Hollywood stars Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith and singer Lewis Capaldi all star in Taylor Swift's new music video for a truly unusual reason.

The line-up were all guests alongside Swift when the global pop superstar appeared on the BBC's Graham Norton chat show late last year, promoting her latest album The Life of a Showgirl.

During the show, Gleeson's dance moves in The Office spinoff series The Paper were mentioned, and Gleeson himself joked that he'd love to appear one day in a Taylor Swift music video. And it was at this moment that Swift formed the idea for Gleeson to indeed star in the video for her next single, Opalite — and be joined by everyone else on the chat show that night, including Graham Norton himself.

Four months later, Opalite's music video has released today via Spotify and Apple Music, showing Swift and Gleeson becoming a couple (who do dance!) after spraying themselves with the magical Opalite love chemical.

Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy narrates an introductory commercial on the Opalite product, while Tron: Ares actresses Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith cameo as a singer and fitness instructor that Swift watches on TV. Capaldi plays a photographer taking a picture of the couple who then joins them in the photos. Finally, Graham Norton plays a Opalite rep giving out free samples, who risks wrecking Gleeson and Swift's budding romance.

Post-song, the video concludes with an explanation of what's going on, with clips from the BBC's Graham Norton show of the cast, acting as a credits reel. We even see the moment Swift gets the idea for the video itself, following Gleeson's quip about his dancing.

"I remember thinking I got ridiculously lucky with the group I was paired with," Swift wrote on Instagram today, where she shared a series of behind the scenes photos. A week after the show aired, Swift says that Domhnall received an emailed script for the music video where he was playing the starring role.

"I had this thought that it would be wild if all of our fellow guests on the Graham Norton show that night, including Graham himself, could be a part of it too. Like a school group project but for adults and it isn’t mandatory. To my delight, everyone from the show made the effort to time travel back to the 90’s with us and help with this video."

Swifties will likely spot several of her Eras Tour dancers also making cameo appearances.

After launching both The Life of a Showgirl and her Eras Tour documentary series on Disney+ at the end of last year, 2026 had been expected to be a quieter year for the singer. Not quite yet though, it seems.

Image source: Taylor Swift.

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

Lorwyn Eclipsed marks the first Magic: The Gathering set of the long-running card game’s 2026 release schedule, and while the set as a whole is great, its pair of Commander Decks is worth a mention, too.

We've got a deep dive into each, how they play, and what they include, but now Amazon has slashed the price on the Dance of the Elements precon. Better yet, a bundle of two of each deck is reduced, too, which makes each deck around $30, a sizeable saving off the list price of at least one deck.

There aren't a ton of games that I've happily put more than 100 hours into as quickly as I have with Mewgenics. This feline-flavored, turn-based, roguelike tactical RPG takes place on a 10x10 grid, with mostly traditional classes like Fighter, Mage, Hunter, Tank, and Necromancer, among others. What sets it apart, aside from the cutesy macabre art style that slathers its creative zones with blood and poop, is that so many of the skills and attributes that your team will end up with are randomized and for the most part out of your control. That all but ensures no two runs will play out the same way, forcing you to improvise and play the hand you're dealt. Combined with the absolute mountain of content here – so much that I'm still seeing entirely new enemies, skills, mutations, and loot pop up after more than 150 hours – it's been able to draw me back in time and time again by dangling the possibility of an absolutely wild team coming together and bulldozing through the boss who turned my last party into kibble. I still haven't seen the final ending after all that time (this game has several) but I can't imagine I'll be tired of it before I do.

Mewgenics is a game about cats, but it's not necessarily going to appeal to people who passionately love them because it's a dark comedy that treats them as meat to be put through a grinder. The name itself is a play on eugenics, a morally appalling practice of selective breeding that has historically led to things like forced sterilization to remove undesirable traits from the gene pool, so you know going in that it's going to be a little spicy. If you've played any of Edmund McMillen's previous work (here he's collaborating once again with Tyler Glaiel), such as the infamously difficult Super Meat Boy or the infinitely replayable Binding of Isaac, you'll have a sense of the type of humor to expect. It's delightfully gross and endlessly weird at every turn.

Even knowing that, as a long-time cat owner myself, I was perhaps a bit too conservative with just how unsympathetic and detached you're expected to be. I probably took longer than I should've to unlock crucial upgrades for my house because doing so requires shipping dozens of cats off to live with a set of goofy weirdo NPCs, never to be seen again. One of the most important and flamboyant, Tink, will only take newborn kittens, and in exchange he'll give you tools that provide more information on how to breed more kittens – and he needs a lot, so you have to get accustomed to parting with them right away. Other characters want older cats, mutated cats, injured cats, or cats who've been on runs to specific places in order to improve stores or add new rooms to your house, among other things. Traditionally an RPG like this is about nurturing your characters and developing them until they become more powerful, but Mewgenics requires a different way of thinking: cats with low or unremarkable stats are lost causes who will weigh your squad down, so you're best off spending them like currency and keeping only the picks of various litters.

Selectively breeding your cats takes place in the fairly simple house screen, a 2D side view where your cats chaotically mill around while you arrange furniture pieces that you find as loot or buy from a shop, inventory Tetris-style. The goal here is to improve stats like Stimulation and Comfort in order to get your cats in the mood to produce high-quality offspring and improve the chances they'll come out with favorable mutations. Those can be things like a messed-up tail that makes their basic attacks inflict burning, or fur that gives them more health regen when they're wet, or leech eyes, among tons and tons of others that are all represented visually on your increasingly weird-looking cats.

(You also have to clean up cat poop daily to keep your Health stat up by simply clicking on piles of various shapes and sizes. It's a bit of a chore after a while, especially when it gets crowded and you have to move cats out of the way to get to it – somehow, of all the furniture items I've gathered, I've never seen a single litter box.)

When everything's arranged to your liking, you hit the End Day button and your cats will choose their own mates based on who's in a room with them, as well as their own genders, orientations (yup, there are gay and bisexual cats), and libedos. Then, out come the kittens after some bizarre cat humping and gooey birth animations that take obvious pleasure in being unsettling. (You can tone that down if you need it to be safe for work.) Optimizing this to produce the most powerful cats possible while also avoiding too much inbreeding (which, as Tink will tell you, isn't cool even though it has the word "breeding" in it because it causes birth defects) is tricky – but you can't really fail at this part because, even if you lose all your cats, you can just start again from scratch using the randomized strays who show up every day.

The real challenge is in finding the traits you want and ensuring they're passed down to new generations without too many side effects, and that definitely takes some planning. Mewgenics doesn't make it super easy, since there's no way to view all your cats in a list or spreadsheet – you just have to tediously cycle through them one at a time. You do unlock some tools to label them (and view their gnarly family trees), but when you have 40 cats roaming around it can be a pain to find one with the stats and abilities you're looking for when you go to put together a four-cat party (or fewer, if you want to live dangerously and level them up faster) for an adventure.

Building your team is another area where Mewgenics is unconventional and unpredictable because when you're picking cats and assigning their classes you can't see what all of their starting abilities will be. You'll get their base stats, mutations, and basic attacks, and sometimes they'll come with a spell or passive ability from one of their parents' classes, but it's not until you lock in their class that you'll learn what you're really working with and if they'll synergize well. Considering that each of the 12 classes has 75 abilities that might pop up (even after all this time I'm still seeing new ones), I get the same thrill from this reveal that I do from picking up my hand in poker or seeing the modifiers on a daily run in Slay the Spire or Monster Train 2: sometimes it's good news and I'm excited to see where it takes me, sometimes it's not and I brace myself for a thrashing and hope for a surprise turnaround if I can survive long enough to level them up and unlock some better skills.

What's inconvenient at this stage is that while you can see what items you have available in your house inventory before you set out on an adventure, and after you lock in your classes you're taken to the equipping screen to deck your cats out with up to five pieces of potentially build-defining gear apiece, you cannot see those items when you're actually picking your classes and your starting abilities are first revealed. That might be fine if you have a fantastic memory, but for the rest of us it's frustrating to not be able to check if I have a good piece of gear to boost the stats of my summoned familiars at the exact moment I'm deciding if I should go with an animal-friend Druid or a robot-building Tinkerer, or if I should go with a Fighter or a Tank instead.

It's tricky to keep track of what you have on hand because gear in Mewgenics doesn't last forever. You can expect to get three, maybe four runs out of something before it breaks, and that's assuming you don't wipe and lose everything you took with you and picked up along the way (except for your choice of one item from several that a helpful weirdo saves for you after a failed attempt). If weapons breaking in recent Zeldas rubbed you the wrong way, you probably won't enjoy that aspect of Mewgenics, but I actually do like the way it prevents me from relying too heavily on any one strategy. You can get something incredibly powerful and play with it more than once, without letting that item define every run you'll do from that point on.

Taking gear on only two or three runs may not sound like much, but that's more than the actual cats get. Another reason you can't count on the tricks you used in the previous run working just as well on the next, even if you use the same classes and gear, is that each cat only gets one adventure in which to level up and develop their skills. (You'll be able to use them in combat one or even two more times during special battles where major monsters attack your house.) That was tough to get my head around at first, because I'm accustomed to my RPG party members sticking around, at least until I get them killed.

Maybe this is why you're not allowed to name your own cats, and instead they come pre-named from a pool of (I estimate) a billion different silly possibilities: Mewgenics doesn't want us to get too attached. After a while I stopped paying much attention to their names except to chuckle at them, preferring to think of my squad members as their classes rather than individuals. Only the ones I ended up using as my primary breeding stock really stuck with me. (Man, talking about this game makes you say some weird stuff.)

When you head out to one of the three acts' adventure maps, which are all drawn in a jerkily animated, charmingly childlike style, you start with a single path that then branches off into two, each of which has two completely different stages packed with their own unique sets of enemies – so many you definitely won't see them all even after several runs. You'll definitely want to mouse over them and read their descriptions before diving into battle, because some of them have some extremely nasty tricks up their sleeves – including a few that can instantly and permanently kill a cat or infect it with a parasite that takes up a gear slot. The stakes are already pretty high given your cats are permanently injured every time they get downed, and can be outright killed if their body is destroyed by attacks or eaten by zombies, so you don't want to get surprised if you can help it.

Each zone is also stocked with multiple bosses that range from powered-up versions of your own classes to huge, nasty monsters with their own creative game-changing mechanics, and one that's basically just an evil Kirby. Yes, a few of them are annoying (I avoid going to Act 1's Boneyard unless a quest demands it because that boss is a total jerk), but on balance they're excellent battles that often make me think differently about how to manage my team's turn order and abilities.

One thing that stands out to me about the structure of Mewgenics' runs – aside from how they can take as long as two hours once you've unlocked all the zones (and some secret ones) – is that unlike most roguelikes, you rarely get to make decisions about the path you take between battles. You mainly get to choose between the default path and a harder one with better loot and one more battle to level up a cat in, and then very occasionally between two types of rewards (usually an equipable item or a piece of furniture for your house). That makes the between-battle encounters feel a little less interesting than in a lot of similar games, especially when the random encounters turn out to be basically a coin flip where you're picking between a red pill or a blue pill, or pushing a button vs pulling a lever without any indication of which will give you a bonus and which will give you a debuff.

There are, of course, some more in-depth, multi-stage encounters where you're picking between a set of options in a choose-your-own-adventure story where your chances of success for each one are determined by a cat's stats. However, since the cat whose stats you're working with is chosen randomly, there are two layers of luck involved before you get a shot at a good outcome. It often feels completely random, but that's alright because so much of Mewgenics is doing the best you can with circumstances beyond your control.

During combat, there are so many different things in play that the interactions between cat mutations, passives, spells, gear, environmental modifiers, and enemies can get crazy complex, and figuring out exactly what happened – or predicting what will happen – can be like investigating a crime scene (often with just as much blood splatter). Why did that enemy pingpong between two trash bags, with each bounce doing one point of damage, until it died? How did one of my cats just straight-up eat a boss without me even telling it to move? Or, why did that giant Daddy Shark get to take another move and insta-kill my Cleric when I'd carefully placed him just outside what should've been his projected attack range? (That one stung.) All of those answers are in there somewhere if you know where to look and study the rules carefully. In one of those cases, it was related to – you guessed it – poop. The map does get chaotic when there are a lot of enemies and fire or plants or ice on the screen, but thankfully there's a tactical view that usually clears things up… mostly.

Most of the time, if you think something might work, it will. Water and ice spells and spells will put out fire, water will conduct electricity and zap everything standing in it, that sort of thing. However, sometimes its rules aren't super logical: a couple I've noticed is that robots are susceptible to bleeding, poison, and parasite infestations, and the Butcher class's innate meat hook weapon can't actually hook meat unless you luck into the right upgrade for it. But again, most of the time it works like you'd expect it to.

I do love when a powerful team dynamic emerges as you earn new skills (your choice from a random selection of three) or raise one cat's stats after every battle. Recently I had a squad with a Monk who could toss out meat pickups that typically just heal the team, but when combined with a Butcher who can turn all of those meats into minion fly familiars and a Druid who can boost those flys' stats and turn them into killing machines, it became a way to raise an army in a single turn. On another run I had a Cleric whose health regeneration applied to the whole team and an item that let me continually boost that regen multiple times per turn, allowing my Necromancer to run wild with a high-damage attack that also drained half of his own health. There are countless examples like this, and while you won't win the lottery with a great combo every run, they happen more than often enough to make me excited about what might be next.

What's a little frustrating when I'm planning out my moves in a tough fight where every action matters is that there's no way to access a cat's full character sheet while you're in a battle, so you can't see their list of mutations or all of their equipment's full effects when you need that information the most. It's almost all represented visually on your cats, at least, but you have to remember, for example, what a cat having a second head growing on its butt means. When the rules are changing so dramatically from run to run, I would love to be able to reference all of them at any time.

As if all of those variables weren't enough, Mewgenics throws yet another curveball at you when it sends you on one of its story or side quests. Those all revolve around a unique and powerful item that changes the rules in a big way and telling you to take it to a specific zone. One of the most memorable gives you a five-second time limit for every action – and if you don't make a move, the AI will take over and move for you. (I was glad I wasn't playing that one on my Steam Deck because the controls there are serviceable, but not nearly as quick as with a mouse and keyboard.) Another shook things up by giving my cats random selections of abilities from every class when they leveled up, creating powerful hybrids that are usually rare. There are tons of these available, though it's kind of a bummer that if you fail a side quest you don't get a second attempt at that unless it randomly comes up again once you've paid enough cats. The story itself is pretty silly and light – don't expect any Hades-style epics here – but good for a few yuks as you do the bidding of an incompetent mad scientist.

Another area where Mewgenics is truly exceptional is in its sound and music, which are fantastic in both big and subtle ways. It comes with a collection of original and hilarious songs that accompany each level and culminate in major boss battles that are designed to loop for as long as a battle takes, and there are multiple variations on each that include instrumental versions – your cats will even meow along to them sometimes. (My favorite is probably "Where's That Smell Coming From?") And those meows come from a vast selection of different randomly selected voices, including some celebrity cameos.

One of the best touches, though, is the crowd sounds. Mainly you'll hear this after beating a battle: there's cheering and clapping with varying enthusiasm based on how quickly you pulled off your win. That's fine, but the best part is the shocked gasps when one of your cats is killed in action. That gets me every time – and trust me, I've heard it a lot.

Lastly, Mewgenics has a fun and surprising approach to the practice of "save-scumming," where you quit out of a battle you've messed up and restart it with knowledge of what not to do. I won't spoil what happens, but there are consequences if you abuse it. Thankfully, you do get some flexibility in case of a power outage or spouse demanding you stop playing that game you've been playing for 150 hours and do the dishes, and it's kind of implicit that you have permission to save-scum once per run – and yes, I use it regularly.

The latest trailer for Resident Evil Requiem shows experienced agent Leon S. Kennedy whiffing every one of his shots — and fans think Nintendo is to blame.

Yesterday's Nintendo Partner Direct featured a fresh look at the highly-anticipated survival horror title, which features newbie agent Grace Ashcroft alongside veteran zombie fighter Leon S. Kennedy. But watch yesterday's trailer and you'd think Leon was fresh out of the academy, as he is unable to land a single bullet.

The Nintendo showcase included new footage of Leon kicking zombies to the ground, but then firing over their shoulder. At one point he picks up a rifle, then fires at a tree. Leon's even able to miss with a chainsaw, spinning at a zombie only to graze some furniture.

Nintendo making Leon miss every shot and attack to keep the show PG is so funny pic.twitter.com/fknXycULvQ

— Nin10doland (@nin10doland) February 5, 2026

Online, Leon's sudden lack of fighting prowess has not gone unnoticed, with Nintendo itself believed as being to blame.

"Nintendo making Leon miss every shot and attack to keep the show PG is so funny," wrote nin10doland in a long thread on social media. "I can feel the frustration from the guy who was recording this game footage," replied NikTek. "How many years of service does Leon have exactly?" added HuhShalien.

The Partner Direct broadcast was rated as being for an 18+/Mature audience, though some fans have suggested the footage used here was likely the same seen in the stream's separate Japanese version. In Japan, Resident Evil games are frequently censored, and Nintendo may feel a particular need to keep gore and violence unseen.

Others, meanwhile, noted that this was nothing new for a Nintendo Direct.

"They did the same thing with The Great Circle during the boat action shot, where they were shooting the water in front of the enemy boat instead of the actual boat," wrote Donnyboi.

"Reminds me of the Hitman trailer when they'd cut right before he'd kill anyone," added RileyEatsGood.

"This is also why the initial reveal for The Duskbloods from FromSoftware looked super underwhelming," concluded VBandit47. "They couldn't show literally ANYTHING that is core to the Soulsborne experience cause they couldn't show any blood. Watch it back, you'll see what I mean lmao."

Surprise! Highguard has another "heaping pile of fresh, free content" for you, including a new warden, map, a ranked mode, mount, and a variety of QoL tweaks, too.

The new free-to-play PvP raid shooter hailing from some of the creators of Respawn's Apex Legends and Titanfall only released a couple of weeks ago, but that hasn't stopped developer Wildlight from dropping a second "major update" in as many weeks, this time introducing Episode 2.

New warden Ekon is described as a legendary monster-slayer who shapeshifts into a powerful direwolf to track and hunt his prey. The last of a long line of ancient magic wielders known as the Wildwalkers, once thought extinct, Ekon jumps into action when his mentor, and closest thing to family, goes missing in the lost land of Highguard.

His passive ability, Dread, reveals the heartbeat of wounded enemies, and their heartbeats will continue to be visible until they are dead or regen their health. His tactical, Wolf Spirit, lets you hunt the nearest enemy and apply Dread — even across long distances and through walls and rocks — and ultimate ability Wolf Form sees him turn into a powerful direwolf that can track and hunt mounted enemies.

As for the new map Skydrift? Coming to the 3v3 and now permanent 5v5 rotation, wardens can navigate through hollowed-out caverns once home to great winged-beasts, spar off against one another in an ancient ring of stone, and ride across huge chain bridges and through "remarkable Sky Jumpers to reach Skydrifts highest point — a palace above the clouds." The full notes are included below.

Highguard Episode 2 Patch Notes — Out February 6

A NEW WARDEN ARRIVES — EKON

A legendary monster-slayer who shapeshifts into a powerful direwolf to track and hunt his prey. Ekon is the last of a long line of ancient magic wielders known as the Wildwalkers, once thought extinct. When his mentor, and closest thing to family, goes missing in the lost land of Highguard, there is no monster or warden this great predator will allow to stand in his way.

Dread (Passive)

Reveal the heartbeat of wounded enemies. Once an enemy Warden is low health, they are highlighted in pulsing beats until they are dead, or their health regenerates.

Wolf Spirit (Tactical)

Unleash a spirit wolf to hunt the nearest enemy and apply Dread. This Wolf Spirit travels long distances, moving straight through rocks and structures to find its prey. If seen in time, it can be shot down. This ability can be cast in human form, or in Wolf form.

Fearsome Howl (Ultimate)

Apply Dread to all enemies across the map and increase your movement speed. This ability can be cast in human form, or in Wolf form.

Wolf Form

Ekon doesn’t ride an animal into battle, he becomes one — transforming into a powerful direwolf that tracks, hunts, and runs down mounted enemies. While in this form, Ekon’s speed is unmatched by other mounts. Through a full third-person point of view, the direwolf can see around cover. When moving in for an attack, weapons are laid down in favor of Ekon’s deadly bite attack, which will dash forward and bite a prey before immediately transforming back to human form to finish off the job. Attacking without a target will allow Ekon to perform a small air dash to traverse maps more athletically. In addition, while in Wolf Form, Ekon can track an enemy’s scent that they leave in their path. Ekon can use all of his other powers while in Wolf Form.

A NEW LOCATION IS DISCOVERED — SKYDRIFT

Far west of Headwall, beyond the vast, uncharted lands of Highguard where the maps go blank and expeditions go missing lies the fabled lost city of Skydrift recently awakened.

Wardens can navigate through hollowed out caverns once home to great winged-beasts, spar off against one another in an ancient ring of stone, and ride across colossal chain bridges and through remarkable Sky Jumpers to reach Skydrifts highest point - a palace above the clouds.

Skydrift is added to the map rotation in 3v3 and 5v5.

THE STAKES HAVE NEVER BEEN HIGHER — RANKED MODE

Gain Ranked Points (RP), earn point modifiers and climb the ranks to claim your rewards. Go from Bronze (Hare) to Grandmaster (Leviathan) if you’ve got what it takes! Visit the Headwall menu in game to see more information.

Ranked Structure

• The format for Ranked is 3v3
• We believe 3v3 is the more tactical structure of the game and fits best for comp. We will monitor feedback as we get it.
• Each episode will have 2 Ranked Splits. Splits will change the map and base list, and introduce some balance changes.
• All players start Ranked for the first time in Bronze 3.
• Each Rank has 3 Divisions.
• There are 7 Ranks
• Bronze (Hare)
• Silver (Goat)
• Gold (Ape)
• Platinum (Dire Wolf)
• Diamond (Gryphon)
• Master (Manticore)
• Grandmaster (Leviathan)
• At the end of each Episode, you will be rewarded based on the Rank you achieved at the end of the Episode.
• De-Ranking: You can only de-rank inside a Division during a Split. For example, by losing matches you can de-rank from Gold 2 into Gold 3, but you cannot de-rank from Gold 3 into Silver 1.
• At the start of every Split, you will not de-rank at all. At the start of every Episode, you will move backwards 6 Divisions (2 full Ranks)

Fairness

• Play with teammates up to 2 tiers difference
• A two person party must be within +/- 1 tier of each other
• A full party of 3 can mix any ranks and be able to play. You will queue into the Rank of the top Ranked player.
• Solo Bonus: If you’re playing without a party, you’ll earn the Solo modifier (details below). You’ll gain more points and lose less per match.
• Loss Protection: You accrue loss protection for playing matches all the way through. It will get automatically spent to stop you from losing RP.
• Early Leaver Penalty is more severe in Ranked. Leaving early counts as 2 strikes and resets your Loss Protection.

Scoring System

We think if you win big, you should score big.

Victory has 3 versions, before the modifiers are applied.

• Overwhelming Victory: 25 RP
• This is winning with 100% base health remaining
• Victory: 20 RP
• This is standard victory where each team was more evenly matched
• Close Victory: 15 RP
• This is winning where your base had 35% base health or less remaining

For defeat:

• Defeat: -25 RP
• If you lost without doing damage to the enemy team.
• Strong Defense: -20 RP
• If you lost, but had done some damage to the enemy team.
• Close Defeat: -15 RP
• If you lost, but had done at least 65% damage to the enemy team.

Other modifiers:

• Winning Streak Bonus: adds 3 RP for each win in a row, up to 6 extra points per game.
• Kill Bonus: Earn extra RP for kills, up to a cap of 5 points per game.
• Solo Bonus: Always earn an extra 4 points if queuing up solo.

Imbalance Protection

• If a game is deemed imbalance by player ranks:
• The favored team will have less points to win and more points to lose
• The weaker team will have increased points to win, and less points to lose

Requirements

• In order to unlock Ranked Mode, you must Win 10 matches of 3v3 Raid Mode.
• This is retroactive. If you’ve already won 10 matches in Episode 1, Ranked Mode will be unlocked immediately.

Maps

• The Ranked Mode playlist will have a subset of maps and bases per Split.
• We will change the list every split to keep the rotation interesting, but allow time to build consistent strategies.
• The first Split will have maps Kingdom, Summit and Rivermark, and bases Hellmouth, Smuggler’s Den, King’s Lair, Soul Well, Frosthold and Wellspring.
• As more bases get added to the game, we think having a total of 6 bases in Ranked allows players to master certain bases and build competitive strategies over a Split, but still need to master more than 1 base because your first pick won’t always be available.

Rewards

• Episodic Reward: Ranked players will earn a brand new cosmetic item called Banner Frames.
• You will be awarded the Frame that matches the Rank you achieved in the Episode.
• Frames grow in prestige at higher Ranks!
• Every Episode will earn a new themed Banner Frame. This Episode’s theme is Ekon and the Wolf and will be awarded at the start of Episode 3.

A NEW BEAST HAS BEEN TAMED — WOLF MOUNT

WOLF

Loyal pack hunter of the wild. The new wolf mount is free to all players.

• Try Ranked Challenge: Play 10 matches of Ranked to earn the Shadow Wolf skin.

GEAR UP PHASE UPDATES

One consistent point of feedback we’ve heard is that the Gear Phase needs improvements.

We’re tackling that in 4 ways for the launch of Episode 2, and we’ll continue to work on that phase in the future.

Better POI Loot

Red Weapon Chests in POIs now contain Masterwork weapons.Masterwork weapons have improved stats within their rarity. Blue Masterworks are better than Blues, but still less quality than Purple. Players can still loot upgraded weapons outside of POIs, but the Masterwork versions of weapons each round are only found in POIs.

Ultimate Chargers

These items are found in white barrels in POIs, but we’ve seen that players are having a hard time identifying that. In order to make that clear, white barrels that contain Ultimate Chargers now have an obvious gold glow.

Waypoint Markers

When you leave your base in the gear phase, waypoint icons will guide players towards the Points of Interest. They’re also pingable so players can communicate intent without voice comms.

The map will also communicate that POIs contain Masterwork Weapons and Ultimate Chargers.

Speed Gates

Speed Gates are always on when a player is near them, instead of only when a Shieldbreaker is present. This should allow players to get back to fights after respawning,

QUALITY OF LIFE & NEW FEATURES

As we continue to improve the game through feedback, bug fixing and small features, we will document them here. When necessary, we’ll use “dev notes” to give context on why we made a specific change.

Stats 1.0

Players want stats! For Episode 2 we have added a Stats menu to Headwall.

The stats tracked here are mostly retroactive from Episode 1.

Raid Attack and Defense success stats are new for Episode 2, as we are just now starting to track these stats.

We will continue to expand this feature in future episodes.

New Orange Weapon Mods:

We will continue to mix up orange weapon mods. For Episode 2, we are adding variety and not removing anything.

• Saber Rifle - Impact Rounds
• Increased critical damage (headshots) with a slower rate of fire. Fires a two shot burst instead of three. Faster projectile speed.
• Vanguard - Drum Magazine
• Much larger magazine, with a slower reload.
• Corsair - Doubleshot
• Fire a 12 round burst on each trigger pull

Technical Updates

• From the last patch, performance optimizations were applied to player replication, movement netcode, and siege tower rendering.
• Users can now enable NVIDIA Reflex on supported systems.
• Several optimizations were added to reduce bandwidth utilization.

Gameplay Updates:

• The Defensive Phase at the start of the game has been reduced to 30 seconds from 60.
• Anchor Stones fuse timers have been increased to 80 seconds from 60.
• Dev note: The goal here is to make Anchor Stones a bit harder to win on
• We’ve added your Kills and Assists to the HUD above the minimap.
• Many zipline usability improvements, including smoother attaching and riding, and making it harder to accidentally attach
• Players can now have a maximum of 4 ziplines. When casting the 5th, their first one will automatically destroy
• Improvements to mantle feel
• You will be prompted to drop the BigRig when it gets to low or zero ammo
• Upon being revived, you now get a hint to tap the emote button to say "Thank You". As a byproduct your character will no longer automatically say thank you.
• Pinged orange weapons will now show the perk when you hover on them
• You can now ping ziplines
• You can now ping Mara darkspawn when it’s highlighted through walls (at the end of a raid)
• You can now ping Kai’s ice wall
• Pinging a Shieldbreaker or Domesplitter plant point now has more specific ping VO based on the scenario.
• The end game podium will now highlight people who had the highest stats on their team
• Smugglers Den minimap has been updated to be more accurate
• Adjusted the final Shieldbreaker plant animation to take exactly as long as a normal one
• The Trader menu will darken and update if his stock changes while you have the menu open
• Dev note: This is to reduce accidentally purchasing something right as the stock is upgrading.
• Dead players no longer show up on the minimap
• Dev note: This seemed confusing and redundant with being able to see a player's orb through walls.
• Adjusted Mara’s Soul Armor power description to include that it also works on enemy players (so be careful where you throw it)
• Added key bindings on PC for Map Screen, Character Info and Loadout
• AFK timer in a match has been reduced from 5 minutes to 4
• Firing Range targets have been replaced with new versions that stay open so you can test sustained fire
• Firing Range can now accommodate parties of up to 5 players

Lobby/Menu Updates:

• Added an option to leave the party by clicking on party member’s social card
• You now get a message confirming that you sent a Friend Request
• Slider bars in the settings menu can now be adjusted by typing in numbers
• Changing your controller profile will now highlight what buttons are changing
• You can now unblock players in your Social tab

Weapon Updates:

Vanguard

• Slightly slowing rate of fire and raising damage. TTK is nearly equivalent. This just reduces the number of bullets required to kill
• Increased headshot multiplier

Longhorn

• Repeater - Less vertical kick, faster raise time, faster sprint raise time, less spread (hipfire), slower spread bloom (hipfire)

Viper - Impact Rounds

• Smaller mag size
• More kick

Item Updates:

• Amulet: Bomb Kit
• Bomb plant time nerfed (2.5s -> 3s). Defuse time is still 2.5s.
• Amulet: Harvester no longer drops bonus Ultimate Chargers from White Supply Barrels.
• Slightly lowered the top speed of orange Saddles.

Character Updates:

Slade

• Fixed a bug where the impact damage from his Ultimate was not dealing damage on uneven terrain.
• Adding friend/foe identification to Slade’s VFXs. Enemy fire will now take on a darker red appearance.

Redmane

• Redmane can now break floors he’s standing on with his tactical
• Redmane’s tactical now hits players more reliably.
• Leaping into solid geo with Redmane will drop him to the ground faster, instead of bouncing off and floating down.

Mara

• Mara will now dismount automatically when casting Immortal Coil while mounted, instead of getting an error message.

Una

• Improved Una minion target acquisition speed (they should shoot at players faster)
• Fixed Una minions having larger hitboxes than intended.

Atticus

• Adjusted Atticus’s Ultimate audio to not be occluded by geo. This means you can hear him better in his active Ultimate state even if he’s in another room.

Quest:

The Quest is designed to be a set of difficult challenges to complete over the course of an Episode for some free rewards and bragging rights. Because Episode 1 was only 2 weeks long, we decided to keep the Episode 1 Quest active through Episode 2. We’ll be back in Episode 3 with more challenges and more rewards.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where characters with movement speed bonuses could double-dip on slide boosts
• Fixed instances where you would sometimes get bumped off the zipline when respawning
• Fixed some issues where the Play button would be unresponsive
• Fixed an issue where loot in chests would show highlights for different rarities
• Fixed a bug where the Care Package was dropping too low of level loot in the 3rd gear up phase and beyond.
• Fixed an issue where Emote anti-peek wasn’t hiding enemy mounts
• Fixed an issue where you could respawn with your initial loadout when dying to environmental hazards like lava
• Fixed collision issues on Dustline
• Fixed multiple ways to break Training by leaping and climbing over walls
• Fixed some incorrect key bindings in the UI
• Improved the reliability of voice chat icons
• Fixed an issue where the Shieldbreaker would sometimes drop in inaccessible places if you tried to enter your own base
• Removed the ability to drop the Shieldbreaker on top of the enemy dome (how cheeky)
• Fixed rare cases where “Position Revealed” would stay on your screen long after a raid was over
• Fixed an issue where pressing Esc to leave the Social menu would cancel matchmaking
• Fixed an issue where Slade’s arms would not reset after losing his Hot Streak
• Fixed ability to repair large gates in bases
• Fixed Condor running in place when she uses her Ultimate Power while running
• Reduced the amount of screen the Longhorn Repeater covers while jumping and firing
• Fixed some invisible collision blocking bullets above banners on Wellspring base
• Fixed some cases of your player having a third arm
• Multi-Lock Rocket Launcher will no longer target trees
• Fixed mounts not playing proper water audio and fx when running through it
• Fixed ability for players to ping when riding a zipline
• Removed the ability to place Mara’s Immortal Coil on open doors
• Fixed the zipline gun colliding with air in some areas of Summit
• Fixed Blast Hammers from doing splash damage behind you when used
• Players are no longer detected by Condor’s tactical when standing still on their mount
• Fixed Una summoning a Tree Walker in mid air by riding a zipline
• Fixed some locations in Wellspring base where you would get kicked off your mount
• Fixed an issue where you would hit yourself with a rocket if fired while running full speed on a mount
• Improved game performance when mounting or dismounting
• Improved some translations for different languages, both in text and VO
• Added localized translations for different languages in the Advanced Training video
• Fixed the Crossplay setting not saving when changed to off on consoles
• Fixed rare cases where your controls would be unresponsive after using a mount emote
• Fixed a bug that would cause ambient audio to drop out
• Fixed a bug where mouse and controller sensitivity settings weren't being applied correctly while transitioning between hipfire and ADS
• Resolved a bug where DLSS presets did not immediately appear or disappear in the Settings menu after modifying the antialiasing mode.

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.

Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund says the success of Arc Raiders has given the team “stability [and] long-term security” as it continues to support its new extraction shooter through 2026.

The studio head opened up about how the developer has changed for the better as part of a recent interview with IGN. During our chat, we learned more about how the surprise hit video game, which has sold over 12 million copies since going on sale in October, has impacted its team and how it will continue to affect them in the months ahead.

Söderlund acknowledged the “unfortunate” reality that mass layoffs have rocked the video game industry for the last two years. It’s marked a period of uncertainty for developers of every shape and size, but for Embark, Arc Raiders’ popularity among gamers across PC and consoles means safety – and even room for growth – for at least a while.

“We can live for a long time on the money that Arc Raiders has been generating, and that does give financial security and employment stability for the people that work there,” he said. “We're growing our studio, we're hiring people, we want to build more of Arc Raiders, we want to build more of The Finals.”

Arc Raiders launched for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S priced $40 on October 30, 2025, and follows the team’s 2023 multiplayer shooter, The Finals. At 12.4 million copies sold as of January 13 and an all-time concurrent player peak of 481,996 on Steam (via SteamDB), the success of Arc Raiders should also help Embark as it continues work on two new, unannounced games. What those look like or when they will release remains unclear for now, but Söderlund and the rest of the team show no signs of slowing down.

“For us, it's a sigh of relief, obviously for any developer, and we're incredibly happy for that and thankful for everyone that's been supporting us by buying the game,” he added. “It feels great. Obviously, hopefully, we can have competitive salaries, good bonuses for the people that have done all this hard work and deserve to be taken care of adequately.”

Arc Raiders, an extraction shooter and the second game from developer Embark Studios, has taken the world by storm.

This sci-fi, third-person PvPvE experiment launched with little more than a $40 price tag and an enticing premise back in October and almost immediately established itself as one of the biggest games of 2025 – and maybe even 2026. Now, with a post-launch roadmap paving the way with the promise of new map updates and new apocalyptic AI enemies, all eyes are on Embark to see if it can keep the momentum up for months – or maybe even years – to come.

We caught up with CEO Patrick Söderlund to learn more about the surprise success of Arc Raiders, its huge impact on the studio, the battle with cheaters, content updates, hotels in Italy, weird pants, and more as Embark heads into its first full year with a mega hit on its hands.

IGN: I'd like to start with PvE. Like so many others, I'm fascinated by how players have chosen to communicate and interact with one another in the game. What is Embark doing to encourage that behavior and capitalize on the special sauce that makes this element unique?

Patrick Söderlund: I think you said it well. I think it's, maybe, not just capitalizing on the aspects of PvE, but it's capitalizing on the unique sauce that we managed to cook that makes this game special. I think PvE and PvP are both ingredients in that sauce. I could sit there and pretend like, 'Yes, everything that happens in the game and everything that people do in the game, of course, was intended.' That's not the case, of course. When you build a game, and you structure it to a large extent with elements of a sandbox, the stuff that happens in Arc Raiders is just the output, which is incredible and very rewarding for us to see as developers.

What we do is we look at, 'OK, what do we think we should double down on?' I, personally, am touched by all the social elements to this game and the things that make me and, I think, everyone else, believe in humanity again. There's something very kind about that, in many aspects. Just as sometimes PvP can be exciting, frustrating, and thrilling, as well. Those are the aspects that we have to look into. I think we look at it from a holistic perspective and try to understand what more we can do to foster and to nurture both those sides.

One of the discussions that I think is, to some extent, public is 'What's Speranza?' I think Speranza is heavily underutilized, personally. I think that's something that we want to, probably, improve and make into something else. Are there elements of the game where there could be meeting points? Again, these are personal ideas, right now, that I'm basically brainstorming with you, but the Speranza idea is obviously something that I think people have told us about, something that I think could be cool.

Could you meet up with people there? Could that be a social hub to some extent? What more can we do with that? It also deepens what I think is something that players maybe want more of, which is the lore of Arc Raiders. So, we look at it from multiple angles and multiple perspectives, and then, as we build content as quickly and fast as we can, we try and push updates and changes into the game that does more of what we believe is great about this game.

IGN: A quick offshoot: are there any plans for more instruments?

Patrick Söderlund: You're going to laugh. If you ask the team, 'Who has been the biggest advocate for instruments?' They will send you a picture of me. I was so upset that we only had one at launch, and I kept [saying], 'Where are my instruments?' There are so many of them that have been designed and built, and I happen to be in a position of decision-making authority [laughs]. So, the answer is yes, there will be more instruments. For sure. I love them, and they create such cool moments. What the team basically wanted to make sure was that, not only can they be played separately, but they can be played in unison, and that makes sense. That makes it a little bit more complicated for us to add them. Then, they want, obviously, appropriate animations, but all the instruments and everything that you play has been recorded by the people that work at Embark, which is pretty cool.

Frankly, what you say there is something that I believe we need to lean into and do more of. Those types of things. I don't know what another instrument can be, but the joy... When someone told me that we're going to do fireworks, I'm like, 'Why would we do that?' Then I see these crazy things people do with them. I said, 'We need more of this stuff.' I think the things that are maybe not centered around going out there, shooting Arc, looting, or other things, they're just there because they're fun. They're just there to bring joy. That's been, frankly, our biggest surprise with this game. I've read a bunch of articles saying the Arc Raiders is almost like a social experiment, and it kind of is, and I love that.

I genuinely love the fact that that's what it is. I actually had a conversation at dinner three days ago with a very prominent professor in neurology that had gotten to know about the game, and said, 'Listen, you have no idea what you've built. Forget about the game itself.' From just the whole idea of psychological experimentation and social experimentation, and what this game can be. She, a good friend of mine, basically said, 'You should go and do a collab or work with people from the medical field to study what behaviors are triggered in Arc Raiders.'

We may not go that far. That would not be anything to do with the game itself, but it points to something that I believe is so fundamental with this game, and I believe is a big component to why the game has been successful. We knew that we had elements of that, but we could never anticipate that it would take the route it took.

IGN: When I play, I sometimes hear players outright comment on being in 'friendly' or 'unfriendly' lobbies. I'm not sure if this is something you know off the top of your head, but is Embark aware of how much of its playerbase is intentionally taking advantage of the aggression-based matchmaking to place themselves in PvE or PvP-centered lobbies?

Patrick Söderlund: I don't know the answer to that. It's obviously something that we are and need to continue to monitor. That's not the intent of the game's design or our ambition to segment the game in that aspect and make it so that people can sneak in. That's not, of course, what we want. We want you, as a player, to have the experience that you're looking for and makes you happy. We have to deal with the factor of the human beings and real players, which we can't curate that 100%. It's impossible because humans make decisions. I can be the friendliest guy and then, all of a sudden, I can decide to start shooting people – or the opposite. It is just the nature of a multiplayer game, but we understand that is a concern. We understand that could be the case, and sometimes is the case.

We are obviously pushing our systems and thinking about other means of trying to just give players the experience they're looking for without going into any deep details around this, because it is pretty complex, to be honest. You are, frankly, like me for the most part.

I'm PvE to a large extent, but I'm also PvP sometimes because I think it's fun. You have other players that just want to PvP, and for them, it's completely fair. I think the game should cater to all types of players, but what we don't want to have happen is for you to feel like you're in a situation that you don't want or that you didn't wish for. That's kind of the important aspect of this.

IGN: So the aggression-based matchmaking is still something you guys are tweaking every day, then?

Patrick Söderlund: All systems, when it relates to matchmaking, will undergo changes continuously. That's a part of running a live service. We have to, and it's not just that element of our matchmaking. Matchmaking, it's not as simple as, 'Are you someone that shoots a lot of people or not?' It is far more sophisticated than that. The PvP, PvE aspect of it is a small portion of it. There are other aspects, and then we need to take into consideration, how do you play the game? How good are you? You obviously shoot a lot of Arc enemies, we will determine your abilities to shoot in general and your ability to shoot against AI and shoot against other players.

Matchmaking is a complex system as a whole, and as a developer, pretty hard to get right. I've been working with matchmaking systems for the majority of my video game career. All the way from Battlefield to a bunch of different games. Frankly, some of the first multiplayer games, no one even knew what matchmaking was. It was like, 'Play the game. Have fun.' Then, as games and multiplayer games evolved over time, it obviously became a necessity. It's a formula of many, many, many things, where PvE and PvP is one aspect of them, and all of it gets continuously tweaked, of course. There are probably other systems that we are working on, or that we probably should be working on, that will be added as well.

IGN: Embark said it was going to start cracking down on cheaters in January. Could you give me an update on the anti-cheat process and how that's gone so far? If you, again, would happen to have a rough estimate on how many cheaters have been banned?

Patrick Söderlund: I'm not going to give you a specific number, but I can give you ballpark. We have been pretty aggressive on this. The game wasn't prone to so many cheaters in the beginning, but as with all multiplayer games that get successful, this becomes a component, unfortunately. For us as developers, just like a DDoS [Distributed Denial-of-Service] attack, it's one of these things that you just have to try and be a step ahead. To be very honest with you, it's not always easy because the minute you do something, the minute you come up with something, they've come up with something else to do. The banning process is obviously delicate because we need to make sure that we ban people that deserve to be banned, if that makes any sense. If you take general figures, anywhere between 0.1% to 1% of any multiplayer crowd in a large-scale multiplayer game is cheating, and therefore, to some extent, should get a temporary or a longer, or permanent ban.

It could be a minor thing that you're trying. An aim bot that may get you a 24-hour suspension, to doing something that, frankly, means you shouldn't be playing the game anymore. So, we've put together a system. We've started banning players, and why do I know that? Because I see an influx of people trying to get to the studio, and to me. 'Oh, I didn't do anything.' We're seeing a pretty substantial change in that, but I know that we have banned probably tens of thousands of players so far, that I know. Again, we need to make sure that we get it right. That we are fair, and that, in the case where it's clear that we didn't get it right, that we can quickly remedy the situation so that player isn't affected in an unfair fashion or way.

That's why the approach should probably be a little bit more cautious than what I think some people want for that specific reason. Regardless of how cautious you are and what systems are in place, there are always people that are going to feel like they're treated unfairly that, 'I didn't do anything,' and then there are absolutely people that will get caught or that are unfairly banned that we need to deal with. We try and look at it from that perspective, but we will continue to go after people that are doing things in the game that they shouldn't do.

IGN: It sounds like there's a lot planned for the next four months, though I have seen some players dissatisfied with the roadmap. What do you say to the people who saw that four-month plan and feel like it's not enough to keep them coming back?

Patrick Söderlund: First and foremost, what I say is, I hear you. I understand what you're saying, and I would maybe even feel the same if I were you to some extent, because they don't have the details. We opted for a pretty generalized plan for now because, to be very honest, we're developing things as we go. It's a live service, and we know what we're going to do, but we don't actually know whether something that we're working on may or may not make it on time for that particular release. As we get closer to releasing something, you'll see – and I think you've seen it in our latest patch notes – they're pretty detailed. We're not trying to hide anything. We're just trying to be as transparent as we can be at this point in time, but if we get into the studio development schedule and make that public, we're probably going to be in a world of hurt.

People may or may not be as forgiving of some of the things that we are not able to deliver, but our goal is to make sure that this game gets continuous updates, that we build things that people love, and that we do it as much as we possibly can. I feel that if I paid $40 for this game, I would've felt like I'd gotten probably a decent value out of the game. We're not resting.

We did take some time off for Christmas. The team had been working day and night, so they needed, frankly, a rest. I realize that if you're a player, you probably don't care about that, but as the CEO of the studio, I have to care about those types of things and make sure that people can rest and that we are fair to the people that work there. But from the beginning of January, whenever everyone was back, we're working around the clock to deliver as much content as we can to players.

It was recently revealed that a live-action adaptation of Larian’s award-winning RPG, Baldur’s Gate 3, is on the way from prestige TV makers HBO. It somewhat makes sense at first glance — you can see the Game of Thrones of it all weaving into Baldur’s Gate’s DNA, which itself isn’t shy of a fair helping of shedding both blood and clothes. But look a little closer, and the worries begin. Not necessarily when considering Craig Mazin’s involvement (we’ll get to that later) but when noticing that, apparently, Larian will play no significant role in the show’s development. A decision I can’t help but feel would be a big mistake.

Before we get into why Larian is so essential to a show that dares to continue the story of Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s important to establish that the Belgian video game studio does not own the rights to the game’s universe, characters, or storylines. Baldur’s Gate 3 is set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons, and so is the intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro-owned tabletop RPG company. Larian’s partnership with Hasbro is over, and so Wizards can do whatever it wants with the likes of Shadowheart, Astarion, Gale, and company – whether that’s another game or, in this case, a TV show. Larian has no legal right to be involved. But that’s not to say its involvement doesn’t make sense, both in terms of simple respect for the studio’s work, and making the most of its unrivalled, extensive knowledge of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Following the show’s announcement, Larian’s director of publishing, Michael Douse, posted his thoughts on X. “I've spent the last 8 to 10 years of my life with the writers & creators of Baldur's Gate 3, and they're the most incredible storytellers & creators in the space,” he said. “Only hope is that they get both the credit deserved & the characters are represented at the same level as the game”.

As you’d expect, fans immediately took to social media to question members of Larian about the project. When asked if any of the game’s writers would be involved in the show, Baldur’s Gate 3’s director and CEO of Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, confirmed that they’re not.

Not to my knowledge. But Craig did reach out to ask if he could come over to the studio to speak with us. From the conversation we had, I think he truely is a big fan which gives me hope.

— Swen Vincke @where? (@LarAtLarian) February 6, 2026

“Not to my knowledge,” he said. “But Craig [Mazin] did reach out to ask if he could come over to the studio to speak with us. From the conversation we had, I think he truely [sic] is a big fan which gives me hope”.

While it seems no one from Larian, at least at this stage, will be involved in the production process, it is encouraging to see that Mazin will consult with the studio. But is this really enough? This is a studio that reignited a world, turned a cult-classic CRPG series into one of gaming’s great phenomena, and I can’t help but feel that a little more than a handful of studio visits may be required for the show to make anywhere near as big a footprint on our culture. We do know that, according to the original report on the show’s announcement by Deadline, Mazin wants to reach out to the game’s beloved cast to sound out how best to approach their roles in the TV show, and if they'd want to be involved. This is another smart step towards recapturing the magic of the game, but it will be interesting to see how those actors react to being asked to speak someone else’s words – and their feelings on the very real potential of their starring roles being given to more prolific TV and film actors.

“I genuinely don't think anyone can trump our writers”, Douse goes on to add. It’s a sentiment I agree with; no one knows those characters or that particular corner of Wizards of the Coast’s world quite like the narrative team at Larian. But, I also don’t think the game’s writers absolutely have to be part of the show’s writers room — crafting stories for video games and television are completely different arts, after all. I do, however, think that the show could do with a steady hand with first-hand experience of the tales Larian told to help steer the ship.

This isn’t to say I have no faith in Craig Mazin. Chernobyl is one of the finest pieces of television this century, and his contribution to HBO’s interpretation of The Last of Us was certainly successful in its first season, even if the jury is definitely still out on its much more divisive season two and whatever becomes of its next chapter. But the adaptation of Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic tale crucially had a strong connection to the games at the top of its call sheet: Neil Druckmann. Though the co-creator has since left the show to focus on future games, there’s no denying that his presence on HBO’s The Last of Us helped keep it tied to the vision and philosophy of the games.

A similar point can be made regarding the highly successful Fallout TV series on Prime Video. Again, a name synonymous with the games was there to root the show in the very detailed canon of such a unique apocalyptic world: Todd Howard. Indeed, Fallout may be a much more appropriate comparison to what HBO is trying to achieve with its Baldur’s Gate show, as Mazin’s project is not attempting to recreate a story one-to-one, but further building out a universe that players already love, while throwing in familiar faces and places along the way. Fallout successfully manages to tell its own story, but also gleefully expands on and references existing lore to great effect. That is, presumably, what the Baldur’s Gate show hopes to achieve, too.

I don’t think there’s much doubt that both The Last of Us and Fallout have been two of the most successful attempts at translating a video game world to the small screen, so it just makes sense to me to follow that established blueprint and consult Larian on what makes its world so special. I have no doubt that Mazin is a huge fan, and he can certainly write top-tier television, but in order to make sure that this continuation of Baldur’s Gate 3’s story holds the same magic as the genre-defining RPG does, it would be foolish to not involve the Belgian studio in some way. Don’t let the magic those teams concocted over the past decade disappear into the air – there’s simply no need to create it all from scratch once again.

Don't abandon hope, but do expect the world. That's the job.

— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) February 6, 2026

“Don’t abandon hope, but do expect the world. That’s the job”, are Douse’s final words, at least for now, on the announcement. And they ring true. Larian has set the bar incredibly high when it comes to telling stories in this world, and it would certainly be a risky dice roll from HBO to proceed without the modifier of the studio being there to help guide the process.

Time will only tell, though, on how much Larian ends up being involved in the Baldur’s Gate show. But with Mazin still gearing up to start shooting the third, and now likely final, season of The Last of Us, it certainly seems we’re a few years away from knowing how successfully it will follow in the footsteps of the game. For now, I live in hope. But then again, I’m somewhat of a doomed optimist.

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.

Nioh 3 has only been out a few hours, but it's already the biggest Nioh game on Steam ever.

While its two predecessors — called Nioh and Nioh 2, predictably enough — did eventually make it to Steam, the PC releases came several months after the PlayStation debuts.

Now, however, arriving on Steam on release day in parity with its PlayStation version, Nioh 3 is already the biggest Nioh game in the franchise's history, with over 54,400 concurrent players at the time of writing (and rising the entire time I'm writing this). By comparison, according to SteamDB, the first game only reached a peak of around 10,649 concurrents, and the sequel reached 41,325.

"Nioh 3 delivers best-in-class combat that revitalizes the established formula with a fantastic split between Samurai and Ninja styles, as well as a triumphant move to an open-world structure," we wrote in IGN's Nioh 3 review, which returned an 'Amazing' 9/10.

"Even in a genre that’s become as saturated as the soulslike, there’s still nothing that hits quite like the Nioh series, and Nioh 3 stands out as the best of the trilogy. The move to an open world structure isn’t perfect, but the rewarding exploration, gorgeous landscapes, and thrilling optional boss battles mostly cover any minor issues.

"Strap on top of that best-in-class combat, hugely customizable build crafting, a lengthy campaign with a deep New Game+ mode where the loot system actually shines, and a godsend of an auto-equip feature before you get there, and you’ve got yet another Team Ninja banger that sits at the top of the soulslike genre," we said.

Nioh 3 is out today (February 6) on PC via Steam and PS5, but the game's latest trailer suggests Xbox and possibly Nintendo Switch 2 owners may not have to wait long for a version of their own. Don't forget that you can try before you buy with a demo and yes, your progress carries over to the full game.

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.

The news yesterday that HBO is not only making a Baldur’s Gate 3 TV show but that it will continue the story on from the video game itself has sent shockwaves through the internet.

The adaptation will reportedly take place after the events of Larian's much-loved RPG and feature characters from the game. Craig Mazin, who created HBO shows Chernobyl and The Last of Us, is in place as showrunner (it sounds like The Last of Us will end with Season 3, which now makes a lot of sense). Chris Perkins, the former longtime Head of Story at Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, which owns the Dungeons & Dragons universe in which Baldur’s Gate 3 is set, will serve as consultant.

It’s fair to say the internet has reacted strongly to the news, and from what I can see much of that reaction is a mix of disbelief and concern. Most can’t fathom why anyone would want to continue on from the events of Baldur’s Gate 3 itself, given its many different endings, variances in world state, and, most importantly, the vastly different outcomes for characters such as Astarion, Karlach, and Shadowheart.

There is also significant concern at the fact that Larian, the developer of Baldur’s Gate 3, is not consulting on the show. This was confirmed in a tweet from Larian boss Swen Vincke, who went on to say that Mazin has asked to visit the developer for a chat. “From the conversation we had, I think he truly is a big fan which gives me hope,” Vincke said, perhaps diplomatically.

Vincke went on to offer his thoughts on the show:

“Crazy that a story that started out in a small hotel conference room eventually evolved into a narrative inspiring enough for it to become a HBO series,” he said. “We worked incredibly hard on making Baldur's Gate 3 worthy of its legacy. Its characters and narratives are the result of many teams working together and I think I can speak for them all in saying that they'll think this is cool and hope that what comes next will enjoy the same level of passion.

“The endings of BG3 were created so they could serve as narrative soil for new adventures. There's plenty of directions they could go. I'm eager to find out which ones Craig and his team will pick. He's reached out for a chat so we'll have the opportunity to tell him our thoughts.

“Crossing fingers that the story we're cooking up for Divinity will eventually grow to the same heights. Certainly putting in the hours :)”

Larian publishing director Michael Douse, however, was initially less diplomatic as he "crashed out" on social media, retweeting a number of memes and responding to others. But he then offered a more level-headed view:

“I've spent the last 8-10 years of my life with the writers and creators of Baldur's Gate 3 and they're the most incredible storytellers and creators in the space,” Douse said. “Only hope is that they get both the credit deserved and the characters are represented at the same level as the game.

“I genuinely don't think anyone can trump our writers. Our stories are built by fierce camaraderie and resolve. I have watched them write and write and write and through respect for audience and material come up with some of the finest shit i have ever played. I hope TV allows for the same thoroughness.

“Don't abandon hope, but do expect the world. That's the job.”

Hope ur ok now

— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) February 6, 2026

pic.twitter.com/COuTyq44Nc

— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) February 6, 2026

Pissed in ur corn

— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) February 6, 2026

HBO and Wizards of the Coast’s approach with Baldur’s Gate 3 is in stark contrast to that of Amazon and Bethesda’s for Fallout. With Todd Howard leading the charge, Bethesda is heavily involved in the creation of the smash hit Fallout TV series, which has been praised by fans for nailing the Fallout universe, tone, and aesthetic. The Fallout TV series also avoids the pitfalls of retelling the story of an existing game, nor does it feature main characters from any of the games. Instead, it’s set after the events of all the Fallout games, bringing in new characters and telling new stories, while returning to fan-favorite locations (New Vegas etc).

There will be intense scrutiny on the casting choices for Baldur’s Gate 3. The video game’s characters have become part of the culture, instantly recognizable online, and their actors as high-profile as those in the space get. The idea of an Astarion played by someone other than Neil Newbon, for example, seems almost ridiculous.

HBO at least knows what an online backlash to a video game adaptation looks like. While Season 1 of The Last of Us was a huge hit and, generally speaking, went down very well with fans, Season 2 has been a mixed bag. Mazin himself has spoken openly about this backlash. Ellie actor Bella Ramsey told those who hate The Last of Us that they can play the video game instead. Meanwhile, Naughty Dog chief Neil Druckmann left The Last of Us ahead of Season 3 to focus on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.

It seems early days for Baldur’s Gate 3, so we probably won’t know anything concrete about it for some time. Until then… Timothée Chalamet for Astarion?

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.