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.

While Battlefield 6 has enjoyed a record-breaking launch, some have critisized the pace of in-game progression, which this update looks to address. Other hot topics include the size of Battlefield 6's multiplayer maps compared to those in previous games, and out-of-place soldier skins.

We've got plenty more on Battlefield 6, including word on the hidden firing range room that players are investigating for secret Easter Eggs and hints at future content. Those looking to brush up on their online skills can also read our multiplayer tips and tricks guide.

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.

The Witcher Season 4 looks like it’s having a hard time compared to previous seasons of the Netflix series, with viewership data showing a dramatic decline.

For Season 4 and the upcoming fifth and final season, Netflix replaced Henry Cavill with Liam Hemsworth as Geralt following the former Superman actor’s exit at the end of Season 3. Season 4 made its debut on October 30 with all eight episodes and met with a mixed response from fans and critics. IGN’s The Witcher Season 4 review returned a 7/10. We said: “Even with the Cavill/Hemsworth shake-up, The Witcher sticks to its guns (er, swords) and delivers a decent season of magic and mayhem.”

According to What’s On Netflix, Season 4 has struggled for views in its launch week. It landed at No. 2 on Netflix’s English TV list with 7.4 million views across its first four days of availability.

The comparisons make for tough reading if you’re Netflix. While we don’t have figures for the breakout first season, Season 2 has first week views of 18.5 million, and Season 3 had 15.2 million. For extra context, animated spinoff The Witcher: Blood Origin had 4.6 million cumulative views in its first week. While there is nuance to be found within these comparisons (Season 3 was a split release, for example), it cannot be denied that Season 4 of The Witcher has disappointed.

In a note to press, media analytics company Samba TV delivered its own verdict on The Witcher Season 4, saying 577,000 U.S. households watched Season 4 Episode 1 during the launch window. That’s down 35% from the 885,000 U.S. households that watched Season 3 Episode 1 during the same launch window period.

Cast your mind back six years to the launch of The Witcher and it was one of the hottest TV shows on the planet. In January 2020, Netflix said The Witcher Season 1 was on track to become the biggest Season 1 TV series ever on the streaming platform, with a huge 76 million member households watching in its first four weeks of release. It was so big that it drove up sales of the CD Projekt video games, the books upon which they’re based, and even spawned a viral musical hit. You'd worry for the future of The Witcher if it were any other Netflix show, but we already know how this one ends: the confirmed fifth and final season.

In truth, The Witcher has endured a rocky road ever since Cavill’s dramatic exit. The show has faced a backlash from some fans who adored Cavill’s portrayal of Geralt, and it feels like it wouldn’t have mattered who had replaced him, such was the sentiment after the news broke in 2022. It's still unknown why Cavill left but the actor said in November 2021 he was absolutely committed to a seven season run of The Witcher "as long as we can keep telling great stories which honor Sapkowski's work."

In September, Liam Hemsworth spoke for the first time about replacing Henry Cavill, admitting reaction online forced him off social media and the internet. Last year, speaking to Collider, Ciri actress Freya Allan said she felt sorry for Hemsworth for having to take over from Cavill in what was "not an ideal situation."

"I feel sorry for him, honestly, because, number one, that fan base can be very attack-y, and it’s not an ideal situation to be in taking up someone else’s role,” she said. “But I’m really excited to see what he does. And he’s such a lovely guy. I just hope that people give him the time of day."

Back in 2022, Cavill took to social media to say he would return to play Superman "after being told by the studio" to do so, but new DC Studio heads James Gunn and Peter Safran went in another direction (Gunn later admitted Cavill was messed about by previous studio leadership). Cavill went on to sign a deal with Amazon and Games Workshop to adapt Warhammer 40,000, a tabletop game he loves, and is currently recovering from a leg injury sustained training for the Highlander reboot.

Christy opens in theaters on November 7.

Sydney Sweeney is the latest to dance the biopic shuffle, punchily portraying boxing pioneer Christy Martin in a rather run-of-the-mill sports drama based on Martin's game-changing rise to fame -- along with her years of abuse at the hands of manager-husband Jim Martin (Ben Foster). Much like The Smashing Machine with Dwayne Johnson and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere with Jeremy Allen White, Christy marches diligently alongside 2025's middling, performance-forward biographies as Sweeney shines brightly in the midst of what is, basically as a blueprint, a life montage.

It's a tricky thing to call out what are considered to be the cliches of a biopic because, well, it is someone's real life. Accusing it of being hackneyed or by-the-numbers feels mean and dismissive. Remember though, the life in question is shoved through a Hollywood lens and formatted for our easy narrative consumption. Biopics have always been a performer's medium and not so much a filmmaker's because many of them, as films, have a hard time balancing involving the viewer vs. just merely showing the viewer. Christy takes us from 1989 to 2010, sometimes pausing for important landmarks but most often whisking us through the rest in a way that makes you wish there were some moments we spent more time with.

Christy, as a biography project, is a montage, filled with smaller, faster montages, speeding us through training, boxing, media rounds, and Martin's almost parodic conservative parents (Merritt Wever and Ethan Embry giving their best West Virginia scowls). But Sweeney and director David Michôd (Animal Kingdom, The Rover) know well and good enough that we've come to watch a famous person look different and sound different. We've come to see how hard they've worked to change their appearance, alter their voice, and devote themselves to a particular skillset, be it sports or music or what have you. Because truth be told, we could all just watch the Netflix documentary (Untold: Deal With the Devil) and see a much more unfiltered telling of the tale.

Sweeney is tremendous here, physically transforming herself, telling the story of a woman trying to battle her way out of brutal trappings. Chastised and shunned at home for being a lesbian, Martin finds her calling in the '90s boxing world -- where no woman had ever found fame or fortune -- drawn to the violence as both escape and catharsis. Once entrenched, however, Martin finds herself in quicksand after marrying her trainer, Jim, and slowly discovering that he's a physically and mentally abusive POS. Any and all attempts she makes to move past him -- even seeing Don King (played with glee by Chad L. Coleman) as a possible ticket to a Jim-free life -- go up in flames thanks to Jim's weaponized incompetence and manipulations.

Ben Foster does a great job of being very vile as Jim, a mushy, wholly unimpressive man who manages to subdue a woman who could best him in every aspect, using the world's (and her own family's) misogyny and homophobia to his advantage. Eventually, Martin's freedom is only found after wresting it from the jaws of death in 2010. Again, unless you've got the panache and confident energy of a Scorsese, then your biopic will probably tread through the same visual cues and hit the same structural speed bumps. There's a point in Christy where it notes a time jump, that it's jumping ahead a decade, but then, at the same time, it doesn't really let you know that everything you watched before it took place over seven years.

It's hard to make a movie biography that doesn't feel like an uneven encapsulation or an endless parade of check-ins, and Christy is no exception to those pitfalls, sadly. Characters either tend to feel like stock caricatures or they're simply underserved, like Martin's entire training team outside of Jim. But the two main performances, particularly Sweeney's, are good reminders that the spotlight is on the role here and not the particular obstacles or unspooling of struggles.

Sweeney is able to capture the desperate drive of Christy Martin, the shame she's forced to feel for who she loves, and the vulnerability of a celebrity who projects a "tough as nails" persona. Foster's Jim isn't as layered as the villain of the piece who's pretty much a miserable sack of dongs from the get-go, but he's also playing the metaphoric role of patriarchal, societal shackles. Jim is able to slip through the cracks (well, until he cracks) because of how ugly things are for women. Katy O'Brian lights up the screen as Martin's former boxing nemesis Lisa Holewyne, though the pair's fate is unfortunately relegated to a "Where are they now?" epilogue crawl. A lot happens off-screen toward the end, including Jim's comeuppance, that would have made for a much better finish.

Nintendo plans to release further video game films at a "consistent" rate following the launch of next year's The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and 2027's The Legend of Zelda.

In a presentation to investors today, Nintendo said it was "building a framework for a consistent release cadence" of movies, built on the success of 2023's breakout hit The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Next year will of course see the arrival of a sequel to that film, which is scheduled to arrive on April 3. This will then be followed by a live-action The Legend of Zelda adaptation in 2027, and beyond that... Well, today Nintendo suggested it had at least a couple of other ideas in the pipeline.

In a slide showing posters for the three movies mentioned above, Nintendo indicated it had at least a couple more film projects planned for launch within the next few years.

"We are continuing to prepare for the ongoing release of movies in the future," Nintendo simply said of its future plans. But the suggestion of more movies already being planned has set fans' tongues wagging.

So, what else could we see? Well, Nintendo currently seems keen to build on its universe of Mario characters — at least some of whom will be headed into space within The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. But while Seth Rogen's Donkey Kong will still feature, fans have long expected the character to eventually get his own spin-off — something Rogen has said he's keen for, and Nintendo recently filed a copyright notice to protect.

The release of a recent Pikmin short film underlines Nintendo's keeness to continue growing that particular franchise — could a full movie follow? Or perhaps Nintendo will look to its other top-tier franchises after Mario and Zelda, and attempt to launch another?

An animated Fire Emblem film? A live-action Metroid? An Animal Crossing horror movie where Tom Nook collects his debts, shovel in hand? The possibilities are endless — as long as Nintendo can repeat its Super Mario Movie success. After all, for now it has secured just one box office hit — though the company is clearly banking on more to follow, and sooner rather than later.

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

Today, November 5, marks 10 years to the day Battlestate Games unveiled its extraction shooter, Escape from Tarkov. And now, 10 days from its 1.0 release, the developer has revealed preorder and beta rewards.

Escape from Tarkov is a hardcore MMO mixture of first-person shooter / third-person shooter and role-playing gameplay. Players need to find a way out of the isolated Russian city of Tarkov, survive deadly hazards, and unearth the mysteries of the city. It's been playable in early access form since making its debut in 2016, and it's finally coming to Steam as part of the 1.0 launch on November 15.

For anyone thinking of preordering the shooter ahead of its November 15 release — or those who've already preordered it — players can get following awards:

• Clothing set: USEC Legionnaire Olive
• Clothing set: Bear Sumrak Reverse
• PMC Dogtag: Immortal
• Prayer Armband: Head, Eyes
• Hideout Style: Echo of Battle
• Shooting Target: Hatchling
• Mannequin: poses

Obsidian has said it’s well aware that whenever it announces a new game, people ask where Fallout: New Vegas 2 is, but it loves how it’s been able to create new IP and even release sequels to them — and its owner Microsoft sounds like it supports that approach.

Fallout Season 2 is set to hit Prime Video this December, and while Bethesda has a new Fallout: New Vegas bundle up its sleeve, there’s no word yet on a Fallout remaster or a Fallout: New Vegas 2 to capitalize on the surge of interest in the franchise. Obsidian is of course the developer of the much-loved 2010 RPG Fallout: New Vegas, so fans often wonder whether it will return to the setting for a sequel, especially given it’s owned by Bethesda parent company Microsoft.

Obsidian, though, has focused on making brand new games, and it is prolific in doing so. It’s released Grounded (Grounded 2 came out this year), fantasy RPG Avowed (which came out this year), and sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds (The Outer Worlds 2 came out this year). Pentiment, which came out last year, was another brand new game, although I wouldn’t expect a sequel to that any time soon.

In an interview with The Game Business, Obsidian’s VP of operations Marcus Morgan and VP of production Justin Britch touched on the fan calls for a New Vegas follow-up, but pointed to its work establishing new franchises as a “joy.”

“I know everyone on the internet, on every game we ever announce, will constantly reference back to, ‘When’s the next New Vegas? Or when’s the next whatever?” Morgan said.

“But this year, in addition to it being a celebration of shipping three games, all three of those games are IP that we’ve created, that are Obsidian IP. Our history, prior to the Microsoft acquisition, really was surrounding around working on others’ IP. And this is the joy that we get of… how do we start to define our own and how do we build our own IP? And we’ve got to the part where we have sequels to all of them. All of them are sequels to the IP we created.”

And it sounds like Microsoft has supported Obsidian’s desire to do just that, even though you’d think the mega corp might have gone hard on Fallout, especially with the hugely popular Fallout TV show breaking through into the mainstream.

“Xbox has been pretty supportive of the stuff we want to do,” Britch insisted. “It’s been great.”

There was no mention made during the recent Fallout Day broadcast of a Fallout: New Vegas remaster, which some (including Danny Trejo!) have called on Bethesda to develop. Indeed, there were no new Fallout games announced at all. Find out everything announced during the Fallout Day broadcast here.

But there are all sorts of rumors floating around about potential Fallout remakes now that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is out the door (Fallout 3 Remastered was leaked back in 2023, but those plans may have changed). And we know Bethesda wants to eventually get to Fallout 5, albeit after The Elder Scrolls 6.

The last we heard on Fallout 5, by the way, was back in June 2024, when Bethesda Softworks head Todd Howard said he wasn’t interested in rushing it out the door. Howard opened up about the future of the hit post-apocalyptic RPG series during an interview with YouTube content creator MrMattyPlays.

"For other Fallout games in the future, you know, obviously I can’t talk about those right now, but I would say, sort of rushing through them, or we kind of need to get stuff out that is different than the work we’re doing in 76… we don’t feel like we need to rush any of that," he said. "The Fallout TV show fills a certain niche in terms of the franchise and storytelling."

The last mainline Fallout game was Fallout 4, which was released in 2015. DLC content for the entry was steadily released for PC and consoles over the next year, and in 2018, Bethesda launched its multiplayer-centered offshoot, Fallout 76. While fans flocked to the West Virginia-set open-world RPG over time (and after a rocky launch), it wasn’t until the premiere of Prime Video’s Fallout TV show that the Bethesda series leveled up in terms of attention.

Still, Howard wouldn't budge when it came to desires for a substantial video game release. For him, it comes down to wanting to treat Bethesda's franchises with care.

"Totally get the desire for a new kind of mainline single-player game," he said. "And look, those things take time. I don’t think it’s bad for people to miss things. We just want to get it right and make sure that everything we’re doing in a franchise, whether it’s Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or now Starfield, that those become meaningful moments for everybody who loved these franchises as much as we do."

In the meantime, The Outer Worlds 2 has strong New Vegas vibes. Check out IGN's The Outer Worlds 2 review for more.

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.