Nintendo has announced a Nintendo Direct revealing the final trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. It is set for Monday, March 9, at 2pm PT / 11am ET / 9pm UK time.

To manage expectations, Nintendo said no game information will be included in the presentation.

Recent trailers for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, due to hit theaters April 1, have sparked all sorts of questions about unannounced Nintendo characters who may pop up in the film. Some fans even believe the movie will revolve around time travel. Last month, a familiar but unannounced name popped up in a theater chain's description of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

Along with Mario and Luigi, the upcoming animated sequel will also see Bowser Jr, Yoshi, Birdo, a T-Rex, and Rosalina, the latter of whom is voiced by Marvel star and Nintendo fan Brie Larson. All of the same major cast members are back from the first movie, too, including Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek.

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.

The Pixel 10a has arrived to give Google fans a newer affordable option at $499. But apart from a few minor design tweaks, the addition of Satellite SOS, and a slight extension to the software support window, the Pixel 10a doesn’t shake things up. While it would prove a good option if every other phone stuck to its retail price, there’s no ignoring the fact that the Pixel 10a is launching months after the Pixel 10 has already seen discounts as low as $550.

Pixel 10a – Design and Features

Google’s Pixel 10a isn’t revolutionary or even exciting. It borrows the tame looks of the Pixel 9a, which had eschewed the eye-catching camera bar of mainline Pixel models. But where the Pixel 9a’s cameras rose up slightly from the back of the phone, the Pixel 10a’s cameras actually sit slightly below the back surface. This was a point Google emphasized in its launch, but it’s not a unique technical achievement considering RedMagic’s bold gaming phones have done so for a few years running.

The display is respectable, but pretty much no phone at or over $500 can get away with much less. The 6.3-inch screen offers a fair 1080x2424 resolution that’s plenty sharp for most uses. It can run smooth at 120Hz but doesn’t have the ability to drop down to 1Hz for extra efficiency. Still, it’s hard to get mad at a colorful OLED that can reach as high as 3000 nits.

The display is flanked by stereo speakers. One ports out the bottom of the phone while the other is tucked into the earpiece. They put out decent volume, though I found them a touch harsh while gaming and had trouble hearing podcasts in the kitchen over cooking noises.

The phone’s footprint is modest. It’s larger than the Pixel 9 but mostly smaller than the Pixel 9a save for a slight bump to thickness. It’s comfortable in the hand but doesn’t feel totally compact. Part of that is because its 6.3-inch display still has somewhat thick bezels all the way around. Google claims they’re thinner than the Pixel 9a’s bezels, but neither are competing for record thinness.

The choices Google made for what to pack into the compact frame are interesting. It made some nice inclusions, like a physical SIM slot to complement the eSIM support. The phone gets a USB 3.2 port for faster wired data transmission. Google even opted to include the necessary hardware for Satellite SOS, something the Pixel 9a missed out on.

Google left some surprising things out, though. There are no magnets to allow for Qi2 and Pixelsnap accessories. The Pixel 10a can still wirelessly charge, but only at up to 10 watts. And though 30W charging is supported, you’ll need to have your own capable charging brick.

The Pixel 10a can unlock with facial recognition or an under-display fingerprint scanner. Both worked quickly in my testing.

Durability should be OK but not amazing. Gaskets are built in to give the phone a commendable IP68 water resistance to keep dust and water out even under almost five feet of water. The plastic back material feels nice and glassy, but shouldn’t shatter like glass if dropped. Gorilla Glass 7i on the front has avoided blemishing in my time testing, but it doesn’t promise as extreme drop- or scratch-resistance as the Gorilla Glass Victus showing up on more flagship phones. The phone gets an aluminum frame, and Google matches it to the rear color, but this can scratch up

Pixel 10a – Software

The Pixel 10a comes running on Android 16 and Google promises 7 years of support with OS and security updates alongside its Pixel Drops, which brings new features now and then. This long-term support may be one of the Pixel 10a’s most compelling features, as this kind of support is already rare for any phone, let alone one without a flagship price tag.

Some highlight features of the Pixel 10a’s software are support for Auto Best Take and Camera Coach in the camera app, helping users frame photos and capture group shots without anyone blinking. The phone also supports a new Quick-share feature that’s compatible with iPhone’s Air Drop. In testing, this let me share a file directly with an iPhone with just a couple taps.

Pixel 10a – Gaming and Performance

The Pixel 10a didn’t get any notable under-the-hood upgrades. It has the same Tensor G4 chip that the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9a came running on. That chip was already trailing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips when it launched, and the gulf is only widening. Its 8GB of RAM is less than the Pixel 9 included, but hasn’t been an impediment in regular use.

It’s not as though the Pixel 10a is slow. In everyday use, it’s been able to keep up just fine. It fluidly ramps up to 120Hz for smooth animations while swiping around, and it browses the web without fuss. It can handle light games well. I played an hour of Carrion and the phone only got slightly warm, and I couldn’t tell whether that was because of the game or just the phone's curious tendency to get a little warm. It even handled Rainbow Six Mobile at Ultra settings smoothly. Bigger, more demanding games like Where Winds Meet can’t go all-out, though. The Pixel 10a was able to run the game at its Ultra graphics preset, but it was capped to 30fps. It largely maintained that framerate at least. The phone seems to throttle enough to avoid getting hot in use, but warmth is almost constant.

While serviceably fast, the performance limits that exist today are only going to become bigger impediments in the future as more demanding games and apps arrive. So even if Google continues to support the phone with software updates, its hardware may simply not be viable for much at the end of that support window.

Compared to other recent devices, the Pixel 10a’s performance leaves a lot to be desired. It falls shy of the budget Poco X7 Pro in multi-core and graphical performance by a considerable amount. That only widens when facing off against a more potent device like the OnePlus 15R, which the Pixel 10a tended to fall anywhere from 30 to 50% behind. The Pixel 10 also comes out ahead of the Pixel 10a, albeit not with much of a graphical bump to speak of. And though it may seem like an obvious outcome for the Pixel 10 to exceed the Pixel 10a, it matters for potential buyers because the Pixel 10 has already seen discounts that bring its price far closer to the 10a’s price than MSRP would have you believe.

The battery life of the Pixel 10a is good, but not impressive. It fits in a 5,100mAh pack just like the 9a, and it’s been good for all-day battery life with a little juice to spare. But the phone seems to have a bit more passive drain overnight than I’d like, so I don’t expect to easily get through two days of heavy use.

Pixel 10a – Cameras

The cameras have generally been a highlight of Pixel phones, and though the budget series makes some sacrifices, they can still perform well. That said, the Pixel 10a does nothing new. It has the exact same camera system as the Pixel 9a. Considering that it has the same SoC as the Pixel 9a, there’s really nothing new this phone can do in the camera department.

• 48MP wide, f/1.7, 1/2”, OIS, EIS
• 13MP ultrawide, f/2.2, 1/3.1”, 120-degree FoV
• 13MP Selfie, f/2.2, 96.1-degree FOV

It’s not entirely bad news. The main sensor was great last year and is still great this year. It captures plenty of light, helping make the most of even dim environments. It provides sharp and colorful images with a ton of detail. The wide aperture also lends to a soft background blur when taking close-ups.

Google would say the sensor is good enough to zoom in digitally, but most shots I took with digital zoom don’t hold up well when viewed at full size. Zooming into 2x on the phone does have some advantages over simply zooming in on a 1x photo, as the phone does extra noise reduction and sharpening, though even that doesn’t make it a great photo.

The ultra-wide sensor is useful to have for getting extra perspective on large and close subjects. It gets a good amount of detail, even if it can get soft around the edges. It’s not a perfect complement to the main sensor, though, as I caught it shifting the color temperature from the main sensor, which can make for an inconsistent series of photos. The tighter aperture also doesn’t let it perform as well in dim environments, so where the main sensor may be capturing crisp and clear shots, switching to the ultra-wide sensor could lead to noisy photos.

The selfie camera is also acceptable. It gets decent light and natural colors alongside a wide enough FOV to capture a couple of friends in the same shot.

While not mind-blowing, the quality of the cameras on the Pixel 10a is still enough to keep it somewhat protected against the OnePlus 15R or Poco X7 Pro for anyone who prioritizes photos over gaming performance. That said, it still leaves the Pixel 10a facing off against the reality that the Pixel 10 has been (and almost surely will be again) on sale for $550-$600, and offers a big advantage with its additional telephoto sensor.

Mark Knapp is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything electronics and gaming hardware. He has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry with bylines at PCMag, Reviewed, CNET, and more. Find Mark on Twitter @Techn0Mark or BlueSky at @Techn0Mark.

From a return to Narnia to the latest Hunger Games prequel, here’s what to look forward to this year.

Last year, I shared eight of the best book adaptations that would soon be on our screens, and 2026 is shaping up to be another great year for new movies and TV shows.

Plus, there are even more that haven’t yet received a release date, such as Mike Flanagan’s Carrie TV series and the highly anticipated Neuromancer adaptation. So, we’ll be sure to keep you in the loop with them - and more - as the year progresses.

But until then, these are the best 2026 book adaptations that you won’t want to miss.

Sunrise On The Reaping

Expected release date: (November 20, 2026)

When Asha Sharma was appointed as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming last month, she entered the Xbox stage with a bold statement: “We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console which has shaped who we are.”

Just weeks later, that commitment has kicked off with the official confirmation that a new Xbox is in development. Project Helix is a “next generation console” that can “play your Xbox and PC games.” The rumours were all true, then. Such a feat isn’t as simple as it sounds, though, and this hybrid machine has surely presented Xbox’s engineering team with an Everest-grade challenge. Because when you consider the way today’s technology works, it seems more likely that Helix is a PC that plays Xbox games, not the other way around. And without an incredibly careful approach, Helix could become another addition to the confusing “This is an Xbox” mess rather than a brave new console generation.

Xbox has created a fascinating challenge for itself: Project Helix has to be two devices in one box. A video game console and a PC are, despite their similarities, two distinct things, and Helix needs to be both using just a single hardware setup. And that’s where the difficulties start. If Helix is to play PC games without any caveats – if this Xbox is to play any and all games available on Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, GOG, and any other service, rather than select games ringfenced by the Microsoft Store – then the hardware will need to be designed with a PC-first mindset. It will need to be capable of running games designed for the PC’s open, less precision-optimised environment at “next gen” quality, a situation that will presumably dictate the machine’s specifications.

Anyone who has built a PC to run Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K60, or perhaps in preparation for the upcoming Crimson Desert, will know the cost of such hardware is astronomical – even more so now, in the age of the AI-enforced RAM apocalypse. And anyone who has tried to build a PC comparable to a console on a console-ish budget will know the results are typically less than inspiring. The price of Helix, then, is already a rapidly flashing red light. Plus, if Helix can play Steam games, then the machine provides no guaranteed game revenue flow back to Microsoft, and that will certainly affect Xbox’s pricing strategy.

The fact that Project Helix even exists in the first place suggests that Microsoft has solved the puzzle of engineering a cohesive set of hardware components that can act as both PC and console architecture, even if the cost of that flexibility means a device possibly (likely) priced in excess of $1,000. Helix can cater to the needs of games coded for different devices, presumably in a fashion more advanced than just running a console emulator on PC. But regardless of whether that was an easy feat to achieve or not, the true challenge Helix faces is software. Because, in many ways, it’s software that makes a machine a console, not the components within it.

To be clear, when I say software, I mean operating systems, not games. Helix will require an OS that can seamlessly switch between its console and PC environments, sort of like a modern-day version of how the launch era PlayStation 3 could flip into PS2 mode. I suspect that Helix will be a little more sophisticated than having two walled-off environments that it needs to hop between, but from the perspective of the user, there really can’t be any difference between each side of the experience. Your Helix’s library needs to be your entire game library across console and PC (something the GOG’s Galaxy PC client already proves can be done). Booting games needs to feel identical across both sides of the platform, as does the overlay interface. It needs to be completely unified. It needs to be completely Xbox.

In other words, Microsoft needs to take this stuff much more seriously than it did with the ROG Xbox Ally handhelds. While (sort of) marketed as handheld Xboxes, the Ally and Ally X are actually portable gaming PCs. As such, they operate like PCs, not consoles. They run Windows 11, and suffer from all the horrible little issues that anything running Windows 11 suffers. Updates, product offers, and security systems like Windows Hello all push their way up through the “Xbox Full Screen Experience”, which is supposed to make the Ally operate like a console, but actually often proves an ill-fitting skin stretched over Windows 11. This absolutely can’t be a thing on Helix. It can’t even be a thing on half of Helix.

In an ideal world, Helix would be governed by a new, dedicated Xbox operating system that interfaces with both PC games and storefronts and traditional Xbox games and apps. It ideally needs to be akin to Valve’s SteamOS, the system that runs the Steam Deck and the forthcoming Steam Machine, in more ways than one. SteamOS uses a compatibility layer called Proton to effectively “translate” PC games designed for Windows and make them work on a Linux-based machine. This is what makes using a Steam Deck feel so complete and console-like, and why – at least in my opinion – it’s a better option than the Ally’s Xbox-layered-over-Windows 11 approach. The ultimate version of Helix doesn’t run Windows at all, but instead has its own compatibility layer that makes games designed for Windows run on a dedicated Xbox OS.

Microsoft undoubtedly has the talent and resources to make this happen. Does it have the will and conviction to, though? Why would it pump time and cash into developing this when it already has Windows, the system that every PC game is built for by default? It’s not hard to believe that Helix will require you to manually switch between Windows and Xbox, the two halves bridged by Xbox Full Screen Experience, and the PC version still cursed by all the rough edges of an OS designed first and foremost for productivity and offices.

Maybe all those edges will be sanded down by the time Helix is a system we can buy. There’s reason to be optimistic in that regard, as I do think Microsoft has been thinking ahead. Take a look at Game Pass, which now offers PC games at every one of its three tiers, instead of the old system of Xbox Game Pass vs PC Game Pass. There’s no longer any chance of a Helix owner subscribing to Xbox Game Pass and then being unable to play Age of Empires.

But this poses wider questions about Helix’s identity. When your Xbox is a PC, how do you approach playing a strategy game like Age of Empires? Will Helix ship with a mouse and keyboard by default? Will its controller feature track pads, akin to Steam’s upcoming model? Will there be a software solution that automatically maps a PC game’s inputs to the controller? Or will Xbox treat the PC side of Helix as something for “elite” enthusiasts, opening up the opportunity to sell a bunch of peripherals that are required to unlock the entire breadth of the machine’s capabilities? It’s hard not to be at least a little skeptical in the face of such questions.

The biggest question, of course, is why anyone should buy Project Helix over a PC? What will it offer that a PC can’t? Will it be a better price? A better user experience? Utilise a revolutionary new version of Game Pass? These are all questions Microsoft will want to have answers prepared for the moment it properly unveils the machine. Because whatever Helix is, it certainly won’t be as customizable and freely upgradable as a PC, and it presumably won’t be as straightforward as Sony’s next-generation PlayStation console.

That leaves us with a final question. In the age of Project Helix, what is an Xbox? Last year, we were told it could be pretty much anything connected to the internet. This year, Asha Sharma began her tenure as the new CEO of Microsoft Gaming by promising “a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console” – but her console, or at least the one she’s inherited, is a PC.

So, what is an Xbox? I guess an Xbox is whatever it wants to be. As long as that’s not just a games console, that is.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features.

Warning: this opinion piece contains spoilers for Resident Evil Requiem.

For three decades, players have been going toe-to-toe with zombies and other monsters in the Resident Evil series. This year’s latest mainline entry, Resident Evil Requiem, marks the beloved franchise’s 30th anniversary by being a love letter to the series’ entire past, from its early days of creepy, puzzle-filled survival horror to its adrenaline-fuelled action horror era. But while this approach has been praised almost unanimously across the board – we awarded Requiem 9/10 and its Metacritic score stands at 89, the highest of any modern, non-remake Resident Evil – I feel that its attempt to mix both of the series’ historic styles together creates a clash, rather than cohesion. Rather than a game that knows exactly what it wants to be, it feels to me like Resident Evil Requiem has a bit of an identity crisis.

Over the past decade, Resident Evil has reformulated itself as a slow-paced survival horror game, returning its mainline entries to the style of the 1996 original where every shot counts and everything around you is a threat. You're not a larger-than-life hero, instead you're an everyday person thrown into a nightmare scenario and you have to somehow find a way out alive. Seemingly inspired by indie hits like Amnesia and Outlast, Capcom opted for a first-person POV for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and its sequel, Village, which anchored you in the terrifying experience of their everyman protagonist, Ethan Winters. This new formula worked well, garnering critical acclaim and reigniting many people’s interest in the franchise, myself included. This was an especially important victory for Capcom because of how poorly 2012’s Resident Evil 6 was received, which almost entirely abandoned the series’ survival horror roots in favor of horror-themed action.

But with the release of Resident Evil Requiem, it feels as if some of the work that Capcom has been doing over the last few years with Biohazard and Village has been thrown out the window. It is, for sure, a great game that’s engaging from start to finish, but its big swings from terrifying survival horror to relentless action set pieces makes it feel as if Capcom couldn't pick a lane for Requiem’s overall tone. While playing through the campaign, I couldn’t help but feel that it was suffering from an identity crisis. And because of that, I found that many key plot points missed the mark for me. A prime example of this occurs towards the campaign’s midpoint, when Grace’s child ward, Emily, transforms into a giant monster. It’s a moment that’s supposed to create a cocktail of emotions – shock and upset over what’s become of your friend, fear for what will happen next – but before any of that really comes into play, Leon rushes in, guns blazing, to save the day.

While playing as Grace, Requiem is a slow-burning survival horror – the exact style of game I've come to expect from the series. Similar to when playing as Ethan Winters, I was forced to think carefully about how I wanted to approach each situation, and I often would ask myself, "Is this fight worth the ammo?" Every time I ran into a creature that would tower over me, I'd often scream out in real life, then proceed to run for my life in-game. The fear was only amplified by the fact that Grace’s sections employ the series’ traditional labyrinthine level design, and so I was often forced to revisit locations I’d previously barely made it out of alive in search of hidden treasure pieces needed to move the plot forward. The puzzles those treasures are used to solve aren’t exactly the hardest, but their presence is appreciated, and it made playing as Grace even more enjoyable.

Ultimately, a lot of Grace's gameplay is grounded in reality – yes, a reality where zombies tear off faces and doors are unlocked by gemstones – but the oppressive atmosphere, overwhelming odds, and vision-limiting first-person perspective makes playing as her truly scary. Even though she is employed by the FBI, she's essentially a pencil pusher who has next to no combat experience in the field. It makes you feel truly vulnerable, and so this was the strongest part of the game for me.

Leon’s sections, meanwhile, feel like a complete 180 from everything you experience as Grace. Replicating the approach of 2005’s Resident Evil 4, Leon’s most famous mission, most, if not all of the horror elements are removed from his sequences and story beats, which undermines much of what you played through as Grace – once again, Leon’s brutal gunning down of the monster Emily transforms into feels like it’s from a completely different story than the one Grace was experiencing. This is where the identity crisis really kicks in. Ammo is not as scarce anymore, and you're encouraged to run headfirst into battle. Rather than search for helpful scraps, Leon has access to a shopping and weapons upgrade system that rewards you with currency based on how many zombies you've killed. The only way to get better gear is by racking up a high kill count, a system that goes against everything the game’s Grace-centric first half was building towards. As Grace, I’d learned to be fearful of pretty much everything coming my way, especially the larger monsters that stalked the corridors of the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center. Leon, on the other hand, could solve such issues with a few shotgun shells and a grenade.

Unfortunately, the same can also be said about the puzzles (or lack thereof) Leon has to solve in his portion of the game. A lot of them mostly involve running to site X just to open location Y, which feels a notable step down compared to the more sophisticated problems facing Grace. This huge shift in approach between the two characters means it almost feels like playing an entirely different game during Requiem’s second half. Leon and Grace's parts feel like two sides of a strong coin, but they are underdeveloped because they're so split. Rather than complimentary halves, they feel like mandatory reflections of the series past to honor the series’ 30-year milestone. As I played, I began to wonder if Capcom was trying to directly appease its many generations of fans – those who loved Resident Evil 7 and 8's old school-influenced gameplay and those who liked the more action-packed style of RE 3-6 – rather than finding a new formula that combined elements of both.

It seems strange that Capcom has tried to do this multi-style catering, as such an approach was widely unpopular when the studio first tried it in 2012 with Resident Evil 6. Much like Requiem, that game was split into distinct sections that delivered different gameplay styles. Leon’s storyline, while admittedly still action heavy, was focused on more traditional horror goals, while Chris and Jake’s campaigns were almost Call of Duty-like in their approach to action. Granted, this time around, Capcom has done a much better job of both sides of the coin – Grace’s side of things is genuine survival horror, while Leon’s is a good tribute to the style of RE4 – but it’s nonetheless odd to see it take such a massive swing towards a campaign structure that had already done a lot of damage to the franchise. Towards the end of the game, it almost feels like you're playing a more polished version of Resident Evil 6 rather than the successor to Resident Evil 7 and 8.

What really makes all this frustrating is that Capcom has shown with Resident Evil Village that you can still have these over-the-top action moments without undermining the horror and tension built up throughout the game. A key example can be found at the tail end of the campaign, when the perspective switches from Ethan to Chris Redfield – the classic Resident Evil hero who’s a proficient soldier at this point in the timeline. You play his sequence as an FPS, killing everything that stands in your way. But because this is a single sequence, rather than half of the game, it feels like a refreshing vignette rather than a case of split personality.

With it being the 30th anniversary of Resident Evil, it's clear that Capcom's goal for Requiem was to pay respect to and celebrate the many different things this series has been. And when it’s exploring those things in isolation, it’s undeniably compelling. I loved creeping around Rhodes Hill as Grace, and I loved ripping through the streets of Raccoon City as Leon. Together, though, these elements make for a campaign that feels fractured. Its lack of commitment to one style really hurts Requiem’s overall big picture, and in its worst moments the clash between horror and action undermines much of the tension built up as Grace and inflicts tonal whiplash. There’s a lot I like about Resident Evil Requiem, but I wish the game belonged to either Grace or Leon, not both of them.

Luis Joshua Gutierrez is a freelance writer who loves games. You can reach him at @ImLuisGutierrez on Twitter.

The Witcher franchise has always been a natural fit for the comic book medium (see our review of 2014's The Witcher #1 for more). Now those stories are being brought to an entirely new audience, as WEBTOON reveals it's acquired the rights to Dark Horse's back catalog of The Witcher comics.

This is the latest collaboration between WEBTOON and Dark Horse, with the latter's Cyberpunk 2077, Critical Role, and Avatar: The Last Airbender comics also appearing on the platform. Check out the slideshow gallery below to see how the series will look in the WEBTOON format:

WEBTOON is kicking things off with The Witcher: House of Glass, which was written by Paul Tobin, drawn by Joe Querio, and colored by Carlos Badilla. House of Glass is set in the world of the Witcher games and follows Geralt of Rivia as he makes his way through the titular haunted mansion.

Here's the original logline for The Witcher: House of Glass:

Traveling near the edge of the Black Forest, monster hunter Geralt meets a widowed fisherman whose dead and murderous wife resides in an eerie mansion known as the House of Glass - which seems to have endless rooms, nothing to fill them with, and horror around every corner.

WEBTOON will begin serializing The Witcher on Monday, March 9 at 5pm PT. These stories will be adapted from the original Dark Horse graphic novels and modified for WEBTOON's vertical scrolling format. New installments will be added weekly.

In other The Witcher news, reports suggest that The Witcher 3 could be getting another expansion. You can also check out our comprehensive timeline of all The Witcher books.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.

War Machine premieres Friday, March 6 on Netflix.

Not to be confused with Netflix's 2017 Brad Pitt war satire of the same name, this War Machine stars Reacher's mammoth Alan Ritchson. He's a nearly aged-out Army Ranger hopeful (with a haunted past) whose two-hour Armed Forces commercial gets interrupted by a giant death robot from outer space that's a bulky combination of Aliens-style Power Loader and Tron-esque Recognizer. War Machine is an action/sci-fi mashup in the vein of Predator that stands slightly (on its tippy toes) above most of streaming's unchallenging, disposable rabble, mostly due to a ferocious mass casualty event of a second act.

War Machine's threat of a giant boxy contraption, instead of an alien monster, saves us from possible shoddy CGI, but it also adds to the film's visual dryness. It's mostly a drab, brutalist shoot 'em up that lacks the uniqueness needed for a great sci-fi invasion story. Ritchson's "81" (everyone has a number instead of a name) and his squad are on a final training mission when they're ambushed by a giant intergalactic bot, which tests his mettle while blowing most everyone else to Kingdom Come.

During the death bot's second assault, War Machine ticks upward a bit as the movie flashes its fangs. There's a particular chase scene that stands out due to its mercilessness, and it's here that the movie feels powered by its own engine and not just set on riding the coattails of things that came before it and did it better. It's a shame that the rest of the movie was designed to be a merely adequate affair, unchallenging and dry. Because the sci-fi behemoth element adds a horror movie-style bit of crash therapy in a "the monster is grief" sort of way. War Machine could have been a much deeper, satisfying experience, but they make the choice, in the end, to tease a possible franchise, and that deflates the resolution.

Ritchson is very good in this, providing a nice mix of tortured vulnerability and hulkish heroics. His physical hugeness takes a back seat in War Machine, as he's covered up for most of the movie in combat gear, but just knowing he's swole helps sell 81's unsettling obsession with durability and going the distance. 81 also comes with a tragic, recent past that gets unspooled throughout this crucible. Jai Courtney has a small but important role here as 81's brother, feeding into the redemption arc that helps give 81 layers as a character. Far more layers than the supporting soldiers, who, save for two, only get the barest of focus. They're mostly just faces in the chaos.

The blueprints for War Machine, as an action movie, are solid. The hero has a bone to pick with the universe. The universe sends a bone to pick. But this doesn't save it from moments of feeling like stodgy four-quadrant content. And the way the cosmic blastoid bot gets defeated, its weakness, is super silly. Almost enough to take you out of the story. No, it's not a big red "power off" button on its face but... that's not far off. Ultimately, War Machine -- which also stars Dennis Quaid, Esai Morales, and Stephan James (as one of the soldiers with "more to do") -- will rest comfortably as a medium-fine flick that you'll never watch again.

Some might have thought Bungie’s Marathon was going to be the big launch on Steam this week, but it turns out Slay the Spire 2 has quadrupled Bungie's extraction shooter in terms of concurrent player numbers on Valve's PC gaming platform.

Casey Yano, game developer and co-founder of Slay the Spire maker MegaCrit, took to social media to say he never thought Slay the Spire 2 would pass Marathon in terms of concurrent users. Well, it certainly has. At the time of this article’s publication, Slay the Spire 2 has over 350,000 concurrent players on Valve’s platform — an incredible number that makes it one of the most-played games on Steam, behind only the eternally popular PUBG, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike 2.

Marathon, meanwhile, hit a peak concurrent player count of 88,337 on the day of launch, a number Bungie will be hoping improves as the game heads into its first weekend.

Why did Yano mention this on social media in the first place? It was as part of an acknowledgement that a tweet from the official MegaCrit account about the launch of Marathon — viewed over half a million times — came off a little meaner than intended.

“Congratulations to the Marathon team on their launch!” MegaCrit tweeted Thursday, March 5. “Don't let small indie passion projects like this pass you by just because Slay the Spire 2 is out.”

Some thought that was throwing shade at Marathon, which is under significant pressure to deliver for Bungie following the torrid time the Sony-owned studio has faced in recent years. So, both the MegaCrit account and Yano himself issued follow-up messages.

“This seems a bit meaner than it was intended,” Yano said. “To be fair I didn't think we'd actually pass Marathon in concurrent users.”

And, in response to one user who called it “A SHADE FOR THE CENTURIES,” MegaCrit said: “it wasn’t supposed to be shade, we were being sarcastic 😭 did not know we’d blow up quite to the degree that we did…” All’s well that ends well. Bungie community manager Cozmo then replied to offer a congratulations of his own.

Slay the Spire 2 isn’t just outpacing Marathon on Steam, it’s rewriting the roguelike record books. It’s shot past Mewgenics to secure the highest ever concurrent player count on Steam for a roguelike, which itself inched ahead of Hades 2 last month.

That's an astonishing and clearly unexpected debut for this long-awaited sequel to the popular deckbuilder roguelike Slay the Spire, which returned a 9/10 review back in 2019. We said: "Slay the Spire takes some of the best parts of deckbuilding games, roguelikes, and dungeon crawlers, and mixes them into a wholly new and extremely satisfying package."

Slay the Spire 2 is currently only available on PC for its early access period, but it seems likely to get console versions once it's fully released.

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.