Take one look at Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, the upcoming RPG from ZA/UM, and you can immediately see the similarities between it and the studio’s previous game, Disco Elysium. It’s an isometric game with a striking art style, featuring dialogue-heavy gameplay where conversations are displayed vertically on the right-hand side of the screen.

Take a closer look and there are even more similarities. There’s a “Conditioning” system that replicates many of the functions of Disco Elysium’s unique Thought Cabinet. Its story aims to be deeply political and introspective. And then there’s the skills system, which manifests as a sentient inner monologue, commenting on your choices and the world around you.

For some Disco Elysium fans, this overlap may feel uneasy. In 2022, game director Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov – creatives key to the look, feel, and vision of the celebrated RPG – were among a number of staff who left the studio in an "involuntary" manner. ZA/UM claimed they were fired for misconduct, while Kurvitz and Rostov accused the company’s majority shareholders of fraud. Many fans believe those fired to be victims of corporate conspiracy. Those same fans may now be concerned to see the studio building a Disco Elysium successor based on such similar design foundations without the involvement of those original creatives.

In a recent interview, IGN discussed these concerns with Jim Ashilevi, writer and VO director at ZA/UM, and asked why the studio didn’t consider finding a new direction for Zero Parades.

“I think it would have made sense for us to go in a completely different direction if the entire team was comprised of new talent,” Ashilevi said. “But since such a large number of the key players that built Disco Elysium are here to build Zero Parades, it just didn't make sense for us to just disregard that part of our experience as amateur game makers and start learning new ways of telling stories.”

ZA/UM’s head of studio, Allen Murray, estimates that around 35% of the studio’s current staff roster is made up of people who worked on either the original version of Disco Elysium or the expanded “Final Cut” release. The studio’s total staff numbers around 90.

“We're still the same people,” Ashilevi continued. “We still have the same interests. The stuff that interests us in the world of video games, but also in other media – in film and literature and theater – that hasn't changed. Hopefully it has evolved, but I think we're still basically the same people.

“We're just going by our gut, basically, and we're following our own obsessions,” he said. “And a lot of that was present in Disco Elysium. It will be present in Zero Parades as well, largely due to the fact that those are the same people who were there to build that cool world.”

In a previous interview with members of ZA/UM, which took place just prior to Gamescom 2025, IGN asked Ashilevi and lead technical artist Nicolas Pirot how they felt about fans who may be feeling cautious about a new ZA/UM RPG following the departures of Kurvitz, Rostov, and others.

“I understand why some people might have reservations,” said Pirot. “It's not up to me to tell them what to think or what to experience. I think what we are trying to do is tell an incredible story. And I think all we can do is hope that, when Zero Parades is ready, that people like it enough to participate and to see who we are as a group.”

“We are here to write more stories,” Ashilevi added. “That's all we're here for. And if that upsets people or makes them feel cautious, fair. But there is a new game coming out soon and I hope you check it out. And if you don't like it, that's fine. That's completely fine.”

ZA/UM intends to launch Zero Parades this year. An espionage RPG themed around power struggles and failure, the team hopes it will stand distinct from Disco Elysium without “fully re-inventing the wheel.”

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.

As part of Black History Month, Oni Press is releasing a new biographical graphic novel called First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth. This book dramatizes the life and work of Dr. Opal Lee and reveals how the national holiday Juneteenth got its start.

IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of First Freedom. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth is written by Angélique Roché, with art by Alvin Epps (I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005: A Graphic Novel), Bex Glendining (On Starlit Shores), and Millicent Monroe, colors by Damali Beatty, and letters by Alexis Bennett with Andworld Design.

“I believe it is important to note that while this book gives ample space to the conversation of Juneteenth, Ms. Opal’s impact has been and continues to reach further than just the fight for a national holiday," Roché writes in the book's preface. "Even before Ms. Opal chaired a Juneteenth committee or set her sights on walking to D.C., she had time and time again made herself a ‘committee of one.’ As a daughter, sister, mother, friend, educator, advocate, and activist, she has set out to accomplish tasks big and small. Guided by family legacy and faith, she continues to challenge the limitations others would place on us from the ordinary to the extraordinary. That is the story I set out to tell, with the sincere hope that in these words, pictures, timelines, and references, I’ve been able to capture even a modicum of her spirit and an iota of the vastness of personal power her life and legacy represent.”

“First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth is a testament to the truly inspirational courage of Dr. Opal Lee,” said Oni Press Editor-in-Chief Sierra Hahn. “The book is an essential read not only for librarians, teachers, historians, and activists, but anyone interested in American history, the power of activism, and the expression of personal freedom.”

First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth is available in hardcover and softcover formats now. You can order the book on Amazon.

In other comic book news, find out which series was selected as IGN's best comic book of 2025, and see which comics we're most excited for in 2026.

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

Mario Tennis Fever has the soul of a GameCube game. Its wacky, over-the-top take on tennis is at its best when you have four friends together on the couch. And for the first time since the GameCube era, series developer Camelot has delivered an entry that feels feature complete on day one, with the most unique characters, solo and multiplayer modes, and silly gimmicks we’ve ever seen crammed into a Mario Tennis game. Sadly, that doesn’t mean it’s all good content, as the single-player adventure once again comes up woefully short in terms of both its length and quality. But when playing locally or online, Fever’s tight, responsive controls and crazy abilities result in a chaotic party game that’s a lot of fun in short bursts.

The headline twist this time around are the mighty Fever Rackets, which dominate the action. There are 30 to choose from, and each comes with a unique special ability that can swing the game in your favor. Those powers are activated by pulling off a Fever Shot once your gauge is full, and they range from offensive, like planting a rotating Fire Bar straight from Super Mario Bros. on your opponent’s side of the court, to defensive, like creating a shadow double of yourself to cover more ground. They can also block your screen with ink, litter piles of banana peels on both sides of the court, or grant time-limited buffs, like making your shots curvier for the next 20 seconds.

The Fever Rackets are a blast to experiment with, and their inclusion adds a different flavor to each match. At their best, they force you to think about all the special quirks in play. If I place a slippery sheet of ice on one quadrant of my rival’s turf, we both know I’m probably going to try and hit my next shot right at it to force them onto the uncomfortable terrain. Or… will I? Shot placement in tennis is full of mindgames, and the Fever Racket’s transformative effects enhance that dynamic.

There are also checks and balances to each that are fun to uncover. The Bullet Bill Racket transforms the ball into a wicked fast line drive that appears overpowered at first glance, until you learn it can be easily neutralized by playing up close at the net. And when both players use this racket, it can result in a hilarious, rapid Bullet Bill rally that usually ends with a demoralizing body shot. Mixing and matching racket types to see what happens is great, which is why it really bothers me that there’s no way to randomly select your Fever Racket for either human players or CPU opponents, as it would be fun to try to make the most of the cards you’re dealt. You can randomly select characters and courts, just not rackets, so that feels like a prime candidate to be added in a post-launch update.

Some Fever Rackets are definitely stronger than others, but Mario Tennis Fever adds a smart mechanic to somewhat balance them out. When a player initiates a Fever Shot, most offensive effects don’t take place until the ball hits the ground, leading to a tense back-and-forth volley where both players desperately try to hit the ball before it bounces. You have to be confident in choosing which one to bring into the match and when to unleash it, because the wrong decision can see your opponent sending your big shot right back at you.

On the flipside, Fever Rackets can also make things feel more luck-based at times, especially in doubles. Four separate powers in play can lead to courts that are completely covered in mud, fire, and unregulated chaos, similar to playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with all items cranked to the max. When your health hits zero – which forces you to sit on the sidelines in doubles or move at a slower speed in singles – it often doesn’t feel like your fault because of how unavoidable taking damage becomes. Even your doubles partner’s Fever Shot can hurt you. This isn’t necessarily bad; Fever just leans harder into the party game side of things than its predecessor, Mario Tennis Aces, which almost resembled a competitive fighting game with high-level mechanics like bar management and perfect blocks.

Rally Time

To account for all the mayhem that Fever Rackets entail, the actual tennis is a bit simpler. The overall speed is slightly slower and floatier, last-second dives for the ball make mistakes less punishing, and the court is a little smaller, meaning it’s easier to reach cross-court shots and keep a point going. I understand this choice: Aces’ intense pace combined with Fever’s increased madness would probably be too much to keep up with. On one hand, I miss the more hardcore version of tennis Aces provided. I played that game online for years because of its high skill ceiling and rewarding mechanics – it was a truly inspired take on the sport. On the other hand, Fever is way more fun to invite friends over to play for a casual game night since it’s easier for newcomers to pick up. It’s worse as a competitive tennis game, but better as a party tennis game. Plus, most modes let you use a high-speed ball that leads to a more upbeat rhythm, even if it doesn’t entirely resolve my disappointment that Aces’ thrilling trick shots, racket health, and time-bending abilities have been replaced.

That said, it still feels really good to anticipate where the ball is going, get in position, and release a fully-charged topspin shot, complete with great, punchy sound effects. Camelot has been refining the same control scheme of drop shots, lobs, and angled smashes for decades, and it’s still fun to return to, especially with CPUs that actually put up a fight at higher difficulties and the largest roster the series has ever seen. There are 38 characters to choose from, each with their own stats and unique traits. Newcomer Baby Waluigi has been a breakout star online, but I’ve actually gravitated towards the overlooked Baby Wario, whose powered-up topspin shot helps me control the pace of each point. I’m also happy to see the Donkey Kong Bananza redesigns of DK and Diddy Kong show up.

The character models are probably the best-looking part of Fever, with detailed clothes and facial animations, like the texture on Luigi’s shirt or even more bristles in Mario’s mustache than before. However, it doesn’t blow me away visually as a Switch 2 exclusive. Its cartoony art style looks good, as Mario games generally do, but it doesn’t feel like a significant leap forward. It targets 60 fps and usually hits that, but I noticed a few times in splitscreen doubles matches where it dipped before the ball was served. At least it’s always consistent when it matters most during the point, even with all the wild Fever effects on screen.

Keeping in line with Fever’s GameCube spirit, you have to unlock a bunch of characters, rackets, courts, and special costumes by clearing specific challenges, playing a certain number of matches, and progressing through the Adventure mode. Recent Mario sport games have tied progression and unlockables to online play, so it was a welcome sight to boot up Fever for the first time and see I had plenty to chase that wasn’t tied to my internet connection. That is, until I booted up the Adventure mode and discovered what I was in for.

Baby Fever

If you’re primarily looking forward to Mario Tennis Fever because of its single-player Adventure mode, I’m sad to share that it’s easily the most underwhelming part of this package. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Wario, and Waluigi get transformed into babies, and Mario must regain his tennis skills to save everyone, for some reason. It starts out promising, with a few gorgeous early cutscenes that throw Mario and friends into unexpected situations. Camelot upholds its reputation for surprisingly great cinematics like this, but the Adventure mode only goes downhill from there.

The first 90 minutes of this disappointingly short three-and-a-half hour campaign take place at a tennis academy, where Baby Mario undergoes painfully drawn-out, simplistic tutorials about the basics. You complete fairly one-note minigames to increase your stats, mash through text that reiterates each shot type, and partake in ridiculously easy qualification matches to move up the ranks. Throughout, you are also quizzed on your tennis knowledge, like one stumper where I was asked which character type was known for its speed: all-around, defensive, or speedy. Take a guess. This is clearly meant for young kids playing their first Mario Tennis game, and “Tutorial” would’ve been a more appropriate name than “Adventure”. It would be more enjoyable if the writing was funny or clever, but the characters all say very vanilla things that essentially only exist to teach you how to play. This is a far cry from Golf Story, which remains the gold standard for how to do a proper campaign in an arcadey sports game that combines strong writing, interesting challenges, and off-the-wall diversions, all of which are missing here.

You eventually leave the academy to progress through a comically small world map. This part of Adventure strongly resembles Aces’ campaign, where you use your tennis skills to fight a handful of bosses and solve very light puzzles. There are a few challengers to find, but there’s a surprising lack of tennis matches in this tennis campaign – and just when I felt like things were ramping up, it was over, so I shrugged and moved onto the other single-player offerings.

Tournament mode is a staple of Mario Tennis, and this is unfortunately one of its worst forms. Playing through three separate brackets to win trophies is fine as always, but Fever introduces an announcer in the form of a Talking Flower from Super Mario Bros. Wonder who never stops commentating. He reacts to every single shot, and I felt like I’d heard all of his voice lines multiple times before even wrapping up my second tournament. It gets grating very quickly, and I can’t imagine even kids would enjoy the nonstop commentary. The Talking Flower is turned on for all modes by default, but thankfully you can disable it everywhere… except in Tournament and Adventure.

The runaway best single-player mode is Trial Towers, a new addition that reminds me of Super Smash Bros. Melee’s Events. Each trial throws a specific setup at you, like a match where your Fever Gauge is always full or a battle of three babies against a giant Bowser, and it’s up to you to figure out how to exploit the setup and win a brief five-point match. There are even optional, difficult achievements for completionists, like winning without taking damage, or never losing a point. It’s a lot of fun working your way through each challenge, and incorporating this concept into an Adventure mode with unique characters and an interesting story should be the way forward for this series.

As always, Mario Tennis Fever shines in multiplayer, and there’s plenty of flexibility in that department. You can compete online in ranked matches split, between singles and doubles, either with Fever Rackets or without them. Winning boosts your point total as you work to improve your letter grade, with rankings scheduled to reset at the start of each month. I was only able to play online for a couple hours before launch, but my experience was smooth. In addition to playing with up to four people locally, you can bring two people from one console into a private online lobby and set up any type of casual match you’d like.

When you want something besides the standard tennis, you and your friends can pick a special match like the motion-control-focused Swing Mode, the traditional Ring Shot mode where you compete to score the most points by hitting the ball through rings floating above the net, a pinball court that uses bumpers and paddles, or a court that introduces Mario Wonder’s Wonder Effects like floating hippos. These range from decent distractions, like carefully aiming your Fever Shots at Piranha Plants to grow the size of your opponent’s court, to completely uninteresting, like repeatedly lobbing and dropshotting the ball just out of reach of a mindless CPU opponent upwards of 30 times in a row.

It doesn’t take long for even the best special modes to get repetitive, and I found myself quickly going back to the standard tennis matches. Thankfully, that specific mode has more than enough to shake things up thanks to the large roster of characters and rackets, but it ends up feeling like too much of a good thing. Fever is still a lot of fun in briefer sessions, but when I think of the breadth of worthwhile content found in Nintendo’s other recent multiplayer options like Kirby Air Riders or Super Mario Party Jamboree, Fever comes up a bit short. After 20 hours, I already feel like I’ve had my fill, and I see it as more of a fun distraction to play for a few minutes here and there while my group warms up for something else rather than one that’s going to get a serious amount of playtime.

Time, the old saying goes, is a flat circle. We go round and round, repeating forever. The same events, the same choices, the same conclusions. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. Romeo is a Dead Man, the latest from developer Grasshopper Manufacture and director Suda51, posits a different question: what if time was a sphere? The events might change, but all roads still lead to Rome. It’s a fascinating idea, but also one you shouldn’t rack your brain trying to figure out. This is a time travel story: spend too long trying to piece things together, and you’ll be making diagrams out of straws. In a convenient example of form as function, Romeo is a Dead Man is as fractured as a game as the universe Romeo navigates within it. To tell you the truth, I’m still trying to figure out if I liked it several days after beating it. But I can’t stop thinking about it, and how its form mirrors its narrative. And that’s not nothing.

Our tale follows the titular Romeo Stargazer, a sheriff’s deputy in the small town of Deadford (you’re going to notice a pattern with the naming conventions pretty fast, if you haven’t already) in Pennsylvania (okay, not that one).There’s not much to Deadford: it’s known for a potential alien landing site and its “dead” tomatoes. One day, Romeo discovers an amnesiatic woman named Juliet lying in the road. She begs him to kill her, but Romeo’s a good lad (and kind of a doofus), and he falls in love with her instead, despite the super questionable confluence of their names. “No good will come from falling in love with a woman you found in the middle of the road,” his grandfather, genius inventor Benjamin Stargazer, warns. And you know what? He’s right! You wanna be star-crossed lovers, kid? Because this is how you become star-crossed lovers.

Anyway, they fall in love, agree to elope, and then Romeo gets attacked by a weird creature and dies, but his grandfather saves his life with a super cool helmet, then also dies. Romeo becomes Deadman, space time is shattered by a mysterious incident, and Juliet disappears. The latter two might be connected. Now sustained (and powered-up) by his grandfather’s tech, Romeo is recruited by the FBI’s Space-Time Police and tasked with bringing space-time criminals to justice, tracking down Juliet, and figuring out what, if anything, she has to do with all this. He also gets a bitchin’ jacket that his dead-but-also-not-dead grandfather has somehow transported himself onto. Ol’ Ben also technically invents time travel in the future, making him a literal grandfather paradox. Wild.

That’s a lot, huh? Listen, this is a Suda51 joint. Weirdness is the name of the game. If I tried to explain all of it to you, I’d probably look like a dude with crazy eyes and a wall of notecards and newspaper clippings connected by red string. The truth is that, even after finishing Romeo is a Dead Man’s 15-hour story, I’m not sure I understand all of it – and hey, neither does Romeo. Talk about feeling like the main character. But for whatever reason, it’s stuck with me. That all of this is conveyed through a combination of cutscenes, comic book pages, and other weird but cool methods as you get deeper in probably didn’t hurt.

Like the Fragmented Universe Romeo finds himself in, Romeo is a Dead Man is a game made up of a lot of very disparate ideas. Missions start on the Space-Time Police’s ship, The Last Night, which is a 2D, sprite-based world where you can hang out with the crew – they’re a weird group that includes Romeo’s mom and sister, as well as FBI Space-Time agents with names like BlueMountain, TheBlack, and RedBrown; one tells you that Deadman is a lame name. From there, you scan the universe for anomalies, pilot The Last Night to them (you mostly pick a destination and hit the gas), blast away at the dimensional monstrosity blocking wherever you need to go with a weapon called Eternal Sleep, and then ride Romeo’s motorcycle across a bridge of light to to your destination. I can’t emphasize enough how ridiculous all of this is, especially when your ship says “FBI” on the side in big bold letters.

Once you’re where you need to be – which could be Deadford City Hall, a cult enclave in the ‘70s where you run around with a delightful zombie named Jenny, or a haunted asylum, among others – you’re playing a 3D action game where your job is to track down a space-time fugitive and bring them to space-time justice, which usually means fighting a lot of zombies and other monsters who are also here for… reasons. Romeo has access to four melee weapons and four ranged weapons. You’ll have to unlock every one but your starting chainsaw-sword and pistol, but the process is pretty quick. I had them all after the opening mission. Once you do, that’s it. There are no more worlds to conquer, weapon-wise.

Melee combat is your standard combination of light attack, heavy attack, and dodge that seems to have taken over every modern action game, and I'm kinda wondering why game designers hate blocking so much (unless it’s a parry). The cool thing about Romeo's melee combat is that you can chain light and heavy attacks together in any order. It’s not particularly deep – weapons don’t have move lists, and there's nary an Izuna Drop (or anything similar) in sight – but it does feel good, especially against the smaller Rotters. I enjoyed every weapon in Romeo's arsenal, whether it was his standard sword, the combining-and-separating Arcadia or the gauntlet-based Juggernaut, which allows Romeo to pretend he's a boxer… or Dante from Devil May Cry. Even the big, slow sword is cool.

Against the bigger, badder enemies, you'll want to sheathe your blades and get your hands on some superior firepower, mostly because those enemies come with flower-shaped weak points. There are no bad ranged weapons here: pistol, machine gun, shotgun, they all work great and pack a punch, though I was particularly fond of the rocket-launching Yggdrasil. When something absolutely, positively has to die, accept no substitutes. You may have to reload after every shot, but Romeo's wearing Solid Snake's bandana no matter what smoke wagon you're making guys dead with. “Don’t worry, infinite ammo” baby.

I admit that I'm kind of mixed on Romeo is a Dead Man's rogues’ gallery. There are a decent number of them, yeah, and the varying nature of their weak points is nice, but Grasshopper shows you all of its cards pretty early on, and by the end you'll have seen these cats a lot. That said, I do really like things like the Jellies, which force you to disperse their oozing exterior with a melee weapon before you can do real damage to the body beneath.

Either way, killing enemies builds blood, which can be spent on Bloody Summer, a very strong attack that also regenerates some of Romeo’s health. Each weapon has its own version of this move, and you can also use it while dodging or jumping for some variety. It’s a good way to dish out the hurt and manage Romeo’s health without dipping into his limited healing items.

Bafflingly but perhaps unsurprisingly, Romeo is a Dead Man borrows elements from the Soulslike genre. (If you were ever looking for a sentence with a 100% success rate in the “typing this made Will sad” category, there’s a winner.) Space-Time Pharmacies serve as save and fast travel points and restore your health and healing items, but also respawn any enemies you’ve killed. There’s no penalty for dying; you don’t drop the currency you’ve earned from killing enemies. Instead, you actually roll a roulette wheel that provides buffs to things like attack, defense, blood gain, and so on, courtesy of Romeo’s mom. Without other consequences, respawning enemies can make death and saving annoying in what is a fairly linear action game. I guess you could argue that it might fit thematically with each death or use of the Space-Time Pharmacy creating a parallel universe or something, but mostly it just feels weird and makes certain segments repetitive.

Even the bosses aren't immune to repetition, and you'll see the same mini-bosses multiple times. The space-time criminals that cap off each stage are one of one, but even these fights aren't total home runs. There’s a couple of really good ones, like the hard-charging Death Changeling, but you have seen these archetypes before and some are… less good. Sorry, Fused Reanimated, but instant kill attacks are never fun. The reality is fighting bigger enemies (and bosses) often means exploiting their weak points with your guns, leaving melee weapons in a kind of weird limbo. Romeo is a Dead Man's combat isn’t bad, per se, but I do wish there was more to it.

Thankfully, Romeo isn’t alone, or at least doesn’t have to be. You can find seeds scattered throughout spacetime that allow you to grow Bastards (yes, this is what they’re actually called) aboard The Last Night. Bastards are friendly zombies that can be summoned in combat and do things like serve as sentry cannons, heal you, shoot chain lightning, fire weakness flowers at baddies, and even run at enemies and explode. They’re cool to have around and incredibly useful – though Romeo is a Dead Man does a poor job of emphasizing that; I had to fuse a bunch together late game to get some strong enough to help me out because I’d largely ignored them until then (and growing them is its own process I will get into later).

The places you’ll do all this fighting are pretty grand. They’re largely not remarkable spaces in and of themselves, but what’s cool is subspace. Romeo, being a space-time cop, can access subspace, which is another dimension parallel to the one he’s in. But he can't do it whenever he wants. He has to find TVs showing a dude eating steak and saying weird and sometimes cryptic things to him, and he can enter subspace from there. Subspace is generally made out of neon rectangles that form paths and structures beneath your feet, but because subspace is parallel to real space, it kind of sits on top of the normal environments. The long and short of it is that paths blocked in real space might not be in subspace and vice versa, and you’ll often have to find your way to another TV to get around roadblocks in whatever dimension you’re in.

Solving puzzles in subspace will open up new paths (and new TVs to reemerge into the real world from), and finding keys in subspace will open blocked paths in the real world. I enjoyed seeing how these dimensions fit together, and subspace is usually combat free, so it’s a nice change of pace. The only downside is that subspace looks very samey, so it can be easy to get lost if you need to backtrack or forget what TV you came out of. Thankfully, Romeo is a Dead Man clues you in by having the guy inside the TV say something new once you find a new TV. Thanks, chief.

If you need a break or want to upgrade Romeo, you can head back to The Last Night from any Space-Time Pharmacy. In addition to the cool sprite art and crew, The Last Night is also home to a shop where you can buy food, materials, and equipable pins that up your numbers. You can also tend to your Bastard garden (you gotta plant those seeds, you know?), cook stat-boosting curry with Romeo’s mom, and refine space debris into weapon upgrade materials.

The best part of The Last Night is how tactile it is. You want a new Bastard? You gotta manually go to the garden, have Luna (Romeo’s sister) appraise your seeds, plant them, and then come back and pull them out of the ground when they’re done. If you want to upgrade them, you have to fuse two together manually. Wanna fight a boss you’ve taken down again? You have to talk to a specific guy. You want curry? You have to play the minigame to make it every time. My favorite example is the little arcade game that you play to level Romeo up, spending the currency you collect to travel what is essentially a ghostless Pac-Man maze. How you do it is up to you, but you have to do it. There’s no “oh, just level me up” option. Even something as simple as taking on optional challenges for rewards (decent stand-alone dungeons where you fight through to the end and so on) requires traveling to them physically. Romeo is a Dead Man forces you to live in its world.

Some folks will consider this repetition for the sake of it, but a lot of Romeo is a Dead Man happens over and over again. Each night, he has a nightmare and spills the drink on his nightstand when he wakes up. Each time you find a new fugitive, you perform the same series of actions to defeat the Dimensional Seer blocking your path forward and get to where they are. Each time you take a space-time criminal down, the credits roll. This is a time travel multiverse story; the point is that the same events are going to happen a lot. They’ll change, but the destination is the same. Remember the sphere? In the end, you always end up in the same place. By forcing you to engage with the repetitive nature of its world, Romeo is a Dead Man tells its story through its gameplay. It’s rad. Does it always work? No. I never found much use for the curry (and many of the other supplemental items). But I'm kind of eager to dive into New Game+ and see if it changes anything, because… well, multiverse time travel story, right? If time really is a sphere, it might not matter, which might make Romeo's use of New Game+ even cooler.

Blizzard has said that its Warcraft-themed collectible card game Hearthstone is still not available on consoles because the team needs "a level of investment... to make that happen."

That's according to executive producer Nathan Lyons-Smith, who recently revealed that because of the 12-year-old game's aging code — estimated to be 16 years old — any port to console must be done "right" and only when the team finds "the right time to do it."

"There's a level of investment that we need to make that happen, primarily in terms of UI and UX, and making sure that it's very natural to go and play a card game on those platforms," Lyons-Smith said, as reported by Eurogamer. "I know it's possible — Duels of the Planeswalkers for Magic [The Gathering], many years ago now, was absolutely delightful with the controller — so I know we can do it.

"I asked an engineer who'd been on the project a long time, and he estimates the code is 16 years old," Lyons-Smith continued, "and the team was 15 people 16 years ago. And so there's more of an effort to go: 'I want to make sure when we go that it's awesome.' That it doesn't just feel like, yeah, they ported it here, and you can play...

"I want to make sure that when we go, we're going to go, and it's going to feel awesome for players that love that form factor, whether they're leaning back on the couch or sitting on the couch with their handheld."

Hearthstone originally launched in 2014 on PC, with a mobile and tablet version following very shortly after. Over the years there have been numerous calls for the game to launch on consoles — and particularly Nintendo Switch, for handheld play. But Blizzard has never gotten around to it.

Game director Tyler Bielman added: "If we're going to bring it specifically to that living room big screen platform, we would want to make sure that the full experience is optimized for that mode that you're in."

Now, of course, with Blizzard owned by Xbox and parent company Microsoft, there could be more pressure than ever to bring the hugely-successful card game to console players. However, with Xbox's high-level goal of enabling gamers to play "anywhere," the Hearthstone team acknowledged an expectation to go "as wide as we could" to reach as many players as possible, regardless of platform.

"In the future, as we explore console and handheld, we'd probably go as wide as we could," Lyons-Smith added. "Certainly, we have a different owner now than we did three years ago, and they're more invested in Xbox and 'anything's an Xbox'. Their high-level goal [being] games playable anywhere."

Hearthstone's Cataclysm-themed expansion is set to launch on March 17, marking the return of Colossal cards and introducing a brand new story.

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.

Monster Hunter Wilds will welcome a "large-scale" expansion later this year.

Addressing fans in a video celebrating the open-world adventure game's first anniversary, series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto teased that this expansion will be similar to Monster Hunter World's Iceborne add-on, but was otherwise coy about the details. He did, however, stress that this will be the "final update" for the monster hunting game.

"We are currently at work on a large-scale expansion similar to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak for Monster Hunter: Wilds," Tsujimoto said. "We plan to share more information with you this summer."

We also learned a little more about the update dropping on February 18, too, including details of Arch-Tempered Arkveld, 10-star Arc-Tempered monsters, a special collaboration with Monster Hunter Stories 3 — a spin-off series that releases next month — plus an anniversary event where all previous awards and quests will be "re-available."

Players who log in during the anniversary event will receive a free item pack, and each previous seasonal event will return for a weekly rotation. "Almost all" previously released event quests will be made permanent from February 18.

"We have been implementing improvements to game stability and performance since Title Update 4," Tsujimoto added, "and this update will introduce even further improvements." Again, we're told to expect more details closer to the time, so Capcom suggests you monitor its social media accounts for updates.

"While this marks the end of major content updates, the team is currently hard at work on a large-scale expansion to Monster Hunter Wilds," the team added. "We look forward to sharing the first reveal of the expansion this summer."

Monster Hunter Wilds has had something of a bumpy ride of late. Title Update 4 arrived at the end of last year and ushered in a long list of gameplay and balance changes, as well as CPU/GPU improvements, load reduction, and the optimization of "PC-specific processes and addition of options and presets to reduce processing load."

A development roadmap, detailed in December, mentioned plans to address the myriad issues impacting the PC version. However, just last month, one player believed they had discovered that PC performance was dictated by the number of DLCs a user has. Capcom looked into it and concluded they were right, calling it "an unintended bug" that would be resolved with Patch 1.040.03.01.

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.

Here's almost seven minutes of Black Myth: Wukong follow-up Black Myth: Zhong Kui. Well, kind of.

While developer Game Science has dropped the new in-engine trailer and labelled it as pertaining to the highly-anticipated sequel, it also features a "non-canon" disclaimer which suggests everything you see here could have no bearing whatsoever on the final game or its story, and has only been released by the team to celebrate Chinese New Year and welcome in the Year of the Horse.

But while you won't see any gameplay or combat per se, the "non-canon, for entertainment purposes only" trailer nonetheless shows in-engine footage and gives us our best look yet at what to expect from the sequel, particularly in terms of how it looks and sounds. Let me take you through it.

It starts out normally enough as a young woman moves around an al fresco kitchen preparing a meal. Look a little closer, though, and you'll realize that the figure that passes her near the beginning isn't quite human, and the guy who opens the gigantic oyster-stroke-mussell shell reveals not a mollusc but, well, a little grey-faced man, uh, thing. She then prepares a slab of meat with blinking eyeballs embedded in it.

There's more — much more — but it's such a delight, I'd recommend watching it yourself. Just remember that it's more of a tech demo and is unlikely to impact the eventual storyline of Black Myth: Zhong Kui, much like the spin-off story Game Science similarly released at Chinese New Year last year.

Black Myth: Wukong developer Game Science revealed sequel Black Myth: Zhong Kui at Opening Night Live 2025 last August. "Set against the backdrop of the classic Chinese folktale 'Zhong Kui Banishing Evil,' Black Myth: Zhong Kui is a single-player action role-playing game rooted in ancient Chinese fantasy," GameScience said.

"The game will deliver distinctive experiences and gameplay features that push our limits, while also bringing fresh ideas and necessary changes to address past flaws and regrets." As yet, there's no release window, let alone a firm date.

Predecessor Black Myth: Wukong is the record-breaking action game that launched across PC and PlayStation 5 in 2024, selling 10 million copies in just three days. The Xbox Series X and S versions launched in August 2025. It returned a Great 8/10 in IGN's Black Myth: Wukong review, in which we wrote: "Despite some frustrating technical issues, Black Myth: Wukong is a great action game with fantastic combat, exciting bosses, tantalizing secrets, and a beautiful world."

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.

Details on the upcoming, PlayStation-published Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls have appeared online, just days ahead of this week's big State of Play broadcast.

The highly-anticipated Marvel fighting game will feature 20 characters at launch, and also include a single-player "Episode Mode." That's according to a Steam page description of the game briefly seen before it was pulled (but not before the leak was spotted and shared on social media).

Marvel Tokon's roster is described as "expanding" — so it sounds like we should expect further heroes from the Marvel universe to turn up in future.

Online, there's mention of 64-player online lobbies, including standard VS modes. PC players will require a PlayStation account, meanwhile.

Developed by Guilty Gear Strive maker Arc System Works, the game has currently been announced for PlayStation 5 and PC with a vague "2026" launch window. But the timing of this week's leak, just days ahead of Sony's hour-long State of Play showcase, suggests we may hear more on all of that pretty soon.

Currently, only eight characters have been officially confirmed for the game: Captain America (Steve Rogers), Doctor Doom, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes), Iron Man, Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Star-Lord and Storm. We'd bet this number will grow in the next few days...

"Assemble your team of legendary Marvel characters in the ultimate 4v4 tag team fighter from PlayStation Studios, Arc System Works and Marvel Games," the game's leaked description read. "It's time to build your dream team and break some spirits in blistering 4v4 fighting action. Choose from an expanding roster of 20 iconic Marvel characters at launch, each rendered in a bold new anime-inspired art style and members of their own unique teams of equally impressive heroes and villains.

"Experiment with team compositions to discover new combos, synergies, and strategies. Blast your way through dynamic stages based on iconic Marvel Universe locales, some featuring interactive stage transitions. Fighting is both immersive and intuitive, with a range of unique move sets, combos, and strategies to master. Adjustable controls, both traditional and quick inputs, plus easy chain combos make diving right in a breeze.

"Face off against a friend locally or join the fray with up to 64 players in the online* lobby, including standard VS modes. Plus, dive deep on each team with the single player Episode Mode to learn more about team dynamics and lore. Internet connection and account for PlayStation required."

Sony is set to hold its State of Play this Thursday, February 12 at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 10pm UK time — and as ever, IGN will be reporting live.

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

Less than a month after the launch of its free-to-play 2v2 tag-team fighting game, 2XKO, Riot Games is scaling back its development team.

Admitting the news was "difficult to share," producer Tom Cannon said that despite securing a "passionate core audience," the new game "hasn't reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term."

"With a smaller, focused team, we’re going to dig in and make key improvements to the game, including some of the things we’ve already heard you asking for. We’ll share some of our plans soon," Cannon added. "Our plans for the 2026 Competitive Series are unchanged. We remain committed to partnering with tournament organizers and local communities. Our focus will continue to be on supporting the events and organizers that already power the [fighting game community]."

Cannon stressed that the team that built 2XKO "poured years of creativity, care, and belief into this game. Taking creative risks like this is hard, and the work they did is real and meaningful."

"We’re committed to supporting impacted Rioters through this transition — including helping them explore opportunities within Riot where possible, and providing a minimum of 6 months of notice pay and severance where it’s not," he explained.

Cannon closed on promising more information would come in time, and thanked players for playing 2XKO and "caring enough to ask hard questions."

Riot has also confirmed to IGN that the cuts will affect approximately 80 roles globally, representing less than half of the total team. Figures are not final, however, as some staff may find roles elsewhere within the company.

IGN thought 2XKO was 'Great.' It returned an 8/10 in our review in which we wrote: "2XKO has found a way to distill what's fun about tag fighters while mitigating a lot of the pain points that typically come with the territory." It was announced back in The Game Awards 2025.

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.