Despite being revealed at last year's The Game Awards, Naughty Dog's upcoming Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is reportedly still years away from launch.

Fans of the Uncharted and The Last of Us studio should also not expect another glimpse of the project at next month's annual video games award ceremony, it was claimed.

Discussion around when to expect Intergalactic was recently sparked by journalist Colin Moriarty, who suggested he thought it possible the game would launch in 2026. (After various sites picked up the comment as confirmation, Moriarty then issued a clarification to say he'd just been "speculating," though by then, the topic had snowballed.)

In March this year, in a conversation with 28 Years Later director Alex Garland, Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann said the developer still had "a ways to go" on the project. During the same month, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier stated that the game would not launch in 2026 (and neither would The Witcher 4, either).

This month, Schreier has now repeated this statement — once again placing Intergalactic's arrival as 2027 at the earliest, and potentially skipping the PS5 generation altogether. Meanwhile, Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb has claimed that the game won't be making a second appearance in trailer form at The Game Awards this year.

Is this a surprise? Not really. PlayStation (and Nintendo, and Xbox) have a habit of teasing blockbuster titles a long time before they're ready for most people to play them. And in an interview in May, Druckmann confirmed Naughty Dog was also working on a second game which he said he was acting as "more of a producer" and "mentor" on. Perhaps this game will be announced and launched first?

Still, the reminder that Naughty Dog's big new IP is still years away has come as a disappointment to some. Should Intergalactic launch in 2027, it will have been seven years since the launch of The Last of Us Part 2. During the PlayStation 3 and 4 era, Naughty Dog launched a trilogy of Uncharted games and the first The Last of Us within the same timeframe.

Of course, Naughty Dog has still launched new products over the past few years, including the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, The Last of Us Part 1 and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered — but these have been re-releases and remasters. At the same time, it has also abandoned its long-awaited multiplayer The Last of Us spin-off, which will now no longer see the light of day.

"I am all for letting devs cook but this is the absolute worst generation for Naughty Dog," one fan wrote on social media. "TLOU P2 dropped in 2020 and all we've gotten are barebones remasters, an unnecessary remake, cancelled multiplayer and waiting almost a decade for a new game."

Still, Druckmann has spoken confidently that Intergalactic will be worth the wait. Featuring a dark sci-fi story centered around the topics of faith and religion, the project will be led by a star-studded cast that includes Tati Gabrielle from the Uncharted movie as protagonist Jordan A. Mun, and Kumail Nanjiani of Marvel's Eternals as a man called Colin Graves.

In September this year, in an interview in which Druckmann described development as "firing on all cyclinders," the director branded his next project as "the most ambitious game we’ve ever made."

"It's the most expansive game we've ever made," he then teased, "[and] maybe the most expensive, by the time we finish it."

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

Chloé Zhao, co-writer and director of Marvel flop Eternals, has said she'd be keen to return for a sequel, and discussed the story elements she'd want to see explored.

While any future for Eternals' characters and its various dangling story threads currently seems unlikely, Zhao has said she'd "love to bring them back" to further expand on their portrayal as a "pantheon of gods" looking down on humanity.

"It's there for a reason, this kind of myth, and these [MCU] films are a modern version of that to me," Zhao told Screenrant. "So, I would love to bring them back and have more discussion about the world we live in. I'm really proud of it."

So far, Marvel has not indicated any desire to make a second Eternals film, after the original launched to a poor critical response and disappointing box office returns back in late 2021.

At the time of its release, Eternals was the first and only Marvel film to be rated as "Rotten" via Rotten Tomatoes (an unfortunate accolade it now shares with 2023's widely-panned Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and this year's Captain America: Brave New World).

Worse, perhaps, was the fact Eternals had been a particularly high-profile failure, with a lavish production and star-studded cast failing to launch an ambitious new branch of storytelling within the MCU. (Last year, Marvel boss Kevin Feige confirmed "there are no immediate plans for Eternals 2.")

Valve has provided the strongest indication yet that the Steam Machine price will be set with similar performance PCs in mind, and confirmed it has no plans to subsidize the hardware like console manufacturers do by eating a big loss on each unit sold.

The Steam Machine is a mid-level gaming-focused PC designed to be more accessible than a standard desktop PC, with a sleek, cube-like design and SteamOS on-board. We here at IGN have offered our thoughts on how much the Steam Machine will cost, suggesting it’ll probably be higher than people think. Chatter about pricing recently ramped up after Linus Sebastian of Linus Tech Tips suggested it wouldn’t follow a “console pricing model” of $500, after mentioning the figure in a meeting with Valve staff.

Then last week, a former Xbox executive called on Valve to allow third-parties to use SteamOS to make their own Steam Machines, amid concern over the potential price of the next-gen living room PC (as IGN pointed out at the time, third-parties already can use SteamOS — just look at the Lenovo Legion Go S).

Now, in a new interview with Skill Up, Valve's Lawrence Yang and Pierre-Loup Griffais discussed the price of Steam Machine without actually confirming what it is. The conversation began with software engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais confirming that Steam Machine is more powerful than 70% of gaming PCs that Valve registers on its hardware survey, in terms of general GPU level, saying: “We have looked at that number as part of speccing the machine, so it’s possible it’s evolved a little bit over time, but I think ballpark, it’s about there.”

He then said that fans should expect the Steam Machine price to be around the same as if you were to build a PC from parts to get “basically the same level of performance.”

“I think that if you build a PC from parts and get to basically the same level of performance, that's the general price window that we aim to be at,” he said. “Ideally we'd be pretty competitive with that and have a pretty good deal, but we're working on refining that as we speak. Right now is just a hard time to have a really good idea of what the price is going to be because there's a lot of different things… a lot of external things.”

In that context, Valve’s Steam Machine will likely cost above $750. We’ve suggested Steam Machine will cost $700-$800. To put that into perspective, the base PS5 with a disc drive currently costs $549.99, while the PS5 Digital Edition costs $499.99. The PS5 Pro, meanwhile, costs $749.99.

Skill Up then asked Valve to rule out the Steam Machine being subsidized hardware, saying, “like Valve is not going into this thinking we're going to eat a big loss on this so that we can grow market share or category or anything like that, correct?"

Pierre-Loup Griffais’ answer here was unequivocal:

“No. It's more in-line with what you might expect from the current PC market. Obviously, our goal is for it to be a good deal at that level of performance.”

He then went on to make the case for Steam Machine at that sort of price, pointing to the value you get from the various features it includes that simply wouldn’t be easy to replicate if you were to build your own PC from similar parts.

“And then you have features that are actually really hard to build if you're making your own gaming PC from parts, right?” he continued. “Like things like, obviously the small form factor and I think the noise level that we achieved — or lack thereof — is really impressive, and we're excited that the people are going to find out how quiet this thing is. But also some integration features like HDMI CEC, right? Like being able to turn on your TV, turn off your TV, control it with your TV remote, change the volume, all that kind of stuff.

“Like the Bluetooth and wireless work that we've done, the four antennas, the very deliberate design to make sure that you can have a great experience with four Bluetooth controllers from any manufacturer, plus our Steam Controller receiver integrated as well — that’s all hard to do. But more importantly, you can turn on the machine from your controller, which is not something that is actually straightforward depending on the type of PC you have or the main chipset and all that.

“So being able to sit down on your couch, press one button on your controller, and the whole thing lights up like you'd expect for a thing that's in your living room, I think that's really valuable. And there's not really a price point to that because it's not really something that exists in the PC market right now.

“There's people that are going to be perfectly happy building their PC at whatever level of spec, and that's going to be a great experience for them. We're building Steam OS so that if they want to use it for that they can and they can have essentially the same experience. And if they're happy with that, that's perfectly good with us. But we expect the machine is a nice baseline offering that lets you have some features that are really hard to get to otherwise.”

Valve designer Lawrence Yang then chimed in with his own thought: "for me one of the benefits of Steam Machine is, I'm someone who used to build my PC in college and I am too old and tired to do that now!”

These latest comments chime with Linus Tech Tips’ recent episode of the WAN Show, where he recalled that he had expressed his disappointment to Valve that Steam Machine wouldn’t follow a console pricing model where it is subsidized by the manufacturer because it takes a 30% cut of sales made on the platform, as the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo do with their consoles.

Linus said he was then asked by Valve what he meant by a “console price,” to which he responded $500. “Nobody said anything, but the energy of the room wasn't great,” Linus continued.

Here are the comments in full:

“So basically, it's a 7600 CPU and a 7600 GPU. This is not a super powerful machine. Valve is upfront saying that they are going to be relying on FSR in order to achieve 4K. And even then man, like 8 gigs of VRAM, anyone else would be taking a ton of flak for shipping a game console today with 8 gigs of VRAM.

“I can’t tell you what the price will be because I literally don't know but, when I said, ‘I'm disappointed that it isn't going to follow a console pricing model where it's subsidized by the fact that the manufacturer is going to be taking 30% of every game sold on it over the lifespan of this thing, because I feel that would be a more meaningful product,’ they kind of asked what I meant by, well, ‘what do you mean by console price?’ And I said, ‘Well, $500.’

“Nobody said anything, but the energy of the room wasn't great.”

Now, some are questioning Valve’s refusal to subsidize the Steam Machine and thus theoretically at least miss out on having a greater number of people buying games through Steam. Larian publishing director Michael Douse, who is in charge of business development regarding the likes of Steam megahit Baldur’s Gate 3, took to social media to suggest Valve will lose “far more” than the approx. $200 difference by not having more users on the Steam storefront, “which is essentially a money printing machine.”

“That said it isn't stupid to not sell things at a loss, just peculiar in this case,” Douse continued.

We’ve got plenty more on all Valve’s recent hardware announcements, and have a handy roundup so you don’t miss a thing. We went hands-on with Steam Machine and Steam Controller, and if you’re wondering about Steam Deck 2, we asked Valve about that as well.

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.

Harry Potter movie star Rupert Grint has said he'll likely never leave the "shadow" of Ron Weasley behind.

Speaking to BBC News, Grint said he was "fine" to always be associated with his on-screen character and felt a "lot of pride" for his work on the eight Harry Potter movies.

"It has a quite deep meaning to a lot of people of my generation, and even more to generations who are finding it now," Grint said. "It's great. It gives me a lot of pride. It was such a huge thing. I don't think I'll ever quite step out of his shadow, but I'm fine with that."

Actor and musician Donald Glover has revealed the reason he abruptly cancelled his tour last year: after being told by a doctor he'd suffered a stroke.

In a widely-shared speech to the audience at a festival in Los Angeles this past weekend, Glover recalled visiting a hospital after experiencing "really bad pain" ahead of a show in Louisiana last year. Glover continued to perform, though sought medical advice after.

Doctors then discovered a hole in his heart, Glover said. "The doctor was like, 'You had a stroke.'"

Udo Kier, the German actor who starred in over 200 films, has died aged 81.

Kier, who appeared in 275 roles including in My Own Private Idaho, Blade, Armageddon, and Dogville, as well as Madonna music videos and video games, died on Sunday morning, his partner Delbert McBride confirmed to Variety. Photographer Michael Childers took to social media to say Kier died in hospital in Palm Springs, California. A cause of death has not yet been revealed.

Sonos kicked off its Black Friday Sale earlier last week with discounts of 15%-30% off its entire lineup of sound bars and speakers. However, the best deals are actually on Sonos' all-in-one "sets", which are pre-selected speakers that are matched together to round out a complete home theater or entertainment system. Some bundles have an additional discount that stacks on top of Black Friday prices. If you're looking to build out a complete Sonos system for your home, then this is the best way to get a matched setup at the lowest possible price for Black Friday. Some of these bundles may be available at your local big box retailer, but some are exclusive to Sonos.com.

Note that there are other bundles on Sonos, however only the ones below have an extra discount.

Bundle 1: 2 Room Set with Era 100