Take one look at Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, the upcoming RPG from ZA/UM, and you can immediately see the similarities between it and the studio’s previous game, Disco Elysium. It’s an isometric game with a striking art style, featuring dialogue-heavy gameplay where conversations are displayed vertically on the right-hand side of the screen.

Take a closer look and there are even more similarities. There’s a “Conditioning” system that replicates many of the functions of Disco Elysium’s unique Thought Cabinet. Its story aims to be deeply political and introspective. And then there’s the skills system, which manifests as a sentient inner monologue, commenting on your choices and the world around you.

For some Disco Elysium fans, this overlap may feel uneasy. In 2022, game director Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov – creatives key to the look, feel, and vision of the celebrated RPG – were among a number of staff who left the studio in an "involuntary" manner. ZA/UM claimed they were fired for misconduct, while Kurvitz and Rostov accused the company’s majority shareholders of fraud. Many fans believe those fired to be victims of corporate conspiracy. Those same fans may now be concerned to see the studio building a Disco Elysium successor based on such similar design foundations without the involvement of those original creatives.

In a recent interview, IGN discussed these concerns with Jim Ashilevi, writer and VO director at ZA/UM, and asked why the studio didn’t consider finding a new direction for Zero Parades.

“I think it would have made sense for us to go in a completely different direction if the entire team was comprised of new talent,” Ashilevi said. “But since such a large number of the key players that built Disco Elysium are here to build Zero Parades, it just didn't make sense for us to just disregard that part of our experience as amateur game makers and start learning new ways of telling stories.”

ZA/UM’s head of studio, Allen Murray, estimates that around 35% of the studio’s current staff roster is made up of people who worked on either the original version of Disco Elysium or the expanded “Final Cut” release. The studio’s total staff numbers around 90.

“We're still the same people,” Ashilevi continued. “We still have the same interests. The stuff that interests us in the world of video games, but also in other media – in film and literature and theater – that hasn't changed. Hopefully it has evolved, but I think we're still basically the same people.

“We're just going by our gut, basically, and we're following our own obsessions,” he said. “And a lot of that was present in Disco Elysium. It will be present in Zero Parades as well, largely due to the fact that those are the same people who were there to build that cool world.”

In a previous interview with members of ZA/UM, which took place just prior to Gamescom 2025, IGN asked Ashilevi and lead technical artist Nicolas Pirot how they felt about fans who may be feeling cautious about a new ZA/UM RPG following the departures of Kurvitz, Rostov, and others.

“I understand why some people might have reservations,” said Pirot. “It's not up to me to tell them what to think or what to experience. I think what we are trying to do is tell an incredible story. And I think all we can do is hope that, when Zero Parades is ready, that people like it enough to participate and to see who we are as a group.”

“We are here to write more stories,” Ashilevi added. “That's all we're here for. And if that upsets people or makes them feel cautious, fair. But there is a new game coming out soon and I hope you check it out. And if you don't like it, that's fine. That's completely fine.”

ZA/UM intends to launch Zero Parades this year. An espionage RPG themed around power struggles and failure, the team hopes it will stand distinct from Disco Elysium without “fully re-inventing the wheel.”

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.

As part of Black History Month, Oni Press is releasing a new biographical graphic novel called First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth. This book dramatizes the life and work of Dr. Opal Lee and reveals how the national holiday Juneteenth got its start.

IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of First Freedom. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:

First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth is written by Angélique Roché, with art by Alvin Epps (I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005: A Graphic Novel), Bex Glendining (On Starlit Shores), and Millicent Monroe, colors by Damali Beatty, and letters by Alexis Bennett with Andworld Design.

“I believe it is important to note that while this book gives ample space to the conversation of Juneteenth, Ms. Opal’s impact has been and continues to reach further than just the fight for a national holiday," Roché writes in the book's preface. "Even before Ms. Opal chaired a Juneteenth committee or set her sights on walking to D.C., she had time and time again made herself a ‘committee of one.’ As a daughter, sister, mother, friend, educator, advocate, and activist, she has set out to accomplish tasks big and small. Guided by family legacy and faith, she continues to challenge the limitations others would place on us from the ordinary to the extraordinary. That is the story I set out to tell, with the sincere hope that in these words, pictures, timelines, and references, I’ve been able to capture even a modicum of her spirit and an iota of the vastness of personal power her life and legacy represent.”

“First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth is a testament to the truly inspirational courage of Dr. Opal Lee,” said Oni Press Editor-in-Chief Sierra Hahn. “The book is an essential read not only for librarians, teachers, historians, and activists, but anyone interested in American history, the power of activism, and the expression of personal freedom.”

First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth is available in hardcover and softcover formats now. You can order the book on Amazon.

In other comic book news, find out which series was selected as IGN's best comic book of 2025, and see which comics we're most excited for in 2026.

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

Mario Tennis Fever has the soul of a GameCube game. Its wacky, over-the-top take on tennis is at its best when you have four friends together on the couch. And for the first time since the GameCube era, series developer Camelot has delivered an entry that feels feature complete on day one, with the most unique characters, solo and multiplayer modes, and silly gimmicks we’ve ever seen crammed into a Mario Tennis game. Sadly, that doesn’t mean it’s all good content, as the single-player adventure once again comes up woefully short in terms of both its length and quality. But when playing locally or online, Fever’s tight, responsive controls and crazy abilities result in a chaotic party game that’s a lot of fun in short bursts.

The headline twist this time around are the mighty Fever Rackets, which dominate the action. There are 30 to choose from, and each comes with a unique special ability that can swing the game in your favor. Those powers are activated by pulling off a Fever Shot once your gauge is full, and they range from offensive, like planting a rotating Fire Bar straight from Super Mario Bros. on your opponent’s side of the court, to defensive, like creating a shadow double of yourself to cover more ground. They can also block your screen with ink, litter piles of banana peels on both sides of the court, or grant time-limited buffs, like making your shots curvier for the next 20 seconds.

The Fever Rackets are a blast to experiment with, and their inclusion adds a different flavor to each match. At their best, they force you to think about all the special quirks in play. If I place a slippery sheet of ice on one quadrant of my rival’s turf, we both know I’m probably going to try and hit my next shot right at it to force them onto the uncomfortable terrain. Or… will I? Shot placement in tennis is full of mindgames, and the Fever Racket’s transformative effects enhance that dynamic.

There are also checks and balances to each that are fun to uncover. The Bullet Bill Racket transforms the ball into a wicked fast line drive that appears overpowered at first glance, until you learn it can be easily neutralized by playing up close at the net. And when both players use this racket, it can result in a hilarious, rapid Bullet Bill rally that usually ends with a demoralizing body shot. Mixing and matching racket types to see what happens is great, which is why it really bothers me that there’s no way to randomly select your Fever Racket for either human players or CPU opponents, as it would be fun to try to make the most of the cards you’re dealt. You can randomly select characters and courts, just not rackets, so that feels like a prime candidate to be added in a post-launch update.

Some Fever Rackets are definitely stronger than others, but Mario Tennis Fever adds a smart mechanic to somewhat balance them out. When a player initiates a Fever Shot, most offensive effects don’t take place until the ball hits the ground, leading to a tense back-and-forth volley where both players desperately try to hit the ball before it bounces. You have to be confident in choosing which one to bring into the match and when to unleash it, because the wrong decision can see your opponent sending your big shot right back at you.

On the flipside, Fever Rackets can also make things feel more luck-based at times, especially in doubles. Four separate powers in play can lead to courts that are completely covered in mud, fire, and unregulated chaos, similar to playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with all items cranked to the max. When your health hits zero – which forces you to sit on the sidelines in doubles or move at a slower speed in singles – it often doesn’t feel like your fault because of how unavoidable taking damage becomes. Even your doubles partner’s Fever Shot can hurt you. This isn’t necessarily bad; Fever just leans harder into the party game side of things than its predecessor, Mario Tennis Aces, which almost resembled a competitive fighting game with high-level mechanics like bar management and perfect blocks.

Rally Time

To account for all the mayhem that Fever Rackets entail, the actual tennis is a bit simpler. The overall speed is slightly slower and floatier, last-second dives for the ball make mistakes less punishing, and the court is a little smaller, meaning it’s easier to reach cross-court shots and keep a point going. I understand this choice: Aces’ intense pace combined with Fever’s increased madness would probably be too much to keep up with. On one hand, I miss the more hardcore version of tennis Aces provided. I played that game online for years because of its high skill ceiling and rewarding mechanics – it was a truly inspired take on the sport. On the other hand, Fever is way more fun to invite friends over to play for a casual game night since it’s easier for newcomers to pick up. It’s worse as a competitive tennis game, but better as a party tennis game. Plus, most modes let you use a high-speed ball that leads to a more upbeat rhythm, even if it doesn’t entirely resolve my disappointment that Aces’ thrilling trick shots, racket health, and time-bending abilities have been replaced.

That said, it still feels really good to anticipate where the ball is going, get in position, and release a fully-charged topspin shot, complete with great, punchy sound effects. Camelot has been refining the same control scheme of drop shots, lobs, and angled smashes for decades, and it’s still fun to return to, especially with CPUs that actually put up a fight at higher difficulties and the largest roster the series has ever seen. There are 38 characters to choose from, each with their own stats and unique traits. Newcomer Baby Waluigi has been a breakout star online, but I’ve actually gravitated towards the overlooked Baby Wario, whose powered-up topspin shot helps me control the pace of each point. I’m also happy to see the Donkey Kong Bananza redesigns of DK and Diddy Kong show up.

The character models are probably the best-looking part of Fever, with detailed clothes and facial animations, like the texture on Luigi’s shirt or even more bristles in Mario’s mustache than before. However, it doesn’t blow me away visually as a Switch 2 exclusive. Its cartoony art style looks good, as Mario games generally do, but it doesn’t feel like a significant leap forward. It targets 60 fps and usually hits that, but I noticed a few times in splitscreen doubles matches where it dipped before the ball was served. At least it’s always consistent when it matters most during the point, even with all the wild Fever effects on screen.

Keeping in line with Fever’s GameCube spirit, you have to unlock a bunch of characters, rackets, courts, and special costumes by clearing specific challenges, playing a certain number of matches, and progressing through the Adventure mode. Recent Mario sport games have tied progression and unlockables to online play, so it was a welcome sight to boot up Fever for the first time and see I had plenty to chase that wasn’t tied to my internet connection. That is, until I booted up the Adventure mode and discovered what I was in for.

Baby Fever

If you’re primarily looking forward to Mario Tennis Fever because of its single-player Adventure mode, I’m sad to share that it’s easily the most underwhelming part of this package. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Wario, and Waluigi get transformed into babies, and Mario must regain his tennis skills to save everyone, for some reason. It starts out promising, with a few gorgeous early cutscenes that throw Mario and friends into unexpected situations. Camelot upholds its reputation for surprisingly great cinematics like this, but the Adventure mode only goes downhill from there.

The first 90 minutes of this disappointingly short three-and-a-half hour campaign take place at a tennis academy, where Baby Mario undergoes painfully drawn-out, simplistic tutorials about the basics. You complete fairly one-note minigames to increase your stats, mash through text that reiterates each shot type, and partake in ridiculously easy qualification matches to move up the ranks. Throughout, you are also quizzed on your tennis knowledge, like one stumper where I was asked which character type was known for its speed: all-around, defensive, or speedy. Take a guess. This is clearly meant for young kids playing their first Mario Tennis game, and “Tutorial” would’ve been a more appropriate name than “Adventure”. It would be more enjoyable if the writing was funny or clever, but the characters all say very vanilla things that essentially only exist to teach you how to play. This is a far cry from Golf Story, which remains the gold standard for how to do a proper campaign in an arcadey sports game that combines strong writing, interesting challenges, and off-the-wall diversions, all of which are missing here.

You eventually leave the academy to progress through a comically small world map. This part of Adventure strongly resembles Aces’ campaign, where you use your tennis skills to fight a handful of bosses and solve very light puzzles. There are a few challengers to find, but there’s a surprising lack of tennis matches in this tennis campaign – and just when I felt like things were ramping up, it was over, so I shrugged and moved onto the other single-player offerings.

Tournament mode is a staple of Mario Tennis, and this is unfortunately one of its worst forms. Playing through three separate brackets to win trophies is fine as always, but Fever introduces an announcer in the form of a Talking Flower from Super Mario Bros. Wonder who never stops commentating. He reacts to every single shot, and I felt like I’d heard all of his voice lines multiple times before even wrapping up my second tournament. It gets grating very quickly, and I can’t imagine even kids would enjoy the nonstop commentary. The Talking Flower is turned on for all modes by default, but thankfully you can disable it everywhere… except in Tournament and Adventure.

The runaway best single-player mode is Trial Towers, a new addition that reminds me of Super Smash Bros. Melee’s Events. Each trial throws a specific setup at you, like a match where your Fever Gauge is always full or a battle of three babies against a giant Bowser, and it’s up to you to figure out how to exploit the setup and win a brief five-point match. There are even optional, difficult achievements for completionists, like winning without taking damage, or never losing a point. It’s a lot of fun working your way through each challenge, and incorporating this concept into an Adventure mode with unique characters and an interesting story should be the way forward for this series.

As always, Mario Tennis Fever shines in multiplayer, and there’s plenty of flexibility in that department. You can compete online in ranked matches split, between singles and doubles, either with Fever Rackets or without them. Winning boosts your point total as you work to improve your letter grade, with rankings scheduled to reset at the start of each month. I was only able to play online for a couple hours before launch, but my experience was smooth. In addition to playing with up to four people locally, you can bring two people from one console into a private online lobby and set up any type of casual match you’d like.

When you want something besides the standard tennis, you and your friends can pick a special match like the motion-control-focused Swing Mode, the traditional Ring Shot mode where you compete to score the most points by hitting the ball through rings floating above the net, a pinball court that uses bumpers and paddles, or a court that introduces Mario Wonder’s Wonder Effects like floating hippos. These range from decent distractions, like carefully aiming your Fever Shots at Piranha Plants to grow the size of your opponent’s court, to completely uninteresting, like repeatedly lobbing and dropshotting the ball just out of reach of a mindless CPU opponent upwards of 30 times in a row.

It doesn’t take long for even the best special modes to get repetitive, and I found myself quickly going back to the standard tennis matches. Thankfully, that specific mode has more than enough to shake things up thanks to the large roster of characters and rackets, but it ends up feeling like too much of a good thing. Fever is still a lot of fun in briefer sessions, but when I think of the breadth of worthwhile content found in Nintendo’s other recent multiplayer options like Kirby Air Riders or Super Mario Party Jamboree, Fever comes up a bit short. After 20 hours, I already feel like I’ve had my fill, and I see it as more of a fun distraction to play for a few minutes here and there while my group warms up for something else rather than one that’s going to get a serious amount of playtime.

Time, the old saying goes, is a flat circle. We go round and round, repeating forever. The same events, the same choices, the same conclusions. All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. Romeo is a Dead Man, the latest from developer Grasshopper Manufacture and director Suda51, posits a different question: what if time was a sphere? The events might change, but all roads still lead to Rome. It’s a fascinating idea, but also one you shouldn’t rack your brain trying to figure out. This is a time travel story: spend too long trying to piece things together, and you’ll be making diagrams out of straws. In a convenient example of form as function, Romeo is a Dead Man is as fractured as a game as the universe Romeo navigates within it. To tell you the truth, I’m still trying to figure out if I liked it several days after beating it. But I can’t stop thinking about it, and how its form mirrors its narrative. And that’s not nothing.

Our tale follows the titular Romeo Stargazer, a sheriff’s deputy in the small town of Deadford (you’re going to notice a pattern with the naming conventions pretty fast, if you haven’t already) in Pennsylvania (okay, not that one).There’s not much to Deadford: it’s known for a potential alien landing site and its “dead” tomatoes. One day, Romeo discovers an amnesiatic woman named Juliet lying in the road. She begs him to kill her, but Romeo’s a good lad (and kind of a doofus), and he falls in love with her instead, despite the super questionable confluence of their names. “No good will come from falling in love with a woman you found in the middle of the road,” his grandfather, genius inventor Benjamin Stargazer, warns. And you know what? He’s right! You wanna be star-crossed lovers, kid? Because this is how you become star-crossed lovers.

Anyway, they fall in love, agree to elope, and then Romeo gets attacked by a weird creature and dies, but his grandfather saves his life with a super cool helmet, then also dies. Romeo becomes Deadman, space time is shattered by a mysterious incident, and Juliet disappears. The latter two might be connected. Now sustained (and powered-up) by his grandfather’s tech, Romeo is recruited by the FBI’s Space-Time Police and tasked with bringing space-time criminals to justice, tracking down Juliet, and figuring out what, if anything, she has to do with all this. He also gets a bitchin’ jacket that his dead-but-also-not-dead grandfather has somehow transported himself onto. Ol’ Ben also technically invents time travel in the future, making him a literal grandfather paradox. Wild.

That’s a lot, huh? Listen, this is a Suda51 joint. Weirdness is the name of the game. If I tried to explain all of it to you, I’d probably look like a dude with crazy eyes and a wall of notecards and newspaper clippings connected by red string. The truth is that, even after finishing Romeo is a Dead Man’s 15-hour story, I’m not sure I understand all of it – and hey, neither does Romeo. Talk about feeling like the main character. But for whatever reason, it’s stuck with me. That all of this is conveyed through a combination of cutscenes, comic book pages, and other weird but cool methods as you get deeper in probably didn’t hurt.

Like the Fragmented Universe Romeo finds himself in, Romeo is a Dead Man is a game made up of a lot of very disparate ideas. Missions start on the Space-Time Police’s ship, The Last Night, which is a 2D, sprite-based world where you can hang out with the crew – they’re a weird group that includes Romeo’s mom and sister, as well as FBI Space-Time agents with names like BlueMountain, TheBlack, and RedBrown; one tells you that Deadman is a lame name. From there, you scan the universe for anomalies, pilot The Last Night to them (you mostly pick a destination and hit the gas), blast away at the dimensional monstrosity blocking wherever you need to go with a weapon called Eternal Sleep, and then ride Romeo’s motorcycle across a bridge of light to to your destination. I can’t emphasize enough how ridiculous all of this is, especially when your ship says “FBI” on the side in big bold letters.

Once you’re where you need to be – which could be Deadford City Hall, a cult enclave in the ‘70s where you run around with a delightful zombie named Jenny, or a haunted asylum, among others – you’re playing a 3D action game where your job is to track down a space-time fugitive and bring them to space-time justice, which usually means fighting a lot of zombies and other monsters who are also here for… reasons. Romeo has access to four melee weapons and four ranged weapons. You’ll have to unlock every one but your starting chainsaw-sword and pistol, but the process is pretty quick. I had them all after the opening mission. Once you do, that’s it. There are no more worlds to conquer, weapon-wise.

Melee combat is your standard combination of light attack, heavy attack, and dodge that seems to have taken over every modern action game, and I'm kinda wondering why game designers hate blocking so much (unless it’s a parry). The cool thing about Romeo's melee combat is that you can chain light and heavy attacks together in any order. It’s not particularly deep – weapons don’t have move lists, and there's nary an Izuna Drop (or anything similar) in sight – but it does feel good, especially against the smaller Rotters. I enjoyed every weapon in Romeo's arsenal, whether it was his standard sword, the combining-and-separating Arcadia or the gauntlet-based Juggernaut, which allows Romeo to pretend he's a boxer… or Dante from Devil May Cry. Even the big, slow sword is cool.

Against the bigger, badder enemies, you'll want to sheathe your blades and get your hands on some superior firepower, mostly because those enemies come with flower-shaped weak points. There are no bad ranged weapons here: pistol, machine gun, shotgun, they all work great and pack a punch, though I was particularly fond of the rocket-launching Yggdrasil. When something absolutely, positively has to die, accept no substitutes. You may have to reload after every shot, but Romeo's wearing Solid Snake's bandana no matter what smoke wagon you're making guys dead with. “Don’t worry, infinite ammo” baby.

I admit that I'm kind of mixed on Romeo is a Dead Man's rogues’ gallery. There are a decent number of them, yeah, and the varying nature of their weak points is nice, but Grasshopper shows you all of its cards pretty early on, and by the end you'll have seen these cats a lot. That said, I do really like things like the Jellies, which force you to disperse their oozing exterior with a melee weapon before you can do real damage to the body beneath.

Either way, killing enemies builds blood, which can be spent on Bloody Summer, a very strong attack that also regenerates some of Romeo’s health. Each weapon has its own version of this move, and you can also use it while dodging or jumping for some variety. It’s a good way to dish out the hurt and manage Romeo’s health without dipping into his limited healing items.

Bafflingly but perhaps unsurprisingly, Romeo is a Dead Man borrows elements from the Soulslike genre. (If you were ever looking for a sentence with a 100% success rate in the “typing this made Will sad” category, there’s a winner.) Space-Time Pharmacies serve as save and fast travel points and restore your health and healing items, but also respawn any enemies you’ve killed. There’s no penalty for dying; you don’t drop the currency you’ve earned from killing enemies. Instead, you actually roll a roulette wheel that provides buffs to things like attack, defense, blood gain, and so on, courtesy of Romeo’s mom. Without other consequences, respawning enemies can make death and saving annoying in what is a fairly linear action game. I guess you could argue that it might fit thematically with each death or use of the Space-Time Pharmacy creating a parallel universe or something, but mostly it just feels weird and makes certain segments repetitive.

Even the bosses aren't immune to repetition, and you'll see the same mini-bosses multiple times. The space-time criminals that cap off each stage are one of one, but even these fights aren't total home runs. There’s a couple of really good ones, like the hard-charging Death Changeling, but you have seen these archetypes before and some are… less good. Sorry, Fused Reanimated, but instant kill attacks are never fun. The reality is fighting bigger enemies (and bosses) often means exploiting their weak points with your guns, leaving melee weapons in a kind of weird limbo. Romeo is a Dead Man's combat isn’t bad, per se, but I do wish there was more to it.

Thankfully, Romeo isn’t alone, or at least doesn’t have to be. You can find seeds scattered throughout spacetime that allow you to grow Bastards (yes, this is what they’re actually called) aboard The Last Night. Bastards are friendly zombies that can be summoned in combat and do things like serve as sentry cannons, heal you, shoot chain lightning, fire weakness flowers at baddies, and even run at enemies and explode. They’re cool to have around and incredibly useful – though Romeo is a Dead Man does a poor job of emphasizing that; I had to fuse a bunch together late game to get some strong enough to help me out because I’d largely ignored them until then (and growing them is its own process I will get into later).

The places you’ll do all this fighting are pretty grand. They’re largely not remarkable spaces in and of themselves, but what’s cool is subspace. Romeo, being a space-time cop, can access subspace, which is another dimension parallel to the one he’s in. But he can't do it whenever he wants. He has to find TVs showing a dude eating steak and saying weird and sometimes cryptic things to him, and he can enter subspace from there. Subspace is generally made out of neon rectangles that form paths and structures beneath your feet, but because subspace is parallel to real space, it kind of sits on top of the normal environments. The long and short of it is that paths blocked in real space might not be in subspace and vice versa, and you’ll often have to find your way to another TV to get around roadblocks in whatever dimension you’re in.

Solving puzzles in subspace will open up new paths (and new TVs to reemerge into the real world from), and finding keys in subspace will open blocked paths in the real world. I enjoyed seeing how these dimensions fit together, and subspace is usually combat free, so it’s a nice change of pace. The only downside is that subspace looks very samey, so it can be easy to get lost if you need to backtrack or forget what TV you came out of. Thankfully, Romeo is a Dead Man clues you in by having the guy inside the TV say something new once you find a new TV. Thanks, chief.

If you need a break or want to upgrade Romeo, you can head back to The Last Night from any Space-Time Pharmacy. In addition to the cool sprite art and crew, The Last Night is also home to a shop where you can buy food, materials, and equipable pins that up your numbers. You can also tend to your Bastard garden (you gotta plant those seeds, you know?), cook stat-boosting curry with Romeo’s mom, and refine space debris into weapon upgrade materials.

The best part of The Last Night is how tactile it is. You want a new Bastard? You gotta manually go to the garden, have Luna (Romeo’s sister) appraise your seeds, plant them, and then come back and pull them out of the ground when they’re done. If you want to upgrade them, you have to fuse two together manually. Wanna fight a boss you’ve taken down again? You have to talk to a specific guy. You want curry? You have to play the minigame to make it every time. My favorite example is the little arcade game that you play to level Romeo up, spending the currency you collect to travel what is essentially a ghostless Pac-Man maze. How you do it is up to you, but you have to do it. There’s no “oh, just level me up” option. Even something as simple as taking on optional challenges for rewards (decent stand-alone dungeons where you fight through to the end and so on) requires traveling to them physically. Romeo is a Dead Man forces you to live in its world.

Some folks will consider this repetition for the sake of it, but a lot of Romeo is a Dead Man happens over and over again. Each night, he has a nightmare and spills the drink on his nightstand when he wakes up. Each time you find a new fugitive, you perform the same series of actions to defeat the Dimensional Seer blocking your path forward and get to where they are. Each time you take a space-time criminal down, the credits roll. This is a time travel multiverse story; the point is that the same events are going to happen a lot. They’ll change, but the destination is the same. Remember the sphere? In the end, you always end up in the same place. By forcing you to engage with the repetitive nature of its world, Romeo is a Dead Man tells its story through its gameplay. It’s rad. Does it always work? No. I never found much use for the curry (and many of the other supplemental items). But I'm kind of eager to dive into New Game+ and see if it changes anything, because… well, multiverse time travel story, right? If time really is a sphere, it might not matter, which might make Romeo's use of New Game+ even cooler.

Blizzard has said that its Warcraft-themed collectible card game Hearthstone is still not available on consoles because the team needs "a level of investment... to make that happen."

That's according to executive producer Nathan Lyons-Smith, who recently revealed that because of the 12-year-old game's aging code — estimated to be 16 years old — any port to console must be done "right" and only when the team finds "the right time to do it."

"There's a level of investment that we need to make that happen, primarily in terms of UI and UX, and making sure that it's very natural to go and play a card game on those platforms," Lyons-Smith said, as reported by Eurogamer. "I know it's possible — Duels of the Planeswalkers for Magic [The Gathering], many years ago now, was absolutely delightful with the controller — so I know we can do it.

"I asked an engineer who'd been on the project a long time, and he estimates the code is 16 years old," Lyons-Smith continued, "and the team was 15 people 16 years ago. And so there's more of an effort to go: 'I want to make sure when we go that it's awesome.' That it doesn't just feel like, yeah, they ported it here, and you can play...

"I want to make sure that when we go, we're going to go, and it's going to feel awesome for players that love that form factor, whether they're leaning back on the couch or sitting on the couch with their handheld."

Hearthstone originally launched in 2014 on PC, with a mobile and tablet version following very shortly after. Over the years there have been numerous calls for the game to launch on consoles — and particularly Nintendo Switch, for handheld play. But Blizzard has never gotten around to it.

Game director Tyler Bielman added: "If we're going to bring it specifically to that living room big screen platform, we would want to make sure that the full experience is optimized for that mode that you're in."

Now, of course, with Blizzard owned by Xbox and parent company Microsoft, there could be more pressure than ever to bring the hugely-successful card game to console players. However, with Xbox's high-level goal of enabling gamers to play "anywhere," the Hearthstone team acknowledged an expectation to go "as wide as we could" to reach as many players as possible, regardless of platform.

"In the future, as we explore console and handheld, we'd probably go as wide as we could," Lyons-Smith added. "Certainly, we have a different owner now than we did three years ago, and they're more invested in Xbox and 'anything's an Xbox'. Their high-level goal [being] games playable anywhere."

Hearthstone's Cataclysm-themed expansion is set to launch on March 17, marking the return of Colossal cards and introducing a brand new story.

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.

Monster Hunter Wilds will welcome a "large-scale" expansion later this year.

Addressing fans in a video celebrating the open-world adventure game's first anniversary, series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto teased that this expansion will be similar to Monster Hunter World's Iceborne add-on, but was otherwise coy about the details. He did, however, stress that this will be the "final update" for the monster hunting game.

"We are currently at work on a large-scale expansion similar to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak for Monster Hunter: Wilds," Tsujimoto said. "We plan to share more information with you this summer."

We also learned a little more about the update dropping on February 18, too, including details of Arch-Tempered Arkveld, 10-star Arc-Tempered monsters, a special collaboration with Monster Hunter Stories 3 — a spin-off series that releases next month — plus an anniversary event where all previous awards and quests will be "re-available."

Players who log in during the anniversary event will receive a free item pack, and each previous seasonal event will return for a weekly rotation. "Almost all" previously released event quests will be made permanent from February 18.

"We have been implementing improvements to game stability and performance since Title Update 4," Tsujimoto added, "and this update will introduce even further improvements." Again, we're told to expect more details closer to the time, so Capcom suggests you monitor its social media accounts for updates.

"While this marks the end of major content updates, the team is currently hard at work on a large-scale expansion to Monster Hunter Wilds," the team added. "We look forward to sharing the first reveal of the expansion this summer."

Monster Hunter Wilds has had something of a bumpy ride of late. Title Update 4 arrived at the end of last year and ushered in a long list of gameplay and balance changes, as well as CPU/GPU improvements, load reduction, and the optimization of "PC-specific processes and addition of options and presets to reduce processing load."

A development roadmap, detailed in December, mentioned plans to address the myriad issues impacting the PC version. However, just last month, one player believed they had discovered that PC performance was dictated by the number of DLCs a user has. Capcom looked into it and concluded they were right, calling it "an unintended bug" that would be resolved with Patch 1.040.03.01.

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.

Here's almost seven minutes of Black Myth: Wukong follow-up Black Myth: Zhong Kui. Well, kind of.

While developer Game Science has dropped the new in-engine trailer and labelled it as pertaining to the highly-anticipated sequel, it also features a "non-canon" disclaimer which suggests everything you see here could have no bearing whatsoever on the final game or its story, and has only been released by the team to celebrate Chinese New Year and welcome in the Year of the Horse.

But while you won't see any gameplay or combat per se, the "non-canon, for entertainment purposes only" trailer nonetheless shows in-engine footage and gives us our best look yet at what to expect from the sequel, particularly in terms of how it looks and sounds. Let me take you through it.

It starts out normally enough as a young woman moves around an al fresco kitchen preparing a meal. Look a little closer, though, and you'll realize that the figure that passes her near the beginning isn't quite human, and the guy who opens the gigantic oyster-stroke-mussell shell reveals not a mollusc but, well, a little grey-faced man, uh, thing. She then prepares a slab of meat with blinking eyeballs embedded in it.

There's more — much more — but it's such a delight, I'd recommend watching it yourself. Just remember that it's more of a tech demo and is unlikely to impact the eventual storyline of Black Myth: Zhong Kui, much like the spin-off story Game Science similarly released at Chinese New Year last year.

Black Myth: Wukong developer Game Science revealed sequel Black Myth: Zhong Kui at Opening Night Live 2025 last August. "Set against the backdrop of the classic Chinese folktale 'Zhong Kui Banishing Evil,' Black Myth: Zhong Kui is a single-player action role-playing game rooted in ancient Chinese fantasy," GameScience said.

"The game will deliver distinctive experiences and gameplay features that push our limits, while also bringing fresh ideas and necessary changes to address past flaws and regrets." As yet, there's no release window, let alone a firm date.

Predecessor Black Myth: Wukong is the record-breaking action game that launched across PC and PlayStation 5 in 2024, selling 10 million copies in just three days. The Xbox Series X and S versions launched in August 2025. It returned a Great 8/10 in IGN's Black Myth: Wukong review, in which we wrote: "Despite some frustrating technical issues, Black Myth: Wukong is a great action game with fantastic combat, exciting bosses, tantalizing secrets, and a beautiful world."

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.

Details on the upcoming, PlayStation-published Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls have appeared online, just days ahead of this week's big State of Play broadcast.

The highly-anticipated Marvel fighting game will feature 20 characters at launch, and also include a single-player "Episode Mode." That's according to a Steam page description of the game briefly seen before it was pulled (but not before the leak was spotted and shared on social media).

Marvel Tokon's roster is described as "expanding" — so it sounds like we should expect further heroes from the Marvel universe to turn up in future.

Online, there's mention of 64-player online lobbies, including standard VS modes. PC players will require a PlayStation account, meanwhile.

Developed by Guilty Gear Strive maker Arc System Works, the game has currently been announced for PlayStation 5 and PC with a vague "2026" launch window. But the timing of this week's leak, just days ahead of Sony's hour-long State of Play showcase, suggests we may hear more on all of that pretty soon.

Currently, only eight characters have been officially confirmed for the game: Captain America (Steve Rogers), Doctor Doom, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes), Iron Man, Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Star-Lord and Storm. We'd bet this number will grow in the next few days...

"Assemble your team of legendary Marvel characters in the ultimate 4v4 tag team fighter from PlayStation Studios, Arc System Works and Marvel Games," the game's leaked description read. "It's time to build your dream team and break some spirits in blistering 4v4 fighting action. Choose from an expanding roster of 20 iconic Marvel characters at launch, each rendered in a bold new anime-inspired art style and members of their own unique teams of equally impressive heroes and villains.

"Experiment with team compositions to discover new combos, synergies, and strategies. Blast your way through dynamic stages based on iconic Marvel Universe locales, some featuring interactive stage transitions. Fighting is both immersive and intuitive, with a range of unique move sets, combos, and strategies to master. Adjustable controls, both traditional and quick inputs, plus easy chain combos make diving right in a breeze.

"Face off against a friend locally or join the fray with up to 64 players in the online* lobby, including standard VS modes. Plus, dive deep on each team with the single player Episode Mode to learn more about team dynamics and lore. Internet connection and account for PlayStation required."

Sony is set to hold its State of Play this Thursday, February 12 at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 10pm UK time — and as ever, IGN will be reporting live.

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

Less than a month after the launch of its free-to-play 2v2 tag-team fighting game, 2XKO, Riot Games is scaling back its development team.

Admitting the news was "difficult to share," producer Tom Cannon said that despite securing a "passionate core audience," the new game "hasn't reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term."

"With a smaller, focused team, we’re going to dig in and make key improvements to the game, including some of the things we’ve already heard you asking for. We’ll share some of our plans soon," Cannon added. "Our plans for the 2026 Competitive Series are unchanged. We remain committed to partnering with tournament organizers and local communities. Our focus will continue to be on supporting the events and organizers that already power the [fighting game community]."

Cannon stressed that the team that built 2XKO "poured years of creativity, care, and belief into this game. Taking creative risks like this is hard, and the work they did is real and meaningful."

"We’re committed to supporting impacted Rioters through this transition — including helping them explore opportunities within Riot where possible, and providing a minimum of 6 months of notice pay and severance where it’s not," he explained.

Cannon closed on promising more information would come in time, and thanked players for playing 2XKO and "caring enough to ask hard questions."

Riot has also confirmed to IGN that the cuts will affect approximately 80 roles globally, representing less than half of the total team. Figures are not final, however, as some staff may find roles elsewhere within the company.

IGN thought 2XKO was 'Great.' It returned an 8/10 in our review in which we wrote: "2XKO has found a way to distill what's fun about tag fighters while mitigating a lot of the pain points that typically come with the territory." It was announced back in The Game Awards 2025.

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.

Overwatch's game director has responded to calls for the appearance of new hero Anran to be changed, following fan criticism and a public declaration of support by the character's English-language voice actress.

Over the weekend, Anran voice actress Fareeha took to social media to address "the elephant in the room" surrounding her character's in-game appearance — which she and many other fans have called out as being a victim of the so-called "Same Face Syndrome", and different to her earlier appearances in a comic and cinematic. Those appearances set a "precedent" for Anran, Fareeha said, leaving her to now "mourn" the final in-game design made available to play in early access at the weekend.

"There was an unspoken promise that said 'we're going to challenge the beauty standards that are plaguing and ransacking media these days'," Fareeha stated. "The Ozempic chic, the 'contour your nose,' 'you have no nose,' 'the tiniest nose.' And I think because of that precedent, people feel understandably let down."

Now, Overwatch game director Aaron Keller has released his own statement, and said that Blizzard hoped to make changes to Anran's in-game design to make her "look and feel more like the fierce older sister" she was originally shown to be.

Without showing a new look for the character or providing any further specifics, Keller suggested Blizzard was working actively on the change, which would be seen by players later in the game's new Season 1.

"Thank you all for the incredible reception to last week's Spotlight event," Keller said in a video posted to game's official social media account. "We're sorting through all the questions, comments, excitement and feedback that you guys shared, and I wanted to take a moment to address one thing in particular.

"The team is currently discussing what it will take to make Anran look and feel more like the fierce older sister that we all envision her to be. We're so proud of the work that our team has put into Anran and the rest of the five heroes launching in Season 1, and we agree that she can be even better if we get this aspect of her right in-game.

Overwatch Spotlight reception and an Anran update from Game Director Aaron Keller pic.twitter.com/mxh0C0IpIj

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) February 10, 2026

"We discussed sharing this with all of you last week but wanted to wait until we had confirmation of exactly what we can do. We're hoping to make this update in Season 1 but I don't have specifics to share just yet. Our hero models are incredibly complicated and we really need to test out what we can do.

"We're always striving to make Overwatch better and I think Season 1 is a great example of the dedication and tireless work that our team puts into this game, its universe and ultimately, our players. We're so excited to share it with all of you when Season 1 launches tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback and support, we couldn't do it without all of you. Please keep it coming."

Thousands of players flocked back to Overwatch over the weekend following the announcement that the game was dropping its "2" and adding 10 new heroes in future. This year will see Overwatch enter a "new, story-driven era" with a year-long narrative and a major overhaul — beginning with the launch of Season 1 later today, February 10.

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

The Logitech Pro X2 Superstrike is a game-changer. By ditching the microswitches that have been used in gaming mice for decades, Logitech’s new model delivers noticeably snappier left and right clicks and fascinating new tuning options. It won’t make you a pro player overnight, but it narrows the gap like never before – and it looks essential for actual esports players, whose intense interest in the X2 massively accelerated its development.

Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike – Design, HITS and Shape

The Pro X2 Superstrike gets its super powers from what Logitech calls HITS, or a ‘Haptic Inductive Trigger System’. It’s a fancy way of saying the X2 uses an analog sensor to detect how far each main mouse button has been pressed, while a haptic motor beneath rumbles to signify that a click has been recognised, aping the normal tactile feedback you’d expect with a surprising degree of fidelity. Mechanical gaming keyboards have used analogue sensors like this for nearly a decade, but they still relied on the physical movement of a switch to signify a key press – so Logitech’s solution feels like a mixture between this and the haptic feedback Apple has been building into its MacBook trackpads since 2015.

The benefits are easier than I expected to feel in person.

First, you can set the X2 to react to a button-press after just 0.1mm of travel, rather than the 0.6mm commonly seen in gaming mice using traditional optical or mechanical microswitches. That near-elimination of physical movement hugely reduces input latency – the ‘up to 30ms’ quoted in Logitech’s marketing materials is an order of magnitude more than the speed-up you see from polling rates jumping from 1000Hz (1ms) to 8000Hz (0.125ms), for example.

The benefit here is fairly obvious: if you come around a corner in Counter-Strike 2 and spot another player just as they spot you, your bullets will be recognised by the server a few ticks before they start firing back, all else being equal, which makes it a lot easier to kill rather than be killed.

Secondly, the X2 supports rapid trigger, another feature brought over from mechanical keyboards. This is a mode where, rather than button presses and releases being detected based on physically moving past a set threshold, they’re detected based on a change of direction. For example, if you wanted to right click as fast as possible to move your champion and dodge spells in League of Legends, you would ideally be somewhere in the middle of the mouse button’s travel distance, quickly moving up and down without waiting for the mouse to fully reset. On a traditional mouse, this would only work just around the 0.6mm actuation point, but on the X2, this works anywhere, making the technique much more consistent.

The move from a traditional microswitch below the left and right mouse buttons to the Haptic Inductive Trigger System has required some internal adjustments, with a thinner chassis and base plate, titanium screws and a ventilated PCB. These changes trimmed 7g from the initial 68g prototype, allowing the mouse to hit a final kerb weight of 61g - just a gram heavier than the Superlight 2.

Elsewhere, surprisingly little has changed from the Superlight 2 to the X2. Logitech’s new mouse possesses exactly the same shape as its forebear – it’s a medium-sized, gently-sloping symmetric potato, in contrast to the miniaturized Superlight 2c or ergonomic Superlight 2 Dex. It’s not surprising that Logitech is sticking with a proven ‘safe’ shape that works for the vast majority of hand sizes and grip styles to start off, and I’m sure we’ll see the same Superstrike tech in a compact or ergonomic design at some stage. The side buttons also remain of traditional stock, and feel a little odd next to the nearly silent main mouse buttons.

The X2 Superstrike also gets a bit of an external glow-up, with black left and right buttons and some extra wordmarks contrasting nicely with an otherwise white body. Of course, this is Logitech we’re talking about, so I expect to see a magenta version – or another tasteful alternative color scheme – before too long.

Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike – Gaming Performance and Battery Life

It’s rare that you can plonk down a new gaming peripheral and feel a difference before you’ve even hit the loading screen of a game, but that’s exactly what I got with the Superstrike. Just clicking on the play button in Steam feels more snappy and immediate; it’s the same tight and connected feeling you might experience when using a high refresh rate gaming monitor for the first time.

In-game, the difference is more profound. I wouldn’t say that it felt like cheating, exactly, but there’s a thrilling sense of ease when it comes to clicking heads in a Counter-Strike 2 or Battlefield 6 deathmatch. Single-hit kill weapons like the AWP or AK-47 in Counter-Strike feel deadlier than ever before, and spray-and-pray guns like SMGs still feel pretty hooked up. Of course, you’ll still live or die based on your map knowledge, muscle memory and general awareness – a healthy course of CS2 matches proves that there’s plenty more I need to practice to get good – but having a rapid left click feels like a valuable way to even the odds.

Notably, the Superstrike also doesn’t need de-tuning to feel totally natural in other games, either. After selecting the fastest actuation settings and enabling rapid trigger, I was expecting a rough time surfing the web or clicking on static targets in strategy game Battletech, but I didn’t experience accidental misclicks or other issues whatsoever. That was a pleasant surprise, and led to an extremely easy adaptation process.

While the Superstrike represents a night-and-day difference versus the Superlight 2 when it comes to gaming, its battery life figures are competitive with the older mouse. The G Hub software does warn you that increasing the amount of haptic feedback can reduce longevity, but I used the mouse at 1000Hz with haptics set to 3/5, and the mouse easily lasted through around 20 hours of testing while dropping from 75% to just under 50%. Logitech quotes 90 hours of constant motion for the X2, versus 95 hours for the Superlight 2, so if the predecessor was fine for you, this will be too.

Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike – Software and Connectivity

Like the Superlight 2, the Superstrike uses Logitech’s G Hub software for settings adjustments, with no web option available just yet. Here, you get all of the same options as before – sensitivity, key binds, polling rates, and so on – plus the new tunable left and right mouse buttons.

The new HITS settings include actuation distance (how far you have to press for a click to register), rapid trigger sensitivity, and haptic feedback strength. There’s not a huge amount to tweak, but you can independently set up HITS on each of your left and right mouse buttons and share your settings with a single code, in case you want to mimic the setup used by a pro (or your friend Ross). I also appreciated the inclusion of a live read-out of your button presses, so you can see exactly how far you’re pressing down and choose your settings accordingly.

The best thing you can do in the settings to understand the mouse is completely disable the haptic feedback. Instantly, the X2 feels like a dead fish, even though it still clicks exactly as well as before – underscoring the magic that Logitech's engineers have achieved here with the artificial tactile response.

Connectivity is also the same as the Superlight 2, with wired USB and 2.4GHz Lightspeed wireless being the only options – Bluetooth has been excised in that nearly limitless push to cut weight and less useful features for the competitive gaming crowd.

Will is deputy tech editor for IGN, specialising in PC hardware, sim racing and display tech. He has been publishing about games and technology since 2001 (age 12). Will was formerly Deputy Editor at Digital Foundry. He is currently playing MechWarrior 5: Clans.

Still searching for a good Valentine's Day gift? Power banks and chargers might sound like a boring gift idea, but not if they look as stylish as the ones that mfish offers. Even better, you can save an extra 15% off sitewide with coupon code: "MFVAL26" through February 14. mfish power banks, chargers, and cables are a huge step up in build quality, design, and features compared to the standard Anker, Baseus, and Iniu products you generally find on Amazon.

Note that you want your order total to clear the $39.99 free shipping threshold, since otherwise shipping starts at $6. Also, at this point your order may not arrive before February 14, although a belated gift is definitely better than nothing at all.

Aroma Bee 6ft 240W USB-C Scented? Cable for $4.24

"Aromatherapy cables"

Amazon is running another 'Buy 2, get 1 50% off' sale this week and some of my favorite books are included here. Whether you're hoping to grab a Valentine's Day gift for someone who loves to read or just looking to stock your own library, right now is a great time to find savings on actual physical books.

If you already know what you're looking for, I'd recommend just diving into the full sale yourself. There are a ton of books included in the promotion and you can easily type things into the search bar to see if they are eligible for that extra 50% off. Otherwise, you can check out some of my top picks for both reading and gifting.

Books I Recommend From the Sale

My overall top pick from this sale is Dungeon Crawler Carl, which has consistently been one of my favorite LitRPG books. It's not a series I'd recommend for everyone, but it's fast, fun, and filled with a surprising amount of explosions. The story follows a guy named Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat as Earth gets taken over by an alien game show and straddled by a completely unhinged AI. There are currently seven books in there series so far and the next book is releasing in May.

If sci-fi is more your thing, then I highly recommend checking out Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary. The movie adaptation is coming out in March, so right now is the best time to read it before the movie ruins it for you. Assuming the trailers for the movie haven't already spoiled you on the plot, I'd suggest going in cold and just enjoying the story. It's incredibly well written and you don't need to be a sci-fi nerd to enjoy it. Plus if you like it enough, you can also grab the new LEGO set collaboration coming out next month.

My last big recommendation on this list comes from my deep love for Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere universe. In case you missed the news, Apple TV and Sanderson recently struck a deal to adapt his sprawling fantasy universe for streaming. If you've never read any of the Cosmere books before, you're going to want to check out the Mistborn trilogy or the Stormlight Archive first. Amazon has box sets for both included in this sale, so it's a perfect starter pack for anyone new to that universe.

The Best Books to Give as Gifts

For those looking for gift ideas, there are a lot of different options available. My overall favorite reading gifts to recommend, however, are illustrated editions. More specifically, I'd suggest checking out The Lord of the Rings Illustrated edition and the Harry Potter Illustrated editions. The Lord of the Rings book I've featured here includes drawings and maps from Tolkien himself and is a really fun way to read the LotR books. Whereas the Harry Potter illustrated books feature gorgeous art from Jim Kay that really capture the magic of the series.

There are also some really cool gift editions of classic stories that I'd suggest checking out. The complete Sherlock Holmes collection looks awesome and features all of the novels from Arthur Conan Doyle in one volume. The Winnie-the-Pooh gift edition is also one of my top Disney gift picks and I'd definitely recommend that. My copy is currently sitting on a shelf in my son's nursery and we've already gotten some good use out of it.

If you're willing to spend a bit more, Amazon also includes quite a few box sets in this sale that are worth a look. Fans of the Game of Thrones books will love the leather-bound box set of George R.R. Martin's series. There's also the entire hardcover set of Sarah J. Maas' Throne of Glass Series included here that I'd recommend for any fan of the romantasy genre. And the Calvin and Hobbes collection is just a great gift for anyone regardless of their preferences.

It's never a bad idea to keep a power station on hand to keep your mobile electronics charged up during emergencies. If you're of the same mind and plan to look on Amazon, then you might want to check out this better deal from AliExpress.

Right now, AliExpress is offering the Ecoflow River 3 230Wh LiFePO4 power station for just $130.84 after you apply $10 off code "USSS10". Compare that to $190 on Amazon currently. It's sold through Ecoflow's official Aliexpress storefront and it ships from a local US warehouse so your order delivers quickly and you don't need to worry about additional tariff fees.

Ecoflow River 3 Power Station for $130.84

The Best Buy Presidents Day Sale starts this week, and one of the best deals is a great fit for anyone who likes to listen to tunes while running. Right now you can save $60 off the Shokz OpenRun Pro wireless sport headphones, now just $99.99, a savings of nearly 40% off. The OpenRun Pro is the best non-earbuds headphones for running. It uses bone conduction technology which is tailor-made for situations where you need to be fully aware of your surroundings.

Shokz OpenRun Pro Sport Headphones for $99.99

Wuthering Heights opens in theaters on February 13.

Three years after Wuthering Heights was first published under the pen name Ellis Bell, Charlotte Brontë, the sister of its true author, Emily Brontë, issued a correction in its new edition. "The immature but very real powers revealed in Wuthering Heights were scarcely recognised," she wrote in 1850. "Its import and nature were misunderstood."

That sentiment holds up with the arrival of “Wuthering Heights”, writer-director Emerald Fennell's fast and loose adaptation of the beloved book. I now understand why she opted to put the title in quotation marks, because this is by no means a faithful homage. It's shallow fan fiction that has more in common with E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey than Brontë's unflinching portrait of obsessive love, vengeance, the violence of class, racism and generational trauma. If, as Fennell has said, this is her teenage recollection of Wuthering Heights, then it speaks more to the white affluence of her upbringing than Brontë's novel.

The writer-director dispenses with the book's beginning and end, as well as multiple characters who fully contextualize the toxic atmosphere of the eponymous estate. Instead, she opens with black and the grunting sounds of a man. Is he having sex? No, he's being strangled to death in a contrived public hanging scene, gleefully watched by young heroine Catherine Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington), as other kids laugh at his "stiffy" and the camera follows some common folk engaging in promiscuity. This sets the highly sexualized tone for the rest of the film, charting Cathy's sexual awakening from child to "spinster," as her father, Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes), calls her, once Margot Robbie takes over the role.

There's been valid criticism of the whitewashing of "dark-skinned gipsy" orphan Heathcliff, a role shared by Owen Cooper and Jacob Elordi, who washes up at Wuthering Heights via Mr. Earnshaw – no longer the novel's loving adoptive parent but redrawn in, from the book, Hindley Earnshaw's revolting, drunken likeness (Hindley being his son, who doesn't appear in the film). But Robbie's casting is equally ill-fitted. The novel's Catherine is a dark-haired, dark-eyed teen, whose unruly stubbornness and violent love that she shares with a similarly-aged Heathcliff speaking volumes for their juvenile nature.

Robbie looks amazing for 35, but here her age works against the authenticity of Catherine's youthful recklessness. She struggles to exude the naivety of a teen who thinks she can have her cake and eat it, by having both Heathcliff and the social status of wealthy Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), after he moves into the nearby Thrushcross Grange and proposes.

Robbie and Elordi are obviously very attractive people, and with the number of steamy sex scenes shoehorned in, you'd be forgiven for thinking this amounts to palpable chemistry. But it all feels too forced, like a sales bin, smutty romance novel come to life, working too hard to hide the erasure of Brontë's far more complex ideas about the hell of societal convention.

That's due in large part to the script, which ignores the Gothic supernatural elements and too often paraphrases Brontë's earnest, expressive dialogue in key scenes. Fans hoping to hear Catherine's "If all else perished, and he remained" speech will be left wanting. It also strips away the compelling social commentary about Heathcliff's ethnic ambiguity and sanitizes the brutality of his revenge narrative, softening Heathcliff's aggressive cruelty into something coldly charismatic. His Yorkshire accent isn't bad, but Elordi's performance recalls his Euphoria character, Nate, more than Brontë's antagonistic antihero.

Supporting players like Nelly (Hong Chau) and Isabella Linton (Alison Oliver) fare better. While Nelly's backstory is changed from servant to bastard companion, Chau affords Nelly a quiet composure as a vulnerable witness to (and sometimes meddler in) Catherine and Heathcliff's destructive romance. As Edgar's ward (she's his sister in the book), Oliver nails Isabella's sickly sweet innocence. Even as the film weirdly pushes Isabella to evoke the spirit of Brontë's Catherine, she brings a deviant edge to her infatuation with Heathcliff. It's a wonder they didn't just cast the Irish actor as the lead.

With both the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro, the visual experience on Sony’s console is incredible, especially when paired with the right TV for gaming. Playing games at 4K resolution and 60fps on the PS5 Pro is fantastic, but to really get into it, you need the audio experience to match. You’ll do justice in a home theater setup with the proper 7.1 speakers or a great soundbar, but you probably don’t want to be rattling your walls at all times. That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice sound quality – one of the most important PS5 accessories is a good gaming headset, and there are plenty out there.

I’ve rounded up my recommendations for the best PS5 headsets you can buy now. I’ve also split my picks into several categories to make the choice easier since prices vary and each headset emphasizes different features and qualities that may matter more to you than others. For example, the Pulse Elite is one of the best picks for PS5 since it’s a Sony first-party product that features some nice platform integration. But if you’re willing to spend more for pure audio quality, the newly updated Audeze Maxwell 2 is an easy choice, while the recent BlackShark V3 Pro put Razer back in the conversation with excellent noise cancellation. If you want to ditch having something clamping over your head entirely, the SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds elevate earbuds to the headset levels of performance.

TL;DR - These Are the Best PS5 Headsets

When it comes to our picks, you may notice some crossover in our best overall gaming headsets roundup since many of them have PS5-specific models that take advantage of the console’s specific features. There are also a few first-party options that make the most of the PS5 with features like Tempest 3D spatial audio and further customization that’s native to the platform. Regardless of what you go for, you’ll end up with something great, which I can attest to since I have first-hand experience with every product I recommend. Everything from sound quality and comfort to ease-of-use and feature set are all factors in deciding which headsets get my stamp of approval. Below, you can read my detailed explanations behind each pick to help you decide which one is right for you. As new headsets come out and I test more of them, I’ll update this list to make sure you’re looking at the top picks.

1. SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro

The Best PS5 Headset

2. PlayStation Pulse Elite

Best First-Party PS5 Headset

3. Sony InZone H9 II

Best PS5 Headset for 3D Audio

4. Audeze Maxwell 2

Best High-End PS5 Headset

5. Razer BlackShark V3 Pro

Best Noise-Canceling PS5 Headset

6. Turtle Beach Stealth 500

Best Budget PS5 Headset

7. HyperX Cloud III

Best Wired PS5 Headset

8. SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds

Best PS5 Earbuds

PS5 Headsets FAQ

How do you determine sound quality on a gaming headset?

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

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

As I talk about further down, the PS5 in particular has embraced 3D audio in a way other platforms have not. It may seem like a gimmick at first glance, but when done right, it can give you a genuinely immersive experience – not just for direction and distance, but also verticality in the sound design. This gives headsets like the Pulse Elite and Pulse 3D an advantage when picking out the best PS5 headset since 3D audio definitely affects how good games can sound.

What makes gaming headsets different from headphones?

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

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

Should I go wired or wireless for a gaming headset?

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

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

On PS5, you're better going off with a wireless headset, though. Since 3.5mm analog wired audio devices have to go through the DualSense controller's, there's an upper limit to how good they can sound. Don't get it twisted, though – headsets and headphones can still sound great when fed through the DualSense, but it'll be diminishing returns when using audiophile-type gear. After all, the console experience is best when free of wires.

Is 3D audio worth it?

Made specifically for the PS5, Tempest 3D AudioTech to simulate 360-degree audio in supported PS5 games. That means you can tell the direction the audio is coming from, be it a helicopter overhead or enemy fire coming from whichever direction, it's an experiential marvel more so than an advantage. It’s similar to Windows Sonic on the Xbox Series X/S, but Sony has embraced it to greater extent and its implementation on the PS5 is a really neat perk. And to boot, plenty of the best PS5 headsets support Sony’s 3D audio, including the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7P, Sony Pulse 3D, and PlayStation Pulse Elite wireless headset.

The Sony Pulse 3D does a good job showing off the PS5’s next-gen 3D audio tech, whereby noises and sounds are emulated to appear in a 360-degree space around your ears, and even expressing a greater level of verticality to positional sound in some instances. It’s straightforward to set up, comfortable, and surprisingly affordable for an official PlayStation headset, and a great choice if you want to see exactly what the PS5’s 3D audio can do.

Do you need a Bluetooth adapter for your PS5?

If you're hoping to connect wireless headphones and headsets to your PS5, you will need a compatible Bluetooth adapter. The PS5 does not currently support direct pairing with any Bluetooth headphones for audio output. However, when it comes to latency, you're best served using headsets with 2.4GHz dongles, which all our recommended headsets come with.

What is PlayStation Link?

PlayStation Link is Sony’s latest wireless connectivity standard that provides a lightning-fast connection, lossless audio, and ultra-low latency with easy switching between different devices. The PlayStation Portal is the only gaming device with the technology built-in. So, you’ll need the PS Link USB dongle when using the PS5, PS5 Slim, PS5 Pro, and PC. Still, at the moment, only a couple of Sony’s peripherals have this technology, including the PlayStation Pulse Elite wireless headset in this guide.

Michael is the tech reviews editor at IGN, but regularly contributes to games coverage with reviews, features, and news.

The Crunchyroll Store has officially launched its annual Warehouse Sale, which typically features some of the best deals of the year on anime media and merchandise. New items will go on sale each week, but plenty of these are limited stock collectibles that will sell out before the next cycle of deals. Leading up to Valentine’s Day, we’re already seeing up to 70% discounts on anime Blu-rays and figures as well as clothes and accessories.

Crunchyroll Launches Massive Warehouse Sale on Anime Merch

These discounts are spread across the Crunchyroll Store, with specific sections dedicated to figures and physical media. Starting on Thursday, the store will also unveil weekly “Super Steal” deals that only last 48 hours.

On top of the general selection of deals, each week will also highlight media and merch from specific anime series, with this week’s headliners being Jujutsu Kaisen and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (which happen to be airing new seasons), as well as Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Dragon Ball, and Naruto.

Plenty of deals extend beyond those series. For example, forever my top pick, Crunchyroll’s exclusive steelbook edition of the 1996 Berserk anime, has dropped below $50. The Solo Leveling Collector’s Omnibus Novel has also gotten a solid 50% discount, and a relatively clean One Piece sweater has dropped under $20.

As always, Crunchyroll member discounts may be stacked on top of eligible deals. Free shipping is also available through the Mega and Ultimate Fan tiers, and is otherwise automatically applied on any orders over $75.

A lot is going on in the world of anime streaming. Crunchyroll recently increased prices on its streaming service relatively soon after removing the option for free streaming with ads. The increase also followed the launch of the digital service Crunchyroll Manga. Since the hike, the anime hub has announced that it will be developing its own line of original video games for inclusion in the Crunchyroll Game Vault.

Blythe (she/her) is an Audience Development Coordinator at IGN who spends way too much time in character customization screens and tracking down collectibles.

Ah, the Big Game. An annual chance for football fans to root for their team (frequently, if you happened to grow up in New England in the dynasty era like I did), take in some world-class entertainment at the halftime show, and load up not just on dairy and carb confections, but that most delectable of American treats… advertising! Lots of those immaculately produced commercials are there to remind you of products and services you already love (horse beer! Sports gambling app!), but ‘round the ol’ IGN, we get especially excited for the sneak peeks of upcoming movies and TV shows.

Super Bowl LX featured previews of some of 2026’s most anticipated releases. We got new looks at Supergirl, Disclosure Day, Scream 7, Hoppers, The Adventures of Cliff Booth, Minions and Monsters, Project Hail Mary, and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Studios, networks, and streamers use Super Bowl ad space (and the truckloads of money it takes to buy it) to let general audiences know what they’ve got cooking, and why you and everyone else you’re watching the game with should be getting jazzed for it. Hell, Netflix even dropped a whole-ass Cloverfield movie on us during one of these spots a few years ago, and a lot of people who may not have otherwise cared ended up watching it because of that hype… even if popular opinion has settled into that whole-ass Cloverfield movie being kinda half-assed. Point being: You can drive a lot of eyeballs to your movie or show with a well-placed Super Bowl ad.

But there was one ad this year for a summer 2026 release that put a pit in my stomach.

The Mandalorian and Grogu just used 30 very expensive seconds of Sam Elliott voiceover and the bones of a Budweiser advertisement to incept Silver Man and Green Boy back into your brains without showing off more of the $150 million-plus budgeted movie the two star in, which releases in just a few months.

I have a bad feeling about this.

In the early days of The Mandalorian’s meteoric popularity on Disney+, it seemed like the idea of eventually wrapping up the show’s story with a big summer blockbuster could be rooted in a desire to legitimize the streaming series as just as worthy of a theatrical release as any of the other Skywalker Saga or legacy-heavy spinoff movies. Sentiment around the show has wavered over the years, and even still, I don’t consider myself one of those people who believe the show’s gone off the rails. Largely, I haven’t minded The Mandalorian’s shift into exploring Mandalorian culture from perspectives other than Din Djarin’s, even if I do agree that it’s kept the narrative from feeling as cohesive and punchy as it did in the earlier days. Has the Disney era of Star Wars been perfect? Of course not. But at the end of the day, I’m just a boy, holding his broom aloft, looking out at the sky and hoping to see a good Star War.

So why isn’t Disney showing us more of the new Star War?

In these complicated times, I’m a big fan of the philosophical frame of “Occam’s razor,” or the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. The first (and, to date, only) trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu debuted at D23 in August 2024 and, naturally, leaked online immediately after that. Those trailers are supposed to be special, “you had to be there” moments for attendees of those kinds of events, but even through the off-screen recordings, it was clear that this first look wasn’t evoking much sense that Din Djarin and Grogu were getting all that much of a glow-up in their transition to the big screen. No, the overwhelming response has seemed to be some version of “it just looks like an episode of the show” or, more succinctly, “...that’s it?” Not even the additional footage added in the official release of the trailer late last year, not even Jeremy Allen White’s stronkboy Rotta the Hutt has seemed to be enough to move the needle on fan excitement. At least not that I’ve been able to see on my scanners and radars.

Full spoilers follow for Primal Season 3, Episode 5, “The Dead Cast No Shadow,” which is available on Adult Swim and HBO Max now.

We’re at the halfway point of this season, and all of our main cast members are now reunited: Mira, Fang, Fang’s little ones, and of course, Spear. Or rather zombie Spear.

But look, zombie Spear is Spear deep down, even if it’s not obvious at first. And this episode is about Mira figuring that out, after their surprising reunion at the end of last week, even if it’s proving more difficult for Fang to come to terms with this new incarnation of her best friend.

Mira always sort of represented the best of the best of us, even by anachronistic pre-history standards, and so while it’s clear that she knows this is a (somewhat) revived Spear, she also seems willing to accept him for what he is now, even if he can’t quite form words or, well, sit down without some difficulty. (Also, his arm literally is falling off by episode’s end.) But, where it counts, he’s still the Spear she used to know, namely when putting himself on the line to save those he loves. That’s what got him in this whole being an undead zombie situation in the first place, after all.

Now is the time to retire that pedal-powered bike of yours and upgrade to electric. The price of electric assisted bikes has plummeted over the past year. Nowadays you can find a decent bike for well under $500. To kickstart the new year, AliExpress is offering the 5th Wheel AB17 500W 375Wh Electric Bike for a rock bottom price of $291.24 after you apply $30 off coupon code "USSS30". This bike ships locally from a warehouse in the United States, with most orders being delivered within a week. That means you don't have to worry about tariffs, import fees, or egregiously long shipping times.

5th Wheel AB17 500W 375Wh Electric Bike for $291.24

Control and Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment has named Jean-Charles Gaudechon as its new CEO.

The company’s board of directors announced the news with a post on its website today. Co-founder Markus Mäki will continue to serve as interim CEO until the leadership change takes effect March 1, 2026.

“I’m excited and honored to join Remedy at a pivotal time,” Gaudechon said in a statement. “The studio has a unique creative identity and a strong pipeline. My commitment is to protect what makes it special, deliver exceptional games, and scale Remedy in a way that builds lasting value.”

Mäki took over as interim CEO after former Remedy CEO, Tero Virtala, resigned from his position in October 2025. It was a sudden shakeup that arrived after the studio’s summer multiplayer FPS and its first self-published game, FBC: Firebreak, failed to impress on a commercial and critical level (we gave it a 6/10). Virtala was with Remedy for just over nine years, leaving the Espoo, Finland-based game company to search for a long-term replacement.

We now know Gaudechon has been picked to fill the role. His experience in the industry has seen him serve at EA as a studio head and executive producer over titles like Battlefield Heroes, as well as a general manager and executive producer for Eve Online developer CCP Games. Now, he’ll oversee a company he says “has the voice and the ambition to be a pillar of the industry’s future.”

“We will stay close to players, earn their time and trust, and strengthen our independence in how we build and publish our games, while continuing to work closely with the partners who have supported us along the way,” the soon-to-be CEO added. “I will be moving to Finland with my family and I’m incredibly excited about getting to work directly with the team at the studio.”

Meanwhile, fans of Remedy’s work are looking forward to its mind-bending sequel, Control: Resonant. Announced at the 2025 Game Awards, the follow-up is expected to launch sometime this year for PC and consoles. Max Payne 1 and 2 remakes are also in development and expected to launch at an unspecified point in the future.

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).

Brandon Sanderson recently revealed he's struck a deal with Apple TV to adapt his massive Cosmere universe for streaming. This has been huge news for those already in love with his books, but for those who aren't already familiar with Sanderson's literary works it may be the final push to finally they need to dive in and start reading. And with Amazon's current 'Buy 2, save 50% on 1' sale going on right now, there's never been a better time to start your journey into the Cosmere.

Not all of the details of the Apple TV collaboration have been revealed just yet, but Sanderson has confirmed he's writing the screenplay for a Mistborn movie and will be co-showrunner on a Stormlight Archive series. Those projects will be adapted from his most popular series' in the Cosmere universe, both of which currently have box sets included in Amazon's sale.

Brandon Sanderson Box Sets are Buy 1, Get 1 Half Off

Todd McFarlane Productions have announced a brand new miniseries in the Spawn Universe, She-Spawn, written by Gail Simone (Uncanny X-Men, Birds of Prey), and illustrated by Ig Guara (Batman: Arkham Knight, Teen Titans). The mini-series will consist of five issues, with the first one releasing on May 6.

She-Spawn will focus on Jessica Priest, who has been a lead in Image Comics' The Scorched comic series for close to 50 issues, which features Spawn, Gunslinger, Redeemer, Medieval Spawn, and She-Spawn. Priest has an assassin and superhero background, and the miniseries will draw from her history as a whole rather than from a standalone event – something that will help give a deeper view of her character, according to Todd McFarlane Productions.