Last week at The Game Awards, we learned that the next-gen Tomb Raider that developer Crystal Dynamics announced three years ago is titled Tomb Raider: Catalyst. Published by Amazon Game Studios, it's set to release in 2027 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S.
Meanwhile, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis is a reimagining of the original Tomb Raider game, built with Unreal Engine 5 and due out next year. Both games will feature a new actor as Lara Croft: Alix Wilton Regan.
While the news was a surprise for some, actor Camilla Luddington — who portrayed Lara Croft in the 2013-2018 reboot trilogy — shared a bittersweet Instagram post about her time as the lead, saying she loved the fans and Croft will "forever be a part of [her]."
"I thought I’d make a post since I’ve been hearing from so many of you," she wrote. "I want to let you know that I have loved this fandom. To join the list of Lara Crofts before me was an incredible honor and she will forever be a part of me. The Survivor Trilogy was a decade of adventure I will never ever forget. I could not be prouder of what we created.
"And as always, a new actress receives this incredible gift to step into the boots. So with that said — [new Croft actor Alix Wilton Regan] if you’re ever in need of a [bow and arrow], I know the exact spot to look for one at Croft Manor."
Alix Wilton Regan has played a number of big video game characters over the years, including the Female Inquisitor in both Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Samantha Traynor in Mass Effect 3, Alt Cunningham in Cyberpunk 2077, and Aya in Assassin's Creed Origins. Regan was set to play Joanna Dark in Microsoft's Perfect Dark reboot, but it was canceled as part of a major round of layoffs.
As spotted by Eurogamer, Regan also shared a post following The Game Awards announcement, claiming it was the "absolute highlight" of her career to date to have been cast, "surpass[ing] even my wildest dreams, quite frankly."
"We're. Just. Getting. Started," she wrote.
Here's the official blurb on Tomb Raider: Catalyst:
Tomb Raider: Catalyst, which has been in development by Crystal Dynamics since the partnership with Amazon Game Studios was announced in 2022, marks a bold direction for the series as Lara Croft embarks on a new adventure across Northern India. Tomb Raider: Catalyst is set in the wake of a mythical cataclysm that has unleashed ancient secrets and awakened the mysterious forces that guard them. When the most notorious treasure hunters from around the world descend on the region, Lara races to uncover the truth buried beneath the fractured landscape and stop those who would use its power for their own gain. As the ancient world collides with the present, Lara must decide who to trust among rivals and allies to prevent a catastrophe and protect a secret that could reshape the future. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Tomb Raider: Catalyst delivers the largest Tomb Raider world yet where Lara will traverse a landscape full of secrets, delve into lost tombs packed with intricate puzzles, and solve ancient mysteries using her unmatched brilliance and richly customized adventure tech. Perfect for longtime fans and newcomers alike, players will experience an exhilarating story of trust and betrayal that tests Lara Croft in new ways. Tomb Raider: Catalyst is set to launch in 2027 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Steam.
Catalyst wasn’t the only Tomb Raider-related announcement at this year’s Game Awards. Catalyst’s first trailer was immediately followed by a surprise announcement of Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, a “reimagining” of the original 1996 classic. It is due out for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S sometime in 2026, as that’s when the franchise celebrates its 30th anniversary.
Here's the official blurb on Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis:
In a surprise announcement, Amazon Game Studios, Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog unveiled Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, a modern reimagining of Lara Croft's genre-defining 1996 debut. Developed in partnership between Crystal Dynamics and Flying Wild Hog, the game features stunning visuals powered by Unreal Engine 5, modern game design, and new surprises that honor the spirit and atmosphere of the original game. As Lara Croft, players will harness their wits and athleticism to explore exotic locations lost to time, traverse treacherous landscapes, solve deadly contraptions, and face lethal predators in their quest for the scattered pieces of the Scion — an artifact of immeasurable power.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis sets a new standard for re-envisioning a classic by masterfully balancing innovation with gaming heritage, capturing the wonder and excitement that defined a genre while igniting a new sense of discovery through expanded storytelling. The game arrives in 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Steam.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
The CEO of Stellar Blade studio Shift Up has received the Presidential Commendation at this year's Korean Content Awards for his work in the games industry.
According to Daum, and reported by Automaton, Hyung-tae Kim accepted the award, which is reportedly "the most prestigious content awards ceremony in Korea" and hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism. Kim was recognized for his contribution to the Korean games industry with the games Goddess of Victory: Nikke and Stellar Blade.
"This Presidential Citation is thanks to the developers and fans who believed in and supported Shift Up," Kim said. "We will continue to do our best to further promote the competitiveness of Korean games on the global stage."
Stellar Blade launched in April 2024 exclusively on PlayStation 5. After selling more than 1 million copies in two months, Stellar Blade was seen as highlighting the potential for Korean-made triple-A console games. In July last year, Shift Up raised 435 billion won (approx. $320 million) in its first day of trade after an initial public offering. According to Bloomberg, that was the largest in the country for a gaming company since 2021, when PUBG maker Krafton Inc. raised $3.8 billion from its own IPO. 2024 went so well for the company that it gifted all its staff a PlayStation 5 Pro as well as a cash bonus of 5 million won (around. $3,400) last Christmas.
Meanwhile, Stellar Blade did wonderfully well on PC, where it launched in June this year. According to the developer's recent presentation to investors, Stellar Blade's PC release sold more than 1 million copies in three days, and has been recommended by 98% of its PC users, boasting an "overwhelmingly positive" user score on Steam.
That means, Shift Up claimed, that Stellar Blade is now the "best-selling PlayStation-exclusive launch IP in history" on PC, eclipsing games like Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, and The Last of Us in terms of peak concurrent users on Steam. Helldivers 2, of course, remains in pole position across both single and multiplayer games, and by some considerable margin, too, estimated to have sold 12.7 million copies.
Stellar Blade is now up to 3 million copies sold across all platforms. Don't forget that a sequel, Stellar Blade 2, is also on the way. Shift Up is also working on Project Spirits, to be published by Level Infinite.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Larian publishing director Michael Douse has explained the studio’s thinking in the wake of the gruesome reveal trailer for Divinity, the Baldur’s Gate 3 studio’s next big role-playing game.
Divinity was announced at The Game Awards with a CG trailer that features extreme gore and sex. It begins with medieval fantasy villagers preparing for a ritual sacrifice, which involves burning a man alive. The villagers celebrate the occasion by playing music and dancing, laughing and chatting, feasting and drinking. At one point, someone throws up into animal feed. A mother and child look on with anticipation.
The burning of the man begins, and here things get very gory indeed. As his flesh tears and he screams in pain, some of the villagers are seen having sex. Others whip themselves. There’s more vomiting. Everyone seems thrilled, but as the burning man dies, something goes horribly wrong.
Disgusting wounds appear on the man. As his arm rips off we get a quick cut to an extreme closeup of someone eating meat. More sex. More vomiting. More pigs eating the vomit. And then the burning man explodes in a shower of gore. Something terrible is pouring out of his body. This, clearly, is not what was supposed to happen, and the villagers flee in terror. In the aftermath we see the statue Geoff Keighley has teased ahead of The Game Awards itself. It has not gone well for the villagers, but the pigs look like they're still having a good time mopping up.
It’s fair to say the trailer has sparked a great deal of debate. While some have praised the studio for not holding back when it comes to its dark themes (something Baldur’s Gate 3 won plaudits for), others have said the trailer goes too far. Indeed some have accused Larian of "pushing the morale line" with the trailer, labeling it “gore porn.”
Now, Douse has explained what Larian was going for here. In a tweet response to illustrator and YouTuber Kala Elizabeth, who had praised the studio for refusing to “hold back or sanitize stories to make them more palatable,” Douse said the Divinity trailer wasn’t about shocking the audience, rather “treating the audience with a level of intellectual respect.”
“The phrase ‘treating the audience with a level of intellectual respect’ came up a lot in planning,” he said. “It isn’t about trying to shock them, it's about trying to match their powers of comprehension so that it resonates. We know people are capable of appreciating a three dimensional world.”
This appears to have gone down well with Larian's fans. "I love this," Elizabeth replied. "As someone who plays durge, evil and renegade options I'm sad that more games don't seem to push that nuance and trust the audience anymore. Can't wait to see what y'all do next."
There’s still a great deal we don’t know about Divinity, of course, but fans think they’ve worked out who the burning man in the trailer is supposed to be. Larian has said Divinity is its next “major” game after Baldur’s Gate 3, and it is set in the world of Rivellon. Here’s the tagline: “the gods are silent. Rivellon bleeds. New powers stir.”
“Built by the team who brought you Baldur's Gate 3, Larian Studios unchains its ambitions to bring you an RPG with greater breadth and depth than ever before,” reads the official blurb.
While Divinity is a brand new game that doesn’t require experience with previous Larian titles, those who’ve played Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2 will be able to enjoy “greater understanding and continuity,” Larian added.
Swen Vincke, founder and game director of Larian Studios, said: “Despite our long history with the series, this is our first game entitled Divinity. We’re ready to bring everything we’ve done previously into one place. This marks the beginning of something with more breadth, depth, and intimacy than anything we’ve created before. We’ve been building toward this moment ever since we took our fate into our own hands. This is the Divinity we’ve always wanted to make and you're going to have loads of fun with it.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Former Doctor Who star Paul McGann has addressed the recent spread of AI-generated images showing his apparent return alongside Billie Piper in the franchise's upcoming 2026 Christmas special.
McGann's briefly-seen incarnation of the Doctor is beloved by hardcore fans, and has made a couple of cameo appearances in recent years. So, when supposedly-leaked images surfaced surfaced online last month showing McGann stood alongside Billie Piper on the TARDIS set, many rejoiced at the actor's latest apparent return.
Alas, what looked to be photos taken on the set for next year's Christmas special were nothing but very believable AI — something McGann has now acknowledged has confused numerous fans, and sparked a fake rumor mill.
"Just recently, in the past week or so, because of these AI pictures, there's me and Billie Piper working together," McGann said, speaking on the Gerry Anderson Podcast. "If only! And so people are like 'it has to be true!' The rumor mill kicks in. There's this picture of Billie and me, I'm in costume."
Of the various AI images created, several showed Paul McGann on the current TARDIS set from the most recent Doctor Who era, holding a script during what looks to be a break between shooting. In one image, McGann can be seen standing alongside Piper, who returned at the end of Doctor Who's most recent finale in a shock twist after the sudden departure of lead actor Ncuti Gatwa. Here, Piper can be seen wearing Ncuti's costume, just as we last saw her.
As AI fakes go, the images are clearly made by someone who knows the series and understands what fans will be looking for to determine whether the pictures are legitimate. Unfortunately for fans attempting to do just that, generative AI is now increasingly difficult to spot — to the extent that a recent fan-made Shenmue 4 trailer tricked many fans and sparked a furious legal threat from the franchise's publisher.
As for next year's Doctor Who special, current showrunner Russell T Davies has now told the Radio Times that he was still to write the script, let alone have it ready to go before cameras.
Despite all that, the sheer existence of the AI images is seemingly enough for fans who just want to believe. When asked whether the pictures were real after all, and whether he was just lying to keep the production a secret, McGann replied: "What do you mean it could be true? You see you're making it worse. You're part of the problem."
Doctor Who is set to return in December 2026 for a one-off episode that's expected to wrap up the series' Billie Piper cliffhanger, though little else about the show's future seems set in stone. Recent months have brought the belated confirmation that co-production partner Disney had walked away from the series, reportedly due to low ratings and its large budget.
Still, the recent confirmation by the BBC that it would self-fund a single Doctor Who special for next year has given the fans something to look forward to, while the corporation buys itself time to presumably find a more permanent co-funding deal elsewhere. Just don't expect Paul McGann to be in the episode, probably.
Image credit: Aaron Davidson/WireImage via Getty.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
S-GAME Studio's Wuxia action RPG launches on September 9, 2026 across PS5 and PC. Much like other initially PS5 console-exclusive games, such as Silent Hill 2 Remake, Phantom Blade Zero won't be available on "other consoles until at least 12 months after release date." This means Xbox Series X and S or Nintendo Switch 2 versions will have to wait until at least September 2027, if they are in indeed in S-GAME Studio's plans.
PS5 console exclusivity comes from the teaser video added to the official PlayStation YouTube channel, which has a familiar blue notice at the end (thanks, MP1st).
Phantom Blade Zero follows Soul, an assassin framed for a murder trying to uncover the truth of what happened. Its release date was announced at The Game Awards alongside the launch of a new trailer, below, which has generated a great deal of excitement. Be sure to check out everything announced at The Game Awards 2025 for more, as well as the winners list in full.
We've seen Phantom Blade a number of times since its original announcement, both in the form of trailers and hands-on previews. In our most recent look at Phantom Blade Zero this past October, we found the game to be delightfully difficult, with our previewer saying: "It never felt cheap; it just demanded more from me. In just over an hour of play, I was easily ten times the player I was when I started. It’s a feeling of achievement that is reserved for the very best action games on the planet. If the rest is anything like what I played at TGS, I feel like there’s a real chance that Phantom Blade 0 might be one of those games."
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Rian Johnson, director of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, has said he anticipated and welcomed the movie's polarizing response — and argued it would have been worse to create something "afraid" of shaking up the franchise.
Speaking to Polygon, Johnson said Star Wars had a history of challenging fan expectations of where the saga's story was headed ever since the series' second release, Empire Strikes Back. With its shock character deaths and fresh uses of the Force, this is something The Last Jedi certainly also did, while generating a wave of backlash from many of the franchise's most vocal online followers.
Despite this, Johnson said he had intended to deliver a movie that "shook the box" and upended fan expectations, rather than simply serving up something that handled the franchise and its audience with "kid gloves" — something other entries in Disney's Star Wars sequel trilogy have also been accused of.
"I was hoping for that — I wasn't afraid of it per se," Johnson said. "Having grown up a Star Wars fan, I know that thing where something challenges it, and I know the recoil against that. I know how there can be infighting in the world of Star Wars. But I also know that the worst sin is to handle it with kid gloves.
"The worst sin is to be afraid of doing anything that shakes it up," he continued. "Because every Star Wars movie going back to Empire and onward shook the box and rattled fans, and got them angry, and got them fighting, and got them talking about it. And then for a lot of them, got them loving it and coming around on it eventually."
Johnson has said similar in the past with regard to how the tastes of many Star Wars fans have changed over time — with many now looking more fondly upon George Lucas' prequel movies, for example, which also received significant pushback upon their initial release. (Indeed, Johnson has previously said that his days "arguing on the playground about Star Wars" and having "ruthless" discussions about The Phantom Menance helped him process The Last Jedi's online backlash.)
Johnson continued his comments on The Last Jedi by equating its handling of Star Wars lore with how he has attempted to carefully handle the subject of religion in the upcoming Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
"People who are raised outside of faith sometimes think it's this touchy thing that you have to handle with kid gloves," he said. "I grew up very Christian. It was a very personal thing for me. I'm not a believer anymore. I'm no longer a Christian. But when I was… You're constantly rattling the box for yourself. You’re constantly being offended by things. But then it's not like that just shuts off [the real world and how it challenges your beliefs].
"It’s just like being a Star Wars fan and seeing a twist where you're like, ‘Oh God, that doesn't make me feel great, because that's not what I expected,’” he says. “As a Christian, the world is constantly throwing that at you. It’s just your daily life. Assimilating that is how you grow. That's part of the purpose of both [fandom and religion] — it’s only alive when it's interacting with the world."
With the upcoming launch of Johnson's third Knives Out murder mystery film, the writer and director has now left Star Wars behind, with no current plans for him to return and make that MIA new Star Wars movie trilogy that LucasFilm once announced.
Next year will see the launch of The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first new Star Wars movie since 2019's unpopular Rise of Skywalker. A continuation of the hit Disney+ TV series, it will see the fan-favorite duo make their theatrical debut in what has been seen by fans as a safer return to theaters for the franchise following a long seven-year hiatus. Following that, Ryan Gosling will star in the standalone Star Wars: Starfighter, due in 2027.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's record-breaking performance at last week's The Game Awards has caught the eye of French president Emmanuel Macron, who celebrated the news of its Game of the Year award on Instagram over the weekend.
Sandfall Interactive's role-playing game swept The Game Awards 2025 with nine wins, the most any video game has won in a single The Game Awards show. As well as Game of the Year, Clair Obscur won best narrative, best music, and best performance, fending off competition from Death Stranding 2, Donkey Kong Bananza, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Hades 2, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 to claim the top prize. Be sure to check out everything announced at The Game Awards 2025 for more, as well as the winners list in full.
"Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has just been named Game of the Year in Los Angeles. A historic first for a French title!" Macron exclaimed in French, appending an image of Gustave, Maelle, and Sciel. "Great pride for Montpellier and for France. Congratulations to the Sandfall Interactive team. For future generations and those that follow!"
Of course, this isn't the first time Sandfall Interactive has received public backing from the French president — when the RPG sold 1 million copies in just three days, Macron also took to Instagram to say: "A million copies and to date, one of the best-rated games in history: and yes, it's French! Congratulations to Sandfall Interactive and all the creators of Expedition 33. You are a shining example of French audacity and creativity."
While many commenters shared the President's excitement, some chose to remind him of the comments he made during France's 2023 riots in which he suggested young people had been poisoned or intoxicated by video game violence and social media.
He later downplayed the comments, claiming he had "always considered that video games are an opportunity for France, for our youth, and their future, for our jobs and our economy," and stressed that he "expressed concerns at the end of June because video game conventions had been used by criminals to normalize violence on social media," adding: "It is this violence that I condemn, not video games themselves."
Accepting the Game of the Year award to rapturous applause, Clair Obscur director Guillaume Broche thanked the "incredible team" at Sandfall Interactive, most of whom were in attendance and in costume. Broche extended his thanks to the "unsung heroes" of the video game industry, "the people who make tutorials on YouTube on how to make a game, because we had no idea how to make a game before."
Clair Obscur launched in April right up against Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, with both games hitting Game Pass as day one releases. It was felt that Clair Obscur might struggle under those circumstances, but it enjoyed instant and significant popularity, and would go on to sell 5 million copies by October.
IGN's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review returned a 9/10. We said: "Wearing its inspirations on its sleeve, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 paints itself into the pantheon of great RPGs with a brilliant combat system and a gripping, harrowing story."
While accepting the Game of the Year award, Sandfall shadow-dropped new DLC and Patch 1.5.0, which introduces new location Verso's Drafts and some truly challenging boss fights. Are You Starting Clair Obscur: Expedition 33? Here's a Handy Guide for Beginners.
Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP via Getty Images.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Indie hit ghostbusting game Phasmophobia is coming to Nintendo Switch 2.
Developer Kinetic Games used The Game Awards to announce a 2026 release window for Phasmophobia on Switch 2 without offering a firm release date.
On Switch 2, up to four players can team up to conduct paranormal investigations across 14 terrifying maps and yes, Switch 2 players will be able to join pals on other platforms thanks to crossplay. The five-year-old game is also due to finally exit early access next year, too.
"We’re over the moon to reveal that Phasmophobia is coming to Nintendo Switch 2. It’s something both our community and all of us at Kinetic Games have wanted for a long time, so we’re really happy this long-kept secret is finally out there," said Kinetic Games CEO and director, Daniel Knight.
"With 1.0 on track for 2026, it’s an exciting time to have new players get to experience the game. We're so glad that Switch 2 players will be able to join us for everything that’s coming, as well as jump into the wealth of content we’ve added throughout 2025."
At the moment, nothing else is known, so we're not yet sure who'll be writing or directing it, let alone starring in the movie, but in an interview with IGN, we asked art director Corey J. Dixon for his thoughts on how horror production company Blumhouse will translate Phasmophobia's genre-defining gameplay to the big screen.
"We've got a really good partnership with Blumhouse. It's brilliant," Dixon said at the time. "It will be a Phasmophobia film, it won't just be a ghost hunting film — we're going to make sure it's a film that fans want to watch, and we're going to work with them really closely."
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Codes for The Forge will grant you additional rerolls if RNG isn't on your side and you don't get one of the best classes on your initial rerolls. In this RPG Roblox experience, you'll be able to play as a human, goblin, dragonborn, and more. Each race has its unique perks, influencing stats such as health, damage, attack power, and more.
It's no surprise that The Forge focuses heavily on mining. The core gameplay centers around mining for ores, in the hopes of finding rare ores to forge powerful weapons and armor. You'll then throw those ores into a forge, where the blend of resources you use allows you to make items with special traits and designs.
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Codes for Roblox experiences are typically case-sensitive, so the best way to ensure you've got a working code is to directly copy it from this article. We check all codes before we upload them, so you can guarantee they're working. Just double-check that you haven't copied over an extra space!
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We regularly check and test new codes for popular Roblox experiences, so the best way to get more codes for The Forge is to visit this article. But if you want to mine for codes yourself, then the Discord server for The Forge is the best place to go.
When Is the Next Update or Event for The Forge?
The Forge recently held a Constellation of Extra Luck weekend that gave everyone a boost to their luck. Well, another boost is coming this weekend on December 13 until December 15, in the form of the The Forge Weekend! Mining Boost event. After this, the next big update is coming on December 25, which will add bosses, private servers, new gear, a Christmas event, and even a new island.
Lauren Harper is an Associate Guides Editor. She loves a variety of games but is especially fond of puzzles, horrors, and point-and-click adventures.
Now here is something cool. In July 2025, we shared Super Mario Bros Remastered for PC. For those who don’t know, Super Mario Bros. Remastered is a fan remake of the classic NES Mario game for PC. And today, we are happy to share a Minecraft Pack for it. Super Mario Bros. Remastered has been … Continue reading Super Mario Bros. Remastered Got Cool Minecraft & Sonic Packs→
A Few Good Men, This Is Spinal Tap, and The Princess Bride director Rob Reiner has been found dead in his Brentwood, Los Angeles home, alongside his wife, Michele. Reiner was 78. CNN has reported that the LAPD has explained it is investigating an apparent homicide.
A spokesperson for the Reiner family has confirmed the deaths and has asked for privacy on behalf of the family in the wake of the tragedy.
Rob Reiner’s long career in entertainment began gaining steam when he was cast as Michael Stivic on the 1970s US sitcom All in the Family, the son-in-law of lead character Archie Bunker. However, while Reiner won two Emmy Awards for his work on the show and would continue to find himself in front of the camera in various roles over the years, it was behind the camera that he established his reputation as an extremely versatile and capable director.
Reiner’s directorial debut was the music mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap in 1984. Reiner followed this much-loved cult comedy with the 1986 coming-of-age drama Stand By Me, the 1987 fantasy adventure The Princess Bride, the seminal romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally… in 1989, an adaptation of the Stephen King thriller Misery in 1990, and the Academy Award-nominated military courtroom drama A Few Good Men in 1992. Reiner’s most recent film was this year’s Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, making his final film the long-awaited sequel to his first.
Born in The Bronx, New York in 1947, Reiner was the son of legendary actor, comedian, director, and writer Carl Reiner (whose own seven-decade career began back during the golden age of television alongside fellow comedy icon Mel Brooks).
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the entire first season of IT: Welcome to Derry!
Fans of Stephen King’s novels will know that these tales of small-town terror and tortured souls aren’t simply standalone stories. They’re all part of a larger storytelling multiverse, and crossovers can and do frequently happen. That’s certainly true for IT: Welcome to Derry – not only is this series a prequel to the It movies, it also includes nods to other King characters and storylines.
With the first season having ended its run on HBO Max, we figured now is a great time to break down the key Stephen King easter eggs in Welcome to Derry and explore how the series takes advantage of the King multiverse. And if the finale is any indication, we’re just getting started.
What Is Bill Skarsgård’s Villain Pennywise?
With Welcome to Derry taking place 27 years before the events of 2017’s It, it should come as no surprise that there aren’t many returning actors for this prequel. Coming into the series, the only confirmed veteran of the series was Bill Skarsgård, who is once again playing the demonic, shapeshifting villain, It (whose favorite form is Pennywise the Dancing Clown). Though we do ultimately get a few unexpected cameos in Episode 8, including Sophia Lillis’ Bev Marsh and Finn Wolfhard’s Richie Tozier on a missing child flyer.
We don’t actually see Skarsgård's Pennywise until Episode 5, but the character’s nefarious influence is certainly felt throughout the season. If there’s any takeaway from the series, it’s that Derry was a cursed place long before the Losers Club clashed with Pennywise for the first time.
With Pennywise being such an important part of the series, it’s worth taking a step back to explore what exactly this character is and how he fits into King’s monster multiverse. The It novel establishes that It is an alien entity created in the void outside the universe. It eventually crashed on Earth via an asteroid millions of years ago, at which point it took up residence in the area that would become Derry, Maine. We see this origin story play out during Episode 4's flashback sequence.
Ever since people began to settle in Derry, It has shown a pattern of emerging for a year or two to seek victims and feast on their fear; it is essentially a psychic vampire. After gorging itself, It then goes into hibernation for 27 years before reawakening and starting the cycle all over again. It tends to target children because their fears are more primal and easier to exploit.
It/Pennywise is easily one of the most terrifying creatures in King’s massive library, but it’s not necessarily unique. King’s Dark Tower novels establish that the multiverse was once bathed in a mystical energy source called the Prim. When the Prim receded like an ocean tide, it left behind a great many supernatural creatures embedded in the worlds of creation; Pennywise is just one of many of those monsters. One of the Dark Tower books even introduces a cousin of sorts – a similar psychic vampire who feeds on laughter rather than fear.
The Hanlon Family
Welcome to Derry may not feature many returning characters, but it does feature one family that should be very familiar to fans of the films. The first episode introduces Jovan Adepo’s Leroy Hanlon; Leroy is the grandfather of Mike Hanlon, who was played in the films as a child by Chosen Jacobs and as an adult by Isaiah Mustafa.
Welcome to Derry shows us how the Hanlon family first came to settle in Derry in 1962. Leroy is a decorated and well-respected Air Force major who is recruited by General Shaw (James Remar) to work on a top-secret program. Little by little, Leroy becomes exposed to the darkness lurking beneath the idyllic facade of Derry and the racism still rampant in the ranks of the military. In Episode 2, Leroy learns that Shaw is working to harness a weapon that can instill absolute fear in America's enemies. Apparently, Shaw wants to weaponize It, though the full extent of his plan doesn’t become clear until Episode 7.
Episode 2 introduces Taylour Paige as Leroy’s wife, Charlotte, and Blake Cameron James as his son, Will, neither of whom seems particularly enamored with their new home. But, however bad things get this season - and they do get pretty bad - the big takeaway is that nothing is going to drive this family out of Derry.
Marge or Margaret?
Matilda Lawler’s Marge Truman has a nasty run-in with It in the Season 1 finale, where we get some surprising insight into this terrible creature. It experiences time Doctor Manhattan-style, where past, present, and future all bleed together. It recognizes Marge as her adult self. She’s destined to become Maggie Tozier, mother to Richie Tozier, one of the central characters in both It movies. In the process, it’s implied that Maggie names her son in honor of Arian S. Cartaya’s Rich, who so heroically sacrificed himself to save her from the fire.
The Shining’s Dick Hallorann
Welcome to Derry is going to draw on more than just the It movies and novel; that much has been apparent ever since a trailer included a shot of a Shawshank Prison bus. But in what is easily the most significant King easter egg so far, the series’ cast includes a major character from The Shining: Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk).
Fans of The Shining and its sequel, Doctor Sleep, will remember that Dick is the head chef at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. Because he has the psychic aptitude known as “the shine,” Dick is more sensitive than most to the many ghosts haunting the Overlook’s halls. Dick becomes rightfully concerned when he senses that young Danny Torrance, the son of winter caretaker Jack Torrance, shines especially brightly, and is therefore a ripe target for those ghosts. Eventually, Dick is forced to brave the harsh Colorado winter in order to rescue Danny and his mother from the hotel’s wrath.
Welcome to Derry takes place nearly two decades before The Shining; at this stage, Dick is serving on the same Derry Air Force base as Leroy Hanlon. We only catch a brief glimpse of Dick in Episode 1, but he seems intently interested in Leroy, as if he can sense something is supernaturally amiss with the major.
Episode 2 provides more context for Dick's presence in Derry and his interest in Leroy. Dick is using his psychic abilities to help the Air Force dig up and harness the slumbering It. Dick seems to sense that Leroy is special in his own way. A bullet to his brain has robbed Leroy of the ability to feel fear, which makes him uniquely capable of standing up to It. And over the course of the season, Leroy slowly comes to terms with the fact that Dick truly does have supernatural abilities.
Unsurprisingly, Dick plays a central role in battling It in this series. Just as at the Overlook, Dick’s powers will make him more aware than most adults of the danger lurking underneath the town. It even targets Dick specifically, hoping to draw extra sustenance from his psychic abilities, much like the vampires in Doctor Sleep.
That's basically what happens in Episode 5, when It singles out Dick in the sewers and preys on his fear of his late grandfather. As established in Doctor Sleep, Dick had a loving relationship with his grandmother, who shared his shine ability, but he lived in constant terror of his "Black Grandpa," a monstrously cruel and vindictive man. Dick developed a technique of shutting away his fears inside metaphysical lockboxes in his mind. Here, Dick is forced by the spectre of Black Grandpa to open his lockbox, freeing all the ghosts that had been trapped away and causing Dick to once again see dead people.
By the end of the season, Dick overcomes his fears and the burden of his powers to help put It back in a cage. The series ends with Dick walking away from the military and embarking on a career as a chef. As he puts it, “How much trouble can a hotel be?” Yeah, about that…
Episode 2 incldues another fun The Shining Easter egg, as we see a stack of Calumet Baking Powder cans in the grocery store, all displaying that iconic logo of an Indian chief. These cans were also seen in Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining, part of the Overlook Hotel's extensive larder.
The exact significance of the cans and the Indian logo has been the source of much debate over the years, with some arguing (like in the documentary Room 237) that Kubrick was trying to include subtle commentary about American imperialism and the genocide of Native Americans. The Indian chief image may also speak to the ancient history of the supernatural terrors in this world. Again, It has been in Derry for a very long time.
Juniper Hill Asylum
Episode 2 also introduces another iconic King landmark in Juniper Hill Asylum. We learn that Lily (Clara Stack) was previously committed there after the death of her father, and she's forced to return at the end of the episode after suffering through another of It's terrifying hallucinations.
Juniper Hill appears in the original IT novel as well as numerous other King works, from Insomnia to Needful Things to The Dark Half. It's a place every bit as twisted as you'd expect from a psychiatric institution in Stephen King's multiverse.
Shawshank State Prison
Along with Juniper Hill, the series also introduced another very recognizable facility in the form of Shawshank State Prison. The wrongfully imprisoned Hank Grogan (Stephen Rider) is doomed to be imprisoned there, even as Charlotte fights to clear his name. Though ultimately, he manages to avoid being imprisoned there.
Shawshank was most famously featured in King's 1982 novella "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," which was later adapted into the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption. Both versions of the story follow the plight of Andy Dufresne, a man imprisoned for decades at the hellish prison after being convicted of murdering his wife. Shashank was also heavily featured in Castle Rock, another series notable for bringing together pieces of the King multiverse.
Project Arrowhead
Episode 4 features a quick shot of a building called the Arrowhead Motel. This may be a reference to the Arrowhead Project, a top-secret government program referenced in King books like The Mist. There, the Arrowhead Project is aimed at creating an interdimensional window allowing the military to peer into other realities. Obviously, General Shaw and his men have a very different goal in mind in Welcome to Derry, but the general theme of the military tampering with otherworldly forces remains in play.
The Real Mrs. Kersh
In Episode 5 we learn a lot more about Madeline Stowe's character, Ingrid Kersh, including that she's the secret lover of Stephen Rider's Hank Grogan. The simple fact that her last name is Kersh is definitely intriguing. That's the name of the old woman who lives in Bev's childhood home in IT: Chapter Two. That woman turns out to be nothing more than another manifestation of It. But it would seem that, at one point, she was a real person, and she did her best to help the children affected by It's evil.
At least, that's what we thought until Episode 6. Now we know that Ingrid has some real demons of her own. We learn that It's Pennywise form was inspired by her own father's clown persona, and now Ingrid is actively feeding It innocent children as a means of achieving some sort of twisted family reunion.
By the end of the season, Ingrid is herself locked away in Juniper Hill, doomed to spend the rest of her life painting and pining for her “papa.” But in the final scene, we discover that Bev had an earlier run-in with the real Mrs. Kersh as a child.
Salem's Lot
Episode 6 contains a pair of slim but intriguing references to King's iconic vampire novel Salem's Lot. The first is that Mrs. Kersh's and her father Bob apparently vacationed in Cumberland County, the area where the doomed town of Jerusalem's Lot is located. The other comes when the lynch mob references "the Boone brothers," two characters at the center of the 1978 short story "Jerusalem's Lot."
The Importance of the Turtle
Welcome to Derry’s first episode includes another important, albeit more subtle, easter egg in the form of a charm on Lily’s bracelet – a turtle, a creature with deep significance in King lore. We see another turtle reference in Episode 4, when the Indian tribe buries one of the pieces of the meteorite inside a turtle shell. Episode 8 drops another reference still, as Rose concocts a potion for Dick made from maturin root. Maturin is also the name of the Turtle god in King’s novels. And who can forget the bumbling turtle mascot from Derry High School?
Getting back to It’s cosmic origins, this demon was created at the same time as a benevolent turtle entity; the Turtle is It’s polar opposite and a sign of strength to the members of the Losers Club. The Turtle is also one of the 12 animals featured in the Dark Tower books who guard “The Beams,” invisible energy forces that lead directly to the titular tower at the center of existence.
We’d expect to see multiple turtle references in this series, all meant to serve as reminders that there are other forces at work in Derry beyond It/Pennywise…and not all of them are so sinister.
The 12 Pillars
Episode 4 reveals a lot about the history of It in Derry and how this demonic entity was clashing with the local Native American tribe long before white settlers came to the area. We even learn that the tribe has a legend about the heroic warrior who imprisoned It centuries ago. According to the story, the tribe buried 13 pieces of the meteorite that originally carried It to Earth. 12 of these pieces form a ring around It's woodland territory, while the 13th is located at the center of the ring. As long as that circle remains unbroken, It's evil is contained to the Derry area.
This circular structure is almost definitely meant to be a reference to King's Dark Tower novels. In Mid-World, the place where heroic gunslinger Roland Deschain carries out his long quest to find the titular tower, there are 12 portals forming a great ring around the planet. The beams mentioned above start at these portals and move inward, converging on the Dark Tower in the center. Each of the 12 portals is protected by a Guardian of the Beam, like Maturin the Turtle and Shardik the Bear. It's prison is clearly mimicking the structure of the Dark Tower itself.
We probably won't see any more overt references to the Dark Tower books than this, as Warner Bros. doesn't hold the rights to those stories. Instead, The Haunting of Hill House's Mike Flanagan is currently developing a Dark Tower TV series for Amazon. Still, it's a fun nod for hardcore King fans.
The Second Hand Rose
Episode 2 establishes a key throwback to 2019's IT: Chapter Two with the scene at the Second Hand Rose thrift shop. In the movie, that shop is run by Stephen King's character (that same character cameos as a younger man here), and it's where Bill Denbrough buys his beloved Schwinn bicycle. Back in 1962, it's where Leroy purchases a telescope for his son Will.
Like the turtle, the rose is an image with special significance in King's work, and it also ties back to the Dark Tower books and their central protagonist, Roland Deschain. The rose is a symbol of goodness and purity, though we definitely get a slightly creepy vibe from the shop in this series. If anything, we can't help but be reminded of Needful Things and its infamous shop of horrors.
On the other hand, the shop's current owner, Kimberly Norris Guerrero's Rose, is a major focus of the series, and she seems to be one of the few genuinely good people in Derry. She and her friends have been keeping Derry safe from It’s wrath for centuries. Or, as safe as they can manage, anyway. And now that responsibility is shared by the Hanlons.
Setting Up Welcome to Derry: Chapter 2
Welcome to Derry’s final episode ends with the reveal that this isn’t meant to be a standalone, single-season project, but the start of a larger prequel series. This is Welcome to Derry: Chapter 1, and we get some clues as to what’s coming in the planned second season.
Most notable here is the aforementioned reveal that It is basically unstuck in time and has awareness of the future and his inevitable death at the hands of the Losers Club. We learn that this is why It targeted Marge. It wants to kill the parents before their children can grow to become a threat.
Is It actually capable of changing the past and altering the future, a la Terminator? That remains to be seen. But it’s implied that It will try again in another, even earlier cycle, meaning another group of emotionally fragile youngsters will have to rise up. At the same time, the series may continue to focus on the aftermath of the 1962 cycle, as we see what challenges Rose and the Hanlons face in keeping It dormant under Derry and preventing others from trying to harness the slumbering god’s power.
It’s very likely that Welcome to Derry Chapter Two will showcase some of the other tragedies from Derry’s troubled history. That includes the Kitchener Ironworks explosion in the 1908 cycle and the Bradley Gang massacre in the 1935 cycle, both of which are depicted in the show’s animated opening credits. This town has seen a lot of death and misery over the decades, and It has often been at the center of it all.
It: Welcome to Derry has spent its entire first season attempting to soup up the supplemental material in Stephen King’s novel to a degree where it’s able to stand on its own while retaining the essential King-ness at its heart. With “Winter Fire” bringing the season to a close, Welcome to Derry sees the show achieving that goal, with a finale that keeps big emotions at the center of big spectacle… although that spectacle does become increasingly ridiculous as it spirals. Then again, endings do tend to get a little complicated in the world of Stephen King.
“Winter Fire” opens with the stakes skyrocketing immediately. A dense layer of fog (but not “Mist;” they pointedly do not say “mist” at any point) plunges Derry into chaos, giving much of the episode the feel of a disaster movie. At first blush, this seems to be part of the military “cleanup” hinted at by General Shaw a couple episodes ago. The confused reactions on the part of the soldiers who first detect the phenomenon, however, muddy the waters on that score and suggest it may be the backfiring results of destroying one of the pillars in last week’s episode. Though the rationale for blanketing Derry in moody, atmospheric fog isn’t well justified, the environment does serve as a creepy, engaging setting for the ensuing race against Pennywise. I remain shaken by the god-awful CG in the cemetery scene from Episode 3, so it was a relief that at least the visual effects in the finale seemed a lot more thoughtfully designed and deployed, even if the presence of the fog is not well explained. Guess that’s just the price of admission for cool shots like a procession of catatonic kids floating over the ice, or Pennywise’s monster-bird form making a terrifying beeline for our heroes through that fog.
In any case, the lack of clarity or purpose here serves as a real “masks off” moment for the season’s military conspiracy: It’s a dud. Dick Hallorann aside, it feels as if the outsized military thread’s main purpose was just to squeeze one more episode’s worth of Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) out of Welcome to Derry by the end, as if the predestined burning of the Black Spot couldn’t work as the season’s true climax because fans would see it coming – the dilemma of a prequel laid bare. General Shaw’s (James Remar) abject ignorance, thinking he could “aim” Pennywise at dissident Americans, comes back to bite him… hard, in the face, until he’s dead. Remar’s measured tones and kindness made Shaw a sympathetic presence for much of the season, which leaves Shaw’s snowballing idiocy over the last two episodes a real disappointment.
In a broader sense, the scope of the storytelling expanding around Pennywise through this plot thread feels like a rare instance of Welcome to Derry fumbling its perspective on King’s fiction. So much of the horror of It comes from being alone with it and, even though the secret’s always going to be banding together to face that horror together, all the increased visibility of the monster does occasionally chip away at its mystique through the finale. Welcome to Derry had a glamored clown waiting in the wings that may have helped all this, but Periwinkle/Ingrid Kersh (Madeleine Stowe) is mostly absent from the finale.
Pennywise, reawakened by the pillar’s destruction, uses all this confusion as an opportunity to sneak out and gather an entire school’s worth of children for the most effed-up assembly of all time. Decapitation, musical theater, the entire student body being glamored by It’s deadlights at the same time – that all sounds better than math class to me! “Winter Fire” pushes Pennywise and his surrounding mythology to extremes we’ve never quite seen before, but Skarsgård’s unwavering commitment to the role does wonders for keeping the action on the rails as the clown does things like ice skate across a frozen lake to kill soldiers or, I don’t know, up-end the entire concept of spacetime as it relates to It’s physiology and cycles of feeding. More on that in a minute.
With the fog spreading a deep chill over Derry and Pennywise blowing into a tuba as the Pied Piper for a stream of floating kids, the mission quickly comes into focus: replace the destroyed pillar with the ceremonial dagger in the custody of Lilly (Clara Stack), Ronnie (Amanda Christine), and Marge (Matilda Lawler), which will send Pennywise back to sleep and save Will (Blake Cameron James) and the other glamored kids in the process. Ronnie and Marge finally get through to the increasingly isolated Lilly after the three steal a milk truck to go after Pennywise and Will themselves. The girls get the dagger and its corrupting influence away from Lilly long enough to remind her that she is and always has been a “lifeboat,” not the “anchor” on her loved ones that she’s feared; it’s a moment of support and reconciliation that Stack, Christine, and Lawler navigate well together.
After receiving a phone call from Pennywise, Jovan Adepo puts in his best work of the season as Leroy, Derry’s “man without fear,” finally breaks, tearfully begging Hallorann (Chris Chalk) to help save his baby. Taylour Paige’s Charlotte takes the news of Will’s capture just as hard, exploding in anguish and doing a good job of focusing the other assembled adults – Hank Grogan, Rose and Taniel, and Dick – on the task ahead. The supporting characters are largely left by the wayside throughout the finale, joining in on the action mostly when the plot needs help to move along. Taniel (Joshua Odjick) in particular goes down with a surprising amount of indifference, unceremoniously killed off by gunfire as the adults, kids, and military all converge on the banks of the Penobscot River, on which rests a gnarled tree where the dagger must be placed to reseal It in his prison. With a Shining assist from Dick (a fun diversion that sees Dick trick Pennywise into thinking he’s awoken as Bob Gray), the kids free Will and find the dagger fighting against being put in place. Then a knight in shining armor comes to save the day, as the spirit of Rich Santos (Arian S. Cartaya) arrives just in time to flip off Pennywise and help his friends plunge the dagger into the tree. It’s a moving moment that calls to mind Stan Uris’ spiritual presence while his surviving Losers’ Club friends defeat It in their own time.
Not everything about Welcome to Derry’s first season worked, but Chris Chalk’s Dick Hallorann was a resounding success.
The funeral for Rich, Will, and Ronnie confessing their mutual crushes on each other, and the breaking of the “Lifeboats” circle when the Grogans flee town for Canada help to ease Welcome to Derry back into more recognizable emotional territory after the chaotic events on the Penobscot. It’s at Rich’s funeral that Dick gets the chance to use his Shine to give comfort to Rich’s grieving parents, letting them know that Rich is right behind them and he always will be, and I’m not crying, you are! Not everything about Welcome to Derry’s first season worked, but Chris Chalk’s Dick Hallorann was a resounding success, and the cutesy hints at the next steps of Dick’s journey make the idea of potentially getting to spend more time with the character (whether in future seasons of Welcome to Derry or a spinoff) a welcome proposition.
And yes, the finale does put a surprising amount of emphasis on laying groundwork for future stories, which seems ass-backwards considering we know future seasons of the show are supposed to be moving back in time. The narrative grenade Welcome to Derry lobs over its shoulder on the way out the door? Pennywise doesn’t experience time the same way as humans, and killing him may actually just be enabling his birth, suggesting that no defeat of It can be totally counted on as final… not even, it seems, the victory of the Losers Club over It in 2019. Much of this sentiment is conveyed to Marge directly, as Pennywise reveals to her that she becomes Margaret Tozier, going so far as to whip out a missing poster for Finn Wolfhard’s yet-to-be-born Richie Tozier. These are compelling turns to consider, but Welcome to Derry seems happy to punt any further explanation of these timey-wimey intricacies to next season.
That all brings us to why this episode is called “Winter Fire” in the first place; after all, “winter fire” is a poetic phrase we most closely associate with Losers’ Club member Beverly Marsh, right? Well, Welcome to Derry’s got one crank of the jack-in-the-box left to surprise us with after the “It: Welcome to Derry Chapter One” title card comes up: a jump forward in time to 1986, where Ingrid Kersh (Joan Gregson, returning from It: Chapter Two) hears screams from the next room over from hers in Juniper Hill, where she’s been in custody since the burning of the Black Spot. Ingrid investigates and discovers her neighbor Elfrida Marsh has hung herself, to the horror of the distraught husband and daughter grieving at her feet: Alfred and Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis). Ingrid hits Bev with the town motto, “No one who dies in Derry ever really dies,” before giving her a bucktoothed Pennywise grin. The coda certainly reinforces the continuity between Welcome to Derry and the movies, but it’s not all that clear whether Lillis’ presence is just to help put an exclamation point on the season, or to suggest that as Pennywise hinted, there may be unfinished business for the Losers Club to account for sometime in their future.
Connexion
