Indie horror game Horses is preparing to launch on December 2 on the Epic Games Store, GOG, Itch.io, and the Humble Store. But one place it won't be is on Steam, because Steam has banned the game for, according to the developer, reasons that remain unclear even after two years of back-and-forth with Valve. And according to the developer, this ban seems likely to result in the shutdown of their entire studio.

We spoke with Pietro Righi Riva of Italian studio Santa Ragione (Saturnalia, Wheels of Aurelia, MirrorMoon EP), who explained their side of the story. According to Riva and a detailed FAQ shared with IGN, Santa Ragione first submitted Horses to Steam in 2023, when the game was in a very unfinished state. "We were only about halfway through development and had scrambled together a build that could be played start to finish, solely to satisfy Steam’s request for a playable version to open a Coming Soon page, something we had never been asked for before," Riva explains. It was at this stage that Valve rejected the game.

However, Riva goes on to say that Valve did not offer any explanation as to why the game was rejected, nor was there any opportunity for the team to change whatever the offending content was. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get anyone at Valve to work with them to reverse the decision.

"Steam’s decision came without detailed feedback, and the ban notice did not cite any specific scenes or elements," Riva says. "For months we repeatedly asked what triggered the ban and received no answer. We also offered, unsuccessfully, to change any content deemed unfit, especially since the game was still early in development at the time of submission."

Chasing Wild Horses

So what triggered the ban? Riva still doesn't know. While minds may jump to Steam's recent banning of a number of adult games to comply with sudden crackdowns from payment processors, Riva says this ban took place long before that was even a conversation, and all the content in the game is fully legal. He does have a theory, though. The automated review sent by Steam in 2023 included a link to Steam's Onboarding Documentation, as well as the following sentence: "Regardless of a developer’s intentions with their product, we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor."

Horses, Riva says, does not contain any such content. All characters in the game are older than 20 "as communicated by their appearance and through dialogue and documents that you will encounter in the game." He also asserts that the game is not pornographic. It is, per the studio, "about the burden of familial trauma and puritan values, the dynamics of totalitarian power, and the ethics of personal responsibility." From the FAQ sent to IGN:

While it does contain some sexual elements, the intent is never to arouse. It uses challenging, unconventional material to encourage discussion. It invites players to examine why something feels the way it does, what it says about the characters and systems at work, and where their limits lie. It is about tension, not erotic content. (We apologize if we got your hopes up for horse porn.)

What Riva thinks triggered the ban is a scene that existed in the game during the initial Steam submission, where a man and his young daughter visit the farm. As the FAQ explains:

The daughter wants to ride one of the horses (in the game the “horses” are humans wearing a horse mask) and gets to pick which one. What followed was an interactive dialogue sequence where the player is leading, by a lead as if they were a horse, a naked adult woman with a young girl on her shoulders. The scene is not sexual in any way, but it is possible that the juxtaposition is what triggered the flag. We have since changed the character in the scene to be a twenty-something woman, both to avoid the juxtaposition and more importantly because the dialogue delivered in that scene, which deals with the societal structure in the world of Horses, works much better when delivered by an older character.

Riva says he has tried everything. He has tried speaking to contacts at Valve who had previously worked with the studio on past games. According to him, they claimed not to know the specific reasons for the ban and said it would not be possible to find out and tell them. He's reached out to Valve again and again, but has yet to receive any official explanation of what content was offensive, nor an opportunity to resubmit it without that content. IGN also reached out to Valve for comment for this piece, but did not hear back in time for publication.

Riva also says he's had no issues with any other platform: GOG, Itch.io, and the Humble Store had no issues with it. Epic asked the studio to update just the screenshots on the game's store page so as not to include nudity, which Riva says they complied with, and the game was accepted. As for consoles, he says he's shown the game to console partners and hasn't heard any concerns about content. Horses also has received PEGI and ESRB ratings that would be required for console distribution. "The only reason we haven't actively started porting the game is lack of funds."

Reining It In

To be clear, Horses is unsettling to say the least. I watched a colleague play some of it at a demo at Day of the Devs in 2023, and it's not for the faint of heart. It's about a young man who comes to a farm to work a summer job caring for horses, only to discover the horses are actually naked adult humans wearing horse head masks, chained up in the yard. Snippets from trailers show the "horses" watching what seems to be horse propaganda, being ridden by other people by carrying them on their shoulders, being fed carrots, and being on the receiving end of humiliation and violence. It challenges the player to either accept what they're seeing and continue to participate in it, or try to subvert what's going on at the horse farm, a process that seems like it will be utterly terrifying and unpleasant in some way.

But Santa Ragione also has a solid track record of making and publishing artistic, esoteric, disturbing games with poignant messages, many of which have been up for awards for that very reason. Their board game Escape From The Aliens In Outer Space was nominated for the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming. MirrorMoon EP was a finalist for the Innovation Award at the Independent Games Festival after its launch in 2013. More recently, in 2024, Santa Ragione published Mediterranea Inferno, which won the Excellence in Narrative Award at the Independent Games Festival. And Mediterranea Inferno is just one of a handful of games published by Santa Ragione as part of its efforts to promote the work of up-and-coming Italian creators, with Horses being another example.

Again from the FAQ:

We are committed to producing challenging, adult storytelling. Horses uses grotesque, subversive imagery to confront power, faith, and violence. We reject subjective obscenity standards and believe this kind of moralizing censorship evokes a darker past in which vague notions of “decency” were used to silence artists. Games are an artistic medium and lawful works for adults should remain accessible. We respect players enough to present the game as intended and to let adults choose what to play; lawful works should not be made unreachable by a monopolistic storefront’s opaque decisions. Steam publicly downplays human curation in favor of algorithmic sales optimization, yet intervenes with censorship when a game’s artistic vision does not align with what the platform owners considers acceptable art. Steam’s behavior passively shapes which titles developers feel safe creating, pushing preemptive censorship.

And yet, the verdict stands. Riva and Santa Ragione are stuck: one week until launch, and no ability to publish their game on the most massive PC storefront in existence.

Long Faces

According to Riva, the inability to release on Steam almost certainly means that Santa Ragione is done for. The studio already was struggling with financial troubles: it initially invested $50,000 when they signed the game with its creator, Andrea Lucco Borlera. They were hoping that sales of the team's previous game, Saturnalia, would help make that money back, but it didn't do as well as they'd hoped. Riva says they even lined up "a great bundle opportunity" for Saturnalia, but had to cancel it when Valve refused to give them Steam keys for again unclear reasons.

Around the same time, we were informed that Horses had been banned and would not release on Steam, which completely erased our ability to find an external supporting publisher or partner to fund the rest of the game, as no one in the industry considers an indie game that cannot be released on Steam to be viable. After two years of seeking these funds through traditional venues while trying to get the game unbanned, we had to seek private funding from friends to complete development, which puts us in a completely unsustainable financial situation unless the game somehow recoups its development costs.

Hopeless as this seems, Riva isn't closed to the possibility that Santa Ragione could be saved. He says if it manages to sell "tens of thousands of copies" without being on Steam, they'd be able to break even and keep working on future projects. But he's not banking on that. Ideally, he says, Valve would revert its decision and reconsider the game, but after two years, that doesn't seem likely to happen either.

However, Riva says their team won't fully disappear from gaming. The team has funds set aside for six months to support Horses post-launch with bug fixes and quality of life updates. Riva also tells me that the studio has known this was a possibility for a while now, and has been preparing accordingly. Its members have all found other gigs, some of which are in games. Riva himself says he's always worked multiple jobs in teaching, consulting, and curation while directing Santa Ragione, so he plans to "do more of that." And Horses director Borlera is already pitching new projects elsewhere.

While Riva would love to see a miracle leading to Horses recouping its costs and saving the studio, he says what he actually wants more than anything is for Valve to be transparent about its policies on mature content, which have fluctuated over the years and never really been clear. From the FAQ:

Alongside ultraviolent titles, Steam distributes explicit pornographic games; some of these listings acknowledge the legal grey area Steam mentioned in the HORSES ban message, by stating “All characters depicted are over the age of 18” in their store descriptions, and yet non-pornographic works like HORSES can be banned without context. By contrast, mature works with comparable or stronger themes routinely appear on mainstream streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, where controversial directors are an accepted part of the catalog. This double standard suggests Steam does not treat games as art on par with film, and intervenes with censorship when an artistic vision does not align with what the platform owner considers acceptable art.

As a final word, Riva urges game developers to stand up together to demand transparency from Steam. "I know developers are understandably scared of voicing their complaints about Steam, but I hope we can collectively ask for better conditions to make our work more viable and more creatively free," he says. "The current landscape is one where very few actors control the distribution of almost all games that are produced, and that should mean they are responsible not just for the commercial sustainability of the industry, but also for the growth of games as an artistic medium."

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

Everyone's playing shooters these days, at least according to some new data from Newzoo shared with IGN.

Newzoo, whose revenue estimates cover digital full-game purchases, including but not limited to DLC, subscriptions, and microtransactions, has revealed the top 20 PC and console games for the month of October, both by revenue and MAUs (monthly active users), combined across the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. And boy, there are a lot of shooters on that list! Battlefield 6, in its debut month, is at the top of the revenue charts and the third in monthly active users. While Battlefield's dominance has been well documented already, it's nonetheless an impressive feat given that Battlefield was only out for one week in October.

It is worth noting that while the suite of Call of Duty games were 9th on the revenue chart, they came in at the second spot for MAUs, ahead of Battlefield. Again, though, Battlefield only had a week compared to Call of Duty's full month, so the real test will be looking at November's data when Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will face off against Battlefield. MAUs are a bit of a better comparison metric for Call of Duty, given its precense on Xbox Game Pass.

Breakout extraction shooter Arc Raiders debuted at No. 7 for revenue and No. 18 in MAUs, similarly hampered somewhat by the fact that it was only out for two days in the reporting period of October, so we should see a clearer picture of its success in November as well.

These new games are joined by a lot of the usual suspects: Counter-Strike 2 at No. 8 in revenue and No. 9 in MAUs, Fortnite at No. 3 in revenue and No. 1 in MAUs, and just on the MAU chart: GTA 5 at No. 7, Helldivers 2 at No. 16, Borderlands 4 at No. 17, Apex Legends at No. 19, and Overwatch at No. 20. Those are just shooters; Roblox, Minecraft, Valorant, League of Legends, and annual sports titles remain strong. It's as challenging as ever for new games to crack the dominance of the handful of live service giants that consume so much of audience time, attention, and money.

There was a bit of a face-off this month in monster RPGs, with Pokémon Legends: Z-A coming in at No. 5 in revenue and No. 15 in MAUs, and Digimon Story Time Stranger at No. 13 in revenue. It was never in doubt that Pokémon would win that battle, but Newzoo noted that Z-A "underperformed compared to Legends: Arceus," which may suggest some hesitance around its move to a real-time, action-based combat system, or perhaps caution after the state of Scarlet and Violet's launch. It's worth noting that Pokémon Legends: Z-A launched as a cross-gen title, both on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2.

Nintendo's official sales figures show Pokémon Legends: Z-A sold almost 6 million copies in its opening week. Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which debuted on October 16, sold 5.8 million units worldwide, with around half of those bought for Switch 2. This means the first Pokémon game to feature real-time Pokémon battles is the fifth best-selling game of the franchise in terms of first week sales. By comparison, that's more than Pokémon X/Y and Let's Go Pikachu / Eevee managed in their first weeks, but not as much as Pokémon Scarlet / Violet, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and Pokémon Sword / Shield managed.

IGN's Pokémon Legends: Z-A review returned an 8/10. We said: "Pokémon Legends: Z-A finally feels like Game Freak hitting its stride in Pokémon’s 3D era, with a fun setting to explore, a well-written story, and a total battle system overhaul that works surprisingly well."

Top 20 PC and Console Games by Revenue for October 2025

(Data covers U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain)

1. Battlefield 6/Redsec (NEW)
2. EA Sports FC 26
3. Fortnite
4. Ghost of Yotei (NEW)
5. Pokemon Legends: Z-A (NEW)
6. NBA 2K 26
7. Arc Raiders (NEW)
8. Counter-Strike 2 & GO
9. Call of Duty: MW2/MW3/WZ/BO6
10. EA Sports Madden NFL 26
11. The Sims 4
12. Minecraft
13. Digimon Story Time Stranger (NEW)
14. Valorant
15. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (NEW)
16. Roblox
17. League of Legends
18. Jurassic World Evolution 3 (NEW)
19. World of Warcraft
20. Marvel Rivals

Top 20 PC and Console Games by MAU for October 2025

(Data covers U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain)

1. Fortnite
2. Call of Duty: MW2/MW3/WZ/BO6
3. Battlefield 6/Redsec (NEW)
4. Roblox
5. Minecraft
6. skate.
7. Grand Theft Auto V
8. Rocket League
9. Counter-Strike 2 & GO
10. EA Sports FC 26
11. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege X
12. Marvel Rivals
13. NBA 2K26
14. EA Sports FC 25
15. Pokemon Legends: Z-A (NEW)
16. Helldivers 2
17. Borderlands 4
18. Arc Raiders (NEW)
19. Apex Legends
20. Overwatch 1 & 2

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

October was an incredible debut month for Battlefield 6: it's officially the best-selling title in franchise history in the U.S., and the best-selling game in the U.S. as of last month.

This comes from Circana's monthly report, which states that Battlefield 6 is the best-selling game of 2025 on both Xbox and PC, and the second best-selling on PlayStation so far, behind NBA 2K26. It also says that Battlefield produced the highest single month tracked full game dollar sales total of any video game in three years. That means it sold more than the last few Call of Duty games did in their debut months, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II in October of 2022. Is this troubling news for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 when the November report comes out? We'll see.

Battlefield 6 is followed by Pokemon Legends: Z-A, which is the second best-selling game of October and, per Circana, the best-selling physical game year-to-date. Notably, because Nintendo does not share digital sales data, its second-place spot is entirely based on physical sales.

Other debut games for October included The Outer Worlds 2 at No.7, Little Nightmares III at No.8, and Ninja Gaiden 4 at No.11. Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake didn't make it to the top 20, but it was No.6 on Nintendo platforms for the month. There weren't any other major outliers in the charts this time around.

Hardware spending was up 36% year-over-year to $351 million, with the Nintendo Switch 2 offsetting declines in the other three major consoles: Nintendo Switch (sales down 52% year-over-year, wonder why?), Xbox Series (down 37%), and PlayStation 5 (down 22%). The Nintendo Switch 2 sold approximately 328,000 units in October, 68% ahead of the original Nintendo Switch's pace and 3% ahead of the PlayStation 4, which was the previous record-holder.

Thanks to Battlefield, the Nintendo Switch 2, and a good month for mobile, overall game hardware, content, and accessories spending was $4.9 billion for the month, up 3% year-over-year.

October 2025 U.S. Top 20 Best-Selling Games:

1. Battlefield 6 (NEW)
2. Pokemon Legends: Z-A (NEW)*
3. Ghost of Yotei
4. NBA 2K26
5. EA Sports FC 26
6. Madden NFL 26
7. The Outer Worlds 2 (NEW)
8. Little Nightmares III (NEW)
9. Digimon Story: Time Stranger
10. Borderlands 4
11. Ninja Gaiden 4 (NEW)
12. EA Sports College Football 26
13. Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2*
14. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles
15. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds
16. Silent Hill: f
17. Minecraft*
18. Helldivers II
19. Grand Theft Auto V
20. Red Dead Redemption II

* Indicates that some or all digital sales are not included in Circana's data. Some publishers, including Nintendo, do not share certain digital data for this report.

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

Omelet You Cook, a roguelike cooking game on Steam, has been having a great early access it seems. It recently passed 500 player reviews, and every last one of them was positive, making it one of a rare few games on Steam to have 100% positive reviews.

Until today.

As pointed out to us by developer Dan Schumacher of SchuBox Games, the game received its first negative review today. And sure, negative reviews are just part of the deal when releasing a game on Steam. But what really bothered Schumacher is that according to the text of the review, the reviewer didn't actually dislike the game. They played for 0.8 hours total, 0.2 hours when they posted the review, and wrote the following:

"Game is amazing. I just like to be different."

IGN reached out to the reviewer for further comment ahead of this piece but didn't hear back.

The community appears to have sprung to Omelet You Cook's defense, as the game has received almost 40 new positive reviews in the 14 hours since the negative review was posted, and a number of people have commented scolding the negative reviewer for ruining the positive streak just for kicks, though some of those comments are unfortunately far harsher than the negative review itself.

"Seeing this review was very draining for us," said Schumacher to IGN. "We knew 100% wouldn't last forever but it hurt to have the streak ended by someone who in their own words thinks the game is amazing. Emotionally I think I'd feel better if it was someone complaining about bugs, or design choices, or just feeling the game isn't for them."

A single negative review is hardly the end of the world for SchuBox Games, but it does make a difference. There are very, very, very few games on Steam with perfectly positive reviews, or at least in meaningful amounts like this. The more you get, the more likely it is someone will have something bad to say. There's a game called Shooters, Ready! on Steam that's only available in Japanese and similarly has over 500 positive reviews and 0 negative ones. But at least using the built in search by user reviews, there don't seem to be any others.

According to Schumacher, having no negative reviews actually did afford him some benefits, too:

"Having 100% positive reviews was a huge benefit for us because it's extremely abnormal for a game with hundreds of reviews," he told IGN. "People see 100% and become curious enough to read through some of the reviews to understand why it's so beloved or to check out the demo for themselves. We've had multiple people join our Discord or leave their own review and mention that they gave the game a chance because they couldn't believe it was maintaining 100% for so long.

"...The biggest impact this will have on Omelet You Cook is losing that mystique of a perfect 100%. That led to some opportunities for Omelet You Cook to be mentioned because it was atypical. But honestly for players coming across the Steam page, I don't think 99% vs 100% makes any difference at all. Some users like to filter by negative reviews to understand where the pain points are and I have to appreciate that this negative review frames Omelet You Cook in a very positive light."

It's long been known that engagement with games on Steam in the form of Wishlists and reviews can be a massive boon, especially for small developers. There are simply too many games, and getting attention on such a crowded storefront is impossible if you don't already have a built-up audience or a lot of advertising money. Having lots of positive reviews and few negative ones gets games like Omelet You Cook visibility when searching under certain filters or ranking systems, including third-party ones. That's certainly been the case for Omelet You Cook

"We're very fortunate and grateful to have reached 507 positive reviews before our first negative," Schumacher said. "We worked incredibly hard to achieve that with 15 content updates over 5 months. But we also got incredibly lucky and it's nowhere near a flawless game. There's plenty of valid reasons somebody might have a negative experience with the game and we're grateful to all 507 chefs who took the time to write a positive review. Each one helps Omelet You Cook reach a wider audience."

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

Haha. Yeah, I know. "Half-Life 3". The long-fabled, often-rumored, still non-existent third numbered entry in the Half-Life series that fans have craved but never heard a credible whisper of. It's been a pervasive joke in the industry and among fans for years, a stand-in for a thing that doesn't exist and never would.

And yet, for some reason, a lot of people seem to think it's being announced soon. Possibly in the next few weeks. Maybe even today.

You might have seen it. The sudden flurry of mentions of Half-Life 3, some humorous, some quite serious. The surge of memes. A handful of people that seem to have lost their dang minds:

Update 1:09pm PT: Originally, I had included several embeds of Reddit posts of people desperately praying and begging for a Half-Life 3 announcement. However, the r/halflife mods appear to be removing them, seemingly due to the subreddit's rule against "low-value submissions", aka memes, and perhaps due to the sheer volume of these posts recently. These have subsequently been replaced by more posts wishing for Half-Life 3 - honestly, just check out the subreddit, I'm sure you'll see some good ones that haven't been deleted yet.

Original story continues below:

So what's going on? Why do people think Half-Life 3 is imminent, seriously or unseriously? We investigated:

Half-Hope

Half-Life 3 rumors have existed pretty much since Half-Life 2 first released, so that's nothing new. But the last couple of years have seen a steady trickle of interesting little threads that have lead many to believe that a third entry was actually in development, quietly, at Valve. There were vague nods, such as the Half-Life: Alyx team saying they wanted to make more Half-Life games and a Final Hours documentary that actually confirmed it was in development at one point between 2013 and 2014. We've also seen dataminers pulling crumbs from various Valve releases over the last few years of what seems to be an in-development game internally at Valve known only as "HLX", using Source 2. Dataminers have worked out that it's a full-fledged, non-VR, Half-Life game of some sort, that's been in the works since at least 2021, probably earlier. That game is possibly the same one as was accidentally leaked by a voice actor in 2024, who referred to it as "Project White Sands".

But this year there's been a marked increase in little breadcrumbs. Right after the new year, G-Man's voice actor issued a cryptic post teasing "unexpected surprises" in 2025 – it was his first tweet since he congratulated Valve on Half-Life: Alyx in December 2020. Fans proceeded to tear apart the post, delving deep into an album cover image and the number 197 for what they believed were even more hints that something was in the works.

But an already simmering pot of rumors turned into a full boil with the announcement last week of new Valve hardware: the Steam Machine, complete with a new Steam controller, and a VR headset known as the Steam Frame. Notably, there were no software announcements alongside these hardware reveals, which is a bit odd given that Valve tends to release new games alongside new hardware - recall Half-Life: Alyx and the Valve Index headset. Around the same time, a number of Valve and industry insiders began mentioning Half-Life 3, saying confidently that it was planned for a 2025 announcement still. One leaker, who has a good track record of getting Valve stuff right, said back in May that Half-Life 3 was officially "playable, end-to-end." There's a massive Miro board floating around that has catalogued every remotely credible recent mention of Half-Life 3, and is worth digging into if you want follow along.

Go, G-Man, Go

There are so many other weird little indicators floating around that are leading to wild speculation. For instance, Valve's "Upcoming Releases" tab on its own Steam page only lists one game (Deadlock) despite the sidebar indicating that there are two upcoming game releases. A tweet/X post from the official The Game Awards account commemorating Half-Life's 27th anniversary today has sent everyone into a frenzy, even though it tweets this anniversary every year. There was a weird amount of extra security at Valve during the recent Steam hardware preview events – something noticed by IGN's own representatives and contrasted with my personal experience there for Half-Life: Alyx years ago, which featured a relatively normal and relaxed amount of security.

And there was an incredibly silly saga where Geoff Keighley posted a screenshot that showed he had one game in his Steam wishlist. When asked what the game was, he responded with an eyes emoji. Of course, the Half-Life nerds pounced. Keighley then posted a screenshot of his wishlist showing only the game "Dadlympics," but notably, this was added on 11/18, the same day he posted the screenshot, suggesting he's hiding something. Is he hiding Half-Life 3? Probably not! It doesn't have a viewable Steam page! That's not how Steam works! But that hasn't stopped Half-Life 3 fans from freaking out. Seriously, the replies are hilarious.

pic.twitter.com/t5L0zHW0Il

— arda (@lornarcoss) November 18, 2025

Whatever you believe is happening here, the reality is that this has resulted in the community going completely bonkers. The Half-Life subreddit is overflowing with Half-Life 3 summoning and hope posts. A quick search for Half-Life on Twitter/X reveals an overflow of discourse, prayers, and memes. It's kind of nuts, and also really, really fun:

Okay, so let's say everyone's right, and we really are getting Half-Life 3 announced soon. When? Well, some think it's as soon as today. November 19, as The Game Awards posted, is the anniversary of Half-Life – what better time to make an announcement? We've already passed the anniversary of Half-Life 2, and the anniversary of Half-Life: Alyx's announcement, but that particular anniversary is the reason you're likely seeing so much noise around this today. The other big possibility floated by some is an announcement at The Game Awards, which is coming up on December 11. That would be a little surprising, given that Valve doesn't need an awards show to command attention with such an announcement. But Valve also has a long history of friendliness with host Geoff Keighley, so maybe it's not so far-fetched after all.

Whatever the case, one thing is certain: either Half-Life 3 is getting announced before December 31, 2025, or an awful lot of folks are going to have egg on their faces come January 1, 2026. I'm personally hoping for the former, but the community has been hoodwinked before with Half-Life rumors, multiple times even. Keep injecting that Hopium, folks. Perhaps the return of G-man is right around the corner.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Vedinad, developer of Megabonk, has withdrawn his game from The Game Awards following its nomination for Best Debut Indie Game, saying it doesn't qualify for the category.

In a post to Twitter/X from the official Megabonk account, vedinad made the announcement today:

"I'm withdrawing from The Game Awards.

"It's an honor and a dream for Megabonk to be nominated for TGA, but unfortunately i don't think it qualifies for the category 'Debut Indie Game'

"I've made games in the past under different studio names, so Megabonk is not my debut game 🥸

"i really appreciate the nomination, support and votes, but it doesn't feel right in this category. you should vote for another one of the amazing debut titles, they are all amazing games!

"thanks again! new megabonk update coming soon ✌️"

Update 2.23pm PT: Megabonk was listed as a nominee under Best Debut Indie, along with Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Despelote, and Dispatch. Since this statement, The Game Awards creator Geoff Keighley has shared a statement of his own acknowledging the request and stating that Megabonk would be removed in a Twitter/X post. At the time of this update, Megabonk was still listed on The Game Awards website as a nominee.

"@MegabonkGame, a nominee for Best Debut Indie Game, reached out to clarify that he is an established solo developer who had been presenting himself as a new creator under the name Vedinad.

"We’re grateful for his honesty. As a result, MegaBonk will be removed from the category.

"He’ll share more about his story when he’s ready, but we respect that he didn’t want to take recognition away from other debut teams — even though the game itself is outstanding."

Original story continues below:

Critically, Best Debut Indie is awarded to the "best debut game created by a new independent studio." So what counts as a new, independent studio? This definition certainly can get a little fuzzy - game dev teams are often Ships of Theseus, with certain groups sticking together, hiring others, and rebranding. For instance, Dispatch was made by AdHoc Studio, and is the team's collective first original game. However, AdHoc was founded by a team of former Ubisoft and Telltale developers who had previously been working together. Cocoon, by Geometric Interactive, won Debut Indie back in 2023 and was arguably in a similar situation with former developers from Playdead. But by that logic, it's also unlikely anyone's "first game" would ever make it to The Game Awards, as most people's first projects are small, student, or experimental.

Vedinad's argument at least makes a bit more sense for himself, given that he is effectively a solo developer and has worked on other projects under other names. But even solo developers have help: Miguel Angel, for instance, is credited with the OST, Giovanni Fim made the Steam art, and there are a handful of names listed as playtesters, as well as a "special thanks" to vedinad's mom. Vedinad seems to be as close to a solo dev as anyone really gets. What really is a game studio, anyway?

What this ultimately seems to boil down to is that there's at least some level of confusion about what the categories of The Game Awards actually mean. This isn't the first time this has happened. In 2023, Dave the Diver - a game made by a subsidiary of Korean gaming giant Nexon - was up for Best Indie, leading TGA creator Geoff Keighley to respond that indie can "mean different things to different people," and even the director admitted the nomination was confusing. We've also seen some oddities like Sifu being up for Best Fighting Game in 2022 (it's an action beat-em-up), and even some recent eyebrow raisers like Monster Hunter Wilds being nominated this year for best RPG.

Define it all however you want, but Megabonk's developer has spoken, as has Keighley. You can catch up on all the other 2025 nominees right here, and check out our early thoughts on Megabonk here.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Yoko Taro, the creator of the Nier and Drakenguard games, has been awfully quiet lately. Though he's worked on some smaller projects (writing scenarios for Voice of Cards, and a few mobile games), the lack of a proper Nier follow-up or other new major game from him has been getting under fans' skin. But according to Taro, he has been working on projects. They just keep getting canceled.

This comes from his remarks at Korean gaming convention G-Con 2025, which were reported on by 4gamer and translated by Automaton. The panel, which featured Taro and Bayonetta and Okami director Hideki Kamiya, saw the pair asked for updates on recent projects. Kamiya mentioned the upcoming sequel to Okami, while Taro said he'd been very busy with new projects, they just keep getting canceled partway through.

“I often get told stuff like ‘Why aren’t you making a new sequel to NieR’ or ‘Yoko Taro isn’t doing anything,’ but that’s because recently, a lot of projects I was involved in got discontinued midway through development," he said.

"I’ve actually been working on some stuff, it’s just that it never ended up seeing the light of day. I got paid for it, so I personally have no issues with that, but people seem to think that I haven’t been doing anything just because none of the work I’ve done is being released."

However, Taro isn't discouraged by this, apparently. He continued, saying he'd rather fail repeatedly and eventually create something good, rather than put out multiple mediocre works. “I believe that if I’m going to release something weird, I’d be better off not releasing anything at all.”