© Future
© Future
© Future
© Future
© Shift Up
© Future
The Lego Group has forced an intrepid team of developers to shut down their impressive-looking Bionicle fan project, after eight years' work.
Bionicle: Masks of Power was set to have been an open-world action RPG inspired by Horizon: Zero Dawn, featuring the fan-favourite masked warriors from Lego's legendary toy series.
Successive trailers for the game had hyped up Bionicle fans for the release, and all looked fine from The Lego Group's side — until, in the last month, something appears to have changed.
In a blog post confirming Bionicle: Masks of Power's shock cancellation, its developers Team Kanohi said that they had recently been contacted by The Lego Group and told to shut down the project "in its entirety" and remove the game "from the public eye."
The developers said they were not given any further specifics on the decision, but speculated that Bionicle: Masks of Power had grown to the point where it was now "too easy to mistake for an official product."
A now-removed Steam page for the game was among the first search results for "Bionicle game," and despite disclaimers that it was a fan project, its developers admit the whole thing may have been a victim of its own success — and beginning to look too legitimate.
Indeed, newly-published footage meant as a farewell to the project shows a relatively polished Unreal Engine-powered experience, featuring the Bionicle characters in a lush jungle world.
Could Lego finally be preparing its own Bionicle game now, and not want Masks of Power as competition? Or, perhaps, might Bionicle be set to appear within Lego's deep integration within Fortnite, where players can make their own Lego games and worlds using Unreal Engine?
Whatever the reason, this looks to be the end for Bionicle: Masks of Power, though its development team has said it will rebrand and continue.
"Our plan is to take everything we've learned through creating Masks of Power and use that knowledge and experience as the foundation of a brand-new, original game," the developers said.
"Currently codenamed Project Rustbound, our team has already begun brainstorming concepts for a new, original world that we get the chance to build ourselves."
This will also come with a new name for Team Kanohi, as it leaves the masked Bionicle warriors behind. And that new name? Unmasked Games. After eight years and some promising progress, we'll be keeping an eye out for what the team does next.
Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear spiritual successor, Physint, is still "another five or six years" away from release.
That's according to Kojima himself, who told Le Film Francais that his aspirations to direct a movie were on hold at least until he had finished developing his first "action espionage" game since he very publicly parted ways with Konami in 2015.
"I've had so many offers since I left Konami, with serious conditions to develop games in my independent studio," Kojima said, as translated by ResetEra member Red Kong XIX. "Besides Death Stranding 2, there's also Physint in development. That will take me another five or six years.
"But maybe after that, I could finally decide to take on a film," the director said. "I grew up with cinema. Directing would be, in a way, a tribute to it. Also, I'm getting older, and I'd prefer to do it while I'm still young!"
PlayStation Studios boss Herman Hulst announced Physint back in January 2024, but since then, news has been sparse. Interestingly, at the time, Kojima alluded that it would also be a movie, but later clarified on X/Twitter that the “look, story, theme, cast, acting, fashion, sound, etc… are all at the next level of ‘Digital Entertainment’ that could be called a ‘movie.’ ”
This is one of several projects Kojima and his studio are working on, alongside Death Stranding 2 and OD. The latter is a new IP in collaboration with Xbox Game Studios, with actress Hunter Schafer and filmmaker Jordan Peele attached to the project. Kojima is also involved in A24's film adaptation of the original Death Stranding.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, is set to arrive next month on June 26 and the franchise’s star, actor Norman Reedus, recently teased a key tidbit about the future film adaptation, saying in an interview with IGN that "of course" he would play himself in the movie.
And, hot on the heels of revealing a number of discarded video game ideas and even an idea for a ‘Forgetting Game’ where the main character gradually forgets important information and abilities if you take too long a break from playing, Kojima last week revealed he had left his staff a USB stick of game ideas for after he dies.
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Marvel fans have their best look yet at the MCU Galactus after a Snapple promo revealed the design of the supervillain in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
As spotted by ComicBook.com, social media users picked up on promotional art used for the Snapple drinks brand. It shows Galactus himself towering over the Fantastic Four and the Baxter building with a level of detail we have yet to see officially. If you look closely, you can see the texture of Galactus himself, which some fans are saying gives off Death Star vibes.
New promo art for Fantastic Four: First Steps featuring Galactus for Snapple. pic.twitter.com/2J8Ykl8Oq9
— 🫧 (@suesattorney) May 18, 2025
Fans are also taking a close look at Galactus’ face here — at least, the human-looking portion of his face — to see if it’s modeled after actor Ralph Ineson, below. Most agree it does indeed look like Galactus' face is Ineson's face, if this promo accurately reflects the character we will see in the movie.
Galactus is set to arrive at the alternate Earth shown in the Fantastic Four trailers with planet eating on his mind. If this MCU version is anything like his comic book counterpart, that’s bad news for Earth and the Fantastic Four.
This latest promo reveal comes hot on the heels of last week’s Funko Pop! spoiler for The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Warning! Spoilers for The Fantastic Four: First Steps follow:
The Funko Pop figures for The Fantastic Four: First Steps include Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, Thing, Silver Surfer, Galactus, and Invisible Woman, who is paired with her and Reed’s toddler son Franklin Richards.
In the Marvel comics, Franklin is Reed and Sue Richards’ first child; their daughter Valeria would follow years later. The Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer revealed that Sue is pregnant in the movie. These collectibles suggest that either First Steps takes place over a long enough period of time to go from Sue announcing her pregnancy to Franklin being of toddler age.
And in April, eagle-eyed Marvel diehards spotted an apparent first look at Galactus via a leaked Lego set.
Fans don’t have long to wait to find out how this all plays out, with The Fantastic Four: First Steps set for release in July. We’ve got plenty to keep you going until then, including comments from Julia Garner on Silver Surfer.
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.
The following article contains spoilers for The Last of Us season 2, episode 6.
Season 2 of The Last of Us has thus far presented events in chronological order, a departure from the game’s frequent dips into non-linearity. That means there are several important flashbacks it has skipped over – fan favourites like Ellie’s birthday at the Wyoming museum and Joel singing Future Days. Thankfully they were not consigned to the cutting room floor: we got a whole bunch of them in episode six, grouped together for an hour-long look at Ellie’s past.
Three key flashback sequences from the original game were adapted for this episode. Here we’ve compared them against the original source material, analysing what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. You can see both versions in the video above, or read on below for our written explanations.
Episode six takes us back a few years to one of Ellie’s birthday’s. Now living in Jackson, she’s treated to a birthday cake and a present from Joel: the musical instrument that some folks call a gee-tar.
This is an adaptation of The Last of Us Part 2’s second scene, and so arrives much later in the story than it did in the game. The framing of the scene has been changed significantly, as in the game it was not Ellie’s birthday, rather just a random late night. After having spoken to Tommy about what he did at the end of the first game, Joel visits Ellie to bring her the guitar. The shift in framing means the environment is much darker and more somber in the game, but otherwise the events of this scene are largely identical.
We see Joel play Pearl Jam’s Future Days in both versions of the scene, and both Troy Baker and Pedro Pascal perform the song in a similar fashion. In the show Ellie urges Joel to play, while in the game Joel offers himself. The show’s version of Ellie is more animated as she listens, while the game version is more reserved and stoic. But the differences are minute; this is very clearly the same sequence. Both versions of the song end with Ellie saying “Well, that didn’t suck.”
In the game, Joel then gives Ellie the guitar and promises to teach her how to play. In the game the gift is already made obvious; this is Ellie’s birthday, after all.
Originally taking place at the end of Seattle Day 1 in the game, The Birthday Gift flashback that takes up the middle portion of this episode is a fan favourite. It sees Joel take Ellie to the Wyoming Museum of Science and History for her birthday, where she has a close encounter with a T-Rex and blasts off into outer-space (sort of). Of all the recreated flashbacks in this episode, The Birthday Gift is the most lovingly replicated. This is pretty much a 1:1 clone of what we played in the game. I do wish they’d done the pulling faces in the mirror, though.
The scene begins outside, with Ellie discovering the overgrown Tyrannosaurus rex statue and climbing up onto its head. The dialogue here is nearly line-for-line the same as in the game, and the clothing and backpacks used by both Joel and Ellie are very close matches.
The scene skips slightly ahead of the game to take Joel and Ellie to the museum’s space exhibition, which opens on a perfect recreation of the game’s orrey room. This mechanical model of the solar system functions exactly as it does in the game, with the sun orb lighting up and the planets moving through their orbits when Ellie turns the crank.
Of course, it’s the next room where the important stuff happens. There we find a great recreation of the overgrown rocket shuttle cockpit from the game. Ellie acquires her helmet in a very slightly different fashion – in the game she simply picks it up from a display, where in the show she breaks a glass cabinet to get one – but both versions remark that the helmet smells “like space and dust”.
Inside the shuttle, Joel gives Ellie the tape that contains the lift-off recording. He does so with exactly the same dialogue: “This is something that took a mighty effort to find.” The scene then proceeds into a near identical recreation of the “launch”, with the camera focused on Ellie’s face as the lighting replicates that of a space mission. The only real difference is that where the game’s camera is locked directly on Ellie’s face for the full duration of the sequence, the show sometimes uses a side angle to show the shuttle’s window and the bright light pouring in.
The final sequence of this episode recreates The Last of Us Part 2’s epilogue, and so arrives much earlier in the show than it did in the game. A flashback to the night of Ellie’s kiss with Dina and Joel’s subsequent attack on Seth, this scene sees Joel and Ellie hash out their issues and finally arrive at some kind of resolution. In the game it’s a powerful end point – a reveal that Ellie and Joel didn’t part on a bad note. It’s interesting to see that brought forward to an earlier moment in the story, where it now feels more like season 2’s farewell to Joel.
Despite the relocation, the scene remains largely the same. Ellie arrives at Joel’s porch to find him drinking coffee. The dialogue here is practically identical to the game’s script, with Joel explaining that he’s “a little embarrassed” about what he traded for the coffee. The duo proceed to discuss the same topics as they did in the game; Ellie’s complaints about Joel’s behaviour at the dance, Joel quizzing Ellie on Dina’s intentions. This all leads to the real topic at hand: what Joel did at the end of the first game/season.
While the script is broadly similar for this part of the conversation, the characters are notably more distressed in the show. The game’s tone has always been very subtle, its characters very reserved and stoic. In the show, there’s tears and broken voices from both sides. When Joel explains that, if given the chance, he’d make the same decision again, in the show he expands on those thoughts, saying that Ellie will never understand the way he loves her. He ends by saying he hopes that she’ll do better than he did, should she ever have a child of her own.
Both in the game and show, Ellie concludes their conversation by saying that she can never forgive Joel, but that she would like to try. The scene then cuts to black in the show, but there’s a little extra in the game, as Joel responds that he’d “like that”. It’s a line that actually makes the whole sequence feel a little more uplifting – a hope that things may return to “normal”, or something resembling it.
For more from The Last of Us, check out our spoiler-free season two review and our spoiler-filled review of the sixth episode.
Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor.
An eye-opening leak from the set of Avengers: Doomsday has spilled the return of a major location in the Marvel universe — and with it, the likely reappearance of a character from earlier MCU films and TV series.
Warning! Potential spoilers for Avengers: Doomsday follow:
Over the weekend, Instagram user theyneversawitcoming posted footage apparently gained from accessing the Avengers: Doomsday film set at Pinewood Studios. Within it, several glimpses of a set featuring the fictional location of Madripoor can be seen.
In Marvel comics, Madripoor is a crime-ridden city-state in Southeast Asia, home to various rogues and villains (and also Wolverine, who has spent time there). More relevantly, however, Madripoor has also featured within the MCU, in the so-so TV series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
The last time we saw the city, Sam Wilson (Antony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) were being helped there by Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp), whose character had started a life in the island's underworld after the events of Captain America: Civil War.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier's finale revealed to audiences that Carter had secretly become the supervillain Power Broker, Madripoor's defacto ruler — though she has not reappeared in the MCU since.
A return to Madripoor in Avengers: Doomsday strongly suggests Carter's arc will now continue, however, as it seems impossible that the film will feature the city without also picking up the story of its key character, more than five years later.
Hopefully this means MCU fans will now get more backstory for Carter, who has featured as a side-character in projects as far back as 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, though always as a more minor player. (Remember when Carter was being lined up as a love interest for Steve Rogers, despite being Peggy Carter's grand-niece? If so, Marvel would probably like you to forget that happened.)
Avengers: Doomsday is set for release on May 1, 2026 and feature one of the largest casts ever (Avengers) assembled for an MCU film, including the return of Robert Downey Jr., now in the iconic role of Victor Von Doom.
This latest leak follows an apparent Avengers: Doomsday set photo that revealed what looked like the grounds of the X-Mansion, also known as Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, as it appears in the Fox X-Men films, with mini-craters suggesting a big battle was taking place. It begs the question: is Avengers: Doomsday secretly an Avengers vs. X-Men movie?
A good, high-quality LEGO set is great for collectors across various ages and fandoms, and this Super Mario kit, which is now back at My Nintendo Store UK for £149.99, combines the best of both worlds.
While a set with so many bricks to put together will require quite the timesink, it will be worth the effort with this sleek memorabilia's features. We even built it here at IGN, and loved the end result.
Containing 1972 pieces, this build-and-display model is recommended for those over the age of 18, making it perfect for adult Nintendo fans who love Mario Kart.
Part of its dynamic display capabilities, the fully built Mario has posable head and arms, allowing the Mushroom Kingdom's favourite hero to sit behind the wheel however you like.
With the included stand as well, you can adjust the position of the kart at assorted angles, to simulate Mario Kart's iconic actions of drifting or simply speeding around Rainbow World.
The fully built set will sit at over eight and a half inches (or 22cm) in height, while being 12.5 inches (32cm) long and seven and a half (19cm) wide — making it a dazzling centre piece for your living room, bedroom, or gaming space/office.
While waiting to play Mario Kart World on the Nintendo Switch 2, taking a few nights to put this lavish kit together will certainly help fill the void in the meantime.
The Super Mario Kart LEGO kit can be bought with free delivery at both Nintendo UK and the LEGO store, but is immediately available from Nintendo. The LEGO store currently has units of the set available for back order, to ship slightly later on the 23rd of May.
However, buying from the LEGO store and waiting a bit longer does come with an added incentive. When placing an order over £135, the LEGO store adds a 250-piece Up-Scaled Baby Astronaut set for absolutely free, normally worth £16.99.
If you want the most value for your money whilst building your LEGO collection, the titular retailer is the way to go.
Ben Williams – IGN freelance contributor with over 10 years of experience covering gaming, tech, film, TV, and anime. Follow him on Twitter/X @BenLevelTen.
Pokémon TCG sealed products are now cheaper on the collector market than through big box retailers like Amazon. This is unprecedented in trading card game markets, but the likes of Target and Amazon now charge whatever they like for in-demand Pokémon TCG products.
However, I'll show you how to save some real money. Plus, on top of that, the single card market is crashing, so now is a great time to grab individual chase cards while prices are in free fall.
Today’s deals also include major discounts on Switch 2 accessories, a still-live preorder window for Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy crossover, and some premium gaming hardware drops.
If you’ve been holding off on upgrading your desktop setup, the latest Cooler Master and Skytech builds are down hundreds of dollars, and there’s also a 1TB Pixel 9 Pro with Google AI priced well under retail.
Even DOOM fans get a nod today with a limited edition A3 print up for preorder through IGN Store
Let's take this 151 poster collection on Amazon as a solid example. This is a $15 product that has three booster packs and three promos inside, nothing special.
This currently has a market value of around $33.24 at TCG Player, so it's a little baffling how big box retailers like Amazon can charge above what people in the market are willing to pay. But if you're desperate, it's up and available for $40+ sold and shipped by Amazon.
Unless you're dead set on grabbing the promo cards and poster in the bundle above, grabbing booster packs from TCG Player could be where it's at, or just the poster bundle in general quite honestly.
If you're not bothered about opening packs and just want 151 chase cards, here's some of my favorites as well.
It's becoming abundantly clear that buying up singles on the Pokémon TCG collector market is the way forward for trainers right now. Some chase cards that have crashed recently are cheaper than some overpriced booster bundles currently.
Some of the prices above look crazy, but some of them we're nearly double just a couple of weeks ago, with the latter 5 cards climbing higher and higher. If your heart is set on ripping open booster packs, let's get into the best way to do just that without destroying your life savings (much).
If you're desperate for some big box retailer products, here you go. Just make sure to be savvy before buying, as 9 times out of 10 TCG Player will be cheaper in this climate.
This hand-numbered A3 art print is limited to 995 copies and features Slayer in all his demon-destroying glory.
It’s printed in the UK on high quality paper, includes a certificate of authenticity, and ships in July 2025.
If you’re already excited for DOOM The Dark Ages, this is the first official piece of merch up for preorder.
Meanwhile preorders for Magic the Gathering: Final Fantasy are still up at Walmart and Amazon, specifically the Bundle and Starter Kit for retail pricing.
This is set to be the biggest MTG set in the history of the trading card game, so it's a wise choice to preorder now. You can also preorder single cards at the moment too:
I've focused on some of the more popular character appearances here, but there's plenty more to secure with this set having nearly 700 cards including Extended Art, Boarderless and Surge Foil variants.
The worst thing you can do as a Magic or FF fan is to sleep on this set, it's going to explode. These are the current biggest cards in the set before launch on June 5.
Bear in mind it's mega risky to buy before release day, as prices could plummit in the meantime. Still, it's worth keeping an eye on what's hot, and what's not!
This Humble Bundle packs nine games tied to creators with Type 1 diabetes, and your purchase supports Breakthrough T1D, formerly JDRF.
You’ll get narrative-heavy hits like Batman: The Enemy Within and The Walking Dead alongside indie favorites like Never Alone and Sam and Max Save the World.
At just ten dollars for the full bundle, it’s an easy way to support a good cause while picking up a solid collection.
Did you manage to grab a Nintendo Switch 2 preorder in? If so you'll want to protect that tarrif-dodging investment at all costs. Luckily I've got the best cases, screen protectors and thumb grips on the market right now.
TZGZTs case and screen protector bundle is great value for money at $12.84 and is a consistent best seller.
Looking for cases that will fit inside a Switch 2 dock? JSAUX has us all covered with some option alongside some premium cases and hardshells.
I've included JSAUX as i've been hands on with the products above and can't reccomend them enough.
Cooler Master’s ultra-compact NR2 Pro Mini ITX system packs serious specs into a case roughly the size of a shoebox. This build includes an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, RTX 5080 GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 2TB Gen4 NVMe SSD. It runs quiet thanks to a 280mm AIO cooler and even supports glass or mesh panel configurations. At 10 percent off, it’s a rare price drop for one of the most powerful small form-factor PCs you can buy.
This high-performance Skytech Chronos build features a Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor and RTX 5080 graphics card, giving you 4K-ready gaming with no thermal compromise. It’s cooled by a 360mm AIO and comes loaded with 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 2TB Gen4 SSD. It also includes a free gaming keyboard and mouse. With a 14 percent discount, it’s a great option if you’re looking to upgrade for modern triple-A performance.
Down to $1099.99, this F16 laptop includes an i7-13650HX processor and RTX 4060 GPU. Its 165Hz display runs at a 16:10 aspect ratio with 100 percent sRGB coverage for better color accuracy and smoother gameplay. It’s also MIL-STD-810H certified, meaning it’s built to handle everyday bumps and travel. You get strong cooling features, 512GB of Gen4 storage, and a subtle, clean design that doesn’t scream gamer when it’s closed.
Pixel 9 Pro is Google’s most powerful phone yet, and today’s deal brings the 1TB model down to $1149. That includes the new Super Actua display, upgraded triple-camera system, and a full suite of Gemini-powered AI tools. From photo editing with Magic Editor to real-time help from Gemini Live, it delivers Google’s best features with premium hardware and a slick, matte finish. It’s also unlocked for all major carriers.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
CD Projekt Red has a reputation for making special games. The Witcher 3, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, is still frequently cited as one of, if not the best, RPG ever made. Meanwhile, Cyberpunk 2077 has (thanks to some substantial upgrades) blossomed into one of the deepest, most robust examples of open-world roleplaying. These two games alone have made the studio one of the most famous and respected in the world, not to mention its other, equally fascinating releases. But what is it that CD Projekt Red does that makes its games stand apart from their peers?
While there are many elements that come together to ensure a CDPR game’s quality, it’s how the smaller pieces connect to create a coherent and convincing whole that really makes these RPGs sing. The authenticity of that whole is achieved through the story, world, and characters shifting and changing based on your choices. It’s a template that many RPG developers use, but few have succeeded in their ambitions in quite the same way as CDPR has.
“When I play other triple-A RPGs or RPG adjacent games, I very often can feel the limitations of their tools,” says Patrick Mills, CD Projekt Red’s franchise content strategy lead. “You can see the ambition of the designer and you see that the ambition is not quite delivered upon. And I think a lot of people who don't know how games are made look at that and they just say, ‘lazy devs,’ or ‘they're bad designers.’ And that's not what it is. I think, a lot of times, it's that your tools just aren't capable of delivering the thing that you want to do.”
CD Projekt Red has spent nearly as many hours making tools as it has making games. Almost all of its RPGs have been built using the company’s REDengine, a bespoke toolkit that has been designed, augmented, and iterated upon across four different versions to allow the design team to achieve its very specific ambitions. Those tools have allowed all the pieces of each game to connect, enabling a coherent experience in which players’ actions feel impactful and accounted for.
Newer versions of the REDengine have also allowed the studio to get really wild with some of its quest designs. In The Witcher, for instance, there’s broadly three kinds of objectives: exploration and investigation, dialogue-driven drama, and cutthroat combat encounters. By Cyberpunk 2077, the studio had pushed deep into the minutiae of character creation, which opened up the need for a game that supported an even wider range of playstyles, including stealth and hacking – both of which require bespoke systems. Cyberpunk’s Phantom Liberty expansion doubled down on this, resulting in quests that referenced very different genres, such as its famous survival horror-inspired optional finale. Variety, then, has been key to CD Projekt Red’s journey.
“I think especially with the RPGs that we're making, which tend to be relatively sizable, it's almost like a necessity, right?” says Miles Tost, level design lead at CD Projekt Red. “You need to find the variety in the gameplay and ways to bend the systems in a way that you create some new and fresh experiences, because otherwise players will just burn out on it.”
“With the size of these games, even [with] the best story, people will slowly taper out if the gameplay doesn't keep them engaged and refreshed,” he adds.
That’s not to say that stories aren’t an important part of CD Projekt Red’s games. Far from it. In fact the studio has a tried, tested, and proven approach to how it tells a tale in every single one of its quests. They all need a twist. A wrinkle. As Mills explains, killing the bandits who stole from a village is “boring” and “not an interesting story.” But successfully telling the story of a bandit attack isn’t just about turning an unpredictable corner – it also needs to take into account the method in which players explore that story. To anticipate that, CDPR puts every quest through “destruction testing”, in which playtesters attempt to navigate the mission in every conceivable way. With the data from that testing, quest designers are then able to re-tool missions to account for unexpected player behaviour, ensuring they support as many solutions as possible. The result is a more natural-feeling storyline that authentically responds to your choices.
Choices in video games are complicated. Cyberpunk’s open-ended nature means that every single body modification purchased, weapon looted, and skill point invested can change the way a player interacts with the world, and so a huge amount of possibilities must be accounted for – everything from stealth to brutality to diplomacy to the inevitable player-divised tactics that take developers by surprise months after release.
But such decisions are not the choices that CD Projekt Red is famous for. Rather, the studio is known for its big story-branching choices. For years such decisions were generally considered “BioWare-style”, so synonymous was the design with games such as Mass Effect and the original Baldur’s Gates. But CDPR’s take on them has arguably become the go-to in the public consciousness. That’s largely thanks to their challenge; there’s no clear line between good and evil in either Cyberpunk or The Witcher, and so every choice feels like untying a thousand knots to work out the best option. But there are other factors: CDPR has a tendency to delay the consequences of your actions, meaning you can’t immediately reload a poor choice and try again, which grants each decision a sense of inescapable authenticity. And when the consequences do strike, they feel impactful and far-reaching; choices often result in major character deaths, political upheaval, or roll the dice on romantic encounters.
The success of these choices is rooted in careful preparation. “All the sides are presented to you beforehand,” says Paweł Sasko, associate game director. “You had an opportunity to actually assimilate all the information. You understood it well, you get the characters, you know what they are about. So at the moment when you are faced with a choice, you understand the context and you understand the implications of what you're doing.”
This thorough approach means that players can have a nuanced relationship with the result of their actions. As quest designer Paweł Gąska explains, “We want the player to see that even a good choice can have bad consequences, and that a bad choice can still be justified because of something else you focused on.”
A great example of this can be found in Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion, which sees FIA agent Songbird offer to help cure your terminal condition, provided you help her escape the clutches of her tyrannic employer. Simultaneously her former partner, Reed, asks that you help him bring Songbird into FIA custody, as he hopes that his (admittedly questionable) bosses will do right by her. By presenting both character paths as viable, nuanced options rather than a choice between good and evil, CDPR helps players build authentic relationships and eventually make decisions that reflect their own feelings and values.
“Whatever the choice is and whatever the consequence is, we want players to feel rewarded, even if the emotion in the end is sadness,” explains Sebastian Kalemba, game director on The Witcher 4. “If this is coherent with the emotional journey we're delivering, [it will allow] the player to feel [that they are] okay with this consequence.”
Several of CDPR’s choices have gone down in video game legend. While the branching pathways through The Witcher 3’s Bloody Baron quest and the choice between helping Songbird or Reed at the end of Phantom Liberty are among the company’s best and most well-known, my personal favourite can be found in The Witcher 2. At the end of chapter one you must ally with either Vernon Roche, commander of the Temerian special forces, or Iorweth, the elven leader of the Scoia'tael freedom fighters. Your choice here completely changes the quests, characters, and location of the game’s middle-act. It was a bold, ambitious swing for the studio’s second-ever game, and one it has not attempted since.
“The difficulty with that is not so much about being bold, it’s mostly about the resources you invest,” says Tost. “We haven't gotten more afraid over the years of people missing our content. We're very much fine with that happening. But it's also the amount of resources you commit to basically making two different stories, which is almost like two different games.”
The company’s decision to move away from level-based locations to an open world design made creating branching pathways as significant as that in The Witcher 2 “more difficult to do.” But the idea wasn’t abandoned. The final act of The Witcher 3’s Blood and Wine expansion is notably malleable. Similarly, the choice between Songbrid and Reed towards the end of Phantom Liberty results in two radically different pathways. “Phantom Liberty in general was sort of a response to some criticism that we got for the base game, which was that we lost a lot of non-linearity,” Tost explains.
According to Mills, CDPR worked on Cyberpunk 2077 “thinking that we understood choice and consequence,” but discovered upon completion of the base game that such choices weren’t landing correctly. “We built choice and consequence into most of our quests,” Mills insists. “We built it into the structure of the game, but it just didn't feel satisfying.”
Following a period of careful analysis, the Cyberpunk development team came to the conclusion that its approach to choice and consequence had been too subtle. Elements that telegraphed upcoming choices were often missed by players who simply could not spot such small details in the dense ocean of near-photo realistic detail that is Night City. And then, following their decisions, players were not being shown the consequences of their actions in a clear manner.
“The Witcher 3 had a structure where you were making your choices, you were visiting Skellige and [Velen] when you made those choices, and then later in following acts, you were actually visiting those places again,” recalls Sasko. “And we could, in a really simple way, show you, ‘Hey, here are your consequences, because you are visiting the same places again.’ It's so simple to do it. In Cyberpunk, the structure is so much more complex. You rarely come back to the places that you have seen.”
Sasko discusses his work on The Pickup, a Cyberpunk 2077 quest in which you must acquire a prototype combat robot from a gang holed up in a meat factory. There are a number of ways this quest can be tackled, and the aftermath reflects your approach. “When you come back to the meat factory, there are consequences of your choices,” Sasko says. “But you have to really be there, come and look for it, and most players don't. That's the reality. So the learning [is that] the structure of the game needs to support [revealing the consequences].”
It was this learning that led to a “more heavy handed” approach for Phantom Liberty and its branching final questline. But the choice and resulting branch is only worth so much in and of itself. Because no matter how good the choice is, no matter how many options are built into the story, none of it can succeed if the writing surrounding the choice is sub-par.
“As quest designers, we can think of good choices, good dilemmas, good themes, but it's the writers who have to deliver the dialogues that will actually elicit emotions in the players,” says Gąska. “It's the cinematics [team] and the animators who have to give [the story] to you in a way that you will actually feel it.”
Gąska likens this to the dilemma of a terminally ill person deciding to end their own life. Without any emotion or connection, the question is “just a theoretical thing.” But when the choice is personal, involving people you love and care for, it becomes a heart-wrenching issue. And so the fundamental skill behind creating resonant choices is to craft characters that feel truly authentic. Such authenticity can then inform how choices and consequences are built into the game's design and story.
“Our approach is the approach for the way we live, right?” says Kalemba, who explains that he doesn’t believe in foreshadowing the consequences of choices. “You don’t know what's going to happen tomorrow, but there are several choices you have today. And by designing the experience from the get-go this way, we let ourselves do our games as best as possible and ask players to be open and ready for the consequences.”
While Kalemba and his team will no doubt draw upon the studio’s prior successes for The Witcher 4, there’s naturally a desire to do something more advanced. Something more impressive. But to do so will require solving a tricky development puzzle.
“All of the work we did on [our] expansions was generally more enjoyable than working on the base games themselves,” admits Tost. “All of these unknowns that you had when you were working on the base game are answered and it's a matter of pure creation. I think we should look at how we answer these questions in a timely manner so that we can simulate the process of working on an expansion earlier than by the time we get to making an expansion.”
Such an approach is made all the more trickier by tools – CD Projekt Red is leaving its bespoke REDengine behind for The Witcher 4, instead opting for Unreal Engine 5. And so on top of trying to answer those questions, development staff will also be learning how best to maximise the potential of a new and unfamiliar engine. To meet their ambition, the team will need to avoid Mills’ earlier observation of developers fighting against the limitations of their tools. No doubt a close relationship with Unreal’s creator, Epic, will be vital to moulding the engine into a shape that allows CDPR to deliver on its goals.
“We want to put player agency in the center,” says Kalemba of those goals. “We want players to be able to really sense these opportunities and to go in-depth when it comes to choice and consequences.
“It's the evolution of The Witcher, so more tools at players' disposal to be able to not only play and go with the consequences narratively, but also gameplay wise,” he adds. “We want to give players more tools, more opportunities, to be able to feel that ‘I am the player and I define my experience.’”
Simply matching The Witcher 3’s choices and their resulting consequences would be a massive undertaking for CD Projekt Red. But to evolve and advance The Witcher 4 beyond the studio’s past accomplishments no doubt requires something much more complex. As Cyberpunk 2077 proved, even the master of branching stories can trip and fall. Phantom Liberty saw the studio stand back up and dust itself off, but The Witcher 4 will be the true test of how past learnings inform new ambitions. Hopefully Ciri’s next adventure will continue to cement CD Projekt Red’s reputation as the studio dedicated to respecting and fulfilling player choices.
Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor.
As Destiny 2 developer Bungie scrambles to recover its reputation after yet another independent artist accused the studio of "lifting" their artwork in Marathon, the community around the developer is wondering what's next.
Last week's accusation prompted an "immediate investigation" and acknowledgement from the studio that a "former Bungie artist" had indeed used Fern Hook's work without compensation or credit.
Then, on Friday night, Marathon game director Joe Ziegler and art director Joe Cross apologized on a painfully uncomfortable livestream that featured no Marathon art or footage at all as the team was "still scrubbing all of our assets to make sure that we are being respectful of the situation."
Since then, players have been trying to untangle who the "former artist" is (if there even is one, as some are wondering), with some reporting they "just feel hollow." Others wonder whether Marathon can still succeed at all, and what a "flop" would mean for the storied studio.
"The game went from mixed/negative reception to PLAGIARISM_WILL_MAKE_ME_GOD, four months from launch in the eyes of the larger gaming community. If they don't delay it, it's 100% DOA," suggested one player. "If the game does in fact die, we're talking over $100 million+ lost (probably a gross underestimate for a AAA game/studio). So yeah, really bad.
"Make no mistake, this is an existential struggle for Bungie at this point."
"I think it releases to a very lukewarm reception, similar to the Destiny expansion in July," hypothesized another. "It will last til January for active updates, put in maintenance mode til about summer 2026, then shut down with Bungie finally absorbed into Sony."
"We have no way of knowing, and after the Concord situation, I’m sure Sony isn’t taking any of this lightly," reminded someone else. The "Concord situation" they refer to is Firewalk Studios' online hero shooter, which was infamously pulled from sale less than two weeks after launch last year. Its launch was nothing short of disastrous, with analysts telling IGN it has likely sold as few as 25,000 units. It debuted to a desperately low 697 peak concurrent players on Steam, a number that made the 12,786 players of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League — which was dubbed a disappointment by Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav — look impressive.
In a different thread, a fan reflected on Destiny lore YouTuber My Name is Byf's excellent video summary of the situation, saying: "watching the video just sort of reminded me that most of the people who will likely be affected if Bungie goes under are completely unrelated employees that don't deserve to be punished over this.
"I sort of feel ill about the whole situation now [...] I want to see them make an effort to [independent artist] Antireal. I want to see them take the steps towards making sure this never happens again. I want them to win back whatever they need to make this game special (Goodwill, a delay, anything). I WANT to see the Marathon ship in this artstyle, man."
It's not having an adverse impact on all potential players, however.
"Ima be real I’m excited for this game. All this art drama is way overblown," said one. "I think from what I’ve gathered in this game I fully anticipate the aliens to inevitably make their way into the game. Other than that I’d like the characters to be customizable but I anticipate any big changes like that to come later. Very hyped for Marathon."
"I can't remember who exactly, but it was a famous musician talking about how he would never copyright others' music because all music eventually comes back to the same source," replied another. "Basically the same principal [sic] every artist has been inspired by some other artists and so on and so forth. Of course, it's not cool to blatantly just copy/paste someone's work, but then again, even the concept of completely original art is debatable. Especially since there are recorded cases of people making basically the same art around the same time as someone else. So yeah, it's pretty overblown."
"For any Bungie employees checking in here, please remember that you have millions of fans that want to see Marathon succeed," added someone else. Forbes now claims the studio is in "chaos," with morale at the studio in "free fall." Marathon is set to launch for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S on September 23.
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Switch 2's GameChat includes a couple of clever features that Nintendo has so far been keeping under wraps: live subtitles and text-to-speech.
GameChat is Nintendo's major new social feature for Switch 2 that allows for video calling and gameplay sharing, and is accessed via the console's once-mysterious C button.
Now, videos have showcased how GameChat can transcribe what's being said in real-time, providing a text-based feed for you to follow. GameChat can read out text you've typed out, too.
So far, Nintendo has showcased GameChat using videos of smiling Switch 2 owners sat at home, nattering away to each other. But it's easy to imagine scenarios where you might want an alternative.
Playing Switch 2 in a quiet room? GameChat's text-to-speech saves you from annoying anyone else nearby. Live subtitles, meanwhile, mean you can follow the chat even with the sound down, or when you might not have headphones.
Videos shared on social media by prolific Switch leaker OatmealDome show these features in action. As noted here, Switch 1 supports USB keyboards — so it's likely (though not yet confirmed) Switch 2 will also.
While Nintendo has focused on the video calling function of GameChat so far, these options would allow for a more casual use of the feature (maybe you just don't want to be on camera in your spare time, after hours of Microsoft Teams calls at work).
GameChat supports up to four people for video calls, and up to 12 people in the same voice chat.
The feature appears to always be available, whatever you're doing on Switch 2, though this has led to some concern over how its implementation could impact system performance.
Nintendo fans have also criticised the fact that such a central part of the Switch 2 offering — with its own dedicated controller button, no less — will become paywalled as of March 31, 2026. After this point, it will require a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to use.
Pokémon TCG’s next big release, Destined Rivals, is out this month. Best Buy has confirmed a preorder restock on May 23 via a special "Best Buy Drops" preorder event on its app, just like the recent Black Bolt and White Flare expansions preorders.
Best Buy has also confirmed it will have Booster Box stock online on May 30, alongside ETBs, Booster Packs, and more in store for launch.
For now, we've collected all the retailers where you can buy Destined Rivals, just below, so bookmark every listing you need to keep an eye on new restocks, and follow @IGNDeals for the latest updates.
TCGPlayer Listings
Here's what I had to say in my Destined Rivals preview for IGN: "After getting my hands on the expansion for the first time, it's safe to say that this is one of the best times I have had opening cards in ages."
"The illustrations are some of the best I've ever seen. The expansion plays with more Trainer Pokémon cards, including Ethan, the Pokémon Gold and Silver protagonist, and brought back more nostalgia than I could cope with. It feels like exactly what Pokémon TCG needed."
"Destined Rivals is more than just a trip down memory lane. It is a real evolution for the game. From the way the new Trainer’s Pokémon open up deck-building possibilities to the much better pull rates, this set feels like they finally figured out what collectors and players want again."
Mark your calendar: the full set launches on May 30, 2025. That’s when sealed products officially hit shelves—stock willing. The Pokémon Company seems to be improving on shortages, but if history’s any guide, don’t count on leftovers.
Between May 17–25, pre-release events will pop up at select stores, offering early access via Build & Battle boxes and small-scale tournaments. Want in? Talk to your local league store yesterday. And maybe bring snacks—you’re negotiating with gatekeepers now.
What’s in the Destined Rivals Lineup?
Team Rocket returns to stir up trouble once again, Trainers' signature Pokémon are back in the spotlight, and the card art? Some of the slickest in years.
Whether you're chasing eye-catching collectibles or just addicted to the thrill of cracking a fresh pack, Destined Rivals is engineered to tempt you.
We all tell ourselves we’ll buy just one item. That’s adorable. Here’s everything that’ll test your willpower on launch day:
Expect premium collection boxes too—likely with alternate art promos starring fan-favorites like Misty, Cynthia, Ethan, or Marnie. You technically don’t need them. You’ll get them anyway.
If buying through a third-party resellers when preordering Destined Rivals, you may be willing to pay more to secure it, but it's also worth knowing the MSRP for each set so you're making an informed decision.
Here’s the full expected card list by Japanese set origin.
Heat Wave Arena
The Glory of Team Rocket
Steven’s Starter Deck
Marnie’s Starter Deck
There’s a good chance I’ll end up with multiple binders full of these, but a few cards have already secured a permanent place in my mental wishlist.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
After Stellar Blade's Steam rollout was mysteriously blocked in countries like Egypt, Vietnam, Estonia, and Cuba, developer Shift Up said it was "closely discussing the region locked issue" with publisher Sony.
While there's still no formal explanation on why sales have been blocked in over 100 countries around the world, it's thought the list broadly matches that of places where PlayStation Network is not available — although neither PlayStation nor Shift Up has explicitly confirmed that. Instead, the developer insisted it was "doing our BEST to resolve most of it as soon as possible."
"PSN connecting [is] entirely optional and NEVER required," the studio added.
In the same message, Shift Up sought to assuage fears that adding DRM — an additional system to help protect against tampering and piracy — would adversely impact the game's performance. It comes after players of Resident Evil Village essentially proved that the game's anti-piracy technology was behind a persistent stuttering issue a couple of years ago.
"As shown in the test chart below, the DRM has been hard tuned to maintain the same average frame rate, with even higher minimum frames in some cases," the studio explained, adding modding is also "fully supported without any restrictions."
🔸️We are closely discussing the region lock issue with the publisher and are doing our BEST to resolve most of it as soon as possible.
— StellarBlade (@StellarBlade) May 16, 2025
🔸️As shown in the test chart below, the DRM has been hard tuned to maintain the same average frame rate, with even higher minimum frames in… pic.twitter.com/JDimvKiKte
At the time of writing (Monday, May 19), there has been no further update on the issue.
The PC version of Stellar Blade launches via Steam on June 11 along with a raft of PC-specific features, including AI upscaling via Nvidia DLSS 4 and AMD FSR 3, an unlocked framerate, Japanese and Chinese voiceover, ultrawide display support, higher resolution environment textures, and DualSense support for haptic feedback and trigger effects.
IGN's Stellar Blade review returned a 7/10. We said: "Stellar Blade is great in all of the most important ways for an action game, but dull characters, a lackluster story, and several frustrating elements of its RPG mechanics prevent it from soaring along with the best of the genre."
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
© Larian Studios / @HighLODLar on X
© Future
© Pounce Light
© Nvidia
Nvidia announced the RTX 5060 along with the RTX 5060 Ti back in April 2025, but the more affordable GPU is now available, following an announcement at Computex.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 starts at $299, which will get you 3,840 CUDA cores across 30 Streaming Multiprocessors, which should be enough for 1080p gaming. Nvidia does claim that the RTX 5060 can do some pretty incredible things at that resolution. For instance, Team Green says the 5060 can hit 223 fps in Doom: The Dark Ages at 1080p with max settings – although that's with multi-frame generation set to 4x.
That is the big selling point Nvidia is pushing with this generation of graphics cards, and while the RTX 5060 is the most affordable of the bunch, it will have full support for Multi-Frame Generation and the rest of the DLSS 4 technology suite. Just realize that with just 30 SMs, there's still a limit to what DLSS can do.
Keep in mind that the $299 price tag is only a starting price, too. While there will be a few models available at that low price, there will be many versions of the RTX 5060 that'll be much more expensive, though these are usually balanced with nice-to-have features like factory-tuned overclocking and RGB lighting.
Even though the RTX 5060 is a reasonably affordable card – assuming the $299 MSRP holds up – you should still wait to pull the trigger on it until you know how it will perform. And while Nvidia has made some bold performance claims, those numbers are all with Multi-Frame Generation enabled, and we won't know how it'll actually perform until we can get it in the lab.
Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait a bit. Unlike with previous launches this generation, like the RTX 5090, Nvidia is not supplying an early driver to press, so you won't be seeing much in the way of reviews for the first week or so of this GPU's lifespan. The RTX 5060 will probably be a decent 1080p graphics card, but the rest of the Blackwell lineup has struggled with generational uplift.
It's entirely possible that the RTX 5060 will share a similar performance uplift as the RTX 5070 saw over its last-generation counterpart, particularly in traditional gaming workloads without frame generation. When I asked Nvidia about the performance uplift over the RTX 4060, it claimed that the 5060 would get as much as double the performance when frame generation was turned on, but just around 20% in games without ray tracing or frame generation – and that's likely a best-case scenario.
As with any expensive tech product, my advice is to wait for reviews to pull the trigger, so that you know you're getting your money's worth. Those reviews are coming, they just might take a few days to show up.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
© Nvidia
© Future
Episode 6 of season 2 of The Last of Us is directed by Neil Druckmann, and when viewed through that lens, its intentions become clearer. It contains some of the scenes that fans of The Last of Us Part 2, and presumably its creator, hold dearest. This allows Druckmann to tightly control the sacred bond between Joel and Ellie, as well as giving space to further explore characters barely present in the game – the final moments of Eugene’s life strains the connection between the protagonists in new ways. Joe Pantoliano imbues the doomed Eugene with a dash of class, Bella Ramsey slots nicely back into the role of a younger Ellie, and Druckmann steadily steers the whole ship, but this chapter is undeniably Pedro Pascal’s. His pitch-perfect portrayal of Joel reminds us of what both Ellie and the show have lost.
Framed around each of Ellie’s birthdays following their return to Jackson, episode 6 delicately displays Joel’s urge to fulfil his role as a father. It's rooted in the very first scene, in which we see him as a teenage boy: The conversation between Joel and his father, played with warmth yet underlying hardness by Better Call Saul’s Tony Dalton, presents the poisoned chalice passed down from Miller to Miller. That struggle of generational fatherhood is what has driven Joel ever since. Sarah was his world before the outbreak. Then he grieved her, holding onto her memories until Ellie arrived. By the end of this episode, she’s 17, and he’s on the brink of losing another daughter. It’s a crossroads he’s contending with, and one brilliantly displayed by Pascal throughout, as he battles to do the right thing by her.
It’s perhaps best conveyed in the final moment between them – and the very last conversation between Ellie and Joel before his death. Their porchside chat is perhaps the most affecting in all of the game, so it's a huge relief to see it recreated so well here. The vulnerability in Pascal’s face is all-consuming, as he barely utters a word but lets his eyes speak for him. He’s terrified of losing Ellie, but he’s expressing it in a way that he can’t really control, and a way that will infect her, too – his tears filling that cursed cup once more, ready for Ellie to sip from and make the same selfish mistakes he did. It adds extra heartbreaking context to her “I’m gonna be a dad” quip from earlier in the season. She’ll aim to break this cycle, but little in her present-day actions suggests this.
Though that’s giving more thought to the present day than episode 6 can muster, which is my major reservation about this episode. The series of flashbacks is heartfelt and works excellently when it comes to building out the protagonists of The Last of Us’ past and future, but I can’t help but feel like momentum has stalled here. It feels off to spend a whole episode exploring Ellie’s history when we’ve just ratcheted the tension on who she’s become. And with only one episode left to go in the season, it feels like the only road to a satisfying finale will involve covering a lot of ground in a short period of time. It’s not so much a criticism of what this episode does, but more of its place within season 2.
Bella Ramsey feels much more at home as a younger Ellie, portraying a wide-eyed, excitable version of the character with a far greater verve than the more fearsome evolution we got last week. It’s best shown in her and Joel’s visit to a nearby museum, where Ellie takes a heartstring-tugging trip into orbit, thanks to a tape recording and a long-forgotten space capsule. The smile that dances across her face is a rare moment of levity in a show, that, up until this moment, has been irrepressibly bleak. As we watch the pair enjoy their respite, it feels like some of that season 1 magic has been rebottled.
But, as ever, what The Last of Us giveth with one hand, it taketh with the other, not letting us sit with this flash of joy for long. Episode 6 finally answers a question posed in the season premiere: What did Joel do to Eugene to make Gail resent him so much? Pantoliano is given his time to shine as Eugene, a member of the Jackson community whose time is ticking away thanks to an infected’s bite. His introduction enables Joel and Ellie’s dynamic from season 1 to resurface, and echoes of their experience in Salt Lake City can be felt. Joel has lived long enough in this world to be wary of Eugene – any sense of optimism (or hope that Eugene can be healed) is long gone. Not Ellie, though: She still carries an element of naivety and wants to help Eugene.
The mercy killing carried out by Joel only sows more seeds of distrust between him and his surrogate daughter. In his lie to Gail about it, Ellie realises just how easy it is for Joel to hide the truth. It’s in this moment that the fissures in their relationship really start to crack wide open. What Joel did isn’t necessarily wrong, but it runs counter to Ellie’s moral code and how she would’ve dealt with Eugene. It effectively means that she now knows that Joel has been lying about what happened in that Firefly hospital, and the revelation of him lying about Eugene is a great choice by Druckmann. It’s an example of adaptation for the better – which this season largely hasn’t landed for me – and a much more impactful, and logical, option than having Joel and Ellie traipse all the way back to Salt Lake City as they do in The Last of Us Part 2.
It’s something the episode as a whole does to great effect as it further explores the intervening years and Joel and Ellie’s dynamic, offering new glimpses into previously unseen moments. Joel catching Ellie doing things she maybe shouldn’t be doing at 17 and his built-in resentment for Seth (due to his former life as a policeman, like Joel’s dad) add more shades to the character, even though he’s long gone in the present day. These little touches and grandstand speeches combine to great effect to help us fully understand why Joel made every decision that led to his death, all the way up to rescuing his eventual killer from a horde of infected. Above all else, it’s the desire to be a protector that forged the Millers’ poisoned chalice – and eventually led to his downfall.
Strap in for a ripper round of savings that’ll leave you over-encumbered in no time, like a stroll through an Oblivion market. From slashing prices on open-world epics to trimming the tag on sports sims, these deals breathe fresh life into your gaming roster without shredding your budget. Let’s kick this off right by saving a bundle now.
In retro news, I’m celebrating the 13th bday of Max Payne 3, a bullet-riddled Brazilian holiday that, I think, delivered Rockstar’s finest ever third-person shooting. From the neon-soaked favelas of São Paulo to the rain-slicked rooftops of downtown, this one taught a new generation of gamers how gloriously satisfying it is to dodge incoming hailstorms of lead and drop one-liners that now very much speak my middle-aged "too old for this shit" language.
I still have powerful memories of the single-player campaign’s noir-tinted heartache; watching Max slump through betrayal, loss, and mob hits with a drink in one hand and a gat in the other. Totally worth a replay. Needs to be remastered ASAP.
- Ape Escape 3 (PS2) 2006. eBay
- Max Payne 3 (PS3, X360) 2012. Get
- Hyrule Warriors (NS) 2018. Get
Contents
On Nintendo Switch, Geralt’s saga comes in hot with The Witcher 3 Complete Edition at a staggering 75% off. That's just A$19 for over 100,000 lines of dialogue and a well of hidden quests. Equally unmissable, Dead Cells is down to A$18, half its usual price, a rogue‑vania romp whose punishing weapon permadeath mechanic began as a single chaotic level test.
Expiring Recent Deals
Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.
Xbox Series X owners can ball out with NBA 2K25 at A$38 (68% off), a title whose motion capture sessions once had Steph Curry coaching the devs through his signature crossover. For a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars Outlaws at A$40 (64% off) has recently been patched to have smoother combat, though I think it was more than serviceable beforehand.
Xbox One
Expiring Recent Deals
Or just invest in an Xbox Card.
On PS5, Doom: The Dark Ages drops to A$99 (17% off) and it's slayertastic stuff. Meanwhile, Judgment slides into A$28 (48% off), its courtroom drama enriched by Japanese legal consultants, though Yagami still lands those trademark one‑liners.
PS4
Expiring Recent Deals
PS+ Monthly Freebies
Yours to keep from May 1 with this subscription
Or purchase a PS Store Card.
For PC aficionados, BioShock: The Collection clocks in at A$15 (80% off) with Big Daddy designs refined from bulky concept art into streamlined terror, while Sid Meier’s Civilization VI at A$8 (90% off) uses fractal geometry to ensure every map feels uniquely yours.
Expiring Recent Deals
Or just get a Steam Wallet Card
Expiring Recent Deals
Audiophilia for less
Do right by your console, upgrade your telly
Adam Mathew is our Aussie deals wrangler. He plays practically everything, often on YouTube.
© Galla
© Keen Games
© Larian Studios
A month after launch, a small percentage of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered players have completed the main questline. But for a game like this, that’s not particularly surprising — fans are saying they’re way too busy doing other stuff.
I’m one of those fans! I’ve been playing and enjoying Oblivion Remastered since it shadow-dropped on April 22, and upon leaving the sewers and handing over the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre at Weynon Priory, I’ve done everything BUT the main questline. I’ve joined the Fighters Guild, explored Cyrodiil, and completed loads of side quests. I’ve even tried to brute force my way out of the map, as one player managed to do.
Why? Well, the side quests in Oblivion are brilliant fun (I won’t spoil any story stuff here), but I'm also trying to avoid the main quest (and potentially difficult parts of it like Kvatch) for the time being while keeping leveling up to a minimum.
So, I’ve decided to enjoy Oblivion until I get bored enough to play the game properly. Although there is no properly with a Bethesda game like this one, is there? That’s why they’re brilliant. You do what you want whenever you want, and the game still works.
It seems a lot of other players are doing the same thing. “I'm BUSY doing OTHER STUFF like hunting for SLAUGHTERFISH in Lake Rumare,” the wonderfully named redditor MrCrispyFriedChicken said in response to the percentage completion stats for finishing Oblivion Remastered’s main questline.
“I spend 160 hours in already and Kvatch is still waiting for me,” added Roffear. “I'm one of those weirdos who actually likes the Oblivion gates so I purposefully don't finish the main quest until I've found all 60 gates in my world and closed them,” said Ellert0. “44 hours and an actual in-game year, and I haven't even been to Weynon Priory,” said PlayaHatinIG-88. “Those poor Kvatch city guards never stood a chance.”
At the time of this article’s publication, a paltry 2.97% had completed Oblivion Remastered's main questline on Xbox and a slightly better 4.4% had on Steam. Why the difference? I presume that’s because Xbox factors in Game Pass, which will have seen a number of players dip their toe into Oblivion Remastered before bouncing. Steam players are all in, of course, because they actually bought the game outright.
Either way, it’s still a low percentage for Oblivion Remastered, which has so far seen over 4 million players. But in truth most video games have a surprisingly low campaign completion rate, whether it’s an epic, 100-hour open-world fantasy role-playing game like Oblivion Remastered or a five-hour story like Call of Duty. Indeed, a lot of games have a surprisingly low percentage of players who stick around after an hour or so or continue playing after the tutorial. Such is the fickle nature of the gamer.
For Oblivion Remastered, the stats may be skewed further because it’s a remaster of a beloved game many of its players finished back in the day. If you completed Oblivion's main quest 20 years ago, perhaps you’re less inclined to do it again now, and would rather focus on all the pretty new visuals and upgraded bits and bobs. Or, as one player has done, spend seven hours lining up books to get a Dominoes chain reaction just right.
Thaddeus122 said they were almost 100 hours in and hadn’t even completed three of the main quests. They have, however, completed the Arena and the Mages Guild. And the rest of the time? “Leveling, getting money for homes, closing all the Oblivion gates, the Nirnroot quest, a bunch of little quests. To be fair, also don't fast travel anywhere.”
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.
© Ubisoft
© Facepunch Studios
© New Blood
© S . K . 9 . 8
The director of Thunderbolts* — now officially renamed The New Avengers — has explained why one character in particular had to die early on in the movie, and how conversations with the actor who played the character went.
Warning! Spoilers for Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers follow:
Early in Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers, Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) is killed by Ava Starr / Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), unceremoniously shot in the head as the assassins come to blows within a covert O.X.E. facility. Taskmaster dies in her first and only scene in the movie.
While Marvel’s Thunderbolts* promos had inserted Taskmaster into shots later on in the movie to make it look like the character would make it at least a decent chunk of the way through, her fate had been called into question when the character appeared to be removed from certain shots in pre-release trailers.
Making matters even more obvious, Kurylenko was the only member of the Thunderbolts* not to appear in Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday cast reveal. So, for MCU fans who were paying attention, Taskmaster’s death wasn’t exactly a surprise. But for many it will have come as a shock, especially so early in the film.
So, why did Taskmaster have to die? In an interview with The New York Times, director Jake Schreier said the idea came about as a result of the movie feeling “a little bloodless,” and a desire to have a “real tension” between characters who were capable of killing people.
“That was a tough one because it’s a character that matters to a lot of people and we don’t want to take that lightly,” Schreier said.
“That idea came after the strike when it just felt like the movie at that point was a little bloodless. It’s not rated R, but if we were trying to tell a story that had real tension about people who killed people for a living, you needed to depict that in a way. Obviously, we could have introduced a new character and then gotten rid of them, but then it wouldn’t have the resonance or potentially the shock of doing it to Taskmaster.”
Schreier admitted it wasn’t easy to tell Olga Kurylenko, who played Taskmaster in Black Widow, that she’s return for Thunderbolts* only to be killed off early on.
“It’s like in sports: players want to play,” Schreier said. “Olga’s a great actress and of course that’s a hard conversation to have, but she was an absolute pro about it and willing to show up, and I’m very grateful for that.”
Earlier this month, Schreier told Entertainment Weekly that the team behind Thunderbolts* felt they needed to kill Taskmaster early “so that you didn't really know who was going to make it."
"The decision to do it when we did it, we went through a lot of different versions of that, and we thought very carefully about it," Schreier added.
"And it felt like, while it would've been very nice — and Olga is a wonderful actress — to have her on the team for longer, that death would've kind of reverberated a lot harder and made it harder to find our tonal balance if it had happened later in the film.
"And it would've occupied such a kind of more emotional space that would've stepped on what we really need to be building. And we have so little narrative real estate to do it, which is the connection between Yelena and Bob [Lewis Pullman], and the movie is really going to hinge on that. And so in order to keep our tone and to build that team together, it actually felt best, even if it feels a little cold-blooded, to have that happen early."
According to the film’s co-writer Eric Pearson, Taskmaster was originally intended to have a much bigger part in the movie, and she was meant to have an important connection to Ghost.
“That's one of the biggest changes from my final draft, because in the last version that I did, [Taskmaster] lived out the whole movie and there was a pretty big subplot of her and Ava connecting as two characters that were raised in labs and being controlled by other people,” Pearson told IGN.
So, that’s that for Taskmaster, but of course the other Thunderbolts*, that is, The New Avengers, live on, and will appear in Avengers: Doomsday alongside, or potentially in conflict with, the (true?) Avengers. Check out IGN's Thunderbolts Ending Explained: What Happens in the Post-Credits and How Does It Affect the MCU? for more.
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.
Final Destination Bloodlines is making a killing at the global box office, shooting past the $100 million mark on launch weekend.
An even split of $51 million domestically and $51 million internationally make for an impressive $102 million globally. That’s the best opening weekend box office for a Final Destination film. With this start, Bloodlines looks on course to become the highest-grossing Final Destination film so far, ahead of current record-holder The Final Destination ($186.1 million in 2009).
Final Destination Bloodlines also looks set to successfully revive a franchise that has been dormant since 2011's Final Destination 5, which made $157 million worldwide.
IGN’s Final Destination Bloodlines review returned an 8/10. We said: “Final Destination: Bloodlines amps up the absurdity of Death’s design, and the resulting horror-comedy will have you dying laughing.” If you’ve seen the movie, check out our Final Destination Bloodlines ending explained.
Meanwhile, MCU flick Thunderbolts* is now up to $325.7 million worldwide after three weeks. For context, Captain America: Brave New World ended its theatrical run with $415 million at the global box office.
Sinners continues its impressive run at theaters. Ryan Coogler’s horror movie now has $316.6 million at the global box office. And A Minecraft Movie is inching towards $1 billion, with $928.6 million at the global box office.
Photo by Eric Milner. 2025 Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
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.
© Getty Images - Anadolu Agency
![](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/rTdMmK3GiaZmczAdM789rk.jpg "Ultra-rare "Zombie Danis" from Baldur's Gate 3")
© SlimX on YouTube
© New Line Cinema
Connexion