Samsung Unpacked has come and gone. Thankfully, your trusty team here at IGN has the inside scoop on some fresh Galaxy devices Samsung Australia is about to drop. From today (February 26), you can pre-order your devices before the March 11 release date hits. You’ll have the new Galaxy S26 or Galaxy Buds right as they hit the shelves.

Skate developer Full Circle has announced layoffs affecting an undisclosed number of staff as it aims to “better support” the “long-term future” of its free-to-play title.

Publisher EA revealed its “reshaping” plans with a blog post on the studio’s website. No detailed information about the number of affected employees or their roles was given, with the message only stating that “making changes to our team structure” means that “some roles will be impacted.”

“The teammates affected are talented colleagues and friends who helped build the foundation of skate.,” Full Circle said. “Their creativity and dedication are deeply ingrained in what players experience today. This decision is not a reflection of their impact and we’re committed to supporting them through this transition.”

The post mentions that tens of millions of players have played the free-to-play Skate reboot since it launched as an Early Access title for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S September 2025. Today’s restructuring is said “to better support skate.’s long-term future and focus the team on the things that matter most to you.” EA and Full Circle sign off by assuring fans they will work with the community as they “move faster, listen more closely, and deliver consistently” as development on Skate continues.

“To our departing teammates: thank you. skate. exists because of your hard work and dedication to the craft.”

Full Circle’s restructuring is only the latest in a string of layoffs and game cancellations at EA. Following layoffs impacting around 670 workers in early 2024, the Battlefield and Madden publisher cut 300 additional jobs across the company in April 2025. That move alone saw the cancellation of a new project set in the Titanfall universe at Respawn Entertainment, as the studio accounted for around 100 of the affected roles at the time.

EA went on to end remote hiring and push employees to return to the office the following month. The closure of Cliffhanger Games, the studio behind the now-cancelled Black Panther video game, then arrived just weeks later. September 2025 then saw the company announce it had accepted a $55 billion acquisition offer from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, and Silver Lake.

Full Circle will continue development on Skate as it works to secure its long-term future. As detailed in a separate post last week, the free-to-play skating revival will soon launch into Season 3. The rest of its roadmap includes the promise of additional features, cosmetics, game modes, and more.

IGN reached out to EA for comment regarding the restructuring at Full Circle, but was pointed back to the note shared by the studio in lieu of further comment.

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).

Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone (ConcernedApe) has announced that he will publish a video tomorrow revealing the two new marriage candidates coming to the game in patch 1.7.

I made a video for tomorrow's 10-year Stardew Valley Anniversary, it will "premiere" tomorrow at 11am PST.
In the video, I comment on some pre-release footage, and reveal the 2 new 1.7 marriage candidates at the end.
See you in the chat https://t.co/di6uAhYADr

— ConcernedApe (@ConcernedApe) February 25, 2026

In a post on Twitter/X, ConcernedApe shared the following message: "I made a video for tomorrow's 10-year Stardew Valley Anniversary, it will 'premiere' tomorrow at 11am PST. In the video, I comment on some pre-release footage, and reveal the 2 new 1.7 marriage candidates at the end. See you in the chat." He included a link to YouTube, where the video will appear tomorrow.

Tomorrow is indeed the 10th anniversary of Stardew Valley, which we celebrated earlier this month with an interview with ConcernedApe himself, during which he revealed that two new marriage candidates were coming with the planned 1.7 update. This is significant news for Stardew fans. There have been no new romantic relationships added to the game since its early days, and fans have long hoped for the opportunity to marry other villagers such as Robin, Sandy, the Wizard, or Marlon. We do not know at this time whether these will be existing characters with new dialogue and relationships, or if two new characters are being added, though fans suspect the former.

We also spoke to ConcernedApe earlier this month on a number of other celebratory topics, such as why there isn't a Stardew Valley TV show, and the one secret left that the Stardew Valley community has yet to find. You can read our full, in-depth interview with the creator right here.

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

Ever since Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight’s reveal at gamescom 2025, one of the hottest topics surrounding it has been the surprisingly small number of playable characters on its roster. But developer TT Games promises that there’s a very good reason for this.

Over the past decade or so, Lego games ranging from DC and Marvel superheroes to Star Wars and Harry Potter droids and wizards have included unlockable playable character numbers stretching into the hundreds, but in the upcoming Legacy of the Dark Knight, that total at launch is just seven. Those that made the cut include the Bat family and a few friends: Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Jim Gordon, Talia Al Ghul, and Catwoman.

IGN recently spoke to the head of the TT Games development team, Jonathan Smith, to find out why this number has been reduced so drastically by comparison. “We're taking these individual characters on a journey,” Smith explains. “So you are constantly upgrading and developing new skills and opening up new abilities for each of those characters. Within the Bat family, as well, we really wanted to focus on making those characters really unique, making their personalities come across and their abilities very distinct.”

For example, Batman can throw batarangs and use his grapple to assist in combat as well as solve puzzles, but Catwoman can utilise her rangy whip and call in the help of her kittens by triggering a laser pointer on a target. Those same cats can also be directly controlled by the player to grant access to small vents and distract unsuspecting guards with a delightful “meow”.

While the focus is seemingly on a deeper gameplay experience this time around, with a Rocksteady Arkham-influenced combo-based combat system leading that charge, fans of old-school Lego games shouldn’t fear too much, as Smith promises there will still be plenty to collect across its open world and movie-inspired levels.

“The story is more focused on a tighter roster of characters that are now more differentiated with much deeper gameplay,” confirms Smith. “So they work well in partnership with each other, and we then want to give you lots and lots of options to see the full range of what those characters can be by giving you more than a hundred different suits to collect. So you still get that moment in the Bat Cave where you've got all the different suits from all the different characters arrayed in front of you, colorful and glorious. You're still compelled to want to complete that collection.”

For more on Bat Suits, take a look at every one confirmed to be in Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight so far, and if you want to know a lot more about the game, check out more from our interview with the studio as part of IGN Fan Fest 2026.

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

Rockstar's most recent GTA 6 delay might mean a longer wait for the year's biggest launch, but it also brought relief to other developers previously set to release games in the same timeframe.

That includes TT Games, the storied British studio behind numerous LEGO titles such as LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Harry Potter, and the promising-looking LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.

Due to launch for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on May 29 (with a Nintendo Switch 2 edition to follow on later), the open-world Gotham action adventure is now set to launch within days of Rockstar's previous GTA 6 date — May 26.

TT Games made its Legacy of the Dark Knight release date announcement last December at The Game Awards, a month after Rockstar's latest GTA 6 delay was made public. (GTA 6 now looks to have a seemingly-final launch date, with marketing set to ramp up this summer ahead of its long-awaited arrival on November 19.)

"We knew we wanted to come out in spring of this year," TT Games Head of Production and Strategic Director Jonathan Smith told IGN in a recent interview, discussing the "space" now opened up by GTA 6's delay to this holiday.

"Look, I want to play that game [GTA 6], but we're also really glad to have some space for people to play Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. We're giving you an open city and a fantastic experience for all players. Which I thoroughly recommend."

Going hands-on with the game last year, IGN came away impressed, saying that "LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight was the Arkham Game you've been waiting for."

For much more, be sure to check out IGN's full Fan Fest preview describing how Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is balancing old and new to celebrate the best of the caped crusader's many exploits — plus new footage of the game — and check out more detail on why the game has a smaller roster of just seven playable characters.

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

“We want to keep that Lego idea of ‘fun’ modern, relevant, and up to date, and not get stuck in the past”, says Jonathan Smith, Head of Development Team at TT Games.

It’s a tricky balance. For well over a decade, Lego games were the definition of consistency. You always knew what you were going to get: a series of puzzle and action-filled levels navigated by a wide roster of multiskilled licensed characters. But Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight looks set to distance itself from that formula, at least slightly. This is a new chapter in TT Games' history, one that blends a reverence for all things Batman — including, notably, Rocksteady’s Arkham games — with a deeper gameplay experience that was first experimented with by 2022’s Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.

“With Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, we made a couple of really significant changes that fans really appreciated”, Smith states. “In particular, getting closer to the character, having a really immersive camera system, and then just starting to make the combat experience or some of the core gameplay systems deeper and richer than they had been before”.

“We don't want to lose the accessibility and immediacy, but that showed that we could add layers to that and make environments that were really big and broad and really deep and rich and rewarding,” Smith explains. “We've just gone further with Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, and then also found aspects of the Batman character and the Batman story, and in Gotham City, that have really worked well with that aspiration to get deeper. To be even more authentic in our treatment of Lego, in our treatment of the story, in our treatment of the characters.”

Characters, and in particular, the number of playable ones, have been a big talking point ever since this Lego Batman’s reveal. Fans of the series had become accustomed to rosters stretching into the hundreds in previous Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and Harry Potter Lego projects, but in Legacy of the Dark Knight, that number has been stripped down to just seven.

It’s all in service of depth, says Smith. “We're taking these individual characters on a journey,” he explains. “So you are constantly upgrading and developing new skills and opening up new abilities for each of those characters. Within the Bat family, as well, we really wanted to focus on making those characters really unique, making their personalities come across and their abilities very distinct.”

One of those characters is Catwoman, who we got a brand new look at in action as part of IGN Fan Fest. TT Games is aiming to present the “essential version” of each Bat hero and villain, so naturally, Batman’s feline foe/friend channels all eras of her screen depictions, ranging from Julie Newmar’s ‘60s TV show thief to Zoe Kravitz's modern revenge seeker. Across the game, we’ll see glimpses of all of her incarnations, just as we’ll see her skillset grow beyond what we’ve seen in the films as the story progresses.

Tools at Catwoman’s disposal include a whip that can not only damage enemies, but aid in solving puzzles thanks to its flexibility (just don’t ask me how Lego plastic can be quite that bendy, I’m not a materials scientist). She’s also armed with a very handy laser pointer that can quickly summon a sharp-clawed kitten to scratch a Joker goon’s face to ribbons, or allow you to directly control a tamer four-legged friend to distract guards with a meow or crawl through vents to help unblock paths. Of course, she’s also highly trained in hand-to-hand combat, which remains largely consistent across each of the playable characters and is rooted in a punch, dodge, and parry system that TT Games isn’t afraid to say is influenced by Rocksteady.

“To make an essential, really cool Batman combat experience, of course, we honor, and we look to, and we draw upon the definitive work that Rocksteady did to bring that character to life,” explains Smith. “We want a really fluid combo-based combat system. We want very dynamic encounters.”

That doesn’t mean that Legacy of the Dark Knight is fully pushing into action game territory, though. This is still a game that wishes to cater to all ages and audiences, so many of those old-school, adventure-focused Lego game staples are still to be found.

“The story is more focused on a tighter roster of characters that are now more differentiated with much deeper gameplay,” confirms Smith. “So they work well in partnership with each other, and we then want to give you lots and lots of options to see the full range of what those characters can be by giving you more than a hundred different suits to collect. So you still get that moment in the Bat Cave where you've got all the different suits from all the different characters arrayed in front of you, colorful and glorious. You're still compelled to want to complete that collection.”

Trying to appeal to everyone’s desires is often a risky strategy. Introducing an extra layer of complexity to combat, as well as character progression across a much-shrunk roster of heroes, could appeal to those looking for more of an action-heavy, “traditional” Batman game that the absence of an Arkham game has left a void for, but could risk alienating those who loved the joyful nature of the Lego games that TT built its reputation on. That’s not something that Smith is worried about, though.

“On the contrary, what we find with all our Lego games is that the more we can draw upon different aspects of a character, the wider we can make our gameplay, the more appealing it is to us as players, and to younger players and older players,” he answers. “There's something about Lego that just translates well for everybody. So the more we can put into that, we don't find that it misses the mark for anyone at all. It just brings more to the party.”

The Bat party will truly get started when Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight arrives on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on May 29, 2026, with it coming to Nintendo Switch 2 at a later date.

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

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight developer TT Games has shared a positive-sounding update on whether suits from the Dark Knight's brooding Ben Affleck era will be included in the game.

While the game's character roster may be limited (and we've also got more detail on why that is, too), LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight will feature an enormous wardrobe of 100 Batsuits to celebrate the character's long history.

Already, there have been confirmations of Bat-clothes as worn by Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, Val Kilmer, Michael Keaton and Adam West — but what about Ben Affleck, who portrayed the character in a handful of movies through the DCEU era, including Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League.

Batfleck's Batsuit has been a key question among fans of the Caped Crusader, and one that IGN was keen to ask TT Games Head of Production and Strategic Director Jonathan Smith when we recently got a chance to find out more about the promising-looking LEGO Batman game.

"We draw upon everything across the history of the franchise into this game," Smith said when questioned specifically about references to Ben Affleck's incarnation of the character and the DCEU era overseen by director Zack Snyder. "So yeah, you've got suits and moments and vehicles that everyone will recognize from across all movies," Smith continued.

While the majority of LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight's Batsuits are being kept under wraps for players to find, TT Games has already shown off around a dozen through early trailers. We've listed everything that fans have spotted so far below, along with further details if we have them.

Other than Batfleck, are there are there any other suits you'd like to see?

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight Batsuits

• Batman: The Brave and the Bold (from the Brave and the Bold animated series)
• Golden Age Batsuit (inspired by Detective Comics #27, unlocked via pre-launch WB Games account signup)
• Rainbow Batman (as seen in Detective Comics #241)
• The Dark Knight (Christian Bale's outfit from the second Christopher Nolan movie)
• The Batman (Robert Pattinson's suit from his 2022 movie)
• The Serials (inspired by 1940s black and white Batman films)
• Batman '66 (Adam West's costume from his classic TV series)
• Batman Forever Sonar Suit (as worn by Val Kilmer in Batman Forever)
• Batman: The Animated Series (inspired by the 1990s cartoon)
• Batman '89 (Michael Keaton's suit from the 1989 Batman movie)
• 2025 Batsuit (based on the minifigure used in recent LEGO toys)
• And many more...

For much more, be sure to check out IGN's full Fan Fest preview describing how Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is balancing old and new to celebrate the best of the caped crusader's many exploits — plus new footage of the game.

Image credit: Kevin Mazur/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

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As part of IGN Fan Fest 2026, series creator Genndy Tartakovsky stopped by the IGN studio to talk all about the return of Primal, the challenges in resurrecting its main character Spear.

"What really gets amped up in the third season, I think, is the, really, the emotional stakes," Tartakovsky told IGN. "I think they're even bigger than anything that we've done. Because you're invested already in the character, there's a stress and anxiety right at the beginning. That's the feedback I've been getting back from people that watch it and that's great. The dream is to have people care for your characters."

One of the big challenges was bringing back Spear, who fans might remember met an unfortunate end at the hands of a Viking chieftain. Tartakovsky explained the decision to bring him back.

"Basically, I thought, at the end of Season 2, that was kind of it and I wanted Primal to be kind of everlasting," he said. "And so I feel like I'm finished with it, but then after I take a little break, I realized, 'Oh no, it's still so fresh.' And then the response is really strong, and then you start to think about, I just spent 20 episodes getting to create these characters, and for people to really like them. And then I kill one off, and then it's the end of the show.

"I realized it's too early, and what do I do now? Basically this idea popped up. Initially, the idea's almost like a joke but as I started to think about it, all these amazing story elements and emotional elements came out. For everything that I've ever done, I've always just trusted my gut, and my instincts said 'this is good.' I talked to the team and pitched it to everybody, and everybody was on board."

Watch Tartakovsky talk more about Spear, ideas he had for an anthology series, and who would survive in the world of Primal between Dracula, Samurai Jack, or Dexter, in the video above.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection’s release date is right around the corner, and IGN had the chance to speak to the developers in depth about a brand new locales trailer released at IGN Fan Fest. We’ve got never-before-seen concept art of the three main bases in the game – Azuria Castle, Sheparden, and Galyad – and insightful commentary from director Kenji Oguro, art director Takahiro Kawano, and lead game designer Daisuke Wakahara.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is shaping up to be a beautiful game, which is wholly supported by the diverse scenery you’ll encounter on your journey as an environmentalist Ranger. The Monster Hunter Stories 3 team allocated a lot of time and research into making the locations enjoyable for players, and their attention to detail shows. You can watch the new locales video with commentary direct from the developers above, or, if you’d like to immerse yourself in the scenery with no commentary and a few bonus scenes, check out the trailer below.

Azuria

If you’ve played the free demo version of Monster Hunter Stories 3, you’ve seen Azuria. This land features fields, forests, and picturesque mountains on the horizon with a castle town on a lake, lending a classic storybook backdrop.

“In the design process, we wanted to make the stereotypical fantasy castle type of design to depict how peaceful Azuria is, and to depict the beautiful nature of the world of Azuria and the castle itself,” Kawano said.

The team had some real-world inspiration that made its way into the concept art for the surrounding area of Azuria and its castle, specifically, a Spanish castle called Alcazar de Segovia. This wouldn’t be the first time the castle has inspired a creator – as part of its 100th anniversary, The Walt Disney Company revealed in 2023 that it was the inspiration for Snow White’s castle. A magical locale, indeed.

Kawano also described how the wing-like flags represent the wings of Rathalos to signify the special bond Azuria has with the endangered species. The town even has a runway of sorts for monsters to take flight, something uniquely logical for the Stories series, where Riders form bonds with monsters called Monsties and, as the name suggests, ride them.

The attention to detail in the scenery carries into the connection of Twisted Reflection's story as well. The main catalyst of the plot in Stories 3 is the “Crystal Encroachment,” a phenomenon with unknown origins affecting both the environment and monsters, but the crystals it leaves behind is used by the residents of Azuria and elsewhere as a source of light.

Sheparden

Sheparden is the second locale the protagonist and the rangers will visit, and if you’ve played a certain entry in the regular Monster Hunter lineup, you may recognize the lush environment.

“One key feature of [Sheparden] is that monsters from Monster Hunter Rise inhabit the area around it,” revealed Kawano. “So based on Monster Hunter Rise, as you may have known, it has a very Eastern, Asia-like taste. So Sheparden and the surrounding area is also designed after that art style.”

You might also notice a structure at the base of the stairs to the village elder’s place inspired by Japanese torii gates, clearly recognizable as orange, angular arches. Right beneath that torii gate are masks stuck into the ground, which represent the graves of the former elders of the village, explained Kawano.

Another Sheparden detail the team had to consider is that this village is not built for Riders the way Azuria is. As such, there aren’t stables – so Ratha, the protagonists’ Rathalos, is stuck into a very small space that’s part of an unused residence.

Galyad

Galyad is a bustling, prosperous town surrounded by desert and relatively desolate lands compared to Azuria and Sheparden. It’s covered in decoration, stones, and jewelry, somewhat fueled by the residents’ successful trade of Egg Quartz. Kawano described that as you get deeper into the city of Galyad, you might discover a boundary between the prosperous residents and the not-so-fortunate residents, and find slum-like areas.

The city’s architecture and design is actually inspired by Mediterranean regions and even has a Lagiacrus fountain in the city center. It's especially interesting given the desert environment – Lagiacrus is, after all, a Leviathan monster known to inhabit the water.

“Galyad used to be an ocean port city that was floating on top of the ocean,” Kawano explained. “So all the jewelry and the decorations were based off of the Mediterranean sea theme, but desertification has caused the city to lose all the water and it is currently barren, sandy. So that is the reason why there's a difference between the decorations and the actual cityscape itself.”

Monster Hunter 3: Twisted Reflection Q&A

Of course, I had to take advantage of the time I had speaking with the Monster Hunter 3: Twisted Reflection developers, so I asked a few questions unrelated to the new trailer I thought might be interesting. We got into the game's more mature protagonist, the weapon availability, the habitat restoration mechanic, and dual-element monsters.

The interview below has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

IGN: I'd say habitat restoration is one of the biggest new gameplay mechanics in Monster Hunter Stories 3. Can you describe the inspiration behind building the system and why you included it?

Kenji Oguro: The first reason we wanted to implement this feature into Stories 3 is because of the protagonist. He or she is the captain of the Ranger Corps and their objective is to protect and preserve the environment. So we wanted to express the preservation of the environment, not just only in the storyline, but in the actual gameplay cycle itself.

Tthe second reason we implemented habitat restoration is to expand on the Monster Hunter Stories series formula, where deepening bonds with the monsters is very important. In the previous entries, you would collect monster eggs from dens, hatch them, and raise them, but the places where you could get those eggs were very limited and were the same across all players. But for Monster Hunter Stories 3, by implementing this habitat restoration feature, every player will have their very own environment. So your environment and my environment might differ a lot.

By restoring the monster populations and sending them off back to the wilds, you might be able to find some rare eggs with dual-element monsters, as well as Deviant Monsters. [Deviant Monsters] are popular monsters from the previous Monster Hunter mainline series games. You might be able to find eggs of the Deviant monsters by raising the ecosystem rank within the habitat restoration feature. We wanted to reward players for helping to protect the environment and restoring the endangered species and growing their population in the world by providing rare monsters that might hatch from the eggs.

IGN: In the first Monster Hunter Stories, changing a Monstie’s element worked differently, and was achieved by swapping genes to change their stats. Can you tell us the reason behind changing this method to the new one?

Kenji Oguro: In the first Stories game, when you change the genes of the monster and get a dual-element monster, the element that monster possesses completely changes. So that might end up as a disadvantage for a player if you get the wrong combination. But for Stories 3, the team wanted to expand the user's options more and also make habitat restoration more unique. So they implemented habitat restoration and by raising the ecosystem rank and getting the rare eggs, you are rewarded with the dual-element monster.

For Stories 3, the dual-element monster will retain their original element. So if the original monster has a fire element, they will keep the fire element, and on top of that, they'll get their second new element. So in the combat, players might want to keep the original fire element and get a new element on top.

This gives players an advantage and more options when they are forming their parties. Usually for RPG games, players tend to go for the strongest character or strongest monster with the highest stats and abilities. But developing Monster Stories 3, with the dual-element feature, you get special monsters with different appearances. One of [my] favorites is the Velocidrome imbued with the dragon element. So you get a pitch black Velocidrome, very badass. And that was [my] favorite monster within the development cycle.

After finding [my] favorite dual-element monster, [I] found that, "Hey, maybe I can just play with my favorite monster instead of focusing on the stats or the ability skills." So that's one of the ways that the players can enjoy the game. It's not just going for the strongest, most powerful monsters, but instead finding a true partner that you love and want to bond with.

IGN: I played the Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflections demo, and I did notice that the Long Sword was added to this game. It hasn't been in Monster Hunter Stories yet. But I didn't see the Sword and Shield in my bag. Can you tell me if the Sword and Shield is in Monster Hunter Stories 3, and why you decided to add the Long Sword?

Daisuke Wakahara: So first off, we implemented the Long Sword because the Long Sword itself throughout the Monster Hunter series is very popular amongst hunters and riders. However, we did have some trouble implementing the weapon itself into the RPG formula in the previous games. But in Monster Hunter Stories 3, we were able to come up with a formula to have the Long Sword join the weapon roster.

And in terms of Sword and Shield, unfortunately, it is not going to be included in Monster Hunter Stories 3 this time around. The reason why we came to this decision is because we had to carefully think about the weapon balance.

When looking at the overall weapon roster for Stories 3, we have Slash, Blunt, and Piercing weapon types. And having both Long Sword and Sword and Shield would change the roster to go towards the Slash weapon types a little too heavily, so we had to take out the Sword and Shield from the roster, unfortunately.

IGN: The main character this time around is more of an adult than the previous protagonists in the Monster Hunter Stories series. Can you tell me why you made that decision to make the protagonist more mature this time around?

Takahiro Kawano: We wanted to differentiate this with the previous entry stories, Monster Hunter Stories and Monster Hunter Stories 2, where the focus was on a child growing into a young adolescent. We decided to start the story off with a full-grown adult as the elite rider. So in terms of the setting for Monster Hunter Stories 3, the protagonist actually starts off already grown up as a prince or a princess of Azuria, and is an elite rider.

IGN: Is there anything else you want to say to the fans watching before we let you go?

Takahiro Kawano: As you've seen in the video, we put a lot of effort into the background character designs for Monster Hunter Stories 3. So we’d like to have the players have fun and enjoy the beautiful scenery and the characters in Monster Hunter Stories 3.

Daisuke Wakahara: Thank you to all the players for supporting the Monster Hunter Stories series from the first title. You'll be surprised at how much the Monster Hunter Stories series has evolved throughout Stories 2 and the newest entry, Monster Hunter Stories 3. We are very confident in this game and that any player can enjoy it as an RPG title. So even if you haven't tried out the Monster Hunter Stories series yet, we highly encourage new players to try out the Monster Hunter Stories series.

Kenji Oguro: [I’ve] played through Monster Hunter Stories 3 10 to 20 times during the development process. And every time I go through the gameplay, there's something new that the player can find. I’m very surprised that there's many, many cards up the development team’s sleeves. So we highly encourage you, the players, to have fun with the game.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 on March 12, 2026. You can play a free trial right now featuring a huge portion of the first area, Azuria, and continue your progress in the full release.

Casey DeFreitas is Deputy Editor of Guides at IGN, and is a first fleet Monster Hunter. Catch her on Socials like Bluesky @ShinyCaseyD.

Star of the new action-packed thriller Normal, Bob Odenkirk, joined IGN Fan Fest 2026 to talk about his role in the creation of his character Ulysses, and why he does his own stunts.

"I like doing my own fighting. And if I'm doing my own fighting, they can keep the camera on me and I can play the guy. I can do his expressions," Odenkirk explained. "I wanted to play a guy who actually got hurt, who actually got worn down as you watch the movie. He gets tired. He gets hurt. He gets dinged up because I just feel like that is actually not something you've seen a lot of. Action stars that I know of, I don't know all of them, but the ones that I know are somewhat... they're machines. They never really get hurt. They never accrue damage. And I wanted to play a guy who in these movies starts with a little bit of self-doubt and also accrues damage along the way."

His character in Normal, Ulysses, is a man sent to be temporary sheriff to the town of Normal, Minnesota, and soon finds himself caught up in way more excitement than he was expecting.

Odenkirk also spoke about his character in Normal compared to Hutch Mansell from the Nobody movies. "Both guys are, for different reasons, holding back their reactionary impulses. In the case of Hutch, he's doing it to present as a family man and to live that life, to live a double life, forcing himself to hold that in. So that's nobody. In Normal, here's a guy who's a little bit broken when we meet him. And it's because he made a choice once before that just destroyed his life that he had, his perfect life. And so he's just gotten gun-shy. But believe me, by the end of the movie Normal, he's not gun-shy any longer. Is he gun-crazy? A little bit. He's a little bit gun-crazy."

Normal is directed by Ben Wheatley and also stars Henry Winkler and Lena Headey. It will be released in theaters on April 17.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026, check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Samsung has officially announced its highly-anticipated Galaxy S26 lineup of smartphones with a release date of March 11. With the powerful new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip serving up meaningfully better performance, as well as a larger battery, more base storage, and other quality-of-life improvements, the Galaxy S26 is already turning some heads in the tech arena. And if you're interested in grabbing one, the entire Galaxy S26 family is already available for preorder.

Similar to every other high-end GPU on the market, the AMD Radeon 9070 XT graphics card is selling for above MSRP in 2026. Fortunately, it's not as egregiously marked up as Nvidia cards, and now there's an even better incentive. For a limited time, you can purchase an AMD Radeon 9070 XT GPU on Amazon and get a free Crimson Desert code. Since Crimson Desert isn't out yet, you'll have to wait to download the full version of the game when it releases on March 19.

Buy an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, Get Crimson Desert Free

Note, the seller must be Amazon, not a marketplace vendor.

The Radeon RX 9070 XT Received a 10/10 at IGN

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the only 2025-released GPU that we gave a 10/10 score. Even though it costs $150 less than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, the 9070 XT beats it out in several of the games we tested. In a few benchmarks, the results aren't even close. The 9070 XT approaches the performance of the $1,000 RX 7900 XTX but with better ray tracing and upscaling performance than its predecessor.

This is the least expensive graphics card from either AMD or Nvidia that I would comfortably recommend for playing the latest and most demanding games in 4K at 60fps or higher framerates.

The Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU is the best model to get

Open-world action-adventure game Crimson Desert is coming on March 19 and a new IGN Fan Fest 2026 behind-the-scenes look at the game gives the cast of voice actors a chance to add some more fuel to the hype fire.

Crimson Desert stars Rebecca Hanssen as the voice of the fighter Damiane, Stewart Scudamore as the orc with the impressive axe Oongka, and Alec Newman as main character Greymane Kliff Macduff. All three give an insight into working on the project and bringing their particular characters to life.

"Oongka is a nomadic warrior," Scudamore says in the clip. "I think he has a passion for everything that is fighting for the cause, for his people, for his tribe, and for the Greymanes. First impressions, you're thinking, what can I bring to the table that I can connect? What's the in? His DNA was very economical."

"With Oongka, what surprised me was that he was more of a philosophical orc," Scudamore continues. "He had that sort of world-wise nomadic element. And what I found challenging for Oongka is that he often communicated in grunt, but it was finding those levels of grunt that was challenging."

Crimson Desert will be released on March 19 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), and the Mac App Store.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of games and entertainment.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Archenemies. Bitter rivals. Lifelong friends? The relationship between legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his supreme rival James Moriarty is the stuff of legend. Over the decades (and centuries), the dynamic between the two characters has served as the focal point of countless literary and on-screen adaptations. They’re the embodiment of good and evil. Holmes is moral and just; Moriarty cold and calculating. But the new streaming series Young Sherlock, premiering March 4 on Prime Video, puts a new twist on the classic rivalry.

Debuting at IGN Fan Fest 2026, a brand-new exclusive clip – which you can watch in the player above – shows the moment Sherlock Holmes meets his future adversary. And if the scene doesn’t scream “soon-to-be foes,” that was by design. I sat down with series star Hero Fiennes Tiffin (Harry Potter, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare), who plays Sherlock, to talk about his character’s relationship with Moriarty, working with Guy Ritchie, and what kind of Sherlock video game he’d like to see.

“Sherlock always needs a counterpart,” Tiffin says. “It is usually Watson. And in our story, having it be Moriarty, you realize they learn so much from each other. Enemies who used to be friends, that's just a fascinating thing to explore. So it is fun watching, knowing that this plane is going to crash and burn. They have slightly different approaches, but they still have loads of similarities and they make a great team. Butch and Sundance was a reference that our showrunner used a lot.

“I did some chemistry reads with people auditioning for Moriarty. We met with loads of people and everyone was really, really exceptional. And Dónal Finn [who plays Moriarty] came in and I think about 5 seconds into his first line, I was like, ‘This guy is going to make me look bad if I'm not careful.’ He is a sensational actor. We have very different approaches to acting. He's theater trained, and I've only done screen acting. We worked a lot of scenes in prep, making sure that we kind of finish each other's sentences or we sip our drink at the same time, stand up at the same time, sit down at the same time. And there are a few little moments where we try to create some kind of nuanced indications of their synchronicity because they are a great team.”

In the series, Sherlock Holmes is far from the detached and analytical detective we've come to know. As portrayed by Tiffin, he’s young, inexperienced, and somewhat cheeky. Tiffin says that while he wanted to make the character his own, he was definitely inspired by the renowned actors who’ve played Holmes on screen.

“Just being a fan I subconsciously digested a lot of Sherlock,” Tiffin says. “Specifically, Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayals. But when I got the role, I'd already watched the films two or three times, so I didn't want to directly watch [them] again and draw inspiration and make notes. I felt like I'd, in quite a healthy general sense, digested what I needed to before getting the role. So when it came to preparing for the role of Young Sherlock, it was prep directly correlating to the script.”

Given the almost-superhuman abilities of Sherlock Holmes, it’s easy to consider the character among the ranks of quick-witted superheroes like Batman, Black Panther, and Iron Man. Tiffin says he took inspiration from those characters as well.

“it's something that I've thought about a lot,” Tiffin says. “When I think about why people gravitate towards this character, I think it's because he is as close to being a supernatural character who isn't a supernatural character. He's as close to being beyond human in his capabilities. He’s just skin and bone the rest of us, but just an exceptional intellectual person. He’s close to being [a superhero], but he's not. And I think that's what makes him so alluring and intriguing.”

Guy Ritchie, who directed Downey Jr. in two Sherlock Holmes movies, serves as Executive Producer of Young Sherlock. Tiffin, who had a role in Ritchie 2024’s film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, says working on Young Sherlock was the quintessential Guy Ritchie experience.

“When I worked on The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare, Henry Cavill had three pages [of the script] delivered to him about 20 minutes before shooting,” Tiffin says. "There were about four other actors [who] have no lines in response. We are just watching and listening, and we were all thinking ‘better him than me.’ [With Young Sherlock,] it became my turn. There's a scene at a party [where] Guy gave me a good two or three pages of dialogue with less than half an hour to learn, and it was terrifying. But if he gave you the option to just read the lines that you've learned the night before, you would always pick his. You're in good hands. He's asking a lot of you [but] he helps facilitate by knowing how he's going to edit it. So even if you feel like your acting might take a hit, you'd still want to do that. That's the biggest challenge with Guy: when he hands you dialogue last minute. But it's always for the best.”

Tiffin, who at times has been a big fan of Call of Duty and FIFA games, says he’d love to see his version of Sherlock Holmes adapted as a video game at some point.

“Maybe [like an] early Uncharted game,” Tiffin says. “You've got a mix of action, but you're also kind of puzzle solving. [Maybe] early Prince of Persia, the platform versions. I think there would have to be a lot of problem solving, I guess story mode. A single player combination of fighting and problem solving. I'd buy it, I'd play it."

Young Sherlock streams March 4 on Prime Video.

Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment at IGN, leading entertainment content and coverage of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He's spent 20 years working in the games and entertainment industry, and his adventures have taken him everywhere from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him on Bluesky @MichaelPeyton

A new exclusive clip for Devil May Cry Season 2 has a couple of new characters it wants you to meet: Ebony and Ivory, Dante's trademark guns from the games. Devil May Cry Season 2 arrives on Netflix on May 12, 2026, and will see Dante once again at odds with his twin brother, Vergil.

"The interesting part is that Vergil’s a guy who can stand completely still and still feel like the most dangerous one in the room," Adi Shankar, the showrunner and executive producer of the animated series, told Collider. "His presence does the talking."

Season 1 of the show focused on Dante's conflict with the terrorist White Rabbit and an impending apocalypse. Shankar promised Season 2 will continue to deliver plenty of surprises for fans. “I’m allergic to formula. I dislike when successful shows turn into comfort food," he said in the same Collider interview. "Devil May Cry won’t be TV that loops. My mission for Season 2 was to capture the feeling of a 2000s film franchise entry where the audience can’t predict the next turn.”

Johnny Yong Bosch will return as Dante, Robbie Daymond will lend his vocal cords to Vergil once again, while Scout Taylor-Compton is Lady, AKA Mary Ann Arkham.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Lenny Kravitz is playing villain Bawma in 007 First Light, and the latest trailer shows that he can serve Bond bad guys with the best of them. We've had a glimpse of the charismatic pirate king before, but this extended look shows just what happens when you upset him. Spoiler, it involves crocodiles.

“I’ve met some folks that are… similar to his character," Kravitz told IGN in January. "I grew up in the Bahamas as well as New York City, and there were guys who had [Bawma’s] vibe and were doing similar things in the islands. He’s an interesting guy. We’re not quite sure how he’s going to turn.”

“We wanted more than just a one-sided villain, like we wanted to have some kind of charisma," added 007 First Light Director Hakan Abrak. "He has more sides to him that could maybe turn out surprising in the story. You’ll need to wait to see that until the game comes out.”

007 First Light will be released on May 27, 2026, so while you wait check out our first big preview from last year.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of games and entertainment.

Whether you’re looking to entertain the whole family with Shrek 4-Movie Collection in 4K Ultra HD or want to do things solo and delve into The Ghost in the Shell Legacy Edition Manga Box Set, the deals are solid today. I love nothing more than a solo movie theater day, and with AMC Stubs A-List for $0.99 for the first month, you don’t need to break the bank to watch all the latest movies. Plus, don’t forget to grab all the ridiculously great PS5 game discounts right now. Check out those deals and more below:

TL;DR - The Best Deals Today

27% Off Zelda: Breath of the Wild for Switch

Get AMC Stubs A-List for $0.99 for the First Month

PlayStation 5 Video Game Deals

PlayStation Direct launched an awesome sale on PS5 games and other retailers have followed suit. Notable discounts include God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West - Complete Edition, Death Stranding 2, and more from PS Direct. While Astro Bot, Returnal, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound are on sale at Amazon, or you can score Ghost of Tsushima - Director's Cut, The Last of US Part 1/Part 2, and Gran Turismo 7 for $30 from Best Buy. There are some incredible deals worth grabbing.

The Ghost in the Shell Legacy Edition Manga Box Set Hits Low Price

New Low Price for the Shrek 4-Movie Collection - 4K Ultra HD + Digital [4K UHD]

27% Off MTG x Final Fantasy VII Commander Deck - Game Edition

$28 Off Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Amazon Exclusive Edition for Nintendo Switch

Free Game with Discounted 27" Samsung G5 OLED Gaming Monitor

Lowest Price Ever on the Super7 ULTIMATES! Toho Godzilla Figure

MTG: Lorwyn Eclipsed Play Booster Box Back Down to Low Price

MTG x Universes Beyond Preorders

If you’re interested in the upcoming Universes Beyond sets, MTG x TMNT and MTG x Marvel Super Heroes, these preorders are worth grabbing below. The TMNT Booster Box got a nice discount ahead of the release next Friday. Amazon even has a nice preorder price guarantee. Whether the price goes up or down, you’re paying the lowest amount.

Season 2 of the Apple TV Monsterverse show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters launches on Friday, February 27, and Fan Fest 2026 gave us a look at the chaos those super-size scamps are getting up to now. Spoiler: tentacles.

Those appendages belong to Titan X, who is the real headliner for the new season and a new addition to the Legendary Monsterverse. Its official description suggests that it's going to prove a worth adversary for Kong and Godzilla: "In addition to Kong, Season 2 will feature Godzilla and introduce a new Titan: the enigmatic Titan X, now officially on the loose. Titan X isn’t just another monster; it’s a living cataclysm. When its massive bioluminescent form breaks the surface of the ocean, the world seems to hold its breath. In Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, Titan X stands at the center of the mystery – an ancient force emerging from the deep, its purpose uncertain, its power unmatched, its awe and terror in equal measure."

If you need a recap, Season 1 continued the story of the 2014 Godzilla movie and the covert organization known as Monarch, combining it with flashbacks to the early days of the monster monitoring outfit. In the 2015 storyline, Cate (Anna Sawai) and Kentaro Randa (Ren Watabe) searched for the truth about their father, Hiroshi (Takehiro Hira), while the 1950's timeline followed Bill Randa (Anders Holm) and Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto), a cryptozoologist and scientist studying big old beasties.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

What's cooler than vampires? Rockstar vampires. The follow-up series to Interview with the Vampire gets meta with the Vampire Lestat (Sam Reid) seeking to control his own narrative by starting a band, and we'll get to see it happen in June 2026 when the series premieres on AMC. A new sneak peek at IGN Fan Fest 2026 revealed the date, along with Lestat and Louis being adorable on FaceTime.

On February 13, we got a coppery taste of what is to come, with the first official single from Lestat de Lioncourt, with Long Face releasing on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and more. The track is performed by Reid as Lestat, and written by composer Daniel Hart. AMC also released a statement from Lestat himself about the song and its composer.

"Long Face is the first song Daniel Hart ‘produced’ for my album. He decided early on to steal where he could from Bowie because he hasn’t had an original idea for five years now (is that his Green Knight score fading in the rear view?). As for Long Face, the bass should have walked down with the guitar at the end instead of pedaling on E. Predictable. Like everything Daniel Hart touches."

At San Diego Comic Con 2025, the stars of the show – Reid, Jacob Anderson (Louis) and Eric Bogosian (Daniel Molloy) – spoke about the new season of The Vampire Chronicles, the change from the focus on Louis to Lestat, and the movement between the different eras in Lestat's life.

"The tone of the show now is so different and it's heightened in such a different way that I think that it's apples and oranges, but they're also telling the same story," said Anderson.

"We'll see a lot of the past," added Reid. "That's kind of one of the joys of the show is how jarring those jumps are going from the 1790s into today.

"[Showrunner] Rolin [Jones]'s done a wonderful job of integrating the two time periods simultaneously as we go along," Reid continued. "So it's not quite like the books where you get a bit at the beginning and a bit at the end and a whole bunch in the middle. It's intertwined through the beautiful songs written by Daniel Hart. So it's a really really hard book to adapt, I don't think anyone could have done it better than Rolin Jones and [executive producer] Hannah Moskovich."

The original Interview with the Vampire novel was published in 1985 and had its first iconic adaptation with Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst in 1994. AMC's series version first hit screens in 2022, and scored a full-blooded 9 in its IGN review.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

IGN just debuted the newest trailer for Mortal Kombat 2, which hits theaters on May 8, 2026. Like the first, this trailer focuses heavily on Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage, one of the new kombatants joining the fight in the sequel. All signs point to Johnny being the de facto main character this time around, and we think that’s a very good sign for the movie.

Let’s break down where 2021’s Mortal Kombat went astray and why the sequel is showing every sign of getting back on track, with a lot of help from Mr. JC himself.

Why 2021’s Mortal Kombat Didn’t Quite Work

1995’s Mortal Kombat still stands as one of the best live-action video game movies released so far. It says a lot about the state of the genre that it peaked so early and has had so little to offer since, but there’s no denying the fact that MK ’95 just got a lot right. It faithfully adapted the premise of the games, basically playing out like a more high-concept version of Enter the Dragon.

And crucially, it did so by striking just the right tone with the source material. The 1995 film is nothing if not a campy, silly martial arts romp. It’s got multicolored ninjas, a rubber, four-armed miniboss monster, and Christopher Lambert hamming it up as a thunder god. It’s got a mid-’90s techno/industrial mash-up soundtrack that goes way harder than it has any right to. The movie treats the source material with reverence, but it never behaves as if that source material is high art. Mortal Kombat is best when it allows itself to be silly and campy.

That’s something the franchise occasionally loses sight of. Certainly, the less said about the dreadful mess that is 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, the better. The games themselves have tended to strike the right balance between building up the surprisingly complex lore of this universe and wallowing in the campiness of it all. But then you have something like DC’s Mortal Kombat X prequel comic, which became entirely too enamored with said lore and forgot to just tell a fun, goofy story about colorfully clad fighters eviscerating one another.

That’s an area where the 2021 movie reboot never really found its footing. On paper, the reboot had a lot going for it. It had much better special effects and production values than its predecessors. It also took a fairly novel approach to the script, focusing not on the interdimensional martial arts tournament, but on the eternal rivalry between Hiroyuki Sanada’s Scorpion and Joe Taslim’s Sub-Zero. In a perfect world, the reboot would have been a great showcase for how far the video game movie genre has come since 1995.

But in execution, not all the right ingredients were there. Mortal Kombat ’21 is exactly what Mortal Kombat shouldn’t be - too serious by half and too absorbed in the mythology of this universe. The film mostly leaned on Josh Lawson’s Kano to provide the humor and camp absent everywhere else, but that only served to make Kano feel like the odd man out. It also tries to cram entirely too many characters into a conflict that really boils down to the family drama between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, leading to a great many MK icons feeling like underdeveloped hangers-on.

And don’t even get us started on Lewis Tan’s Cole Young, the central protagonist of this grim little conflict. As an original creation for the film, Cole is meant to be the stand-in for the audience - the outsider suddenly thrust into a world of deadly martial arts duels and conflicts between realms. But Cole is also a character with zero charisma or depth. There was nothing to endear the character to the audience, and the whole movie suffered as a result.

Mortal Kombat ’21 is far from the worst video game movie ever released. It has its definite merits, particularly when it comes to the well-choreographed, hyper-violent fight scenes. And at least they kept the classic ’90s theme song. But it ultimately falls short of the bar established by the original film. It’s not as fun or campy as MK ’95, and it plays things a little too straight with the franchise and its mythology. Fortunately, that seems to be a mistake Warner Bros. aims to correct the second time around.

The Campy Appeal of Johnny Cage

It took five years, but Warners is finally releasing a sequel to the Mortal Kombat reboot in May 2026. Mortal Kombat II is again directed by Simon McQuoid, though this time the script is written by Jeremy Slater. Much of the cast from the original film are returning, such as Sanada’s Scorpion, Jessica McNamee’s Sonya Blade, Mehcad Brooks’ Jax, and Ludi Lin’s Liu Kang, but there are plenty of new additions to the mix as well, including Damon Herriman’s Quan Chi, Martyn Ford’s Shao Kahn, and CJ Bloomfield’s Baraka.

But easily the most significant newcomer this time around is Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage. As in the games, Cage is presented as a washed-up action movie star unwittingly dragged into the tournament between Earthrealm and Outworld. Urban has been the focal point of the film’s marketing so far, with Warners even going to the trouble of commissioning a short film that acts as a faux-teaser trailer for Cage’s magnum opus, Uncaged Fury. All signs seem to point to Cage being the main character in the sequel, supplanting Tan’s Cole Young this time around. Cole is reportedly still appearing in MK II, but you wouldn’t know it based on the trailers.

Right away, this looks to be an example of the sequel trying to make up for past mistakes. Cole clearly wasn’t working as a protagonist and audience stand-in, so McQuoid and Slater are pivoting to a character fans are much more intimately familiar with. Already, it’s obvious that Urban’s Cage has the charisma Cole himself was sorely lacking in the original movie. He’s a self-absorbed narcissist who wants nothing to do with the larger-than-life conflict unfolding around him, even though he may be just the right guy to save our dimension.

Or not. The new trailer shows Lin’s Liu Kang battling Ford’s Shao Kahn in what we assume is the climactic final battle, so the game may still be sticking to a more traditional version of the MK mythos in that regard. But regardless, Cage is being positioned as the audience stand-in this time, and we can’t imagine a better character for that role.

The trailers are crammed with Cage’s one-liners and snarky comments toward his fellow MK fighters. It really feels as though the sequel has developed a self-deprecating sense of humor that the previous film lacked. And that’s exactly what needed to happen. The sequel isn’t sticking to the overly grim tone of the first, but veering into the campier direction of the original 1995 film. And it’s all anchored by what is already shaping up to be one of Urban’s more memorable movie performances.

Nor is it just Cage himself who seems responsible for this shift in approach. In general, the trailers are more stuffed with the familiar MK elements fans know and love. There are more iconic catchphrases and special moves from the games. Nearly every action shot in the trailer hearkens back to the games in some way, whether it’s Liu Kang summoning a Fire Dragon against Shao Kahn or Kitana performing her deadly Fan Lift. Mortal Kombat II shows every sign of leaning into the sillier trappings of the games in a way the 2021 film never fully committed to. And in the process, it’s telling a much more complete and cohesive story about the conflict between realms. It doesn’t come across as a sequel so much as the first proper film in this series, making the 2021 original more of a prologue.

This all seems to be a very intentional shift on the part of the filmmakers. Back in a 2022 interview with The Direct, Slater revealed that the new screenplay is a result of lessons learned from the 2021 movie.

“I can’t say anything about the actual story, but I think they definitely learned some lessons the last time around in terms of, ‘Here’s the stuff fans responded to, and here’s what people liked out of the movie, and here’s the stuff that didn’t work out as well as we hoped.' So we’re really looking at this as a chance to take everything that worked in the first one and do it even better and give the audience even more, and make something that is just incredibly satisfying, and really exciting, and unpredictable."

Slater added that the sequel is definitely veering in a different tonal direction, one that embraces the more outlandish qualities of the MK games.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily going to have the same tone as the MCU, but it’s definitely going to have some of my sensibilities. That was part of my pitch to them. This is Mortal Kombat. We have guys who are ripping off their faces and breathing fire—it’s a weird universe, let's embrace some of that weirdness, and let’s make a Mortal Kombat sequel that no one is expecting and that can kind of sneak in and blow everyone away.”

The jury is still out until the sequel actually lands in theaters, but between Slater’s comments and what we’re seeing of the Johnny Cage-heavy trailers, it really looks as though the Mortal Kombat franchise is getting back on the right track on the big screen. With any luck, we may soon have a new contender for the best live-action video game movie. It’s about time.

But let us know your thoughts on Mortal Kombat II. Do you think it’s shaping up to be an improvement over the original? Is Johnny Cage exactly what this series needed? Sound off in the comments.

For more, check out every video game movie and series in development.

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

On March 17, Street Fighter 6 is getting a new DLC character: the pro wrestling-inspired Alex, and All Elite Wrestling's own Kenny Omega is the man behind the motion capture. At IGN Fan Fest 2026, he explained how the opportunity to do the motion capture actually came out of a simple misunderstanding.

"When the news broke and they told me, we signed the NDAs and we know who the characters are and Alex will, in fact, be one of them. And they said, 'For you being such a good sport, it'd be cool if we put a move of yours in,' maybe one or two or a taunt or something," Omega told IGN.

"I had said, 'Wow, that would be great. I just don't know when I could fit that into my schedule to do the mocap for it.' And they'd said, 'Oh, wait, you do the mocap for it?' I said, 'Yeah, is that what you were talking about, or no?' They said, 'Oh my, if you would do the mocap for it, that would be awesome.' And so a misunderstanding on my part is what led to me actually going to the studio and doing a slew of mocap for the character. If there was ever a better time to be stupid, that was one of them, because it worked out in my favor completely to not understand what they were talking about at that moment. So because of that one discussion, I got invited back to the next year's Tokyo Game Show. And then before doing the game show, I stopped over at Osaka, where they do the mocap for Capcom. And we hammered it out in one day. It was a grueling 10- or 11-hour shoot. I remember losing like 8 or 9 pounds of water weight, but it was so worth it and so fun."

He also revealed that the developers were open to suggestions – he can see how his ideas were incorporated into the final game animations – and that wrestling without an audience wasn't as alien of an experience as people might expect.

"I think because of COVID, I got used to wrestling and performing in front of no one. It reminded me of being back into an empty arena and just having cameras all around me, but there's no sound. There's no adulation. There's no people. I see staff here and there, but it brought back memories of the COVID era, for sure."

Alex first appeared in 1997 Street Fighter III: New Generation in arcades. Early concept art shows the professional wrestler character was initially positioned as the new face of the franchise. In Street Fighter 6, his super moves include Raging Spear, Sledgecross Hammer, and The Final Prison. He also has an alternate level 2 super called the Omega Wing Buster, which is a sequence of moves inspired by Kenny Omega's own trio of signature moves, including the V-Trigger, Snap Dragon Suplex, and of course, the One Winged Angel.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of games and entertainment.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Another television goodbye, and trust me, they never get easier. HBO has revealed that Industry will return for Season 5 — but it will be the show’s final season as well.

The series will air its Season 4 finale on March 1, and there’s no exact release date for the final season just yet, but no matter when it hits our screens, it’s going to be a doozy. HBO’s logline for Season 4 proves just that.

“At the top of their game and living the lives they set out to have as Pierpoint grads, Harper (Myha’la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) are drawn into a high stakes, globetrotting cat-and-mouse game when a splashy fintech darling bursts onto the London scene,” according to a press release from the network. “As Yasmin navigates her relationship with tech founder Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington) and Harper is pulled into the orbit of enigmatic executive Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), their twisted friendship begins to warp and ignite under the pressure of money, power, and the desire to be on top.”

The series — which was created by Mickey Down & Konrad Kay, who also write on the show — stars Myha’la, Abela, Harington, Minghella, Ken Leung, Toheeb Jimoh, Charlie Heaton, Kiernan Shipka, and Kal Penn.

“For four seasons, Industry has thrilled us while examining power, money, politics, and class,” EVP of programming and head of drama series and films at HBO Francesca Orsi said in a statement. “Under Mickey and Konrad’s ambitious and singular vision, it has solidified itself as an important contemporary, genre-bending drama in HBO’s lineup that keeps viewers on the edge of their seat week after week.”

She added: “It is gratifying that viewers and critics have recognized season four as bigger and more thrilling than ever, buoyed by career defining performances from our magnificent cast. We are so proud we can announce the fifth season of this terrific show, which Mickey and Konrad have decided will take us to the end of Industry’s story.”

“This March marks a decade since we first began to conceive of the world of Industry and it exists because of the unwavering faith and vision of our partners and former partners at HBO,” Down and Kay said in their own statement. “For some time now we have been thinking about how best to end the show on an unparalleled high. Unlike some of our characters, we know when to leave a party.”

See? Even if they do know when to leave a party, it’s definitely going to be a doozy until the lights come on. What else would you expect from this series?

Image credit: Simon Ridgway/HBO.

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

Powerplex, aka Scott Duvall, takes the spotlight in this new Invincible VS gameplay trailer, proving he can really take a punch. It's the latest look at the upcoming superhero 3v3 tag fighting game set in the Invincible universe. The game will be released on April 30 on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5.

Powerplex is just the most recent reveal on a roster that includes the titular Invincible, Atom Eve, Bulletproof, Battlebeast, Ella Mental, Lucan, and more.

The game features an original story from the same team that worked on the hit animated series, and Invincible creator Robert Kirkman told IGN players should expect the unexpected.

"What we're really trying to do is provide an in-game experience that is like watching an episode of the television show," he said. "It’s a really cool story that uses the characters in a really exciting and authentic way, and I think goes into some directions that people are really going to be surprised by. There's a lot of unexpected twists and turns."

Executive producer Mike Willette likened it to the special prequel episode focused on Atom Eve.

"We wanted it to feel like a playable episode," Willette said. "It's this standalone narrative. In the same vein that the Atom Eve special is like a special episode, this is a special episode, too."

The publisher Skybound Games promises that the game is being made by "both Invincible and fighting game lovers with deep roots in competitive and combat-focused games."

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of games and entertainment.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.