It’s been a turbulent week for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, its developer, its publisher, and its players. In the same breath as it announced an incredible 4.5 million sales in just over a month, publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive sparked an angry backlash with the release of the hotly anticipated Update 4.0.

IGN has reported on the details of this update and why it’s caused so much upset, but in short, it makes a number of significant nerfs to the Space Marines' ability to fight back against the Tyranid horde and Thousand Sons Chaos Marines. The popular PvE co-op mode Operations was made harder, deliberately so, Focus said in the patch notes, after it deemed the missions too easy. The new Lethal difficulty, via a new mechanic that forces players to stick close together in an almost impossible fashion, was slammed by frustrated players who are now saying that Space Marine 2 is doing a Helldivers 2 and going so far with nerfs that it’s killing the fun.

These nerfs have gone down so badly with Space Marine 2 players that the game has suffered a now familiar review bomb campaign on Steam, with over 1,200 negative reviews in just two days. Space Marine 2’s official Discord and subreddit are packed with complaints, too.

Now, two days after the patch came out, publisher Focus Entertainment has signaled its intent to release a follow-up patch next week with “balancing fixes.”

“We closely read your feedback regarding the latest patch for Space Marine 2 and we're actively working on another one including balancing fixes,” Focus said. “It should release next week.”

The hope, of course, is this patch rights the ship. Perhaps it will revert some of this week’s changes completely, tweak them slightly, or maybe even include a few buffs. We’ll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, this weekend’s going to be a tough one for Space Marine 2 players.

We’ve got plenty more on Space Marine 2, including a big feature on the game’s modding scene, where plenty of interesting things are going on behind the scenes. Last month, Saber Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits told IGN how the breakout success of Space Marine 2 had “changed everything” for the company. Eagle-eyed fans have spotted the Space Marine chapter now all-but confirmed to get a cosmetic pack after the Dark Angels, and even an unannounced new Thousand Sons enemy type.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Certain Affinity, the co-development studio behind Hogwarts Legacy, a shelved Halo Infinite battle royal game, and an early rendition of the Perfect Dark reboot, has been acquired by Keywords Studios.

In a press release published to its website, Keywords announced it would be purchasing Certain Affinity for an undisclosed sum. This brings Keywords a staff of 180 individuals across the U.S. and Canada working on "a range of announced and unannounced projects," including Exodus from Archetype Entertaiment, Last Expedition with Gala Games, and an original FPS codenamed Project: Loro. Per the press release, Certain Affinity will continue to be led by existing management, including CEO Max Hoberman and president and COO Paul Sams.

Certain Affinity is best-known for its co-development work going back to the studio's founding in 2006 by former Halo developers. Since then, it's continued to work as a supporting studio on the Halo series, as well as Call of Duty, Left 4 Dead, Doom (2016), and others. Project: Loro is its first wholly-owned new project.

Back in April, Certain Affinity laid off 25 employees, 10% of its workforce, citing industry-wide slowdowns in funding and investing in new lead and co-development projects as a key reason.

This is Keywords Studios' second acquisition in 2024, having picked up Wushu Studios back in August. The company itself has been quietly amassing a massive portfolio of studios and companies under its label ever since 2014, with its owned studios including Alan Wake Remastered co-developer D3T, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Marvel's Avengers co-developer Heavy Iron Studios, Luigi's Mansion 2 HD developer Tantalus Media, Age of Empires series co-developer Forgotten Empires, Hollywood production services company Blindlight, and agency PR firm Fortyseven Communications, among many others. Keywords acquired a minimum of four companies per year between the years of 2016 and 2023. As of the end of 2023, Keywords employed over 13,000 people around the world, per its annual report.

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

The Call of Duty series looks set to take players back to the future in 2025 with a Black Ops 2 sequel set in the early 2030s.

Fans were alerted to leaked information about next year’s unannounced Call of Duty game after details allegedly revealed in a focus group meeting hit social media. Some of these details were then corroborated by Insider Gaming. Activision declined to comment when contacted by IGN.

While 2024’s Black Ops 6 is set in the 90s to the backdrop of the Gulf War, 2025’s Black Ops game reportedly shoots forward to the 2030s, picking up where 2012’s Black Ops 2, set in 2025, left off.

It reportedly continues the Black Ops storyline from that point, with David Mason from Black Ops 2 as the protagonist. Mechanics from Black Ops 6 said to return include the new body shield and Omnimovement, with some tweaks such as human shields with grenades stuck to them that can be thrown at enemies, and wall jumping. Zombies mode, meanwhile, is said to introduce an eight-player mode.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Infinity Ward is reportedly hard at work on the next Modern Warfare game, presumably Modern Warfare 4. Perhaps that’s due out in 2026.

Developer Treyarch has had four years to work on Black Ops 6, the longest development period of a mainline Call of Duty game yet. Expectations are high then after 2023’s Modern Warfare 3, which is perhaps the most poorly received campaign in Call of Duty history. (Black Ops 6 campaign developer Raven told IGN it didn’t react to the Modern Warfare 3 campaign’s terrible reception.)

Modern Warfare 3, originally conceived as an expansion pack for 2022’s Modern Warfare 2, reportedly imposed crunch on its developers as they battled to create a fully-fledged sequel in just 16 months. Sledgehammer studio head Aaron Halon has insisted Modern Warfare 3 was “years in the making.”

Assuming the reports of next year’s Call of Duty being another Black Ops game hot on the heels of this year’s Black Ops 6 are true, Activision will once again face tough questions around its value as a fully-fledged sequel.

In the shorter term, Black Ops 6 launches on October 25 and straight into Game Pass. It’s the first Call of Duty game to do so since Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard for $69 billion. For more, we've got confirmation of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's launch Multiplayer maps, modes, and Operators, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's preload and global launch times.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

2023’s Modern Warfare 3 includes perhaps the most poorly received campaign in Call of Duty history. It has a metascore of 56 on Metacritic and a 'mostly negative' user review rating on Steam. IGN’s own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 single-player campaign review returned a 4/10. We said: “Underbaked, rehashed, and cobbled together from multiplayer parts, Modern Warfare 3’s single-player campaign is everything a Call of Duty story mode shouldn’t be.” Eurogamer added: “Clearly rushed to market, Modern Warfare 3's campaign tapes together ill-conceived open areas, underwhelming linear missions, and a meaningless story.” In short, it was all a bit of a disaster.

A year later and Call of Duty fans are yet again faced with another campaign from the first-person shooter behemoth, this time the Raven Software-developed Black Ops 6 campaign. IGN has just reported on how Black Ops 6 is set to offer the most varied Call of Duty campaign ever, but did Raven tweak anything in response to the reaction to Modern Warfare 3, or perhaps learn any lessons from Modern Warfare 3’s campaign?

Not so, Jon Zuk, associate creative director at Raven Software, told IGN in an interview.

“The campaign… all game development is very fluid and we react to a lot of different things, but in the case of the previous game’s reception, we were already pretty locked in on the story we were telling and the missions we were creating,” Zuk said. “So we didn't react to how that was received.”

One key point of difference between the developments of Modern Warfare 3, led by Sledgehammer Games, and Black Ops 6, led by Treyarch, is time. Modern Warfare 3, originally conceived as an expansion pack for 2022’s Modern Warfare 2, reportedly imposed crunch on its developers as they battled to create a fully-fledged sequel in just 16 months. Sledgehammer studio head Aaron Halon has insisted Modern Warfare 3 was “years in the making.”

Black Ops 6, however, has enjoyed a longer development time than any other mainline Call of Duty game. Treyarch has worked on it for four years, ever since Black Ops Cold War came out in 2020. And for the campaign, Raven too has benefited from this extra time.

“The extra development time certainly gives us time to do a little bit more prototyping and a little bit more trying something out, finding out if it's fun and if it works and throwing some things away,” Zuk explained.

“When you have the shorter development cycle, sometimes you're stuck with things just for the time crunch that maybe you aren't as happy with as you could be. So I do feel like we had good opportunities to keep crafting and recrafting the missions until we were happy with them.”

Players can also expect Black Ops 6’s campaign to be longer than Cold War’s, Zuk confirmed, although your mileage may vary depending on how much time you spend back at your safehouse hub.

“You can go back, you can talk to your team, you can upgrade your weapon and your equipment and things like that,” Zuk said. “And you can do a little bit of searching around the safehouse , but there's players who are going to do all of that, and there's players who are going to do none of that and are just, I want to get to the next mission as quickly as possible.

“So I think that the game length is going to be variable from player to player, but even if you do try to do the speed run version of it, it is going to be longer than Cold War.”

Black Ops 6 is of course the first Call of Duty game to launch straight into Game Pass, Microsoft’s subscription service. It comes after Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard for an eye-watering $69 billion, and has sparked a debate about whether the move will cannibalize sales of the game.

But will launching straight into Game Pass have a meaningful impact on the number of people who play Black Ops 6’s campaign? Unlike with previous Call of Duty games, Activision is not releasing an early access campaign for Black Ops 6, which means everyone jumps in at the same time from October 25.

Zuk said that from Raven’s perspective, it’s trusting owner and publisher Activision to do what’s best for the game. “I have no input in the business side of that at all,” Zuk replied. “The decision was made to not do early access this year, and I trust that Activision has thought out every bit of this and is very confident in the success of the title.”

We've also got confirmation of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's launch Multiplayer maps, modes, and Operators, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's preload and global launch times.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Call of Duty’s greatest campaigns have offered one thing over all else: variety. Whether it’s the original Modern Warfare’s memorable behind-enemy-lines sniping of All Ghillied Up or Cold War’s KGB infiltration and hallucinogenic episodes, it’s those missions that take you out of the standard first-person shooter cadence that foremost stick in the memory. While we’re yet to play it, it’s therefore encouraging that Black Ops 6 is aiming to pack its campaign full of these moments, so much so Jon Zuk, associate creative director at Raven Software, tells me it's treating each of the levels as “its own mini blockbuster”.

Indeed, Call of Duty is at its best when presented as playable cinema. Tense, tight corridor shootouts open up into large-scale explosive set pieces and one-off experiments – not dissimilar to how Mario platformers introduce ideas for individual levels but with AC-130 gunships instead of animal costumes. Set against the backdrop of the Gulf War in 1991, Black Ops 6 is playing in the shadowy political grey areas that lend themselves to spycraft and subterfuge. So while the campaign will undoubtedly have its louder moments, it's given Raven more scope to experiment with different styles of gameplay.

“We wanted to make sure that each one was memorable and could stand alone,” says lead narrative producer Natalie Pohorski, talking about missions in Black Ops 6. “Each one has unique gameplay opportunities, unique objectives, and how you tackle those.” It’s a sentiment Jon Zuk agrees with, adding, “We didn't want to just create three or four levels that are fun to play, but all kind of feel the same. We wanted to make sure each mission had its thing, its own special, unique sauce to it, as it were. So variety was number one throughout the entire process for us.”

Variety has always been a priority for Raven when it comes to designing COD campaigns. There have always been interesting ideas hidden away, even in the games that are less fondly remembered. It’s something that Zuk, who has been at the studio since 1996, recalls as being a key aspect of their gameplay design:

“That's always been something that we've really been interested in doing. Federation Day back on Ghosts really had the variety. The ‘looking at your target from afar, then zip lining, then repelling on the side of the building and then doing some sneaking or combat and then full-on combat and then a big epic moment to end the level’.”

Zuk also cites a chapter near the end of the original Black Ops as one of his favourite Call of Duty missions. Rebirth tells its tale from two separate perspectives as the player takes control of Woods and Hudson at different points in time during the same event. “It really intrigued me because it's like telling a story from two different perspectives and kind of seeing that your version of the truth is not always the truth or that the truth is malleable.”

The truth and deciphering just who to believe is at the crux of Black Ops 6’s story, but this isn’t the only aspect borrowed from this particular 14-year-old mission. High Rollers looks set to be one of 6’s tentpole levels - a high-risk heist with a casino vault as its target. Players take control of multiple members of the team as they switch perspectives over its course, creating distraction opportunities and executing security breaches in tandem. While not offering the malleable nature that something like GTA V did with its multiple-protagonist heists, it does open up the playbook for fun storytelling possibilities for Raven.

“Ahead of time they have the mission briefing where they're each like, okay, I'm going to do this, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do this,” explains Pohorski. “They're all undercover, and it's sort of like a passing of the baton is really how it plays out.”

“What we wanted to tell there was kind of the perfect heist mission where everybody's doing their part and so there's a very particular plan that's taking place and you've got all of the characters taking place or taking part in this and it's got to work in a certain clockwork type fashion for them to pull off this event”, Zuk confirms.

That briefing takes place in the expanded mansion hideout you’ll get to explore in Black Ops 6, an evolution of Cold War’s safehouse location that lets you talk to other characters, uncover secrets by exploring, and interact with the all-important evidence board.

Another distinctive element of Cold War was its willingness to let you holster your weapon for an extended amount of time – a virtually alien idea compared to the majority of what Call of Duty stands for. A prime example of this was the memorable mission Desperate Measures, which had you infiltrate a high-security KGB building, talking your way through checkpoints and wearing disguises as Raven fully embraced the espionage lifestyle. It was more Hitman than Call of Duty and we’re set for similar antics in Black Ops 6.

“Most Wanted, which you've seen in the trailers, that one we do have more of a pick your way of how you want to accomplish this part of the mission”, states Zuk about a mission taking place at a political gala. “There's two distinct parts of the mission where you can choose how you want to play it. And for the replayability factor, certainly more so in the first part, there are multiple ways to accomplish a goal. So we think that players are really going to do one and they're going to talk to their friend and say, ‘I talked to the senator's wife and did A, B and C’, and he's going to be like, ‘Oh, I didn't do that at all. I was trailing this shady character and ended up meeting, accomplishing my goal this other way’. And then that crosstalk gets people interested, well, what did I miss? I should go back and check that out and see what the other path is.”

“Some of the missions have those options of like, okay, these are the objectives, and then you can kind of get the lay of the land and choose which one you want to tackle first,” Pohorsky confirms. “If you want to go in hot or stealthy, there's options for that too. So it kind of depends on the mission, but I think that's where some of the replayability comes in with the political gala. This time you want to blackmail the senator, or this time you want to hack into a silent auction.”

While variety is at the forefront of Black Ops 6’s campaign, so is flexibility and that desire to approach objectives the way you want to. The game may lead you in a certain direction or politely suggest a wise method, but that doesn’t mean you’ll need to listen. Crucially, apart from a couple of occasions, you won’t be punished for doing something ‘the wrong way’. Auto-fail stealth, for example, will be a highly rare occurrence, says Zuk.

“There are moments where we are very much wanting the player to play stealthily and be careful and quiet, but where possible we try to allow you to play it how you want,” he explains. “And I would say more times than not, you can go loud if that's the way you want to play it. And I can only think of a couple of instances where we sort of don't allow that because it didn't fit with the story. But yeah, I would say in the majority of cases where we have those stealth moments where we're kind of recommending guns down and being more of a spy, certainly we know that people like being action heroes too, so we let that happen.”

“You're still getting all of those blockbuster combat moments for sure”, confirms Pohorski. “I mean that's the bread and butter, but in addition to that, we're layering in these other elements. So yeah, I think I love the more stealthy side. I like going in undercover, so it's been a lot of fun for me to play.”

That variety is promised across the board and while only a couple of examples have been name-checked here, the plan is that no one mission stands out as being Black Ops 6’s ace in the pack. Instead, Raven has endeavoured to keep the campaign’s chapters consistently engaging and surprising in their setup.

“We're not banking on any particular mission doing that [stealing the show]”, says Pohorski. “I think what's so great about the variety is that depending on what kind of player you are, there's different missions that you like. And I mean I have personal story elements that I like in certain missions, but then the way that I get to play in another one might be different.”

The Black Ops series is known for its twisting stories, full of memorable characters and globetrotting locations. With an added emphasis on gameplay variety, Black Ops 6 is shaping up to be an exciting possibility. Throw in the different ways to approach these missions and the expectation is that you’ll want to replay certain parts too.

These gameplay options won’t necessarily have an impact on the story as a whole, though, as the plot itself is locked-in this time around with no multiple or hidden endings to go in search of. “Black Ops 6 is a linear story, so there is not a branching ending for this one”, Zuk states. He also promises a slightly longer campaign than Cold War’s, of which its short length was a main criticism held against it. We’ll find out just how much of Black Ops 6’s campaign lives up to the promise when it arrives on October 25th.

Simon Cardy is loves it when the words "blockbuster" and "spy" are put together. Follow him on Twitter at @CardySimon.

The publisher of smash hit action game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has said it has no issue with modding in the game’s co-op PvE mode, but it has admitted to secretly clamping down on modding in PvP with the release of its latest patch.

Publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive this week released Update 4.0 for the massive-selling third-person action game set within Games Workshop’s grimdark science fiction universe. Officially, it adds a new PvE map, a new Tyranid enemy type, and a new Lethal difficulty mode. But there’s one thing Focus failed to mention: an update to the encryption Space Marine 2 uses on its game files designed to block modding in the game’s PvP mode, dubbed Eternal War.

Eternal War has had a cheating problem ever since Space Marine 2’s explosive launch in September. Normally, Space Marine classes are restricted to using certain weapons in the PvP. The Heavy, for example, is under normal circumstances restricted to the Heavy Bolter and Heavy Plasma Incinerator weapons. But cheaters have changed the game so that they have access to weapons and abilities their class shouldn’t have, ruining the balance of PvP.

While Space Marine 2’s Update 4.0 patch notes failed to mention any attempt to combat PvP modding, IGN has confirmed with the game’s modding community and with Focus Entertainment itself that the patch has changed the game under the hood to do so.

Tom, aka ‘Warhammer Workshop,’ is perhaps the community’s leading Space Marine 2 mod maker. Tom operates a Space Marine 2 modding Discord home to over 2,000 members, and has an extensive profile on Nexus Mods. According to Tom, with Update 4.0 Saber updated the encryption used on the game files to make it much harder for modders to break through.

Speaking to IGN, Sylvain Le Roux, senior brand manager at Focus Entertainment, confirmed Update 4.0 had made this change.

“Modding was possible in PvP for those really looking to do it, but has never been a major issue,” Le Roux insisted, stressing it was limited to PvP on PC where it did occur. “So far, we’ve received very, very few reports of it in relation to the huge number of games played, which is not to say that it wasn’t annoying of course.

“That being said, we’ve removed this possibility with today’s Patch 4. Modding in PvP is no longer possible. For players who may have encountered other cheating this way, our recommendation is to use the report and block features built in the game to avoid playing against them in future games.”

Cheating in Space Marine 2’s PvP mode seems particularly pointless when you consider it does not have ranked play, nor a competitive scene, nor a rewards system attached to PvP only. It is a relatively bare-bones offering that pits loyalist marines against traitor marines in quickfire matches for little more than bragging rights. Call of Duty Ranked Multiplayer it is not.

“Besides winning a few matches and likely getting reported by the whole lobby or even banned, there is no actual benefit to modding to gain an unfair advantage,” Le Roux stressed, “no monetary benefit, no exclusive in-game items, no special status, no invitation to tournaments.”

Unfortunately, it seems that while Update 4.0 may have made it harder for people to use mods to cheat in PvP, it has had the knock-on effect of making it harder to mod Space Marine 2’s PvE mode, Operations.

Operations mode sees a squad of three players battle through carefully designed maps as they face off against the Tyranid horde or the Thousand Sons Chaos Marines, usually with a spectacular boss fight or raid-like mechanic thrown in at the end. Controversially, Saber has deliberately tuned Operations to prevent two of the same class of Space Marine 2 being used. IGN has reported on the upshot of this design decision: awkward pre-mission standoffs as players wait for the other to switch class first.

Space Marine 2’s modding community has already released some quality of life mods like Instant Armour Unlocker, Operations Arsenal Unlocker, and Holstered Weapons. Tom’s most popular mod by far is the Unlock All Armours mod, which saves people from having to grind Operations just to unlock new helmets or armor sets.

“While the grind can be enjoyable, I completely understand that people with busy lives — jobs, families, and limited free time — might appreciate that shortcut,” Tom said. “The great thing is, it’s not permanent. Once you remove the mod, everything locks up again, so there’s still that long-term goal if you want it.

“Ultimately, people just want to bring their tabletop fantasy to life by customizing their character, whether that’s perfecting their appearance or creating more lore-accurate loadouts.”

Modders are also diving into the more exciting things, like Operations and Campaign replacers, where you can play as Deathwatch or Chaos Marines. Indeed, right now Tom is working on a mod that replaces the Thousand Sons enemies with Tyranids (“because honestly, chainsawing a Termagant in half is far more satisfying than taking down a walking dust-bucket!”). Other ambitious ideas in the works include playable Dreadnoughts and the Imperial Guard, but those are still a bit down the road.

Remarkably, the changes Space Marine 2 mods make to the Space Marines themselves, whether it’s a purely aesthetic customization not normally possible or certain classes using weapons and equipment they’re not supposed to, can be seen online by other players in public PvE sessions. While Space Marine 2 uses dedicated servers, a lot of the game elements are client-side controlled. So if you’re playing with random players, there’s a chance you might see things like Bulwarks wielding Thunder Hammers.

"As for Operations, it’s a bit of a grey area," Tom said. "From my perspective as a game designer, all weapons have their roles — none are strictly stronger than the others, just better suited to different tasks, whether that’s taking down hordes or priority targets. The only time things get a bit overpowered is with heavy weapons on non-default classes, which is why those are locked to the Heavy.

"Other weapons might seem strong, but they’re balanced by the fact that other classes don’t get the same perks. For example, a sniper’s perks really benefit the las-fusil, but the tactical class won’t see as much of an advantage. So sure, you could equip it on the tactical, but you wouldn’t get the full benefits of your class perks."

Le Roux downplayed the pervasiveness of modding in Space Marine 2 relative to its huge playerbase (4.5 million players and counting), but confirmed Focus Entertainment’s stance on PvE modding specifically, saying it has no problem with it at all.

“Modding in PvE missions does not represent an issue to us,” Le Roux clarified. “This is a cooperative, unranked game mode. If players wish to go through the trouble of modding the game and re-doing it every couple of weeks when our patches break their mods, just to have a Thunder Hammer on a Bulwark for a PvE mission with their friends, that is their choice.

“It is true that balance may be affected but this is a non-competitive environment where balance doesn’t carry the same importance. Sure, this may make the game easier for them, but the cosmetics unlocks are tied to completing missions regardless of difficulty. They could achieve the same results by playing on very easy with maxed out characters and weapons.”

Tom initially thought this PvP crackdown had inadvertently killed online mods for PvE for good, but has told IGN the community has managed to get them up and running again. “We'll have to wait and see for how long though,” Tom added.

“The sad thing is that this will likely do little to actually stop people from hacking the PvP, but it buys Saber a little time against the most egregious hackers, while the majority of their PvP player base is active,” Tom continued.

“I hold zero ill will towards Saber — as a fellow game developer, I completely understand the reasoning and rationale behind what they've done.”

You can see why Space Marine 2 modding would be popular; the tabletop game upon which it is based revolves around player customization of the models, with Games Workshop encouraging the community to experiment and even make up their own chapters while sticking to the overall rules. Fans really love to play dress up with their Space Marines, and if a mod can make that quicker and easier and even more extensive that Space Marine 2 currently provides, it will prove popular.

“For me, modding is a lot like converting miniatures,” Tom said. “I’ve got far too many plastic armies (as any Warhammer fan does), but what I enjoy most is making each model unique — a true labor of love. Modding games feels the same. It’s about tweaking things, pushing boundaries, and adding that personal touch. And like Warhammer, it’s all done out of a love for the game and its universe.”

Then there’s the issue of satisfying the relentless hunger from the Space Marine 2 player base for new content. Players want new classes, new maps, new weapons, new armor pieces, new equipment, new enemy types, and, generally, a lot more stuff, and they want it now. They want their favorite chapter in the game, story DLC, new enemy factions, and more to do on the Battle Barge. Saber will be aware of all this, of course, but the reality of video game development means it will, like the Space Marines themselves, need to pick their battles carefully.

We’ve seen other studios struggle to cope with satisfying this sort of demand before, especially in the face of unexpected success. Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead, for example, has had trouble keeping its massive playerbase going after 12 million sales in 12 weeks. After 4.5 million sales in just over a month, Saber may run into the same problem. It might already be there.

Mods, then, may fill the gap. “For whatever reason, Warhammer games tend to get far more modding attention than most,” Tom said. “If I had to guess, it's because of the sheer depth of lore and history behind everything, so there's so much more that people want to see than any single studio can reasonably produce.

“And modeling is very much about taking something and making it your own (at least to a lot of people).”

Sega has brought forward the release date of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii to February 21, 2025 to avoid a clash with Monster Hunter Wilds.

In a video shared by Like a Dragon developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, below, studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama said the release date is shifting up one week from the originally announced February 28. Capcom announced the same release date for Monster Hunter Wilds just five days after RGG Studio revealed Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii's.

While Yokoyama didn't mention Monster Hunter WIlds explicitly, he did say RGG Studio wanted fans "to play the game that comes out after with peace of mind" and "enjoy hunting at [their] own pace."

The Monster Hunter and Like a Dragon franchises are both developed in Japan and, while the monster hunting role-playing game and pirate action adventure don't share genres, it makes sense that Sega and Capcom wouldn't want two of their headlining franchises going head-to-head on the same day.

"We have decided to bring forward the release date by a week to February 21, 2025," Yokoyama said. "This is partly because development is progressing more smoothly than expected, but we also want to deliver the game to players around the world as soon as possible. We wanted you to be able to play the game that comes after it with peace of mind."

He added later: "If you are interested in pirates, but aren't familiar with the series overall, please have a go. And after that, I hope you'll also enjoy hunting at your own pace."

Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is a spin-off sequel to Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the eighth mainline entry in the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series (or ninth including Yakuza 0). It follows fan favorite character Goro Majima as he wakes up with amnesia and becomes a pirate.

A trailer released at the October Xbox Partner Showcase revealed a proper first look at ship combat akin to Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag and the return of the beloved character Taiga Saejima, perhaps teasing more ties to the main series than previously thought.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.