If you’re reading this, you already know the importance of good audio when it comes to gaming, but it’s tough to find out which is the best gaming headset for you among the sea of options. As is the case when you're looking for a gaming mouse or gaming keyboard, there are several factors to consider. You'll want to account for your budget and seek out the best sound quality and comfort, as well as the kinds of features most important to you. The easiest way to find that personalized experience is to know exactly what you’re getting into and rely on those who have first-hand knowledge.

I’ve reviewed plenty of headphones and gaming headsets in my time, so I’m familiar with what makes them great, and I’ve put my expertise and ears-on experience to use here. Each pick was made with careful consideration for what each headset offers as a whole, but also for the aspects they excel in most based on their category. With that in mind, I’ve included options for the best mid-range wired headset like the HyperX Cloud III and the best high-end wireless option in the Audeze Maxwell 2, the recent refresh to one of my long-time favorites. But more sophisticated features like virtual surround, active noise cancelation, or customizable EQ profiles can be defining for certain wireless headsets like the Razer Kraken V4 or Razer BlackShark V3 Pro. And if money is no object and want the absolute best no matter what, well, we can confidently point you to the $600 SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite. There's a little something for everyone!

TL;DR: These Are the Best Gaming Headsets:

This guide is intended to be a comprehensive look at the best options based on specific categories in which certain headsets prioritize or do better than the competition. This doesn’t mean there aren’t amazing headsets outside of the ones I’m recommending, but these are all headsets I can vouch for based upon the first-hand testing done by me and my colleagues. These are also great options whether you play games on PC, PS5, Xbox, Switch 2, or any mix of consoles (just be sure to get the right model when picking something out). I will also be updating my picks as new ones come out and I test more of what’s out there, so be sure to check back periodically, or whenever you need some advice on choosing a new gaming headset.

1. SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless

Best Gaming Headset

2. Beyerdynamic MMX 300 Pro and MMX 330 Pro

Best High-End (Wired) Gaming Headset

3. Audeze Maxwell 2

Best High-End (Wireless) Gaming Headset

4. HyperX Cloud III

Best Mid-Range (Wired) Gaming Headset

5. Asus ROG Pelta

Best Mid-Range (Wireless) Gaming Headset

6. SteelSeries Arctis Nova 1

Best Budget (Wired) Gaming Headset

7. Turtle Beach Stealth 500

Best Budget (Wireless) Gaming Headset

8. SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite

Best Audiophile Gaming Headset

9. Razer Kraken V4

Best Surround Sound Gaming Headset

10. Razer BlackShark V3 Pro

Best Noise-Canceling Gaming Headset

11. SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds

Best Gaming Earbuds

How to Pick the Best Gaming Headset

First thing’s first: How much are you willing to spend? Next thing to ask yourself is, what are your biggest priorities when looking for a gaming headset? Is it overall sound quality, comfort, microphone clarity, durability, or something else? And if you want to go wireless, you have to consider battery life and what a headset’s software suite is capable of. You’ll likely want some mix of all those things, but while you don’t have to pick one particular feature or strength to seek out among a wide array of options, some headsets simply do certain things better than others.

Sound quality

For me, this is the primary factor to look for regardless of price range (it’s rather a matter of managing expectations with more budget-friendly options). While the size of the drivers – the actual hardware in each earcup that produces sound – is an easy shorthand for determining a headset’s potential, it’s certainly not the be-all-end-all. How the headset is tuned, the material and physical construction of the drivers, and how it sounds in specific scenarios are things you can only learn about through reviews and first-hand accounts, if you can’t test it for yourself.

Pay attention to what reviewers say about frequencies like bass/lows, mids, and highs and how they describe their experience. Sometimes bass drowns out other frequencies, mids might be distorted in hectic gameplay, or the highs are harsh at loud volumes – these are the types of things we say when describing audio shortcomings. Some folks like deep bass even if it’s overpowering, so some detractors may not matter as much to some, for example.

Positional or spatial audio

This is also crucial for competitive gamers. The best headsets are able to express the details and nuances of sound effects, not just produce clear frequencies. This helps you judge direction and distance of footsteps or gunshots in games like Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant, for example, and can also result in a more immersive experience in single-player games or even movies. Some of this can be simulated through software but things like Turtle Beach’s Superhuman Hearing tend to sound too artificial, so be wary.

Comfort

How comfortable a headset is can be challenging to understand without trying on a headset first. If you absolutely cannot try them on on first, pay attention to descriptors such as clamp force (how hard a headset latches onto one’s head), the density of the earpads, the type of material used to wrap the earpads, or how the headband rests above the user’s head. Materials like leatherette, sports mesh, and velour all have their pros and cons, with the former being better for sound isolation but not as great as the latter for airflow and mitigating sweat around the ears.

Durability

Many premium-level headsets use an aluminum frame, which may be heavier but can withstand much more contortion and mishandling. Some budget-friendly headsets opt for a flexible rubber-like plastic headband that offers a similar level of flexibility, so it doesn’t feel like you’re going to break the thing when putting it on or taking it off. Any gaming headset worth its salt shouldn’t have durability issues, but it is something to consider.

Builit-in microphones

I typically find the microphones on gaming headsets to be an afterthought, mainly because you can get much better sound quality from a standalone external microphone – that’s what I use most of the time. That doesn’t mean I overlook microphone clarity altogether.

It’s rare to find a headset outside of the premium price range with a great mic, but it’s something we as reviewers always test because it’s certainly nice to have. Something like the HyperX Cloud III was truly impressive for a mic on a $100 gaming headset, and the Beyerdynamic MMX 300 Pro is close to approaching mid-range standalone mics – and those who often use voice for communication or some sort of content creation can get a lot out of a good headset mic.

Noise isolation is worth paying attention to, as well as how well it picks up your voice – software-side features like controlling the noise gate can also be useful. And don’t overlook the importance of sidetone, which is a rare feature that automatically feeds your voice back to you.

Battery life

Wireless headsets have evolved to the point where battery life is either a non-issue or manageable with good habits of charging them whenever you can. But for headsets you’re planning on using for multiple purposes (like ones with simultaneous Bluetooth connectivity for music on mobile devices, for example), total battery life can be a more important factor. Many should last in the 40-hour range from a full charge and higher-end ones can last upwards of 80 hours, although several variables feed into how long they last in actuality.

Customization

The last thing I’ll mention is a headset's customization, at least through software. Every gaming peripheral manufacturer has its own software suite it wants you to download, and they tend to be all-encompassing apps for all its gaming gear. But good software lets you get granular with your headset, such as Turtle Beach’s Swarm app. You can fiddle with equalization, make your own EQ presets, use premade profiles, control certain aspects of your microphone, and so much more. While it’s not as important as the essentials like sound quality and comfort, a proper software suite can help you get the most out of your purchase.

Gaming Headset FAQ

How do you determine sound quality on a gaming headset?

There are ways to extract audio data from a headset to get a look at how they handle various frequencies, like artificial ear and audio analyzing software, but that alone won’t be able to tell you what the actual audio experience is like. Admittedly, it can be quite abstract to have someone describe what games, music, or movies sound like. Paying attention to descriptors like distortion, drowning, cleanliness, or balance when talking about frequencies are common ways to explain the sound quality of a device, and at some point you need to trust the reviewer’s trained ear.

There’s also the factor of driver size, the actual hardware that delivers the audio. Generally, bigger drivers means better potential for cleaner and bolder sound, but again, that alone isn’t going to determine whether or not a headset sounds good. Quality can also come down to spatial or positional audio which gives the impression of sound effects having distance and direction – it’s important for competitive settings but can make for more immersive experiences outside of trying to get an advantage over your opponents.

What makes gaming headsets different from headphones?

Gaming headsets tend to pack additional features that support the actual gaming experience, some of which may be gimmicky, but many that I would call essential. Not everyone wants to have a standalone microphone, for example, but the key feature that separates a headset from headphones, is a built-in microphone. While most headset mics are passable in terms of clarity that can suffice for in-game communication, some go the extra mile to provide better clarity or mitigate ambient noise spilling through.

Good gaming headsets are generally tuned to pick up on certain sound effects and have a more intimate sound profile since you’re an active participant in the experience rather than a passive observer (especially in competitive games). When it comes to wireless capabilities, most gaming headsets come with 2.4GHz USB dongles for the lowest latency possible – something that wireless headphones rarely include. As you’ll see in the next section, software suites for USB-based headsets (wireless or otherwise) have gotten sophisticated as well and sometimes offer a level of customization for specific gaming scenarios.

Should I go wired or wireless for a gaming headset?

Of course, it depends on your needs. I still gravitate towards wired headsets and headphones since I tend to prefer the sound profiles of a properly-tuned analog audio device (I also tend to forget about charging devices until it’s too late, but that’s a me-problem). However, battery life and latency of modern gaming headsets have come so far that you rarely, if ever, see them being issues on the latest releases. Good software suites and apps can also help you get more out of your headset by letting you customize EQ settings or swap sound profiles for certain games.

Wireless headsets are also sometimes capable of multi-device connectivity and simultaneous Bluetooth, which makes them versatile and opens them up to more use-cases (especially swapping to a mobile connection within seconds). Even though they tend to be more expensive, there’s a lot of upside to going with a wireless gaming headset, just be sure you know what you’ll be getting out of it.

Is virtual surround sound worth seeking out?

Virtual surround sound had been a bit of a gimmick when high-end headphones started simulating the experience of a 7.1 speaker setup. But I will admit that the technology has come a long way. It’s not always best suited for gaming, especially in the competitive scene – there’s some artificiality with virtual surround that can lead to misjudging audio cues. But damn does something like DTS Headphone:X or Dolby Atmos sound impressive when done right – especially in action games or movies.

Some virtual surround sound software requires you to purchase a license, and personally I find the overall applicability of them fairly niche, but that doesn’t take away from how they simulate theater-like qualities. Just because a headset is compatible with features like Dolby Atmos or DTS Headphone:X, it doesn’t mean you’ll get an equal virtual surround experience – the headset itself has to be equipped to express a level of nuance in its sound quality for it to work well.

Michael Higham is the tech reviews editor at IGN and has a passion for good audio, which often drives him nuts when picking out headsets, headphones, earbuds, and speakers. He graduated from downloading low bitrate music to seeking lossless versions of his favorite songs at an early age. Having grown up playing Counter-Strike 1.6, and now keeping up with the Valorant competitive scene, he finds positional audio to be just as important as sound quality. But he actually just wants the best and most immersive audio for all the RPGs he plays, especially the ones with banging soundtracks.

Pokémon TCG Mega Evolution's latest expansion, Ascended Heroes, is (as per usual) increasingly hard to get hold of right now. While Ascended Heroes cards are technically already available, stock is painfully low or nonexistent in major retailers.

Moreover, several products, including the Elite Trainer Box, are part of a staggered release all the way through to April 2026. If you're looking to bag yourself an ETB (or several) that sport a rather magnificent Mega Dragonite, in anticipation of its launch day on February 20, then here's where you can currently pick one up, and what prices to expect at each retailer.

“Zero Parades is an exploration of failure,” explains Jim Ashilevi, writer and VO director at ZA/UM. “What it means to lose everything and then keep going regardless. And then, since it's such a painful question, it inevitably becomes an exploration of what it means to be human. How uncomfortable and strange it is to exist in a body that has thoughts and feelings and responsibilities, and a past that they can't go back and fix.”

“This is why I love working here,” says ZA/UM’s head of studio, Allen Murray, with a smile. “I never had these conversations making Halo games.”

The studio behind Disco Elysium was, of course, never going to follow up its 2019 “disaster cop” RPG with a game about heroes saving the world. That’s not to say that it hasn’t moved into slightly more traditional video game territory, though. Its new game, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, is an espionage spy thriller set in a dark, almost psychedelic reflection of the Cold War’s closing years. Global powers conspire, enemy agents lurk in the dark, and the entire world sits on the doorstep of the end of history. But while that could theoretically be the elevator pitch for any number of mainstream, combat-forward RPGs, ZA/UM is doing spycraft the only way it knows: Disco style.

“I think the one North Star that we have is that we have to be genuinely interested in the stories that we are choosing to tell,” says Ashilevi. “If we were to start mimicking someone else, or go bigger and more expensive and add production value and fighting mechanics and multiplayer, I think we would just destroy ourselves in the process.”

This “North Star” means that, on the surface, Zero Parades looks almost identical to Disco Elysium. It’s another dialogue-centric, introspective, isometric RPG with striking art direction. But that’s not to say it’s the exact same game dressed up in a John le Carré skin.

“I think you can see the team has really wanted to exceed their production chops with Zero Parades,” explains Murray, “in terms of having the world seem more reactive, more lived in. There's more action, more people walking around doing things.”

While ZA/UM had no intention of creating a “traditional” video game RPG, it did want to dig deeper into the genre’s more crunchy elements. This time around there are more skill checks, alongside a mental and physical health system that can be exerted to increase the chances of passing those checks. There’s further emphasis on multiple solutions to individual problems, the very foundation of BioWare’s celebrated Infinity Engine games. By pushing the depth of choice available and enhancing the world’s reactivity to those choices, the team saw the opportunity to create something that stood distinct from Disco Elysium.

“Sophomore efforts are really challenging,” Murray admits. “You don't want to repeat your first hit, nor can you really.”

It took a lot of time for the team to come to terms with that. During the years following Disco Elysium’s release and subsequent “Final Cut” version, ZA/UM experimented with a number of concepts – some were effectively direct sequels, while others explored “a completely different direction,” according to Ashilevi. The path to Zero Parades arrived with the decision to “not fully reinvent the wheel.” The goal, Murray says, was to “expand on what we know how to do, and make a bigger game, both mechanically and in terms of production scope, and do it well.”

Mission Control

Murray acknowledges that there were “years of drama” before the studio got to that point. For many fans of Disco Elysium, that will mean only one thing: the firing of several key creatives in 2022 and their subsequent accusation that ZA/UM’s executive management had seized control of the company through fraud. It’s a complicated chapter in the studio’s story, in which those exorcised from the company – including game director Robert Kurvitz, writer Helen Hindpere, and art director Aleksander Rostov – are characterised as either toxic disruptors or the victims of corporate conspiracy, depending on your source.

But there’s more to ZA/UM’s troubled recent history than those controversial dismissals: this is a studio that has repeatedly cancelled projects and, in early 2024, made 20 of its staff redundant. It all paints a picture of an inexperienced studio struggling to adapt to life after releasing an unexpected mega hit on the first attempt, with the workers caught in the crossfire. Perhaps unsurprisingly, ZA/UM’s UK-based workforce unionised last year.

But while collective bargaining is undoubtedly important, those workers also need strong leadership to avoid the woes of the past. Maybe they’ve found that in Murray, a 20-year veteran of the video games industry with previous tenures at Microsoft, Bungie, PopCap, and Private Division. He was appointed as ZA/UM’s new head of studio shortly after news broke about those painful redundancies, and over the past two years his goal has been “coaching the people in the studio, maturing our processes, helping people to really focus on what we're making, how we're making it, and why we're making it.”

“It was easy to have a lot of things sort of floating around,” he admits. “But how are we actually going to animate this, or how are we going to light this? What does this story really mean? What are you really trying to get across to the player?”

Today, ZA/UM is made up of around 90 members of staff. Several of them have, like Murray, been recruited from established developers such as Rocksteady in order to arm the studio with specialist video game experience. But the remaining members of the Disco Elysium team, which makes up approximately 35% of the studio’s total roster, plus many of the new recruits, “come from a background that has nothing to do with game dev,” says Ashilevi.

“As a studio, we still view ourselves pretty much as a collective of artists,” he explains. “The artistry comes first, the storytelling comes first. To me personally, it still feels like the whole video game development side of things is just like a happy accident.”

The Price of Power

That brings us back to Zero Parades, which tells the story of Hershel Wilk, codename “Cascade”, who’s pulled out of retirement for the all-time classic spy trope, One Last Job. By moving into the espionage genre, ZA/UM has been able to work at a notably different scale than it did with Disco Elysium. While Zero Parades takes place in a physical space not too dissimilar to that of the studio’s previous game, by stepping into the shoes of a spy rather than a local detective, the story naturally explores a much grander stage.

“You do have to contend with world powers,” Ashilevi reveals. “It's not just wallpaper, or stuff that you read from notes that people leave in drawers, or newspapers left on tables. You do have to come into close contact with some of the big players as well.”

This global stage is explored through Hershel’s very personal lens, so while the stakes are certainly heightened this time around, your actions are still conducted at street level. You may be able to turn the cogs of a mega corporation and shift the balance of worldwide politics, for instance, but to do so may require betraying your closest friend. Hershel’s own pain will be tangible, whereas those rotating cogs will feel distant, perhaps even unimportant, to her own life. Such is the toll of espionage.

The LEGO Ideas Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night set, one of our favorite LEGO art sets, has received quite the discount at Amazon, dropping to $139 from its original price of $169.99.

This appears to be a new low price for the set. While price tracker camelcamelcamel claims that it's never received a big discount before from Amazon, last year we reported on a deal that saw it reduced to $147.99. Today's discount price is lower than that, though, making now an even better time to grab it. Head to the link below to add it to your cart while the offer is still available.

LEGO Ideas Vincent van Gogh The Starry Night Set for $139

Blizzard has reportedly partnered with Korean gaming giant Nexon for yet another crack at turning StarCraft into a shooter.

While unconfirmed by Blizzard itself, the project is the subject of an article in The Korea Economic Daily, the country's largest business newspaper. The report states that Nexon has a development team dedicated to the project within its shooter division, with a StarCraft modder installed as its project lead.

Blizzard has long held ambitions to launch a shooter spin-off from its sci-fi real-time strategy series, while Nexon has recently found Western success within the shooter space as the owner of Swedish development studio Embark Studio — the outfit behind The Finals and Arc Raiders.

Still, the report is cautious on the project's development — noting that Nexon previously partnered with Square Enix to develop a Final Fantasy spin-off that faltered in the planning stages. A note of caution here is likely wise, too, considering Blizzard's own track record on abandoned StarCraft spin-off projects.

StarCraft Ghost, announced in 2002, was Blizzard's first attempt to expand the series beyond its real-time strategy origins. Planned as a tactical-action console game in which you played as a deadly Ghost operative in the employ of the Dominion, it was canceled in 2006 after a series of delays.

A second StarCraft shooter attempt, codenamed Ares, was canceled in 2019 so Blizzard could focus on Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2. Ares was reportedly "like Battlefield in the StarCraft universe," but, like Ghost, fell by the wayside. Finally, in 2024, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier shared word of a third StarCraft shooter project then in development within Blizzard, with former Far Cry executive producer Dan Hay, who joined Blizzard in 2022, leading the charge.

Could Nexon's shooter be the same project as the one Hay had been leading, or a new iteration of it? This remains unclear, especially since Hay's project had apparently been in development two years ago, whereas Nexon's game sounds more recent — and developed on a different continent. IGN has contacted Blizzard for more.

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

Sports are foundational to gaming as a medium. From Pong to NES Baseball, the infancy of the medium was littered with just-about-recognisable renditions of real-life sports in an attempt to conjure a degree of familiarity to this fledgling form of entertainment. But in the mid ‘90s, the developers at Nintendo collectively had a light bulb appear above their head housing an idea that would change gaming forever – what if Mario and his friends played tennis?

The greatest Mario sports games are a perfect blend of those two words: Mario and sports. It has to be a simulation worth its salt, giving you a reasonable adaptation of what it’s truly like to play the sport in question. However, just as vital is the Mario part, splicing the sport with the Mushroom Kingdom’s trademark personality. In the decades following 1995’s Mario’s Tennis, Nintendo’s sports games evolved from simple sims to wacky adventures, before retreating back to a steady, if uninspiring, run of titles. The early days of Camelot Software’s handheld RPGs and chaos-inducing console sims are seemingly long gone, and today many of Mario’s sporting outings are greeted with more of a shrug than with anticipation.

But with Mario Tennis Fever releasing this month on Nintendo Switch 2, we could be about to enter a new era. So in celebration of a joyful future (or just a magical past) here’s the top 10 Mario sports games, ranked.

10. Mario Hoops 3-on-3

If many modern Mario sports games are poisoned by a lack of personality, games like Mario Hoops are the antidote. 3-on-3’s unique presentation blends 3D models with excellent sprite work, a striking approach that bridges the graphical styles of the GameBoy Advance and Nintendo’s then-new DS handheld. Nothing represents this mix better than the character select screen, the single greatest in all of Mario history, which lays the groundwork for a charming basketball romp.

Hoops could easily claim to be the best use of the DS’ touch screen. Tapping in different areas sees Mario and his friends dribble around the court, keeping the ball away from opponents and collecting coins and items. It’s an intuitive motion, and that use of the stylus extends to all the basics of basketball, like shooting and passing. Regrettably, Nintendo has rarely returned to the idea of basketball in the Mushroom Kingdom, but even if it did try again, few consoles would execute the idea better than the DS… well, as long as you’re not left-handed, that is.

9. Mario Tennis (Game Boy Color)

The early days of handheld Mario sports games produced some of the most unusual oddities in Nintendo’s history, and their lack of Mushroom Kingdom whimsey and focus on regular human characters is often looked back upon with a raised eyebrow. However, actually dive into the Game Boy Color’s Mario Tennis and you’ll find that eyebrow is put firmly back in place.

Mario Tennis features a wonderful RPG “Tour” mode that nails the genre’s basics. Being locked into three-set matches with a far more powerful opponent is akin to boss battles in a more traditional RPG. They become challenges that you relish, always pushing you to move more quickly after a serve or time your smashes to perfection. Working through the tour sees you levelling up your original character via a very satisfying process, with the grind required to improve specific skills never feeling like a chore. The graphics and controls are inherently limited by the console, but that simplicity lends Mario Tennis a lovely rhythmic quality that encourages repeat replays even a quarter of a century later.

8. Mario Golf: World Tour

For as slow and ponderous as the sport of golf can be, it’s a miracle that it consistently dovetails so beautifully with the chaotic and colorful world of Mario. World Tour nails the balance between both sides of the Nintendo sports coin, offering a quick and snappy way to execute precise and considered rounds of golf. With no need for complicated button schemes or deep systems, World Tour gives you a great sense of control that allows you to cut through the fiddly stuff and get to work on the eternal quest of improving your swing, just like a real casual golfer.

The 3DS and Wii U era was a difficult one for Mario sports titles, but World Tour stands out from a lacklustre crowd thanks to its personality-packed game modes like Point Tourney, Star Coin challenges and Speed Golf. Castle Club also adds a story mode centred on your Mii, complete with a fun upgrade system with stat-boosting cosmetics like clothes and clubs, which is reminiscent of Camelot’s handheld glory days.

7. Mario Superstar Baseball

Much like basketball, Nintendo has barely paid any attention to baseball across the past couple decades, despite knocking it out of the park on the first try back in 2005. Mario Superstar Baseball is a wonderful marriage of addictive baseball mechanics and Mushroom Kingdom chaos, played out in iconic Mario locations that have been contorted into baseball fields. Only in Wario Palace could a barrage of environmental hazards turn a home run into a devastating out.

Superstar Baseball boasts one of the Mario sports series’ most engaging story modes thanks to its “chemistry engine”. The relationships between your teammates dictates the speed and accuracy of their passes, meaning you won’t want to pair Mario with Wario and Bowser, but he’ll combine beautifully with Luigi and Peach. It’s a simple and effective way to bring depth to an already smooth experience that belongs in the Nintendo big leagues.

6. Super Mario Strikers

It’s amazing what a little pop of 2D animation and a few guitar riffs can do to make a subset of Mario sports games feel completely unique. Super Mario Strikers, the jumping plumber’s first foray into the world of soccer, has always had a rebellious edge. Anyone who was glued to their GameCube in the mid-2000s will look back on it with a special kind of fondness, especially in the light of its disappointing revival on Switch.

The nostalgia for Strikers isn’t just due to its bold presentation, though: its gameplay is perfectly calibrated. Each character controls just loosely enough to invite exactly the right amount of chaos into each and every match. If the dial was turned too far towards clean passing and shooting, Mario Strikers would be nowhere near as fun. Instead, developer Next Level Games created something aggressively competitive, wholly chaotic, and vibrantly unique – everything a Mario sports game should be.

5. Mario Golf: Advance Tour

Mario Golf: Advance Tour is one of the Game Boy Advance’s true gems, launched during a time when developer Camelot was proving itself as a Nintendo sports powerhouse. Compared to its predecessors it is genuinely beautiful; the GBA was an absolute haven for bright and colorful adventures and Advance Tour benefits greatly from the system’s then-advanced capabilities.

Those vibrant visuals are just the face of a game that takes the proven and perfected RPG structure from Camelot’s previous sports games and introduces even more Mario characters and locations to the mix. On the gameplay front, despite only having two face buttons available, Camelot designed a great-feeling, tight control scheme that ensured each shot you took felt measured and clean. That sharpness became a design philosophy that continues to stick around throughout every installment in the Mario Golf series. Advance Tour remains special to this day, though, thanks to its unique pixel art rendering of otherworldly courses, and the GBA’s form factor making it the perfect game to pack for on-the-go strolls through the Mushroom Kingdom’s premier golf courses.

4. Mario Tennis (Nintendo 64)

The moment you play your first shot in the Nintendo 64 version of Mario Tennis, something just clicks. The responsive gameplay, smooth animations, and freeing analog control creates an indescribable sense of elegance. Long rallies become like trances in which you find yourself less determined to win the point and instead simply addicted to the sensation of knocking the ball back and forth. Well, until you completely mistime a shot, Toad falls flat on his face, and you’re suddenly a couple sets down, that is.

Released in the year 2000, Mario Tennis is another example of deep gameplay that requires just two face buttons and directional controls, representing Nintendo at its most simple and effective. Subsequent tennis games went on to add ideas, gimmicks and modes that undeniably helped them surpass the offerings of this N64 title. But the bones of modern Mario Tennis are all here, a timeless gameplay loop perfected 26 years ago that endures throughout Nintendo’s history.

3. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour

So much of what we expect from modern Mario sports games originated back on the GameCube, and the brilliant Mario Golf formula established by Toadstool Tour is one that Nintendo has defaulted to over the last couple decades. Its use of normal and power shots, manual or automatic swinging, and approach to camera control are all now staples of 3D Mario Golf titles for good reason: the simplicity just works.

That simplicity gives Toadstool Tour plenty of space to carry out an overwhelming charm offensive. There are so many different ways to play, especially in multiplayer, from the conventional Doubles and Tournament modes to the more eccentric Coin and Ring attacks, giving Toadstool Tour a shot at being the best party game on this list. It’s also the Mario Golf game that does the sport itself the most justice while still feeling quintessentially Mario. It’s simply a great bit of goofy, golfy goodness.

2. Mario Power Tennis

Everything that made Mario Tennis on the N64 so brilliant is preserved and built upon with the GameCube’s Mario Power Tennis. The console’s extra horsepower is used to add wild flourishes to the courts and characters, allowing the established, excellent 3D tennis formula to thrive alongside a deep collection of crazy Mario-isms. Smartly, developer Camelot decided against making full use of the GameCube’s iconic multi-button controller, understanding the enduring appeal of a simple control scheme, while still finding a way to add deeper mechanics, such as offensive and defensive skill shots.

Along with fun challenge courts that test specific tennis skills and Item Battles which create chaos over the net, Mario Power Tennis boasts feats of creative genius like Artist on the Court, a mode in which you use your tennis skills to paint a mural.These may not be flagship modes, but they add the kind of personality and flavour that you can’t get from anyone else but Nintendo in today’s gaming landscape.

1. Super Mario Strikers Charged

Much like how Power Tennis and Toadstool Tour benefited from the excellent foundations of their predecessors, Super Mario Strikers Charged takes every beloved detail from the original Strikers and advances them several steps further. Its refined design places increased emphasis on tactics; each character now has stats and special abilities, which makes playstyles and team composition as vital to victory as actually kicking the ball.

What makes Strikers Charged the very best game in this list, though, is how that tactical play is enhanced through Super Abilities and Mega Strikes, AKA the greatest gimmicks ever introduced to a Mario sports game. Abilities like Yoshi turning into a giant egg and flattening people across the pitch, or Bowser setting players on fire, or Petey Piranha spraying mud in every direction provides a variety of incredibly silly, yet highly tactical opportunities. The Mega Strikes, meanwhile, increase the level of hype around the proceedings, triggering a cut scene and allowing you to score up to six goals in one go. This is a great arcade soccer game, but Super Mario Strikers Charged is also completely out of its mind, and it’s that wonderful blend that makes a Mario sports game truly great.

And those are our picks for the very best Mario sports games. Did we get a hole in one, or have we suffered a triple bagel? Let us know your thoughts and favourites in the comments.

Discord has announced plans to enforce a new "teen-appropriate" experience by default next month, requiring age verification to access restricted content or change content settings.

In a blog post issued today, Discord said it was enhancing its age-appropriate protections for users worldwide while maintaining "privacy, community and meaningful connection on the platform."

The move comes just months after Discord admitted that hackers had gained access to images of 70,000 government IDs, uploaded to the servers of a third-party vendor that it had entrusted with the data, following user contact with its Customer Support or Trust & Safety teams.

There are a million things that have to go right for a video game to be a success. Well, maybe not a million. But a lot. Michael Choung, the CEO of AdHoc Studio – which released the popular superhero workplace comedy game Dispatch last year – admits as much. Choung says that there were “probably 20 decisions in the last seven years” that aligned to make the game a huge success. And casting Aaron Paul as Dispatch’s protagonist, Robert Robertson/Mecha Man, was one of those decisions.

I spoke exclusively with Choung and Dispatch Creative Director/Executive Producer Nick Herman ahead of the DICE Awards (Dispatch is nominated for six, including Game of the Year) on February 12 to break down everything that had to go right in order for Dispatch to see the light of day. Herman says that, although they had “pretty decent” temporary tracks out of the stand-in actors they hired before the main cast got into the studio, Paul’s performance pushed the entire development of the game in a new direction.

“Once we cast Aaron Paul and brought him into the booth, he brought a lot more gravitas,” Herman says. “He brought a heaviness to the character that started to allow us to take him more seriously. You can actually feel that he's got this burden on his shoulders and this weight from his past, and the game got a little bit more serious. When we were working with him we realized that was a good thing. We wanted that depth to show up in the game.”

Paul, perhaps best known for his Emmy-winning turn as Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad, is nominated for a DICE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Character, a nomination he shares with Herman and Dispatch’s other Narrative and Creative Directors. Laura Bailey, Paul’s co-star in the game who plays Courtney/Invisigal, is nominated for the same award. Herman says that assembling an all-star cast – which also includes Jeffrey Wright, Matthew Mercer, and Ashley Johnson – was both a creative and strategic decision.

“We knew that we wanted to have some big talent that when people see the name, they’d go, ‘Oh I know who that is. I know that actor and I like them,’” Herman says. “Aaron just read the script and he liked it. So we were very fortunate. We needed that tier, especially when you're going into rooms with a lot of suits who have a lot of money and make decisions.”

“I think there's a desire for people to want there to be this puppet mastery strategy around this stuff,” Choung adds. “But we just like these voices. You want it to be creatively compelling. (But) then you have these other additional bonuses: (the actors) having a huge audience, they (come from) different worlds. A lot of them were friends. They were people that we'd worked with before. So it’s years and years of experience just coming to bear.”

The finale season of Stranger Things was something of a world-changing event in pop culture — but not everyone in the cast liked the direction the show went in season 5. In fact, star Matthew Modine recently opened up about his feelings on the ending of the series.

Modine — who played Dr. Martin Brenner, aka “Papa,” the scientist who trained and nurtured Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven beginning in season 1 — recently shared a video of himself on Instagram, and in the comments, a fan asked if he liked the series finale. “Nope,” he bluntly replied to the fan.

From there, he was asked by another viewer, “Does Papa believe in Stranger Things episode 9?” (If you’re thinking, wait, the season only had eight episodes, we’ll explain in just a second.) Modine’s response to the question clearly echoed his distaste for the episode: “Hoping so for the fans.”

A beautiful bouquet of flowers sent direct to you is always a nice surprise. If you’re hoping to pick one up for your favorite person to have on Valentine’s Day this year, but are unsure if your local florist can set you up with something in time, we have good news: there are plenty of places online that you can order from.

To help you narrow down your search for the best bouquet, we’ve gathered up just a few spots worth grabbing flowers from this year. Each location offers their own unique arrangements to choose from - and some even offer extras like chocolates you can bundle them with - so you can pick out something you think will really surprise your loved one. Some locations will even let you know if they’ll arrive in time, or allow you to set a delivery date, so you can plan ahead to make sure you’ve got your bouquet secured for the big day.

Whether you want to go the traditional route with a big bouquet of roses or want a vibrant display of various blooms, have a look through some of the available arrangements below and which locations you can order them from.

Buy a Sweet Bouquet From ProFlowers

ProFlowers offers a variety of different sized arrangements. Many also have the option to be bundled with extra goodies such as chocolates, a stuffed bear, or a vase to show off your chosen bouquet. If you don’t mind spending a little bit more, these combo deals are certainly worth a look for Valentine’s Day. You can even choose a specific delivery date on the store page once you find the arrangement you like, so you can make sure it arrives just in time.

Check Out Amazon’s Colorful Arrangements

Amazon is another spot that offers a wide variety of bouquets, and some of them even have delivery information to give you peace of mind. On the store page for certain bouquets you’ll find a notice above the 'Add to Cart’ button that details when exactly you can expect the bouquet to arrive. This is incredibly helpful if you’re getting some last-minute shopping done before the day itself.

Find Lovely Bouquets at 1-800 Flowers

Similar to ProFlowers, 1-800 Flowers has a selection of bouquets in various sizes and the option to bundle many of them with a sweet treat or a vase. Also like ProFlowers, this online retailer's prices are more on the premium side, but the beautiful, bright arrangements certainly seem worth every penny. Like many of the other options we suggest, 1-800 Flowers gives you the option to ‘Pick a Date’ for delivery on their store page.

From You Flowers Has Plenty of Bright Blooms

From You Flowers is another place that offers a wide variety of bigger, slightly pricier bouquets, with some having the option of coming bundled with extras like chocolates, a vase, or even a stuffed teddy bear. If you don't want those additional items, the bouquets themselves certainly stand out on their own and will easily hold up as a complete, beautiful gift. From You Flowers also offer the option to choose a specific delivery date on the store page once you find the bouquet you like.

Choose From a Vibrant Variety of Flowers at Walmart

If you’re looking for something kinder on the wallet than the pricier bouquets above, Walmart is a great place to look for more affordable arrangements. They have a wide variety of options available, from a dozen roses to a mixed bouquet or a delightful little orchid, plus many more. In terms of how you get them, Walmart has a ‘Pickup’ option, so you can order online and grab them from your nearest store.

LEGO Flowers Are a Great Alternative

At some point, real flowers will inevitably wilt and fall apart even under the most attentive care. May I suggest LEGO flowers as a terrific, permanent, low-hassle alternative. While they do take some work (you have to put them together), it's a fun task rather than an onerous one. And you can put them together with your significant other to spend some time together. Once assembled, you can display them in a real vase, no water or upkeep required. These sets are one of the best LEGO gifts for Valentine's day or any other occasion.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

After last year’s swashbuckling Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii triumphantly hoisted the black flag, this year developer Ryu Ga Gotoku has set its sights on elevating the Yakuza series’ black sheep. While well-received critically upon its original 2009 release, Yakuza 3’s sluggish combat and uneven story pacing has seen it age about as well as leftover sashimi, leaving it to linger at the back of the pack while the Like a Dragon series has pushed forward into exciting turn-based twists and experimental spin-offs. Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties, then, is a much-needed retooling that ratchets up the fun factor of its fighting and smooths out most of its unwanted story creases, resulting in an enjoyable return to the largely underused island setting of Okinawa – even if not all of its changes and additions were powerful enough to uppercut me off my feet.

Although it received an HD remaster in 2019, I must admit I haven’t revisited Yakuza 3 since it first debuted on PlayStation 3 because I couldn’t bear the thought of once again battling my way through its annoyingly block-happy hordes. The bulk of Yakuza 3’s enemies were so stubbornly resilient to Kazuma Kiryu’s attacks that getting further than a few hits into a combo was a struggle; instead of gleefully breaking jaws, Yakuza 3’s fighting felt more like painfully pulling teeth.

Thankfully, that has all changed with Kiwami 3, which dramatically speeds up enemy encounters and endows Kiryu with two flexible fighting styles to cover all his thug-bashing bases. His default stance is classic Dragon of Dojima, a mix of satisfyingly weighty combo attacks and wrestling-style grapples that hit harder than a shotgunned can of Suntory Highball. As entertaining as that is, however, I found myself largely relying on his secondary stance, which arms him with eight different weapons. Those range from the baton-like tonfa to inflict stun, a pair of scythes to inflict bleed, brass knuckles to break guards, a shield to deflect blades and bullets, and a pair of nunchucks to regularly look like a total badarse with.

It’s a versatile and violent fighting style that transforms Kiryu into a lightning-fast, leisure suit-wearing shinobi, and it’s supremely intuitive to pick up. There’s no manual weapon switching or inventory management to fiddle with, since everything in his sharp-edged arsenal is triggered by a seamless combination of tapping and holding the three main attack buttons, allowing you to go from slapping a group of gangsters with a wooden boat oar to flinging a pointy pair of sai at their throat without even the slightest pause in the action. The original Yakuza 3 may have ultimately had more weapons to choose from, but given how quickly they would break I rarely bothered to actually use them, and thus I found Kiwami 3’s Swiss Army Knife-style fighting stance a vastly improved method for dealing out wanton destruction using the contents of a Ninja Turtle’s toy chest.

Kiwami 3’s combat doesn’t just feel smoother and more satisfying, it looks a lot flashier too. As was the case with the previous Kiwami remakes, Kiwami 3’s visual design has been boosted to bring it inline with the more modern entries, from the vastly improved character models to the firework-like particle effects that spark off Kiryu’s furious fists. This aesthetic overhaul extends to the environments too, and I was particularly pleased to explore the remodelled slice of Okinawa that features heavily in Kiwami 3’s opening half, since it’s a region that’s rarely been revisited in subsequent Yakuza and Like a Dragon adventures. Its sun-kissed coastal town vibes contrast nicely with Kamurocho’s hustle and bustle, making it akin to Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s Hawaii – albeit on a significantly smaller scale.

What’s the Story, Morning Glory?

While Kiwami 3 broadly retains the same outline of the original game’s story, which centres on a spiteful turf war in Okinawa, the developers have treated the plot like a street thug and given it a good punch up. In the original Yakuza 3, certain chapters confined Kiryu to the Morning Glory orphanage he runs for lengthy periods of time, presenting precious little beyond slowly paging through text-based conversations with its pint-sized residents. Thankfully, Kiwami 3’s structure has been reshuffled to make these sleepy seaside sections entirely optional beyond an initial set of mandatory tutorials, meaning you now have the choice of either taking the time to forge bonds with these little Okinawan Oliver Twists, or just hurrying back to black-belting the Pocari Sweat out of every mobster yakuzin’ for a bruisin’ in the world outside the orphanage’s walls.

If you’d have given me the option of skipping these slice of life segments in the original Yakuza 3 I’d likely have taken it, yet surprisingly in Kiwami 3 I found myself growing more invested in the plight of Morning Glory’s munchkins than I ever did before. That’s thanks to a smart use of snackable mini-games that transform humdrum domestic chores into stimulating diversions. You can complete the kids’ algebra homework against the clock, go spearfishing for flounder and then transform those ingredients into a meal in an energetic burst of Cooking Mama-inspired culinary chaos, or, my personal favourite, steer a sewing machine needle around a Super Hang-On style circuit made of fabric in a delirious bout of high-speed hemming that regularly left both me and the handcrafted tote bag onscreen in stitches. As I ticked off each enjoyable household task, I found myself bonding with these little wide-eyed waifs in a more organic manner. That meant the stakes felt appropriately heightened later on when Kiryu’s criminal past inevitably catches up with him.

That’s not to say that Kiwami 3 completely sharpens the original’s storytelling, and there are still some of the series’ signature attention span-stretching conversation cutscenes present here – including one marathon meeting room exposition dump in its ninth chapter that’s so comically drawn out it actually gives you the option of taking regular breaks for Kiryu to stretch his legs by walking around a tiny office he can’t leave. There’s also a surprising twist in Kiwami 3’s post-credits epilogue that will likely raise a few eyebrows among series purists (though was really neither here nor there for me), but by and large Kiwami 3’s main story has been reworked for the better and it kept me hooked for the 17 hours it took me to reach its cathartic, combat-heavy climax.

Japanesey Rider

Elsewhere Kiryu goes from playing daddy to slaying baddies in Kiwami 3’s other major addition to its main story, Bad Boy Dragon. This biker gang-based riff on the Devil Flags subquest from Pirate Yakuza tasks Kiryu with rescuing new recruits from bullies on the streets, splitting them into squads, and accompanying them into large scale clashes against other rival leather-clad clubs, from the easybeats of Okinawa’s streets to the more fierce fighters from Tokyo’s Night Terrors outfit. In between battles you can hold gang rallies to boost the XP of your members, customise your gang colours, and invest in special attacks to unleash in a scrap, from humble hand grenades to spectacularly silly stampeding bulls.

However, Bad Boy Dragon’s novelty wore off far sooner for me than Pirate Yakuza’s equivalent seafaring mode did, because Kiwami 3’s gang-based brawler is considerably more repetitive by comparison. Whereas Pirate Yakuza featured a healthy mixture of cannon-based naval warfare and on-land scraps, Bad Boy Dragon is mostly just a series of samey skirmishes held in copy-and-pasted warehouses that quickly blur into each other. Despite the fact you’re in a biker gang, there’s very little actual biking to be done – you can’t get stuck into Road Rash-style battles on Tokyo’s expressway like in Lost Judgment, for example. Kiryu’s chopper is strictly used to rapidly ferry him between the four squads under his command before resuming the button-mashed biker beatdowns. Bad Boy Dragon ultimately feels a little half-baked – if you’re going to build a mode around biker gangs, you really need to go the whole chrome-covered hog.

Still, even though I parked Kiwami 3’s biker mode fairly early on, I found plenty of other things to do outside of the main story. In one moment I’d be struggling to deliver towering ice cream cones through streets lined with waddling sumo wrestlers, while in another I’d be customising my 2007-era flip phone with dangling tchotchkes to boost Kiryu’s health and damage. Later I found myself posing as a host at a cabaret club and disappointing the customers with terrible jokes, as well as indulging in optional mainstays like karaoke and the baseball batting cage. Sure, at this point a lot of these amusements have been repurposed more than the fabric of Marge Simpson’s pink Chanel suit, but I was pleased to find that collectible Game Gear games have been included for the first time in the series – even if it is a bit odd that handheld Sega classics like Columns and Sonic Chaos can only be played back at Kiryu’s hideout rather than pulled out of his pocket on the fly. (Perhaps that’s a tacit admission that the Game Gear’s godawful battery life made portable play too impractical?)

Admittedly I was surprised to find the substory count in Kiwami 3 had been whittled down to 31 from the original game’s 100 or so, but then I remembered how many of Yakuza 3’s optional quests were just clones of the same small handful of ideas. Kiwami 3’s substories focus on quality over quantity, and I have no objections to that approach.

The Ties that Grind

Outside of its remodelled main campaign, Kiwami 3 features an entirely new story mode called Dark Ties, which puts the player into the shoes of the sharply dressed and amusingly sardonic antagonist, Yoshitaka Mine. Dark Ties explores Mine’s first steps into the Tokyo underworld, his reluctant alliance with the lecherous Tojo clan heavy Tsuyoshi Kanda, and the complex motivations behind his devastating actions in Kiwami 3’s main campaign. It also allows us to let loose with his ferocious ‘shoot-boxing’ fighting style, which blends fast flurries of punches with acrobatic flip-kicks and the ability to pinball off one enemy and completely redirect your attack towards another to seamlessly continue your combo. He can also unleash devastating ‘Dark Awakening’ special attacks, such as spiking an enemy’s skull into the ground and dragging their faces along the pavement like a bloodied bowling ball.

Mine is limited to the one fighting stance, however, and his skill tree is stumpier than a yakuza’s left pinkie. That’s because his quest simply doesn’t last long enough to allow room for any real evolution of his abilities. Dark Ties has been marketed as a fully-fledged game in its own right, but that seems slightly disingenuous given it only features three chapters versus Kiwami 3’s 12, restricts the action to the same Kamarucho setting that Yakuza fans know better than the calluses on the back of their face-mashing fists, and pits you against just two bosses in two fights a piece.

To be fair, it still took me just over five hours to roll credits in Dark Ties, but that runtime didn’t feel as substantial as it sounds since Mine’s mode regularly gates its story missions behind the arbitrary completion of agonisingly menial tasks. During Dark Ties’ prolonged middle chapter in particular, the advancement of Mine’s story is dependent on performing good deeds for Kamarucho locals in order to slowly boost the reputation of his unlikeable cohort Kanda. A few of these are genuinely entertaining, like being asked to pose as a bouncer outside an adults-only club and evaluating the clientele, but the bulk of them are boring chores like legging it to the nearest convenience store and back so that you can bring a hungry man a bento box.

Tasks like these are made all the more arduous given that Mine isn’t equipped with the same segway-like Street Surfer that Kiryu can whip out on a whim to speed things along in Kiwami 3. I wanted to enjoy Mine’s calculated ascension towards the top of the Tojo clan, but for extended periods, Dark Ties made me feel less like a dragon and more like a dogsbody.

Mine does have one ace up his pinstriped-suit sleeve, however, and that’s the dungeon-brawling roguelike minigame unique to his adventure. Dubbed ‘Survival Hell’ – despite the fact that ‘Roguelike a Dragon’ was sitting right there – this strictly-timed dash for cash and collectibles takes place across five underground arenas, each consisting of four floors of increasingly challenging goons and culminating in an imposing boss fight. Die during a run and you lose it all, but each floor has an optional exit point should you wish to bank your winnings early and invest them into buffs like special weapons and CPU-controlled bodyguards to better your chances of survival on subsequent runs. It’s compelling, chaotic, and stuffed with countless surprises. Having rolled credits on both Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties, Survival Hell is the one feature of either story that is still calling me back for more.

Last night's Super Bowl teaser for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie featured an extended look at Mario and Luigi being chased by a T-rex. But why is it actually Baby Mario and Baby Luigi we see here? As ever, the internet has some theories.

Nintendo fans got a first glimpse at Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Toad and Yoshi encountering a T-rex in last month's The Super Mario Galaxy Nintendo Direct. The dinosaur, which looks similar to its appearance in Super Mario Odyssey, roars at our heroes, sending them running away scared.

Now, we've got a slightly longer look at the same scene, with Baby Mario even shown waking up the sleeping dinosaur by drumming the classic NES Mario theme on its teeth. Still, the jury's out about what's really going on — and why we're seeing the plumbers' infant forms at all.

Don’t wake the dino. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is only in theaters April 1. pic.twitter.com/34vjqImsBf

— The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (@supermariomovie) February 9, 2026

As fans will remember from the first Super Mario Movie, Mario and Luigi travel to the Mushroom Kingdom for the first time as adults, suggesting this is unlikely to be a flashback to their youth. (We also see the brothers as Baby Mario and Baby Luigi, confirming they are their past selves, although very much living their childhood in Brooklyn.)

Could we have been misled, and the brothers actually visited the Mushroom Kingdom as children? It seems unlikely. Instead, the pair appear to have been reverted in age. Perhaps this is something to do with the fact they're in a prehistoric environment? Or maybe this is the work of Bowser Jr., or his minion Kamek?

"I'm sure Kamek made Mario and Luigi babies," wrote Nintendo fan Delbianco27 on reddit.

"There is a possibility that they either hid the fact that they once ventured into the Mushroom Kingdom as babies, or some weird time travel shenanigans," countered josh_winnnnnn.

"I feel like there in an area that 'takes them back in time' hence why Mario and Luigi are babies," suggested GoldenGirlsFan213. "I really hope they aren't babies for most of the movie cause that would be awful."

"Could possibly be a relative of the present-day Toad," agreed josh_winnnnnn again. "We'll find out in several weeks..."

Other fans have suggested this scene is simply an homage to Yoshi's Island, Nintendo's 1995 classic for the SNES where Kamek attempts to kidnap Baby Mario and Baby Luigi, before they're saved by Yoshi. Speaking of Yoshi, last week gave us our first look at the beloved dino eating someone (Kamek) and pooping them out as an egg.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie stars Brie Larsen as Rosalina and Benny Safdie as Bowser Jr., alongside the returning cast from the first film: Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek.

As for the mystery behind Baby Mario and Baby Luigi, all will be revealed when The Super Mario Galaxy Movie lands in theaters on April 1.

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

Helldivers 2’s next big update, Machinery of Oppression, launches the Battle for Cyberstan, and sees players head to the alien homeworld and take on the Cyborgs, a new Automaton-adjacent enemy type that’s set to usher in a new round of terror — and chaos — to Arrowhead’s explosive third-person shooter.

Machinery of Oppression also triggers the next big narrative beat in the Galactic War’s ongoing meta narrative, a community-driven story that has captivated fans ever since Helldivers 2 set PlayStation sales records two years ago.

Two years ago! Where has the time gone? For the developers at Arrowhead, the launch and ongoing development of Helldivers 2 has been something of a rollercoaster, with ups and downs dominated by community love and hate. But now, as Helldivers 2 enters its third year, Arrowhead is coming to understand the game it has on its hands, and how to fuel the live-service beast in a sustainable way while keeping player numbers healthy. Steam concurrents are there for all the world to see, and even now, they are in a good place.

So what happens next? The Battle for Cyberstan is yet another player-directed update. Players will take Cyberstan, or they will fail — Arrowhead doesn’t know how it’s going to go. But can Arrowhead make meaningful updates to Helldivers 2 beyond the sort of things we’ve seen in the last two years? In December, Johan Pilestedt [CCO of Arrowhead and creative director on Helldivers 2], talked about the possibility of a Helldivers 2 rogue-lite mode. But can the developers expand the scope of the game to, say, increase the squad count? Increase the number of players in a squad? Release bigger maps?

Ideas aren’t the problem, of course. The problem, as with everything, is time, energy, and ideas. But, as game director Mikael Eriksson tells me in the interview below, these sorts of game-changing updates are being worked on. They are possible. And, he insists, the future of Helldivers 2 is bright indeed.

IGN: Players have spent the week marching towards Cyberstan and they have tanks as well. I know you have big ambitions for how this new update will let the community direct the events of the Galactic War in an even more direct way than before, but how exactly will it work?

Mikael Eriksson: February 10, that's when Super Earth will commence the battle for Cyberstan. And you're right, this is the most ambitious one yet for us. One of the central points of Helldivers is that we play the game together with the community, and the actions of the community are not known to us and the outcomes are not predetermined. This has been the case since launch, but of course we've tried to expand on this with almost every update to make this more impactful, and to make it more obvious what the different outcomes are and what the consequences will be.

We still have many ambitious plans on how to expand on this even further, but for this time, the Battle for Cyberstan, will be the most ambitious one yet with a new type of meta gameplay. So it would be much more clear now for players what the consequences would be depending on how they choose to tackle this. So they can attack the planet from many different angles and it would be very obvious when players get there, what the consequences are and what's at stake.

But again, the outcome is not predetermined, so we don't know what will happen. Players can win and players can lose, and it's going to be super fun to see that play out. Last time, with the Battle for Super Earth, which I think was maybe the biggest one before this, we also didn't know. Eventually players actually managed to defend Super Earth, which was super cool to see. Following that was pure fun for everyone at the office except for maybe the Game Master who was sweating a little bit, but for everyone else it was fun to see.

OK, I know that whenever a new cyberpunky-looking sci-fi game shows up, everybody says it’s “like Blade Runner”. Well, Replaced actually is. Like Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, it’s both exactly what you’d expect from a story-led neo-noir thriller, and also very different in a multitude of ways. Yes, those neon-drenched, screenflicker-lit streets could be the ones that Deckard once ran down, but as for what you actually do in those streets, Replaced utilises a surprising combination of ideas that make for a confident mix of platforming, puzzling, and combat. Across its opening three hours, it takes that well-worn Replicant shell, but augments it with aspects from the likes of Ninja Gaiden, Inside, and even LucasArts classics, to create an exciting new cyberpunk vehicle, all while looking and sounding absolutely gorgeous. It’s safe to say I’m excited.

I won’t say too much about what I’ve seen of the story so far, but you’ll need the basics. Replaced casts you as a “Research Engine for Altering and Composing Humans”, better known as Reach; an artificial intelligence that accidentally finds itself taking control of a human body. Following an explosive escape from the facility it called home, this now-corporeal AI must try to return to the place of its creation to uncover the mystery of how this all happened. The problem is, that research centre sits inside a gargantuan sci-fi city surrounded by a towering perimeter wall that you have since fallen outside of. Think Final Fantasy 7’s Midgar, if what lurked outside of its confines was more akin to Mad Max’s wasteland. That’s because Replaced takes place in an alternative universe America, where the US government, in a somewhat rogue move, decided to turn its nuclear weapons on its own territory, rather than Japan’s.

This dark scenario makes for a world where class and wealth divides have only grown in magnitude, with the affluent population of Phoenix City leeching off the bodies of those surviving outside, deeming them “Disposals” and harvesting their organs at will. It's an ugly setup, but one that looks absolutely stunning due to developer Sad Cat Studio’s decision to render this world in an eye-catching 2.5D pixelated style that reflects both the retro nature of its inspirations, but also its desire to show us something new as it attempts to “reinvent the cinematic platformer”. The opening escape alone is a showcase for both the driving synthwave soundtrack and the glistening sheen of its visuals. It somehow simultaneously manages to look satisfyingly old-school thanks to its NES-like blocks of colour, but also thoroughly modern, as thick layers of smoke and striking 3D lighting sit atop crunchy pixels to add yet another filmic flourish.

That cinematic presentation also stretches to how each combat encounter is framed. The camera zooms in to create a tense sense of claustrophobia. The depth of field twists shallower so that you and your foes are the sole focus. Slo-mo finishers add yet another dash of cool as bodies are flung to the floor before being dispatched with the blast of a pistol. The fighting starts out simple, translating the Batman: Arkham formula of dodges, parries, and strikes to a 2D plane successfully — complete with flashing red and yellow warning signals above enemy heads — but gradually introduces some welcome complexity over time. Heavy attacks are added to your arsenal and are required to tear armour off of certain enemies so that damage can be dealt to them.

You’re also handed a Blade Runner-like blaster pistol that sits inside Reach’s customary Deckard-like coat. There’s an incredibly satisfying hefty weight to this hand cannon, which sends foes flying off-screen in a manner I perhaps found a little too much delight in. It’s a powerful tool, capable of one-shotting brutes that otherwise take many punches to perish, but one that’s smartly kept limited by a novel ammunition system, which rewards you with rounds for performing well in its melee action. Aggression is encouraged - striking and countering enemies builds up your gun’s charge, whereas dodging and remaining passive noticeably drains it. Want to blow a hole in someone? You'll have to bruise their flesh first. It’s a rhythm you’ll have to get to grips with if you want to overcome some of Replaced’s beefier foes.

My playtime ended in a boss battle with “Uncle Ben”. No, not Spider-Man's deceased family member nor the face of the since-rebranded packs of microwaveable rice, but a cybernetic LeChuck lookalike with a death wish. Ben is the hulking leader of the Termites, a Mad Max Fury Road-like faction who hide in the dark as whispers of Valhalla echo around their sewer lair. The boss fight itself was a challenge, significantly stepping up the complexity compared to the hordes of enemies I’d encountered up until that point due to the large amount of damage Ben could deal, the sheer size of his health bar, and the fact that he’s restored to full HP for a tougher second phase. Reviving an enemy for round two in the very first very boss battle is cruel stuff, but I couldn’t help but chuckle when it happened.

This battle required patience and a close reading of the opponent, and this approach serves as a throughline for each and every one of Replaced’s encounters. Patience is rewarded, and timely button presses are required instead of quickfire spamming. That’s not just the formula behind combat, though; Replaced’s puzzles and platforming are also methodical — this isn’t a game that wants you to zip through its handsome levels, but instead stop to smell the sewage and read through its journal entries on Reach’s gloriously retro tablet device. Its slow pace surprised me at first, with a touch more holding right on the thumb stick and hopping over a few more fallen tree trunks than maybe I would've desired, but it's all in service of setting the scene.

Platforming never got overly complicated, with routes clearly marked in yellow and interactable objects made obvious for the most part, but it can be a little fiddly at times. Frustrations arise due to hit boxes sometimes not appearing as clearly as I'd like, and very occasionally, the gorgeous blending of art styles leading to a little difficulty in distinguishing decoration from obstacle. From what I’ve seen so far, whereas Replaced’s combat impresses greatly, its platforming is merely serviceable.

It’s at this point that you may be asking yourself. “Simon, I thought Replaced was exactly the sort of sci-fi action platformer that you’ve just described. Where is all the unexpected stuff?” Well, that’s where Chapter 2 comes into play, sandwiched between the facility escape intro and the Termite hideout infiltration. It’s in this section that Replaced switches into LucasArts mode, as a surprise helping of those beloved ‘90s point-and-click adventures make their way into this world. Reach is thrown into a bustling town on the outskirts of Phoenix City that echoes the feel and fashion of Full Throttle, complete with seedy bars and unwelcoming characters to stumble into. It’s here that Replaced trades in the platforming and combat cocktail it initially serves up and instead asks you to walk, talk, and, if you so desire, help out its citizens through side missions.

I walked through its back alleys full of dodgy doctors and questionable figures asking for favours, and decided to help out a couple. One led me on a fetch quest to reclaim a pair of binoculars from a girl in a rundown arcade. Once I’d ripped an electrical component from a nearby machine in service of powering up one of the games, binoculars girl let me know that she’d only part with her telescopic goggles once I’d beaten her high score on the newly revived cabinet. So, unexpectedly, I found myself chasing big points on a very rudimentary arcade game that played like Crazy Taxi meets Operation. Then, binoculars finally in hand, I headed back to their original owner and was rewarded with an extra half a heart for my health meter.

I appreciate that while these optional objectives come with traditional bonuses such as improved medstims for use in combat, they also enrich your understanding of the world and the social and political dynamics at play within it. And so it’s the inclusion of these more open world-style hubs that makes for a complete package that feels, unexpectedly, as informed by Disco Elysium as much as it is old-school Ninja Gaiden. And I feel I’ve only just scratched the surface – beyond the playable demo, Sad Cat also showed me later sections of Replaced that offered a glimpse inside of Phoenix City’s walls, home to a hacking puzzle minigame and even social stealth elements involving blending into the crowd at busy road crossings to avoid looming security drones.

But no matter what you’re tasked with doing, it seems as if Replaced never loses sight of its slick style and rich tone grounded in a love for all things Blade Runner, all while letting that reverence permeate into every aspect of its design in interesting ways. I started my playthrough thinking I knew exactly what I was in for. I was wrong, but thankfully still ended it excited, knowing there’s still plenty left to discover when Replaced arrives for PC and Xbox on March 12.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

PlayStation will stream a major State of Play broadcast this week, featuring over an hour of news and reveals, including the latest updates from its own teams within PlayStation Studios.

The event will be held this Thursday, February 12 at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 10pm UK time — and as ever, IGN will be reporting live.

Sony has said that the broadcast will run to "60+ minutes" — suggesting fans have a meaty show to look forward to. But what could PlayStation have up its sleeves?

Sony's last major State of Play broadcast, held back in September 2025, finally treated fans to a good look at Marvel's Wolverine, which is in development by the talented team behind the console's various Spider-Man titles: PlayStation studio Insomniac Games. Other games showcased included Saros, the next project from Returnal studio Housemarque, as well as third-party titles such as Battlefield 6 and Nioh 3.

The company then held a smaller-scale State of Play in November 2025 focused solely on Japanese titles, and it was here we got a look at Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, Elden Ring Nightreign expansion The Forsaken Hollows, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, and more.

PlayStation fans will certainly be keen to see more of Wolverine and Saros, and potentially discover a release date for the former. We're also likely to see something of Bungie's long-delayed Marathon, which will finally arrive on March 5 — less than a month away.

Saros has already been dated for April 30, though currently all we know for certain of Wolverine's arrival is that he'll land in the second half of this year. (With GTA 6 due on November 16, it'll likely be earlier, and well clear of that.) Last week, a tease from Insomniac Games hinted at Wolverine meeting Daredevil in the game. And, of course, we just got a first look at multiplayer Horizon spin-off Hunters Gathering. Perhaps we'll get more news on early play sessions?

Third-party games set for PS5 in the coming months include Capcom's Monster Hunter Stories 3 and Pragmata, which just got a showing in Nintendo's Partner Direct, Square Enix's climactic Life is Strange Reunion, Hitman developer IO Interactive's 007 First Light and Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight from Warner Bros. Games.

The confirmation of a State of Play this week will mean that all three major platform holders will have held some form of announcement broadcast within the first six weeks of 2026 — though Nintendo fans still hope there is a dedicated first-party Nintendo Direct also waiting in the wings with more news on the company's own games (and perhaps a new 3D Mario).

For now, though, join us here on IGN for all of the news and reveals from this week's State of Play in just a few days.

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

Epic Games has hit back at claims it made "provably incorrect statements" about controversial horror game Horses, and instead insisted it was transparent with developer Santa Ragione about its inability to sell the game via the Epic Games Store as planned.

Horses, the indie horror game banned from both Steam and the Epic Games Store ahead of its launch in December 2025, is an indie first-person horror game with live-action sequences set in a horse farm. Over the course of 14 days, it "welcomes you into encounters that test your obedience, complicity, and restraint." The player experiences "the farm's unspeakable horrors through daily unique interactions," as they must "withstand 14 days of spiraling dread as the reality of the farm unfolds."

Horses was first banned from Steam two years ago after the team submitted an in-progress prototype. While some feedback was provided, Santa Ragione insists that no specifics were shared with the team at the time, nor was there an opportunity to appeal. It was banned again in December due to its disturbing imagery, and while violent and sexual content is hardly new for either Steam or Epic, Santa Ragione took issue with what it deemed to be censorship, calling for "clearer rules, transparent processes, and meaningful accountability from near monopolistic distribution platforms and the systems they enforce."

Fast-forward to this past weekend, and Santa Ragione posted a statement refuting Epic VP Steve Allison's comment that said "we love [its] studio," blasting the firm for "refus[ing] to provide details supporting their claims," and accusing Epic of making "provably incorrect statements about the game's content."

"Epic made provably incorrect statements about the game’s content, refused to provide details supporting their claims, and has not shared their claimed AO IARC certificate, which normally includes a link for the developer to appeal," the studio posted in response to an interview with Game File. "They do not ‘love that studio’, they have effectively ghosted us."

"The fact that the game does not deserve an AO rating is apparent from the widely available full walkthroughs on YouTube and Twitch, as well as from its distribution on the Humble Store."

Epic Games, however, has remained adamant that the game violated the Epic Games Store’s Content Guidelines. In a statement to IGN, Epic Games' senior communications manager, Brian Sharon, said: "Our team played the game and found it violated the Epic Games Store’s Content Guidelines, specifically the 'Inappropriate Content' and 'Hateful or Abusive Content' policies.

"We did a secondary check by filling out the ratings questionnaire for the game ourselves and the content got an Adults Only (AO) rating — which we do not allow on the Store. Because this wasn’t an official submission, we do not have a certificate to share with the team. We did give the developers context around the policies they violated. When they appealed, we reviewed the content again, and let them know the decision was appropriately applied and will remain in place."

Despite the distribution issues, Horses has managed to sell over 18,000 copies. Though that's not enough for the publisher to fund a new game, it says it has been able to generate $65,000 in net revenue by mid-December, which was enough to pay off loans and settle royalties owned to creator Andrea Lucco Borlera. Our own reviewer gave it a 7/10, calling it "an affecting first-person horror game that, despite some repetitive tasks and signposting issues, delivers a harrowing story you won’t forget in a hurry."

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.