High on Life 2 is our IGN First “cover story” game for December, which means we’ve got exclusive coverage all month long. We’ve already posted plenty of new gameplay, and today we’re thrilled to announce one of High on Life 2’s brand-new weapons: Say hello to Travis, the SMG-style weapon voiced by Ken Marino, who you might know from The State as well as Wet Hot American Summer. Travis is one-half of a dual SMG pair with Jan – check out the half of a heart pendant around his, uh, neck, I guess? Anyway, they’re married, but it seems the relationship has gotten a bit toxic.

Take a look at some footage of Travis in action in the video below, and for more exclusive High on Life 2 coverage – including another weapon reveal coming up soon.

High on Life 2 will be released on February 13, 2026 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S – including launching on day one into Xbox Game Pass.

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

My dear Watson, Prime Video just released first-look images for their upcoming series Young Sherlock, which will star Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Holmes himself.

The streamer released eight images that highlight Tiffin and other actors in "the origin story of Sherlock Holmes" which is set to be an "irreverent, action-laden mystery that follows the iconic detective’s early adventures." According to Prime, the show will follow "the origin story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved detective in an explosive re-imagining of this iconic character’s early days."

As for the full synopsis: "Sherlock Holmes is a disgraced young man – raw and unfiltered – when he finds himself wrapped up in a murder case that threatens his liberty. His first ever case unravels a globe-trotting conspiracy that changes his life forever. Unfolding in 1870s Oxford and adventuring abroad, the series will expose the early antics of the anarchic adolescent who is yet to evolve into Baker Street’s most renowned resident."

Alongside Tiffin, Dónal Finn, Zine Tseng, Joseph Fiennes, Natascha McElhone, Max Irons, and Colin Firth will star in the series, which Guy Ritchie directs and executive produces alongside series writer Matthew Parkhill, who will also serve as showrunner.

The press release for the project promises “all the wit and charm of Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes feature films,” and it’ll be interesting to see if this new series lives up to those beloved projects, which were just a ton of fun to watch.

The announcement also notes that the series will premiere exclusively on Prime Video "in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide next year," but other than that, we have no further news on a release date. It seems we’ll have to do some sleuthing over in the Prime offices for that info.

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

"What defines a Soulslike?" is a question I would not dare to try and answer on IGN given the myriad viewpoints on it out there, but one oft-discussed feature of FromSoftware's games at least is the "runback", or the... well, run back to a boss after you've died to it, especially when there's a significant distance or challenge involved. Not a lot of games have these. FromSoftware and Hollow Knight games have some heinous ones.

How heinous? Truly heinous, if the many internet threads and discussions complaining about some of them are any indication. But we wanted to know, which one is the worst?

We ran a poll on IGN last month where we asked readers to vote on the Soulslike boss with the worst runback. To populate our poll options, I consulted a number of sources. I asked our Soulslike experts here at IGN, I asked for suggestions on Bluesky, and I went back to several old Reddit threads in various Souls communities where fans lamented horrible runbacks to see what was complained about the most.

Interestingly enough, absolutely no one suggested anything that wasn't either a Hollow Knight game or a FromSoftware game, which perhaps says something about how both of those games approach save points in relation to bosses. I asked IGN staff to think really hard if there were any other bosses from any other games we should add, and we came up with Umi-Bozu from Nioh, just to add some variety.

We then posted the poll on multiple articles connected to Soulslike games, and shared it around on social media asking our readers to vote. We acknowledge this is a rather unscientific poll, given that it was included first in an article explicitly about Bilewater in Hollow Knight: Silksong. That said...

IGN readers voted for Groal from Silksong as the Soulslike boss with the worst runback, at 16.2% of the vote.

However, it wasn't an overwhelming victory. Coming in just behind it with 15.3% was "The entire Dark Souls 2 DLC" which we listed to include the Blue Smelter Demon, Lud and Zallen, and Sir Allone. Again, this is an admittedly unscientific poll - including three bosses in that one probably swung the vote a little bit, but when we asked around so many people mentioned either bosses from or the entirety of the Dark Souls 2 DLC it felt wrong not to group them together.

In third place with a marginally more scientific percent of the vote at 9.8% was Placidusax from Elden Ring and... yeah, that chunk of Crumbling Farum Azula you have to run through every time you fight him sucks! Close behind him was Bed of Chaos from the original Dark Souls, an already-frustrating fight compounded by a horrible runback regardless of whether you slog through lava or take the "short"-cut behind Queelag's sister.

Umi-Bozu got the least amount of votes, perhaps suggesting that runbacks outside of Hollow Knight and FromSoftware games really aren't that bad.

If you're playing Silksong and haven't gotten to Groal yet, great news: we have a walkthrough that will help you survive Bilewater in general, and if you're adverse to using guides, we have a quick tip here that will make your runback to Groal... slightly easier. It's still bad. In addition to our Bilewater guide, we have a detailed Wiki to help you through every step of your journey in Pharloom, so check it out before, during, and after Bilewater.

And if you've already beaten Groal and think our poll is wrong, please feel free to vote above. Percentages mention in this piece are accurate at the time of publication, but maybe there are some Nioh fans that really want to help Umi-Bozu out. Personally, after two straight nights of failing to climb a tower with nothing at the top of it, I'm regretting not having put Baby Steps in this poll somewhere.

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

The Nintendo Switch 2 sure has been good for microSD Express. The standard has been around since 2019, but Nintendo making it required for its new handheld has made it go from nonexistent to robust and affordable virtually overnight. Samsung, which already makes one of the best Nintendo Switch 2 microSD Express cards, has tossed another card on the pile with the Samsung P9 microSD Express card – and it’s the fastest I’ve tested yet.

Samsung lent me the 256GB version of this card, which, at $54.99, is priced right between the PNY and Onn cards I’ve already reviewed – and is even $5 cheaper than the one it makes for Nintendo. It’s also measurably faster than both of those cards, beating both by a mile in write speeds and outdoing the Onn card in read speeds. And from where I’m sitting, it’s a better value than either of those options – and probably any similar cards from Lexar or SanDisk.

Throughput

Nintendo’s move to microSD Express gives its console internal SSD-like storage speed without all the hassle of opening your console to install an M.2 SSD like the PS5, or requiring gamers to buy an overpriced, bespoke card to plug into a special port like the Xbox Series X/S. How fast is Samsung’s microSD Express card, exactly? Well, really dang fast if we’re to believe the 800MB/s sequential read throughput that Samsung promotes on its site. But that’s misleading in this context; because of the way game files are structured, it’s closer to the around 90MB/s I saw in testing.

But don’t fret over that lower number. Something like a video file has its data neatly lined up, and when read, it’s read sequentially. But a video game is really a package full of smaller files, data that’s stored non-contiguously – that’s what the “random” read and write spec is referring to. And in this situation, the transfer process never has the runway it needs to get up to sequential throughput levels. The small-file makeup of video games is why, as you’ll see in my testing below, file transfer throughput can vary quite a bit from one game to the next. Some games have a smaller number of files but in larger blocks, while others might have thousands of tiny files that bog down the process.

The more important metric for random reads and writes is the number of input/output operations per second, or IOPS, a card can do – and the P9 can, by Samsung’s reckoning, reach up to 65,000 IOPS in random reads and 52,000 IOPS in random writes. That’s very fast compared to the theoretical (but rarely actualized) 4,000 IOPS capability of some standard microSD cards. Unfortunately, I don’t have a standalone microSD Express card reader, so I can’t actually confirm their IOPS numbers with PC testing software like CrystalDiskMark. Instead, I have to rely on like-for-like game transfers to get a sense of which card is better at what.

Performance: Load Times

Loading times for games is where most players’ microSD Express card choice actually affects them. To test this, I simply started up the same games several times and averaged how long it took to get from first opening a game to its start screen. Across nearly every game I tested, the 256GB Samsung P9 and the same-size PNY card I also reviewed did about the same. Donkey Kong Bananza loaded in just 21 seconds on average for either, while it took just over 9 seconds to get into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

The one exception was Mario Kart World, which took about two seconds longer with Samsung’s card than PNY’s. Even the (Walmart house brand) Onn card loaded Mario Kart World about a half-second faster than the P9. Notably, each time you boot up MKW, the start screen loads a different region of the game’s open world, letting you seamlessly jump into driving around it by pressing the “+” button on your controller. It’s possible that the P9’s slower performance was just luck of the draw.

Otherwise, both cards outperformed the Onn, sometimes by just a fraction of a second, others by multiple seconds – it took about three seconds longer to load Fast Fusion from the Onn card than the others; and about five seconds longer for Donkey Kong Bananza. Going by game load times, Samsung’s card and PNY’s are neck and neck, and both tend to be a little slower than the Switch 2’s internal storage.

Performance: Throughput

I tested read and write throughput by timing game file transfers to and from the card, and the story was much the same here as with loading: Samsung and PNY were a cut above Onn. I started by moving games from the card to the console to check read throughput. Here, the Samsung P9 averaged just under 80MB/s for Mario Kart World(21.9GB), 87.25MB/s for Donkey Kong Bananza (8.9GB), and 96MB/s for Resident Evil 4 (12GB). Compare that to the PNY card’s transfer throughput of 81.7MB/s, 88.7MB/s, and 76.9MB/s, respectively. So about the same, apart from the P9’s outlier Resident Evil 4 result.

Write speeds are where the Samsung P9 shined. It consistently hung out between 71MB/s and 73MB/s across every transfer test, unlike both the PNY and Onn cards, which were slower, and varied heavily between tests. Each put up between 52 and 62MB/s in random write throughput. That meant it took me just four minutes to write my 17.2GB Super Smash Bros Ultimate copy to the Samsung P9. That took almost five minutes for the Onn card and close to six minutes on the PNY card. Writing Mario Kart to the Samsung P9 was about 2.5 minutes faster than to the other cards, although it’s worth noting here that a recent update shrank the game by almost 3GB after that test. Still, that was a 72MB/s transfer, compared to 54–56MB/s to the other cards.

The Best of the Budget Cards

Samsung P9 is measurably better than its Onn and PNY peers, and at $55, it’s a no-brainer, at least compared to the $61.99 PNY card. Whether it’s worth it compared to the $46.77 Onn card depends on how well you can afford the difference and how often you shuffle files between your internal storage and your microSD Express card. If that doesn’t happen often, this Samsung card might be worth it just to save your money or put it towards another game – that nine bucks you save will get you most of the way toward Fast Fusion, a lovely antigrav racer for the F-Zero-starved among us.

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

Epic Games has announced the next era of LEGO Fortnite, via its huge Ninjago: Rise of the Ninja update which lands later this week.

Arriving ahead of Ninjago's 15th anniversary next year and in time for LEGO's second anniversary within Fortnite this month, Rise of the Ninja looks to be one of LEGO Fortnite Odyssey's largest ever updates — with a new world to explore, Ninjago weapons to master, and some very familiar faces.

Zane, Jay, Cole and Kai will all arrive in Fortnite, with the latter ninja part of the Ninjago LEGO Pass. All four characters will also get human-like (as in, not LEGO minifigure) versions for the first time, for use in Fortnite's non-LEGO modes.

Players will be able to master elemental abilities by travelling across the game's new Ninjago island and visiting Sanctums to earn ice, lightning and earth powers. It's the latest move away from traditional weapons seen in LEGO Fortnite, following the addition of class-based hero powers a few months ago.

Of course, that's not to say that ninja weapons won't also be included — the update will add nunchucks and shurikens too. And perhaps in good time, as well, since today's LEGO Fortnite trailer, above, also shows the arrival of a huge fire-breathing dragon boss.

Fortnite clearly has big plans for Ninjago, with a second major game update due in 2026 that is expected to also see the arrival of yet more characters, such as Nya, Master Wu, and Lloyd. Until then, this first drop of Ninjago arrives in-game in just a few days, on December 11.

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

If you're hoping to start 2026 off with some new movies to add to your physical media library, Tron: Ares is getting a 4K steelbook that's set to be released in the first full week of the year on January 6. If this movie shot to the top of your must-buy list for your collection after watching it in theaters, the steelbook is currently available to preorder alongside its 4K release and a Blu-ray at various retailers.

We've detailed where each of these versions can be purchased below, alongside information on its bonus features, of which there are quite a few. If you enjoyed the film, this looks like a worthy addition to a collection.

Preorder Tron: Ares 4K Steelbook

4K

• See at Amazon
• See at Walmart
• See at Target

Blu-ray

• See at Amazon
• See at Walmart
• See at Target

The steelbook for Tron: Ares is sure to be a vibrant standout on your shelves, as it features the film's neon red coloring all over the front, back, and inside cover, with splashes of neon blue on the front. This release also comes with a 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and digital copy of the film.

Tron: Ares 4K Steelbook Bonus Features

The 4K release of Tron: Ares comes with quite a few bonus features, including a variety of featurettes and deleted scenes. Have a look at the full breakdown of extras below:

• The Journey to Tron: Ares - Join cast and crew for an in-depth making-of look at Tron: Ares.
• Lightcycles On the Loose - Check out one of the most action-packed sequences in the film.
• The Artistry of Tron: Ares - Discover what drives the storytelling both in and out of the Grid.
• Cast Conversations - Sit with the cast as they reveal funny and memorable on-set experiences.
• The Legacy of Tron - Catch some easter eggs and cameos as Tron continues to leave its mark.
• Deleted Scenes

For fans of physical media, there's plenty more to look forward to alongside Tron: Ares as we enter into 2026. To get a better idea of what's to come over the next few months, check out our breakdown of upcoming 4K and Blu-ray release dates to plan ahead for future pick-ups.

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

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is the full name of Ubisoft's piratical remake that's had more leaks than a sunken ship.

The game's new title is now visible on the PEGI European ratings board website, which is about as official as it gets. (The game is rated 18 for violence and bad language.)

Additionally, there's a mention here that Black Flag Resynced will include the ability to make in-game purchases. It's still unknown how Resynced will plug into the franchise's existing Animus Hub, which lets you buy optional cosmetic content. Alternatively, this could potentially signify the ability to buy DLC further down the line. Is the game's memorable Freedom Cry add-on in line for a remake, too?

Today's development comes just a couple of weeks after the game's release date was reportedly spilled online. During Ubisoft's latest financial results the French publisher laid out a slate of upcoming games set to arrive before the end of its current financial year, on March 31, 2026.

The name of one of these games was left as "unannounced", though a subsequent report by Insider Gaming stated that this not-so-mysterious project was the new version of Black Flag, which is scheduled to arrive during the week of March 23, 2026.

Despite years of internal leaks, fan speculation and even hints from the original game's lead actor, Ubisoft still has yet to officially confirm its Black Flag remake exists. IGN has contacted the company again today, in case it has anything it wants to tease. Or, perhaps we'll hear more at The Game Awards later this week?

Bethesda has released The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on pretty much every platform since it came out in 2011, but now it’s found another: the Nintendo Switch 2.

Bethesda announced and shadowdropped Skyrim Anniversary Edition today, December 9, on Switch 2 just in time for the holidays. Check out how Skyrim looks on Switch 2 in the video below.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition includes the base game and the three official Expansions: Dawnguard; Dragonborn; and Hearthfire. Players on Switch 2 get experience enhanced resolution, improved load times, performance optimisation, Joy-Con 2 mouse support, motion controls, Amiibo support, and more versus the OG Switch version, taking advantage of the more powerful hardware.

What’s more, this edition offers exclusive Nintendo content from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, including the Master Sword, Hylian Shield, and Champion’s Tunic. You’ll also get hundreds of unique Creations Club items, with quests, weapons, armor, spells, dungeons, and more.

Bethesda is selling Skyrim for Switch 2 standalone for $59.99, but there’s a free upgrade for Skyrim Anniversary Edition owners on Switch. Owners of the Skyrim (base edition) on Switch can buy the Anniversary Upgrade for $19.99 to play on Switch and Switch 2.

Skyrim’s release on Switch 2 is sure to resurface all those jokes about Bethesda milking the life out of the game by releasing it on all the platforms under the sun. Skyrim has been ported and remastered so many times that it’s become one of the internet’s most enduring memes.

Bethesda is of course busy working on The Elder Scrolls 6, although development chief Todd Howard has indicated it is still some time away. In a recent interview, he teased that Bethesda could shadowdrop The Elder Scrolls 6, as it did with this year’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered and now Skyrim on Switch 2.

“I like to just announce stuff and release it,” Howard told GQ. “My perfect version — and I’m not saying this is going to happen — is that it's going to be a while and then, one day, the game will just appear.” The Oblivion Remastered shadowdrop was “a test run,” Howard teased. “It worked out well.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

LEGO has released one of the most highly anticipated sets of the year. It's called LEGO Icons: Star Trek U.S.S Enterprise, and it went live exclusively on the LEGO Store before quickly selling out. For over a week now, you couldn't order it; all you could do was request an email when it became available again.

Fellow builders, it's available again. Technically it's on backorder, which means you can buy it and it'll ship when more stock comes available. At the time of this writing, it will be available December 27 to anyone who orders it now, though that date may slip if a deluge of backorders come pouring in. The set costs a hefty $399.99, but it's gorgeous and well worth it for many LEGO and Star Trek: The Next Generation fans.

LEGO Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise

LEGO Star Trek Enterprise Minfigures

The set comes with nine minifigures from the show, and each one has a fitting accessory.

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard
• Commander William Rier
• Lieutenant Worf
• Lieutenant Commander Data
• Dr. Beverly Crusher
• Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge
• Counsellor Deanna Troi
• Bartender Guinan
• Wesley Crusher

Gifts With Purchase

Buy it now, and you'll receive LEGO Winter Gazebo as a free Gift With Purchase. The set is valued at $22.99, but comes free with purchases of $150 or more, today only.

If you managed to get your order in when the set first launched, you would have gotten an exclusive freebie: a Type-15 Shuttlepod, which came with an Ensign Ro Laren minifigure. Unfortunately, that limited-edition set also sold out.

Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.

Genndy Tartakovsky, the mastermind behind beloved animated hits like Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars (the first version!), is finally bringing back Primal, his amazing pre-prehistoric wonder about the Neanderthal Spear (Aaron LaPlante) and his faithful T-rex, Fang (Joel Valentine). While the Season 2 finale of the show back in 2022 saw the death of Spear (if a happy ending for Fang... eventually!), the show is now finally back for a third season. And incredibly, Spear is back as well.

But yes, he's still dead.

Tartakovsky was on hand at CCXP in São Paulo, Brazil, this past weekend to talk about what's next for Spear and the Primal universe. And along the way, he also filled in the crowd on the aborted ideas he had for the anthology series Season 3 was originally meant to morph into.

Primal Season 3: The Anthology Series That Could've Been

"For the third season, I thought, alright, well, we've got 20 episodes. We probably should be done," Tartakovsky told the CCXP crowd. "I hope everyone's seen it! We killed off Spear, and I wanted to make Primal an anthology show. Still, it says Primal, but then it would be 'Creation' or something, a different heading. So I started to draw, and the first idea was of this orange alien girl and a blue man. They were born, kind of like Adam and Eve, and they struggle and they fight different creatures. It kind of felt just not right."

Earlier in his presentation, Tartakovsky had explained that he believes in the "organic nature" of filmmaking, so when something feels right he just goes with it. "I've always kind of trusted my gut," he said.

"And so it wasn't working," he continued in reference to the orange girl and blue man. "And I'm like, 'Oh, maybe more alien, kind of insectoid things.' And that wasn't working. Then I had this idea about a cute creature who has to survive. I was like, 'That's kind of neat.' But then it felt very cute, and I don't know what makes this adult. So I had all these questions. And is it too far away from Primal, right? So you could see me developing it and I was kind of interested in it, and then it just didn't feel right. I didn't feel right about it."

The bottom line? The creator of Spear missed... Spear.

"And then I felt sad that Spear was gone," chuckled the animator. "And I was like, what did I do? I spent 20 episodes trying to get an audience and trying to have everybody love Spear and Fang. And then I ended it."

Until he didn't.

The Return of (Zombie) Spear

Tartakovsky pointed out that while we the audience may binge a show in a day, or even just watch it over the course of a few months, for him and his production team it's two years that's spent on each season. Ultimately it's a different experience for the creators, who spend so much time with these characters, and for the fans, for whom a season can come and go as quickly as a T-rex can snap an ape-man in half.

"So I realized, oh no, maybe I made a mistake. And I was like, what am I going to do?" said Tartakovsky. "And then it hit me. We're going to make Spear a zombie!"

The brainchild of Mike Pondsmith back in 1988 as a TTRPG, Cyberpunk as a property has exploded in the past decade, thanks in no small part to CD Projekt Red and 2020's release of their first-person RPG, Cyberpunk 2077. Now, five years and expansions, patches, and board games later, the world of Cyberpunk is trying its robotic hands in a brand new – and highly competitive – market with a fully fledged, and collectible, Cyberpunk: Trading Card Game.

IGN has had the opportunity to speak with the teams at WeirdCo and CD Projekt Red, who are working on the newly announced TCG, to get a better understanding of the designers at WeirdCo, how this partnership came to be, and even some goodies about the game itself. We've also got an exclusive first look at key card art from the Cyberpunk TCG (flip through the gallery below), featuring Cyberpunk 2077's Saburo and Yorinobu Arasaka, and their handy bodyguard, Goro Takemura.

WeirdCo, a new face in the world of TCGs, has been working in close partnership with CDPR themselves to devise this new card game, aiming to capture the tone and aesthetic of 2077 and the Edgerunners' Netflix anime, to deliver a game that doesn't just feel like another TCG just with a coat of Cyberpunk yellow overtop. One way the team is doing this is by working with high-profile artists, both internal to CDPR and the wider community, to deliver gorgeous card art featuring faces that will be familiar to anyone worth their wait in Chrome.

Speaking with Elliot Cook (WeirdCo President) and Luohan Wei (WeirdCo CEO), both co-founders of the business, I wanted to know how this new studio came about.

Elliot began, "WeirdCo was formed when Luohan and I met each other through our mutual mentor, Bill Mooney: a true legend in the digital gaming space. We immediately hit it off over our passion for building games that truly connect with their communities. Later, we formed WeirdCo to create games together — ones that authentically bring together and inspire people."

"CD Projekt Red has a similar goal, and when we saw this in each other we knew it would be a great partnership. What has been paramount, and the question we ask ourselves daily, is “how do we make a game that represents and celebrates every part of Cyberpunk — everywhere it has been and everywhere it is going?" That is the north star of our development."

With Cyberpunk being one of the biggest media properties right now, I was curious how a brand new group could tackle such a monster IP, but despite it being a new team, the group working on the Cyberpunk TCG has worked on other large IP card games you probably have heard of. "We at WeirdCo have direct experience working on some great card games" Elliot explains.

"Marvel Snap, Duel Masters, and Universus, to name a few. At our core we are disruptors, just like CD Projekt Red, and we both strive to inspire our players. We saw this in each other from the beginning, and I think CD Projekt Red saw our love for the Cyberpunk 2077 universe too. This is an IP that deserves to be explored in different and exciting ways, and we’re committed to doing this authentically with Cyberpunk TCG, side by side with the community."

On the topic of CD Projekt Red, they have been a constant ally during the game’s design and development. Elliot provides further details, "We have worked with CD Projekt Red very closely since the beginning of development. They have been the ideal partner; you may even see the same amazing artists who worked on Cyberpunk 2077, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and more as featured artists in Cyberpunk TCG! Every part of the TCG has the impeccable RED touch, ensuring this is a completely authentic Cyberpunk experience."

The Cyberpunk TCG won’t be CDPR’s first collaboration in the tabletop space, with other titles like Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City and Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Combat Zone Board Game, but I was curious what unique joys or challenges came from working on a TCG, so I asked Patrick Mills, CDPR’s Franchise Content Strategy Lead.

"Every collaboration is unique, and we’re lucky to work with many partners who are passionate and extremely dedicated to their crafts. While making a physical TCG is something completely new for us, we see the genuine excitement, enthusiasm, and talent in WeirdCo that act as the foundation of any successful collaboration."

"Their passion for the franchise has been evident at every stage, and they’re doing an incredible job developing an engaging TCG that ensures an authentic Cyberpunk experience. On the flip side, many of us at CD Projekt Red are huge TCG enthusiasts too — so we’re thrilled to be entering this space with WeirdCo"

One thing that is clear is that both teams at WeirdCo and CDPR are taking care to ensure that this is faithful to the Cyberpunk property that its creator, Mike Pondsmith, imagined back in 1988.

"We want Cyberpunk TCG to be authentic to the spirit and dynamic nature of the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, and wanted to create a TCG that is accessible to Cyberpunk fans who have never touched a card game.” Luohan says, “At the same time, as TCG players ourselves, we wanted our game to have the depth necessary to entertain for a long, long time. And I think we have struck that balance well."

Elliot continues, "The best part of this job is spending hundreds of hours with the Cyberpunk universe — whether that’s replaying Cyberpunk 2077, watching Edgerunners for the fifth time, or reading all the Dark Horse comics. Every one of us at WeirdCo loves the Cyberpunk universe, and we built the TCG bit by bit on this foundation. At each step we analyzed every little detail, constantly asking ourselves: "How do we make this more authentic to Cyberpunk?"

Many fan favorite characters will be making an appearance as well in this TCG and picking who would be included in this first set was a big decision. "For the initial release, our primary goal is to represent the core identity of Cyberpunk 2077 by featuring many of its most iconic and beloved characters,” explains Patrick. “We’ve collaborated closely with WeirdCo to ensure that the artwork and flavor of every card faithfully captures the essence of who they represent, providing a snapshot of their personalities and what they stand for, as well as including memorable moments players will instantly recognize. Given the complexity of our characters, we wanted to capture their many facets across multiple cards. So, players can look forward to collecting an array of unique variants of characters including V, Johnny, Panam, Judy, Adam Smasher, and more."

On the WeirdCo side, Elliot shares, "We worked very hard to figure out which Legends make the most sense for players, and which ones make the most sense for the overall theme of Set 1. While some of them, like V and Johnny, are obvious hits, we have a few surprises up our sleeves too."

Being a game composed of a ton of cards, artwork is pretty important in a TCG and WeirdCo is special care to make sure that what players can expect is nothing short of beautiful.

"We’ve been working for a long time with a team of over 20 talented artists for Set 1, and are excited to explore new ways of bringing the world of Cyberpunk to life through our card art. Working with artists like Ito, Vincenzo Riccardi, and Joshua Raphael, who each bring their own unique flair to the project, makes each card more exciting than the last," Elliot continues, "We’re not sharing gameplay details yet, so there’s not too much I can say. But Cyberpunk is known for its beautiful yet tragic atmosphere — this is a major focus of ours when it comes to the card art."

Details on how Cyberpunk TCG will work remain shrouded behind CDPR's and WeirdCo's firewalls, so we have a bit yet before we have an in-depth picture of how it plays. Cyberpunk's TCG will be launching its crowdfunding campaign in 2026, which is right around the corner. WeirdCo and CDPR will be revealing more of the game soon, along with a deep dive into how the game plays, more artwork, and card reveals, with some more special reveals found only here on IGN.

The TCG space is pretty crowded with new contenders entering the ring, it seems like every quarter or so, but few have the name recognition behind them like WeirdCo has with Cyberpunk. The fact that this project has so much support from CD Projekt Red behind it puts it in a different league from others, even before it's out.

The excitement from the designers is electric, with Luohan leaving players with this, “I can’t wait for players to see how we’ve adapted the themes of Cyberpunk, like taking on gigs or building a crew, to a trading card game format. I think it is both true to Cyberpunk itself while being innovative to the TCG market as a whole; it’s a perfect combination in this way.” As far as I know, no other TCG lets you play with Keanu Reeves, so that is already a big plus in its favor. Wake up, Samurai, there's a whole new way to burn the city coming.

If this sounds up your alley, follow the game and get yourself a special and exclusive Lucy "Nova Rare" card free by signing up over on the game's Launch Oracle page.

Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.

This article features contributions from Robert Anderson, Senior Commerce Editor for IGN.

Dhurandhar is out in U.S. theaters nationwide now.

Exciting and repulsive, Aditya Dhar’s star-studded gangster epic Dhurandhar (“Stalwart”) is the latest in Bollywood’s recent wave of jingoistic action films skirting the line of Islamophobic propaganda. Yet it stands apart from its peers by being not just adequate, but at times brilliant – perhaps that’s what makes it dangerous – resulting in a three-and-a-half hour spy odyssey with enough blood, torture, and butchered limbs to put a Saw movie to shame. It’s ugly and enthralling in equal measure.

Touting itself as “inspired by incredible true events” (a claim that stretches credulity), Dhurandhar follows an Indian military operative who goes deep undercover in Pakistan in the mid-2000s, adopting the name Hamza Ali Mazari (a stoic, lion-maned Ranveer Singh). Working his way up from a juice stall through Karachi’s communal politics, he embeds himself within a local mafia network with ties to both national parties and international terrorism, transforming this espionage saga into one of vicious, bone-crunching action, and complicated emotional loyalties. On the flipside, this grand character opera leaves very little room for actual spycraft. Boo! Hiss!

As the years go by, Hamza grows more attached to his targets. However, it soon becomes clear – to the audience, if not to the conflicted anti-hero – that his cohorts are setting the stage for a real-world 2008 terror attack in Mumbai. Until now, these events have never been the subject of a remotely competent feature, whether it was Bollywood’s cartoonish The Attacks of 26/11 (2013), the French-Belgian snooze Taj Mahal (2015), or Hollywood’s sensationalistic Hotel Mumbai (2019). Dhurandhar might technically change that, though it invents some pretty tall tales of its own in the process.

However, its adjacency to reality also makes Dhurandhar a thorny prospect. Many of its characters are real people, like Akshaye Khanna’s intense Rehman Dakait, a Karachi gangster and family man who takes Hamza under his wing, and Sanjay Dutt’s Chaudhary Aslam, a revered Pakistani police officer taking on gangs and terror cells (portrayed here as a corrupt opportunist). Others are closely based on real people, like Arjun Rampal’s magnetic military operative Major Iqbal (based on real terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri) and R. Madhavan’s stern spymaster Ajay Sanyal, who sends Hamza on his way from India, and bears intentional resemblance to the country’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval. Hamza, however, has no known real-world equivalent; some connections have been rumored, but subsequently denied.

This makes the movie’s premise, and its invocation of archival footage and phone recordings from various terror attacks, dubious at best. There are times when it plays like an evil twin to The Voice of Hind Rajab, the recent Venice drama that uses real phone calls to dramatize the IDF killing of a Palestinian child. By repeatedly yanking reality into its fictitious purview, Dhurandhar attempts to stir up the volatile emotions currently engulfing India’s political milieu when it comes to tensions with Pakistan, and its continued antagonization of Indian Muslims. Early lines of dialogue position Sanyal’s negotiations with terrorist hijackers as a battle to maintain a Hindu-centric national unity under attack from Islamic invaders. Similarly, key emotional beats see Hamza not only chancing upon known terrorists mid-call to prayer, but later, recalling their proclamations of “Allahu Akbar” when he’s beaten down, their Muslim-ness fueling his hatred and bringing him back to his feet like an Islamophobic Rocky. You’re unlikely to see another December release with such hostile nihilism coursing through its veins. Even its lone hint of optimism is secretly cynical – Sanyal’s anticipation of a more stringent anti-corruption government, which is practically a campaign banner for India’s current strongman Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, the BJP, who would come to power in the years following the film’s events.

Still, Dhar’s commitment to craft is as undeniable as his capitulating to Hindutva politics. Hamza, although a reactionary revenge fantasy, is an alluring centerpiece in what turns out to be a mile-a-minute thriller in which he ping-pongs between major political players in an effort to rise through the ranks. As Hamza navigates Lyari, a Karachi neighborhood beset by ethnic tensions, the otherwise highly-animated Singh shows uncharacteristic emotional restraint, but moves through scenes with muscular momentum. He observes and schemes (and smolders) in plain sight en route to ferocious explosions while developing a genuine camaraderie with his mobster marks, and eventually, a predatory romance with Yalina (Sara Arjun), the much younger daughter of a political rival.

Another distinction between Dhurandhar and other works of its ilk, like Dhar’s own Zero Dark Thirty-esque Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), is that Hamza isn’t an unequivocal hero. He’s framed as a manipulative scumbag through and through, thanks in part to the way Dakait’s gang is humanized right down to the most minor henchmen, who are all pretty fun to be around. This ensures that Hamza’s eventual turn against them feels halfway between righteous vengeance and heinous betrayal. Khanna, a romantic lead from several decades ago, is especially charismatic as a father first and foremost, and an urban militant second; it’s a career-best role. The film is so dramatically fine-tuned that even when it ends on a cliffhanger, falling victim to the duology disease infecting both Indian and American blockbusters (Part 2 arrives March 19th), the result is less exasperation and more eager anticipation, with adrenaline that carries even through its mid-credits teaser.

Buoyed by contemporary Indian and Arabic hip-hop and upbeat remixes of Bollywood classics, Dhurandhar not only sees Dhar tap into his signature brutality, but allows him to imbue it with delirious exuberance born from repugnant moral impulses. If you can stomach the cognitive dissonance, it might be worth your while. People get stabbed, riddled with bullets, pressure-cooked, blown to bits, strung by meat-hooks, de-limbed, decapitated, dragged through the streets by motorcycle, have their skulls caved in, and meet pretty much every grisly outcome you can imagine, as cinematographer Vikash Nowlakha’s camera captures the mayhem at lightspeed, and editor Shivkumar V. Panicker cross-cuts between high melodrama and grounded barbarism as though they were sides to a rapidly spinning coin. The movie’s cool blue hues give it the appearance of perpetual twilight, as though the sun were constantly setting on Hamza, forcing him to shed his personal ethics in favor of a more abstract, nationalistic morality that permits any kind of violence or transgression if it translates into jaw-dropping, stylized action. It’s disturbingly good…in every sense of the phrase.

It’s kind of insane that I never realized how perfectly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would work as a VR game. VR action games famously feature loads of jumping and climbing, which our turt bros do a whole bunch of on Manhattan rooftops. Sneaking around to do melee combat, and having to learn how to parry and dodge incoming attacks is also something the reptilian heroes are known for that has been done well in many VR games. And because these heroes in a half-shell appear most commonly as cartoons, you don’t have to worry about shooting for photorealistic graphics and the technical VR bottlenecks that sometimes come with it. In other words, why in the heck did it take us so long to get this pizza-powered quartet into a VR game? No matter the reason, I’m glad it’s finally happening with TMNT: Empire City, and the 15-minute demo I played was enough to sell me on this tubular action-adventure.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City is exactly the kind of action game you’d expect from the titular masked heroes. I spent my time fighting members of the Foot Clan as each member of the TMNT crew (including their iconic weapons of choice, like Leonardo’s katanas and Donatello’s bo staff), running and jumping across city skylines in pursuit of justice, and hanging out back in my sewer base and eating pizza. Doing all of that in VR is exactly as fun as it sounds (meaning, it’s super fun!), and it’s especially amusing to look down at your turtle body and remember, “Oh, yeah. I’m an anthropomorphic mutated reptile.”

Unfortunately, the section I played was limited entirely to the tutorial, so I was mostly just learning the ropes, like how to hack into electronic devices as Donatello (since he does machines) or how to perform parries on those pesky Shredder-following Foot Clan. The fundamentals were definitely strong, as I was grinning ear-to-ear pretty much the whole time, but I’ll be curious to see if Empire City can build on that to keep it interesting across an entire campaign. For example, I only got to fight one boss at the very end of this introductory mission, and it lasted all of – I kid you not – five seconds as I dodged her opening attack and then whaled on her until she tapped out. Obviously this fight was also a part of the tutorial, so it’s hard to tell if things will get more challenging, but here’s hoping.

Building a Better Turtle

Something that would seem to indicate a deeper level of challenge is the fact that back at the base there’s a whole menu of upgrades to deal with. None of these were unlockable in the build I played from what I could tell, but it reminded me a bit of the upgrade system in Half-Life: Alyx, where you’re collecting parts throughout levels, then funnel it all into a machine to craft certain upgrades for your character. It’s also just great to see them using Donatello’s propensity for crafting gadgets brought to life via all the junk he stuffs in his pocket along the way, which his brothers made fun of him for doing, of course.

Which leads me to one of my favorite parts of the demo: how perfectly Ninja Turtles it was! The banter between the brothers and their recognizable idiosyncrasies left me smiling, whether it was Leonardo’s tendency to be way too serious all the time, Michelangelo’s wise cracks, or Raphael’s intensity and impatience. The unique weapon aside, I never forgot which of the brothers I was because Empire City did such a good job or reminding me with its banter that was completely on point with the surprisingly good writing for which the series is known. I could easily imagine a world where this thing felt like a reskinned ninja game that felt completely generic, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Huge relief.

They also do a really good job capturing the comic book/Saturday morning cartoon art style, with environments that look cel-shaded and goofy voice performances that are over-the-top and amusing. Sure, lots of the textures are fairly undetailed, but that works pretty perfectly with the straight-from-a-comicbook vibe that this game is clearly shooting for. I could easily see myself spending a lot of time just hanging out in this world, exploring and fighting alongside friends. Which reminds me: will there be skateboarding in this? Why haven’t they let me skateboard yet?!

(Multi-)Turtle Power?

One pretty huge thing I didn’t get to see in action is how this will all work in four-player co-op. I can only imagine how much of a blast it’s going to be to roll through with the full shell squad smacking enemies around, but the section of the demo I played felt pretty designed for a single player and it’s a bit difficult to imagine how this kind of gameplay might scale up for four-player bouts. Presumably there’d need to be many more enemies and fewer linear paths than the ones I crept through to make it work. Also, I can only imagine how silly it’ll look to have teammates running around as big ol’ green cartoon characters while swinging around nunchucks.

I’ll still need to see a fair bit more of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Empire City before I can speak definitively on it, but so far I’m pretty stoked by the potential here and am absolutely flabbergasted that it took us this long to get a first-person TMNT game.

A day after GameStop celebrated its Trade Anything Day event, the retailer's staff have shared their experiences of handling everything customers brought in — including numerous items deliberately designed to shock or gross out employees at the cash register.

Yesterday, GameStop shared a bizarre list of items it proudly said it had accepted in exchange for store credit, including a taxidermied bobcat, a painting of someone's dog with hair like Snoop Dogg, and a physical Netflix disc for the Nintendo Wii.

But, it turns out, the list of items GameStop couldn't accept was even weirder — and staff have now recounted how they had to deal with customers looking to cause trouble or go viral on social media by filming their store visits, all while carting a range of dubious items in tow.

Numerous examples have been posted to TikTok and X showing encounters between customers and tired-looking GameStop staff as they are presented with objects clearly designed to cause them discomfort.

One such interaction sees a female employee get told they have "something big" for her, before the customer hands over a small potrait with the words "I Love Epstein" on it, complete with a photo of President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein together. "I want at least $5 million," the customer states, as the employee responds that she's unsure what to do with it.

Another example sees a customer bring in a Sonic the Hedgehog plushie, which a GameStop employee then begins the trade-in process for. "It's hard to give up, I use him every night," the customer states. It's eventually revealed that the Sonic plushie has a Fleshlight inserted in its bottom.

@special_kram power to the players #gamestop ♬ original sound - Special_Kram

"Had someone come to the store and they full on slapped it on the table," yet another GameStop employee wrote on reddit, recalling an incident where a man had brought in a dildo. The man was told to leave, though the incident escalated to the point where the employee said they were now worried they were in trouble with their regional manager.

"There were a lot of kids in the store and so I got upset and kicked him out," the employee continued. "I don't care if I get let go at this point. How tf is this man going to defend a dude for bringing a literal dildo into the store?"

Many employees have suggested that GameStop management clearly encouraged this behavior by designing a deliberately jokey promotion that prompted customers to push the boundaries of what was acceptable to trade-in.

Others called out the chain's decision to play loud sound effects and background noise throughout the day, annoying both customers and staff alike. "To the corporate geniuses who had the frequently sped up voice sound effect, alarms, and klaxon noise on GameStop TV for Trade Anything Day," wrote one employee, "I hope you all stubs your toes so hard. I had to work 11 hours today and it was horrible hearing this crap in the background while trying to process four dozen trade-in games."

Amid all the awful experiences, there were some more positive interactions. GameStop has said that some customers brought in "canned food donations for local food banks and pet shelters." Another employee said a customer traded in a box of donuts for store staff to enjoy. Still, with the likelihood that Trade Anything Day will now be repeated, there remains concern among many staff about what may be brought in next time.

Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.

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

A major investor in Final Fantasy maker Square Enix has published a 100-page document criticizing the company's performance and calling for a "fundamental reassessment" of its business, citing perceived "sluggish" revenue and profits.

In a press statement, 3D Investment Partners — Square Enix's third-largest investor, holding around a 14% stake — claims there has been a "significant deterioration in earning power" despite the company owning some of the world's biggest franchises and being a "preeminent Japanese game developer."

"What Square Enix once brought to life was a 'culture' that shaped an era, and an 'industry' that fascinated the world. Is Square Enix really giving birth to something genuinely new, or has Square Enix turned away from the challenges before it and let its steps falter?" the document asks, imploring that the firm "surprises us, moves us, and ignites that passion we once felt," as "gamers across the globe have been waiting, endlessly, for that irreplaceable experience.

"However, under the newly established management structure, the past three years have been marked by a pronounced stagnation in both revenue growth and profitability, with a significant deterioration in earning power, as evidenced by declines in operating income, return on equity, and other key performance metrics."

Calling this "the most critical management challenge" currently faced by the Japanese company, 3D1P calls for the firm to "devise and rigorously implement concrete countermeasures addressing critical management issues," including the "excessive fragmentation of the development portfolio, product design, and promotional strategies that have led to declining tie ratios, and inflated expenditures such as development costs."

"We respectfully urge a fundamental reassessment of the medium-term management plan, with the objective of fully unlocking the potential of Square Enix's distinguished intellectual property and thereby maximizing corporate value."

After directly comparing Square Enix with Japanese competitors like Capcom, Sega, Konami, Bandai Namco, and Nintendo — and cherry-picking "harsh" responses from Metacritic of both new and established IP — the investment firm revealed that it had been "engaged in ongoing dialogue" with Square Enix since last summer.

"Since July 2024, we have been engaged in ongoing dialogue with SQEX HD. In October 2025, we explained to President Kiryu and Outside Director Abdullah the management issues of SQEX HD as seen from the market. We also presented to President Kiryu our proposals.

"However, in response to this request, President Kiryu replied only with a brief email stating, without addressing any of the specific management issues or solutions we had raised, and without providing any concrete explanation of his reasoning."

3D Investment Partners is now sharing its views on the perceived management issues "with all shareholders" to "collect [their] frank views, and, based on the views we receive, engage in constructive dialogue with SQEX HD to enhance its corporate value again."

IGN has asked Square Enix for comment.

Former Square Enix exec and CEO of Genvid, Jacob Navok — the same exec that recently claimed "Gen Z loves AI slop" — also weighed in, saying that the presentation from 3DIP essentially has two themes: "sales are bad" and "dev costs are high."

"These are the same issues I addressed in 2024 when discussing the problems with Square Enix's sales for FF16 expectations for sales were set correctly," he added. "They were not met because Square Enix sales were poor, and the game cost too much to make."

The very public complaint comes just weeks after Square Enix announced mass layoffs, impacting over 100 individuals, alongside a broader effort to consolidate its publishing organization and focus its development work in Japan. It had also already sold Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, Square Enix Montreal, and a number of associated IPs to Embracer Group, and laid off workers across its western operations in 2024.

Square Enix also expects 70% of its QA work to be handled by generative AI by the end of 2027. The company has stated in the past that it intends to be "aggressive in applying AI" across both development and publishing.

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.

The first official The Boys video game is a virtual reality exclusive for Meta Quest 3 and PlayStation VR2.

Sony Pictures Virtual Reality and developer Arvore announced their collaboration for The Boys: Trigger Warning, which is due out spring 2026 priced $23.99. It’s described as a stealth-action VR game that puts players “on the front lines of the war against Supes.” The debut trailer is below.

You play an original character who accidentally uncovers a “grotesque Vought secret that turns a family outing into carnage.” You’re then forced to become a Supe, and join forces with The Boys to infiltrate Vought and “take revenge in the most chaotic way possible.”

There are a number of familiar characters in the game, and cast members from the hit Prime Video show reprise their roles. Expect to see Laz Alonso as Mother’s Milk, Colby Minifie as Ashley Barrett, as and P.J. Byrne as Adam Bourke. Jensen Ackles also appears as a “twisted interpretation” of Soldier Boy, created exclusively for the game.

In the trailer we also see Homelander and Billy Butcher, although there’s no word on whether Antony Starr or Karl Urban reprise their roles.

Arvore is the developer behind the likes of The Line, YUKI, and the Pixel Ripped series — including Pixel Ripped 1989, Pixel Ripped 1995, and Pixel Ripped 1978.

“From day one, we wanted to build an adaptation hand-in-hand with the people who defined this universe," said Ricardo Justus, founder and head of studio at Arvore. “Working with the show's writers and cast allowed us to bring the edge, humor, and brutality that made the series iconic, delivered with the spark of magic only Arvore can create.”

The spring release window for Trigger Warning means the video game launches around the same time as Season 5 of the show, which has an April 8 release date. The Boys fifth and final season starts with two episodes, followed by a new episode each week, with the series finale coming out on May 20.

Here’s the official blurb on The Boys Season 5:

In the fifth and final season, it’s Homelander’s world, completely subject to his erratic, egomaniacal whims. Hughie, Mother’s Milk, and Frenchie are imprisoned in a “Freedom Camp.” Annie struggles to mount a resistance against the overwhelming Supe force. Kimiko is nowhere to be found. But when Butcher reappears, ready and willing to use a virus that will wipe all Supes off the map, he sets in motion a chain of events that will forever change the world and everyone in it. It’s the climax, people. Big stuff’s gonna happen.

There's more to come from The Boys universe after Season 5 ends, of course. While Gen V Season 3 remains up in the air, prequel spinoff, Vought Rising, is confirmed. Vought Rising is said to explore the early days of The Boys’ nefarious mega corporation, Vought International. And then there's The Boys: Mexico, executive produced by Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal and written by Blue Beetle scribe Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

At long last, Leon S. Kennedy has been confirmed to appear in Resident Evil: Requiem — via a leaked image on the PlayStation Store.

The reveal of new cover art for the game featuring Leon finally puts to bed one of this year's biggest gaming mysteries — something developer Capcom has itself refused to address — just days ahead of Requiem's appearance at The Game Awards. Presumably we'll see Leon announced officially there.

This morning, Resident Evil fans began spotting the new cover art appearing on PlayStation 5 consoles in the pre-download screen for owners of the standard (non-Deluxe) version of the game. IGN has now verified this ourselves, and can confirm the image is legitimate. Leon is real.

Thieves keen to steal Pokémon cards have struck again in Southern California, turning over a Burbank store and taking more than $100,000 of stock.

The robbery is just the latest in a string of similar incidents across the region, KTLA5 reports, where three masked figures were seen raiding card shops and escaping within minutes.

LA Sports Cards' Burbank shop was hit last week, on December 2, in a high-speed theft that was over in just three minutes. During that time, the thieves crowbarred open the outlet's door and made multiple trips to a waiting vehicle, all while carrying armfuls of Pokémon merchandise.

NEW: Burglars ransack card shop and steal $100,000 worth of rare Pokémon and sports cards

The owner believes the thieves knew exactly where the merchandise was and planned the job ahead of time

They got away with about $100,000 in merchandise

Police believe the same crew may… pic.twitter.com/zMIurJ86U9

— Unlimited L's (@unlimited_ls) December 6, 2025

"[For the] vast majority, they were targeting Pokémon cards," store owner Kiet Nguyen said. "They did take some locked boxes from the back that had sports cards... They were targeting liquid assets, Pokémon is so easy to sell these days that sealed product, everyone has it. So it wouldn't raise any suspicion if someone was to sell it, it's available everywhere."

Alongside new Pokémon decks and collectible sets, the thieves also got away with a handful of rare sports items including a signed Ronaldo card. But it's clear that Pokémon cards were the key draw — with suggestion that this gang has struck several times before.

"It seemed like they had it down pat," Nguyen continued. "They knew what they were doing... We thought this was a very safe, secure, very busy street. We had preventive measures in place, we thought the deterrance was good enough."

KTLA5 stated that the group were now suspected to be behind "half a dozen" similar store raids within Southern California in recent weeks — during which, one of the trio had his face partially caught on CCTV. Police have appealed for anyone with further information to contact the Burbank Police Department on 818-238-3000.

This recent spate of thefts is just the latest example of how Pokémon cards are now considered high-value goods by thieves. In December 2024, it was reported that Japanese crime syndicates were now using Pokémon cards to launder money. And in the US, this is just the latest incident similar to many others over the past 12 months. Until Pokémon's popularity fades — and there's no sign it'll do that anytime soon, with a big new wave of games expected next year — it seems likely this will continue.

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

Final Fantasy's Cloud has one of the most recognizable weapons in gaming history, but the Final Fantasy 7 Remake team actually considered resizing his iconic Buster Sword to make it more realistic before deciding to stick with the original design.

In a new interview alongside Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 director Guillaume Broche, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi opened up about the decision, admitting that while rescaling Cloud's sword did come up, "it was just too iconic" to change.

"While making Remake, there was this aspect of the weight and how Cloud swings it around with one hand that sort of felt like it would weaken the sense of realism, you know?" Hamaguchi said, according to a translation by a Final Fantasy fan account on X/Twitter (thanks, GR+).

"So at the time, when we were making Remake, there was some discussion about whether we should give Cloud a more realistic version of the Buster Sword," Hamaguchi added. "But it was just too iconic, and if we'd made it just a regular old sword, players wouldn't accept it."

He closed, stressing: "In the end we stayed faithful to the OG. A whole new generation of people fell in love with it, so I think it was the right call."

As for the latest on Final Fantasy Remake Part 3? Well, in the same interview, Hamaguchi teased that the "core game experience is almost complete," and while he "really want[s] everyone to play it as soon as possible," the team has now moved on to "refining and polishing."

Curiously, he also warned the team "never intended to make all three parts feel like the same game."

"As the director, I feel a very strong sense of the game’s final form," the director said. "Honestly, I really want everyone to play it as soon as possible, but of course, since it’s a game, it needs to be carefully crafted before it can be delivered to players.

"Once we go through this phase properly, we’ll be able to present it in a form we’re satisfied with. So I ask everyone to wait just a little longer, and we’ll be able to share more information soon."

Interestingly, he also teased that "Highwind" will be an important keyword for the third instalment. "As for the third part, introducing new gameplay experiences and a new scale is key to successfully delivering the project to players. 'Highwind' is certainly an important keyword here, there's no doubt about that," he teased.

Meanwhile, Briana White, the actress who portrays Aerith in Final Fantasy 7, has called on fans to stop tagging voice artists in spicy material featuring their characters.

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.

Pokémon Go now finally lets players trade creatures from afar — a feature that fans have wanted for almost a decade.

Since Pokémon Go launched in 2016, the game has been hesitant to allow gameplay that does not encourage players to meet up in person. Remote raiding was only added to the game during the era of Covid lockdowns, and trading has remained locked within a small location radius — until now.

Remote trading will still require some work to unlock, with the feature available when in-game friends hit a fresh, fifth interaction tier — Forever Friends — that will require a couple of months more levelling beyond Best Friends (though this can be heavily reduced by completing Weekly Challenges).

Once Forever Friends, you'll get to make a Remote Trade — and there's a clever system for selecting three creatures you'd be happy to swap, while picking one from your friends' selection. Only when both parties are happy with the matchup will the trade take place.

Subsequent Remote Trades will then require a similar wait to unlock again, but this length of time is not terrible — it will give more of a chance to roll the Lucky Friends status, and for many, Remote Trading will be most useful for existing Lucky Friends in other countries who have been sat with that status in place for years. Another positive change includes a major increase in friend list size, from 450 to 650.

"Hot damn!" wrote Plus-Pomegranate8045 on Pokémon Go reddit TheSilphRoad. "Huge shout out to whoever it was at Niantic/Scopely that got this pushed through."

"Finally, I can trade with the guy ive been lucky friends with for 4 years," added another fan, Abject-Sector-2167. "He lives on the other side of the globe."

Of course, not everyone is happy. "Welp, that's just ruined the point of regionals," wrote HappyTimeHollis. "This sucks."

Months of datamines have suggested that Remote Trading has been in the works for some time, and initially fans had expected more of a system that required payment via in-game currency to use the feature. Its arrival now, as simply another part of free gameplay, has been greeted warmly. Though, of course, there remains the possibility that some new mechanic might be introduced in future to speed the process up.

For now, though, the announcement of Remote Trading is being received positively. Levelling up to Forever Friends is now live for the game's loyal audience in New Zealand, where new features are regularly tested first, before it is rolled out more widely.

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

There’s been a lot of chatter in the seven weeks since Adam Driver dropped a bombshell to the Associated Press that he’d spent the last few years developing The Hunt for Ben Solo. The Lucasfilm-approved but Bob Iger-nixed direct follow-up to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was confirmed by attached director Steven Soderbergh, and on multiple occasions the fanbase has hired planes to do fly-overs of the Walt Disney Studio lot in Burbank to rally support.

Up to now, one voice that hasn’t weighed in yet is actress Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey in the latest Star Wars trilogy. She’s also been in Star Wars feature development limbo since her character film was announced at Star Wars Celebration 2023. But I recently spoke to Ridley for her upcoming zombie drama, We Bury the Dead (in theaters January 2, 2026) and asked whether she knew about The Hunt for Ben Solo, which the fandom has surmised would include her character in come capacity due to Ben Solo and Rey’s dyad status.

“I knew a piece of it. I heard rumblings,” Ridley shared of her reaction to Driver’s news. “I have lots of friends who are crew, so things always travel like that. But, whoa! When the story came out, no, I was like, 'Oh, my God!' And it was him that said it, right?”

“Him” being Driver, who is notoriously quiet about all things outside of formal press junkets. She continued, “It was funny because, like, 'Oh, wow, Adam is saying it,' and that's the big surprise of the year,” she laughed.

With Star Wars fan discourse, especially about the sequels, always divisive, Ridley said witnessing the outsized reaction has been heartening.

“I do love when there is a collective of positivity,” she said about the consensus of everyone who seems to want The Hunt for Ben Solo to happen. “The way the internet seems to have rallied to try and get it to happen. I think one), it's fantastic for us all. It's good for us to all be united about something in a really positive way. Obviously, everyone knows he was a very popular character, but it was also lovely to think, 'Wow, people really, really care and want this.' I just... I like it. I like when people join forces — excuse the pun — from all around the world, all different sorts of people. I just love that the Star Wars fandom is such a huge and gorgeous array of different points of view and different people, and the fact that everyone is really behind this thing, I think, is just sort of lovely, in a time that is so f***ing nuts for probably every single person on this Earth. I think it's wonderful. So I was surprised, and honestly, I felt joyful about how it went down.”

Asked if it’s galvanized her to push harder for her Rey film, or if she’s learned to be patient with all things Star Wars, Ridley said she has trust in everyone still developing it and that it will be “worth the wait.”

“Honestly, there are scripts that I read five years ago, and now I've gone, 'Oh, maybe they will actually happen,’” she said of many non-Star Wars projects she’s been attached to, including We Bury the Dead. “I think over the years, I've learned how the reality of getting any film made is so massive. The hurdles are vast… But with this particularly, I know that incredible voices and creatives are part of it, and I know the wait will be worth it.”

In the short term, Jon Favreau's The Mandalorian & Grogu movie comes out May 2026, then Shawn Levy's Star Wars: Starfighter releases May 2027. TV show wise, Ahsoka Season 2 is in development but without a release date.

Ridley's Rey film, assuming it actually gets made, takes place roughly 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker as she looks to rebuild the Jedi Order.

Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images.

Tara Bennett is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering film and television. She has over 20 years of experience covering the film and television industries with bylines at SFX Magazine, Paste Magazine, and SYFY WIRE. She is a New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 official movie and TV companion books including The Art of Avatar: The Way of Water and The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Find @TaraDBennett on Twitter.

Nintendo has released its latest system software update for the Switch and Switch 2, bringing both consoles' firmware up to Version 21.1.0.

Today's patch is a minor one — at least, according to the official patch notes. Still, it's interesting to note that it has arrived just two weeks after the last update, Version 21.0.1, which fixed a number of system transfer and Bluetooth accessory bugs.

This patch, on the surface at least, looks to change less. But then why does it have a bigger change in version number? For now, the usual datamining sources are yet to discover what else may have been updated behind the scenes, but we'll keep an eye and update if more is discovered.

A month ago, Nintendo's last major update to its console firmware was also widely criticized for appearing to break compatibility with a range of third-party Switch 2 docks. In a statement to IGN on the issue, Nintendo claimed it had no "intention to hinder or invalidate legal third-party dock compatibility."

Today's update also arrives a week after the launch of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, the long-awaited next entry in Nintendo's classic first-person shooter series, and the company's last big game launch of 2025. The title arrived to a solid, if not spectacular response. "Not all of Prime 4’s additions work, but this is still an excellent comeback," IGN wrote in our Metroid Prime 4: Beyond review, scoring the game 8/10.

Nintendo's full patch notes for today's minor update lie below:

Switch Update Version 21.1.0 (Released December 8, 2025)

• General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience.

Switch 2 Update Version 21.1.0 (Released December 8, 2025)

• General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience.

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

Sorry, puzzle geeks. Don't expect a Blue Prince 2 any time soon. Or, ever, really.

That's what we learned from speaking with Blue Prince creator Tonda Ros last month. We asked him loads of questions and you can read our full interview right here, but one big mystery we wanted to clear up was if he'd ever make a sequel to Blue Prince. And, no, he won't. No sequel to Blue Prince, nor to any other game he makes in the future.

But he is going to make something else.

"I can say I will never make a sequel to my work because I love creating something standalone and then going on to something completely different," he said. "It will likely not even be in the same exact genres. I will probably be mixing it up. You'll start to see overlap. You'll start to see overlaps with some of my interests. So it will be familiar, and hopefully I'll inadvertently have things that really worked with Blue Prince that I'll carry on in terms of at least technicals. But yeah, we'll see. I'm hesitant to do another 3D game because for my first game, 3D was so difficult. I really wish I did a 2D game. I probably could have done it in five years instead of eight. But yeah, I think it'll be something totally different."

This might be disappointing to hear for Blue Prince fans, especially for those still mulling over the game's remaining unsolved mysteries and wishing there was some sort of answer to them. It also sounds like, from our interview, he won't be doing any more major content updates to Blue Prince after the upcoming so-called "final update." "I do love complete games," he said. "And I do love when something is definitively done. So I had tried my best to get everything into the game at launch because that was something I just really wanted. I didn't want to eternally be updating this."

Whatever it is Ros is working on next, it will be a while before we see it. He says he still expects to be working on Blue Prince in small ways for the next year, finishing the final update, bug fixes, and such. And given that Blue Prince took about eight years to create, he'll need a lot more time on top of that to create something brand new. At least Blue Prince fans have already completed a serious exercise in patience by finishing the game at all.

You can read our full interview with Ros here, and check out our review where we gave Blue Prince a 9/10. As our reviewer wrote: "If The Witness, Portal, and Myst are already emblazoned on the Mount Rushmore of first-person puzzle games, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Blue Prince carved alongside them soon enough."

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

Tonda Ros, the creator of Blue Prince, is nearing the end of a triumphant year. His game released to critical acclaim and, more recently, accolades. It won Best Indie Game at the Golden Joystick Awards and was nominated for Game of the Year and Best Storytelling. And it’s been nominated for Best Independent Game and Best Debut Indie Game at The Game Awards 2025. A recent collaboration with iam8bit has resulted in Blue Prince merch — a dream for any small indie title. And Ros is on the cusp of finishing and releasing the final update to Blue Prince, which will include a color assist mode, control remapping, the long-awaited minigame Dirigiblocks, and (my personal favorite change) the addition of a cat to Mount Holly.

I spoke to Ros last month, after the Golden Joystick nominations had taken place but before The Game Awards list was out. Like many of my colleagues, my brain had been eaten alive by Blue Prince earlier this year when I played it ahead of launch. I’ve ruined a perfectly good journal scribbling attempted puzzle solutions and wild conspiracy theories about what’s happening in Mount Holly, and how I might peel it apart like an egg to get at whatever was inside. I was thrilled beyond measure at Blue Prince’s fantastic victory lap of a final puzzle, but also driven absolutely bonkers by the fact that neither it nor any other puzzle in the game sufficiently answers every single last question Blue Prince asks. Like Lady Clara, I was left for months wondering, Does It Never End?

Tonda Ros still won’t tell me whether it does or not. For me, it has — I’ve put down Blue Prince happy with my experience. For Ros personally, Blue Prince has not yet ended. But it will, eventually. He has many more, very different adventures ahead of him.

Here’s the transcript of our full interview, very lightly edited for length and clarity. Though we don’t spoil any of Blue Prince outright, we do nod to some of the late-game themes throughout our conversation, so proceed at your own risk:

IGN: I loved your game. Thank you for eating away over 100 hours of my life earlier this year.

Tonda Ros: I'll say thanks. And I apologize too. I knew specifically for press that it would be like... there's so many games to cover, right? So it's always scary to give someone a very big meal because you are taking away some attention inadvertently from others, which kind of... I don't know. That's a weird thing to try to wrap your head around.

IGN: It's the problem of the universe, right? I mean, there's too much art. There's too many things. There's too many books I want to read, too many games I want to play.

Ros: I know. It's like pick two mediums, and the rest you're going to have to be content with casually enjoying and appreciating it. But to really, really appreciate a medium, there's too much content to really sink your teeth in. So I think you have to pick at least two at a time and maybe throughout your life, you can have your book era and then your game era. But yeah, it's something I struggle with too.

IGN: I wanted to ask you what you were up to now. This thing took eight years of your life, and it's out now and you don't need to constantly be patching things or whatever. What era are you in? What are you doing?

Ros: I mean, honestly, it's still the Blue Prince era. I was always told there's a year of upkeep, even if you're fully done at the time of launch. And I was like, "Okay." I had been told that by enough people that I appreciated that that was true, even though I didn't really understand. But it is definitely consuming everything. I guess I care about every single little detail, which is I wish I could just let go. Iam8bit is releasing some cool products based on Blue Prince. So much of my time is just spent hyper-fixating on the details of the replica of the key and stuff to try to make sure it's right. So a whole bunch of stuff like that.

And then we just did the Mac port, so that was taking a lot of my time. I'm in there playtesting that nonstop to try to make sure that that is as accurate to the experience as it possibly can be. And likewise as we're working on various updates as they go. So I mean honestly, even though Blue Prince is out, I'm still fully focused on that, and that's not even counting the final Blue Prince update, which has been tied up in all these other things that have consumed me, we'll say. I'm probably still another year out from being onto my next era, but I am looking forward to finally moving on.

IGN: It feels like there's something weirdly poetic here about a game that is at least in part about this obsession and not quite being able to put the mystery down. We're all trying to decide if all the secrets have been found, and you have not been able to put down the game either for different reasons.

Ros: No, I was living it. I think my experience making it is it pretty much echoes the player's journey because in the beginning the project was very grockable. I could fathom the scope of it very easily and then throughout the whole project, the intricate web of systems and interconnected things just spiraled out of control. And I think near the end, I was as lost as anyone was, and I was like, "I think at some point I just have to release this because this is starting to get away from me."

I often joke that the house has a mind of its own. So even if I'm trying to implement new features or fix some quirks of the house, the house just won't let me. And at a certain point, I was just like, "I'm just going to have to respect what Mt. Holly is." And if she won't let me do something, I'm just going to be like, "Okay, that's the way you want to be, I'm just going to let you exist as an entity unto yourself." And I think that was it getting out of- it's spiraling out of control is just me saying, "This will probably just consume the rest of my life if I don't arbitrarily stop this at some point."

IGN: What do you make of the reaction to it? I mean it's obviously been very positive, but I feel like Blue Prince has taken off in a way that games of this genre don't normally get to see.

Ros: Yeah, yeah. Super crazy. I would love to try to figure out- If I could separate myself from my own work, it's like, what set of circumstances has led to this? Because I think a lot of things in life, it's like the right place, the right time, the right appetite. There was a good window there where they just wanted to get into something like this that they hadn't. And that's not to say there weren't games like this, but they just for whatever reason hadn't come across their plate before. So I think for a lot of people it was even more of a fresh experience than it should have been. If maybe they had been playing a lot of the games in the genre, you could identify that this isn't super crazy. Maybe meshed together, it was pretty original. But yeah, I had always considered it pretty niche. In playtesting, I had a pretty good sense of the type of people that would like it. And I also knew that not all puzzle fans will like it because the strategy and very difficult board game aspect, it's not a game that's easy at all. And so I thought that that would probably further limit the audience. So yeah, to see the reception and to see it blow up has just been... I just feel really lucky.

IGN: I think the one criticism I see come up over and over are the people who are really into the puzzles but who just bristle against the rogue-like elements or the randomness of them, especially when you know the answer to a puzzle, and you just need that specific room and you just can't get it. What do you make of that?

Ros: I knew that was coming, and that's why I'm surprised the game was as popular as it was given that, because I had seen that in play testing. And I knew that there was some people that they just have to have more control, and it's hard for them to let go a little bit of the control and be in a system. But I just wanted to make a game the way I like it. And I like when I'm in a system, even if it's a hostile system, part of the fun is figuring out a way to tame the beast and to navigate around those challenges. And it is very board game-coded in that way. And a lot of times in board games you're going to be in situations where you're going to have to work with the cards that you do draw to try to create a strategy. And that's fun with a lot of my favorite types of board games, is you have to use these things to develop a strategy on your own.

So there's a level of player input and creativity, which I just absolutely love, but I don't think that's for everyone and certainly a lot of people from the puzzle community. I think puzzle games in general have historically been linear experiences, and so a big departure like this is going to ruffle some traditional feathers for sure.

IGN: There were some discussions of player-antagonistic design this year around Blue Prince and some other games too, about what is the enjoyment and joy you get out of playing something that it feels like it's constantly fighting you in some way.

Ros: Yeah. I think that's something that's largely been ironed out of a lot of games. I mean, I think if you at least go back to the '80s and '90s, things were a lot more, let's say, less smooth and less- more friction and more failure. Certainly in the game over era, just getting game overs and restarting was just a core component. And a lot of things were Ghosts 'n Goblins. We're just going to replay this, we're going to replay this. We're just going to get better and better with our skill. And obviously I think as people optimized player journey, I think the emphasis started being about polishing and making the player journey a lot less turbulent. And that's certainly not the types of games I like. I like to get challenged both mechanically but also challenged in terms of my own taste. Maybe if I'm used to playing a certain type of game, I'm totally okay with someone subverting genre norms or technical things to try something new even if it fails. I think it's cool to see someone try something that's not the default line.

IGN: I feel like I know the answer to this already, but I have to ask. So to your knowledge, have players found everything? Is there anything left? Does it never end?

Ros: I don't think I'm ever going to answer that.

IGN: Yeah. I had to try.

Ros: I think people are suspicious that I am reluctant to answer that. All I can say is that it's designed for a single player to be able to experience everything in the game.

IGN: I feel like if you've gotten deep enough into Blue Prince, it's pretty easy to understand why you don't want to answer that question.

Ros: Yep, yep. And it's probably just my personality type. I feel like I probably wouldn't want to answer that question for anything I make because answering that question definitively will close a bit of the magic off in some ways, I think. I think that as long as there's a chance that there's more to discover, then there will be the hope of players or let's say the exploration. It's like in the frontier. When there's unexplored territory, then adventurers can still dream. Even if they never go to those territories, there's still the imagination of what exists in the woods that have never been explored. And then with Google Maps and stuff, and now the land masses are all explored. Some of that magic and imagination is at least curbed.

IGN: This is maybe some of the same question. But would you ever consider adding more to Blue Prince? I mean, you said this is going to be the final update that you're working on. Is that just totally against the spirit of it?

Ros: Yeah, I mean, I don't know the spirit of it, but for me, I do love complete games. And I do love when something is definitively done. So I had tried my best to get everything into the game at launch because that was something I just really wanted. I didn't want to eternally be updating this. Well, all I can say is that there is a definitive amount of stuff in the game that is planned, and some of it had to get sacrificed in order to increase stability and to work on some of the functioning systems to have a smoother experience for everyone.

There were a couple cinematics and cutscenes that were in the process of being created, but I was just like, "If I focus on these, I'm not going to be able to focus on any of the remaining bugs or gameplay stuff." And that's just a fact of it being my very first game and being such a small team of just me and a few people helping me. That I had to understand my own limitations and being like, okay, even though artistically I wish this could be a fully complete experience at launch and get all these cutscenes and gameplay elements, but I did manage to get everything gameplay-wise into the game with the exception of one arcade game, which was just, it's just a standalone mini-game and it really- It's completely separate from the rest of Blue Prince.

So that was an easy one to sequester off because it's like this was just like, I don't even know why I wanted to do a mini-game within a game for my very first game. But some of these ideas I get, I'm just like, "Oh, I really would love to try this." And at some point, it had woven itself too much in the thread for me to completely remove it, at least with the time I had.

IGN: What about other language translations? I'm obviously very aware of the fact that translating this is a minefield because of the way the puzzles work, but I know that that was one of the things that was criticized about it at launch, is that there's really no way to play it if you don't speak English.

Ros: And I think how difficult it is really appeals to me because it's almost like a historic undertaking of localization, and it appeals to me because I feel like it would be such a cool challenge to do. Now, probably the number of localizers and the number of specific- It's not even just localizers or translators. You actually need people from these individual cultures that excel in wordplay. And so getting together this dream team and tackling this is like, it's something I've thought a lot about and something that really appeals to me as a challenge.

Now, the trade-off is it would probably take years of my life, at least one year per language to do. And so you get into this really weird thing of I would be giving up future games in order to make Blue Prince more accessible. And that's a crazy balance scale that I'm not sure how to proceed with. Let's say it's something I'm very interested in that has a lot of trade-offs creatively with how much time I have just in my life to make other games. How much time do I want to give to this? But it's appealing, we'll say. It's appealing in a lot of ways. Not just to let Blue Prince be able to be experienced by more people, but it is- If you haven't played the game fully, you might not quite understand how impossible of an undertaking it is. But I'll say it is absurdly difficult.

IGN: I guess thinking about that and moving on from Blue Prince, what's next? This was your first game. Are you going to make another one? Do you want to do something else?

Ros: Yes. It'll always be something else. I can say I will never make a sequel to my work because I love creating something standalone and then going on to something completely different. It will likely not even be in the same exact genres. I will probably be mixing it up. You'll start to see overlap. You'll start to see overlaps with some of my interests. So it will be familiar, and hopefully I'll inadvertently have things that really worked with Blue Prince that I'll carry on in terms of at least technicals. But yeah, we'll see. I'm hesitant to do another 3D game because for my first game, 3D was so difficult. I really wish I did a 2D game. I probably could have done it in five years instead of eight. But yeah, I think it'll be something totally different.

IGN: You modeled that whole ruin underground, and it's driving people crazy because it's 3D models, and they can't get over there.

Ros: I know. A lot of the cutscenes show a lot of things too that we 3D modeled and created. And for me, it's like I think a lot of other people, you'd have the temptation just because you've done the effort, that you want to fully get as much value as possible. But some of my ideas are like, I'll just come up with an idea and it's like, "Okay, this is going to take three months to do." And the funny thing is, I probably wouldn't make that decision in the first year of making the game. It's like all your decisions about time are contextual to the project. So it's like, "Oh man, I have to spend 20 days adjusting text alignment." Right? That sounds really ridiculous in your first three months of the project. I'm going to spend 20 days aligning text. But once you're eight years in, you don't even blink at that type of stuff. It's like, oh, I did a change, and now I have to rescale every picture in the whole game. This will probably take me a month. And I'm like, "Okay, let's do that."

And so all these decisions are all contextual. But I don't really shy away from that because it's like if I come up with an idea, I usually don't let time be the reason I don't do it, because I think a lot of other games are on temporal budgets, not just monetarily, but they're on temporal budgets and they have to release. And that prevents a lot of high effort ideas from manifesting. And I didn't really have the same urgency to release. My decision to release was just I actually can't keep any of this in my head anymore. First off, I couldn't stop working on the game for even a week because I would forget too much about the way things interconnect and stuff. So I pretty much had to never take a break and just always keep it in my head. And so that just was like, the time was up. It had just dated to completion.

IGN: There was an anecdote that was told to us in the Press Discord that I really wanted to ask you about. And that was that at some point in development, every once in a while if you had enough hallways in a straight line, there might be a shadowy figure at the end of the corridor or something. Is that real?

Ros: I have heard this, and I think this is a cool rumor that's come out, and I'm not 100% sure. I'm not sure or 100% sure, but there was a cat in the game, and I think I can say that because the cat is planned for the final update because he was a part of the game. So there were playtesting iterations that had the cat, and the cat could be seen walking around the house. So it might've been someone mistaking the cat for a larger shadowy figure, perhaps conflating it with an Alzara thing. Part of the cool thing I've realized is- So I watched a lot of people play the game. I had my playtesters record sessions. And one of the things, you're always told how faulty human memory is. And it's one thing to hear that and then obviously to catch yourself being like, "I'm so sure I'm right. I remember it this way." And then if it's something that you can actually go back and look to, you realize, "I can't believe my brain just fabricated the way this occurred so vividly, so vividly."

And what I realized watching people play the game is they would make wild incorrect assumptions based on what they remembered perceiving on previous days, and they would be so sure, and I'm like, "We have recordings here. I would be able to show you that what you remember was completely false." Even though they're 100% confident. And I think for whatever reason, the way Blue Prince is set up, it really is able to play on that, because it's a game about making assumptions based on your experiences in previous iterations of this house. And I think that it does play into the idea of the house having a personality and a mind of its own, because at some point you start questioning whether things in the house are changing, and oftentimes they aren't. But it's just that your perspective that they're changing is correct. So I love that story.

Whether it was ever true or not, I'll leave it a bit mysterious. But I do think that to me, it exemplifies perhaps people's false memories that start to manifest that give rise to these rumors and probably is replicated in real-life mysteries and haunted houses. That it's not that people are even fabricating these stories, but that they grow out of perhaps not even apparitions that happened in the present, but apparitions that happened in memories.

IGN: So Blue Prince has been nominated for some Golden Joysticks, which is awesome. And we're in awards discussions just generally right now. It’s being discussed that a lot of these game awards programs don't have a puzzle genre category even though they have action and adventure and all this other stuff. What do you make of that? Do you feel like Blue Prince challenges that a little bit? Do you think there should be one or shouldn't be?

Ros: I mean, I love puzzle games a lot, and I think that there's enough of the big genres, we'll call them. Obviously there's a lot of very distinct little genres, and I feel like it's probably just math of how many players are playing certain things because if you look at- I don't know, some of the other ones that get representation. Multiplayer is obviously the biggest umbrella of all time. So I think there's a certain number of, in my opinion, there's a certain scale of umbrella that if you were representing things smaller than the puzzle genre and not puzzle genre, then I would say puzzle games certainly should have a place. But I'm okay if there's just not enough players for puzzles. I think it logistically makes sense that maybe they don't get representation until more people play, and hopefully games like Blue Prince that are super popular will be shifting those numbers. So that maybe we'll rise to the occasion. But I don't know the logistics. Maybe it is just a oversight and getting ignored. In which case, then I would advocate for its inclusion 100%.

[Author’s note: Following this interview, Ros reached back out to add some additional commentary to his response to this question.]

When I think back to my own childhood, and the games that were most formative for me, it was the puzzle games and puzzle books that played the most beneficial role in my development. They fostered my love of problem solving and engineering, and opened up the recreational world of mathematics, logic, and word play. I think it's fair to say these games and books had as large a role in my education as any class I attended in school, so I feel pretty strongly promoting the genre, and supporting media that helps to shine a spotlight on these types of thinky games. If including a puzzle category in awards shows will help more kids discover these types of games, then I think it's something that we absolutely should advocate for.

[The rest of our original interview continues below:]

IGN: Okay, one last question, and I’ll do a silly one. What do you make of the term Metroidbrainia?

Ros: Okay, so if you play Blue Prince, you probably know I'm all about words and etymology. So for me, I love it because I just love how liquid language is, and I love when terms are created. So I think that being able to look at a word and seeing its etymological history, and that one has such a rich one, because if you even go and look at Metroid, it is itself a combination of Android and Metropolis. And so I think that if you could dissect this down and then you can go to Castlevania, and this was castle and Transylvania, and so it's almost like a family tree of words. And so I think that it's funny. I know that the term is, it's a little contentious in its acceptance, but I think it's funny because all of the words that are feeding into this are also sort of portmanteau combinations of sub-words.

Even Transylvania has roots of, I think it's forest and people. And so it's funny because they're all coalescing into Metroidbrainia, and Metroidbrainia will likewise probably be used as a root of another word further on. So I think the more you're able to look at a word and the more rich history it has in its DNA, the more interesting it is to me. So I personally love it for that. Maybe phonetically it's not as aesthetically beautiful to hear out loud as some other terms. But I do love what a rich history it has of games of perhaps cinema with maybe Metropolis being part of that idea for Metroid. I don't actually know how they came up with that term, but I have read that it does come from Metropolis and Android, or Metro and Android might be subway-related.

But yeah, I love words, and I love the roots and I love the history of words, and I love how all these things can combine in different ways. And then I love that words’ meanings change from year to year, and the definitions shift. And I love the human instinct of trying to fight for definitions because that's the one you know, not realizing that every word you're using used to mean something else, and that it's all liquid. And that we're all in generational positions fighting for our own meaning, because language is a river that's always moving forward.

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