There’s an old refrain among comedians that no joke survives its retelling, and you don’t need to look any further than the shoddy track record of comedy movie sequels to see the truth in that. Fortunately, funny video games tend to fare much better, from Borderlands 2 to Portal 2, and so you would hope that a weird, deeply inappropriate game about drugs and talking guns like High On Life 2 might enjoy the same kind of evolution. In some ways it does just that, with many of its existing bright spots shining even more brightly – the lovable weapons that serve as your companions are more amusing than ever, and movement outside of combat is greatly improved by radical new skateboarding mechanics. But other areas don’t hold up as well, like the significantly less polished story, jokes that don’t land quite as often, and performance issues that are even more shaky than the first game. I still enjoyed my time with High On Life 2, and truly relish the opportunity to return to a world this goofy any chance I get, but this is definitely closer to Zoolander 2 than 22 Jump Street.

High On Life 2 picks up right where our foul-mouthed cast of characters left off… sort of. After a dizzyingly fast intro recaps the events of the first game and gets you back into the action, you find yourself on the wrong side of the law and ready to begin the familiar process of hunting down a list of baddies to bring down an evil organization. Instead of a drug cartel, this time the villain comes in the form of a pharmaceutical company that I felt no guilt killing off members of over the course of the roughly 10-hour campaign, now playing the role of rogue assassin as I ply my trade of death illegally – a nice twist to the otherwise nearly identical setup of the original.

Sadly, the story built around this string of over-the-top murder missions is a bit sloppy, with a couple big reveals that don’t really land and a surprising number of monologues to explain motives and technologies. There’s a shocking amount of “tell, don’t show” for a game that is typically very intentionally about not sweating the details and following the rule of cool. It sorta reminds me of a D&D campaign that’s gone on way too long and starts to feel like the DM is twisting himself in knots trying to get to that cool payoff, missing the mark too often in the process. The good news is that the plot at least moves along at a pretty fast clip with a steady stream of silly gags to keep you guessing, even when the story gets messy.

Speaking of silly gags, like its predecessor, this is an adventure that relies a whole lot on the success of its goofiness and whimsy, and there are plenty of laugh out loud moments to be had. The high points are extremely memorable, like when you fight an incredibly annoying boss who transports himself inside your menus and starts messing with your game settings (appropriately voiced by the legendary Richard Kind), or when one mission concludes with a murder mystery that has you gathering clues and interrogating witnesses instead of shooting guns. Sometimes the lowbrow humor also just hits, like a side quest where someone wanted me to help them find a bridge troll and…y’know, I think I’ll just leave it at that. High On Life 2 is at its best when it’s trying weird and creative things, and when it manages to pull that off, there’s really nothing quite like it.

That talking Aussie blade cuts both ways though, as jokes fall flat a tad too often in this sequel, and it’s pretty tough to watch when they do. Granted, it’s always harder to pull off gags in a world that has had a lot of its juice squeezed out already – we know about the species of sentient guns, for example, and have already had most of the funny moments we’re going to get out of that surreal experience – but some of the jokes are quite literal repeats of things that happened in the first game. If I was having the most fun when High On Life 2 was trying new stuff, I was having the least when it was retreading old bits or just throwing a couple curse words onto the end of a sentence in lieu of actual punchlines.

The stars of the show in the original were the gun companions you met and befriended along the way, and that certainly remains true in this follow-up. Meeting a down on his luck pistol named Travis (who has a charmingly dorky voice from Ken Marino) and reuniting him with his estranged wife is both a satisfying arc and a clever way to introduce the first dual-wielded weapon when his spouse joins the party (I do wish they’d make out less though). All four of the new gun companions are awesome and have helpful abilities in both combat and puzzle-solving, like Sheath, whose harpoon “trick hole” attack can impale people during fights and create ziplines while platforming. Plus, most of the OG Gatlians make a return as well, including my favorite partner in crime (literally this time), Gus, the shotgun who looks like a frog and has the unmistakable voice of J.B. Smoove. Hell yeah.

Unfortunately, a wider variety of guns hasn’t done much to make the sloppy and overly simplistic gunplay any better – in fact it even feels a touch worse. Some of the new weapons are quite crisp compared to the wonky slugthrowers of yore, especially Sheath’s burst-fire that reminds me of the battle rifle from Halo. But with so many enemies and projectiles flying around, claustrophobic rooms with odd geometry that enemies get caught behind and within, and weapon accuracy being a bit all over the place, combat leans into chaos more than anything else. Most of the time that’s fine because you’re playing a game that’s all about over-the-top nonsense, but when you occasionally die due to unfair circumstances or when a fight drags on for a bit too long, it can kill the mood. To its credit, the enemy variety is mostly decent, with a stream of ugly new creatures to blast apart introduced at a steady clip, from flying robotic freaks to spooky, scary skeletons – but if you were looking for a polished FPS with gunfights that feel at all coherent, look elsewhere.

The biggest and most interesting change with High On Life 2 is mobility, as you’re given a trusty skateboard in the opening minutes that serves as your travel companion throughout the adventure. Instead of fighting on foot, most encounters highly encourage or outright require you to be grinding on rails, riding on the sides of walls, and soaring through the air on your skateboard. When it comes to traveling from place-to-place or navigating your way through platforming sections, this is pretty awesome, and a shocking amount of your time will be spent rolling around like you’re playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. I didn’t really expect the skateboard to play such a big role, but honestly I can’t imagine going back to the relative sluggishness of running around on foot.

In combat, the skateboard’s influence isn’t so positive. You’re seemingly expected to never stop moving while fighting hordes of aliens, which makes the already chaotic encounters even more noisy and hard to read. Many fights take place in open areas where you’re surrounded by more bad guys than you could possibly keep track of, and staying put is a death sentence with so little cover, so you’ll have to take shots at passersby while leaping from various parts of the environment to keep yourself going as fast as you can. Combine that juggling act with slippery weapons, enemies that teleport around, and weird foes that are often hard to even understand what you’re looking at, and oh boy, the result is just an absolute diarrhea of pixels.

Those pixels seem to be pushing High On Life 2 to its limits as well, because I saw frequent framerate dips (some that caused my screen to freeze for several seconds before getting it together) and progress-hindering bugs that required me to reload the last checkpoint. Developer Squanch Games did include “various performance issues across the game” on a list of known problems with the review build that will apparently be addressed by a patch, but it didn’t specify the extent to which those would be resolved – and in my experience, a day-one patch rarely makes all of a game’s performance problems magically disappear when they are this extensive. Nothing I saw struck me as game breaking beyond a simple reset, but it was consistent and egregious enough to make me worried for the stuff people will find when this is out in the wild.

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All three models of the Steam Deck are out of stock and have been out of stock for at least 24 hours, according to a post from Wario64. With prices for gaming PCs and components skyrocketing, it's possible that this could mean a longer-term shortage.

It's no secret that PC hardware is in a weird place right now. With memory prices going through the roof, it was only a matter of time before handheld gaming PCs started getting hit by shortages and increased prices. And that makes it odd timing for all three models of the Steam Deck to go out of stock in the US.

Because the Steam Deck has been around for nearly five years, it's possible that this is a sign that Valve is getting ready to wind down production on the most affordable handheld gaming PC. Either that, or raise the prices in response to increased RAM prices. But it's probably not that serious.

There is plenty of reason to be hopeful this is just a short-term regional shortage. Because while a post on Tom's Hardware spotted that the shortage extends to Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and Korea, the system is still available in the UK and the EU at the time of writing.

With the handheld still being available in Europe, it's likely this is just a short-term regional shortage. After all, anyone that wants to get into PC gaming right now probably finds the low price of the Steam Deck attractive, given the skyrocketing costs on pretty much every other piece of hardware. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that the demand for Valve's handheld is higher than normal.

It's likely that the demand will remain high, leading up to the Steam Machine. But recently, Valve put out a blog post saying that it's pushed back its mini gaming PC due to the memory shortages. Either way, I've reached out to Valve for comment, and I'll update this article if and when the company responds. Until then, let's just hope that this is just a temporary blip and not the end of the Steam Deck.

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

The popular dark romance book Lights Out by Navessa Allen is in development for a TV adaptation at Netflix, as reported by Deadline. Allen also shared the news on her Instagram, referencing rumors that fans wanted a movie – and surprised them with the news that Lights Out is being adapted for a series instead.

The book will be adapted by Hannah Schneider, who will serve as writer, showrunner, and executive producer. Schneider is known for producing on the dark comedy Why Women Kill and the crime drama The Waterfront. Peter Chernin and Tracey Cook will executive produce as well, from Chernin Entertainment.

Lights Out is the first book in Allen's Into Darkness series, published in February 2024. Allen sited fans on TikTok as creating the surge in popularity, as well as getting Lights Out on the New York Times Bestseller list, which has now been on the list for 52 weeks. The sequel, Caught Up, released in June 2025 and landed immediately at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. The next book, Game On, is set to release on March 31.

Lights Out follows two main characters in POV chapters – Aly, a trauma nurse who has been obsessing over a masked, tattooed man who posts thirst traps on social media, and Josh, said man who works in cybersecurity and can hack his way into Aly's house to give her the fantasy she desires.

The book is known for being a dark stalker story with 27 trigger warnings – but it also has a rom-com style to keep things light at times. It's unknown if Netflix will also adapt the other books in the series.

Lights Out isn't the first dark romance to be adapted to screen by a streaming service, with Netflix also scooping up the dark fantasy romance book Quicksilver by Callie Hart and Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing being adapted into a TV series at Amazon.

Jessie Wade is Associate Director of Editorial Programming at IGN. You can find her playing cozy games on her Switch or watching the latest fantasy and drama shows, as well as getting lost in way too many fantasy romance books.

I’ve used hundreds of controllers, and while the recent string of ‘pro controllers’ with extra buttons and fancy RGB lighting have been interesting, none of them have really justified the extra price tag for me. But the Asus ROG Raikiri II is one of the few pro controllers that feels just as good as a regular Xbox Series X or PS5 gamepad – and without the added weight of Microsoft’s Elite controllers.

Because rather than iterating on some of the more bizarre design decisions of its predecessor, the Raikiri II basically takes the comfortable controller part of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X and just, well, makes it into a full-blown controller. That makes it a natural companion for the handheld gaming PC for anyone that’s using it to play on a TV or gaming monitor, but even without the Ally, the Raikiri II is just a damn fine gamepad.

Design and Features

At first glance, the Asus ROG Raikiri II looks like pretty much any other third-party Xbox controller. However, look closer, and there are a few more face buttons than would otherwise be there. Just like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X that came out last year, the Raikiri II has extra menu buttons, with one on the top left, next to the Xbox button, meant to bring up the Asus Armoury Crate software, and the library button on the other side that is meant to bring up the library tab of the Xbox full screen experience.

Here’s the catch, though: these buttons straight up don’t do anything on a standard gaming PC. Asus even has a piece of software that you can download to give the Raikiri II the same functionality as the controller on the Xbox Ally X, but in my testing it only works on, well, the Xbox Ally X. That’s great for anyone plugging their Xbox Ally X into their TV to play from the couch – you’re going to get the same functionality as in handheld mode. But if you’re buying this controller for your PC, you’re going to have two essentially useless buttons on the controller. But, hey, at least they don’t actually do anything when you accidentally hit them.

Aesthetically, the Asus ROG Raikiri II borrows a lot from Asus’ latest handheld, too. It has the same black colorway, and you can even look up close and it has the same tiny “ROG Xbox” lettering on the front of the peripheral.

And of course, being an import from the Republic of Gamers, this controller has plenty of RGB lighting. There are three zones of lighting, one in the middle, in the shape of the ROG logo, and then a stripe on either side of the controller. By default, the lighting has the standard blinking rainbow effect, but you can customize it using Asus’ Gear Link web portal. Asus isn’t the first company to move hardware management to a web app, but it is much better than having some heavy software always running in the background on your PC – at least if you have a stable internet connection.

The software does allow you to customize button assignments and even the response curve of your thumbsticks. However, the paddles on the back of the controller can only be assigned to one of the existing controller buttons. That is useful, especially if you’re playing a game that requires you to press buttons while you’re moving or something, but I would have liked to see some kind of macro support here. Just let me assign button combinations to the paddles – it would, for instance, make playing Final Fantasy XIV on a controller a bit easier.

Much like other ‘pro’ controllers like the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro, the Raikiri II does allow you to swap out the thumbsticks. There is an extra set of thumbsticks included in the box, but they’re very long.

The controller also comes with a charging stand, which wirelessly charges the controller via some POGO pins on the back. The stand fits nice and snug in the included carrying case with a hole in the back for the USB-C cable, much like the Xbox Elite Controller, but Asus also includes little feet that let you set it up wherever you want.

I’d actually recommend taking the stand out of the carrying case and setting it up somewhere near your gaming setup. The charging stand has a little USB port in the front of it, which you can use to connect the 2.4GHz dongle. Then, you can just place it somewhere out in the open, and you won’t have to worry about the signal from the dongle being interrupted by anything.

Gaming and Performance

The Asus ROG Raikiri II is one of the few controllers out there right now that are using Tunneling Magnetoresistance, or TMR sensors. Just like Hall Effect, these sensors use magnets to more accurately track your inputs, they’re just a bit more power efficient. While it would have been enough to have these TMR sensors just in the analog sticks, the Raikiri II also has them in the triggers, which means both should stay accurate for years.

I obviously didn’t test this controller for years, just a couple of weeks, but even in that short time, I’ve been impressed by just how snappy this controller is. The analog sticks have this springiness to them that feels incredible – giving just enough resistance to feel like I’m moving something, without feeling like I’m fighting against them.

The triggers likewise feel incredibly accurate, especially when trying to drive around in Cyberpunk 2077, where the half-presses help me control the throttle of my car. You can also change the actuation point of the triggers with little switches on the back, but there are just two settings – all the way down and half-way. To this day, having a high-end controller stop the trigger press half-way down just feels weird, but it’s likely a boon for professional FPS players.

The face buttons, on the other hand, use micro switches, rather than TMR sensors, and they still feel incredibly responsive. However, the buttons are incredibly clicky, and they can get quite loud if you’re really mashing them. In the two weeks or so I’ve been using the controller, though, it hasn’t missed a click, so at least it’s reliable. And the micro switches will probably keep the buttons quick and responsive for quite a while.

It all comes together to a controller that just feels good to use. I’ll admit that I’m no esports pro, but even spending time in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, I’ve noticed a difference just in how smooth the camera moves when I’m using the right analog stick. And unlike something like the Xbox Elite controller, it’s not too heavy, so it doesn’t start to weigh me down after a long gaming session.

And you’re going to be able to get some long gaming sessions out of this controller, too. Asus claims that the ROG Raikiri II will last up to 50 hours on a single charge. I’m not going to sit there for 50 hours straight to see if the controller meets those claims, but I have only run out of battery once in two weeks of very heavy usage.

The battery could potentially last even longer, too, but its sleep behavior is strange. After sitting idle for a while, the lighting will turn off, but the controller will stay on. There have been a couple of times where, out of instinct, I picked the controller up and went to hit the Xbox button to turn it back on, only for the Game Bar to pop up. Annoying, but that’s something I got used to after a few days.

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

There are quite a few modern first-person shooters taking notes from the bullet hell arcade games from yesteryear. Games like BPM or Deadzone Rogue throw walls of projectiles and fodder enemies at you, and demand you thread yourself through them like a gun-toting needle to return fire without getting obliterated. Luna Abyss joins these ranks but certainly stirs the formula up a bit. When we took a look at the first level of gloomy sci-fi shooter a couple of years ago, we saw just enough to get intrigued by the potential quivering in the crimson glow between all of its shadows. Now that we’ve gotten our hands on a bit more, being introduced to a new weapon, movement mechanics, and a killer boss fight, I can safely say that the optimism was justified.

Warm-Up Round

I was dropped right back into Sorrow’s Canyon, a prison colony with the most accurate name in the universe. The grimy metal halls, scaffoldings, and makeshift walkways made out of piping mixed with occasional stone floors and weird organic growths all give a sort of Chronicles of Riddick, grim dark gothic energy. Giger-esque, without all of the phallic stuff. It certainly doesn't matter what anyone was actually doing in a place like this before our hero, Fawkes, wakes up in an open coffin, finds a nifty gun, and starts shooting them all, because most of the things that move around down here that aren’t you are mindless husks who want to destroy you.

The almost sardonically chummy tone in which the sudden guiding voice in Fawkes’ ear, Aylin, takes with her charge does help add a bit of texture to what comes off as a pretty standard “everything here sucks and is bad” aesthetic. Most people, likely including her, would rather not be trapped here, but she is dangerously close to sounding like she’s having something that resembles fun, and that does make me want to know what this world is hiding, at the very least. It sits in contrast with the only other non-enemy character you meet in the demo, The Waif, who gives guidance in solemn riddles like a depressed Tom Bombadil.

Gliding from room to room, strafing gracefully through enemy fire and returning with blasts of your own is a breezy process, thanks to the aim function that auto locks to the enemy closest to your crosshairs, letting you focus more on the moving than the aiming. I liked this at first, taking the mental load off of trying to line up shots while gliding from cover to cover helps you focus on defense. But as the encounters progressed, the challenge didn’t really follow suit. Skull-faced drones chased me around the room while floating eyeballs fired from floating perches, but things didn’t get anywhere near too hairy to deal with in the canyon.

The Water Begins to Simmer

I found a second weapon, a shotgun that specialized in shutting down gleaming blue shields, and some nuance and complexity started to reveal itself. Some enemies now were cloaked in these barriers, which had to be shattered by the shotgun before doing damage to them directly. Now I was sliding from cover to cover, switching back and forth between weapons to make certain enemies vulnerable while trying not to overstay my welcome in any one spot for too long. That auto lock feature began to make more sense, but still, I found getting to the end of the Canyon to be a pretty tame experience. I know this was the extent of the original demo, and I can see walking away from this feeling tepid about what the future could hold for this goth-person shooter.

Then I played the new additional mission from further into the game and yeah, Luna Abyss might be cooking with gas.

Full Boil

The Scourge Crater is a snowy, craggy mountain face with floating platforms and a heaping helping of sunlight and sky. There are a lot of floating bits of rock and far away platforms that put Fawkes’ new double jump and air dash to great use. Theres no real indication to what has happened to Fawkes between the Canyon and now to give them these powers, likw the ability to execute low health enemies to regain health, but I don’t necessarily require exposition every time theres an opportunity to do something badass.

It doesn't take long to find a new weapon, a long ranged rifle that does big damage, but overheats in just a handful of shots (unlike your standard gun or shotgun that you can squeak many more rounds out of before havin g to cool it down). New enemies come with it, like some floating bundles of death that explode when touched, or a larger, scarier eyeball creature with its one big single-shot laser. This new weapon comes with a new color of shield to dispatch, too.

When we get off to the races, moving from little island to little island, staying fast on the trigger for the new enemies that pop up at a brisk pace, and staying on top of what the necessary weapon to take them down with was the faster-paced slobberknocker I was looking for. It’s not quite Doom-levels of expressive combat – every enemy there has a best weapon to kill them with but not necessarily a “correct” weapon, leaving room to flex however you see fit. But the limited offensive options are balanced with the sometimes overwhelming need for defensive finesse. At its best, every plan has a window of time where it will be most effective before you have to regroup and try something else, like dipping behind a pillar of rock to wait out a big beam, knowing that a handful of bomb drones are well on their way to clear you out of cover with a bang.

Traveling through this stage between combat introduced some environmental movement tricks as well, like boost gates that launch you when you dash through them, or weird flovating balloons that you can possess, jumping inside them to get a view from their perspective before erupting out of them to continue the climb. There's a cool, if not a little garish, moment a little over midway through the wintry crater where you can actually possess a Goliath, some sort of giant minigun wielding monstrosity that can mow down a small battalion of enemies with ease. Though this level kept things pretty simple, I like the potential of Luna Abyss using possession in conjunction with air dashing and double jumps for some good platforming puzzles – or even in combat scenarios.

Eye of the Beholder

The rowdiest and most difficult combat in the entire demo was against the level-ending boss, a big eyeball monster in the style of a Dungeons and Dragons Beholder by way of Dark City. It stayed in the center, relentlessly firing walls of bullets (and occasionally lasers) making it tough to find the space to take advantage of how exposed it was. Phases where it is invulnerable and you need to deal with how to fix that change the pace up well, at first its juvst breaking the connection between power points in the walls that are blasting it with an impenetrable shield, but eventually it’s surviving waves of enemies and long stanzas of incoming fire, etc. At its busiest, it almost felt a bit like Housemarque’s excellent Returnal, but in a smaller arena. I can only hope Luna Abyss’s combat can crescendo like this for all of its boss fights.

With some patience for its soft-touch opening minutes, I found myself very on board with the Luna Abyss’s brand of crowded screen shoot-em up. It’s thick with moody vibes, which can be more than just a good backdrop for the action. And don’t let that auto targeting aim get you complacent, because when the more blustery bad guys turn up the heat, you won’t have aiming as an excuse as to why surviving the onslaught takes you multiple respawns. If the gunplay and platforming can evolve further, as it did between these two demo levels, then I can’t wait to stare into the Abyss when it opens wide sometime this year.

Following an unexpected delay in January, the first trailer for Battlefield 6 Season 2 is here, revealing a first look at its three-month roadmap, a limited-time nightfall event, and gameplay for two new maps.

EA and Battlefield Studios today offered a detailed breakdown and trailer for the second seasonal content update, along with a gameplay trailer for its troubled multiplayer FPS. Season 2 spans across three phases – Extreme Measures (phase one), Nightfall (phase two), and Hunter/Prey (phase three) – with the first set to launch next week on its previously announced release date of February 17, 2026.

The forest-covered mountains of the first new map, Contaminated, are the backdrop for most of the Battlefield 6 Season 2 trailer, providing a first look at new vehicles, such as the AH-6 Little Bird, and a new psychoactive smoke mechanic. First gameplay for the location, which supports all combat sizes, shows tanks and helicopters chasing infantry into at least partially destructible tunnels. Players can enjoy all it has to offer across standard multiplayer game mode as well as the new VL-7 Strike limited-time mode, which sees players battling (and hallucinating) through the smoke in its own dedicated playlist.

Extreme Measures kicks things off with Contaminated, the Little Bird, VL-7 smoke, new weapons, and more next week. Come March 17, phase two, Nightfall, will then finally add one of the community’s most-asked-for features… kind of.

Along with its new close-quarters infantry map, Hagental Base, Nightfall brings night gameplay to Battlefield 6. Players have wanted to turn out the lights since the sixth mainline installment launched for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S last October. Unfortunately, it seems lights-out action will be restricted only to the limited-time Nightfall event, which itself is only available on Hagental Base. REDSEC players can also try out the night map via the limited-time Gauntlet mode, with the Nightfall phase also adding the Defense Testing Complex 3 point of interest to Fort Lyndon, as well as the dirt bike, CZ3A1 submachine gun, and VZ.61 sidearm across both experiences.

Finally, phase three, Hunter / Prey, launches April 14. It does not add a new map, and instead brings the Operation Augur limited-time mode, Portal updates, a new bonus path for the battle pass, the LTV vehicle, and the Ripper 14” machete.

Here comes the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man you never knew you needed. Amazon Prime just dropped the first trailer for its upcoming series Spider-Noir, which features Nicolas Cage as a 1930s private eye with spidey senses — and as you can expect, it looks like one hell of a good time.

The sneak peek trailer, below, features Cage as Ben Reilly, seasoned, down on his luck private investigator in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life, following a deeply personal tragedy, as the city’s one and only superhero. And yes, there are two versions of the trailer, reflecting the fact that the show itself will be made available in both black and white or "true-hue color" versions.

Here's the noir version first:

The trailer features Reilly opening up about how he came to have his powers to the character of Cat Hardy, played by Li Jun Li. We see Reilly struggle with the change before emerging as a Spider-Man with a makeshift mask dressed in the classic noir garb: a trench coat paired with a hat and sunglasses. He beats up bad guys and gets drunk and acts pretty kooky yet mysterious along the way.

All in all, it’s a subtle balance that only Cage could achieve, which makes the show’s tagline all the more fitting: “With no power comes no responsibility.”

Now, here's that color version:

Cage stars in the series alongside Jun Li, Lamorne Morris, Jack Huston, and Brendan Gleeson. Lukas Haas is also set for a recurring role on the show, which was created and will be showrun by Oren Uziel, writer of The Cloverfield Paradox. Uziel’s directorial debut was a neo-noir crime film called Shimmer Lake, so it makes sense he’d be tapped to tackle another noir story if he’s such a fan of the genre.

Prime is set to release Spider-Noir on streaming on May 27.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

"What struck me most was his restlessness," said Geoff Keighley yesterday in front of an audience on the DICE Summit 2026 keynote stage. "Nothing was ever quite good enough. That relentless hunger for excellence drove him to believe he could always make a better game, a better company, be a better man. Since his passing, I've thought a lot about what made Vince unique, what's his superpower. Of course he knew how to build great teams, make great games, but inside massive companies built on process and politics, Vince was able to stay stubbornly human. He was direct, impatient with nonsense, and fiercely loyal to the people doing the work."

Keighley was speaking of Vince Zampella, the co-creator of the Call of Duty franchise, co-founder of Infinity Ward, and co-founder of Respawn Entertainment, who tragically died this past December in a car accident at the age of 55.

Keighley opened a segment of the DICE Summit keynote talks dedicated to honoring Zampella's legacy and memory, during which a number of other industry luminaries both took the stage as well as appeared in video messages discussing the impact he had on them personally, and the industry writ large.

"Technically, we never worked together, but he's had a huge effect on me," said Randy Pitchford, Gearbox CEO, in a video message. "Not just me as a game maker, but as a character."

"That is the thing from Vince's entire career," said Respawn game director Peter Hirschmann, also in a video clip. "No matter who was around him, he found a way to get the best out of them."

"[The team] always valued that Vince had their best interest," said Daniel Suarez, head of production at Respawn and similarly appearing in a video. "They knew he was going to go into the arena and fight for what was going to be best for the game. And I think because you knew he had your back, you knew he was going to be the one who was chanting for this to be the best game it could be if the team had the ability to do their best work, people loved him for it."

Xbox head Phil Spencer was the second speaker to take the stage in person, talking about his friendly rivalry with Zampella over the years, and what he learned from their friendship. "Vince's legacy of leading without ego, of leading a team, is something that I took a lot away from, just watching him in how he led his teams to achieve such greatness."

More individuals appeared in more video messages following Spencer's speech. "I didn't know what a servant leader was until I met Vince, and to be honest with you I don't know if Vince knew what a servant leader was. But he was the best servant leader I ever knew," said Stig Asmussen, former Respawn game director.

Hideo Kojima made a video appearance as well: "I think that without him, the modern game industry might not exist," he said.

"He just really wanted to make great games for players with a team of developers he liked working with. I don't think it was really about how do I change the game industry or how do I make a legendary game," said Rob Pardo, former CCO of Blizzard. "I think he's just simpler than that."

"Watching him lead, having him lead us for so long, we've become him, with a sense of discipline, drive, ambition, execution, and a standard for excellence with the players in mind first," said Byron Beede, SVP on Battlefield. "Thanks to Vince, that's in our DNA now."

The next video speaker was Bethesda director Todd Howard. "Vince was cool," he said. "He was, I think, and a lot of people who knew him all would agree, he was probably the least full of s*** person I knew. And sometimes, he didn't mind pointing out when someone else was. Vince was cool! So cool, my oldest son has only ever asked to meet or get his picture with one game developer. Vince! Twice! And Vince never would be changed. He was still that guy when we first met, except he had a new T-shirt once a year. That was a change for him. Vince was cool. He knew what was cool about a game. And he knew instinctively what a great game was. He knew how to take a game from average, to good, to great, and he knew what needed to be done to get there. He knew how hard it would be, the effort, the personal sacrifice it would take. And he wasn't afraid of doing it. It was never about him. It was always about the game. Most of all, about the team making it."

After more video messages, the final in-person speaker was Laura Miele, president of EA Entertainment. "We've talked a lot today about Vince as a titan of gaming who put out highly successful franchises he helped create," she said. "And all of that is true. But what he would say, often, is, I just want to be remembered for being a great dad. He truly lived that. There were many meetings over the years he didn't attend, because he needed to be somewhere else. At a game, at a school event, or just simply being there for his kids when they needed him This instinct to show up didn't stop with his family. He really showed up for people. He mentored, he supported, he believed in others often before they believed in themselves. He created cultures where people felt trusted and protected and challenged to be their best. Vince Zamella changed how games were made, but more importantly, he changed how people were treated while making them."

A final round of video messages concluded the presentation, including a reappearance by Kojima in which he concluded, "I hope people will look to Vince as a model and aim high."

DICE attendees have been asked to look for set-ups of blank Magic: The Gathering cards around the conference, on which they are being encouraged to write memories, tributes, and other thoughts about Zampella before depositing them in available boxes. The cards will be delivered to his family after the conference.

Zampella was well-known industry-wide, having co-created Call of Duty at the studio he co-founded, Infinity Ward. After departing Infinity Ward, he joined a number of his former team members in founding Respawn Entertainment, which went on to produce number hits including Titanfall (IGN review), Titanfall 2 (IGN review), Apex Legends (IGN review), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (IGN review), and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (IGN review). His most recent gaming contribution was as director of Battlefield 6.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

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