The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to be a return to Bethesda's "classic style" of games, according to Bethesda director Todd Howard.

This comes from an interview done by Howard with KindaFunny today, in which he talked about why he can't really provide too much of an update on The Elder Scrolls 6, and admits he would have preferred not to have announced it so early (in 2018).

However, he says players can expect it to be a return to Bethesda's classic form, after the studio took "creative detour[s]" with both Starfield and Fallout 76. Here's the full quote from Howard:

"We do have a certain style that we like and that our fans like that we want to get better and better at. I think in some ways Fallout 76 and Starfield are a little bit of a creative detour from that classic Elder Scrolls, Fallout, a Skyrim or a Fallout 3 or a Fallout 4, Oblivion, where you're exploring a world in a certain way. And as we come back to Elder Scrolls 6 that we're doing now, we're coming back to that classic style that we've missed, that we know really really well."

Howard goes on, confirming that the studio has spent the last several years improving on Creation Engine 2, which is the game engine behind Starfield, and bringing it up to Creation Engine 3, which will power "Elder Scrolls 6 and beyond."

Later in the interview, he adds that "the majority of people who made Skyrim are still here," while new faces have also joined the studio, bringing experiences from other studios to lend to The Elder Scrolls 6.

It's been a long, agonizing wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 since it was first announced – wow, okay, almost eight years ago. It has in fact been longer between the announcement and now than it was between The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the announcement of The Elder Scrolls 6. Howard has warned eager fans as recently as last November that the game is "still a long way off" and has even teased that he may just shadow drop it, something he alluded to again today with KindaFunny. He reiterated today that "it's gonna be a while yet," and confirmed that, "We're able to play it, we're about to pass a big milestone internally, the majority of the studio is on the game and some of our partners."

But Howard also claims all this waiting is necessary for the game to be great.

“What do fans really want?” he said in December of last year. “Do they want a game that comes out before it should and doesn’t meet their expectations? Or do they want the turkey that is in the oven for long enough to be delicious when it finally comes out of the oven, you know? That’s what I think people are going to want. So, we’re going to take our time and as long as it needs to be great.”

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

The Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise has finally landed on its Amy Rose, and it's a heck of a choice. Kristen Bell has been confirmed to voice the pink hedgehog pal (and possible love interest) for Sonic the Hedgehog 4, as reported by THR.

We've known that Amy Rose was coming to Sonic's world since the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, when a mid-credits scene revealed both Metal Sonic and Sonic's ally, Amy Rose, arriving to save him with a massive hammer in tow.

But it's been over a year since that reveal, and it's only just now that we're learning who's destined to lend their voice to arguably the last remaining super-famous Sonic companion to join the team. Ben Schwartz has been voicing the blue blur since the first movie, with Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, and Colleen O'Shaughnessey reprising her video game role as Tails. Idris Elba joined the group in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as Knuckles, and Keanu Reeves stepped in as Shadow the Hedgehog in the third movie. It remains unclear who will be voicing Metal Sonic (if anyone – Metal Sonic notoriously doesn't really speak in most appearances). And we also don't know if other fan-favorite Sonic characters (Blaze? Silver? Cream and Cheese? Big the Cat?) will show up.

As for Bell, you've almost certainly seen or heard her in something before. She's perhaps best known as the voice of Anna in the Frozen films, but has also starred in TV series such as The Good Place, Gossip Girl, Veronica Mars, and Nobody Wants This, as well as films including Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Couples Retreat. She's appeared in a few video games too, including as the voice and likeness of Lucy in Assassin's Creed 1, 2, and Brotherhood, and, of course, as Anna in the Disney Infinity games and Kingdom Hearts 3.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 is currently expected to zip into theaters on March 19, 2027. There's a spin-off movie coming as well in 2028, and fans are speculating that it will star Shadow the Hedgehog.

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

Blogroll photo by Rodin Eckenroth/FilmMagic

Blizzard has partnered with real estate website Zillow to create Zillow for Warcraft, a goofy Zillow-like website intended to promote the game's new player housing feature with humor, information, and a free in-game item.

The website, accessible at zillowforwarcraft.com or zillow.com/warcraft, is, to be clear, a goof. At the moment, it doesn't seem to be showing off actual houses built by real players. It instead has a curated selection of both Horde and Alliance homes that seem to be intended more to offer inspiration to players working on their own homes than anything. Besides, it's not like you can actually buy someone else's fully built and decorated house in the game, anyway.

The website is cute, though. It's got a handful of different housing options on different plots in both the Horde and Alliance neighborhoods to skim through, with humorous descriptions of decor decisions and, frankly, some pretty good ideas that I hadn't really thought of for my own rustic shack. You're guided through the website by Bek'tar Donhammar and Hazyl Fizzlehorn, two fictional Azerothian real estate agents who each have their own profiles with "reviews" from satisfied customers, all rife with in-jokes.

The main reason you might care to visit the website, though, is to get the free item. If you link your battle.net account, you can get a free "Naturally Elegant Doormat" which will show up in the in-game mail after the fact and become available for use in decorating your house. It's not a bad doormat! Worth the, like, four clicks it takes to get it. Once you have one, you can also buy more copies of it from Tuuran and Gabbi near the Trading Posts in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, in case you want a house just full of mats.

Perhaps even more delightful than just clicking around on the website though are some of the player reactions to the feature. In a Reddit thread about the announcement, a number of individuals have popped in to offer pleasant snark about the crossover, generally mixed in with commentary about how expensive real-life houses are nowadays.

"last sold in ‘88 for 49,000, now going for 449,000, cool cool cool," reads the top comment by u/Helios420A

"Hasn’t had work done since Blackhand was Warchief," writes u/Thesleek

"Does this mean blackrock will somehow get involved next?" asked u/notmyworkaccount5, making a very well-placed pun on BlackRock Inc, the investment company, and Blackrock, the World of Warcraft orc clan.

Now that I have my doormat, I will proceed to log in and rearrange my living room for the umpteenth time, wasting several hours before finally admitting I will never make anything as magical as the Ban'ethil Bohemian, and go back to adding spikes to my roof.

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

Highguard, the free-to-play PvP "raid shooter" announced at The Game Awards last year and released to preemptive criticism and mockery only for most of its developers to be laid off just weeks after launch, was apparently financially backed by Tencent, according to a report.

This comes from Game File, which reports that the Chinese gaming mogul was the primary financial backer behind developer Wildlight Entertainment, an arrangement that was not publicly shared by either company.

Prior to this report, it was unclear who was funding Wildlight, despite Highguard seemingly being in development for a number of years prior to its announcement at The Game Awards in December. Its official LinkedIn page has long included the line that Wildlight is "a new, fully-funded entertainment studio."

That grand announcement, its time and place instigated by The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley rather than the studio, sparked weeks of mockery online, with a number of content creators declaring the game dead before it had even released. Upon launch, Highguard netted nearly 100k Steam concurrents, but critic reviews (including ours) were just so-so and user scores were low. Just a few weeks later, developers from Wildlight revealed that most of them had been laid off. Since then, one developer who worked on the game has reflected that Highguard was "turned into a joke from minute one" due to false assumptions made from the TGA trailer, and a number of other high-profile developers have come to its defense.

It remains unclear how heavily reliant Wildlight was on Tencent, or whether a decision to pull funding was made at some point that led to the mass layoffs. Wildlight's future as a studio also remains unclear, with a studio statement saying that it would retain a "core group of developers" to keep Highguard going. However, the game's website went offline earlier today and has yet to be restored, leading some to speculate that the game or even the studio is about to fully shut down.

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

Beloved director Martin Scorcese is getting a small voice cameo role in The Mandalorian and Grogu, as heard in a new trailer released today.

The trailer shows, among other things, Mando and Grogu visiting an Ardennian street food vendor and asking for information while the Ardennian stacks up a sandwich. Mando lays down a coin marked with the New Republic symbol, to which the vendor replies, "Woah! For this price I'll tell you whatever you want!" Mando says he's "looking for a Hutt," which prompts the vendor to immediately slam down the shutter over his stand. "Closed for the night! Thank you!"

absolute cinema

Martin Scorsese joins The Mandalorian and Grogu only in theaters and IMAX May 22. pic.twitter.com/6pytrpKzYH

— Star Wars (@starwars) February 17, 2026

That's it for Scorcese, at least in the trailer. His role was confirmed by the official Star Wars account on Twitter/X which referenced a popular Scorcese meme: "absolute cinema," the post reads.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is a follow-up to the Disney+ series, The Mandalorian, continuing the story of the titular Mandalorian, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), and Grogu (formerly known as Baby Yoda), in the period after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Other cast members include Sigourney Weaver, Jeremy Allen White, and Jonny Coyne. White in particular is voicing Jabba the Hutt's son, who presumably has some feelings given everything that's went down with his dad years prior.

Though a legendary director for films such as Goodfellas, Raging Bull, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman, and so many more, this isn't Scorcese's first voiceover or acting rodeo either. He's appeared in Shark Tale, Killers of the Flower Moon, and a number of other roles including voice work in several of his own films. While in the past, Scorcese has been critical of franchise films, specifically sparking the aforementioned "absolute cinema" meme by stating that Marvel movies were "not cinema," he has since clarified his remarks and appears to have come around on films such as Star Wars, if this appearance is anything to go by.

The Mandalorian and Grogu will arrive in theaters on May 22, 2026.

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