, and the PS5 Pro takes those quality settings and pushes for even higher performance.

With the non-ray tracing preset on PS5 Pro, Capcom is targeting high-refresh displays, with performance hovering between 99 and 110 fps during the opening scene here. There are some quality differences between this version and what’s running on the base PS5, but they’re extremely minor, and mostly come down to the slightly lower resolution.

The minor differences in presentation here make it even more impressive that Capcom was able to raise the frame rate by so much. In the worst case scenario, where the PS5 Pro drops under 100 fps, it’s still getting around a 40% boost to frame rate.

The ray tracing preset drops the frame rate back down to 60, but it looks much better, especially in darker scenes. You can debate all day long whether or not 60 fps is enough, but with how important lighting is in Requiem, having that extra fidelity is totally worth the tradeoff – especially if you don’t have a display that can actually output a higher frame rate.

On PC I tested the game with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, with ray tracing set to high, along with graphics quality and lighting quality also set to the high preset. This isn’t fully maxed out, but with DLSS set to ‘Performance’ it looks remarkably similar to the PS5 Pro’s ray tracing preset.

With the RTX 5080, which is admittedly more expensive than the PS5 Pro by itself, Requiem runs at around 110-120 fps at 4K, without frame generation. However, there are some scenes with a lot of NPCs, like this street scene that we’re using for testing, where performance can drop down to around 95-100 fps, but that’s still more than enough.

Requiem also supports path tracing on PC, which looks incredible, but will absolutely gut your performance. In the same scene, the frame rate dropped down to 55 fps. That’s not great, but that tends to happen when you take ray tracing and turn it up to 11. I was also able to turn on frame generation, which saw the frame rate shoot all the way up to around 200 fps – more than my capture card can actually capture. Frame generation does add extra latency, but it wasn’t enough to actually be noticeable when playing the game.

Image Quality

No matter how you’re playing Resident Evil Requiem, it looks incredible, even when it’s showing you pretty gnarly scenes.

Right at the beginning of the game, after you get out of some cinematics, you’ll find yourself on a city street. What’s surprising is that, at least on PC, this was one of the most demanding sections of the game that I’ve played through so far, likely due to the NPCs walking along the street, on top of the rain creating a ton of reflective surfaces.

However, due to the somewhat random assortment of NPCs that appear here, it’s easiest to look at this cinematic that triggers once Grace gets to a crime scene. Just pausing at the beginning of the scene and zooming in on her jacket, you can tell the difference in resolution between the base PS5 and PS5 Pro – it’s subtle, but it’s there.

What’s less subtle, though, is the differences ray tracing makes to the same scene. Swapping to this mode on the PS5 Pro, and the button is a little reflective, which gives it much more depth. Then, zooming out a bit, you can see a lot more depth and shadow in Grace’s hair. Then, if you zoom in behind her, you can see that on the ray tracing mode, the cop car in the scene projects its emergency light on the subway’s support beam – where it just looks like flat metal on the base PS5.

This scene also illustrates how close the PS5 Pro is to the PC version when it comes to image quality. The shadows are a bit more pronounced on the PC version, which gives some more depth to Grace’s character model, but the differences are minor.

Fast forward a little bit, though, and you can see one of the biggest differences between ray tracing and path tracing. Once the cop lifts the tarp to let Grace into the crime scene, most versions of the game show the alley behind it as dark, losing a lot of detail. Turn on path tracing, though, and the light naturally illuminates what’s on the other side of the tarp. Again, a pretty minor detail in the grand scheme of things, but these things add up over time.

Ray tracing really shines in Requiem’s darker scenes with a lot of reflective surfaces. Luckily, you also spend much of the first hour of the game in a dark, rainy city. A little later on, you gain control of Leon, where there’s a zombie outbreak of sorts in the city.

In this scene there’s virtually no difference between the PS5 and the PS5 Pro beyond frame rate, so I’m just going to focus on the two performance modes on the PS5 Pro. Without ray tracing, the scene looks alright, but a lot of the reflections in the various puddles are a bit muddy, with vague shapes of light showing up. That’s a side-effect of using screen space reflections, which are a lot less precise than ray tracing.

With RT enabled, though, you can make out the shapes of the street lights in the puddles, and Leon’s leather jacket also reflects light, which makes it look like, well, a leather jacket.

The PC version, of course, takes it to another level. You can zoom in on the hotel sign here, and the details on the hotel wall are much more clear, thanks to improved global illumination. That’s something that you’d have to zoom in a bunch to actually see, but it’s a nice detail regardless.

Then, if you enable path tracing, the reflections are especially enhanced here. Just look at this van, with regular old ray tracing, you can make out some small reflections of lights. But with path tracing, you can see the full reflection of the street signal behind it, while also making the rear view window actually look like a transparent glass panel. It looks incredible.

The care center also shows huge gaps between the ray traced and the non-ray traced versions of the game. When you get to this spooky looking hallway, with its flickering lights, look at how the lighting behaves. With the non-RT mode, the light cuts off almost like it hits a hard boundary. However, with ray tracing, the ray traced global illumination takes the light from the lamp at the end of the corridor and makes it extend much more naturally down the hallway, tapering off the further away it gets from the source.

You can also see along the edges, where the pictures on the wall are in complete darkness just a few feet into the hallway, where the light bounces more naturally when ray tracing is enabled. It’s a small touch, but it really does do a lot to make the game a bit more atmospheric.

Though, to be fair, even without ray tracing, I was much more worried about what was lurking around the next corner than I was about slightly unrealistic lighting.

At the end of the day, the same age-old advice applies to Resident Evil Requiem. If you have a high refresh display and you like the extra visual smoothness that comes from a high frame rate, turn ray tracing off if you have a PS5 Pro. The game looks great regardless, and going up to 100-ish fps will make a huge difference when you’re panicking.

But if you don’t have a high-refresh display, or if you just like having your games look as good as possible, go ahead and turn ray tracing on. Yeah, you’ll take a hit to performance, but it still gets a solid 60 fps on PS5 Pro and it looks incredible.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

A new report has revealed that both Ghost of Yotei and Saros will remain exclusive to PlayStation 5 as Sony begins to pull back from PC.

Bloomberg said that while Sony will continue to release online games on PC, single-player games will now remain console exclusive, marking a significant strategy shift. Sony had a strategy of releasing its PlayStation games on PC some time after they hit console. This new policy marks a return to console exclusivity at a time when console rival Microsoft is all-in on multiplatform.

So, expect to see fighting game Marvel Tokon on PC as well as PS5, and of course Bungie’s extraction shooter Marathon remains a multiplatform release. Meanwhile,the Sony-published but externally developed Death Stranding 2 and Kena: Scars of Kosmora will launch on PC. But plans to release Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei were recently scrapped, Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg suggested poor recent sales of PlayStation games on PC and the risk to the PlayStation brand, as well as a potential impact on PS5 and maybe even PS6 sales, were to blame for the policy shift. Meanwhile, Bloomberg suggested the prospect of PlayStation games running on the next Xbox, which looks like it will run PC games, may have also encouraged Sony’s return to console exclusives.

There’s no mention of Marvel’s Wolverine in the report, but given the timing of its release (it’s due out on PS5 exclusively this September), a PC launch NOW seems unlikely.

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. Indeed, Sony-owned Bungie is about to launch live service extraction shooter Marathon across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S at the same time. Guerrilla’s live-service multiplayer Horizon spinoff, Hunters Gathering.

It’s worth noting recent reports that Sony may have to delay the release of the PS6 to 2028 or even 2029 as a result of the AI-fueled chip crisis. In January, an analyst report suggested that Sony may push the launch of the PS6 beyond 2028 and lengthen the PS5 lifecycle. David Gibson, senior analyst at MST international who focuses on game and tech companies, predicted that “rising memory prices will not impact short-term performance thanks to Sony’s existing inventory.” However, he noted that increased memory costs could become an issue for Sony in the next fiscal year (ending in March 2027), saying “Sony might pass future cost increases onto consumers.”

With that in mind, doubling down on PS5 as the home of exclusive games may help reinforce the console’s value for PlayStation fans, and encourage sales.

Last month Sony announced the shock closure of Bluepoint Games, the studio behind the remakes of both Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls. Sony still operates PC port specialist Nixxes Software, which it bought in 2021.

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.

Apple has kicked off a week of new product reveals, and it started with the announcement of the iPhone 17e. This is the cheapest model of the iPhone 17 lineup, as it starts at $599. That’s $200 less than the previous cheapest model, which makes it appealing to anyone who doesn’t want to spend a fortune on a new phone. And it still shares many features with the standard iPhone 17, which we recommend as the best phone for most people. It’s available for preorder now (see it at Verizon), and it releases March 11. Read on for the details.

Preorder iPhone 17e

Ever since its reveal in 2019, Pearl Abyss' Crimson Desert has garnered a certain mystique for its ambitious open world and the multitude of activities waiting to be uncovered. It's a type of open-world action-adventure that's aiming high and looking to land among other AAA games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Witcher 3. However, this mystique has also attracted some skepticism about whether the game will deliver on its vision of a grand-scale action game that pulls you into its world.

Fortunately, we recently got several hours of hands-on time with Crimson Desert, and the ambitious open-world game is well-positioned to deliver on its lofty goal of being a captivating action game. However, that skepticism from many online is still lingering, and with many games not quite hitting the mark at launch, it can be hard to shake — especially after many years since its initial reveal.

During this Crimson Desert media event, we spoke with Will Powers, director of marketing and PR for Pearl Abyss, to clear the air and discuss the game's current state. In addition to offering some frank thoughts on the nearly seven years since Crimson Desert's reveal, Powers also shared his larger hopes for what the game can accomplish as a standalone action adventure away from the shadow of Black Desert Online.

Editor's Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and readability.

IGN: The game has been on many players' minds for some time. But now that the release date is coming up, and people are learning more about the game, how has it been for you all to show more of the game and see the response from players, getting a better idea of what Crimson Desert is all about?

Will Powers: It's tough to say for sure, because, like with anything, there's a balance of making sure that the awareness is out there for Crimson Desert without over hyping or setting impossible expectations to be able to hit. That's really where you need to achieve that balance, because you don't want to let people down at launch by making them anticipate something to such a high level – like it's the second coming. So you have to strike a balance between awareness and not over-promising. This game and its heritage, both from when it was announced and from a studio that has made an MMORPG with over 55 million global players.

So that's the benchmark that this company knows. Releasing your sophomore project after that, there's probably higher internal expectations than there are external ones. But going back to your question, what's really interesting is the heritage of this game as an MMO and as a studio that knows how to make open worlds designed to serve the community. Even though this game has pivoted to a single-player open-world, those single players are benefiting from systems from when it was a different type of game, which is why many people say they haven't seen a game like this before. This isn't what this game was originally intended to be. This is an amalgamation of what it is morphed into, benefiting from where it came from.

IGN: Even though people are getting a sense of what Crimson Desert is all about, it is still a strange position to be in when you have a game that's been on the minds of many players for several years now. Has long-term attention been a hurdle to overcome, or has it added some motivation?

Will Powers: In a sense, we're kind of victims of ourselves – we announced the game too early, and, honestly, that's just inarguable [to dispute]. Things happened that way for multiple reasons; the game changed, and we built an engine, and not just for this game, but an additional engine altogether. So it's not just strictly development time for a singular title. But if we had to do it again, I don't think anyone would say we should announce the game six-and-a-half years in advance. That's just not a thing that happens often. But as a result of this situation, what happened is it created this air of mystique around it where people didn't really know what the game was, and that's become fun from my perspective.

So now we just let people play the game for hours and do hours of interviews as well. In this situation, what if we revealed six hours of gameplay footage? So then it becomes less of a question of people not knowing what the game is and more of a question of, "Well, how can this be too good to be true?" Or, "how can this not be real?" We never want to be accused of hiding anything, because we have a lot of ground to make up. We initially revealed this as something else, so we needed to do more than a game traditionally would to course-correct for our own actions from five and six years ago.

IGN: And as you mentioned, the game underwent many changes over the years — it was originally a direct prequel to Black Desert Online. Do you feel that the shift away from the direct connections to BDO helped bring the game to where it needed to be?

Will Powers: Yeah, I can only assume, since I wasn't in the room making that decision with them. Still, I can say that those types of conversations happen when the game is becoming something different from what we originally intended. At those points, there's a crossroads of sorts: "Do you want to lean into that experience of being different," or "do you want to shoehorn it back into what the original intention for the project was?"

Obviously, we chose the former of those two and let it really become its own thing. That's led to a little bit of product confusion in the marketplace, because we've announced this as a different genre and different universe through official channels, and that's changed a lot. But it's also led to some similarities with Black Desert Online, and I think one way to look at it is that this is now part of the Desert IP. What does that mean? It'll have similarities in DNA across Black Desert and Crimson Desert in terms of style and a lot of the combat DNA, regardless of the differences in genres.

IGN: On that note, I've noticed that the game's messaging defines it as not an RPG but an open-world action-adventure game. I got a sense of that from my hands-on time; there weren't any stats to look at, and it's all about the direct action. Was that direction important to help define Crimson Desert from Black Desert Online?

Will Powers: Well, there are really two parts to that. For one, we already have an RPG, and it has all the elements people want. But then there's the connotations of genre that create some expectations, but also some confusion in the marketplace for what kind of RPG it could be. Because we were changing what this game has been over the years, we didn't want to create further confusion by assigning a genre that we don't even feel is fully representative of the game.

So, to be completely honest, the most representative genre for Crimson Desert is open-world action-adventure. That carries many of the elements of combat, exploration, and storytelling that we're achieving with this game.

IGN: Looking back over the years, it's clear the game feels very much inspired by other games of this style, such as The Legend of Zelda, The Witcher, Dragon's Dogma, and Assassin's Creed. That's also created some expectations. Do you feel it was important to show that this game aims to match similar experiences while also making a stronger distinction about what Crimson Desert is trying to achieve?

Will Powers: I think that it would be arrogant of a studio to say that other games do not inspire them. That would just be pure arrogance to say that you don't take inspiration from some of the best games in the last 10 years. However, I'm at a point where I'm done comparing this game to others. We needed to do that at the beginning because we hadn't offered enough hands-on time to people. Still, I think now we're at the point where comparing it to any singular title is a misrepresentation of [Crimson Desert] because the elements that exist within it honestly transcend some of the systems in any singular game.

That's where I think it comes into its own. And sure, those similarities are still there, but I do hope this can become one of those games people look to and say, "Oh, I can't find another game like that." It remains to be seen how people will feel about the game once it's out there, and whether it's defining its own new genre or what, but in the end, those inspirations have created something special and a type of experience you can't get elsewhere.

IGN: It was surprising to see just how much detail there was in the game, and how much time I spent just exploring the towns and settings. This feels like a game that you can just vibe out with once you have unlocked a good portion of the world.

Will Powers: For me, that's one of the unique traits of this game. Oftentimes, when there's a massive game like this, I feel like, "Oh, I can't jump into it unless I have four or five hours free." I haven't felt that when playing it personally, because there are things I can do in just an hour. Like I can find mining materials to try to upgrade my weapon, or I can just set a task for myself and head out in one direction of the world, and in that time, I feel like I'm still accomplishing something grander. I think what's interesting within the world is that you're not limited by how much time you have to dedicate to this experience.

IGN: Lastly, based on your experiences with the game, do you feel there's something about Crimson Desert that you really value and that you want more people to know about?

Will Powers: Yeah, one of the guiding ideologies of the developer is that they want to create a world that is about having fun, and that's just the core of it. If you're going to make a game like this with all these different systems, then yeah, you gotta make sure it's all fun and that it ties together in a cohesive way. For me, that's resulted in really fun and cool interactions. My favorite experiences with this game come from telling people about what I've experienced. We have a room at the Pearl Abyss office with like four PCs, and every time we get a new build, we just sit down and play-test it a little bit. Every time we do that, there's like this almost offline co-op experience that happens, where I'm like, "Did you guys see this thing over here?" or, "Did you guys know about this?"

And it reminds me of when I played Fallout 4, where I was in party chat, and even though it's a single-player game, there's still a community experience. I really think Crimson Desert is going to inspire something similar, where players explore this world and share their discoveries and experiences with their friends. That communal experience is something special, and yeah, I haven't had that in a long time.

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.