Southern California police are investigating a wave of similar burglaries involving trading card businesses in a bid to establish whether they are linked.

Thieves made off with thousands of dollars' worth of trading cards over the weekend, targeting a trading card store in Simi Valley, California, in the early hours of Sunday morning, January 4.

As reported by KTLA, the thieves targeted rare Pokémon and sports trading cards at Simi Sports Cards, making off with "almost every card" in just three minutes. You can see the robbery take place in the Instagram footage, below.

Owner Jake Miller said: “They took single cards from our show cases [after] busting them open. We have five display cases in here, and they were all full — almost every card was stolen. It’s several hundred cards, as well as some sealed boxes."

The store isn't certain of the exact amount taken, but Miller estimates it'll cost around $50,000 to put things right and upgrade the store's security systems.

"Card stores in greater Los Angeles and Ventura County are being hit RELENTLESSLY and we were once again victim this weekend," reads the Instagram post. "Sunday morning at 3:30am we were broken into by a group of 5 thieves who stole most of our singles inventory. Simi Valley was once known for law and order, what is happening?"

The Simi Valley Police Department said it was aware of similar burglaries involving trading card businesses that occurred over the weekend in surrounding communities. "SVPD Property Crimes Detectives are working closely with neighboring law enforcement agencies to determine whether these incidents may be connected," it said in a statement published online.

That's a reference to a man who reportedly purchased a rare Pokémon card "worth six figures" from a store in LA's Sawtelle neighborhood and, that same day, was tracked to his vehicle and robbed at gunpoint. It's unclear whether the two incidents are related, or indeed if either crime is connected to the same thieves who targeted a different store in Burbank just last month, stealing $100,000 in merchandise.

NEW: Burglars ransack card shop and steal $100,000 worth of rare Pokémon and sports cards

The owner believes the thieves knew exactly where the merchandise was and planned the job ahead of time

They got away with about $100,000 in merchandise

Police believe the same crew may… pic.twitter.com/zMIurJ86U9

— Unlimited L's (@unlimited_ls) December 6, 2025

This recent spate of thefts is just the latest example of how Pokémon cards are now considered high-value goods by thieves. In December 2024, it was reported that Japanese crime syndicates were now using Pokémon cards to launder money. And in the U.S., this is just the latest incident similar to many others over the past 12 months. Until Pokémon's popularity fades — and there's no sign it'll do that anytime soon, with a big new wave of games expected next year — it seems likely this will continue.

Anyone who may have information related to the burglary or who observed suspicious activity in the area is encouraged to contact the Simi Valley Police Department: 805-583-6950.

Image credit: Simi Sports Cards Instagram.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

A day on from the official reveal of LEGO Smart Brick, the company has responded to concerns that its big announcement poses a risk to its core basis in physical play.

Speaking to IGN, LEGO exec Federico Begher, SVP of Product, New Business, said that the impending arrival of smart elements in LEGO sets was a huge moment for the company, and one it had been working towards for a long period. At the same time, however, Begher was keen to respond to some of the technology's less-enthused early reactions, which have questioned whether LEGO was risking its core principals as a physical toy company.

"It's a big part of the future," Begher told IGN. "[But] I mean, it's very important to be clear that this does not mean that we're leaving our core proposition behind, which is some of the questions and concerns I've heard, like, 'are you leaving what's been successful in the massive move into this?'"

There is a mysterious countdown timer on Amazon’s official website for its Fallout TV series that is set to unlock when the Season 2 finale comes out — but fans think it might also signal the shadowdrop of a Fallout 3 or New Vegas remaster.

The countdown is live now on a website designed to look like a Fallout map. On it are locations in the Fallout map style which, when accessed, lead you to behind-the-scenes information on the show. For example, The Vault 33 outer door, from which Lucy first steps foot into the wasteland, is on the south of the map. The Caswennan, the airship that serves as a soaring fortress for the Brotherhood of Steel, is to the east. And up there in the top right is the locked point of interest alongside the timer, which points to February 4.

The Stranger Things final battle was inspired by Baldur’s Gate 3, the Duffer Brothers have revealed.

Warning! Spoilers for Stranger Things Season 5, Episode 8, The Rightside Up, follow:

In the finale, our heroes travel to The Abyss for a final showdown against Vecna, whose base of operations turns out to be the Mind Flayer itself. The final battle involves our heroes taking on the Mind Flayer from various positions and using various weapons, while a smaller strike team heads inside to face off against Vecna himself and rescue the kidnapped children.

It turns out Matt Duffer, co-creator and co-showrunner of Stranger Things, was playing Baldur’s Gate 3 when he and his brother, Ross Duffer, were working out how the final battle would go down, and Larian’s much-loved party-based role-playing game influenced how it would play out.

In an interview with Variety, Matt Duffer pointed to D&D and Baldur’s Gate 3 (Baldur’s Gate 3 is of course an official D&D video game, using its rules for combat and set in its universe).

“We were thinking about D&D, and I was playing Baldur’s Gate 3 at the time, and we felt it was very important that the only way for them to defeat it was for the entire party to work together,” Matt Duffer explained.

“Everyone had fully realized — either through self-acceptance or they’ve resolved all their various issues — moving into that final battle, they’re absolutely primed. They’re the ultimate team, and it’s the party working all together to defeat this thing. And they each have their own individual skills, right? And that’s where I go back to Dungeons & Dragons, and something like Baldur’s Gate. Because that’s how you take down these monsters that seem otherwise unstoppable. Lots of video game references were applied to that final battle.”

In Baldur’s Gate 3, players control not only their created character, but its now-famous companion characters in combat. The likes of Shadowheart, the half-elf Cleric, Astarion, the high elven Rogue, and Karlach, the Tiefling Barbarian, all bring different skills to the table, and finding ways to make the most of them in tough boss fights is part of the fun.

Similarly, the heroes of Stranger Things bring their own skills to bear in the final battle. Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) uses her powers to carve a path inside the Mind Flayer and battle Vecna. Meanwhile, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) suggests the others spread out, flank it on all sides, “Just chip away at its hit points.”

Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer), doing her best Rambo impression, uses her gun skills to get the Mind Flayer’s attention, while the rest of the team ambush it from above. Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) uses a flame thrower, while others throw molotov cocktails and other bombs. Steve and Dustin strike from below using melee weapons. Then Will comes in with his powers to help finish the job.

Following the Duffer Brothers’ revelation, Larian boss Swen Vincke took to social media to say, “That’s pretty cool.” Larian publishing director Michael Douse added: “Damn now I really should watch Stranger Things…”

Still, some fans have taken issue with the Stranger Things final battle, wondering where all the Demogorgons were when Vecna needed them most. The Duffer Brothers have an explanation for that. We’ve also got the first details on the live-action spinoff, an explainer on the Stranger Things 'Conformity Gate' theory, which is currently doing the rounds on social media, and Sadie Sink's interpretation of Eleven's ending.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

With Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 1 Reloaded just around the corner, we're starting to get a better idea of what to expect when the new update goes live on January 8.

Although we don't yet have all the details, we should expect four multiplayer maps for Black Ops 7 at launch, plus new POIs on Haven's Hollow Resurgence and Verdansk maps in Warzone. There's also some updates for Zombies, including the Astra Malorum Round-Based Zombies map and Exit 115 Survival map, plus "reward-filled weekly challenges," new weapons, modes, camos, events, and more.

While pre-load is not live yet across all platforms, it is available for players on Battle.net, where it looks like it's a 175GB download (redownloading the game), although that will depend on what game modes you have/want installed. On Xbox, the download looks to be around 170GB, so whatever you're playing on, it may be worth double-checking how much space you have ahead of time.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 1 Reloaded start times:

Depending on where you are in the world, Season 1 Reloaded is set to go live on:

Thursday, January 8, 2026:

PST (San Francisco):

• 9am

CST (Mexico City):

• 11am

EST (New York):

• 12pm

GMT (London):

• 5pm

CET (Paris):

• 6pm

Friday, January 9, 2026

JST (Tokyo):

• 1am

CST (Beijing):

• 1am

AEST (Sydney):

• 4am

NZST (Wellington):

• 6am

Maps

Players will fight across a suite of new core Multiplayer maps with Season 1 Reloaded, including the high-rise, neon-soaked rooftops of Yakei alongside the return of two of the most iconic maps in Black Ops history: Meltdown and Fringe.

Zombies, on the other hand, will see the Zarya Cosmodrome location from Ashes of the Damned become a Survival map, and a Directed mode has been added to the Astra Malorum map, so buddies can now jump and help each other complete the main story quest.

Campaign

Two new world events have been confirmed, but we only have details of one: the Wraith Wing world event. This advanced Guild aircraft appears to have cloning capabilities with lethal consequences as this squadron seems hell bent on eliminating as many JSOC Operators as it can. Disable it, fire at the exposed aircraft, and down that bird.

Weapons

So far, we only know of two new weapons unlocking in Season 1 Reloaded:

• Hawker HX (Sniper rifle, FKA Ballista sniper)
• Sturmwolf 45 (submachine gun, FKA UMP45)

Fallout Collab

Okie dokie - stay focused, stay alive ☢️@FalloutonPrime is coming to Call of Duty in Season 01 Reloaded 💥 pic.twitter.com/uyFl3mRDkG

— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) December 17, 2025

Yes, it's true — Microsoft is bringing two of its hottest gaming franchises together for a Fallout Season 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 crossover event. While details remain sparse, we've seen a brief video teaser which shows silhouettes of Fallout TV series characters The Ghoul, Lucy, and Maximus in the smoke of war, with bullets whizzing by in the background.

"Okie dokie — stay focused, stay alive," the text on the post reads. "[Fallout TV show] is coming to Call of Duty in Season 01 Reloaded."

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Recent Battlefield 6 Steam reviews have fallen to 'Mixed,' with players pointing to bugs, “aggressive monetization,” and generative AI content as player numbers dwindle amid the long wait for Season 2.

Battlefield 6 took off with the strongest start the EA FPS franchise had seen in years when it launched for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S on October 10. Although the time since has seen Battlefield Studios’ new installment fall out of (and back into) favor with fans, the rough patch it currently finds itself in is undeniably its longest yet.

Just as Battlefield 6 clawed its way to general positivity following the mid-November launch of its Season 1: California Resistance update, December saw the start of an influx of new negative Steam reviews and a continued decline in concurrent player numbers on Valve's platform. That’s at least partly thanks to the release of the final Season 1 chapter, Winter Offensive, which focused on limited-time, snowy versions of existing multiplayer maps, but it wasn’t the lack of new locations driving this downward trend.

The December 9 1.1.3.0 update’s Ice Lock event and Ice Climbing Axe melee weapon came side-by-side with a glitchy main menu, game-breaking stuttering issues, and a subtle (and unintentional) infantry movement nerf. BF Studios was quick to deliver on its promises to fix many of the issues plaguing players across PC and consoles despite the impending holiday break, but Winter Offensive has since proven to be the last crack in the steadily weakening dam keeping displeased Battlefield 6 fans at bay.

Losing Steam

Complaints related to Winter Offensive, compounded with longtime desires to see things like bigger Conquest maps, additional grounded skins, and other highly requested features, resulted in the beginning of the general decline in favorability, including for those on Steam. December 10, one day after the update’s launch, saw 652 negative reviews and 474 positive reviews logged in English. That’s a shift from the previous trend, which had seen favorable scores outweighing the negative each day.

The weeks leading to this point saw Battlefield 6 boasting “Mostly Positive” reviews in nearly all languages (save for Simplified Chinese, which has remained at “Mostly Negative” since late October). SteamDB’s user tracker has all reviews reaching positivity of 69.8% from December 2 – December 8, with that number since falling to 68.4%.

Amid the debate about Arc Raiders players who focus on the PvP aspect of the game and little else, the boss of Embark Studios has made the developer’s position clear: this is not a game about killing other players, and it doesn’t want to “foster” that type of gameplay.

Arc Raiders is a multiplayer extraction adventure in which players scavenge the remnants of a devastated world, but the main threats are Arc’s machines and, as Embark Studios puts it, “the unpredictable choices of fellow survivors.”

Arc Raiders’ player versus environment versus player gameplay has resulted in a number of viral clips showing how friendly encounters can quickly devolve into a fight to the last. Yes, you can play solo or in parties up to three, working as a team to progress through the game. However, other players are a constant threat. This has sparked a vociferous debate within the community about the etiquette that has formed in-game, with a retired pro gamer going viral for relentlessly killing casual Arc Raiders players.

Meanwhile, Embark recently confirmed that Arc Raiders does indeed feature ‘aggression-based matchmaking.’ This means that if you’re big into PvP, you’ll be matched up with players who are like-minded. Similarly, if you prefer PvE, you’ll be matchmade with players who tend to avoid conflict with other players.

But according to Patrick Söderlund, CEO of Embark Studios, the developer won’t add a PvP leaderboard or other systems that promote PvP, because that’s not what Arc Raiders is about.

In a recent interview / video playthrough of the game with Games Beat, Söderlund explained the studio’s position.

“We've had several discussions about Nemesis systems and all types of things,” he said. “I don't know where the team are on them right now. I think one of the beauties of this game is the fact that we don't have those leaderboards and it's not competitive.

“We don't want to necessarily foster that type of gameplay. The game isn't about shooting other players. You can do that if you want to, but the ethos of the game has never been to go in and shoot players. It's a part that we use to craft tension.”

Söderlund revealed that Arc Raiders spent quite a bit of time during development not having other players at all. But Embark added other players into the game, supported by subtle signaling so you know players were about, to create this important element of tension.

“The game was without other players for a long time,” Söderlund said. “And yes, there were instances where the game was fun and there were areas where it worked quite well. But also the minute you added other players and then use subtle ways of signaling — you don't know how many players are on the server, you don't know how many players have died, you don’t know how many players are around you — but we signal to you that there are other players. You hear them shooting. That's why audio is a very important part of this game. You hear them encountering Arc and other players. You see the raider flares as they go down.

“At one point — it was funny — I came back into a playtest and the raider flares were gone. I'm like, ‘Why did you remove those?’ And they're like, ‘Well, well…’ So I just said, ‘Just bring them back.’ They're such an iconic part of this game.

“And they also signal to other players that action is happening somewhere. It makes it feel populated in an important way. And you also know that there could be a downed raider somewhere. Should I go there? Should I take the risk and go there to see whether I can find something, or have they been brought back to life? There's a tension element in that that's very important.”

Söderlund went on to suggest that private game servers are “absolutely something we could consider.” Private servers are something fans have been wondering about ever since Arc Raiders came out last year. Their addition would, theoretically at least, allow those who are big into PvP to perhaps create servers where that’s the focus.

For now, though, Arc Raiders won’t shake your hand for your player-killing exploits, or give you the chance for online glory through leaderboards. The emphasis here is PvE — with a dash of PvP thrown in.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

In the fall of 2025, I had the great pleasure of attending Tokyo Game Show, a trip that also naturally included a few pit stops to meet local developers and see what they were up to. On the very last day of my trip, in the final hours just before I went to the airport, I arrived at what I desperately hoped was the Onion Games office. I was overburdened with two giant suitcases, in a foreign country, and unsure of exactly where it was. As I glanced up at the building where I thought I’d been directed to go, I caught a glimpse through a window of a silly-looking figure plastered on a wall: a man in an asparagus suit.

Yeah, that was it.

I lugged up a flight of stairs to a non-descript door where I tentatively knocked, and was shortly after greeted by James Wragg and Yoshiro Kimura. They welcomed me inside, and gracious invited me to sit down at a little round table covered in a red and white checked tablecloth. Kimura offered me some green tea from a large bottle. I was surrounded on all sides by bookcases of manga and a deluge of Onion Games memorabilia, more than I ever imagined existed for such a small studio.

What followed was genuinely one of the most warm and pleasant interviews I’ve ever conducted, but I’m going to need you to buckle up and bear with me for a bit to understand why. Kimura is a true industry veteran, a developer on games such as Romancing Saga 2 and 3, No More Heroes, and Little King’s Story, co-creator of Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, and now-head of Onion Games, which has created a long line of very silly games such as Million Onion Hotel and Black Bird, gained a little bit of fame globally for its Western localization of the classic Moon a few years ago, and just released a little RPG called Stray Children this year.

Stray Children is a game built upon some very, very specific DNA. To understand it, I really think you need to understand Moon, which originally came out in 1997 for the PlayStation 1, but only in Japan at the time. Moon is a goofy, esoteric RPG (Kimura will refer to it later in the interview as an “oddball” RPG) about a kid who gets sucked into a Dragon Quest-like video game, only to discover that the “hero” of the game is actually murdering innocent monsters. What follows is an upside down adventure where you follow the “hero” around, rescuing the souls of those monsters and doing good deeds to put the world right, raising your “Lv” or “Love” as you go.

Moon was a truly strange game both for its time and even now, as I discovered when I played its English localization for Nintendo Switch in 2020. Its characters follow a full seven-day-long Majora’s Mask like time schedule, instead of a soundtrack it has an in-game music player with tracks from various 90s Japanese underground bands, and its puzzles and ending are extremely difficult to sus out, even for a 90s game. It’s so out there, that Onion Games translated and printed the original manual that came with Moon and released it online, so new players wouldn’t be totally lost as to why there was a timer in the top corner of the screen and why they kept collapsing for seemingly no reason.

But strange as it is, I think Moon is truly wonderful, and I’m not the only one who loved it. Toby Fox helped bolster the game’s profile a bit when he cited it as a major inspiration for Undertale, and having played both games it’s extremely easy to see the crossover. Kimura and Fox have since met and talked about their respective games, a friendship that in turn seems to have inspired Kimura to make another RPG, which takes us to Stray Children.

At the time I conducted this interview, Kimura had just let me play the first, oh, five minutes of the game before its release. In those few minutes, a young boy with a dog-like face is visited at home by an older man, a stranger, who basically convinces him to leave his house at night and follow him to a subway station, through a secret passage, and into a room full of computer monitors. And that’s where we stopped.

Having since played the full game, I know Stray Children is about that boy getting sucked into a video game world, just like in Moon, and what follows is a really incredible subversion of Moon, which was itself a subversion of RPG tropes. While it can stand alone, I guess, so many of Stray Children’s best moments are predicated on knowing Moon, which leads to it being a really niche experience that will probably confuse some people who stumble into it. But it’s the game Kimura wanted to make, without compromise, even in the moments where that lack of compromise became frustrating.

So with that background, here’s my interview with Yoshiro Kimura, conducted over green tea and surrounded by little decals of the asparagus man and cows and various other Onion Games mascots. This was mostly conducted in translation courtesy of Wragg, though there were a few points where Kimura stepped in and gave his answers directly in English. The interview has been very lightly edited for clarity.

Yoshiro Kimura: My name is Yoshiro Kimura, the Japanese game designer. I have been developing games for more than 25 years. If I calculate from when I was 12 years old, I was making a lot of games for myself also. And now I'm the boss of the company called Onion Games and Onion Games is already 10 years old, and I spend time making indie games.

So Stray Children clearly follows from Moon, and I know you've told the story of how you ended up revisiting Moon and bringing it to Switch and bringing it to English and the rest of the world for the first time. But what inspired you to start making Stray Children?

Kimura: I wanted to make an RPG. I was thinking about making an RPG from the day we started Onion Games, but developing an RPG requires a lot of hit points, a lot of experience. And when we started the company up, I did consider doing a Kickstarter to fund it, but I'm not that famous of a game creator, so I didn't think I would get the support. So instead we went the route of making smaller games first, like Million Onion Hotel, Dandy Dungeon, Black Bird. And we gained experience, leveled up to the point where I felt comfortable that we'd be able to, not just myself, but the team would be able to handle an RPG.

So regards to motivation for actually making Stray Children, there are several things that kickstarted the idea in my mind. Obviously one of them is Moon, but anyone who's played Moon would know a sequel to Moon isn't something that can be done. And I really like Moon myself as well, so I spent a long time thinking, "How can I make a game that has the same kind of feel, atmosphere, but without being directly connected to that game?" So once I got to the point where I could envisage the start and the end of this new story, that was when I knew we were ready to begin.

Even just from the first few minutes of Stray Children, it seems like you're exploring some of the same themes: like childhood, disconnection from adults and maybe the nature of what a video game actually is or can be. Is that fair to say?

Kimura: To answer that question, I'm going back to the motivation for making an RPG in the first place. Part of that was wanting to make an RPG, part of it was wanting to make something with the same feeling as Moon. So it goes back to memories of the games I played, my generation played, so the ‘80s, the ‘90s. Back then games that I played had a really strong influence on me. And seeing and hearing about new releases was a really exciting thing back then. That experience that I had in the past from games, I wanted to put that into Stray Children for the player to experience anew.

So for me, those games, they weren't console games so much back then, partly they were, but it was PC as well and some arcade. But if you imagine, back when I was a kid, I was living in the countryside. One day I came across this guy who lived locally and he had a C64 and PC, I don't know, '88, '98, whatever. So I'm seeing games like Ultima, Wizardry, some games on the C64, and it's just amazing seeing... It's so new to me. And also in the arcade I'm seeing Xevious from Namco, Mappy, that kind of stuff. And I loved these games and I wanted to put the feeling that I had back then into the game so the player can experience it through it.

You made Moon, oh my gosh, what, 25... More? Almost 30 years ago?

Kimura: Maybe 30 years ago.

RPGs have changed and evolved since then, so I'm curious if there's anything you've been playing in the last couple of years that has inspired you or made you think differently?

Kimura: It's a bit of an odd answer I suppose, but first recently, some stuff I've been playing anyway and I guess it has influenced me quite a lot, is I’ve been going through the first five Dragon Quest games again on Famicom and Super Famicom.

The original versions?

Kimura: The original, very hard one. And I don't know whether it's an inspiration, but I've certainly played recently, Odencat's Meg's Monster.

But when I talk about inspirations, I always end up with Undertale. But before I talk about that, I want to make sure that there's no misunderstanding. So I'm quite friendly with Toby Fox and when I answer I'm answering honestly, but I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to ride on the coattails, and don't want the press chasing him for comments.

But there is an element of influence from that and I think... So Toby, he plays my games right after release, sometimes before release. But I always ask him why, why he plays and why's he enjoying them? He said, "Because I like weird, oddball games," and I thought, "Oh, well, that's the same as me." So when I thought about Undertale, Undertale's kind of weird in many ways as well. And so in talking to Toby, because we've got this common interest, I feel relaxed, a sense of reassurance. Security. I feel at ease talking to him.

One of the things that has fascinated me about Moon and Undertale and Stray Children is it feels like they're part of a larger tradition of weird, oddball games that are all inspired by one another and in conversation with one another. I put the Mother games in there, Contact.

Kimura: Yume Nikki.

Yeah. There's a bunch of them that are all playing off some of the same themes. And it's been interesting to see the conversations publicly between you and Toby Fox, where two different generations of game developers are inspiring one another back and forth. And that's a really cool thing to see.

Kimura: It's like we're kind of pen friends almost or diary friends. All these creators.

I think all game creators share this kind of feeling, whether they share it with all other game creators or there's just the oddball game creators and the fighting game creators and the action game creators, but I think everybody's inspiring and inspired by their peers.

So who all is Onion Games? How big is the team? Is it people who have been with you for a long time? Do you have any newer developers?

Kimura: So from the core development people, there's seven including myself, and we've had some younger people join recently, but they've been with us for three years, so that's the shortest. Then there's people who've been with us from the start of Onion Games, we've been working together about 11 years. And there's one of the programmers was the programmer from Chulip, so that's a long time. But even longer than that, there's a coworker from my Square days, so I've known him for 30 years or so.

You mentioned earlier you don't use this office anymore. Is everyone remote?

Kimura: So I'm the person most frequently here and one of the younger team members is often here as well. So I work here a lot. And sometimes people will come in, but generally speaking, when we're all together it's when we're drinking.

Are you working with the same composers or any of the same people who did the music for Moon?

Kimura: Yeah, basically it's the same composers. So Thelonious Monkees, which is comprised of [Hirofumi] Taniguchi-san, [Masanori] Adachi-san, and we've got [Keiichi] Sugiyami-san's doing the sound effects, so basically the same.

I interviewed them about how they composed Moon and got all those different artists together to do the Moon discs, the MDs is there anything like that in Stray Children?

Kimura: Not this time, we didn't do anything like that. That was something that we were able to do because of the team makeup of Moon itself. And I didn't think that doing the same thing again with Stray Children would have the same impact. So I wanted to go with just a straight, new composition to the game.

But we did use that, I forget what it was called in English, but the odd voice, the scrambled voice. The way we did it this time again is we got the fans of Onion Games to send in lots of... We've got fans all around the world, so speaking in their native languages, they sent us lots of voice clips and they all got mixed up and put back in. The Japanese version, I wasn't able to get it to a level that I was happy with. But with the international release, that will all be kind of like a director's cut of the odd voices.

So I saw just the very beginning of the game, but I've watched the trailers and so I have a little bit of a picture of what I'm in for, but what can you tell me about where this game goes? Especially, it seems like you're encountering people in some sort of... There's battles, but it's not a battle. What can you tell me about what's happening in Stray Children?

Kimura: That's actually the first time, in memory, that somebody's asked me that. And it's such an average and proper... Like a normal question, in a good way, that I haven't had the opportunity to answer. So give me a little time to get the elevator pitch ready.

[He thinks for a few moments.]

So it's an RPG, and as you saw with a player being sucked into the world of a video game in RPG, and in that world, as the title Stray Children suggests, there's a kingdom built by children and outside of that kingdom, outside of that land is where the adults, we call them The Olders, live. And you mentioned the battles, the battles... So underground, when you leave the safety of the children's land, there's these creatures living underground and that's where the battles occur. But in the battles, you can fight or you can talk to the enemy, these creatures. And it's completely up to the player how they approach that.

Is this a game where the outcomes could be impacted by how you interact with those creatures?

Kimura: That is down to the player and how they feel, how they react to the- So when talking about games, the way I feel about it is, I can tell you about the systems of the game and maybe how they work, but what occurs when you interact with those systems and the game's story, and how the game plays out, I would rather leave that up to the player to discover, to experience for themselves. Because I think that not knowing what you're getting when you go into the game gives a better experience to the player.

Moon's very funny and your other games are very funny. And I think humor is very difficult in video games sometimes, because at times games try very hard to be funny and it comes off as disingenuous. But I don't know, I'm curious how you approach making a game that is cheeky and silly and will make the player laugh? And especially when you have to then localize it because localizing humor is a whole different challenge in and of itself.

Kimura: So, it's a difficult one to answer actually. So I'm not necessarily, when I make games, I'm not looking to manipulate how the player's feeling. I'm not necessarily looking to make them laugh because some of the humor, it will make some people laugh, but for other people it might make them feel almost fear. And then I might make a scene that makes some people feel, "Oh, that's so sad," but other people would think, "That's cruel and horrible." You played the opening, right?

Yeah.

Kimura: So it opens with this: The player meets this guy and basically he takes him away somewhere and then the player gets sucked into this game world. It's kind of funny, but at the same time it's also kind of foreboding and the player's getting a sense of anticipation but also, "Look, what is happening here?" And that's what I'm going for, trying to just grasp the player and really draw their interest. And I think that's common to all my games. I'm not necessarily going for a certain feeling every time, just mixing things up.

So I get to thinking about what's good, bad, black, white, good versus evil, is there even a clear split? And I think a lot of it comes from the experiences I had and the adults I met when I was a kid and how I interpreted those experiences, those meetings. And so my games, they're based in fantasy worlds, but there's definitely a certain element of my past experiences in them as well. I don’t know quite what those are? I don't know because it's all mixed up inside, but I'm sure some of it is in there. And that's especially true of Stray Children.

This is a really, really personal game for you, then?

Kimura: Yeah. Yeah, it's personal, but it's also a piece of entertainment. So it is a product at the same time as being a piece of art, I guess.

What am I not asking you about that you wish journalists would ask you?

Kimura: Apart from what type of game is this?

Haha, yes.

Kimura: I don't know, to be honest. And the reason is, when I was at Marvelous Entertainment and I was a producer, if you asked me about this or if you asked me about the game, I would have a prepared answer. I could tell you what the sales points were from a marketing perspective, but I've been working on Stray Children for three years now and I can't say specific points that I like because I like it all so much. When you asked me that question earlier, I couldn't answer straight away, it's because, A, I haven't been asked but also, B, I don't have that clear answer anymore in my head. Not at all. But if you've got any questions, I'm an open book right now for answers.

I like prompting people I interview like this at the end because sometimes creators have something that's in their head that is preoccupying them or that they're very excited about or that they think about all the time, but it's not always something that's been shown or announced or obvious for someone to ask about. So it's okay if you don't have an answer, but I like asking just in case.

Kimura: Actually, yes, having answered that, now I think I realize what I wanted to say. When we live our lives, there's oftentimes when we want to clarify what is right and what is wrong, have everything black and white. But recently, especially recently, I've been thinking that maybe that's not a good idea, and to have things gray, have that lack of clarity, a lack of a clear dividing line between those two things is a good idea. And I've been trying to, in various ways, have that element part of the game. And I know I play games, I've been making for a long time, I know what the player expects what a normal game should be, the user-friendly experience. Maybe there should be a warning at the beginning, but I should say sorry, just that this game isn't that way and it is my intent to do that as well.

A lot of video games over the years have tried to explore morality and as you say, in very black and white terms, where if you make certain decisions, you get a good ending and certain decisions you get a bad ending, and that's how it works. And even Undertale and Moon really worked that way, though I thought Moon's was…well, I got it wrong the first time. But I think now, especially in this oddball game space, there's a hunger to explore that a little more deeply and with more nuance. I'm experiencing that right now playing Deltarune, where I think the right and the wrong is a little less clear.

Kimura: It's pretty refreshing to speak about this. It's there, but I haven't really vocalized these things. I've been making this game for a long time, like three years, so every day it's like my life's energy is being sucked into this thing that I'm making. So at the end of every day I'm really just wiped out. And like you say, it is an odd game, so I need to be able to express in the marketing message from now... When we're going to release the English version, I need to be able to tell people all about it, but I just don't have the energy. I'm like, "This is a bit of a problem."

So up until now, with all the games we've done at Onion Games, once I've finished the game, I shift gears into this marketing mode, but this time I just haven't been able to, so it's a completely new experience.

Well, I imagine the smaller the game, the more personal it is to the people making it. And I imagine it's very challenging to have to sell what amounts to the contents of your heart.

Kimura: I've got really mixed feelings about it and it's kind of the same feeling about all of my games in some ways, and I think people who like my games would like this, and those that don't, won't. But this time around, the biggest difference is probably... Because the game was on Nintendo Direct, albeit in Japan, a lot more people probably know about it, than past games. So I think probably a lot more people will buy it, but I've been thinking about how some people think of games as a product and when you sell them, the more money you make the better. But I've recently been thinking about Stray Children that my strongest hope is that the people who buy it and play it will really love it. And if that's only a few people, then whatever. I really want it to reach the people that it should reach and the other people, if it doesn't reach them, then-

It is really a complex series of a mix of emotions, but to repeat what I said, I think that having it reach the people who will like it, will really resonate with, that's what I'm really looking for I think.

Post-Japan release, we've been polishing like crazy and everything is much improved, but at the same time I also realized that however much we were improve it, I can't please all of the people all the time. It's only ever going to please the people it's going to please.

[Translator pauses here and says, "I don't know how to translate this. Please do your best to make it into a comprehensive whole."] I haven't spoken to... I wouldn't say anybody, or that I haven't spoken to the media, but I'm half-feeling like when you get a bit tipsy and you start- So it's probably not your typical article that you'd write.

Well, I think you're better at selling your game than you think you are.

I turned off the recorder here, but I wanted to anecdotally include one last part of our conversation that occurred before Kimura sent me off with what turned out to be an excellent lunch recommendation, and has stuck with me since. As we were wrapping up, we got into a discussion about how overwhelming and oppressing the world feels nowadays, especially if you’re online or tuned into the news.

Kimura shared that in response to this feeling, he tries to focus on small joys. For instance, he says he’s recently discovered at his local convenience store a little apple pie, that only costs a couple hundred yen (a dollar, maybe almost two in USD). While the apple pie is meant for one, he’s figured out a specific way he likes to slice the pie into several pieces, and then he puts just one piece in the oven at home before he eats it so that the edges become golden and crispy.

In this way, he makes this very small joy last longer, and it tastes even better. That, he says, is how he’s trying to live his life right now.

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

Hyperkin and GameSir have each made great controllers for PC, consoles and mobiles, but for CES 2026 they've teamed up for the first time to create a fascinating transforming controller: the X5 Alteron.

The idea combines two recent trends: a Backbone-style expanding frame that can adapt to Switch consoles, tablets and mobiles, and swappable button and stick modules, like those pioneered by Thrustmaster in their eSwap controllers. The number of replacement modules is also extensive, with the marketing video for the X5 Alteron showing off controls that resemble the Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, N64 and more.

The novel combination actually makes a lot of sense, as you very well may prefer to swap between a native Nintendo-style layout for playing on Switch or Switch 2, hop onto an N64 layout to play old games on Nintendo Switch Online, crack out a fight pad layout for Tekken and then a more standard Xbox or PlayStation control scheme for iOS, Android or PC gaming. Whatever you're playing, the Alteron ought to be able to adapt.

This review contains spoilers for Fallout Season 2, Episode 4, “The Demon in the Snow,” which is available to stream now on Prime Video.

Deathclaws are one of Fallout’s most famous monsters, but many mistakenly believe they’re a type of mutant created by the immense radiation of the apocalypse. The truth is that they were actually developed by the US government years before the bombs dropped, envisioned as brutal replacements for regular soldiers. However, as the Fallout wiki explains, “to date there has been no official sources confirming that the government carried out their original goal of deploying the deathclaws into military combat prior to 2077.”

Well, that description now needs updating, because Fallout Season 2’s fourth episode reveals that the US very much did deploy deathclaws onto the battlefield. In the fantastic Alaskan Front-set (quite literally) cold opener, we see Cooper Howard witness the ferocity of this warped project first-hand. Shot as a horror sequence rather than an action scene, the butchering of a People’s Liberation Army squad is an effective introduction to the creature fans have been waiting a season-and-a-half to see. And while there’s surely more to come in later episodes, this brief introduction already suggests the effects team have nailed this iconic beast. The computer-rendered model conveys its impressive heft, but - as is so frequently the case - it’s the close-up shots of its animatronic head, with slowly blinking eyes and snarling jaws, that create the most chilling effect.

It’s not just the appearance of the deathclaw that makes this opener so effective, though. There’s the joy of seeing the old T-45 armour brought to life through yet another excellent piece of practical design, its malfunctioning systems harking back to Cooper’s complaints to Bud in Season 1 and Vault-Tec’s general “profit over people” ethos. And then there’s Goggins, who conveys not just the fear of coming face-to-face with a genuine monster, but the terror of realising how the entire PLA force was defeated. It’s unclear if Cooper understands that the deathclaws have been deployed by his own masters, but he certainly knows his men in their faulty power suits didn’t win the day. This all works as terrifying foreshadowing for the episode’s cliffhanger, in which Lucy and The Ghoul – equipped with just a few guns and the clothes on their backs – come face to face with a deathclaw on the New Vegas strip. They face utterly impossible odds.

Thankfully, the duo is able to have plenty of fun this week before being confronted by walking death. After her horrible ordeal at the hands of the Legion, Lucy has been nursed back to health by the NCR. But while two days on a constant drip of Buffout steroids may perk you up, it's a highly addictive drug – something almost every Fallout player has had to deal with in their hours of play. What results is a fun narrative riff on the games’ addiction mechanic, with Lucy now loosened up to the idea of blowing a few holes in people. The Venn diagram of her and The Ghoul slightly overlaps, even if it’s not a result of her own choices.

Of course, Lucy’s targets are not human. “I’m good for heads, they’re just ghouls, right?” But these aren’t any old ghouls. Once again, we have another nod to New Vegas’ factions, this time the Kings – a tribe of Elvis impersonators. But, as with the NCR and the Legion, it’s been over a decade since we last saw them, and the wasteland is nothing if not terribly unkind to its people. The Kings have all become feral ghouls, a nice method to both convey the progression of time and turn them into gory fodder for Season 2’s most spectacular action scene so far. It’s filled with great little flourishes, from the slick, rhythmic editing to the way bodies spin and buckle as wounds burst open. The slow-motion shot that concludes the fight is a fantastic nod to the games’ V.A.T.S. mechanic – no wonder it was used as one of the key images in the season’s teaser trailer.

Following last week’s “don’t thank me yet” comment from The Ghoul, there’s no sign yet that his saving of Lucy was fuelled by ulterior motives. If anything, he seems genuinely happy to be in her company. I’m pleased the writing team are content to leave things a little uneasy here rather than immediately launching into any kind of betrayal, as that nervous tension helps with steady escalation and plot pacing.

The same can’t be said of the stories unfolding in vaults 32 and 33. After being reintroduced in the premiere, we’ve had to wait until the season’s halfway point to return underground, which contributes to the sense that these events are less important than anything happening on the surface. This chapter does attempt to counter that, though, by brewing a mystery in the tunnels. Reg’s absurd in-breeding club is draining 33’s resources, and Betty is forced to ask Steph for 32’s help. Their conversation is entirely contextless breadcrumbs – What is the experiment? What is in the keepsake box? Who is Steph really? – but despite the lack of significant developments, all this does lend purpose to a storyline that previously felt inconsequential. I suspect we’ll have to wait another couple of episodes to push forward with this mystery, but hopefully satisfying answers come with our next visit to these steel corridors.

Thankfully, the events surrounding the Brotherhood of Steel is more than able to make up for that lack of satisfaction. Maximus attempts to assassinate Quintus, the chapter elders turn on each other, and full civil war is all systems go. There are stabbings, shootouts, and flaming airships falling out of the sky – it all feels big and momentous, akin to how Game of Thrones’ gradually heating tinder box plotlines would suddenly catch alight.

The prelude to this civil war has certainly been the heavier, more serious side of Fallout’s second season, but I think this week’s eruption proves that it was worth establishing a distinct tone for Maximus’ story. There’s a real sense of excitement and grand significance here that’s absent elsewhere, something emphasised by Ramin Djawadi’s excellent score. That’s not to say there’s no laughs to be had, of course: the drama is balanced by Thaddeus’ hapless attempts to impersonate Paladin Harkness, with the massive power armour suit used to create great moments of physical comedy – I particularly love the image of a massive knight holding a tiny lunch tray.

While these events spell large-scale disaster for the Brotherhood, this episode’s writer – genre TV veteran Jane Espenson – takes great care in ensuring that it all folds into Maximus’ character arc. As he holds Quintus at gunpoint, he admits that “I don’t choose to do the things I have to do, they just keep happening.” It’s a great vocalisation of Maximus’ complete lack of agency in his own life.

But while Maximus may feel like things are entirely out of his control, he is finally making the right choices. After abandoning his assassination attempt, Maximus confesses his failure to Dane (Xelia Mendes-Jones), who tells him, “You don’t have to apologise for not killing.” It’s an interesting moment for a show that has so far spent a lot of time wrestling with the fact that some deaths are necessary, and a good reminder that there’s still space for uncompromised morals in the blasted remains of America. And now that Maximus has the Cold Fusion device, it’s all on him and his sense of morality to make choices that will not just impact him, but the entire wasteland.