Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson opens his talk at DICE Summit 2025 by talking not about success, but about one of Diablo’s most high-profile failures: Error 37.

Error 37 was an error that appeared to players at the launch of Diablo 3, preventing them from accessing the game due to extremely high numbers of players all trying to join at once. The issue, which impacted massive amounts of players, resulted in widespread criticism of Blizzard’s handling of the launch, and even became meme-ified. Blizzard eventually fixed the error and Diablo 3 was ultimately (with a lot of time and work) a success.

But understandably, Blizzard and Fergusson have been eager to avoid anything like that ever happening again, especially as Diablo evolves into a more complex live service endeavor than it’s ever been before, with frequent small updates, ongoing seasons, and major expansions planned at regular intervals. Diablo 4, moreso than any of its numbered predecessors, has embraced live service.

Another Error 37, or something like it, would be catastrophic. Especially if Blizzard wants Diablo 4 to persist beyond its major content releases: a true live service juggernaut.

Diablo, Immortal

At DICE Summit 2025 in Las Vegas, I spoke with series general manager Rod Fergusson following his talk entitled: “Evolving Sanctuary: Building a Resilient Live-Service Game in Diablo IV.” On stage, Fergusson covered four key components to ensuring the resilience of Diablo 4: successfully scaling the game, keeping the content flowing, not getting too attached to purity of design, and keeping players updated on what’s coming at the expense of surprising them.

Throughout his talk, Fergusson reiterated the team’s goals of keeping players around regularly, consistently, and for the long haul. His descriptions of content roadmaps and seasons-ahead planning is a stark contrast to past numbered Diablo games - while the series is certainly no stranger to expansions and updates, Diablo appears to be committing to a live service trend that’s seeing massive AAA games stick around for much longer and change more rapidly and significantly than they ever have before, rather than leaning on new, numbered releases every few years.

So I asked him what the plan was: is Diablo 4 eternal, or rather, immortal? Is there a marker Fergusson is looking for to know when it’s time to move on to Diablo 5, or will Diablo 4 simply be the Diablo forever, similar to Blizzard’s endlessly popular MMO World of Warcraft?

Maybe not forever, Fergusson replied. But certainly for a very long time, if he has his way.

“We want it to be around for years,” he said. “I don't know if it's eternal. I think Destiny tried and did that like, ‘This is a ten-year game,’ and then they quickly were not. We want people to see the road ahead, because we know that, to play a Diablo game, you're probably putting hundreds of hours in and we want people to know that we're respecting their time and that we're not just here and gone.”

Fergusson reminds me that there was over a decade between the release of Diablo 2 and 3, and another decade between Diablo 3 and 4. Granted, neither of these games had anything near the aggressive update cadence that Diablo 4 is planning. But they also didn’t have Fergusson at the helm, as he joined in 2020 after years of leading the Gears franchise. And Fergusson, for his part, believes in looking ahead…but not too far ahead.

For instance, Fergusson announced in that same DICE Summit talk that Diablo 4’s second expansion would not be arriving until 2026. Despite originally planning for an expansion a year, the team’s timeline for Vessel of Hatred was extended when they moved staff working on the expansion onto necessary, immediate updates to the live game when Diablo 4 launched, and again when the first season dropped. There were 18 months between the launch of Diablo 4 and Vessel of Hatred, not 12 as planned. But when I ask Fergusson if 18 months is the new normal for expansions, he’s not willing to commit to a specific time frame. He knows better now.

“I learned my lesson about calling the shot too early. So I think giving, ‘Hey, you can relax for the next 11 months,’ is about as far as I want to go in this right now…We're not at a place where we want to put a stake in the ground and call it. Because we're still building it and learning from it…Our process is generally that we get internally to a place where we have the certainty to make a call, and then you get to a place where you publicly want to make that call. We're not at the public part yet.”

Ruining the Surprise…on Purpose

Fergusson’s caution is warranted here, especially as his team prepares to be more transparent than ever before about their future plans. Part of that is the aforementioned content roadmap, due to be shown off in April. Another element is the Public Test Realm, or PTR, where players who opt in can play through a version of upcoming patches before it’s pushed live to the wider public. Fergusson says in his talk that the team initially struggled with the decision to use features like a PTR or content roadmaps, for fear of spoiling the surprise for players. But he’s overcome that fear.

“You just realize that it's better to ruin the surprise for 10,000 people so that millions of people have a great season,” he said during his talk. “And even if you mess up PTR, even if whatever you're offering to them in the mechanics is bad, I would much rather have a bad week of a PTR than a bad three months trying to recover from putting in something that we were surprising players with and it turned out to be wrong.”

“You can get really spun up on it,” he added to me later in our conversation. “And we've had it in the early days. We're like, ‘Oh, this got data mined, people know this.’ Okay, how many people saw it? And it’s on this Reddit thread, and there’s probably 8,000 people there. But we are going to have millions of people. So at the end of the day, it’s okay. We haven’t ruined the surprise for everybody.”

One challenge Fergusson’s facing now is that he wants to offer the PTR to more people, via consoles. Right now, players can only access the PTR via Battle.net on PC, which Fergusson says is due to certification challenges and the general difficulty of releasing new builds on consoles. But he says it’s something Blizzard is investing in, now with the support of parent company Xbox.

Another perk of Xbox, he says, is Diablo 4’s presence on Game Pass. Put simply, it lets Diablo amass as many players as possible. He compares it to why Blizzard decided to release Diablo 4 on Steam in addition to Battle.net - it was simply a matter of reaching more people.

“One of the things that's different from when you think of a live service that's behind a pay gate, like a premium live server, which is what Diablo is, versus a free-to-play live service like Diablo Immortal is, there's an opportunity easier to grow Immortal because there's no barriers to entry, right? Whereas, buying the boxed product or buying the main game is a barrier for some. So that's what Game Pass gets rid of, that barrier. You have this opportunity where you can see new Game Pass players coming in all the time, because they're just like, ‘Oh, I just got Game Pass. Oh, cool, that's in there?’ And off they go. So it is interesting in terms of sustaining continued new players.”

All Hours Diablo

As we wrap up our conversation, I ask Fergusson about what he’s been playing lately, in hopes of getting a grip on what he’s inspired by. I ask if he’s picked up Path of Exile 2, and how he feels about people comparing it to Diablo 4. Fergusson disagrees with the comparison. “They’re very different games,” he says.

But he’s still trying to keep folks who love both games in mind for future updates. “A lot of people actually tell us, ‘do what you're going to do, but just do us a favor and don't line up your seasons over top of each other. Let me play one season for three weeks and let me play another season for three weeks. Don't make me have to pick and choose.’ So I get that. As a person who plays lots of games, I totally understand that.”

So what is Fergusson playing right now? He tells me his top three games of 2024 by playtime. In third place, NHL 24. In second, Destiny 2.

And in first, no surprises here, it’s Diablo 4. He has 650 hours of Diablo 4 playtime on his home retail account alone, not counting work time. He tells me he’s currently playing Companion Druid, but he also just rolled a Dance of Knives Rogue. He just loves Diablo that much. Always has.

“It's something about the habit of the game,” he says. “I get interrupted from- I'm halfway through Cyberpunk, I'm halfway through Witcher 3, I'm halfway through Space Marines 2000. I get to these points where I am into a non-service game, then I get distracted by something shiny. But I have this habit of, I got to go do my daily in NHL to go open my free pack of cards, and I have to go play with my brother in Destiny 2 because this is what the game we play together on. And then I just...The reason I came to Diablo five years ago was because it was my favorite game to play. So just because I work and I work doesn't stop me from going home and playing it for hours and hours too.”

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.

Looking for a new board game to bring to game night? Amazon's offering a great discount right now on strategy game Red Rising, based on the books by Pierce Brown, that's worth picking up for your collection. It's currently on sale for just $10.99, 54% off its list price of $24. That's only a couple dollars more than its lowest price that it hit over the holiday period last year, according to price tracker camelcamelcamel, so if you've had your eye on it now's a great time to scoop it up.

Stonemaier Games: Red Rising Board Game for $10.99

Last year, Asus debuted its 16-inch Zenbook to great acclaim. When I reviewed the Zenbook S 16, I awarded it top marks for all but heat, crowning it as one of the best ultrabooks of the year so far. With the Zenbook S 14, Asus has shifted from Team Red (AMD) to Team Blue (Intel), addressed the heat issue, and once again delivered one of the best premium Windows ultrabooks available today.

Asus Zenbook S 14 – Design and Features

The Zenbook S 14 shares a lot of DNA with its larger sibling. It’s clear that they’re both from the same product line as, aesthetically, the only difference is the S 14’s smaller screen. This, in my opinion, is a wholesale win because this year's Zenbooks have been some of the best-looking laptops to release in years. There are a number of changes under the hood, however, that make this a compelling option and, at least in one core way, a significant upgrade over the AMD-bearing S 16.

Starting with the fit and finish, Asus really deserves kudos for the new direction it went with the new Zenbook series. The S 14 has the same Ceraluminum lid as the S 16 and it's just as striking as before. This new lid is a composite of ceramic and aluminum alloy and has a silky-smooth texture that's impressively resistant to fingerprints. It's criss-crossed with diagonal stripes that catch the light and gleam with their glossy finish. It's elegant, eye-catching, and unique, allowing it to stand out from the masses of other gray, black, and silver productivity laptops.

The entire frame is made of metal and feels durable and premium. Open it up and you'll find the same on the keyboard deck, as well as the intricately CNC-milled vent just below the screen. Each circular recess has two miniature circles offset from one another. Asus claims this helps improve airflow and cooling and I have no reason to doubt that; however, it also seems clear that this was a design decision intended to elevate the appeal and premium nature of the laptop.

The S 14 is available in either gray or white colorways – sorry, Zumaia Gray or Scandinavian White. I was sent the white version, a nice change from the gray S 16 I tested. They both look great in their own way; however, the white version has that extra something that’s reminiscent of Apple and I very much enjoy it.

Internally, it appears this model is only available in a single configuration. Our sample was sent with the following specs:

When it comes to specs, the Zenbook S 16 is no slouch. It uses the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor, the most recent generation of Intel's AI-enabled processors, code-named Lunar Lake. It's a significant advancement over the first generation of Core Ultra processors in both performance and power efficiency and is more than up to the task of any productivity application you would care to throw at it. It's even able to take on content creation in the form of photo editing and even some video editing. That said, video editors will still be better served by a notebook with a dedicated graphics card or Apple’s latest M4 processor.

Still, the S14 is nothing to shake a stick at. Its 32GB of LPDDR5X memory is more than enough to handle web browsing, the Microsoft office suite, the Google suite, and the majority of the most popular photo and video editing software in use today. Unfortunately, it’s not upgradeable (as is usually the case with such thin, lightweight notebooks), so if you anticipate needing more than 32GB, the S 14 probably isn’t the best choice for you. It also comes with a large, 1TB nVME SSD, so you can store all of your projects and important files without resorting to the cloud or an external drive right away.

It also offers expanded connectivity with an array of ports that exceeds most other ultrabooks. It features dual USB-C ports, Thunderbolt 4, each spec’d to 40 Gbps and capable of DisplayPort and power delivery for charging. There is a full-size USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, which is handy for connecting a flash drive, an HDMI 2.1 port for full-speed video output, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack. While you will still receive much better connectivity with a full-size laptop, this is a welcome expansion that improves its usability in different scenarios.

The screen is downright gorgeous. It uses Asus's Lumina OLED technology and is exceptionally color rich, detailed, and accurate. It has a very crisp 2,880 x 1,800 (3K) resolution, which translates to 243 pixels-per-inch (PPI) for an impressively sharp image. It also excels up to 120Hz for smooth motion both in games and on long websites and documents. Like a smartphone, it can be set to change the refresh rate dynamically to save on battery or locked to either 60Hz or 120Hz to match your preference.

It's a good choice for entertainment as well as productivity for this reason alone, but it also packs an impressive pair of speakers. Given its small size, you wouldn't expect to have the level of volume that it does, nor its surprisingly full-bodied sound. While it won't replace a good pair of speakers (it does distort a touch at its highest volumes), it's perfectly fine for watching videos or even playing single-player games.

For typing and mousing, it features an impressive keyboard. The aluminum deck is firm and didn’t flex under my hammering keystrokes. The keys have been designed to offer 1.1mm of key travel, which is noticeably deeper than many other chiclet-style keyboards. They also have a defined bump when pressed and have a crisp bottom out that makes it a pleasure to type on.

The S 14 also brings back the oversized glass touchpad from the S 16. Measuring 5 x 3 inches and centered on the bottom of the deck, it’s positioned directly underneath your thumb anytime you’re using the keyboard. It feels good to use and is reliable with the bare minimum of misclicks. Like last time, it uses integrated buttons with tactile feedback so you can easily tell when clicks are registered. There are also touch controls along the top and sides to control brightness, scrubbing video timelines, and adjusting volume. These can be disabled inside the software, though they're not difficult to get used to and proved to be very convenient in my testing.

Asus Zenbook S 14 – Software

As with the ZenBook S 16, the S 14 uses MyAsus for all of its configuration options. This software suite is designed to be easily accessible even if you’re not computer savvy, so don't expect overclocking options or highly-detailed system monitors, though it does provide basic readouts for CPU use and temperature, battery level, memory usage, and available storage.

The software is broken into several different tabs for easier navigation. The main Home tab provides the aforementioned information as well as one-click options to run diagnostics if you find the system is encountering performance issues. It also provides the warranty date, so you can tell ahead of time if you’re covered by its warranty or not.

The majority of its core settings are found within the Device Settings tab. This page is broken into three scrollable categories: Power & Performance, Audio & Visual, and Input Device Settings. Power and Performance details battery options, fan profile, which is essentially the device settings tab, and how much memory is dedicated to the integrated GPU.

The Audio & Visual tab provides options for the noise canceling microphone and speakers, and EQ settings (including custom EQs through the Dolby Atmos app). To customize the screen, it provides a handful of different modes that include sRGB, Display P3, and DCI-P3, as well as normal and Vivid color modes, a color temperature slider, and a blue light filter. There’s also a Tru2Life settings which is supposed to intelligently adjust sharpness and contrast of video content to increase clarity and a Target Mode that darkens everything but your active window to protect the OLED panel. You can also toggle several different OLED care settings and choose between a dynamic refresh rate or locking the screen to 60Hz or 120Hz.

Finally, the Input Device Settings tab houses all of the options for the touchpad and keyboard. This is where you can enable or disable the touchpad or the keyboard's backlight. Choose how the function row operates and decide whether you want to keep or disable the Smart Gestures on the top and sides of the touchpad.

One area that I especially like for mainstream users is the System Diagnostics tab on the left. Clicking this takes you to a menu that allows you to do a one-click system checkup, targeted problem diagnosis for each of the laptop’s systems (memory, battery, SSD, etc.), or to do a checkup based on different use scenarios. For example, if your computer is running sluggishly, you can simply use the checkup option under “Slow System” and the appropriate diagnostic will run. The available scenarios cover the most frequent issues you might encounter. While power users will likely know their way around diagnosing different issues, if you are coming to this laptop purely from a productivity standpoint, these options provide a helpful gateway to diagnose and solve performance issues you might encounter.

The biggest issue I have is that the software will sometimes demand updates without allowing you to adjust settings. It can be quite frustrating to sit down to work and just want to change your power setting, only for the system to force you to do a BIOS update before you can even toggle a single option. Thankfully, this doesn't happen often, but it has happened frequently enough that I dread having to open the software just in case.

Asus Zenbook S 14 – Performance

The Zenbook S 14 is a fantastic laptop if you value portability and don’t want to sacrifice performance. Its Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor is a tiny powerhouse for productivity, entertainment, and general day-to-day use. It even offers relatively good gaming performance as long as you're willing to adjust the resolution and settings accordingly.

The first generation of Intel Core Ultra processors caught a lot of flack, and understandably so, but I'm happy to report that most of those issues have been addressed with this latest generation. The processor offers snappy performance and, thanks to its fast memory and storage, that applies across the board. I’ve been using the S 14 for around two months and haven’t encountered a single situation where it felt laggy or unreasonably slow. On the contrary, it has felt consistently high-performance for its price point. If anything, it over delivers.

While that might seem like high praise, I assure you that it's deserved. Assuming you can get on with its smaller form factor, it's hard to find much fault with this system. Unlike the Zenbook S 16, its larger AMD-bearing counterpart, it doesn't get exceptionally warm to the touch. It doesn't get loud either, even under full load (although it does get louder). Its screen looks just as gorgeous, if not slightly more so thanks to its higher pixel density. The build quality is fantastic, and the Ceraluminum lid is just as good here as it was on the S 16. In fit, finish, and performance, it knocks it out of the park.

As seen in the benchmarks above, it offers great performance in the majority of cases. It excels well beyond the Snapdragon X Elite in the Surface Pro 11 and is natively compatible with all standard Windows apps. The presence of a physical GPU offers major benefits to gaming frame rates and rendering benchmarks, but at the expense of weight and heat. I’ve included those results here to show what’s possible in the thin and light form factor if you care more about fps and less about unplugged battery life. (For that, check out our list of the best gaming laptops.)

The most interesting comparison is against AMD’s equally AI-centric competitor, and the results are good for Intel. The Core Ultra 7 258V trades blows with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, winning across the board in 3DMark’s synthetics as well as a handful of games. In others, the HX 370 pulls ahead. The AMD processor does have a significant advantage in games that support AMD Fluid Motion Frames (i.e. frame generation). When I initially tested the laptop, that feature wasn’t supported yet, but it is now, so certain games will indeed play better – with a caveat. AFMF works best when you’re able to maintain a high enough base frame rate to begin with (45-60 fps minimum), so real world performance is going to vary game by game.

When it comes to gaming, it's best approached like a handheld. That might sound counterintuitive, but the same principles apply since it's using an integrated GPU. This means leveraging power by turning the laptop onto its highest performance mode and plugging into a wall outlet if at all possible. It also means dropping the resolution 1200p – which still looks great on its display, and brings many games to playable frame rates – as well as adjusting graphics settings and using Intel XeSS upscaling whenever possible. Even with those considerations, you might be surprised at how well it runs games while still maintaining strong visuals.

Or, you could game over the cloud. Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming both work very well. GeForce Now is especially good, with crisp visuals, 120Hz gameplay, and a large, ever-expanding library of supported games.

Tying it all together is the Zenbook S 14’s outstanding battery life. In synthetic testing using the PCMark Modern Office Battery Test, I was able to log upwards of 16 hours of uptime at 50% brightness. If you’re mainly watching video and doing lower intensity tasks, that can reach to around 20 hours. In real-world use running at 80% brightness with near-constant internet use, I averaged around ten hours. That’s upwards of a full work day without much regard for battery conservation. That’s impressive.

The developer and publisher of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 have insisted they’re not trying to turn the game into a “full live service” after a backlash to community events described as promoting “FOMO.”

FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is a tactic often used by live service game developers and publishers to encourage rapid engagement and spending on virtual items that are released for a limited time. The suggestion with these sorts of events is that if players do not obtain the items while they’re available now, then they will lose the chance forever.

This practice is often criticized for creating an unhealthy relationship between a video game and its community. In 2021, new research commissioned by the UK’s GambleAware charity said many games use a "psychological nudge" to encourage people to buy loot boxes - such as the fear of missing out on limited-time items or special deals.

Space Marine 2 does not contain loot boxes, of course, but it does have community events that were recently introduced as a way to unlock coveted cosmetics. And it’s these community events that have triggered a backlash, with some applying the dreaded “live service” label to Space Marine 2.

In a post addressing the complaints, Space Marine 2 publisher Focus Entertainment and developer Saber Interactive admitted the community events had received “cold feedback” since their introduction, and “we saw that many of you mentioned FOMO generated by the events.”

But the companies promised all the items made available in these events will be released again later, for everyone. Here’s the statement:

We have noted that the Community Events have received cold feedback since we introduced them as an additional way to unlock cosmetic items. We saw that many of you mentioned FOMO generated by the events. Rest assured, we are not looking to transform Space Marine 2 into a full live service game. The items available through events WILL be available later, for everyone. We want Community Events to be a way to unlock the items in advance, for the most dedicated players, and not to be a source of frustration and stress for everyone.

However, that means we must provide a smooth experience in unlocking said items, which has not been the case so far. We deeply apologize for the trouble, and are currently working on a simplified process to unlock the items, to make the experience less constraining.

To that end, Focus Entertainment is giving away the much-wanted emblem-less Mk VIII Errant Helmet for free to all who link their PROS account (Focus Entertainment’s account system) to Space Marine 2. This helmet is a part of the Imperial Vigil community event that ends on March 3, and was previously only available to those who achieved a victory with each of six classes in Operations Mode by the end date.

Space Marine 2 players are currently awaiting its 7.0 update, which is set to add a new weapon, a new Operations map, and PvE Prestige Ranks. Last month, Focus and Saber addressed growing frustration over a lack of content and outlined what players can expect from Space Marine 2 in the coming months.

Space Marine 2 enjoyed a record-breaking launch late last year, eventually shifting 5 million copies while becoming the fastest-selling Warhammer video game of all time.

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.

Microsoft has confirmed plans to shut down Skype in May and replace it with a free version of Microsoft Teams.

Confirmation comes at a time when the likes of WhatsApp, Zoom, FaceTime, and Messenger dominate communication via voice over IP (VoIP), consigning direct calls to cellphones from the likes of Skype to the history books.

As reported by The Verge, current Skype users will be able to log into the Microsoft Teams app and have all their content (message history, contacts etc) available without the need to create another account. Meanwhile, Microsoft will phase out domestic or international call support.

Skype users also have the option of exporting their Skype data, including photos and conversation history, and Microsoft has made a tool to help those who don’t want to move to Teams view their current Skype chat history.

You have 60 days to decide, as Skype goes offline from May 5. Either way, Microsoft will honor existing Skype credits, but will no longer offer new customers access to paid Skype features that let you make or receive international and domestic calls.

What’s truly lost with the Skype shutdown, then, is the ability to make calls to cellphones. Speaking to The Verge, Microsoft said that while telephony functionality was useful at the height of Skype’s popularity, it is now less so.

“Part of the reason is we look at the usage and the trends, and this functionality was great at the time when voice over IP (VoIP) wasn’t available and mobile data plans were very expensive,” said Amit Fulay, vice president of product at Microsoft. “If we look at the future, that’s not a thing we want to be in.”

Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion back in 2011, saying at the time the deal was about “deepening the company’s longstanding focus on real-time video and voice communications, and providing new market opportunities serving Skype’s 160-plus million active users.”

At one point Skype became an important part of all Windows devices and was even touted as an Xbox console selling point. But, by Microsoft’s own admission, the Skype userbase has been flat in recent years. The focus now is on Microsoft Teams for consumers.

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.

Streaming Wars is a weekly opinion column by IGN’s Streaming Editor, Amelia Emberwing. Check out the last entry Severance May Have Just Laid the Groundwork For the Greatest Betrayal Yet

This column contains spoilers for Severance Season 2, Episode 7.

I try to avoid column entries focusing on the same show two weeks in a row, but Severance has been on one lately so we’re absolutely headed back to Lumon this week.

“Chikhai Bardo” takes us back in time (sometimes), weaving flashbacks with what appear to be current events as we learn about Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and Mark’s (Adam Scott) relationship alongside Gemma’s fight to free herself from Lumon. On our journey with the two, we learn about her miscarriage and their subsequent struggles to conceive even after consulting with a fertility clinic. But, while the glimpse into their past lives makes us feel closer to Gemma, it’s what’s happening in the (presumed) present that blows the lid off things.

While we knew Gemma was alive, we weren’t sure how or to what extent. Her presence at Lumon indicated that perhaps it was only her Innie’s brain that survived, but we never knew how she had an Innie persona to begin with. Additionally, the episode’s title gives us hints as to what might actually be going on while also potentially adding more questions, and we may be closer than ever to learning what the hell is going on with Miss Huang (Sarah Bock).

Buckle up, we have a lot to talk about.

What Does Chikhai Bardo Mean?

In the episode, Gemma and Mark briefly talk about a set of cards. It doesn’t go well.

“Chikhai Bardo… it looks like two guys fighting,” Mark quips.

“No, it’s the same guy fighting himself, defeating his own psyche. Ego death,” Gemma responds. She adds later that she "thinks she got onto the mailing list at the clinic.”

Mark makes fun of her for doing something he thinks is stupid, she responds in kind that he’s being an asshole, and their brief argument ends with him telling her that maybe they should just stop trying to conceive. It’s a rough moment in the couple’s life, but what’s most interesting here isn’t their fight, it’s what Chikhai Bardo actually means.

Tibetan Buddhism breaks down the cycle of existence into six states, called bardos. Each bardo represents a different stage of life, death and rebirth. Chikhai Bardo is the fourth stage — the bardo of dying. This begins when the body internally and externally senses signs that death is close and results in what is known as the “clear light of death.” The goal in the midst of the clear light of death is to maintain lucidity, but many black out during the process. Meditation and training help with the aforementioned lucidity, but ultimately it’s not something that everyone can achieve.

The above is, of course, a very brief look at this complex and layered aspect of Buddhism; I highly recommend you read up more on the subject if you’re curious, but that’s about as much as we can discuss here without getting too rabbit hole-y. It’s also important to note that the other bardos may very well have their part to play in this story as well, but more on that in a bit!

Was Gemma the First Severed Person?

The structure in “Chikhai Bardo” intentionally keeps the timeline of events muddy and difficult to follow as we experience disorientation alongside Mark, but Gemma is far from the first person severed. The severance procedure was introduced 12 years ago to the public — though recent events imply that it could have been started as early as 20 years ago in the series. Mark joined Lumon and elected to have the severance procedure done only two years prior in the show’s timeline, which means Gemma has been held hostage during that period.

However, it does seem likely that Gemma may be the first severed person of her kind. What I mean by that is the fact that she seems to have multiple severed personas. We have the most experience with Ms. Casey, who is relegated to the severed floor, but we see a new kind of severance with Gemma while she’s deeper in the Lumon facility. There, it’s not severed floors but severed rooms. We see a host of them as she walks down the hall to a room called Wellington, where she meets with her “dentist” (who is presumably playing with severance technology in one way or another), with others including Cairns, Dranesville, Siena, Loveland, and Tumwater. She then passes Rhodes immediately when she leaves with her handler (Sandra Bernhard), and eventually passes Cold Harbor — a room featuring the code name of Mark and MDR’s actual work. It’s later confirmed that Gemma has visited six rooms during the day that the episode takes place: Billings, Locknau, St. Pierre, Cairns, Zurich, and Wellington.

We see Gemma visit one final room before her daring attempt to escape: Allentown. It’s here where Robby Benson’s “Doctor” plays house with her, forcing her to write hundreds of thank you notes for fake Christmas gifts the “happy couple” recently received.

What’s most interesting on Gemma’s home floor is that it seems like different rooms may bring out different personalities even further beyond Ms. Casey and whichever personas she’s meant to be during Lumon’s experiment below the severed floor. In Wellington, she seems almost frightened, asking if she may please have a break. In Allentown, her frustration with “her partner” is evident alongside her pain. In an undisclosed room, she’s seemingly on a flight and experiencing extreme turbulence that seems likely to lead to a plane crash. Additionally, each room that we’ve followed her into includes Benson’s The Doctor, with no questions as to why she keeps meeting different versions of him. How many different ways has Gemma’s brain been severed? And what do her teeth have to do with it?

Was Gemma Ever Really in a Car Accident?

At the beginning of the episode, I didn’t think so. It was my assumption that they found Gemma through the fertility clinic and tricked her by dangling the potential of a child in front of her. However, knowing what we now do about Chikhai Bardo, I absolutely believe that Gemma was, indeed, in an accident. But I also believe that it was Lumon who caused it.

Earlier in the season, Mark also insists that he “saw the body!” when people are trying to convince him that Gemma is alive, making those cloning fan-theories seem more likely than ever. Especially given the fact that they had access to Gemma’s DNA thanks to the fertility clinic which, at this point, I feel pretty confident that they either own or partner with.

Why Is Lumon Holding Gemma Hostage?

Y’all… The possibilities feel endless at this point. What are those little freaks doing with her?

Right now, a prevailing fan-theory posits that Ms. Huang is somehow Mark and Gemma’s kid. Obviously, the math doesn’t math with there only being two years since Mark saw Gemma last, but given that we’re looking at clones, metaphysics and an all-powerful global cult, Lumon’s walking child labor violation sure does seem like she could somehow be their offspring. That would certainly answer the “to what end” aspect of the question, but not necessarily the why part of it.

But the why aspect is likely ultimately pretty mundane. As far as the outside world is concerned Gemma Scout died in a car accident two years ago, Lumon proffered a fake body, and if she (literally) resurfaced, people would start asking a lot of questions. Especially given the fact that keeping Gemma’s outie consciousness seems imperative to their research. She goes outside and you bet she’s going to tell the world what the Eagans and their cult empire are up to.

What at first seems to be a throwaway line ultimately ties everything together in a neat little bow. There are two separate scenes where Gemma notes that she has visited six rooms on her no-good-very-bad-day, and it sure does appear as if each room has a corresponding Bardo, and whatever the Eagans are up to is intrinsically tied to Buddhism and a bastardization of its tenets for their own means.

These are the six bardos:

Kyenay Bardo (Life)

Samten Bardo (Meditation)

Milam Bardo (Dream)

Chikhai Bardo (Death)

Chonyid Bardo (Dharmata)

Sidpa Bardo (Existence)

And these are the six rooms Gemma confirms she’s entered that day:

Billings

Locknau

St. Pierre

Cairns

Zurich

Wellington

Kyenay Bardo (life) explains why they need Gemma’s core personality to remain. Throughout the episode we see her doing yoga (Samten Bardo/meditation). Milam Bardo (dream) remains in question, but Chikhai Bardo (death) goes beyond her car accident and explains the near-death plane ride we saw her on, despite us not knowing the corresponding room. That leaves her dentist experience as well as Chonyid Bardo and Sidpa Bardo in question. Allentown — her thank you card nightmare with Dr. McCreepy — is not one of the six rooms corresponding to a Bardo, which feeds into the idea that it isn’t part of the experiment. The guy just wanted some extra time to be a predator.

What’s particularly interesting when it comes to the “to what end” aspect of the why is what Lumon needs her for and how the bardos play into it all. They’ve made it abundantly clear that Mark’s participation in and completion of Cold Harbor is imperative, but is Gemma there for whatever Cold Harbor is or something else entirely? Is Mark somehow killing the last vestiges of the wife he knows? Are they trying to grow an army of child laborers so they don’t have to deal with the question of Outies vs. Innies ever again? Or is it an army of clones for the same purpose? AND WHAT DO THE GOATS HAVE TO DO WITH ALL OF THIS?!

All we know at this point is that the introduction of the bardos all but confirms the longstanding theory that the master plan here involves helping Kier Eagon continue eternal life, but I suspect we’re gonna get a good amount of explanation on the “how” real soon.

Who Is the Doctor?

The Doctor, as seen in different personas for each room we’ve met him in, including Gemma’s private chambers where she bludgeons him with a chair and makes her escape, is key to everything involving Gemma. He’s in love with her, but that seems to be more of a complication that came later rather than a reason for her current incarceration.

I have no evidence to support it yet, but there’s something about this guy that just screams Eagen descendent. Perhaps much of that is tied to the fact that Eagens seem to be the only people at Lumon allowed to show emotion, or maybe it’s just because (bless you, Robby Benson) he’s got hardcore cult leader face.

Ultimately, I have no idea if this guy is anything more than just a creepy mad scientist. But I mostly just hope Gemma hits him with a chair again.

PlayStation is no stranger to releasing unique colors for its accessories throughout its 30-year history. Since the PS5 launched in November 2020, PlayStation has expanded the DualSense controller line to include 12 additional standard colors, along with a swath of limited edition controllers featuring popular PlayStation characters and vibrant patterns. Whether you're looking to replace an existing controller, add to your collection, or just want to take a trip down memory lane, we've rounded up every PlayStation 5 DualSense controller for you below in order of release date.Every DualSense Controller Color

If you're in the market for a Dualsense alternative, our guide to the best PS5 controllers features a variety of different options we've reviewed.

All Dualsense Controller Colors by Release Date

White DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 12, 2020

Midnight Black DualSense Controller

Release Date: June 11, 2021

Cosmic Red DualSense Controller

Release Date: June 11, 2021

Starlight Blue DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 14, 2022

Galactic Purple DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 14, 2022

Nova Pink DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 14, 2022

Grey Camouflage DualSense Controller

Release Date: October 14, 2022

Cobalt Blue DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 3, 2023

Volcanic Red DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 3, 2023

Sterling Silver DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 26, 2024

Chroma Pearl DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 7, 2024

Chroma Indigo DualSense Controller

Release Date: November 7, 2024

Chroma Teal DualSense Controller

Release Date: January 23, 2025

White DualSense Edge

Release Date: January 26, 2023

Midnight Black DualSense Edge

Release Date: February 20, 2025

Special Edition DualSense Controllers

In addition to the standard DualSense controller colors, Sony has also released several limited edition controllers over the over the past few years. Arguably the most popular limited-time offering was to celebrate PlayStation's milestone anniversary where it launched an entire PlayStation 30th Anniversary collection in November 2024 that included a standard DualSense controller, PS5 Slim, PS5 Pro, PlayStation Portal, and DualSense Edge controller, each sporting the iconic grey color of the original PlayStation console.

While you may still be able to get your hands on some special edition controllers, it's often well above retail as Sony only manufactures a limited amount. In addition to the 30th Anniversary collection, Sony has also released limited edition DualSense controllers celebrating the release of God of War: Ragnarok, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, the ill-fated Concord, and Astro Bot throughout the years.

Matthew Adler is a Commerce, Features, Guides, News, Previews, and Reviews writer for IGN. You can follow him on the site formerly known as Twitter @MatthewAdler and watch him stream on Twitch.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has responded to reports that she is set to retire later in 2025.

Earlier this week, Puck News claimed the veteran film producer was looking to retire at the end of her contract this year. Additionally, Puck claimed Kennedy previously considered retiring in 2024, but decided to hold off on making a decision.

While Variety reported that a source close to Kennedy called Puck’s story “pure speculation," The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the report.

Now, Kennedy has responded herself. According to Deadline, Kennedy is working with Disney boss Bob Iger on a succession plan 13 years into the job, with Star Wars Rebels creator and current Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni apparently in a “strong position” to take on the role. However, she insisted: “The truth is, and I want to just say loud and clear, I am not retiring.”

"I will never retire from movies," she continued. "I will die making movies. That is the first thing that’s important to say. I am not retiring."

While Kennedy confirmed that Lucasfilm has “every intention of making an announcement months or a year down the road” on an eventual succession, she is “continuing to stay at Lucasfilm.” That involves producing the upcoming Mandalorian movie and a Star Wars film from Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy.

It sounds like plans are very much in the works for Kennedy to step down from her current role as president of Lucasfilm, but that doesn’t mean she is leaving the company behind or retiring from the movie business.

“I’m not going to be here forever,” she said. “George [Lucas] asked me 13 years ago to step in, and now I’m looking at who’s going to replace me. And as I said, we have a bench of people internally to handle the business, the creative side. The job has grown also since I stepped in. There was no streaming, there weren’t a lot of the things that we’re involved in right now going on. So it has grown.”

AMD has finally released more information about its upcoming graphics cards, the Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070. Both the Radeon RX 9070 XT and the Radeon RX 9070 launch on March 6.

The Radeon RX 9070 XT was unveiled at CES 2025, the same time as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, though Team Red was a bit more cautious about revealing detailed information about its next-generation GPU. Now, though, AMD has released everything there is to know about these new GPUs.

Both of the new AMD graphics cards are built on the new RDNA 4 graphics architecture, which improves performance across the board, but the biggest uplift is in ML, or Machine Learning performance. This is largely thanks to new AI Accelerator units that are much more powerful than their counterparts in RDNA 3 GPUs like the previous-generation Radeon RX 7900 XT. These new AI cores are also the driving force behind FSR 4, which finally brings AI upscaling to Radeon graphics cards.

Just like DLSS, FSR 4 – short for FidelityFX Super Resolution – uses a machine learning algorithm to accurately upscale lower resolution images to your native resolution. Though, keep in mind that accuracy is the name of the game here. Because while FSR 4 is going to be much faster than rendering a game at your native resolution, any machine learning solution will have a bigger performance impact than something like FSR 3.1. We don't know how much performance will be impacted, but don't expect it to be faster than the more traditional upscaling in FSR 3.

While both graphics cards pack 16GB of GDDR6 memory, the Radeon RX 9070 XT is significantly more powerful, packing in 14% more compute units than the regular RX 9070. Combined with a higher power budget, the 9070 XT is going to be a much better fit for 4K gaming, where the 9070 will fit comfortably at 1440p. We went ahead and listed the specs below:

.

Luckily, you won't have to wait long to get your hands on one of these graphics cards. Both the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and the Radeon RX 9070 launch on March 6, starting at $599 and $549, respectively. However, because AMD is not launching a reference design, like it did with its last generation of graphics cards, you can expect prices to fluctuate drastically at launch. However, give it a couple weeks and it should calm down a bit.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra

Cosmic horror, along with sci-fi in general, is a difficult genre to get right. It thrives on the unknown, the creeping sensation that something is just out of sight, not entirely clear, itching at your reality. But, if you don't get the balance right, you'll end up with a galaxy wide narrative that's as deep as a puddle. Shroud understands this well, twisting its story in ways that leave you adrift in its dark world. It’s a book that revels in disorientation, pulling you deeper into its mysteries the more you struggle to grasp them. When it’s at its best, it makes you feel lost in all the right ways.

Shroud is an utterly gripping story of alien encounter and survival from Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Children of Time, and paints a grim and grotesque vision of the future, where humanity’s expansion into the cosmos is as much a test of endurance (and capitalist hell) as it is a descent into existential dread.

The descriptions of Shroud itself—its tendrils curling through the void, the sensation of alien briar tightening around the atmosphere—are striking. The opening chapters, in particular, are a masterclass in setting the tone, so much so that I found myself rereading them just to soak in their gnarly brilliance again and again.

Tchaikovsky’s writing heavily leans into ambiguity, using a mix of perspectives and deliberately vague language to reinforce the unknowable nature of Shroud and its horrors. The book constantly shifts, leaving you unmoored in a way that mirrors the characters’ own descent into fear and uncertainty. Alien encounters are presented in strange, fragmented imagery rather than overtly explicit detail, making them all the more unsettling.

The prose itself even feels unstable at times, as if the words are bending under the weight of something beyond comprehension. Tchaikovsky does his best at making the sci-fi elements accessible, but it’s still a style that won’t work for everyone—those looking for clear explanations or firm resolutions may find themselves frustrated at times—but it’s undeniably effective at immersing you in a world that feels utterly alien.

The characters, particularly Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne, are an interesting study in detachment. They begin as almost intentionally blank slates, their personalities stripped down to what’s necessary to survive in their assigned roles. There’s a sense that they’re meant to be shaped by their time on Shroud, and they do develop more emotion as they struggle against its horrors. Yet there's also moments they also regress, hollowed out by their experiences for the faceless corporate machine that sent them there in the first place.

The director of The Witcher 4 has clarified that a new video features the same in-game model of Ciri after some had thought her face looked different.

Yesterday, CD Projekt released a behind the scenes look at The Witcher 4’s cinematic reveal trailer, and fans noticed two brief clips that show new looks at Ciri up close.

These clips, at the 2:11 and 5:47 marks, zoom in on Ciri’s face as the camera spins around her character model. The comments are packed with fans highlighting how Ciri looks slightly different in the face in these moments that she does in the cinematic reveal trailer itself. One commenter called Ciri at the 5:47 mark the “perfect representation of an [sic] slightly older Ciri. I'm well happy! She looks fantastic!”

In the leadup to its global launch, Monster Hunter Wilds broke pre-order records on both Steam and PlayStation. It effortlessly followed in the footsteps of its extraordinarily popular predecessors, 2022’s Monster Hunter Rise and 2018’s Monster Hunter: World, achieving sales that truly cements Capcom’s unique and esoteric RPG series as one of the biggest video game franchises in the whole world.

But that wasn’t always the case. Less than a decade ago, the idea of a Monster Hunter game attaining such remarkable popularity across the globe would have seemed alien. Rewind the clock even further, back to when Monster Hunter hit the scene in 2004, and it would have seemed even more farfetched: the original game was met with mixed reviews. It wasn’t until a year later when Monster Hunter made the jump to the PSP did the series really blow up… in Japan.

That’s right. For a long time, Monster Hunter was the poster child for the “game series bigger in Japan than the rest of the world” phenomenon. The reasons for this were simple, as this story will explain, but that didn’t stop Capcom from trying to figure out how to break Monster Hunter through to the international market. And, as Monster Hunters World, Rise, and now Wilds proves, it was well worth the effort.

This is how Monster Hunter went from a domestic hit to a global force.

The developer of Palworld has given its staff the day off to play Monster Hunter Wilds.

As reported by Automaton, yesterday Japanese studio Pocketpair said on social media that it had received a number of “mysterious” notices from employees who claimed they will “probably be feeling unwell tomorrow” and unable to work.

And so, today, February 28, Monster Hunter Wilds’ official release date, is a sort of holiday for Pocketpair staff. It’s a clear nice gesture, but still Pocketpair felt the need to clarify that updates on its games would not be affected.

Monster Hunter Wilds has got off to an incredible start, with 1 million concurrent players on Steam alone. That’s enough to break into Steam’s top 10 most-played games of all-time list, ahead of best-sellers Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, and Elden Ring.

However, Monster Hunter Wilds has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, which has led to Capcom publishing official guidance for PC performance issues. Meanwhile, Capcom has announced early details for Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update 1, which is set to add an endgame social hub for players.

The impact of Monster Hunter Wilds’ launch is truly global, but it seems particularly pronounced in its home market of Japan. Automaton reported on one Japanese indie developer who took to social media to jokingly say it hadn’t sold a single game on Steam since Monster Hunter Wilds game out.

And Pocketpair has form when it comes to giving its staff days off to play games — it did the same thing back in 2022 when FromSoftware’s Elden Ring came out.

To help get your Monster Hunter Wilds adventure started, take a look at what Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t tell you, and a guide to all 14 weapon types in the game. We’ve also got a detailed Monster Hunter Wilds walkthrough in progress, a Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer guide to explain how to play with friends, and if you’ve played one of the open betas, here’s how to transfer your Monster Hunter Wilds Beta character over.

IGN’s Monster Hunter Wilds review returned an 8/10. We said: “Monster Hunter Wilds continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge.”

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.

Capcom has announced early details of Monster Hunter Wilds’ first major patch, which is due early April.

Amid the huge launch of Monster Hunter Wilds itself, Capcom detailed Title Update 1 in a post on Steam. The company said the patch’s early April release date, set to arrive a little over a month after the game itself, "will give hunters enough time to prepare for the new content, and challenges, that await them.”

To that end, Title Update 1 adds a new level of challenge: “Prepare your gear, and resolve, hunters!” Capcom said. “TU1 will bring with it a monster of formidable strength at a level above Tempered!” Meanwhile, a new challenging monster will be added with Title Update 1.

Interestingly, Title Update 1 also adds an endgame place to gather. “A new place to meet, communicate, have meals together and more with other hunters will be added to Monster Hunter Wilds in TU1!” Capcom said.

“This area will be available to hunters who have completed the main story, so get hunting and be ready!”

Early reaction to the news that Title Update 1 will add a place for endgame players to gather has been mixed, with some welcoming the addition, others wondering why it’s not in the game at launch. It sounds very much like a Gathering Hub from previous Monster Hunter games, but as some have pointed out, it’s interesting that Capcom has chosen not to call it that here. While other players can turn up in your camp, Monster Hunter Wilds lacks a true social hub, so hopefully whatever this is will fill the void.

Capcom released a few images showcasing this new place to gather:

Meanwhile, Capcom issued a Monster Hunter Wilds troubleshooting guide amid ‘mixed’ Steam user reviews.

To help get your Monster Hunter Wilds adventure started, take a look at what Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t tell you, and a guide to all 14 weapon types in the game. We’ve also got a detailed Monster Hunter Wilds walkthrough in progress, a Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer guide to explain how to play with friends, and if you’ve played one of the open betas, here’s how to transfer your Monster Hunter Wilds Beta character over.

IGN’s Monster Hunter Wilds review returned an 8/10. We said: “Monster Hunter Wilds continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge.”

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.

Capcom has issued official advice for PC via Steam players of Monster Hunter Wilds after the game launched to a ‘mixed’ user review rating due to performance issues.

The Japanese games company said Steam users should try updating their graphics driver, turning off compatibility mode, and then readjust their settings if they’re experiencing any initial issues.

“Thank you all for your patience and support!” Capcom said in a tweet.

One of the ‘Not Recommended’ Steam reviews flagged as ‘most helpful’ says Monster Hunter Wilds “has the worst optimisation I've ever seen.”

“I understand that new games are becoming more demanding and people are expected to upgrade, but this is absurd,” they said. “I'm aware this isn't the first instance of new games having poor performance on launch, because the same thing happened with World, but it feels inexcusable at this point.

“I am by no means saying the game is bad, but in its current state, you should probably consider waiting for a more stable release.”

Another negative review also focused on the game’s optimization, saying: “Absolutely atrocious performance for how the game looks. Runs even worse than the beta.”

In a bid to help Steam users improve matters, Capcom published a ‘Troubleshooting & Known Issues’ guide with potential solutions. Capcom asked PC players to follow the steps below “to rule out problems with your PC, Steam, or the game’s files.”

Monster Hunter Wilds troubleshooting and known issues guide

Troubleshooting

When the game does not run properly, please try the steps below.

1. Make sure you meet the minimum system requirements for the game.
2. Update your Video/Graphics Drivers.
3. Check for Windows Updates and ensure all of the latest programs are installed to your OS.
4. If you still experience issues, try performing a clean installation of the video driver set.
5. Update DirectX to the latest version.
   For details on how to update DirectX, please visit the Microsoft support page or Microsoft Download Center.
6. Add the game’s folder and files to your anti-virus program’s exception / exclusion list.
   Default Paths:
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\MonsterHunterWilds
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\MonsterHunterWilds\MonsterHunterWilds.exe
7. Add folder and files for Steam.exe to your anti-virus program’s exception / exclusion list.
   *Default Paths:
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe
8. Give administrator privileges to Steam.
   To run Steam.exe in administrator mode, right-click on the .exe file and select “Run as administrator.”
9. If you still experience issues, try logging into your PC in administrator mode and then run the game’s execution file (MonsterHunterWilds.exe).
10. Verify the game’s files on Steam.
    To verify your game’s files, follow these steps:
    (1) Restart your computer and launch Steam.
    (2) From the “Library” section, right-click on the game, and select “Properties” from the menu.
    (3) Select the “Installed Files” tab and click the “Verify integrity of game files” button.
    (4) Steam will verify the game’s files – this process may take several minutes.
    Important: One or more files may fail to verify. The files that fail to verify are local configuration files that should not be replaced as part of this process. You can safely ignore this message. If problematic files were detected during this process, Steam will automatically download and / or replace those files.
11. Disable Compatibility Mode for “MonsterHunterWilds.exe” if enabled.
    (1) Right click on “MonsterHunterWilds.exe” located in the following folder:
    　　C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\MonsterHunterWilds
    　　 *The above is the default location.
    (2) Go to Properties
    (3) Open Compatibility tab
    (4) Untick “Run this program in compatibility mode for:”
    If the above does not resolve the issue, please disable the Compatibility Mode for “Steam.exe” located in the folder below.
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam
12. If you still experience issues, please also try the troubleshooting steps on the Official Monster Hunter Wilds Troubleshooting & Issue Reporting Thread posted on the Steam community page as they contain more detailed and additional steps that may help resolve your issue.

Despite these performance problems, Monster Hunter Wilds is off to an incredible start, with nearly 1 million concurrent players on Steam alone. That’s enough to crack Steam’s top 10 most-played games of all-time list, and it’s only going to get bigger as we head into the weekend.

To help get your Monster Hunter Wilds adventure started, take a look at what Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t tell you, and a guide to all 14 weapon types in the game. We’ve also got a detailed Monster Hunter Wilds walkthrough in progress, a Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer guide to explain how to play with friends, and if you’ve played one of the open betas, here’s how to transfer your Monster Hunter Wilds Beta character over.

IGN’s Monster Hunter Wilds review returned an 8/10. We said: “Monster Hunter Wilds continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge.”

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.

Niantic’s augmented reality video game phenomenon, Pokémon Go, may soon find itself under new ownership — and some fans are already working to keep it from reaching this next stage in its evolution.

Long-time players of The Pokémon Company’s trend-setting mobile experience were sent into a frenzy last week when a Bloomberg report suggested that Niantic was in talks to sell its video game efforts to Saudi-owned company Scopely for around $3.5 billion. It’s a deal that could involve the trade of titles such as Monster Hunter Now, Pikmin Bloom, and, yes, Pokémon Go, with an announcement reportedly expected to arrive soon. There’s been no word on how significantly a leadership change could impact in-game mechanics and microtransactions... yet.

With Scopely in the picture, this is what we’re looking at. There goes my desire to play pogo. 😬🤬 pic.twitter.com/UKYLFV7VKX

— AmyWiedy (@Amy_Wiedy) February 20, 2025

Scopely oversees a fleet of notable mobile experiences that range from board game offshoots like Scrabble Go and Monopoly Go! to games like Stumble Guys and Marvel Strike Force. The one element scaring Pokémon Go players more than anything else is the microtransaction practices these titles are notorious for. With the real-life-adventure spinoff continuing to play a crucial part in players’ lives nine years after its release, thousands of fans are concerned that things could take a turn for the worse.

“They will still probably release Mewtwo X and Y, except you have to pay $100 just for a chance to get them,” one Reddit user theorized. “If everyone here knew what they did to Marvel Strike Force, we'd all panic. They will absolutely drive this game into the ground.”

Looking for an Everstone

Fear of Scopely ownership stems more from the aggression behind these monetization tactics rather than the tactics themselves, and it’s this same fear that drove Reddit user and long-time Pokémon Go fan Tetrylene to take action. As rumors of Niantic’s interest in a sale gained momentum, he published a post in hopes of organizing a campaign for other Pokémon Go-ers to respectfully let The Pokémon Company know that, regardless of ownership, there are certain changes they won’t stand for.

“But here’s the thing: we must try and exert some leverage,” Tetrylene’s post says. “By reaching out to (The Pokémon Company) we can express our concerns and emphasize the importance of maintaining some semblance of [the] game’s current ethos. They’ve invested heavily in the Pokémon brand and are likely to be receptive to feedback that could impact its reputation.”

That post, now more than one week old, generated 1.4K upvotes with hundreds of comments from like-minded fans. Tetrylene tells us his initiative began with a desire to bring the community’s concerns front and center. There’s no telling if the message will actually reach The Pokémon Company in a meaningful way, but he says the discussion his post has brought to the table was well worth the effort.

“In the same vein that loot boxes have all but been turned into a toxic monetisation option for the industry, I hope that our pushback sends a signal that there is absolutely a limit to how much a player base will put up with,” Tetrylene explained. “This is all very defensive, but part of me hopes that there's a chance that the new owners want to capitalise on the incredible potential of the game rather than bleed it dry. The door is wide open to both possibilities; I hope we can try and guide them towards the former rather than the latter.”

Like any one of the other millions of Pokémon fans, Tetrylene holds a few Pokémon close to his heart — his favorite is a tie between Groudon and Metagross. When he says “Gen 3 for life,” he means it. He tells us Pokémon Go has been his go-to hobby for two-and-a-half years, adding that the mobile game has also served as an excuse to meet up with friends at least once a week.

It’s blossomed into an activity that sees Tetrylene co-leading an active group of nearly 70 players. It’s led to trips to new cities — and new friends. While much of the world moved on from Pokémon Go when the honeymoon phase eventually wore off, a dedicated group of trainers continues to routinely connect with others, show off their Pokémon collection, and battle.

Type Advantage

No two players enjoy Pokémon Go in the same way, though. For every casual Pokémon Go fan there is one who has spent thousands of dollars on it.

Reddit user and a self-proclaimed Pokémon Go big-spender known as a “whale,” NextLevelEvolution, penned an open letter to Scopely amid rumors of Niantic’s potential sale. It stops short of being a call-to-action but does come with the warning that a more aggressive monetization strategy would likely “break trust with the user base” and “alter the game enough that it would no longer be considered a true Pokémon-franchise experience” by fans.

“For me, Pokémon is extremely nostalgic. And I believe Pokémon Go is in a pretty good place right now and on a generally upward trajectory for the first time in several years,” NextLevelEvolution told IGN. “At their best, Pokémon games are about adventure and discovery. When Pokémon Go first came out, the idea that I could be a Pokémon trainer in the real world was enough to get me and millions of others hooked. I hope the spirit of this game is not lost to make another quick buck.”

They say they’re aware of other whales who have spent “many thousands of dollars” per year, and “none of them are excited about the possibility of Scopely purchasing Pokémon Go.” For now, NextLevelEvolution isn’t optimistic that a community-driven movement to bar aggressive monetization tactics will gain enough momentum to make a difference, but they’re at least willing to vote with their wallet if worse comes to worst.

“I’m not particularly hopeful that this will have any effect,” they explained. “But I can tell you that if I have to pay to get rid of ads in the game, then they will lose me as a customer entirely and many other whales I know as well.”

Stay Aware of Your Surroundings

There’s debate surrounding the current state of Pokémon Go and if existence under the Scopely banner would actually result in a worse experience. Regardless of how the game has been or will be monetized, Niantic has spent nine years molding it into something that is both beloved and messy. Tetrylene has a laundry list of tweaks he’d like to see implemented that includes the ability to skip certain animations, an NPC to trade with, new points of interest, fleshed-out in-game communication options, and more thoughtful placement for raids.

The general consensus is that Pokémon Go needs some upkeep, but its most devoted fans still see the experience as a once-in-a-lifetime hobby that is as exciting as it is fragile. For them, it’s hard to look at how Scopely has monetized other titles and not see it as a threat to a fun pastime and the tool millions use to stay connected.

I’ve got mixed feelings with the news that pokémon go is being sold to scopely for $3.5 billion

it could revive the game, or we could see ourselves watching 10 second ads after spinning a pokéstop

I shit on niantic as much as the next guy but lowkey kinda worried pic.twitter.com/MOgMx3tdpk

— PoGOCentral (@pogo_central) February 19, 2025

Tetrylene hopes the momentum continues but has at least been “pleasantly surprised” by how the community has responded to their call to action. He says pulling players together in this way has resulted in some already reaching out to The Pokémon Company to make a difference. Without confirmation that Niantic is actually looking to sell, Pokémon Go remains as something Tetrylene calls “the ultimate social hobby.” What it might look like in the coming years remains a mystery.

“There will never be another game like Pokémon Go,” the community organizer told us in one final message to The Pokémon Company. “There is no other game that can truly claim to be social in the way that this one is. There may never be another game — of any genre — that fosters a global community on this scale, even after nearly a decade. There still is no other mobile game that lets you stumble through an unfamiliar place and quickly find new friends for life.”

He continued: “The prospect of losing all of this to a cold investment firm that doesn't care for any of that truly saddens me. Does the journey really end here? It doesn’t have to. Pokémon GO still has so much left to give. Let it soar.”

IGN has contacted The Pokémon Company and Niantic for comment.

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He's best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

UPDATE: Monster Hunter Wilds, as expected, has now broken through the 1 million concurrent players mark on Steam, overtaking Cyberpunk 2077 to become the seventh most-played game ever on Valve's platform. It is the first Capcom game to hit 1 million concurrents on Steam.

Next in its sights is Valve's MOBA, Dota 2, which has an all-time peak concurrent count of 1,295,114. It seems likely Monster Hunter Wilds will overtake it this weekend.

Monster Hunter Wilds is currently the second most-played game on Steam behind only Valve's own Counter-Strike 2, with an incredible 1,076,024 concurrents.

ORIGINAL STORY: Monster Hunter Wilds has enjoyed a huge launch, with nearly 1 million concurrent players on Steam.

Capcom’s action adventure game launched on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, and quickly became the eighth most-played game on Steam of all-time with an incredible 987,482 concurrent users.

To put it into context, that’s ahead of the all-time peaks of best-sellers Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, and Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s already outstripped its predecessor on Steam, where 2018's Monster Hunter World enjoyed a peak concurrent figure of 334,684.

And it’s worth noting that Monster Hunter Wilds’ actual peak concurrent figure will be much higher, given neither Sony nor Microsoft report player numbers.

The question now is how high can that Steam concurrent figure go as Monster Hunter Wilds heads into its first weekend on sale and beyond. It seems likely it will crack the 1 million concurrents mark later today, overtaking Cyberpunk 2077 in the process. Could 2 million be possible?

While Capcom is yet to announce a sales figure for Monster Hunter Wilds, all signs point to a hugely successful release. (Monster Hunter World topped 25 million sales in six years to cement its position as Capcom's best-selling title ever.) However, the game has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, with some reporting performance problems.

IGN’s Monster Hunter Wilds review returned an 8/10. We said: “Monster Hunter Wilds continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge.”

To help get your Monster Hunter Wilds adventure started, take a look at what Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t tell you, and a guide to all 14 weapon types in the game. We’ve also got a detailed Monster Hunter Wilds walkthrough in progress, a Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer guide to explain how to play with friends, and if you’ve played one of the open betas, here’s how to transfer your Monster Hunter Wilds Beta character over.

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.

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