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 got 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.

There are a lot of skateboarding games, and I feel like I’ve played most of them. Some of them are majestic. Some are not. The Simpsons Skateboarding was the absolute pits. Tony Hawk: Ride was tortuous pain. This year’s Skate is a microtransaction hellscape.

Enter Skate Story. Like those latter examples, it too is a trip to skateboarding hell and a study in pain. In this case, however, that’s actually the whole point of this extremely peculiar journey through perdition on a piece of 7-ply. I wasn’t always aboard for the sheer and utter weirdness of Skate Story’s broader adventure, but there’s no doubt developer Sam Eng has successfully married it to a robust and approachable set of skate mechanics – and it certainly makes for a memorable skateboarding game like no other I’ve ever played.

Skate Story is a slightly tricky game to describe, if only because attempting to even discuss the plot sounds a little like you’re making it up on the spot. The deal is you’re a demon made out of glass and pain, marooned in Hell. It’s referred to as The Underworld, more specifically – but the Devil is here, either way. I know this because I have his pants.

From the Devil comes a deal. That is, you can be free on one condition: you find a way to flip, grind, and manual your way to the moon – and eat it. For some reason.

Are you still following? Because I haven’t even got to the frog barista yet. Or the subway train with legs.

I’m hesitant to say much else lest I spoil any of the particularly quirky developments along the way, so just be aware Skate Story is an incredibly weird trip through a bizarre underworld. To be candid, this isn’t really the kind of thing I’d typically seek out. That is, the stories I like normally feature big guys causing problems in small towns, assassins with grudges, or pictures of fighter planes on the cover. That is, I’m more David Leitch than David Lynch, if that makes sense. Skate Story did largely win me over, though. There were definitely moments I found myself getting a little numb to the weirdness, on account of just how offbeat it sometimes gets, but overall I admire the commitment to its surrealistic vision.

Its story is told via text that you can read through at your own pace. There’s no voice acting or voiceover – and there’s an argument to be mounted that it might’ve gained a bit of gravity from some kind of baritone narration à la The Stanley Parable or Bastion – but Skate Story’s finely honed soundtrack means there’s still plenty to listen to. Assembled by New Jersey band Blood Cultures, the music is a generous mix of the group’s experimental, electro-pop sound, and it ranges in tempo and intensity as the locations and pace of the levels vary. This sort of music is also comfortably out of my usual wheelhouse, but nonetheless I found it extremely evocative and catchy, and it suits Skate Story to a T. It fabulously complements The Underworld’s abstract environments, and the atmosphere of its eternal night backdrop.

Don’t be fooled by Skate Story's grainy, low-fi look, either; this is one of the most eye-catching and imaginative-looking games I’ve played in recent memory. Its psychedelic vision for a neon underworld blends jagged forests of spikes with broken slabs of ancient architecture, and twisted blocks of New York City with carpets of stars. Watching this wild world refract through a sneaker-clad demon made entirely of glass is certainly something.

Pain in the Glass

The controls are not immediately intuitive, because they’re noticeably different from the approach taken by the sorts of dedicated sports-oriented skating games a lot of us are familiar with. That is, Skate Story doesn’t have tricks mapped to flicking an analogue stick around like the Skate series (or both analogue sticks, as in the case of something like Session). It’s more in line with playing something like Tony Hawk, only imagine someone remapped all the buttons.

Basic tricks are activated by a combination of either a shoulder button or trigger plus a face button, and grinds occur when you pop and land suitably on a rail or ledge. A variety of other, progressively more complex tricks are rationed out and taught to us as the story unfolds over its roughly six-hour duration. It’s not a revolutionary approach, sure, but it’s a smart one since having us always picking up new tricks keeps things fresh throughout. There was a moderate learning curve as I sought to archive decades of THPS muscle memory in order to learn Skate Story’s own specific trick system – but it didn’t take too long to come to grips with.

It’s all very grounded and weighty, which I like, and the tricks look great in motion with the low slung camera that tumbles to the ground like a physical object each time you bail and shatter to bits. I love how the powerslides feel, and I love the slow motion enders we’re rewarded with for our successes. When it comes to vibes, Skate Story nails the landing.

There’s a timing mechanism for executing tricks that results in different pop heights, which is illustrated by an on-screen doodle (a different shape for each trick). Depending on the speed of your skater, a marker will trace the doodle slowly or quickly – and there’s a sweet spot for getting max altitude – but I have to admit I generally paid little attention to it. On default settings, Skate Story never demanded a fastidious level of timing finesse to get through its levels and defeat bosses. This suits me just fine, but the fact that you can just essentially spam your way through a lot of the most frantic-looking segments may come across as a little trivial to anyone looking for a stiffer challenge.

Tony Hawk’s Underworld

Boss battles are handled in an interesting way, and to win these encounters you need to build up combos and “stomp” them down inside a marked zone. They can be cleared with a bit of mild button-mashing, but there’s certainly room to be much more deliberate about your trick selection and timing if you choose to (and you will, admittedly, accumulate better combos and deal more damage – and faster – if you do). There are also a number of small and trippy sandbox-style levels to cruise around with various objectives to complete, but some of these tasks do get disappointingly trivial. For instance, one mission that called on me to gather up a selection of floating letters sounded like a cute nod to Skate Story’s ancestors – but most of them were just hovering at ground level, turning what could’ve been a brief but fun challenge into a basic fetch quest across the map and back.

My favourite parts of Skate Story, however, were the speed segments, where you must hustle from your spawn point to an ethereal exit door – like some kind of haunted hill bomb. The music ramps up for these high-speed bursts, and I like the fast-paced trial-and-error nature of them as your fragile demon smashes to shards and you instantly get another crack. I always felt a little pang of regret when I reached the end of these runs, and I wish there were a few more of them.

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 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 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 chassis is a super-sized upgrade to the Aurora R16 system with aesthetic and cooling redesigns. The internal components have been refreshed with a new motherboard, faster RAM, and bigger power supply to accommodate the new generation of CPUs and GPUs. With a high-end system like this, it's only fitting that it be equipped with an RTX 5080 or RTX 5090 graphics card, so these are the configurations I've listed here. Note that Dell Outlet refurbished PCs come with the same warranty as buying new.

Alienware Aurora Gaming Laptop Deals

Alienware's new mainstream gaming laptop for 2025 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.

Gaming Monitor Deals

Dell makes some of the highest quality gaming monitors around. They're easily on par with the best that other brands like Samsung, LG, and Asus have to offer. For Cyber Monday, they're also incredibly well-priced. For example, the venerable 34" Alienware AW3423DWF Qfor $499.99 is the lower price I've ever seen for a 34" OLED monitor. By the way, if you do opt for a Dell or Alienware OLED monitor, you also get a 3 year warranty that includes OLED burn-in protection.

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.

Disney seems to own a lot of major franchises these days, but I still don't think of Star Wars or Marvel as Disney properties. Classic Disney, to me, is hand-drawn animation and happy little magical worlds I couldn't have imagined on my own. That nostalgic love I hold in my heart for the Disney I grew up with will never fade, no matter how many times something gets remade into live-action.

There are plenty of Disney adults out there who feel the same way as me, and we are surprisingly easy to shop for. The Disney merchandise available in 2025 is more targeted at adult collectors than its ever been and there's plenty to choose from. I've rounded up a few of my top Disney gift picks of 2025 that the special fan in your life will truly cherish.

Gifts for Fans of Disney Movies

Gifts for Fans of LEGO

Gifts for the Readers

Gifts for the Home

Gifts for Gamers

Nintendo and LEGO fans rejoice, because one of our favorite sets just got a major discount ahead of the holidays. Amazon has lowered the price of the LEGO Super Mario Piranha Plant 71426 to just $35.99 after a 40% off instant discount. This happens to just barely clear the free shipping threshold for non-Prime members. The 18+ rating means that this set is relatively challenging, but I've built this one myself and I think it's a great set for builders of all ages. It would make a pretty amazing gift for the holidays and, unlike many new LEGO sets, won't cost an arm and a leg.

40% Off LEGO Super Mario Piranha Plant 71426

Somehow we blinked and the so called big sales period has come and gone, yet the bargain bins refuse to take the hint. While Black Friday and Cyber Monday have packed up their circus tents, the storefronts are still wobbling under the weight of tasty discounts. I'm here to help you take full advantage, so let's stop talking and start saving.

Contents

• Retro
• Nintendo
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC
• PC Gear
• LEGO

This Day in Gaming 🎂

In retro gamer news, I'm tapping D-F-F-HK to give a Baraka-baked, 29-candle cake to Mortal Kombat Trilogy on PS One. If you used Kano's heart rip on me right now, you'd see that this compilation holds a very special place in my subcockles. My mate Craig basically had this disc glued to the spindle hub of his PlayStation drive back in '97.

His house was perched over our local beach, so when the surf was crap, it was a party house that provided a regular dozen or so surfers for "winner plays on" punchfests. And there was a lot to love about MK Trilogy, like a ridiculously huge 37-fighter roster, the Aggressor bar, Brutalities, and the cheese-tastic Motaro. He would get you (physically) beaten up if you selected him.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have passed us by, but thankfully there are still plenty of toys and gifts getting discounts before Christmas. If you're looking for an awesome Hot Wheels set to buy for a kid (or yourself), the Hot Wheels version of Bowser's Castle has just dropped to its lowest price ever on Amazon. It includes Bullet Bill a massive loop, and storage for up to 38 vehicles.

Hot Wheels Mario Kart Bowser’s Castle Playset

Saber Interactive’s troubled Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake is reportedly still in development – and a KOTOR 2 remake may be on the way, too.

The latest update on the long-in-the-works Star Wars remake come from a Game File report, which pulls from court documents related to a false-advertising lawsuit launched against Saber’s Aspyr Media and Lucasfilm in 2023. Recently filed records related to the suit, which involved the cancelation of the Restored Content Modification (RCM) for the Nintendo Switch KOTOR 2 re-release, appear to contain both updates for the KOTOR remake as well as mentions of a mysterious project known as “Juliet.”

Attorney Ray Kim prodded for details about what Project Juliet was during the deposition of Lucasfilm Games vice president Douglas Reilly. The Star Wars company VP’s response left little room for ambiguity.

“Juliet was the code name 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,” Reilly said. “It was something we were discussing with Aspyr.”

As for that long-lost cut KOTOR 2 content, Reilly clarified that “the plan was we would remake the content that was in the RCM as it relates to Star Wars in that Juliet project.” Whether or not a KOTOR 2 remake remains in development is hazy for now, with Reilly’s last update saying Juliet was “technically on the roadmap” as of March 2025. Should Saber continue development, it seems the plan is for a reimagined version of the entire experience, even the RCM content, to be included in the final build.

Many other details on the supposed KOTOR 2 remake remain a mystery, but the good news is that Reilly says “we’re starting with the remake of KOTOR 1,” clarifying that “Aspyr isn’t working on those games.” Instead, the KOTOR remake is said to now be in the hands of the team behind Hellraiser: Revival at Mad Head Games.

It’s yet another update on a remake of a classic Star Wars video game that was first announced all the way back in 2021. It’s since earned its place among other gaming projects that have yet to see the light of day, with previous updates leaving fans with low expectations that the reimagining could ever come to be. Still, Saber has stayed positive about its KOTOR remake in recent months, telling fans in March that, “everything that we have talked about is still in development.”

While we wait for any updates on the KOTOR remake or even that potential KOTOR 2 remake, you can see our list of every Star Wars video game in development. You can also read our 9/10 review of the original KOTOR, as well as our 8.7/10 review of its sequel.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Whether you're looking to pick up a carrying case, screen protector, or accessories, there are quite a few Nintendo Switch 2 deals worth checking out at the moment. Here we've gathered up some of the best that have crossed our radar lately, now that Cyber Monday has ended. If you're in the Switch shopping mood for the holidays, now is a good time to pick up some of these items with some discounts still available.

TL;DR - The Best Nintendo Switch 2 Deals

More Nintendo Switch Game Deals

Nintendo Switch 2 game deals are, unfortunately, pretty few and far between at the moment (not counting a Sonic X Shadow Generations discount over at Amazon). However, there are some great Nintendo Switch game deals available right now. We've included just a few our favorites above, including a great discount on Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection.

Switch 2 Carrying Case Deals

If you're planning on taking your Switch 2 out on any trips or adventures you have planned this summer, a carrying case is a very wise investment. Thankfully there are plenty of great deals to check out right now on a variety of different case styles, whether you want something slimmer or with a very sturdy build. We're particularly fond of the Tomtoc slim carrying case, which offers the best of both and is discounted right now.

Best Switch 2 Screen Protector Deals

Once you've picked up your new Switch 2, it's important to find some extra protection for it. Screen protectors are a worthy investment and, thankfully, there are plenty of deals available right now. Even though these items are usually pretty affordable on their own, the discounts are a nice little treat to take advantage of while they're available.

Switch 2 Accessory Deals

If you've picked up your Switch 2 console and are now on the hunt for some accessories, there are a few deals worth checking out right now. From thumb grips to a protective case that can be wrapped around your Switch 2 in handheld mode, we've included some of our favorite deals above that are available at the moment.

Best Switch 2 Power Bank Deals

And lastly in our list of Nintendo Switch 2 deals for right now, you'll want to make sure you've got plenty of power to keep you going once you start playing on your new console. If you've been looking for a new Switch 2 power bank to have for when you're on the go, we've included a few great deals above that are worth checking out.

Where to Buy Official Nintendo Switch 2 Accessories

If official Nintendo Switch 2 accessories have been on your radar, we've included where you can buy those above. Some of these have been going out of stock quick, though, so if something that catches your eye is still in stock you'll want to be quick to scoop it up while it's still available.

Where to Buy Nintendo Switch 2

The recently released Apple Watch Series 11 just dropped to a price that's lower than the best deal I saw during Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Amazon currently has several models available for just $299, or $100 off the retail price. This beats the Cyber Monday price by $30, making this the new lowest price I've seen. An Apple Watch would make a worthwhile upgrade for yourself if you're still rocking an Apple Watch 8 or older, or a great gift idea for any iPhone user.

Apple Watch Series 11 for $299

The Apple Watch is indisputably the best smartwatch for iOS users. It's stylish, boasts excellent build quality, excels as both a fitness tracker and smartwatch, and seamlessly integrates with your iPhone.

The Apple Watch Series 11 is the current generation model. Probably the biggest upgrade is 5G connectivity for the cellular models, although the ones on sale here are GPS only. Other updates include a "2X more scratch resistant" Ion-X glass, brighter display that can go up to 2,000 nits, and 33% longer battery life. Software features include hypertension notifications, sleep score, and an Apple Intelligence powered "Workout Buddy" that motivates you during exercise. The processor is the same S10 chip found in the Apple Watch Series 10. In fact, it's technically the same chip found in the Apple Watch Series 9, but optimized for better performance and efficiency.

Can you use an Apple Watch with Android phones?

Although it's technically possible to use an Apple Watch with an Android phone, we wouldn't recommend it. Apple made it so that a lot of the functionality of the Apple Watch requires a smartphone with an iOS operating system. There are some workarounds to implement some of the features, but for the average person, the hassle isn't worth it. If you're absolutely intent on getting an Apple Watch, then getting an iPhone first would be the best option.

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.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be over, but Sonos has decided to continue the deals extravaganza with a new 48-hour Cyber Sale. For Tuesday and Wednesday, you can score some new discounts on select certified refurbished soundbars, speakers, and subs. Sonos refurbished products come like new, in pristine packaging with all the original accessories. They even come with the same one year warranty as a brand new product.

Sonos Era 100 Smart Speaker

The appeal of a light gaming mouse is clear. For some people, the lighter the mouse, the more comfortable and agile it feels, and the less fatigue they get during longer sessions.

The best lightweight gaming mice don't sacrifice performance. In fact, mouse technology is improving to the point where quality batteries, sensors, shells, and switches weigh less, meaning most high-end mice these days can be classed as lightweight while still cramming in top-tier features.

We’ve compiled a list of the best lightweight mice on the market right now. All of the wireless ones weigh less than 60g, whereas the wired ones are less than 70g. We've broken them down by category to help you pick.

TL;DR – These Are the Best Lightweight Gaming Mice:

1. Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro

Best Lightweight Gaming Mouse

2. Roccat Burst Core

Best Budget Lightweight Gaming Mouse

3. Corsair Sabre V2 Pro

Best Ultra-Lightweight Gaming Mouse

4. Asus ROG Keris II Ace

Best Lightweight Esports Gaming Mouse

5. Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2c

Best Compact Lightweight Gaming Mouse

6. HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2

Best Wired Lightweight Gaming Mouse

7. Roccat Kone Pro

Best Lightweight RGB Gaming Mouse

Lightweight Gaming Mouse FAQs

Are lightweight mice better for gaming?

Lightweight mice make certain games easier to play and control. Many professional esports players opt for a lightweight mouse because there’s less effort involved and more agility when making finer movements, which is essential when you need to react quickly.

Additional contributions by Michelle Rae Uy, Danielle Abraham, and Georgie Peru.