Here's hoping you didn't have anything else planned for your weekend, as Nintendo has announced a surprise Super Mario Galaxy Movie Nintendo Direct for this coming Sunday.

A weekend Nintendo Direct is pretty much unheard of, but the company will hold one this Sunday, January 25 at 6am Pacific time to reveal new details of its upcoming animated movie sequel.

More to follow...

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

BioWare is slowly beginning to build itself back up following the downsizing it experienced in the wake of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, with hiring now underway for a new senior role on Mass Effect 5.

The veteran RPG studio saw numerous staff members depart following the launch of its most recent Dragon Age game, which failed to meet publisher EA's sales expectations. This process came after the decision was made not to develop any further content for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and while Mass Effect 5 officially remains in the pre-production phase.

Now, as work on Mass Effect 5 quietly continues, BioWare is hiring a Production Director for the game who will report directly into the project's overall boss, BioWare and Mass Effect franchise veteran Mike Gamble.

"Hi, I'm hiring a very important senior leadership role," Gamble wrote on social media. "They'll report to me and it's gonna be awesome." A job description notes that the role will involve partnering with Mass Effect 5's "creative leadership, studio teams, and internal and external partners to champion the game's vision and ensure its execution at the highest quality bar."

"Since 1995, BioWare has been dedicated to creating games defined by rich storytelling, unforgettable characters, and expansive worlds," the job description continues. "Over the years, the studio has earned recognition for developing some of the industry's most critically acclaimed titles. Today, BioWare is building on that legacy with the development of the next Mass Effect game, continuing one of the highest-rated and most celebrated series in video game history."

BioWare first announced plans to make Mass Effect 5 back in 2020 — a date that now feels a lifetime ago — in part to simply reassure fans that it remained committed to the franchise. In reality, though, the company was still busy devoting most of its development efforts into getting Dragon Age: The Veilguard done and out the door.

During this time, BioWare is believed to have had only a small team working on its next Mass Effect game concept, while the bulk of the studio was busy elsewhere. With The Veilguard finally launched in late 2024, Mass Effect 5 became the sole focus of the studio — albeit in its newly-slimmed down form.

Gamble previously confirmed that Mass Effect 5 was being led by a team of fellow Mass Effect veterans who served key roles on the franchise's original three games, including art director Derek Watts, creative director Parrish Ley, senior level designer and Normandy programmer Dusty Everman, and game director Preston Watmaniuk.

The leadership team behind Dragon Age: The Veilguard, including its lead writer, senior systems designer, various editors, producer and both its co-directors, Corinne Busche and John Epler, are all no longer at the company following the studio's downsizing, meanwhile.

Consecutive years have seen BioWare release snippets of concept art and other brief teasers for the game, which is expected to be set hundreds of years after the end of the original Mass Effect trilogy and feature at least one returning character. At the same time, pre-production has also begun on Amazon Prime's Mass Effect TV series that will also be set after the events of the trilogy.

"Let's start by setting the record straight: the next Mass Effect game is in development, and EA and BioWare remain committed to telling more stories in this universe," Gamble wrote in a blog post last November. "The truth is, the last few years have been an incredibly busy time at BioWare," Gamble continued today. "But currently, the team is heads-down and focused exclusively on Mass Effect. We have a lot of universe to cover, lots of features to build, and lots of romances to figure out."

BioWare has given no indication of when Mass Effect 5 will arrive, though here's hoping 2026 brings a better sense of the company's progress as development ramps up.

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

Tom Holland's return in Spider-Man: Brand New Day will feature a "tonal shift" from the actors' first trilogy, director Destin Daniel Cretton has said.

This year's long-awaited new Spider-Man film, Holland's fourth, will pick up some time after the events of 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home, with Peter Parker's secret identity forgotten by the wider world — separating him from past girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon). At the same time, Holland will have to deal with a new threat and team up with gun-toting Marvel TV action hero Frank Castle/The Punisher (Jon Bernthal).

Discussing the movie with ComicBook this week, Cretton said he had been "really excited" to take on this next chapter of Tom Holland's Spider-Man story as there was agreement among Marvel boss Kevin Feige, Sony exec Amy Pascal, and Holland himself "to do something different."

"Of course it's still the Spider-Man that everybody loves," Cretton said. "But this is a new chapter in his life, and that tonal shift was something that was really exciting to me and felt really different. It was an extremely gratifying experience."

In the past, Feige has mentioned that Brand New Day will retain the franchise's usual film rating — there's no suggestion that Tom Holland's Spider-Man is suddenly getting the R-movie treatment akin to Deadpool & Wolverine — meaning that Frank Castle's lethal antics would have to fit in.

Still, Cretton seems to be suggesting here that Brand New Day will feature a more mature tone — perhaps by the very nature of Holland's Spider-Man no longer being a student, and forced to fend for himself without his Aunt May.

Officially, little is known of Spider-Man: Brand New Day's story, which Marvel and Sony have attempted to keep under wraps as much as possible. Indeed, Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink has said she's been kept wrapped up in a large coat "like a penguin" to hide her costume from fans during shooting, so mysterious is her role.

That said, we do know that Mark Ruffalo will be back as Bruce Banner/The Hulk in the movie, while Better Call Saul's Michael Mando will reprise his role as Scorpion. A big action sequence was previously filmed in the Scottish city of Glasgow, standing in for New York, which saw Holland riding around on top of a tank.

With four trailers (that aren't actually trailers) already released for this December's Avengers: Doomsday, fans are hoping to see something more of Spider-Man: Brand New Day soon — ahead of its launch in theaters on July 31. Just before Christmas, what appeared to be grainy footage of an upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer hit the internet, featuring dialogue that positioned Sink's character as a villain — initially, at least.

"You're a mess, Spider-Man," Sink's unnamed character can be heard to say. "Don't get in my way. Otherwise, it won't just be your friends who don't remember who Peter Parker is." Plenty of speculation exists around who Sink may be playing, though perhaps our biggest clue is the report that her character will be returning for Avengers: Secret Wars, something that rules out her being a one-and-done villain.

Image credit: MEGA/GC 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

Remedy Entertainment has spoken out to defend its publishing deal for Alan Wake 2, which saw the game launch on PC exclusively via the Epic Games Store. More than two years later, there's still no sign of it coming to rival storefront Steam.

Released in October 2023, Alan Wake 2 took a year to eventually begin generating royalties for Remedy, after ticking over the 2 million sales mark. Now, a debate has been sparked over its sales — which would undoubtedly be higher if it had also arrived on Steam, even if the game only exists because of Epic Games cash — as well as the benefits of storefront exclusives.

Discussion was sparked on social media by a lengthy thread from Michael Douse, director of publishing at Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity studio Larian. "I understand Epic entirely funded Alan Wake 2 but this altruistic pro-developer talk doesn't sit well when Remedy seemingly went into financial crisis because they couldn't tap Steam for AW2 sales suffering potentially hundreds of millions in lost revenue," Douse wrote.

"Not that they need the money but a % take to Epic could've recouped dev costs + more. Competition is good, and important, but it is difficult to buy the message when there are demonstrable cases of games underperforming as a result of the tactic."

Initially, Douse had been replying to a post by Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney, who noted that "Epic and Steam compete for each customer and each sale." Sweeney continued: "On some transactions, Epic wins. On more, Steam wins. But one thing is constant on every transaction: gamers and developers win by having more options and better deals."

Continuing his response, Douse characterized the Epic Games' ambitions for its PC storefront as resting on "their ability to convert hundreds of millions of Fortnite players into mid-hardcore premium gamers," tempted by giveaways of free PC titles. "I don't see the Fortnite brand attempting to do that," Douse continued. "So it's like 🤷‍♀️ Maybe if there was a shit-hot Untreal Tournament.

"The Apple & Google stores spent a decade devaluing games & apps to a point where it is largely impossible to sell a premium game there in a way that doesn't massively devalue it on other systems. Giving everyone everything for free might bump numbers but doesn't create a viable storefront from which to sell premium experiences."

Douse's thread caught the attention of Remedy itself, who then replied with the following statement:

"Hi. There would be no Alan Wake 2 without Epic Publishing. The publishing deal with Epic was very fair to Remedy. While these complex deals can often take even a year to reach their conclusion, and may not always be fair to the developer, this one was. And it only took months to get done. Epic Games was, and is, an excellent partner to us. Steam or no Steam."

For its next game, Control Resonant, Remedy has entered into a partnership with Annapurna Pictures that will see the company fund 50% of the development of the Control sequel, while Annapurna creates film and TV spin-offs of Control and Alan Wake.

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