Following the Spider-Man and Cyclops action figures, a new Marvel character is making its way into the S.H.Figuarts and TAMASHII NATIONS Gamerverse line-up: Wolverine. For those who can't wait to add Logan into their collectible collection, this figure is now available to preorder for $99.99 with a release date of September 25 this year.

That's still quite a ways away before it's officially released, but don't wait too long to get a preorder in if it's caught your eye. Figures like these can sell out fast, so it's always worth getting an order in ahead of time.

Preorder S.H.Figuarts Gamerverse Wolverine Action Figure

Similar to the other figures in this lineup, the Wolverine action figure is close to six inches tall. He comes with some great interchangeable parts as well, including different faces that show gritted-teeth or him shouting. Alongside that, claw parts are included for both of his fists, of course, and he comes with a backdrop sheet that shows off his Fatal Claw move from Marvel vs. Capcom, which you can see below.

Honestly, there's truly no better time to pick up this action figure, what with the new Wolverine game from Insomniac coming out later this year. Again, if it's caught your eye, now is the time to get a preorder in before it sells out.

If you're on the hunt for even more action figures to grab right now, both Hasbro and Mattel have some exciting releases lined up. To keep up with the Marvel fun, Hasbro has revived its classic Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars toy line, and for those who have Masters of the Universe on their mind this year thanks to the upcoming film, Mattel has revealed a new lineup of Masters of the Universe movie toys for fans to check out.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

Marvel's Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games has set expectations ahead of tomorrow's big State of Play broadcast from PlayStation, as anticipation mounts for a fresh look at its upcoming Wolverine game.

Sony's State of Play show is due to air tomorrow, February 12 at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 10pm UK time, and run for at least 60 minutes — suggesting PlayStation has plenty up its sleeves.

But will we get a new flash of adamantium during the showcase? Perhaps not. Overnight, Insomniac Games has posted on social media to lay out when we'll next see more of Marvel's Wolverine — seemingly ruling out any big reveal this week.

When asked "when more info" by a fan, Insomniac Games' official account has now responded: "spring 2026."

With spring not due to start for another month, that answer seems decisive. Still the news is perhaps surprising, considering the fact that Insomniac appeared to drop a pretty obvious hint at Daredevil being in the game only last week, and the fact that this month's leaked PlayStation Plus games apparently will include Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 (which would have been a nice chaser to a new Wolverine trailer). But perhaps Sony is instead planning a dedicated Marvel's Wolverine State of Play to show the game in the months to come?

Sony's last major State of Play broadcast, held back in September 2025, finally treated fans to a proper reveal of Wolverine gameplay, at least. The game is likely PlayStation's biggest first-party launch of the year — and, of course, we're already tracking all of its Marvel Easter eggs. As a reminder, Wolverine currently sits with a vague-ish launch window for the second half of 2026 — though when this will be narrowed down further, we'll just have to wait and see.

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

It was just yesterday that I published a 10/10 review for Logitech's new X2 Superstrike mouse, which earned our top gaming mouse recommendation for its responsive inductive clicks and unique haptic feedback, layered on top of the same shape and fundamental components as the already-excellent Superlight 2. Today, I woke to see Redditors had already spotted Chinese brand Ausdom has replicated the mouse with a new variant of the G03 V2 Ultra, which costs around £60 – £100 less than the new Logitech flagship.

It’s pretty safe to say that generative artificial intelligence has become a divisive issue within the games industry and wider player community. As the technology becomes more prevalent, companies and studios are being pushed to offer clarity on their use of it. Within the past few months alone, Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian has faced significant backlash against its use of generative AI, and RuneScape studio Jagex has promised no AI will be used for any assets a player can “touch, hear or feel.”

ZA/UM, the developer behind Disco Elysium and the upcoming Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, has offered its view on the issue, and it’s a pretty simple one: “No AI.”

Talking to IGN, ZA/UM’s head of studio, Allen Murray, offered his perspective on the situation: “I think about the world right now, where everybody's dealing with AI in a creative space, and what I see is there'll be a hunger for this singer-songwriter in a cafe. I want a really human experience, right? I don't want a computer-driven creation.”

“I think we'll see more of that,” he continued. “There's always this desire for storytelling and something created by humans that has meaning, that you can relate to. And so I think there'll be a resurgence in that.”

When pushed to clarify the studio’s stance on the technology, Murray gave a simple statement. “No AI,” he said. “As a stance, we don't use it.”

Jim Ashilevi, writer and VO director at ZA/UM, added, “It's all just us being messy and human all the way through. And if it's embarrassing, and if it's not as polished as it would be if you went and used AI or whatever, that's fine. Because all we really care about is just being ourselves, basically.”

“You can feel it when you play our games,” continued Ashilevi. “You can see and feel the fingerprints of real human beings when you exist in those worlds and when you read the stories that we like to tell. I think there's a certain rugged and kind of unpolished quality to the kinds of stories and worlds we like to create.”

Artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) were not particularly prevalent during the development of Disco Elysium, but during the creation of Zero Parades they have risen to become a major force in the world of tech. Google’s new “Project Genie” AI tech has demonstrated a (very limited) ability to create playable worlds based on simple prompts, while Sony has patented AI systems that create podcasts hosted by PlayStation characters and an assist function that can help players overcome challenges in video games. Not every creative is convinced though, with Rockstar’s co-founder Dan Houser suggesting that AI is akin to “when we fed cows with cows and got mad cow disease.”

ZA/UM’s vision for its new RPG is rooted in traditional development processes, through which it hopes to create a story about “what it means to lose everything and then keep going regardless.”

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is in select theaters now.

Half the fun of watching guerrilla productions like Jackass or Borat is the thrill of a flimsy artifice couching publicity stunts as if they’ve been pulled off “for real.” The camera, visible or otherwise, follows eager protagonists who ensnare an unsuspecting public into infantile shenanigans – a tradition dating back to the 1948 debut of TV prank show, Candid Camera. In the most technical sense, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie exists in that same vein, making it a delight to watch with an audience. However, it’s also a time-travel movie incorporating footage from earlier versions of the concept, forcing the story to twist around itself with head-spinning proficiency, leading to one of the most absurd, laugh-out-loud comedy films in years.

How exactly do you employ a sci-fi conceit while blurring the lines between real and unreal in a mockumentary where messing with actual people is the point? If you’re Canadian comedians Matt Johnson and Jay McCaroll, who play fictional avatars of themselves and enact hare-brained plans to get hired at a music venue, well…you just do. The result, born from the duo’s against-all-odds creative ethos, is a jaw-dropping blast that constantly raises the same core question as Alfonso Cuarón’s 3D space scorcher, Gravity: “How the hell did they make this?”

For the uninitiated: The legacy sequel, directed by BlackBerry director (and Matt and Mara actor) Johnson, follows his and McCaroll’s short-lived Viceland TV show from 2017-2018, Nirvanna the Band the Show, itself a sequel to their independent web series Nirvanna the Band, which ran from 2007 to 2009. You don’t need to have seen either one to watch the new movie, since it opens with footage they shot on cheap handycams in 2008, introducing us to the duo’s core dynamic: A hyperactive, fedora-sporting Johnson ropes the more laid-back McCaroll into trying to score a music gig at Toronto bar & restaurant the Rivoli under the copyright-skirting moniker, “Nirvanna the Band.” This is despite them never having actually written a song, or even contacted the venue’s management. After a mini-episode’s worth of buffoonery, the film skips forward to 2025 and finds the makeshift musicians in a state of arrested development. Johnson – who behaves largely the same, but has put on some weight – is still trying to convince a now-haggard McCaroll that his next plan will actually work, at the risk of a potential creative schism.

This (re)introduction to the characters also serves to convince new viewers to stick around for the ride. It’s hard not to, when Johnson’s latest ploy involves the publicity stunt of parachuting off Toronto’s iconic, nearly 2,000-foot-tall CN Tower, a scheme whose absurd logistics are funny enough until, shockingly, we actually see Johnson and McCaroll con their way up to the top of the structure for real. This dizzying feat – shot by off-screen comrades with hidden HD cameras – doesn’t go exactly as planned (in reality or in the fiction), but it’s pulled off with enough panache that any computer-generated seams are completely invisible, buying loads of goodwill from anyone who might still need convincing.

Nearly 20 years into trying and failing to play at the Rivoli, McCaroll is at the end of his rope. However, Johnson’s ultimate, galaxy-brained ploy is yet to come – traveling to the year 2008 by turning the pair’s RV into a Back to the Future-style time machine fueled by a long-defunct Canadian novelty drink. Before they know it, the duo finds themselves in an earlier version of downtown Toronto populated by Goth fashion, billboards for The Dark Knight, and – most impressively of all – younger, wide-eyed versions of themselves, accomplished through a combination of body doubles, ingeniously-edited archival footage, and meticulously recreated sets. The scenes where the older and younger pairings almost come into contact, combining old and new footage shot nearly two decades apart and skillfully spliced together, are a fist-pumping triumph.

The movie’s mischievous plot involves not only fetch quests to try to return to 2025, but the hilarious horrors of alternate timelines and even stranger publicity ploys whose staging blurs the lines between fiction and reality. All the while, the story’s emotional core pivots around the now forty-something Johnson and McCaroll coming within inches of their past selves, and in the process, reflecting on this timeline’s Obama-era, iPhone 3G optimism – not to mention the limitless promise of being able to self-distribute video content for the first time. This is in sharp contrast to their many regrets and failures during the intervening years. Much like the recent Jackass Forever, it’s a prank film about the passage of time, told with the same scrappy DIY sensibility as the original web series, albeit with Johnson employing more crash zooms and rapid movements to emphasize both comedic and dramatic moments.

Will this peek into the past finally convince McCaroll that he’s better off without his over-enthusiastic, man-child bestie? In Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, quite literally anything is possible, including the production improvising entire plot developments around a real shooting outside the home of Toronto rapper Drake. It’s ambitious and audacious, to say the least.

Each roguish set piece remains grounded in the emotional dynamic of its leads, who – despite their jejune conduct and sensibilities – imbue these broad, middle-aged-loser versions of themselves with genuine pathos. The movie’s mockumentary style, whose aesthetics are hilariously adjusted for each era, harbors both the daring realism of an elaborate hoax as well as the gooey “aw, shucks” melodrama of two men realizing how much they need each other. It’s a pitch-perfect medley of styles and a nonstop hoot with a crowd.

No Man's Sky's next big update, Remnant, is here, introducing something developer Hello Games has "been wanting to give players since the very beginning": a gravity gun.

Called the Gravitino Coil, the powerful anti-gravity module for your multi-tool will turn the sci-fi game into "a physics playground," allowing you to "grab large objects and fling, toss, or carefully carry them around the world." It can also be used as a ballistic weapon, allowing you to grab sentinels or heavy objects, turning them into projectiles.

We'll now also be able to collect and recycle the salvage and debris found on planets, turning them into "highly prized" resources, and construct new trucks, tipping flatbeds, and haulers to transport resources back. By carefully sorting and depositing the materials you find — being careful not to accidentally blow yourself up with the "highly volatile" stuff, of course — you'll reap "great rewards."

"You can work alone or join a salvage crew with friends," Hello Games explained. "It creates this really fun and tactile new loop of searching for wrecks, loading trucks full of cargo and hauling across the alien landscape to industrial yards to gain new loot and rewards."

There's also other rewards up for grabs, as well as vehicle parts, a steampunk armor set, and vehicle customization to "create bespoke tracks and haulers for your needs."

Last but not least, there's a new limited-time community expedition on the way, where players can band together to clean up and salvage materials like a space-age trash collection crew.

To me, and I’m sure many others, the Pokémon franchise as a whole has always been “cozy.” Set in a (mostly) idyllic world with cute best friends who are always by your side, how could it not give you warm fuzzy feelings at least occasionally? We’ve had some relaxing Pokémon games over the years, but we’ve never quite had a game that embraced this secondary cozy aesthetic fully into its gameplay–until now, with Pokémon Pokopia. I played the first hour of Pokémon’s first life-sim, and the sheer amount of discovery to be made hooked me. I also played Pokémon Pokopia in multiplayer mode in a more developed world, plus, I learned more straight from the developers.

Pokémon Pokopia begins with a Ditto waking up after a long, undefined slumber. It remembers its trainer in its hometown, with the nameless narrator commenting, “You look so happy with your trainer petting you!”

Aw, that is so sweet, and so sad–Ditto’s trainer is nowhere to be found, and that’s Ditto’s–(you, the protagonist’s)–motivator. In a bid to try to find its trainer, Ditto transforms into a human that looks like its trainer the best they can. Enter the character creator, in which you get to choose between seven hairstyles, 28 haircolors, hats, clothes, and bags. No, you can’t just be purple, that wouldn’t be very human-like!

Shigeru Ohmori, the primary director of Pokémon games since 2014 and Pokémon Pokopia’s Concept and Senior Director, explained the thought behind making a Pokémon the main character and why it transforms into a human. “I wanted to create something where you can directly communicate with Pokémon,” Ohmori said.

Ohmori worried if they had a trainer as the playable character, as in the other mainline titles, it becomes the trainer giving orders to Pokémon, which they wanted to avoid. By keeping it all Pokémon, an atmosphere of friendship and teamwork is created.

There are two reasons Ohmori decided to make specifically Ditto the main character, too: one to benefit the gameplay, and another to benefit the story. Because Ditto can transform into other Pokémon and use their moves, it was the best option (I argue Mew could fit that bill too, but of course Mew wouldn’t have those adorable “simple eyes and slack mouth,” as Professor Tangrowth puts it.)

The other reason feeds the narrative motivations of Pokémon Pokopia. No one else knows what Ditto’s trainer looks like, so Ditto transforming into the trainer it misses is essentially asking the other Pokémon, “Do you know this human being?” Again, so cute, so melancholic, and I love it.

An Unobtrusive Tutorial

The tutorial, fortunately, is nicely integrated into what would be the regular flow of gameplay, and lets you start doing stuff outside its confines very quickly.

After meeting Professor Tangrowth, I found the Pokedex, and then found my first–then second–then third–Pokémon friend, expanding my abilities and how I could affect the world with each one, further enhancing my ability to create a wider variety of habitats to attract a wider variety of Pokémon.

Bulbasaur taught me the move Leafage, allowing me to create tall grass at will. Squirtle taught me the move Water Gun, so I could revitalize the dry ground and grass in the aptly named Withered Wasteland, the environment you start in. Charmander didn’t teach me a move, but instead taught me that you can ask Pokémon to follow you somewhere so they can perform an action based on their Specialty. In Charmander’s case, they lit a fire for me. As for other Specialty examples, Tiburr’s Build helps you build structures, and Bulbasaur’s Grow, makes plants grow faster.

Of course, to find more Pokémon, you need to make a variety of Habitats. The most basic habitat is four squares of tall grass, easily made by Leafage. You can also move objects around with Ditto’s ability to store and then spit-up materials, like, a Punching Bag. This is, canonically, the move Stockpile. Holding the collect button down actually makes Ditto continuously suck up anything around it, causing its face to hilariously and disturbingly resemble The Scream painting.

Other habitats include ones like the self-described “Boulder-shaded tall grass,” which attracts Fighting-type Pokémon like Timburr and Machop, and “Hydrated flower bed,” made of four flower beds placed beside–you guessed it–water. After a bit of time passes, a square in your new habitat may shake, indicating there’s a Pokémon there to meet.

Like the Pokedex for tracking Pokémon, there’s a Habitat dex for tracking habitats, and there are quite a number to discover!

Though I loved just experimenting, it isn’t all completely guess work. Occasionally, you’ll find a sparkle on the ground that’s a “trace of Pokémon” which gives you a hint about a yet-to-be-found Pokémon’s preferred habitat you haven’t discovered yet.

The Core Loop - All Pokemon All the Time

This cycle of attracting new Pokémon, learning new skills oivr discovering new specialties from them, then making more new habitats to attract even more new Pokémon, is the corest-of-core loops in Pokémon Pokopia, and is already incredibly engaging and fun without even considering the crafting and world customization you can do. This isn’t an accident.

“When thinking about development of the game, [the team] started thinking about the cycles of the user's motivation,” said Takuto Edagawa of KOEITECMO GAMES, Pokémon Pokopia Chief Director. “What the user wants to do, what they would want to start to do within the cycle. So, for example, filling up the Pokedex or creating more habitats, then that would create meeting more Pokémon.”

“Every single step in the game,” Edagawa continued, “The core of it is to be with the Pokémon, communicating with Pokémon. So wherever you go, there is always Pokémon… that is the largest difference compared to other [life sim] games.”

This core cycle that focuses on the Pokémon first and foremost is ingrained into the “main objectives” that propel the story as well. Just after meeting the Kanto Starters, you discover a decrepit Pokémon Center nearby. The PC there automatically launches the Poke Life Environment Improvement App, which dishes out both important tasks tied to progression, like increasing an area’s Environment Level or rebuilding the Pokemon Center; and smaller daily objectives, like collecting a certain number of sturdy sticks.

The stick collecting is self-explanatory, but to increase the Environment Level of the area, you must attract more Pokémon and improve their Comfort Levels. Again, another touch point with Pokémon.

Placing furniture a Pokémon wants within the bounds of its habitat–which you can see by pressing in on the R-stick–will increase its Comfort Level. Bulbasaur, for example, specifically asked for a bed, so I crafted a Straw Bed from leaves for them.

The Poke Life app rewarded me for my efforts with new unlocks and Life Coins. These can be used to buy a variety of things at the PC, like furniture, seeds, Pokémon hints, building recipes, and more. After increasing the Environment Level, Professor Tangrowth had more for me, too.

Multiplayer and More

There seems to be a lot more to Pokopia than everything I already talked about. I haven’t even touched on building buildings or what looks to be a huge number of collectibles–like Human Records, which included things like a diary that gave a glimpse of what Professor Tangrowth’s life was like with their human, and a document on Pokémon Greetings that taught me an emote!

The four-player multiplayer session gave me a look at a developed world, where Pokémon’s Habitat’s were developed so thoroughly they lived inside houses! The inside of the houses had furniture and decorations, like plushies, and the little town was manicured with sidewalks, fences, lamp posts, and even a stage.

My time with multiplayer was short, and I’m restricted from what exactly I can reveal, so I can’t say much more about it besides that it was fun. I can see friends ushering each other to stay on task, because it is just so easy to get distracted in Pokémon Pokopia, and that sounds like the best kind of hectic. (I was that friend in my group. I’m sorry!)

Edagawa said that, on average, depending on how you play Pokémon Pokopia, it will take between 20 and 40 hours to reach the “end” credits. But, that’s not really the main motivation to play Pokémon Pokopia–it’s to make a world to live with Pokémon. As for the post game, “There’s more things to experience after the end credits… I believe that players are encouraged to and will be motivated to continue to play the game,” Edagawa said.

There will also be motivation for players to log in intermittently. Pokémon Pokopia Producer Kanako Murata of The Pokemon Company said “When you play day-by-day, there may be something that, on a specific day, something special that might happen in the game.”

Considering how many hours some friends of mine have put into Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I think they’re right, especially for those whose motivations are to create a unique place to live with Pokémon. For me, I hope Ditto and the crew learn what happened to create this apocalyptic, empty world, but regardless, I’m excited to restore it with my best Pokémon friends.

Pokémon's upcoming Dragon Quest Builders-like sandbox, Pokopia, isn't just a Pokémon-themed block-building playground. It has a main story that some are suggesting has some post-apocalyptic vibes to it, and according to the game's director, it can take anywhere from 20 to 40 hours to finish... with more to do after the credits.

This comes from our own interview with Takuto Edagawa, the chief director of Pokémon Pokopia. We asked about the approximate length of the game, and this was the response:

So for this game, the main motivation for this game is typically not to go to the end roll [credits]. The whole concept is to create the world with Pokemon and live with the Pokemon. However, as an average, it'll be about 20 to 40 hours, but it would really depend on how the players play the game.

There's more things to experience after the end roll [credits]. So it depends on what you mean by contents, but I believe that players are encouraged to and will be motivated to continue to play the game.

This fairly open-ended response isn't a surprise given what we know of Pokopia. It's a sandboxy sim where you, a Ditto transformed into a human shape, hang out on an initially deserted island and get to work building habitats to convince more Pokemon friends to come live with you. It's very similar to Dragon Quest Builders, which makes sense as the developer, Omega Force, also helped out on Dragon Quest Builders 2. In addition to the story component, we can imagine this will have some fairly open-ended gameplay as to what you build, where, and how, and its multiplayer components will likely give the game some longevity too. As a result, it makes sense that players would have a wide range of completion times based on how much they dig into the building mechanics both during and after the campaign.

We also got a chance to go hands-on with Pokopia, including its four-player multiplayer offering, and experience its cozy, mysterious world for ourselves. The game is planned for release on Nintendo Switch 2 on March 5, 2026.

Have you ever fallen in love?

I did nearly a decade ago, with Overwatch, Blizzard’s hero shooter of near-immaculate design. But that relationship sadly became strained, distant even, ever since its decision to move on from those initial glory days and reinvent itself as a sequel. Well, now Overwatch has gone and seduced me all over again, like a Hanzo scatter arrow delivered straight from Cupid's bow. And it's all thanks to one woman: the corporate villainess tank, Domina. And it has absolutely nothing to do with those thighs.

This week saw the launch of a new era for Overwatch. Blizzard has ditched the “2”, implemented a long-overdue menu overhaul, kicked off a brand new, year-long story, and, crucially, added five brand new heroes to the roster. You’ve got Anran, a fire-fan-wielding damage-dealer; Emre, a tactical operative equipped with more firearms than actual arms; Mizuki, a cursed ex-yakuza member with a healing hat; and Jet Pack Cat, who is, well, a cat with a jet pack. And then last, but certainly not least, is Domina, an incredibly destructive tank with a deadly pulse-action laser beam, explosive crystal bombs, and a giant extra pair of mechanical arms that erupt out of her shoulders. I think I love her.

Vaira, if I should be so bold as to use her real name, is the sort of aggressive tank character that I’ve always been drawn to in Overwatch. With nearly 300 hours clocked in dive tank D.Va alone, it’s pretty clear that there’s nothing more satisfying to me than launching a behind-enemy-lines attack on an objective and absorbing all of the opposite team’s attention as I try to cause as much chaos as possible. Domina isn’t a dive tank, though. Yes, she can cause huge amounts of damage like everyone’s favourite South Korean mech enthusiast can, but if I were to compare her to anyone, it would be a powerful combination of the reworked Orisa and Reaper.

Domina is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to taking the enemy head-on, thanks to a couple of skills that deter foes. One is a very large shield that looms high over her and her teammates. I have to say I was initially worried about this ability, since I still carry mental scars from that period when Overwatch was a complete shield-fest five or six years ago — never again do I want to see a Bastion and a Torbjorn turret sitting behind an Orisa and Reinhardt shield combo on that dreadful first Paris choke point. But Domina’s force field has a fun wrinkle that plays tactically into both teams’ approach, as squares can be punched out of it with a moderate amount of damage, creating literal windows of opportunity for those faced with it. It’s a smart approach to shielding in Overwatch that, at least right now, feels balanced for both attackers and defenders.

Then there’s her sonic repulsors, a pair of energy blasts fired from the palms of her extra mechanical hands. They not only deal a bit of damage, but also boop people away from her. I’ve already had maybe too much fun pushing players off the edge of Illios and Lijiang Palace’s perilous points like a super-sized Lucio. Combine that with a crystal grenade that floats through the air towards enemies before detonating, and a laser beam that fires off a shotgun-like burst at the end of a trigger pull, like a devilish combination of Symmetra and Reaper’s weapons, and you have a hero who can single-handedly run an entire match. I did tell you it wasn’t about the thighs.

Look, I’ll admit that she’s probably too powerful right now and will, in all likelihood, be subjected to a nerf in the coming days or weeks. But while she’s here in all her glory, I can’t recommend Domina enough.

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of fun to be found elsewhere in Overwatch right now — this entire update is a genuinely incredible shift for a game that only a short time ago faced an existential threat, and it’s inarguably more enthralling to play now than it has been in many, many years. That being said, I do still yearn for those glory days of 2017 to 2019, and find myself queuing to play its unranked 6v6 mode more than any other. It still feels the most balanced, satisfying way to play Overwatch, and if Blizzard was ever to fully revert back to the two tank, two support, two DPS team structure of old, I think Overwatch would truly own my heart once again.

As for now, I fear my beating chambers belong solely to Domina and her stacked set of skills that simultaneously feel fresh, but also referential to the Overwatch of old. As I’m writing this, I’m counting down the hours until I can play as her again and send people falling to their doom down an Illios well, or imprison them in her explosive Panopticon ultimate ability.

I can’t help but smile when I see that Overwatch is benefitting from its highest concurrent player numbers in over a year, and feel happy for the developers who have worked so tirelessly to make sure this universe that people love so much will not die. This update has made me fall back in love with a game I once held closer to my heart more than any, and a large part of that is down to how fun its five new heroes (but mainly Domina, let’s be honest) are. If Overwatch carries forward this momentum into the rest of 2026, it may become a problem for the rest of my social life.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

Netflix will release a recorded version of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, the franchise's live stage show which includes important backstory for Henry Creel.

As reported by Collider, Netflix is expected to film the show this week with its original Broadway cast. A release date for the filmed version has not yet been announced.

Fans have recognized Stranger Things: The First Shadow as an important chapter of lore within the franchise, as it answers questions about Henry Creel, AKA the series' key villain Vecna, that some had expected from its divisive finale — and then from within the series' phantom extra episode that some fans incorrectly believed would follow.

A prequel to the main Stranger Things TV series, set during Henry Creel's teenage years, The First Shadow shows the growth of Creel's psychokinetic powers and finally reveals their true origin. Audiences also get to see the proto-villain at school with some other familiar faces, Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers (then Maldonado).

For fans, The First Shadow is a key part of the main series' story, so it makes sense that Netflix is now filming it for a wider audience who can't easily get to its Broadway or West End productions. Will its lore also help calm those who still feel the TV series' final episode (and wider final season) didn't do everything they wanted? Well, that remains to be seen.

The First Shadow originally launched in London in 2023, several years before Stranger Things ended, but was always planned to tell a story that dovetailed into the main show. Its script was written by series writer Kate Trefrey, who worked on the plot with Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, as well as Adolescence and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child writer Jack Thorne.

The play also features the character of Dr. Martin "Papa" Brenner, whose TV actor Matthew Modine recently said he disliked the series' finale and hoped "for the fans" that the conspiracy theory around a secret final-final episode was actually true. (It is not.)

"Stranger Things was a generational event that barreled into a series finale with almost impossible expectations surrounding it," IGN wrote in our review of the Stranger Things series finale. "The Duffers certainly evolved into the successful blockbuster directors they so admired in their childhoods, but their enduring legacy will be mostly doing right by a cast of characters who beguiled the globe."

While the main series may have ended, there's still plenty more Stranger Things to come as well as The First Shadow. The Duffer Brothers are now working on a new live-action TV spin-off with fresh characters, and we've already got our first look at Stranger Things '85, an animated series showing further adventures with the original gang while they were younger.

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