Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 just swept The Game Awards, winning a whopping 11 out of 12 of its nominations, including Game of the Year. In celebration, Sandfall Interactive took the stage to announce that its previously-announced DLC for the game is out...now. Right now!
Developing...
Two and a half years after its reveal at a PlayStation showcase, Phantom Blade Zero now has a release date. It's September 9, 2026.
This news came alongside a brand new trailer for the game, which showed off more of the game's story and combat. We get a look at Phantom Blade's mysterious metal masked antagonist stealing a baby and doing some real flashy sword moves, followed by plenty of shots of the protagonist, seemingly a wanted man. He's got some pretty swanky moves himself, highlighting further how cool Phantom Blade's combat promises to be. There's also a young woman who gives the hero a good luck charm, then turns into a weird hollow monster or something. Lots going on here.
We've seen Phantom Blade a number of times since its original announcement, both in the form of trailers and hands-on previews. In our most recent look at it this past October, we found the game to be delightfully difficult, with our previewer saying, "It never felt cheap; it just demanded more from me. In just over an hour of play, I was easily ten times the player I was when I started. It’s a feeling of achievement that is reserved for the very best action games on the planet. If the rest is anything like what I played at TGS, I feel like there’s a real chance that Phantom Blade 0 might be one of those games."
Phantom Blade Zero is a wuxia action RPG by Chinese studio S-Game that follows Soul, an assassin framed for a murder trying to uncover the truth of what happened. It's coming out on TKTKTKTK for PC and PlayStation.
You can catch up on everything announced at The Game Awards right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
As promised, Housemarque brought a new trailer for its Returnal follow-up, Saros, to The Game Awards today, and it included a release date of April 30, 2026.
The trailer certainly looked lovely, showing off some gorgeous and haunted landscapes, a lot of psychological trickery, flashy combat, and The Sun.
Saros was first announced at a State of Play earlier this year as a follow-up to Housemarque's 2021 roguelite shooter, Returnal. It's not a sequel per se, but it's clearly full of that game's DNA. It stars Rahul Kohli as Arjun Devraj, a man searching for answers on a strange, shifting planet. Creative director Gregory Louden called Saros the "ultimate evolution" of the Housemarque gameplay-first experience.
We saw a bit more of Saros in September at another State of Play, showing off new features such as "Second Chance" (essentially a free revive) and some of Arjun's weapons and capabilities, and more of Saros' setting, the hostile planet Carcosa.
We gave Returnal an 8/10 when it came out, saying that "its roguelike runs are too long and it needs a way to save in the middle of them, but Returnal's third-person shooter action, clever story, and atmosphere are excellent."
You can catch up on everything announced at The Game Awards today right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight emerged from the shadows this evening at The Game Awards with a new trailer, revealing the anticipated adventure's release date.
As announced tonight, TT Games' open world Gotham game will arrive for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on May 29, 2026. The footage also showed a fresh look at the Bat Cave and some of the many, many heroes and villains you'll meet around the city.
Batman will be assisted by Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl and Catwoman, as the heroes take on supervillains such as Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Firefly, Mr. Freeze, The Joker, The Penguin, Ra’s al Ghul, and Bane. Oh, and you'll also get to go behind the wheel of the Batmobile from Batman: The Animated Series and Batpod from The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises movies.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight was first announced in August at Gamescom Opening Night Live as a pretty ambitious take on the caped crusader. Developed by TT Games, it features an open world version of Gotham. There are seven playable characters including Batman, all familiar allies like Jim Gordon, Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Catwoman, and Talia al Ghul. And a delightful Matt Berry is voicing Bane. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is planned for release on Nintendo Switch 2, PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Be sure to check out everything announced at The Game Awards 2025 for more, as well as the winners list in full.
We just got our first look at the debut game from Nagoshi Studio, the studio formed by Toshihiro Nagoshi under NetEase after he departed Ryu Ga Gotoku in 2021. It's called Gang of Dragon, and it sure looks an awful lot like Yakuza!
The trailer follows a man in a suit walking through the streets of Japan, before being knifed by a shady person. It then jumps to the same man, unknifed, sitting in a small bar as a group of Yakuza walk in and demand to settle up. The man's phone rings, he has a brief, cryptic conversation, before breaking out into a fist fight that he wins handily despite the Yakuza having guns. He then exits the bar unscathed and marches down the street, only to reveal the iconic sign that marks the real-life entrance to Kabukichō, the inspiration for the Yakuza series' Kamurocho.
The logo flashes, Gang of Dragon, briefly with the first letter of each word spelling out GOD highlighted. Sorry, no release date or platforms at this time.
This is the first game from Nagoshi Studio, which Toshihiro Nagoshi started in 2022 under NetEase after he left Ryu Ga Gotoku in 2021. It's for that reason and that reason alone that we know this can't be a Yakuza/Like a Dragon game despite it looking very very much like one, right down to the setting. It will be interesting to see how Nagoshi threads the needle of making something new after essentially creating and overseeing the Yakuza series for so long.
You can catch up on everything announced at The Game Awards right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Capcom's upcoming space adventure Pragmata was back at The Game Awards today with some pretty significant news after years of delays. It has a release date at last: April 24, 2026.
In addition, we learned today that a gameplay demo is now available today on Steam. And in addition to previously-announced platforms PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, it's also coming to Nintendo Switch 2 in a pretty significant get for the new console.
Pragmata follows an astronaut named Hugh stranded in space, aided by a friendly artificial intelligence named DI0367, who he refers to as Diana. She takes the form of a little girl who rides on Hugh's back as he fights his way through hostile space alien-robot things, and hacks them so that they're vulnerable to his abilities. Together, the two take on a lunar station AI that's trying to keep Hugh from returning to earth. Based on today's trailer, it looks like the pair might visit a city somewhat like New York City, though it seems to be located on the moon.
Pragmata has been around the moon a few times in the last few years. It was first announced back in 2020, with a pretty cryptic trailer showcasing the two main characters, with a 2022 release date attached. Later, it was delayed until 2023, and then put on hold with an apologetic trailer. It resurfaced at Sony's State of Play earlier this year looking far more ready for primetime. And we got to preview it at Gamescom this year, too. Not long after, I chatted with the game's developers about how their game about artificial intelligence relates, or doesn't, to current real-life discussions of the technology.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
The Game Awards don't start for another half hour, but video game announcements are still finding a way to sneak in anyway. Compulsion Games just revealed that South of Midnight is coming to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 in spring of 2026.
This comes from a pair of tweets/X posts from the official Compulsion Games account, announcing each platform release respectively.
Every creature holds a secret in the mythical Deep South - South of Midnight launches on PlayStation 5 in Spring 2026.@PlayStation @PlayStationCA @PlayStationUK @PlayStationEU @PlayStationFR #ps5 #ps5pro #southofmidnight pic.twitter.com/kSnUINy8fb
— Compulsion Games (@CompulsionGames) December 11, 2025
Every creature holds a secret in the mythical Deep South - South of Midnight launches on Switch 2 in Spring 2026.@NintendoAmerica @NintendoCanada @NintendoUK @NintendoFrance #Switch2 #NintendoSwitch2 #Southofmidnight pic.twitter.com/ByCJygSqTT
— Compulsion Games (@CompulsionGames) December 11, 2025
Depending on what the final release date ends up being, this will likely time out to be roughly one year from South of Midnight's initial release, which was on April 8, 2025 of this year. This puts South of Midnight in good company with a number of other Xbox Game Studios games that have gone onto rival platforms, including Pentiment, Grounded, Sea of Thieves, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remake. A remake of the original Halo was announced earlier this year for both Xbox and PlayStation.
South of Midnight might have flown under the radar for some, but it's worth checking out. Our reviewer gave it an 8/10, saying it's "a straightforward but well-executed action-adventure game elevated by the artistry and heart of the American Southern culture that’s wrapped around it."
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
World of Warcraft's new housing feature has been available for those who pre-purchased the upcoming Midnight expansion for over a week now, which naturally means folks have had plenty of time to get really, really creative with their new library of decor. One of the wildest player discoveries early on was finding a trick that would make houses float in the air, which a number of people have used to make wild flying creations. Better yet, instead of patching it out, Blizzard has surprisingly given its blessing for airborne abodes.
Lofting one's house was discovered almost immediately after the housing feature dropped, with players initially using it simply to raise their homes in the air as a fun gimmick.
Apparently, flying houses are surprisingly easy to do. If you're just using the base creation tools, you're never going to be able to do this on accident, as the most you can do is move the house around on the ground within your lot. However, players using Advanced Mode can raise a house by moving any decor object inside or attached to exterior of the house, and then lifting that object up in the air. The house goes with it!
As time has gone on, players have gotten even wackier with their flying houses, using them to create elaborate constructions such as airships:
Mechanical wonders:
And other assorted creations:
Since this discovery was made, players have been understandably concerned that Blizzard would patch it out, as it didn't seem to be intended behavior from houses. However, Blizzard has taken a surprising step in sanctioning the hovering homes, and even actively trying to make it easier to create them. A recent post on the forums from community manager Kaivax reads as follows:
Almost immediately after the 11.2.7 patch went live, we saw players using keybinds to elevate houses off the ground, even though there weren’t UI controls for that. We quickly began work to enable the controls so that it would be easier to move a house upward.
We have two concerns, of course:
The underside of houses aren’t modeled or textured. Players who lift their houses may decide to hide that part behind other things.
If you lift your house up, clicking on the door could become difficult. You might want to consider building a ramp or a jumping puzzle or a mount landing spot, etc.
Honestly, totally fair PSAs from Blizzard there, though it does lead one to wonder if long-term we might see some decor aimed at flying homes specifically if they get popular enough. Now if only we could have an entire floating city-wait, we what? Uh, scratch that. I'm going back home.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Someone has calculated exactly how many hours of recorded dialogue there are in Baldur's Gate 3, a task so unnecessarily large that even Larian Studios hadn't done it before.
As reported by PC Gamer, Everwhite-moonlight put together a spreadsheet breaking down all the dialogue in the game: who spoke it, how long the dialogue is, even how many files they speak in.
This survey results in some interesting facts surfacing: it's unsurprising that the narrator, Amelia Tyler, has the most dialogue at 14 hours, 43 minutes, and 55 seconds. Behind her, though, is Astarion, voiced by Neil Newbon, with 13 hours, six minutes, and 23 seconds. And behind him is Shadowheart, with 12 hours, 25 minutes, and 26 seconds. The smallest amount of dialogue is a many-way tie between numerous NPCs that all have only one second of dialogue, including four different Mind Flayer NPCs. In total, the game contains 236 hours, 55 minutes, and 45 seconds of spoken voice lines.
Every voice actor is catalogued in here, including small lines by random NPCs and even cut dialogue. One mystery that's arisen, per Everwhite-moonlight, is who exactly voices which Giant Rat NPC in the game. "There are four instances of a character named 'Giant Rat,' and there are four actors credited to have played 'Giant Rat.' I have separated the Giant Rat UIDs and could tell they are played by four different people, but I don't know which one is which." Those actors are Akbar Kurtha, Joseph Capp, Leemore Marrett Jr., and Sean Baker. Now we just have to sort out which actor is which rat.
Another fun bit that's surfaced from this is that Larian Studios actually didn't know how much dialogue, time-wise, was in the game. On Twitter/X, Larian boss Swen Vincke shared the news about the finding, saying, "We weren’t really keeping track which I think was for the better."
Vincke did, however, know the word count of the game's script, as we learned back in 2024, saying that Baldur's Gate 3 has triple the word count of The Lord of the Rings, and its cutscene runtime is twice as long as HBO's Game of Thrones. Holy moly.
For lovers of Baldur's Gate 3's particular brand of delightful wordiness, it might be worth tuning into The Game Awards tomorrow, as Larian seems to be teasing a brand new Divinity game for reveal at the show.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
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