With the premiere of Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord just weeks away, we're starting to see the first collectibles and figures based on the new animated series. Hasbro has released images of its first wave of Star Wars: The Black Series figures inspired by the show, and they're looking pretty darned cool.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for a closer look at all four Maul: Shadow Lord figures:

This first wave of Shadow Lord figures includes Maul himself, along with his faithful Mandalorian minion Rook Kast, his new protege Devon Izara, and the Sith Inquisitor Eleventh Brother. Strangely, Maul's new enemies, Captain Brander Lawson and his droid Two-Boots, are missing from the lineup, but we assume they'll be included in a future wave.

Like the rest of the Black Series line, these figures are designed in 6-inch scale and include various weapons and accessories. Maul even includes a fabric cloak to differentiate him from previous Clone Wars-style figures.

These figures are priced at $27.99 each and will be released in stores in Spring 2026. You can find Amazon preorder links for all four figures below:

Lucasfilm recently released a new trailer for Maul: Shadow Lord, and we've broken down all the major Star Wars characters who appear in the series. You can also learn more about the prequel comic Star Wars: Shadow of Maul.

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

One of the better regarded 3D printers with multi-color print capability is now priced well under $300. AliExpress is currently offering the FlashForge AD5X 3D Printer with integrated multi-filament printing system for just $265.23 with free delivery after you apply coupon code "35USAFFS". Make sure you're signed into your account to see the shipping options. The exact same printer sells for $340 on Amazon, but it retails for $499.

Note: Sign into your account and then refresh the page to see the shipping options.

You're buying it from FlashForge's official store on AliExpress. It ships free locally from the United States and arrives within 1 to 2 weeks. The AD5X is considered by many to be one of the best multi-color 3D printers priced below $300. It is easy to setup, it produces great 3D prints with minimal fiddling, and there are plenty of mods available including an official kit that fully encloses the chamber and another that adds a camera, all at an affordable price point.

Flashforge AD5X CoreXY Multi-Color 3D Printer for $265

Not everyone is the DIY type. If you're in the market for a prebuilt gaming PC, Dell is one of the best brands we'd recommend. Alienware desktops and laptops feature solid build quality, top-of-the-line gaming performance, excellent cooling (further improved on the newer models), aggressive styling, and pricing that is very competitive with other pre-built options. Best of all, there are plenty of sales that happen throughout the year, so it's not difficult to grab one of these computers at considerably less than their retail price.

Dell and Alienware Coupons

Alienware Area-51 Gaming PC Deals

If you're seeking the absolute best of the best in PC gaming performance, look no further. Dell unveiled the new Alienware Area-51 gaming PC at CES 2025. The product photos don't give it due justice; this is a big chassis that towers over the Aurora R16 model with superior build quality and a redesigned cooling system with even greater airflow. This is the only model that can be configured with the hot and power hungry GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card. The first wave of Area-51 systems featured Intel CPUs exclusively, with AMD X3D options only available since late November.

Alienware Aurora R16 Gaming PC Deals

The Aurora R16 is Alienware's bread and butter gaming PC. It can be equipped with an Nvidia RTX 5060 graphics card all the way up to an RTX 5080 and the prices for Cyber Monday are extremely competitive with other brands. For example, currently Alienware has the least expensive prebuilt RTX 5080 gaming PC that I've found anywhere. Most of these systems are customizable, however it's not difficult to upgrade your own RAM and storage yourself.

Alienware Aurora Gaming Laptop Deals

Alienware's newest mainstream gaming laptop is dubbed the "Alienware Aurora" and it replaces the previous generation's x16 and m16 series of laptops. It comes in two models: the 16 and 16X. The 16 is the more economical model, but gamers should definitely opt for the higher-end 16X model. If you're looking for build quality and performance on par with the previous generation m16, then the 16X is its spiritual successor. It features an anodized aluminum lid and base, a higher quality display, a more powerful CPU, and a GPU that isn't throttled for maximum gaming performance.

Alienware Area-51 Gaming Laptop Deals

Alienware 18 Area-51 (18")

Alienware 16 Area-51 (16")

The Area-51 is Alienware's new flagship gaming laptop for 2025. It features an anodized aluminum shell for both the lid and bottom chassis with a gorgeous iridescent finish. The frame is made of a durable and lightweight magnesium alloy. Cooling has been upgraded with generous amounts of copper and a new thermal interface material to better transfer heat away from your hottest components as well as more fans and bigger cutouts for greater airflow. Dell claims that the laptop can handle a higher power ceiling of up to 240W TDP without raising acoustics.

Design-wise, the Area 51 has a sleeker, more contoured shape compared to previous models, with rounded edges and soft corners replacing the traditional squared off design. The hinges are internally positioned so that they're near invisible. There's a transparent window on the undercarriage to show off the internal components. As befits an Alienware laptop, there's plenty of RGB illunimation, although most of it can be turned off if you want your laptop to be a bit more subtle.

Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

The second Magic: The Gathering set of 2026 is here, and it’s Turtle Time! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have emerged from the shadows in cardboard form, but despite coming from the sewer, there’s treasure to be found.

Below, you’ll find the priciest cards from the set so far, thanks to our friends at TCGplayer, with the caveat that these are pre-launch prices and subject to move around more than a backflipping reptile.

Some values with rise, some will fall, and there's every chance that this list looks completely different by this time next week - we'll update it in the coming days in any case.

10. Turtles in Time (Showcase Fracture Foil)

If the excitement of a new Spider-Man movie coming out this year has you itching to check out collectibles and gear, Amazon is the place to look. At the moment, the retailer is offering a great limited time deal on the Marvel Legends Series Spider-Man: Homecoming Mask, which has dropped from $139.99 to $87.99 (see it here).

According to price tracker camelcamelcamel, this even marks a brand new low for this electronic Spider-Man mask, which is a sweet bonus. Whether you want it for cosplay or just as a fun piece to display or wear on its own, this is an excellent time to swing in and add it to your digital shopping cart.

Marvel Legends Series Spider-Man: Homecoming Mask for $87.99

Warning: This article includes spoilers and details about Ted Season 2.

Ted is back on Peacock, and for Season 2 it's bringing a little bit of magic along for the ride. In Episode 3, "Dealers & Dragons", Ted and John are drawn into a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Prepare to see a very different setting for the show, a cameo from the world of tabletop gaming and a truly incredible scene involving Ted and a reference to the movie Philadelphia.

The Ted and fantasy universes might not make for the most obvious crossover, but as IGN discovered when it visited the set of the Dungeons & Dragons episode, a huge amount of work went into making sure this was a true tribute to the iconic tabletop game. (Look for our full video report from the set of "Dealers & Dragons" this Monday, March 9th.)

Don't worry, this isn't about to get Stranger Things traumatic; Ted is still very much the foul-mouthed fluffball we know and love, even when he's transported to a world of wizards and spells. The plotline behind this little jaunt into the magical realm is powered by a need for weed, rather than saving the world from the Abyss.

In order to win their prize, John and Ted have to complete a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Ted is the bard, John is a mage (or wizard, in modern Dungeons & Dragons speak), mom Susan is a fighter, dad Matty is a cleric and Blaire is a thief. As anyone who has ever LARPed will tell you, fantasy is nothing without some decent drip. Doing D&D right means dressing the part, and the cast explained their new looks for this very special episode.

Casting Spells

"Something I learned, wizard robes are fucking hot. Like, warm, like physically very warm," said Max Burkholder, who plays John. He's a legitimate Dungeons & Dragons fan and helped the rest of the cast understand the game's world and storytelling. Having gotten into it while watching games online during the quarantine, Burkholder even tried to set up a one-off Dungeons & Dragons campaign with the cast, creating characters for them.

He talked about the process of working with the costume department on his outfit. "My one note that I gave to Heather [Pain], our costume designer, about it was I want to have so many pockets. I want to have pockets in the sleeves. I want to have pockets here with little bullshit and little trinkets I've got on my belt. A leather pouch that in it has another leather pouch. I've got keys, a spell book.

"Everything about mine looks exactly like you would think a wizard should look. Except not as many stars and moons on the cape like Fantasia. And no giant conical hat. But I've got the hood, I've got the robes, I've got the staff. It's pretty incredible."

Meanwhile, dad Matty, played by Scott Grimes, had the cleric costume with a more unusual focal point, apparently entirely Ted mastermind Seth MacFarlane's idea. "I wear a Friar Tuck wig, which is just a bald spot in the middle with a rim of hair around it," said Grimes. "We did six tests because I didn't realize I'm a redhead, and my skin is very, very pink and lots of different colors. So the bald spot in the middle took 16 people to make it. They bring it to me and they put it up against my face and I'm like, 'that's not what I look like'. But it is. It's freckled and speck[s] and little skin cancer here and stuff like that. Oh, it's humbling."

Alanna Ubach, who plays mom Susan Bennett, got arguably the coolest makeover, with a full set of armor. "I wanted to translate Susan into what she would imagine she would wear," said costume designer Heather Pain. "She wears a lot of sweater vests and turtlenecks. What if we made her armor a little bit like her sweater vest? The line of it with a turtleneck, but then bring in, like, this weird kind of disco chainmail that feels more ’70s."

Of course, sometimes you have to make sacrifices for fashion. "Susan is happy to be Susan the destroyer. And she's in this sort of Joan of Arc-esque armor," said Ubach. "The armor is so heavy and so constricting that I need help going to the bathroom, and I'll leave it at that. Wardrobe had to follow me to the bathroom so that I can take off my skirt and my sword and my 700 belts and my tampon [a key prop from the episode] and hand it to them, and then I can go pee."

Down and Dirty

One of the biggest changes for viewers and the people working behind the scenes is that most of the action doesn't take place in a bedroom or a school hall – instead, it takes place in a fantasy land. One the set designers built. In fact, the creation of the classic fantasy landscape required 25,000 pounds of dirt to be flown in.

"They triple refined it. They like sieved through three things. They had like an environmental pathogen breakdown report for all the dirt," said Burkholder. Unfortunately that dirt did include a stowaway cricket, and a noisy one at that.

"We had to redo that scene about three or four times. I was like, where's the damn cricket?" said Ubach.

Expect forests, ominous chambers full of spikes, and of course a tavern, which I'm pretty sure has to be included in any fantasy story by law. One scene sees the band of adventurers solving a riddle while surrounded by four statues. If you think the statues look lifelike, it's because they're actually dancers brought in to play the parts. The dancers wore stiff, plastered costumes and couldn't move, hear or see what was going on around them.

"Everytime we walked into the room I just thought that there were four statues in there, and then they would start moving and I'd be like, 'oh, I guess they got moving statues.' And then I would remember that they were four dancers doing an incredible job for me," said Burkholder.

From School Days to Screen

The writers made the very smart choice not to spend the episode dealing with the D&D algebra that is creating a character sheet, or endless dice rolls. It skips the mechanics to get straight to the fantasy, without sacrificing authenticity. One of the people making that happen was writer Chelsea Davison, who played the game in high school and brought her full nerd powers to recreating the game for the show.

"As a high school student, I played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, and that was a huge part of my adolescence. That was something that Seth had never played, but he knew how passionate fans of D&D are," explained Davison. "He was like, 'okay, well, it doesn't make sense, in that Ted and John were a little too cool. They wouldn't just be playing this. They don't have a campaign going. They can't commit to anything. But what if there's a way to get them hooked into a game for one episode?'"

MacFarlane actually had Davison lead a game of Dungeons & Dragons for the writers room. "Which was crazy because I've only ever played with, like, five players, when I've been a DM, a dungeon master, and this was a room of 12 people," said Davison.

"It was just chaos. Mostly people who had never played before in their lives. And we created characters, played the whole game. I mean, it was dark by the time we finished, but so many of those things, like the riddle from the episode, is the riddle I used in the room with them that I wrote for that campaign."

If there's still lingering doubt, Dungeons & Dragons nerds will know they're in good hands the minute they see a familiar face - Brennan Lee Mulligan - playing the role of dungeon master. He's best known for his work on Dropout (formerly CollegeHumor) and created the popular Dimension 20 series show, where he and a team play through different campaigns.

"Brennan and I are friends from UCB, in New York," said Davison. "And I'd watched his meteoric rise through Dimension 20 and, when we were writing this script and I was writing this character of the Dungeon Master, this was something that I said to Aimee [Carlson, executive producer] and others, that in a perfect world it would be Brennan. He would be so great. Luckily, the stars aligned and it worked out."

You'll be able to see the episode for yourself from today, but the set visit and an early preview of the episode shows that all the effort the cast and crew put into making this special episode happen was worth it.

"It is so big," said Davison. "It is a huge undertaking. And, you know, I think Seth was really passionate that if we're going to do it, let's do it 100 percent. We don't want to have them be playing some knockoff fairies and whatever. We want this to be really authentic to this fan base, so we ended up saving this episode for Season 2. I'm so glad Season 2 happened so that we got to bring this all to life."

All episodes of Ted Season 2, including "Dealers & Dragons," are available on Peacock now. Be sure to read our Ted Season 2 review.

Nintendo has announced a Nintendo Direct revealing the final trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. It is set for Monday, March 9, at 2pm PT / 11am ET / 9pm UK time.

To manage expectations, Nintendo said no game information will be included in the presentation.

Recent trailers for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, due to hit theaters April 1, have sparked all sorts of questions about unannounced Nintendo characters who may pop up in the film. Some fans even believe the movie will revolve around time travel. Last month, a familiar but unannounced name popped up in a theater chain's description of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

Along with Mario and Luigi, the upcoming animated sequel will also see Bowser Jr, Yoshi, Birdo, a T-Rex, and Rosalina, the latter of whom is voiced by Marvel star and Nintendo fan Brie Larson. All of the same major cast members are back from the first movie, too, including Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek.

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

The Pixel 10a has arrived to give Google fans a newer affordable option at $499. But apart from a few minor design tweaks, the addition of Satellite SOS, and a slight extension to the software support window, the Pixel 10a doesn’t shake things up. While it would prove a good option if every other phone stuck to its retail price, there’s no ignoring the fact that the Pixel 10a is launching months after the Pixel 10 has already seen discounts as low as $550.

Pixel 10a – Design and Features

Google’s Pixel 10a isn’t revolutionary or even exciting. It borrows the tame looks of the Pixel 9a, which had eschewed the eye-catching camera bar of mainline Pixel models. But where the Pixel 9a’s cameras rose up slightly from the back of the phone, the Pixel 10a’s cameras actually sit slightly below the back surface. This was a point Google emphasized in its launch, but it’s not a unique technical achievement considering RedMagic’s bold gaming phones have done so for a few years running.

The display is respectable, but pretty much no phone at or over $500 can get away with much less. The 6.3-inch screen offers a fair 1080x2424 resolution that’s plenty sharp for most uses. It can run smooth at 120Hz but doesn’t have the ability to drop down to 1Hz for extra efficiency. Still, it’s hard to get mad at a colorful OLED that can reach as high as 3000 nits.

The display is flanked by stereo speakers. One ports out the bottom of the phone while the other is tucked into the earpiece. They put out decent volume, though I found them a touch harsh while gaming and had trouble hearing podcasts in the kitchen over cooking noises.

The phone’s footprint is modest. It’s larger than the Pixel 9 but mostly smaller than the Pixel 9a save for a slight bump to thickness. It’s comfortable in the hand but doesn’t feel totally compact. Part of that is because its 6.3-inch display still has somewhat thick bezels all the way around. Google claims they’re thinner than the Pixel 9a’s bezels, but neither are competing for record thinness.

The choices Google made for what to pack into the compact frame are interesting. It made some nice inclusions, like a physical SIM slot to complement the eSIM support. The phone gets a USB 3.2 port for faster wired data transmission. Google even opted to include the necessary hardware for Satellite SOS, something the Pixel 9a missed out on.

Google left some surprising things out, though. There are no magnets to allow for Qi2 and Pixelsnap accessories. The Pixel 10a can still wirelessly charge, but only at up to 10 watts. And though 30W charging is supported, you’ll need to have your own capable charging brick.

The Pixel 10a can unlock with facial recognition or an under-display fingerprint scanner. Both worked quickly in my testing.

Durability should be OK but not amazing. Gaskets are built in to give the phone a commendable IP68 water resistance to keep dust and water out even under almost five feet of water. The plastic back material feels nice and glassy, but shouldn’t shatter like glass if dropped. Gorilla Glass 7i on the front has avoided blemishing in my time testing, but it doesn’t promise as extreme drop- or scratch-resistance as the Gorilla Glass Victus showing up on more flagship phones. The phone gets an aluminum frame, and Google matches it to the rear color, but this can scratch up

Pixel 10a – Software

The Pixel 10a comes running on Android 16 and Google promises 7 years of support with OS and security updates alongside its Pixel Drops, which brings new features now and then. This long-term support may be one of the Pixel 10a’s most compelling features, as this kind of support is already rare for any phone, let alone one without a flagship price tag.

Some highlight features of the Pixel 10a’s software are support for Auto Best Take and Camera Coach in the camera app, helping users frame photos and capture group shots without anyone blinking. The phone also supports a new Quick-share feature that’s compatible with iPhone’s Air Drop. In testing, this let me share a file directly with an iPhone with just a couple taps.

Pixel 10a – Gaming and Performance

The Pixel 10a didn’t get any notable under-the-hood upgrades. It has the same Tensor G4 chip that the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9a came running on. That chip was already trailing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips when it launched, and the gulf is only widening. Its 8GB of RAM is less than the Pixel 9 included, but hasn’t been an impediment in regular use.

It’s not as though the Pixel 10a is slow. In everyday use, it’s been able to keep up just fine. It fluidly ramps up to 120Hz for smooth animations while swiping around, and it browses the web without fuss. It can handle light games well. I played an hour of Carrion and the phone only got slightly warm, and I couldn’t tell whether that was because of the game or just the phone's curious tendency to get a little warm. It even handled Rainbow Six Mobile at Ultra settings smoothly. Bigger, more demanding games like Where Winds Meet can’t go all-out, though. The Pixel 10a was able to run the game at its Ultra graphics preset, but it was capped to 30fps. It largely maintained that framerate at least. The phone seems to throttle enough to avoid getting hot in use, but warmth is almost constant.

While serviceably fast, the performance limits that exist today are only going to become bigger impediments in the future as more demanding games and apps arrive. So even if Google continues to support the phone with software updates, its hardware may simply not be viable for much at the end of that support window.

Compared to other recent devices, the Pixel 10a’s performance leaves a lot to be desired. It falls shy of the budget Poco X7 Pro in multi-core and graphical performance by a considerable amount. That only widens when facing off against a more potent device like the OnePlus 15R, which the Pixel 10a tended to fall anywhere from 30 to 50% behind. The Pixel 10 also comes out ahead of the Pixel 10a, albeit not with much of a graphical bump to speak of. And though it may seem like an obvious outcome for the Pixel 10 to exceed the Pixel 10a, it matters for potential buyers because the Pixel 10 has already seen discounts that bring its price far closer to the 10a’s price than MSRP would have you believe.

The battery life of the Pixel 10a is good, but not impressive. It fits in a 5,100mAh pack just like the 9a, and it’s been good for all-day battery life with a little juice to spare. But the phone seems to have a bit more passive drain overnight than I’d like, so I don’t expect to easily get through two days of heavy use.

Pixel 10a – Cameras

The cameras have generally been a highlight of Pixel phones, and though the budget series makes some sacrifices, they can still perform well. That said, the Pixel 10a does nothing new. It has the exact same camera system as the Pixel 9a. Considering that it has the same SoC as the Pixel 9a, there’s really nothing new this phone can do in the camera department.

• 48MP wide, f/1.7, 1/2”, OIS, EIS
• 13MP ultrawide, f/2.2, 1/3.1”, 120-degree FoV
• 13MP Selfie, f/2.2, 96.1-degree FOV

It’s not entirely bad news. The main sensor was great last year and is still great this year. It captures plenty of light, helping make the most of even dim environments. It provides sharp and colorful images with a ton of detail. The wide aperture also lends to a soft background blur when taking close-ups.

Google would say the sensor is good enough to zoom in digitally, but most shots I took with digital zoom don’t hold up well when viewed at full size. Zooming into 2x on the phone does have some advantages over simply zooming in on a 1x photo, as the phone does extra noise reduction and sharpening, though even that doesn’t make it a great photo.

The ultra-wide sensor is useful to have for getting extra perspective on large and close subjects. It gets a good amount of detail, even if it can get soft around the edges. It’s not a perfect complement to the main sensor, though, as I caught it shifting the color temperature from the main sensor, which can make for an inconsistent series of photos. The tighter aperture also doesn’t let it perform as well in dim environments, so where the main sensor may be capturing crisp and clear shots, switching to the ultra-wide sensor could lead to noisy photos.

The selfie camera is also acceptable. It gets decent light and natural colors alongside a wide enough FOV to capture a couple of friends in the same shot.

While not mind-blowing, the quality of the cameras on the Pixel 10a is still enough to keep it somewhat protected against the OnePlus 15R or Poco X7 Pro for anyone who prioritizes photos over gaming performance. That said, it still leaves the Pixel 10a facing off against the reality that the Pixel 10 has been (and almost surely will be again) on sale for $550-$600, and offers a big advantage with its additional telephoto sensor.

Mark Knapp is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything electronics and gaming hardware. He has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry with bylines at PCMag, Reviewed, CNET, and more. Find Mark on Twitter @Techn0Mark or BlueSky at @Techn0Mark.

From a return to Narnia to the latest Hunger Games prequel, here’s what to look forward to this year.

Last year, I shared eight of the best book adaptations that would soon be on our screens, and 2026 is shaping up to be another great year for new movies and TV shows.

Plus, there are even more that haven’t yet received a release date, such as Mike Flanagan’s Carrie TV series and the highly anticipated Neuromancer adaptation. So, we’ll be sure to keep you in the loop with them - and more - as the year progresses.

But until then, these are the best 2026 book adaptations that you won’t want to miss.

Sunrise On The Reaping

Expected release date: (November 20, 2026)

When Asha Sharma was appointed as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming last month, she entered the Xbox stage with a bold statement: “We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console which has shaped who we are.”

Just weeks later, that commitment has kicked off with the official confirmation that a new Xbox is in development. Project Helix is a “next generation console” that can “play your Xbox and PC games.” The rumours were all true, then. Such a feat isn’t as simple as it sounds, though, and this hybrid machine has surely presented Xbox’s engineering team with an Everest-grade challenge. Because when you consider the way today’s technology works, it seems more likely that Helix is a PC that plays Xbox games, not the other way around. And without an incredibly careful approach, Helix could become another addition to the confusing “This is an Xbox” mess rather than a brave new console generation.

Xbox has created a fascinating challenge for itself: Project Helix has to be two devices in one box. A video game console and a PC are, despite their similarities, two distinct things, and Helix needs to be both using just a single hardware setup. And that’s where the difficulties start. If Helix is to play PC games without any caveats – if this Xbox is to play any and all games available on Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, GOG, and any other service, rather than select games ringfenced by the Microsoft Store – then the hardware will need to be designed with a PC-first mindset. It will need to be capable of running games designed for the PC’s open, less precision-optimised environment at “next gen” quality, a situation that will presumably dictate the machine’s specifications.

Anyone who has built a PC to run Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K60, or perhaps in preparation for the upcoming Crimson Desert, will know the cost of such hardware is astronomical – even more so now, in the age of the AI-enforced RAM apocalypse. And anyone who has tried to build a PC comparable to a console on a console-ish budget will know the results are typically less than inspiring. The price of Helix, then, is already a rapidly flashing red light. Plus, if Helix can play Steam games, then the machine provides no guaranteed game revenue flow back to Microsoft, and that will certainly affect Xbox’s pricing strategy.

The fact that Project Helix even exists in the first place suggests that Microsoft has solved the puzzle of engineering a cohesive set of hardware components that can act as both PC and console architecture, even if the cost of that flexibility means a device possibly (likely) priced in excess of $1,000. Helix can cater to the needs of games coded for different devices, presumably in a fashion more advanced than just running a console emulator on PC. But regardless of whether that was an easy feat to achieve or not, the true challenge Helix faces is software. Because, in many ways, it’s software that makes a machine a console, not the components within it.

To be clear, when I say software, I mean operating systems, not games. Helix will require an OS that can seamlessly switch between its console and PC environments, sort of like a modern-day version of how the launch era PlayStation 3 could flip into PS2 mode. I suspect that Helix will be a little more sophisticated than having two walled-off environments that it needs to hop between, but from the perspective of the user, there really can’t be any difference between each side of the experience. Your Helix’s library needs to be your entire game library across console and PC (something the GOG’s Galaxy PC client already proves can be done). Booting games needs to feel identical across both sides of the platform, as does the overlay interface. It needs to be completely unified. It needs to be completely Xbox.

In other words, Microsoft needs to take this stuff much more seriously than it did with the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. While (sort of) marketed as handheld Xboxes, the Ally and Ally X are actually portable gaming PCs. As such, they operate like PCs, not consoles. They run Windows 11, and suffer from all the horrible little issues that anything running Windows 11 suffers. Updates, product offers, and security systems like Windows Hello all push their way up through the “Xbox Full Screen Experience”, which is supposed to make the Ally operate like a console, but actually often proves an ill-fitting skin stretched over Windows 11. This absolutely can’t be a thing on Helix. It can’t even be a thing on half of Helix.

In an ideal world, Helix would be governed by a new, dedicated Xbox operating system that interfaces with both PC games and storefronts and traditional Xbox games and apps. It ideally needs to be akin to Valve’s SteamOS, the system that runs the Steam Deck and the forthcoming Steam Machine, in more ways than one. SteamOS uses a compatibility layer called Proton to effectively “translate” PC games designed for Windows and make them work on a Linux-based machine. This is what makes using a Steam Deck feel so complete and console-like, and why – at least in my opinion – it’s a better option than the Ally’s Xbox-layered-over-Windows 11 approach. The ultimate version of Helix doesn’t run Windows at all, but instead has its own compatibility layer that makes games designed for Windows run on a dedicated Xbox OS.

Microsoft undoubtedly has the talent and resources to make this happen. Does it have the will and conviction to, though? Why would it pump time and cash into developing this when it already has Windows, the system that every PC game is built for by default? It’s not hard to believe that Helix will require you to manually switch between Windows and Xbox, the two halves bridged by Xbox Full Screen Experience, and the PC version still cursed by all the rough edges of an OS designed first and foremost for productivity and offices.

Maybe all those edges will be sanded down by the time Helix is a system we can buy. There’s reason to be optimistic in that regard, as I do think Microsoft has been thinking ahead. Take a look at Game Pass, which now offers PC games at every one of its three tiers, instead of the old system of Xbox Game Pass vs PC Game Pass. There’s no longer any chance of a Helix owner subscribing to Xbox Game Pass and then being unable to play Age of Empires.

But this poses wider questions about Helix’s identity. When your Xbox is a PC, how do you approach playing a strategy game like Age of Empires? Will Helix ship with a mouse and keyboard by default? Will its controller feature track pads, akin to Steam’s upcoming model? Will there be a software solution that automatically maps a PC game’s inputs to the controller? Or will Xbox treat the PC side of Helix as something for “elite” enthusiasts, opening up the opportunity to sell a bunch of peripherals that are required to unlock the entire breadth of the machine’s capabilities? It’s hard not to be at least a little skeptical in the face of such questions.

The biggest question, of course, is why anyone should buy Project Helix over a PC? What will it offer that a PC can’t? Will it be a better price? A better user experience? Utilise a revolutionary new version of Game Pass? These are all questions Microsoft will want to have answers prepared for the moment it properly unveils the machine. Because whatever Helix is, it certainly won’t be as customizable and freely upgradable as a PC, and it presumably won’t be as straightforward as Sony’s next-generation PlayStation console.

That leaves us with a final question. In the age of Project Helix, what is an Xbox? Last year, we were told it could be pretty much anything connected to the internet. This year, Asha Sharma began her tenure as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming by promising “a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console” – but her console, or at least the one she’s inherited, is a PC.

So, what is an Xbox? I guess an Xbox is whatever it wants to be. As long as that’s not just a games console, that is.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.

Warning: this opinion piece contains spoilers for Resident Evil Requiem.

For three decades, players have been going toe-to-toe with zombies and other monsters in the Resident Evil series. This year’s latest mainline entry, Resident Evil Requiem, marks the beloved franchise’s 30th anniversary by being a love letter to the series’ entire past, from its early days of creepy, puzzle-filled survival horror to its adrenaline-fuelled action horror era. But while this approach has been praised almost unanimously across the board – we awarded Requiem 9/10 and its Metacritic score stands at 89, the highest of any modern, non-remake Resident Evil – I feel that its attempt to mix both of the series’ historic styles together creates a clash, rather than cohesion. Rather than a game that knows exactly what it wants to be, it feels to me like Resident Evil Requiem has a bit of an identity crisis.

Over the past decade, Resident Evil has reformulated itself as a slow-paced survival horror game, returning its mainline entries to the style of the 1996 original where every shot counts and everything around you is a threat. You're not a larger-than-life hero, instead you're an everyday person thrown into a nightmare scenario and you have to somehow find a way out alive. Seemingly inspired by indie hits like Amnesia and Outlast, Capcom opted for a first-person POV for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and its sequel, Village, which anchored you in the terrifying experience of their everyman protagonist, Ethan Winters. This new formula worked well, garnering critical acclaim and reigniting many people’s interest in the franchise, myself included. This was an especially important victory for Capcom because of how poorly 2012’s Resident Evil 6 was received, which almost entirely abandoned the series’ survival horror roots in favor of horror-themed action.

But with the release of Resident Evil Requiem, it feels as if some of the work that Capcom has been doing over the last few years with Biohazard and Village has been thrown out the window. It is, for sure, a great game that’s engaging from start to finish, but its big swings from terrifying survival horror to relentless action set pieces makes it feel as if Capcom couldn't pick a lane for Requiem’s overall tone. While playing through the campaign, I couldn’t help but feel that it was suffering from an identity crisis. And because of that, I found that many key plot points missed the mark for me. A prime example of this occurs towards the campaign’s midpoint, when Grace’s child ward, Emily, transforms into a giant monster. It’s a moment that’s supposed to create a cocktail of emotions – shock and upset over what’s become of your friend, fear for what will happen next – but before any of that really comes into play, Leon rushes in, guns blazing, to save the day.

While playing as Grace, Requiem is a slow-burning survival horror – the exact style of game I've come to expect from the series. Similar to when playing as Ethan Winters, I was forced to think carefully about how I wanted to approach each situation, and I often would ask myself, "Is this fight worth the ammo?" Every time I ran into a creature that would tower over me, I'd often scream out in real life, then proceed to run for my life in-game. The fear was only amplified by the fact that Grace’s sections employ the series’ traditional labyrinthine level design, and so I was often forced to revisit locations I’d previously barely made it out of alive in search of hidden treasure pieces needed to move the plot forward. The puzzles those treasures are used to solve aren’t exactly the hardest, but their presence is appreciated, and it made playing as Grace even more enjoyable.

Ultimately, a lot of Grace's gameplay is grounded in reality – yes, a reality where zombies tear off faces and doors are unlocked by gemstones – but the oppressive atmosphere, overwhelming odds, and vision-limiting first-person perspective makes playing as her truly scary. Even though she is employed by the FBI, she's essentially a pencil pusher who has next to no combat experience in the field. It makes you feel truly vulnerable, and so this was the strongest part of the game for me.

Leon’s sections, meanwhile, feel like a complete 180 from everything you experience as Grace. Replicating the approach of 2005’s Resident Evil 4, Leon’s most famous mission, most, if not all of the horror elements are removed from his sequences and story beats, which undermines much of what you played through as Grace – once again, Leon’s brutal gunning down of the monster Emily transforms into feels like it’s from a completely different story than the one Grace was experiencing. This is where the identity crisis really kicks in. Ammo is not as scarce anymore, and you're encouraged to run headfirst into battle. Rather than search for helpful scraps, Leon has access to a shopping and weapons upgrade system that rewards you with currency based on how many zombies you've killed. The only way to get better gear is by racking up a high kill count, a system that goes against everything the game’s Grace-centric first half was building towards. As Grace, I’d learned to be fearful of pretty much everything coming my way, especially the larger monsters that stalked the corridors of the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center. Leon, on the other hand, could solve such issues with a few shotgun shells and a grenade.

Unfortunately, the same can also be said about the puzzles (or lack thereof) Leon has to solve in his portion of the game. A lot of them mostly involve running to site X just to open location Y, which feels a notable step down compared to the more sophisticated problems facing Grace. This huge shift in approach between the two characters means it almost feels like playing an entirely different game during Requiem’s second half. Leon and Grace's parts feel like two sides of a strong coin, but they are underdeveloped because they're so split. Rather than complimentary halves, they feel like mandatory reflections of the series past to honor the series’ 30-year milestone. As I played, I began to wonder if Capcom was trying to directly appease its many generations of fans – those who loved Resident Evil 7 and 8's old school-influenced gameplay and those who liked the more action-packed style of RE 3-6 – rather than finding a new formula that combined elements of both.

It seems strange that Capcom has tried to do this multi-style catering, as such an approach was widely unpopular when the studio first tried it in 2012 with Resident Evil 6. Much like Requiem, that game was split into distinct sections that delivered different gameplay styles. Leon’s storyline, while admittedly still action heavy, was focused on more traditional horror goals, while Chris and Jake’s campaigns were almost Call of Duty-like in their approach to action. Granted, this time around, Capcom has done a much better job of both sides of the coin – Grace’s side of things is genuine survival horror, while Leon’s is a good tribute to the style of RE4 – but it’s nonetheless odd to see it take such a massive swing towards a campaign structure that had already done a lot of damage to the franchise. Towards the end of the game, it almost feels like you're playing a more polished version of Resident Evil 6 rather than the successor to Resident Evil 7 and 8.

What really makes all this frustrating is that Capcom has shown with Resident Evil Village that you can still have these over-the-top action moments without undermining the horror and tension built up throughout the game. A key example can be found at the tail end of the campaign, when the perspective switches from Ethan to Chris Redfield – the classic Resident Evil hero who’s a proficient soldier at this point in the timeline. You play his sequence as an FPS, killing everything that stands in your way. But because this is a single sequence, rather than half of the game, it feels like a refreshing vignette rather than a case of split personality.

With it being the 30th anniversary of Resident Evil, it's clear that Capcom's goal for Requiem was to pay respect to and celebrate the many different things this series has been. And when it’s exploring those things in isolation, it’s undeniably compelling. I loved creeping around Rhodes Hill as Grace, and I loved ripping through the streets of Raccoon City as Leon. Together, though, these elements make for a campaign that feels fractured. Its lack of commitment to one style really hurts Requiem’s overall big picture, and in its worst moments the clash between horror and action undermines much of the tension built up as Grace and inflicts tonal whiplash. There’s a lot I like about Resident Evil Requiem, but I wish the game belonged to either Grace or Leon, not both of them.

Luis Joshua Gutierrez is a freelance writer who loves games. You can reach him at @ImLuisGutierrez on Twitter.

The Witcher franchise has always been a natural fit for the comic book medium (see our review of 2014's The Witcher #1 for more). Now those stories are being brought to an entirely new audience, as WEBTOON reveals it's acquired the rights to Dark Horse's back catalog of The Witcher comics.

This is the latest collaboration between WEBTOON and Dark Horse, with the latter's Cyberpunk 2077, Critical Role, and Avatar: The Last Airbender comics also appearing on the platform. Check out the slideshow gallery below to see how the series will look in the WEBTOON format:

WEBTOON is kicking things off with The Witcher: House of Glass, which was written by Paul Tobin, drawn by Joe Querio, and colored by Carlos Badilla. House of Glass is set in the world of the Witcher games and follows Geralt of Rivia as he makes his way through the titular haunted mansion.

Here's the original logline for The Witcher: House of Glass:

Traveling near the edge of the Black Forest, monster hunter Geralt meets a widowed fisherman whose dead and murderous wife resides in an eerie mansion known as the House of Glass - which seems to have endless rooms, nothing to fill them with, and horror around every corner.

WEBTOON will begin serializing The Witcher on Monday, March 9 at 5pm PT. These stories will be adapted from the original Dark Horse graphic novels and modified for WEBTOON's vertical scrolling format. New installments will be added weekly.

In other The Witcher news, reports suggest that The Witcher 3 could be getting another expansion. You can also check out our comprehensive timeline of all The Witcher books.

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

War Machine premieres Friday, March 6 on Netflix.

Not to be confused with Netflix's 2017 Brad Pitt war satire of the same name, this War Machine stars Reacher's mammoth Alan Ritchson. He's a nearly aged-out Army Ranger hopeful (with a haunted past) whose two-hour Armed Forces commercial gets interrupted by a giant death robot from outer space that's a bulky combination of Aliens-style Power Loader and Tron-esque Recognizer. War Machine is an action/sci-fi mashup in the vein of Predator that stands slightly (on its tippy toes) above most of streaming's unchallenging, disposable rabble, mostly due to a ferocious mass casualty event of a second act.

War Machine's threat of a giant boxy contraption, instead of an alien monster, saves us from possible shoddy CGI, but it also adds to the film's visual dryness. It's mostly a drab, brutalist shoot 'em up that lacks the uniqueness needed for a great sci-fi invasion story. Ritchson's "81" (everyone has a number instead of a name) and his squad are on a final training mission when they're ambushed by a giant intergalactic bot, which tests his mettle while blowing most everyone else to Kingdom Come.

During the death bot's second assault, War Machine ticks upward a bit as the movie flashes its fangs. There's a particular chase scene that stands out due to its mercilessness, and it's here that the movie feels powered by its own engine and not just set on riding the coattails of things that came before it and did it better. It's a shame that the rest of the movie was designed to be a merely adequate affair, unchallenging and dry. Because the sci-fi behemoth element adds a horror movie-style bit of crash therapy in a "the monster is grief" sort of way. War Machine could have been a much deeper, satisfying experience, but they make the choice, in the end, to tease a possible franchise, and that deflates the resolution.

Ritchson is very good in this, providing a nice mix of tortured vulnerability and hulkish heroics. His physical hugeness takes a back seat in War Machine, as he's covered up for most of the movie in combat gear, but just knowing he's swole helps sell 81's unsettling obsession with durability and going the distance. 81 also comes with a tragic, recent past that gets unspooled throughout this crucible. Jai Courtney has a small but important role here as 81's brother, feeding into the redemption arc that helps give 81 layers as a character. Far more layers than the supporting soldiers, who, save for two, only get the barest of focus. They're mostly just faces in the chaos.

The blueprints for War Machine, as an action movie, are solid. The hero has a bone to pick with the universe. The universe sends a bone to pick. But this doesn't save it from moments of feeling like stodgy four-quadrant content. And the way the cosmic blastoid bot gets defeated, its weakness, is super silly. Almost enough to take you out of the story. No, it's not a big red "power off" button on its face but... that's not far off. Ultimately, War Machine -- which also stars Dennis Quaid, Esai Morales, and Stephan James (as one of the soldiers with "more to do") -- will rest comfortably as a medium-fine flick that you'll never watch again.

Some might have thought Bungie’s Marathon was going to be the big launch on Steam this week, but it turns out Slay the Spire 2 has quadrupled Bungie's extraction shooter in terms of concurrent player numbers on Valve's PC gaming platform.

Casey Yano, game developer and co-founder of Slay the Spire maker MegaCrit, took to social media to say he never thought Slay the Spire 2 would pass Marathon in terms of concurrent users. Well, it certainly has. At the time of this article’s publication, Slay the Spire 2 has over 350,000 concurrent players on Valve’s platform — an incredible number that makes it one of the most-played games on Steam, behind only the eternally popular PUBG, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike 2.

Marathon, meanwhile, hit a peak concurrent player count of 88,337 on the day of launch, a number Bungie will be hoping improves as the game heads into its first weekend.

Why did Yano mention this on social media in the first place? It was as part of an acknowledgement that a tweet from the official MegaCrit account about the launch of Marathon — viewed over half a million times — came off a little meaner than intended.

“Congratulations to the Marathon team on their launch!” MegaCrit tweeted Thursday, March 5. “Don't let small indie passion projects like this pass you by just because Slay the Spire 2 is out.”

Some thought that was throwing shade at Marathon, which is under significant pressure to deliver for Bungie following the torrid time the Sony-owned studio has faced in recent years. So, both the MegaCrit account and Yano himself issued follow-up messages.

“This seems a bit meaner than it was intended,” Yano said. “To be fair I didn't think we'd actually pass Marathon in concurrent users.”

And, in response to one user who called it “A SHADE FOR THE CENTURIES,” MegaCrit said: “it wasn’t supposed to be shade, we were being sarcastic 😭 did not know we’d blow up quite to the degree that we did…” All’s well that ends well. Bungie community manager Cozmo then replied to offer a congratulations of his own.

Slay the Spire 2 isn’t just outpacing Marathon on Steam, it’s rewriting the roguelike record books. It’s shot past Mewgenics to secure the highest ever concurrent player count on Steam for a roguelike, which itself inched ahead of Hades 2 last month.

That's an astonishing and clearly unexpected debut for this long-awaited sequel to the popular deckbuilder roguelike Slay the Spire, which returned a 9/10 review back in 2019. We said: "Slay the Spire takes some of the best parts of deckbuilding games, roguelikes, and dungeon crawlers, and mixes them into a wholly new and extremely satisfying package."

Slay the Spire 2 is currently only available on PC for its early access period, but it seems likely to get console versions once it's fully released.

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.

Saber Interactive’s long-running development of its Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake is confirmed to still be underway.

In a recent interview with IGN, the chief creative officer of Saber, Tim Willits, answered our question regarding the project’s future with a short but simple: “Yes, it is still in development. That's all I can say.”

The news will be of relief to the hordes of loyal fans of the now-classic RPG originally developed by Mass Effect and Dragon Age studio, BioWare. The modern reimagining was first revealed way back in 2021, but nothing has been officially seen or heard of it in the five years since.

A report in December 2025 from Game File revealed that Aspyr was no longer leading development on the remake, but that the reins had reportedly been handed over to Mad Head Games, the team behind the upcoming Hellraiser: Revival.

That same article also claimed that plans are not only in motion for the KOTOR reimagining, but a remake of its sequel, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, had also been discussed.

“Juliet was the codename for a project where we were going to do a full remake of KOTOR II with modern art, modern gameplay, you know, keep the story and the characters and the general — the general content of KOTOR II, but remake it for modern hardware and modern machines with updated graphics and all those kind of things,” said Douglas Reilly, Lucasfilm Games vice president. “It was something we were discussing with Aspyr.”

Whether those full plans for remakes of the Knights of the Old Republic series ever come to fruition is yet to be seen; however, it looks like development is still pressing on when it comes to Saber’s work on the original.

This all comes after the reveal of Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic at the 2025 Game Awards, a brand new single-player RPG set in a galaxy far, far away, led by former KOTOR director, Casey Hudson. Do you think we’ll be playing this new game before the Knights of the Old Republic arrives? Let us know in the comments below!

For more from our interview with Saber’s Tim Willits, you can find some new details about the upcoming John Wick game, and the news that extreme horror game Hellraiser: Revival has secured its ESRB rating.

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

With The Mandalorian And Grogu almost upon us, Star Wars fans are set for the first mainline film in the franchise since Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker, came out in December 2019. It’s a long time coming, and launches into a different world… maybe even a different galaxy compared to the previous set of films. But it also launches without the weight of expectation that comes with introducing a new Star Wars trilogy — and that’s to its benefit, Lucasfilm co-CEO Dave Filoni has said.

The Mandalorian And Grogu, due out on May 22, is one of only two Star Wars movies with confirmed release dates (Ryan Gosling's Star Wars: Starfighter arrives on May 28, 2027). While there is a long list of Star Wars movies announced, there is significant doubt that many of them, if any, will actually be released.

Even the Dave Filoni New Republic team-up movie that was announced is uncertain. Outgoing Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy made no mention of the Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and Boba Fett crossover film when revealing her exit in January, though it's likely her successor, Filoni himself, will be the one to give an update on this as its fate likely rests on the performance of The Mandalorian and Grogu this year.

Either way, The Mandalorian And Grogu feels like the start of a new era of Star Wars, and that’s how Filoni himself made it sound in a recent interview with Empire. “Episode VII was a completely different entity,” he said. “I had dreams of Episode VII since I came out of Return Of The Jedi. You were like, ‘After VI comes VII! Where’s VII?’ We’re in a completely different era of Star Wars now.”

As such, The Mandalorian And Grogu is free to be, simply, “a big celebration” of its two main characters, rather than have to contend with introducing a new trilogy of Star Wars movies. Star Wars: Starfighter, from the sounds of things, will enjoy similar freedom when it comes out next year.

Related, Kathleen Kennedy also failed to mention the previously-announced standalone movie set to feature Rey Skywalker in her exit interview. The project, revealed by Kennedy with fanfare at Star Wars Celebration 2023, was planned to feature the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey Skywalker, and reveal how the character starts a new era of the Jedi Order.

Kennedy announced the project on-stage alongside Ridley and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who was confirmed to be helming the project. But in the years since — as with so many other Star Wars movies — little more has been said.

"We're pretty far along," Kennedy said of the slate of Star Wars films announced back in 2023. "These are things, as you can imagine, certainly looking at what Dave [Filoni]'s been doing with Ahsoka, that'll be at least six, seven years building to what it is we're going to be doing in a movie. As [for the project being made by] Sharmeen, we've been working on that for a couple years already."

Discussing the standalone Rey movie's plot in more detail, Kennedy described it as set 15 years after Rise of Skywalker. "We're post-war, post-First Order, and the Jedi are in disarray, and there's a lot of discussion around who are the Jedi, what are they doing, what's the state of the galaxy?" Kennedy teased. "[Rey is] attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order based on the books, based on what she promised Luke."

Of course, this isn't the only project expected to feature Rey in the future. Lucasfilm is also incubating a new trilogy of movies from Simon Kinberg, the director behind the widely-panned X-Men movie Dark Phoenix and 2022 spy action flop The 355.

"[Kinberg] wrote something that we read in August, and it was very good, but not there," Kennedy told Deadline. "We've pretty much upended the story, and then spent a great deal of time on the treatment, which he finished literally about four weeks ago. And it's a very detailed treatment, like 70 pages. And so he is expected to give us something in March."

Once again, Kennedy referred to Kinberg's project as a "trilogy," though it still seems far, far away.

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.

Bungie’s Marathon is out now, which means players can finally see how its microtransactions actually work and, crucially, how much everything costs.

The $40 extraction shooter is monetized in a number of ways, including via a premium battle pass and direct microtransactions for cosmetic items, such as playable character skins. As Bungie had signalled before Marathon went live, gameplay-affecting items are not available to buy, only cosmetics.

Still, some players have responded negatively to Marathon’s monetization, criticizing the price of the skins and the digital sales tactics Bungie has in place.

Straight off the bat, on launch day, Marathon has $15 cosmetic packs (they cost 1,500 Lux, Marathon’s premium virtual currency). These packs include a runner skin, a weapon skin, a cosmetic trinket of some type, and a player banner and profile pic. Runner skins are sold separately for around $12’s worth of Lux.

This alone has irked some who believe that Marathon, as a $40 game, should not be monetized in a similar fashion to free-to-play shooters like Fortnite or Apex Legends. Others, however, are unsurprised by these cosmetic packs, and have pointed out that they’re more expensive in other premium games, such as the more expensive mainline Call of Duty games.

But what has caused more of a stink is the denominations of Lux available in the store. A runner skin costs 1,120 Lux, but of course you can’t buy 1,120 Lux exactly from the store. Instead, you have to spend $10 to get 1,100 Lux (just 20 Lux shy of what you need), and then another $5 to get 500 Lux on top, which in total dollar terms matches the same price as the $15 bundle.

This is a common tactic in video games that not only forces you to spend more money than you want to get a particular item, but leaves you with virtual currency spare that may encourage you to buy some more so you can get another item. Call of Duty does this. FIFA does this. And now Marathon does this.

“I'm tired of these Bungie scummy tactics,” one fan said. “Even if I love the game, this store and season pass in 2026 is a shame.”

“Dude I look at the shop to find that if you spend 10 you’ll get 1,100 coins or LUX but these people set every character price to 1,120, so you’ll have to spend another five dollars," said another player. "I hate this type of greed. I love the game but this is shallow.”

“Yea that’s dumb af,” said another. “And after spending $15 you’ll have 1,600 Lux so might as well get the entire bundle for 1,500. (Is what Bungie probably wants you to do) at that point why even sell the skin separately.”

Within the debate are a significant number of people who believe Marathon isn't doing anything particularly outlandish here when it comes to monetization. They point to the fact that only cosmetics are for sale and that no-one is forced to buy anything extra to compete out on the battlefield as evidence that Bungie is doing things well enough for its new shooter. Others say that anyone who played Destiny 2, Bungie's previous release, will find nothing here surprising.

And it doesn't look like Marathon's monetization has impacted the sentiment around the game at launch, either. At the time of this article's publication, Marathon had a 'very positive' user review rating on Steam.

It’s also worth noting that Marathon Reward Passes do not expire, so you can buy a previous season’s Reward Passes if you miss out. You unlock rewards in your Rewards Passes using Silk, which is earned by playing the game. You can also earn cosmetics via the Codex, with others available for purchase.

We’ve got plenty more on Marathon, including one Bungie developer’s commitment to “fontslop,” and Bungie’s words of reassurance on Marathon’s difficulty curve. Check out IGN's Marathon review so far to find out what we think.

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.

Pokémon TCG Mega Evolution's latest expansion, Ascended Heroes, recently released its immensely popular Elite Trainer Box (see in stock here). It's been a hotly sought-after item, and there are only a few spots where you can comfortably bag one online right now.

The Pokémon Company has issued an official objection after the White House used Pokopia for a meme, pushing back against the Trump administration’s repeated use of its intellectual property on social media.

On March 5, the official White House X / Twitter account shared a “Make America Great Again” meme that looks like the recently released spinoff, Pokémon Pokopia. While unconfirmed, it appears that the meme is an AI-generated graphic in the style of Pokopia, which released on the Nintendo Switch 2 this week. The text, “Make America Great Again,” is similar to the Pokopia font. Familiar Pokémon can be seen in the background. At the time of this article's publication, the White House's tweet had been viewed 18.6 million times.

MAGA 🇺🇸⚡️ pic.twitter.com/8QRVP23zGu

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 5, 2026

The Pokémon Company issued a statement in which it stressed that it did not grant the White House permission to use its IP for social content.

“We are aware of recent social content that includes imagery associated with our brand,” a company spokesperson told The New York Times. “We were not involved in its creation or distribution, and no permission was granted for the use of our intellectual property. Our mission is to bring the world together, and that mission is not affiliated with any political viewpoint or agenda.”

In September last year, The Pokémon Company formally responded to the use of Pokémon TV hero Ash Ketchum and the series' theme tune by the Department of Homeland Security, as part of a video showing people being arrested and handcuffed by law enforcement agents.

"We are aware of a recent video posted by the Department of Homeland Security that includes imagery and language associated with our brand," The Pokémon Company International said in a statement shared with IGN at the time. "Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content, and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property."

Many fans have suggested The Pokémon Company should defend its intellectual property by launching legal action. However, the corporation's former legal chief told IGN last year that he "wouldn't touch this."

Don McGowan, Pokémon's veteran ex-legal chief, told IGN in September that he believed any such action was highly unlikely. "I don't see them doing anything about this for a few reasons," McGowan, now principal at Extreme Grownup Services, said. "First, think of how little you see [The Pokémon Company International]'s name in the press. They are INSANELY publicity-shy and prefer to let the brand be the brand.

"Second, many of their execs in the USA are on green cards. Even if I was still at the company I wouldn't touch this, and I'm the most trigger-happy CLO [Chief Legal Officer] I've ever met. This will blow over in a couple of days and they'll be happy to let it."

As pointed out by The New York Times, Trump administration spokesperson Abigail Jackson has previously commented on their social media strategy, which shows no sign of backing off the use of entertainment company's IP.

“Through engaging posts and banger memes, we are successfully communicating the president’s extremely popular agenda,” Jackson said. “There’s a reason so many people try to copy our style — our message resonates.”

Indeed, The Pokémon Company isn’t the only gaming firm that has seen its IP used by the Trump administration in political memes. In October, Microsoft remained silent after Donald Trump released an AI image of the U.S. president as Master Chief and the Department of Homeland Security used Halo to promote ICE on social media.

Finishing this fight. pic.twitter.com/6Ezq9NUqMq

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 27, 2025

The Trump administration has form when it comes to using AI images to promote the President. In May last year, Trump sparked a backlash from some Catholics after posting an AI-generated image of himself as the Pope. The picture, which was shared by official White House social media accounts, was released as Catholics mourned the death of Pope Francis and prepared to choose the next pontiff.

The White House has also released AI images of Trump as Superman and as a Star Wars Jedi. And when the Department of Homeland Security used South Park to promote ICE, South Park trolled Trump in response, saying: “wait, so we ARE relevant?”

And earlier this week, the White House posted a video on social media that mixed footage from its bombing operations in Iran with Call of Duty gameplay. IGN has asked Activision for comment, but it has yet to respond.

Phot by Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

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.

Hoppers is in theaters now.

It’s not exactly a new observation to say that Pixar’s once golden reputation is not what it used to be. The 3D animation studio has never disappeared from the cultural conversation, but after revolutionizing the industry in the 1990s and delivering a string of unqualified masterpieces in the 2000s, Pixar has only occasionally reached the level of greatness that was once synonymous with their name. Part of that is because of their overreliance on sequels, but even their newer originals don’t always match the pedigree of all-time greats like Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, or Wall-E. Their latest film, the sci-fi animal comedy Hoppers, is not on that level of inspiration, but it still comes out the other side as an entertaining and admirable effort.

Hoppers is about Mabel (Piper Curda), a failing college student and animal lover from the city of Beaverton who is trying to protect a beloved glade from being demolished by a highway construction project. She’s opposed in this effort by Beaverton mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm), who insists he’s received the construction permits because the glade’s animals have already vacated the premises. No points for guessing that the animals didn’t leave purely of their own accord, but Mabel’s investigation into why leads her through a circuitous series of events that result in her mind being placed inside the body of a robotic beaver created by one of her professors. Mabel uses the “hopping” (as in, brain hopping) technology to communicate with the animals and figure out how to get them to move back.

There’s actually a lot more to the plot than this basic premise, with director Daniel Chong and writer Jesse Andrews’ story possessing a certain madcap energy as it moves through numerous big ideas and fresh complications. The frenzied pace ensures it never loses the audience’s attention, but it does feel like Hoppers would succeed better at its emotional moments if it were willing to let the story sit and breathe more often. But what keeps the film anchored is the throughline of Mabel’s desire to make “just one thing” work out at a time when she feels like everything has fallen apart, and why her overeager efforts sometimes make things worse despite her intentions. She’s assisted in this journey by King George (Bobby Moynihan), the friendly monarch of the local mammal kingdom, who tries to see the best in everyone even to a fault.

I really have nothing but good things to say about King George; while Hoppers isn’t one of Pixar’s best movies, King George does deserve a spot among their best characters. He’s a hard character to make work because his main trait is his inherent goodness and basic empathy for literally everyone and everything, which would make for a boring figure in the wrong hands. But Moynihan’s performance and Andrews’ script ensure his somewhat naive worldview makes sense because he wholeheartedly believes it, willing the best out of others by seeing it before they do. The relationship between him and Mabel may hit one or two predictable dramatic beats, but their chemistry still wins out by the film’s final act.

That said, the way King George runs his kingdom and how it relates to the film's world-building is one of Hoppers’ biggest drawbacks. King George’s forest abides by “pond rules,” which can be basically summed up as “we’re all in this together” (literally said out loud in dialogue). This is a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t square logically when you think it through. Similarly to 2024’s The Wild Robot, Hoppers gets a bit cutesy with its talking animal community, showing predator and prey all being friendly with each other, although Hoppers introduces the caveat that it’s okay for the predators to eat “when they’re hungry,” hand-waving the conflict with deaths treated as gags. Sure, it’s amusing when an animal explaining pond rules is inexplicably eaten mid-speech, but it doesn’t change that it’s a band-aid for an irreconcilable problem with the setting’s believability.

Hoppers’ lack of verisimilitude is what keeps it from matching Pixar’s top tier efforts. Pixar films such as Monsters Inc. or The Incredibles created worlds that were entirely separate from our own, which allowed their bizarre rules to still come off as internally consistent. But when Finding Nemo was clearly set in our world (beyond the “animals can talk” conceit), it didn’t move into the fantastical, basically playing fair with our understanding of how animals behave even with their anthropomorphized personalities. Hoppers feels akin to Finding Nemo in terms of what it’s trying to narratively accomplish with its world, but takes on too many extra incongruous elements. That ability to buy into the logic of a film’s setting is what lets the audience also buy into the emotional stakes of the characters, and this is where Hoppers starts to fall apart.

Between a surprise villain whose plan is established and thwarted far too quickly to leave real impact, the confusing detail that Mabel has to be the one to explain to the animal monarchs that humans are encroaching on their territory so they’re pushed into action (wouldn’t they know that already?), and a well-meaning but ultimately disingenuous end to the conflict between Mabel and Jerry, Hoppers has a few too many rough edges to get full marks. But the film still features plenty of humor and sharply directed sequences (of particular note is how it finds a hilarious way for a shark to participate in a car chase). It also goes out on a high note, delivering a sweet conclusion for Mabel and King George that doesn’t undo what was sacrificed in order to get there.

Warning: This review contains full spoilers for The Pitt Season 2, Episode 9!

Considering that The Pitt Season 2 is set on the Fourth of July in a major American metropolis, it’s pretty amazing that we’ve made it this far before seeing a grisly fireworks accident in the ER. But here we have an episode that opens with a firework-induced maiming and closes with the promise of many waterslide-related injuries. Summer is in full swing on The Pitt, and the show definitely isn’t hurting as a result.

Episode 9 is one where the medical cases definitely trump the interpersonal character drama. When it comes to the latter, “3:00 PM” mainly focuses on Mel’s (Taylor Dearden) impending meltdown over her deposition, a situation only intensified by the fact that her sister (Tal Anderson) has shown up out of the blue, complaining of stomach pain. It’s nice to see an increased focus on Mel for a change, especially because I’m assuming she’ll be dropping out of the picture for an episode or two while the deposition plays out.

Other than that, this episode mainly focuses on Santos (Isa Briones) on the character drama front, with the reveal that she appears to be casually dating Garcia (Alexandra Metz). This latest little plot twist (though technically the series hinted as much before) didn’t do a whole lot for me, as it seems like the series already has enough going on vis-à-vis Santos without getting into her love life. But maybe it’ll pay off in the end, as the character clearly seems to be heading toward a bigger emotional meltdown in the hours to come.

It should probably be pointed out that this episode marks the first time Season 2 has tried to show us a somewhat more sympathetic side to Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson). We get a brief scene where it becomes clear he has major daddy issues that are probably tied to his obnoxious overachiever side. It’s something, I suppose, but it’s going to take a lot more effort to drag this frustratingly unlikable character out of the hole Season 2 has dug for him.

Again, this episode keeps the focus mainly on the medical side of things, with the fireworks accident being just one of several intriguing cases playing out. This case is quickly turning into one of the more compelling of the season so far, too. Not only do you have a child struggling with the realization they’ve just maimed themselves for life, but you have the deeper issue of his family situation and the uphill battle his sister (Sasha Compere) is fighting to keep him in a stable home and in the US. It’s nice to see another subplot that digs into the current political climate a bit, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how this storyline plays out.

Also welcome is another appearance of Dr. Abbot (Shawn Hatosy, who also directed this episode) and his patient Howard (Craig Ricci Shaynak). This case takes on a new sense of urgency as it becomes clear that Howard’s options are either imminent death or emergency surgery with a 50% mortality rate. A lot of credit goes to Shaynak for managing such an emotional performance while having tubes attached to his face and only being able to “speak” through a computer assistant. This is another gripping case I’m eager to see unfold over the next several episodes. It’s just a shame that Abbot seems to be bowing out until his inevitable return in the endgame of Season 2.

Through it all, Episode 9 manages to retain some of the humor that’s characterized Season 2 so far. We get a silly little subplot involving Princess (Kristin Villanueva) and other nurses fawning over the X-ray technician (Adam Shaukat). We also see the debut of an entertaining new character in Monica Peters (Rusty Schwimmer), a forcibly retired nurse who’s only too happy to return to the ER in its current, digital-free state. Monica is clearly cut from the same no-nonsense cloth as Dana (Kathryn LaNasa), so she should be a memorable addition to the mix in the coming episodes.

Are you a huge fan of LEGO sets and yet consistently sticker-shocked by their exorbitant prices? Join the club. Fortunately, LEGO isn't the only interlocking brick company. Mould King, for example, is another very popular, highly-rated, and more affordable brand. Their sets use Gobricks, one of the best non-LEGO bricks on the market, similar to LEGO in durability, precision, and usability. Mould King does imitate several of LEGO's most popular sets, and it's also known to have "borrowed" user-created MOC designs (which, justifiably, might turn some away regardless of the deal quality), but they also produce original designs of their own, including some absolutely massive ones.

Most importantly, Mould King sets are much more reasonably priced than LEGO. Whereas a good LEGO "deal" might start at 10 cents per brick, a Mould King deal could cost half that or even less. Although Mould King sets are available on Amazon, AliExpress is actually where you want to look for deals. Mould King has an official AliExpress storefront that carries hundreds of its products at prices 30%-50% cheaper than Amazon. They also ship locally from a US warehouse with no tariffs or obnoxious wait times to worry about. If you're on the fence, I'd suggest picking up a more inexpensive model to try out. There's a good chance you won't be disappointed.

Mould King Sets on AliExpress

The National Videogame Museum (NVM) has announced the acquisition of a wildly rare and strange artifact of video game history: a Nintendo PlayStation.

And not just any Nintendo PlayStation. The oldest one, the "original development system" that was once used to prototype the strange collaboration system that ultimately never made it to release.

BREAKING: The NVM has acquired the mythical Nintendo Playstation! 🤯

This Sony MSF-1 is the OLDEST known existing Nintendo Playstation hardware artifact, and is the original development system for Sony’s planned Super Nintendo CD attachment. It is the ONLY known unit to exist!… pic.twitter.com/9JQyCsFtxc

— National Videogame Museum (@nvmusa) March 4, 2026

This comes from a Twitter/X post shared by the NVM yesterday, which included photos of the machine. "The NVM has acquired the mythical Nintendo Playstation!" it reads. "This Sony MSF-1 is the OLDEST known existing Nintendo Playstation hardware artifact, and is the original development system for Sony’s planned Super Nintendo CD attachment. It is the ONLY known unit to exist! One of the biggest 'What Ifs' of all time now lives here at the NVM!"

The Nintendo PlayStation was the strange product of an early 1990s partnership, led by Sony's Ken Kutaragi, between Sony and Nintendo to develop an attachment for the Super Nintendo that would play CD-ROMs. Only a few hundred prototypes were produced, before Nintendo's ongoing partnership with Phillips for a similar machine around the same time caused tensions, and the two split. Phillips and Nintendo's partnership for a CD-ROM attachment also fell apart sometime after, but Sony's work on the prototype helped spark the company's eventual development of the PlayStation 1.

A handful of the prototypes have popped up in various places over the years, and Kutaragi still has one as well. But this version at the NVM is even more special, as it's the original development system, and the only one of its kind. As a result, it looks quite distinct from the few other Nintendo PlayStations that we've seen – it's all function and no form, well before designers had gotten around to smoothing out those corners.

With the NVM acquiring this strange, rare relic, that hopefully means more people will have access to this bit of video game history. It will, hopefully, end up on display in the museum itself and well-cared for – an improvement after at least one prototype was found stashed and yellowing in a box of random items.

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

Sometimes, you go in blind on a new game. That’s how it was for me with Sword Art Online: Echoes of Aincrad. I’ll be honest with y’all: I’m not a Sword Art Online guy. I haven’t read the manga, seen the anime, theatrical films or live action adaptation, or played any of the games. My only knowledge of Sword Art Online is that the characters are trapped in an MMO, and if you die in the game, you die in real life. Dun dun dun! That’s a pretty compelling basis for a manga or an anime, but it’s particularly interesting as a video game set in a video game. As it turns out, not knowing much about Sword Art Online made me the perfect guy to sit down with Echoes of Aincrad because, well… it's a little different from what’s come before.

Before we dive into that, let’s take a quick step back and establish a few things first. Aside from a short section of the tutorial that we don’t want to spoil, I didn’t really see any of Echoes of Aincrad’s story. Instead, my time with Aincrad was spent doing a quest called The Lost Log. But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk about some of the narrative decisions this single-player action-RPG makes.

Maybe the biggest departure for the series is that, for the first time in its history, you’re not going to play as a pre-existing character who is part of the story. Instead, you’ll make your own. When I asked Sword Art Online Game Series Producer Yosuke Futami why they made the switch, he told me there were a couple reasons. First, most games in the series have been set in the middle of Sword Art Online’s story, which required players to have at least some working knowledge of the series. Echoes of Aincrad doesn’t, and Futami hopes that means that it will be more approachable for folks who aren’t already fans. Second, he’s hoping that by putting the player into the game world as their own character, they’ll be able to experience the story of being trapped in a death game themselves, not vicariously. Neat.

My journey started in The Town of Beginnings. I spent a little time running, getting a feel for the place, and finding some elven statues that taught me some of Aincrad’s lore. The Town of Beginnings feels like, well... a starting town in an MMO. It’s got that dense-yet-artificial feel of a town in a video game, which pulls double duty in a video game set in a video game because NPCs feeling like NPCs here is a feature, not a bug. The town also shows off how utterly gorgeous Echoes of Aincrad is. This is a good-looking video game. Like… damn.

After seeing the town, I teleported to a nearby terminal (you can teleport any time you’re in town), picked up a quest, and then teleported to my chest to change up my loadout and level up. You see, Echoes of Aincrad started me with a sword-and-board build, and I decided immediately that I would not be doing that because it just didn’t feel like me. I opted for a greatsword and some new gear instead, and spent my growth points to maximize what I wanted to do (meaning: hit things with a big sword).

One of the neat things Echoes of Aincrad does is reward you for hitting certain milestones as you level up – generally once you hit five point increments. Getting my Dex to 5, for instance, boosted my sword skill damage by 3%, while hitting 10 bumped that to 5%. It’s easy to play an RPG and feel like individual levels don’t do much to make you stronger, but every time I got a new level or hit a new milestone in my time with Echoes of Aincrad, I felt it – something Futami confirmed was intentional when I asked him about it. And in Echoes of Aincrad, you can reset your parameters whenever you want. That isn’t typical of Sword Art Online as a setting, but it makes Echoes of Aincrad more accessible to newcomers and encourages you to experiment with your build until you find something you like. If you ask me, that rules.

Once I was kitted out good and proper, it was time to go out into the world. Echoes of Aincrad is set in an MMO, but it’s a single-player game. When you go out, though, you’re not alone. You can select a companion to go with you. I had my choice of three: Iori, a healer: the tankier Wyzeman; and Argo, who operates in more of a utility/support role. I went with Wyzeman. Once we were in the field, how we proceeded was up to us. The map would tell us where we needed to go, but I could only see some of it. I’d have to unlock the rest as we traveled.

Our first enemies were wolves, boars, and kobolds, all perfect for getting used to Echoes of Aincrad’s combat system. A lot of what’s here is stuff you’ve seen before. You’ve got a guard, light and heavy attack chains that you can alternate between on the fly, special attacks, and your partner’s abilities (Iori’s, for instance, creates a circle that heals you if you stand in it). You’ll also open up additional attacks if you dodge at the right time or manage to parry, as you do, and some of them are pretty cinematic. Fancy.

What makes Echoes of Aincrad cool is how dangerous everything feels. Standard enemies can and will kill you if you’re not paying attention, especially early on, and they’re not exactly the forgive and forget type: they’ll follow you for a long time if you pick a fight with them. And they’re all different. Kobolds will block your attacks and retreat and try to blind you. If they do, the screen darkens and is filled with static. It’s a great effect that does exactly what it says: makes it a lot harder to see. Wolves, on the other hand, are nimble and aggressive and travel in packs. Boars are bruisers that you probably don’t wanna go toe to toe with directly, and there are these weird plants that attack from range with vines and can burrow under the ground. And that’s not even getting to the elite enemies, which are bigger, faster, and stronger and come with additional attacks.

By far the worst, though, were the wasps. They fly, they shoot poison, they hit pretty hard. Them boys is tough, so much so that I felt like San Andreas’s CJ whenever I saw one: “Aw, s***, here we go again.” Futami knows it, too. When I asked him about the enemies, and specifically mentioned the wasps, he nodded and said “Ah. Wasp” in English (the rest of our interview was conducted via a translator). Those are the words of a man who knows what he’s doing, what horrors he has unleashed on his digital world.

But even then, there are ways to deal with enemies. They can be stunned, opening them up to big damage. In the case of the wasps, I could knock them out of the air, which is where they’re strongest. If I stunned them, I could chop off their wings, preventing them from taking to the air and forcing them to fight on my terms. No matter what enemy I went up against (or how many times I saw them), it was always scary when a fight drew the attention of more baddies and exhilarating when I landed a big hit, nailed a dodge attack, or timed a team-up attack just so.

What I saw of the world was just as intriguing. In most RPGs, the worlds are something you navigate between combat encounters, but in Echoes of Aincrad, getting around is half the battle. Futami told me that they wanted the world itself to be like a dungeon, and I felt it when I was playing. Much of the time, I was figuring out how to get where I wanted to be from where I was, and what paths I’d need to take to get from one floating blue orb – which serve as places to rest and restore your potions, but also respawn enemies – to another, finding chests along the way. By far my favorite thing about the world was finding Arks. Defeating the mini-boss enemies sealed inside the Arks will open other seals scattered around the world, allowing you to get chests and other goodies.

One time, I opened up a cave, but it was too dark for me to see what was inside. Apparently, I didn’t have the right equipment to light the way; I guess I needed a Pokemon with flash or something. That could have been annoying, but I loved navigating Echoes of Aincrad’s world so much that it just made me want to come back later. There’s so much detail here, that even walking through mud is exciting because it would show up on my characters, something Futami said the team put a lot of effort into, and you can really get a sense of that as you play.

Searching for The Lost Log usually meant making the trip in chunks, fighting my way to the next orb, then going back to down to level up, equip new armor and weapons – and upgrade and slap new abilities on them, which sadly I can’t show – switching out my companion (I liked them all, but Iori quickly became my go-to because of her healing prowess), and so on. Each trip into the wild was an expedition, and I loved an excuse to try out new weapons and partner characters, which returning to the city provided.

My demo ended with a boss fight against a couple of the big, scary plants. It was a grand ol’ time, and fitting end to my time with Echoes of Aincrad. I came, I saw, I conquered, recovered The Lost Log, and left many a dead wasp in my wake. I’m still thinking about Echoes of Aincrad more than a week after playing it. About its world, about the characters, about the wasps. Even the metatextual stuff is fun. Remember Iori? She appears as a woman when I met her, but early on, Iori is a man, and Futami is eager to see what players make of that change. It’s particularly fitting for a video game. After all, who amongst us hasn’t played as a member of the opposite sex while exploring a fantasy world?

If Echoes of Aincrad can nail what it’s aiming for, it should be a chance for seasoned vets and newcomers alike to get into the Sword Art Online world. Me? I just wanna go back to that cave. Next time, I’ll make sure to bring a light.