The holiday season is almost here, meaning it's the perfect time to buy a gift for a friend, family member, or yourself. If you're a fan of video games, there is arguably no better gift than a brand-new console. The PS5 has firmly hovered around MSRP this year, but for a limited time, you can save $125 off select PlayStation 5 consoles with IGN Rewards!

Save $125 Off Select PlayStation 5 Consoles!

Humble Choice is always a good deal for PC gamers who like a variety of game types. But the online storefront just launched a promo code that gets you October’s Humble Choice games for just $10, rather than the usual $14.99. All you have to do is enter promo code SPOOKY25 at checkout, and you’ll save $5. This month’s eight-game lineup is pretty great, with Atomic Hearts, V Rising, System Shock, Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, and more. Read on for the details.

Humble Choice - October 2025

Remedy Entertainment's CEO has resigned, leaving the new CEO of the developer of Control and Alan Wake to reassure investors after weak sales of FBC: Firebreak left the company significantly lowering its revenue expectations for the year and writing off the game's development costs.

In its quarterly earnings report issued today, Remedy revealed that it recognized a €14.9 million ($17.4 million) impairment charge representing most of the development costs as well as purchased publishing and distribution rights for FBC: Firebreak.

In total, Remedy's revenue decreased 32% year-over-year, to €12.2 million ($14.2 million). Remedy says this was largely driven by lower development fees coming in than last year at this time, during which it received revenue from Annapurna related to development work it did on Control 2. Remedy also revealed that it was revising its revenue expectations for the year: while previously Remedy expected revenue and operating profit to increase year-over-year and be positive, it now expects revenue to increase, but its operating profit to decrease and be negative. No exact numbers were shared.

Alongside this, CEO Tero Virtala has stepped down after nine years in the position. He is succeeded in the interim by board chairman Markus Mäki, who has stepped down from his chairman role and been replaced by Henri Österlund.

In comments by Mäki shared with investors, he stated that while Remedy would continue "working on features which enhance player value" and would keep true to its shared roadmap for Firebreak, the studio has moved development resources elsewhere going forward. Mäki also attempted to reassure investors that Firebreak was not a total loss:

"We have also found positive sides from FBC: Firebreak," he said. "Our first multiplayer product launch was technically successful in a cross-platform environment, and our publishing team has built capabilities which support the releases of our future self-published titles."

FBC: Firebreak was Remedy's first ever self-published game, and while the studio claims it technically succeeded, it also admitted last quarter that it "underperformed" on Steam and that the company was "unsatisfied" with its commercial reception. In today's earnings, Remedy stated that Breakpoint improved the game's sales only "marginally."

We gave FBC: Firebreak a 6/10, saying that it was a "compelling co-op shooter that, despite its good looks, doesn't have the depth to keep things interesting long-term."

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Walmart just dropped the price yet again on a powerful prebuilt gaming PC. The CyberPowerPC gaming PC, featuring a liquid cooled AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPU, is on sale for $1699 shipped. This prebuilt was originally priced at $2,300, but it went down to $1900 during October Prime Day and another $200 starting this week. This is the best price I've seen so far for a 9800X3D and 5070 Ti combo.

CyberPowerPC AMD 9800X3D RTX 5070 Ti PC for $1,699

EA just introduced its new, destructive take on battle royale with Battlefield REDSEC, and Battlefield 6 base game players are already slamming it with “Mostly Negative” Steam reviews.

PC users who head to Steam to check out the standalone Battlefield experience, which launched across PC and consoles for free yesterday, will be met with a flood of negative Steam reviews across the board. At the time of this piece’s publication, just 35% of REDSEC Steam user reviews were positive, with positive reviews in all languages fairing just slightly better at 39%. Both measurements result in a dark red, Mostly Negative label.

A wave of negativity for Battlefield’s latest crack at battle royale arrives as Battlefield 6 players continue to express their dissatisfaction with the premium experience. Calls for changes to the base game reached a boiling point with the launch of Season 1 yesterday, and now, criticism is spilling into REDSEC.

Although Battlefield 6 and REDSEC exist as separate multiplayer offerings, both EA and Battlefield Studios games share unlocks tied to many challenges, cosmetics, and battle pass unlocks. Where this has evolved into a problem is how one experience might affect another, with many Battlefield 6 players complaining of weekly challenges that require them to play battle royale.

“I wouldn't hate it so much if I wasn't forced to play it for challenges in the main game,” one negative Battlefield REDSEC Steam review says. “But I am. So I do.”

“This is not why I bought Battlefield 6,” they add.

"Oh, but you just can reroll the challenges!" another negative review says. "Yeah and 3 of them are sill for the BR because they are pushing it hard on people that would not touch it even once..."

Other PC players agree that challenges granting large amounts of Battlefield 6 battle pass XP shouldn’t be tied to another experience, but dissonance isn’t the only thing tanking REDSEC Steam reviews. Some base game players are using Valve’s digital storefront to air out grievances related to multiplayer map sizes.

Early Battlefield 6 adopters have called for larger multiplayer maps as far back as the August beta tests, with the October 10 launch only adding fuel to the fire, as launch locations failed to live up to expectations for the community. At least a few negative Steam reviews even praise REDSEC’s exclusive battle royale map, Fort Lyndon, with their frustrations mostly summed up with one question: Why does the free-to-play game get the map sizes that premium players are asking for?

“Oh wow a nice big map with lots of POIs and flanks,” another negative REDSEC review says. “If only we could get something like this for the main game.”

“It's trying to be too much all at once,” another Steam user review adds. “The map in this Battle Royale is so good it's criminal that it's not being used for Conquest right now.”

As Battlefield 6 players aim to leave their mark with REDSEC Steam reviews, there are plenty of comments actually related to the new standalone experience itself, too. Many are positive, applauding how BF Studios blends classic Battlefield mechanics with other popular battle royale experiences, like Call of Duty: Warzone. Launch also ushered in a spike in activity, with Steamdb recording a 24-hour peak of 549,766 Battlefield 6 players yesterday.

REDSEC, which encompasses Gauntlet and Portals modes in addition to its battle royale mode, is getting love in the Battlefield community, but there is still a general feeling that the experience is incomplete. Specifically, it’s the lack of a solo queue option and battle royale fatigue that many are calling out – both in negative and positive reviews.

“No solo Mode... When will they learn the overwhelming majority of players play solo?” one negative review asks. “It doesn't feel good to play with randoms against premade coordinated squads.”

“Fun update, the battle pass is not half bad,” a positive review adds. “Only problem with me is not having a solo battle royal mode.”

REDSEC is just 24 hours into its time in the public’s hands. Seasonal updates will continue to offer shared experiences between REDSEC and Battlefield 6. Season 1 launched yesterday, introducing the new Blackwell Fields map for multiplayer, with more mid-season maps and guns set to follow in November and December.

EA has addressed fan feedback in the past, with the latest update introducing fixes for a controversial green skin and some of the bothersome lighting effects that have distracted players since launch. In the meantime, some players have been content simply using their time to draw on walls with the Engineer repair tool.

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

Physicist Brian Cox has thanked YouTube for taking down accounts that used AI to create deepfakes of him saying “nonsense” about comet ATLAS 3i — but was left wondering what the long-term solution is.

Cox, Professor of Particle Physics at The University of Manchester and star of a number of high-profile science documentaries, took to X / Twitter earlier this week to complain about what he described as “AI shite of me popping up on YouTube.”

“The general rule is that if I appear to say something that you agree with and you are a UFO nobber, flat earth bell end or think comet ATLAS 3i is a spaceship, it’s fake,” he said in the tweet, now viewed 618,500 times.

Sony has confirmed the PlayStation Plus monthly games for November 2025, confirming a prior leak.

Dealabs' ever-reliable billbil-kun had reported that Stray would be the main title for the PlayStation Plus Essential selection for November 2025, and would be available from November 4, 2025 on PS5 and PS4 for Essential, Extra, and Premium subscribers. And so it has proved.

In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony confirmed Stray, EA Sports WRC 24, and Totally Accurate Battle Simulator as the three games for November. All three are available to PlayStation Plus members from Tuesday November 4 until Monday December 1.

Stray is French studio BlueTwelve’s third-person cat adventure game set in the neon-lit alleys of a decaying cybercity and the murky environments of its seedy underbelly. As a stray cat, you roam surroundings high and low, defending against unforeseen threats and solving the mysteries of this unwelcoming place inhabited by nothing but unassuming droids and dangerous creatures. Lost, alone and separated from family, you must untangle an ancient mystery to escape a long-forgotten cybercity and find the way home.

IGN’s Stray review returned an 8/10. We said: “Stray is a delightful cat-based platforming adventure in a cyberpunk world worth exploring.”

Codemasters' EA Sports WRC launched in 2023 and managed a 6/10 in IGN's review. We said: "EA Sports WRC feels like a great racing game trying to fight its way out of an unfinished one." TABS, meanwhile, is Landfall Games' physics based medieval battle simulator that lets you pit wacky waving armies against each other.

PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for November 2025

• Stray | PS4, PS5
• EA Sports WRC 24 | PS5
• Totally Accurate Battle Simulator | PS4, PS5

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.

Max is officially back to being HBO Max. Even though the name has changed (returned?), the library is still full of great films and shows to watch. HBO Max is home to some incredibly high-quality watches, including House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, The Last of Us, and Sinners. You can tune in to Season 2 of Peacemaker and even catch up on James Gunn's Superman beforehand.

If you've been hoping to start up an account to dig into that library, we're here to help. While HBO Max recently increased the price of all of its monthly plans by around $1, we're keeping track of the best price for subscriptions, along with any deals as they appear. Let's get into what's available right now.

Our Top Pick: The Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max Streaming Bundle

Avatar: The Last Airbender's crossover with Magic: The Gathering is fast approaching next month, and we've got an exclusive look at a handful of cards that make up a single scene set after the end of the TV show (as well as a couple cards from the bonus sheet of the main set).

Flip through the gallery below to see all eight cards, and read on to hear where they'll be available to both open and play:

Titled "Tea Time at the Jasmine Dragon," the six cards that make up this panomaric art scene are not technically part of the main set, instead available together in a standalone Scene Box and limited to use in Magic's Eternal formats like Commander. That's a big part of the reason why four of the cards are multicolored legendary creatures with abilities that are meant to be built around – though the somewhat novel twist of this particular scene is that most of them feature couples from the end of the show, making it a peaceful epiloque of sorts.

In addition to those six cards, we've also got a first look at two "Source Material" cards, which can be found in main set booster packs but are only legal in formats where they were already available. These cards use actual shots from the show as their art, tying classic Magic cards into relevant moments from the series, with their episode number listed at the bottom of the card itself.

This isn't the first time we've shown off the Avatar Magic set, as we revealed a hands-on first look at the Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box back in August. While something like the Scene Box we are revealing today is a solid way to jump into Magic if you are just an Avatar fan more interested in the collection aspect of the game, the Beginner Box is the ideal starting point if you and a friend want to learn how to play from scratch.

Card reveals for the set are in full swing through next week, with prerelease events kicking off at local stores on November 14. It then launches digitally on MTG Arena November 18 before becoming available in paper on November 21.

Tom Marks is IGN's Executive Reviews Editor. He loves puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.

It looks like Amazon is starting to realise that sellers on the Pokémon TCG secondary market are beating them to the mega punch when it comes to sealed product pricing. I'm starting to see a trend in pricing either near, matching or below current market values, and I've gathered three highlights for today that you can buy right now.

White Flare Binder Collection

Play as a space merchant selling and trading your wares across the galaxy in Stellar Trader, a new 4X space-trading sci-fi sim in development for PC. You'll build space stations, negotiate prices, avoid pirates, work the black market, tilt the scales in wars with your economic prowess, and so much more.

Developer ParaVerseLab says you'll "shape economies, form alliances, and influence the systems that control trade, tech, and politics" in Stellar Trader, which doesn't have an announced release date as of yet. Watch the announcement trailer below for your first look at it.

You'll earn and customize new ships as you go, from clunkers all the way up to top-of-the-line megaships. You'll also get to build your own space stations, influencing supply chains and the development of worlds from your perch in orbit. Economically, in addition to negotiating with potential trade partners, ParaVerseLab says you'll "discover black market opportunities, exploit regional shortages, or stabilize entire systems through strategic logistics."

You can ally with those whose interests best align with yours during conflicts, and also "meet unforgettable characters, explore ancient ruins, solve strange puzzles, and experience personal storylines that include romance, mystery, and moments of humor."

Wishlist Stellar Trader on Steam if you're interested.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Key members of the original Halo development team have hit out at the Department of Homeland Security’s use of Microsoft's first-person shooter to promote ICE, with one saying: “it makes me sick.”

This week, IGN reported on how the White House had waded into the console wars with an AI image of Donald Trump saluting as Master Chief in front of an American flag with only 40 stars. It has been viewed 43.2 million times so far.

Power to the Players https://t.co/GqNu0qdgmw pic.twitter.com/4Hw6G7i7aW

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 27, 2025

It followed Microsoft’s announcement of Halo: Campaign Evolved, a remake of the campaign of 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved, which is due out on Xbox Series X and S, PC, and PlayStation 5 at some point in 2026. It is the first Halo game ever to launch on a PlayStation console, and cements Microsoft’s position as a multiplatform video game developer.

The Trump administration then doubled down on the Halo AI images, with the Department of Homeland Security using Halo to recruit for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s website (ICE). In a post on social media, now viewed 26 million times, Homeland Security said “destroy the Flood” and “finishing this fight,” referencing Halo’s parasitic alien enemy and its long-running slogan. The use of the Flood here is a clear comparison to the immigrants ICE rounds up for deportation.

Finishing this fight. pic.twitter.com/6Ezq9NUqMq

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 27, 2025

While Microsoft has so far remained silent on the issue (IGN has asked for comment), Marcus Lehto, who was the art director on Combat Evolved and thus heavily involved in the iconic look of Halo itself, slammed the ICE post in an interview with Game File. He called the ICE post “absolutely abhorrent,” adding: “It really makes me sick seeing Halo co-opted like this.”

Game File also spoke with Jaime Griesemer, another one of the key developers behind Halo and who was most involved with designing Halo’s famous ‘30 seconds of fun’ gameplay loop. He was less bothered by the Trump post, but took issue with the ICE post.

“Using Halo imagery in a call to ‘destroy’ people because of their immigration status goes way too far, and ought to offend every Halo fan, regardless of political orientation,” Griesemer said. “I personally find it despicable. The Flood are evil space zombie parasites and are not an allegory to any group of people.”

He continued: “I think Halo’s world is rich and wide and has layers that reward a deeper look, and it has had an outsized impact on culture, so it is easy to read into it and see elements of current or historical events.

“But it was NOT written as an allegory to any specific religion or political party or movement. The Prophets are not Popes, the Grunts are not Wahhabis, and the Flood are definitely not illegal immigrants. The Master Chief is not a Christ figure and Cortana is not the Virgin Mary, I guess?”

As for the Trump meme, the White House is claiming it is about Trump claiming credit for ending another war (in this case, the console war). White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai told reporter Alyssa Mercante in a statement: “Yet another war ended under President Trump's watch — only one leader is fully committed to giving power to the players, and that leader is Donald J. Trump. That’s why he’s hugely popular with the American people and American Gamers.”

Microsoft’s silence on the matter is in contrast to The Pokémon Company’s position. It formally responded to the use of Pokémon TV hero Ash Ketchum and the series' theme tune by the Department of Homeland Security as part of a video showing people being arrested and handcuffed by law enforcement agents.

"We are aware of a recent video posted by the Department of Homeland Security that includes imagery and language associated with our brand," The Pokémon Company International said in a statement shared with IGN. "Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content, and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property."

Everyone loves a cheeky preorder, and we've got everything from Kyle Katarn (Play Star Wars: Dark Forces more) and a Cyberpunk Comic to the Meta Knight and Shadow Star amiibo set. Also, the Pokémon TCG Black Bolt Elite Trainer Box is now under market value on Amazon, which pretty much never happens.

TL;DR: Deals for Today

Need to upgrade you gaming setup? How about a soundbar and subwoofer deal from legendary sound tech firm Creative? If you remember Sound Blaster from when you was a kid messing up your parents Windows 95 PCs, you're my kind of person. What about the best third party Switch, Switch 2 and PC controller i've used so far for 10% off? 8-Bit-Do is here to save your day. Finally, Halloween now needs calenders according to Pokémon, and it's on a limited time deal. Let's get into it:

Black Bolt Elite Trainer Box

STAR WARS The Black Series Gaming Greats Kyle Katarn

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners MADNESS Volume 1

Pokemon Halloween Calendar 2025

Meta Knight & Shadow Star amiibo

8BitDo Ultimate 2 for Switch / Switch 2 / PC

Creative Stage V2 2.1 Soundbar with Subwoofer

Shin Godzilla - Limited Edition Steelbook

INIU Portable Charger

JVSCAM Cordless Electric Air Duster

2 Pack Hand Warmers

Paladone Nintendo NES Cartridge Retro Drink Coasters

10Pcs Model Tools

Team Rocket Tin

Best Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution Deals

There's some crazy hype behind Mega Evolution right now, and for good reason. Gold rare Mega Lucario and Mega Gardevoir exs are fetching around $400 at the time of writing, and the artwork on the Secret Illustration Rares and Illustration Rares is phenominal (Looking at you Mega Lucario ex SIR). All of these deals are at market value or below, and in some cases knocking big box retailers like Amazon out of the Poképark.

Best Deals on Sealed Pokémon TCG

I've found some banger Pokémon TCG sets in todays deals, kicking off with a Prismatic Evolutions Booster Bundle for $59.98. Still collecting Black Bolt and White Flare? How about a White Flare Booster Bundle for $48.99? All of these deals are well worth a good look, and you very well could pull something crazy like a Umbreon ex SIR from Prismatic Evolutions or Vicitini Black White Rare from White Flare.

Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of "Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior". Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.

During New York Comic Con, Hasbro announced a handful of new Star Wars action figures in The Black Series and Vintage Collection. All of them are now available for preorder, with release dates in March or April of next year. We have the full rundown on these figures below, so keep on reading.

Featured in this article

You can scroll the through catalog above to see all of the new Star Wars action figures up for preorder, or you can keep scrolling for write-ups on each one.

Darth Vader (Duel’s End) - Obi-Wan Kenobi (Black Series)

Purge Trooper & Patrol Trooper (Black Series)

Boba Fett - The Book of Boba Fett (Black Series)

Padmé Amidala - Attack of The Clones (Vintage Collection)

Shaak Ti - Attack of The Clones (Vintage Collection)

EA is taking steps to ease tensions in the Battlefield 6 community, as the new Season 1 update seems to have toned down the bright green highlights of one controversial infantry skin.

Along with a new map, new weapons, gameplay tweaks, and the announcement of battle royale with REDSEC, today’s Battlefield 6 Season 1 update brings darkened colors for the System Override cosmetic. The changes may go unnoticed for many of those who have played EA and Battlefield Studios’ latest since its October 10 launch, but for those campaigning against goofy skins online, it’s exactly what they wanted to see.

With last year’s Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, Square Enix managed to successfully tow the line between recreating that authentic, old-school RPG experience while still offering plenty of modern adjustments so it didn’t feel outdated. Now it’s rounding out the original Dragon Quest trilogy with Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, and it’s every bit as impressive as its predecessor. Individually, both games in this package still stand on their own, and Square Enix has added exciting new content in a way that feels natural. Their combat systems and stories are a product of their time, with simple mechanics and very black and white motivations – but that’s part of the charm, as this approach oozes confidence in keeping things classic. And while I could have done without some returning difficulty spikes, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is the perfect send off to one of the best RPG trilogies of all time.

Like the Dragon Quest III Remake, I & II Remake uses Square Enix’s signature HD-2D graphical style that combines expressive 2D characters with gorgeous 3D environments, seen in other games like Live a Live, Octopath Traveler, and Triangle Strategy. It’s the perfect fit that keeps a feeling of authenticity to its retro visuals yet looks stunning in a modern setting. The various castles and dungeons have plenty of detail and lighting that makes exploration captivating, and the surrounding trees and bodies of water in the overworld invoke a sense of grand adventure.

Attack animations have also been greatly improved. My eyes opened wide the first time I saw my characters slice through enemies with a spell that conjured up a storm of beautifully crystalline icicles, or when I slammed another with Dragon Slash and the blood red aura of a drake shot upwards. It’s a visual spectacle that still feels nostalgic and never gets old.

Dragon Quest I sends you on a quest through the land of Alefgard to defeat the Dragonlord. Given it helped pioneer the genre 40 years ago, this is a straightforward story about good versus evil, so don’t go expecting plot twists left and right. I love a complex RPG story, but it was actually a nice change of pace to play one that didn’t ask me to sympathize with villains or deal with their emotional backstories. All I had to do was turn off my brain and defeat monsters.

The original Dragon Quest I was quite short, clocking in at under 10 hours to complete, but there’s some new content here to help pad out the run time. It’s cleverly integrated, too, as it relates to the events that our heroes in Dragon Quest II will encounter. Additionally, it helps expand on important characters that didn’t have a time to shine in the original such as Rubiss, the creator goddess, which adds even more worldbuilding to Dragon Quest I’s lore. This only adds up to a few more hours of actual gameplay, but it’s refreshing to play an RPG that doesn’t take months to complete.

Your protagonist is a descendant of Edrick, the hero from Dragon Quest III – and while he is silent, there’s now a semblance of a personality to him thanks to the HD-2D art style. He’s gullible, falling for a simple “look over there!” trick in the very first dungeon. He’s also selfless, as he helps out the Faeries during a time of need – these ageless creatures serve as important storytellers as the years go by, passing down tales of this game to Dragon Quest II’s main cast, establishing another enticing connection between them. So although he doesn’t say any words, his actions speak loudly, and his character sprite helps convey his traits convincingly.

The nature of Dragon Quest I’s battle system also means you’ll be spending a lot of time with this lone hero. Combat is a simple affair where you and your enemies take turns making moves. It’s like old-school Pokemon without the Mega Evolutions, Z-Moves, or Gigantimaxing. You won’t see modern mechanics like Persona’s One-More turn system or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s real-time parrying. It’s raw and unadulterated turn-based combat in its purest form, but that doesn’t make it any less engaging.

And unlike in Dragon Quest III where you have a whole party to command, you’re a one-man army in Dragon Quest I. This fundamentally changes how you approach each fight. Suddenly, non-damaging skills like Dodgy Dance, which increases evasion, or Wild Side, which lets you temporarily do the same move twice in a row, become some of the most important in your toolkit. More often than not, every single turn was quite literally the difference between life and death. If I avoided an attack, that gave me another chance to heal my HP instead of losing outright.

With an entire party, you can get away with trying to steamroll through battles. One character can dish out all the damage while another could be put on strict healing duty. Here, however, I had to meticulously balance between offense and defense, adapting to every situation as the battle unfolds. Do I go for the extra hit by attacking, or play it safe and heal up? Playing solo forced me to consider all my options and be much more methodical. This made victory against Dragon Quest I’s difficult bosses even sweeter.

That difficulty also applies to Dragon Quest I’s normal fights. Since it has random encounters, sometimes you’re at the mercy of RNG. There were instances where I’d trigger a battle against some easier enemies, but some others I’d face off against multiple powerful dragons that could act twice per turn, potentially killing me before I even had the chance to move. Those fluctuating difficulty spikes can be frustrating.

This is mitigated a bit by its generous autosave system, which activates after every successful battle and lets you reload a file that’s not far off so you can retain most of your progress. There’s also the easy mode called Draky Quest returning from Dragon Quest III Remake, which offers an invincibility option. Despite its name, enemies can still hit quite hard in this mode, especially bosses. The invincibility can be toggled on and off this time as well, which is a nice adjustment since you can now lower the difficulty a bit without being forced to use the invincibility crutch that trivialized Dragon Quest III’s Draky Quest mode.

Setting sail once again

After revisiting the early but promising origin of the series, Dragon Quest II comes along as a much more story-driven and “traditional” RPG. It has a party-based approach to combat, similar to Dragon Quest III. The difference, however, is that the latter has blank slate party members while the former has characters with vibrant personalities. This alone makes Dragon Quest II my favorite entry in this remake trilogy.

The story follows four cousins who are all descendants of Dragon Quest I’s protagonist as they rise to save the world from darkness once again. The increased focus on storytelling results in a beefier adventure, taking about 25 hours to finish the main story. As a direct sequel to Dragon Quest I, it also reuses the same overworld map and locations, but the order you visit places is entirely different, preventing it from feeling like a retread. The ship you use to travel that world can even go underwater now, which adds a whole new layer of to exploration, new dungeons and post-game activities, and new story and side content that greatly extends the runtime.

Although the main protagonist, the Prince of Midenhall, is silent once again, that’s balanced by how colorful your other three party members are. The Prince of Cannock is your typical naive and bright young boy who sometimes can’t keep his mouth shut, leading to some humorous moments. His sister, the Princess of Cannock, is loyal and level-headed, yet sometimes a bit mischievous given that her brother initially didn't want her to join the party due to her age and lack of experience. Finally, the Princess of Moonbrooke is impulsive, but it’s warranted given Dragon Quest II’s story starts off with her kingdom being decimated by the main antagonist, Hargon. Initially guided by selfish vengeance, it’s compelling to watch her grow to learn that she should be fighting for a better world for everyone.

The Princess of Cannock’s role has been greatly expanded in this remake, becoming a full-fledged party member when she had much more limited involvement in the original. Her inclusion feels smooth and effortless, making her a natural fit for the party. I especially loved the sibling camaraderie between her and her brother as they always have each other’s backs.

As opposed to Dragon Quest III, where you could customize your party to fill whatever combat roles you wanted, Dragon Quest II’s characters have much more defined paths. The protagonist is a pure physical attacker, while the Princess of Moonbrooke specializes in magic. The Cannock siblings are both jack-of-all-trade characters, but there’s enough differentiation within their spells and abilities to make them feel distinct.

The Sigils your party has to travel around the world to collect can impact your combat strategy as well. Previously just useless items that sat in your bag in the original, they now provide passive benefits for the entire party. For example, the Moon Sigil adds a chance for offensive spells to do more damage and healing ones to recover more HP, while the Soul Sigil transforms certain attacks into more powerful versions if a character’s HP is below half. Should I heal a low character and forgo my chance at executing that more powerful attack, or should I risk death and go for broke to get that hit in, hoping to land the killing blow? The Sigils also appear in the Dragon Quest I remake, and these trade-offs are even more pronounced there since it’s a one-man show. They are an excellent way to introduce small but impactful changes to the classic turn-based combat without losing the spirit of the originals.

Like the other entries in this remake trilogy, Dragon Quest II is tough, but having four characters feels perfectly balanced to take on the challenging boss battles and enemy encounters awaiting you. One of the best quality-of-life features that both games have, along with Draky Mode, is the ability to speed-up battles, making animations play out faster. It drastically improves the pace, especially with four characters to individually command.

Helping the world, one step at a time

In Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, you can also toggle objective markers on or off. In the originals, it was quite easy to get lost since many times you wouldn’t know where to go next. Turning on objective markers makes for a more streamlined adventure where you don’t feel like you’re wasting your time as often. You can also toggle on markers for secret areas on the map, which can contain useful items like gold and weapons if you enter them, which makes them worth exploring. I really liked having these markers available, but it’s nice that you can turn them off, if you want to preserve that old NES-era approach to discovery.

In both games, you’re now also able to come across Mini Medals, which were introduced in later Dragon Quest entries. These can be found in barrels and rocks throughout the world, smartly incentivizing you to interact with the environment and explore every nook and cranny in dungeons. Turning in the medals to a specific NPC rewards you with incredibly powerful weapons and equipment to help you along your journey, and every single stat increase matters, as it can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

The Boys Season 5 is still without a release date, but showrunner Eric Kripke has teased it’s coming to Prime Video “reasonably” soon.

We know the fifth and final season will come out at some point in 2026, but based on Kripke’s comments we can perhaps speculate that it’ll arrive in the early part of next year, maybe during the first quarter.

In a post on Instagram, Kripke said he and his team were “hard at work” finishing The Boys Season 5, and posted a picture of some of the VFX team doing their thing.

“Editing is all done, we're roughly halfway finished with VFX, Music, Color,” he added. “I'm really happy with how it's going and can't wait for you to see. We go out with a bang. COMING (reasonably) SOON.”

The update comes hot on the heels of the Season 2 finale of spinoff Gen V, which leads into The Boys Season 5. Fans were left wondering how the incredibly powerful Marie from Gen V might fare in a showdown with The Boys supervillain Homelander. Kripke has said in the past, however, that fans shouldn’t expect Marie to appear in The Boys Season 5 as a Captain Marvel-style deus ex machina who kicks Homelander’s ass. That’s because Marie still hasn’t mastered her powers, or as Kripke has put it in a number of Gen V Season 2 finale spoiler interviews, she’s not Neo at the end of The Matrix.

For a much deeper dive on all this, check out IGN’s Gen V Season 2 Ending Explained: How It Sets Up the Final Season of The Boys article, but to summarize, Marie can control blood, which potentially makes her more powerful even than Homelander. Homelander, for the uninitiated, is a sort of evil Superman, a character so overpowered that few rivals dare question his word. But Marie Moreau, played by Jaz Sinclair, has the potential to kill him due to her ability to command and weaponize blood.

The big question, of course, is whether Homelander actually dies in The Boys Season 5. Kripke wouldn’t give that away, of course, but did tell THR that Billy Butcher is “front of that line.” But then there’s the likes of Stan Edgar, the aforementioned Marie, Annie, and Huey who would no doubt all like a piece.

Also in that interview, Kripke said Season 5 would see “this active and growing resistance led by Starlight that A-Train is an important part of. They’re really trying to take the fight back to Homelander and this sort of fascist government.”

“They’re trying to mount a real push, but they’re also outgunned, outmanned," he continued. "You’re in an entire country that has drunk Homelander’s Kool-Aid. They’re outmatched by the size of the hundreds of superheroes that are in every town across the country, who have been given authority over the police. So it really is a true underground resistance against a fascist government, which definitely has no comparison or parallel to anything going on anywhere in the world.”

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 boss of Paramount Skydance reportedly wants to keep the creative teams of both it and Warner Bros. intact, should it end up buying the gargantuan media company.

Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed it was officially considering buyout offers amid reported interest from Paramount Skydance. Meanwhile, there has been speculation that DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn, and architect of the rebooted DC Universe, may leave his position as a result of the merger.

Bloomberg has now reported that David Ellison, CEO and controlling shareholder of Paramount, plans to keep the creative teams of the two studios intact, while consolidating some of the marketing and distribution. There is no mention of Gunn in the report, but fans are assuming his job would be safe given he is considered part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s creative team. Gunn is yet to respond to the report on social media.

Interestingly, Bloomberg also reports that should the merger go through, Ellison plans to combine Warner Bros.’ HBO Max with Paramount+, creating a single streaming platform with an expanded film and TV library. Bloomberg also reported that Ellison aims to leverage emerging technologies and AI to ramp up production to 30 films annually across the combined entities. He also reportedly believes in theatrical releases as the best way to build long-term franchises.

Gunn is currently working on the script for 2027 movie Man of Tomorrow, following the release of DCU kickstarter Superman in July. Peacemaker Season 2 continued the fledgling new universe, with Supergirl and Clayface set to launch next year. There’s also a Lanterns TV show in the works for HBO Max.

Speaking recently on the BobaTalks YouTube channel, Gunn was asked if the plot developments in Superman and Peacemaker would go beyond The Man of Tomorrow. Replying, he confirmed they go “significantly further,” before adding: “whether or not that’ll be me that’s able to fulfill that promise depends on a lot of things in life.”

Whatever the future holds for Gunn and the DCU, he has ruled out building towards Darkseid as the “big bad.”

In a joint interview with a number of YouTube channels that focus on Easter egg breakdowns of superhero franchises, Gunn said that because director Zack Snyder had intended — and even briefly featured — Darkseid as the DCEU’s overarching enemy, and because of the character’s similarity to Marvel’s Thanos, his DCU was looking elsewhere.

Photo by Wagner Meier/Getty Images.

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 developer of Arc Raiders isn't worried about coming out between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, insisting: "we believe the game can launch there."

Arc Raiders ended its recent 'Server Slam' playtest with big player numbers on Steam, suggesting a strong launch ahead of its October 30 release date. It hit a peak concurrent player count of 189,668, making it one of the most-played games on Valve’s platform the weekend it ran and the biggest extraction shooter ever on Steam. That said, with the full release slated for tomorrow, which happens to be between the launch dates of two of the world's biggest FPS franchises, Embark Studios CEO Patrick Soderlund admitted some people may wonder "what the hell are they doing?"

“I know. The insanity,” Soderlund told The Game Business. “People may look at that [Arc Raiders' release date] and say, ‘What the hell are they doing?’ We have spent a lot of time looking at this from multiple angles and you know, for right or wrong, we believe that the game can launch there. This is the start of a long journey. It needs to start somewhere.”

As for whether or not the game's huge playtest was enough to retain players for a full release? “I think it comes down to not being complacent enough to believe that we can build something without making a meaningful impact or innovation," Soderlund said. "We have to bring something so that people pay attention. And if we’ve done a good enough job, maybe they’ll stick around. But in order for them to break away from what they’re already playing, there needs to be an attraction.

“A couple of years ago, I was concerned about Arc Raiders and whether it would find its market. So, when we launched the technical test, which was earlier in the spring, we were just blown away by how many people played it. We obviously tried our best to market it, but it became one of those things that just spread virally. We were humbled by that. It’s testament to the work that the team has done building something that is complicated, yet accessible. Something that is easy to play, yet has a lot of gameplay depth.”

Arc Raiders' design director has said it was fortuitous timing to have its extraction shooter launch a playtest around the same time as Bungie's Marathon, calling it "a great A/B test for us." In an interview last week, Virgil Watkins said: "It was very coincidental that they had their test around the time we did. To my knowledge, I don't think any of us knew that was going to happen. It was a very great A/B test for us, because obviously, they made decisions that we didn't, and vice versa. So we could kind of compare and contrast how some of those things shook out."

Embark Studios' previous game, free-to-download competitive shooter The Finals, is still going, although its concurrent player numbers on Steam are a far cry from those during its explosive launch back in December 2023.

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.

Amazon is walking away from making new content from its MMO, New World, amid huge layoffs affecting 14,000 roles at the company. Now, there is concern over the status of its The Lord of the Rings MMO.

Yesterday, October 28, Amazon confirmed cuts affecting an eye-watering 14,000 roles. It’s one of the biggest round of layoffs the tech giant has ever seen, and comes at a time when other companies in the tech sector, such as Microsoft and Meta, have made similarly huge cuts.

It also comes at a time when Amazon is performing well. So why are they happening? AI, basically. In a note to employees, Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, said:

Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well. Across our businesses, we're delivering great customer experiences every day, innovating at a rapid rate, and producing strong business results. What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones). We’re convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.

What does this all mean for Amazon’s gaming business? According to a report by Bloomberg, nothing good. There are “significant” cuts coming to Amazon’s video game operation, which will reduce development work and layoff staff mainly in its Irvine and San Diego offices.

The New World changes are a part of that, and while the game will remain online during 2026, this is basically the beginning of the end for once hugely popular MMO. Let’s remember, New World was a rare hit for Amazon in the video game space, and followed multiple flops that resulted in game and studio closures. The MMO set in an alternate 1600s America saw huge player numbers on Steam, with a whopping 913,634 peak concurrents on Valve's platform back in 2021. Player numbers have significantly declined since that peak, however.

Bloomberg said Amazon is cutting back especially on MMOs, but will continue to develop Amazon Games Montreal’s strategy March of Giants, its new Tomb Raider game in the works at Crystal Dynamics, and "casual and AI-focused games" for its cloud gaming service Luna. UK studio Maverick Games will continue to work on its racing game, too. Amazon Games also continues to publish externally developed games such as Lost Ark and Throne & Liberty in western markets.

Amazon is also working on an in-house The Lord of the Rings MMO, although we haven’t heard much about it since it was announced in 2023. In August last year, Amazon Games boss Christoph Hartmann told IGN the company had 10 games in development and was negotiating "a couple more." These include Tomb Raider and The Lord of the Rings MMO, as well as the new driving game from the former developers behind Forza Horizon.

On The Lord of the Rings MMO, however, Hartmann insisted it was still early days. "We're still trying to find the hook, find that idea of what it is because we don't just want to go and do the same thing over," Hartmann said at the time.

"While it's tempting sometimes with an existing IP, that's not the point of doing it. You've got to find a fresh twist, and we're still, I think, in that period where we really want to find out what could be the hook, what could be the thing which is different to all the other games out there. So it's a little bit early.”

IGN has asked Amazon for an update on The Lord of the Rings MMO.

There are also plenty of questions around Tomb Raider, which has been caught up in the mire around the Embracer Group. Hartmann mostly waved off those concerns, saying that developer Crystal Dynamics is "fairly sheltered from everything going on with Embracer."

"People obviously look at what the parent company is doing, but it never impacted on resources, never led to any changes on management for them, so they're fine. I mean, doing a new Tomb Raider, the bar is so high. The longer you go, the expectation goes higher, so it's a huge, huge task, but things are progressing. I mean, there's some really great ideas here," Hartmann said.

"Obviously, we're not going to share any with you even if we would love to, but things are going well, things are moving forward. And from what I could tell, Crystal was pretty sheltered, because also when you look before...they went through a couple of ownership changes anyway before, it's not brand new for them."

Crystal Dynamics recently laid off a number of workers following Microsoft’s cancelation of the Perfect Dark reboot. At the time, the studio insisted Tomb Raider was still in development and unaffected by the decision.

Crystal Dynamics was originally brought in to revitalize Perfect Dark after struggles getting the project moving with former co-developer, Certain Affinity. Crystal was later acquired by the Embracer Group in 2022, at which time the studio was revealed to have 273 employees across its Austin, Bellevue, and San Mateo offices. Crystal laid off 10 people in 2023, and laid off 17 more people earlier this year. It's unclear how many remain now.

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.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi is once again championing the infamous "yellow paint" to guide players, saying "there is definitely a need" for it.

Using yellow paint on ledges and walls to indicates a traversable area in a video game has been a hot topic among players ever since its rise in popularity in the likes of Uncharted on PlayStation 3. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth uses this tactic too, with players sharing their thoughts on it and leaving Hamaguchi himself surprised about the debate it stirred at the time.

In a new interview with GamesRadar+, Hamaguchi said he understood there are some people who don't want or need the yellow paint, but insisted that it was necessary.

"I get there is a debate about that, whether that fits with that world or not, whether some people want it, some people don't," Hamaguchi said. "I think as a game, there is definitely a need for that kind of thing in a lot of ways. I think obviously different developers experiment, try different things about what works best, what fits best, the right way of doing that in their game."

"The need to guide players around from from a gameplay perspective and show them what can be done, what they need to do, there is definitely times where that is needed," he added. "So I think obviously there is more of a debate about how it's done, what level and what works. And there'll still be people who say, 'No, that doesn't fit at all. We don't like that.' That's fine, but I think there is definitely a need there, and it's something that is definitely worth looking at."

When the yellow paint debate kicked off with Rebirth last year, some said they didn't like how in-your-face the hand-holding was not just in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, but modern video games. Others, however, pointed out that it could be helpful, and was an important accessibility feature. Developers, too, weighed in, with some highlighting how in playtests and focus groups, players sometimes struggle to work out where to go, get frustrated, and quit playing altogether. Because of this, somewhat obvious and sometimes unrealistic visual clues are needed to help point players in the right direction. And some have pointed out that video games have featured visual clues for exploration and progression for decades now.

With discussion around the yellow paint in FF7R, who remembers the options red/green arrows plus giant pointer available in the original FF7? pic.twitter.com/qMLnKh3rGw

— John Linneman @dark1x.bsky.social (@dark1x) February 11, 2024

Based on Hamaguchi's comments, perhaps fans can expect the yellow paint to return for Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3. Speaking of which, Square Enix said last year that its goal was to see the finale launch by 2027. Excitement for the third and final chapter in the trilogy grew even more when the team revealed that it had completed its story earlier this year.

Most recently, Hamaguchi clarified comments that Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 would "strike a balance" when it came to pacing and be "more concise," insisting didn't mean he would cut any content from the game.

While we wait, find out why the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 team “will not cheat” when it comes to Final Fantasy 7’s iconic airship. And as for if Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 will have turn-based combat? Hamaguchi said it had not been "pre-determined yet" despite the success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which boasts traditional JRPG-inspired turn-based combat and recently confirmed sales of 5 million copies in five months.

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.

Michael Waldron, creator of the MCU show Loki and writer of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, has revealed a pitch he came up with alongside Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness for a battle that would have taken place in the scrapped Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.

Marvel Studios’ plans for its overarching Avengers-based storyline included Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, but the movie was retooled and renamed amid Kang actor Jonathan Majors' conviction for assaulting his ex-girlfriend and subsequent firing in 2023.

But the initial idea — indeed the setup from previous MCU movies and shows such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Loki — was that Kang would be the next big bad after Thanos, and that superheroes would have to battle variants of the character as part of an all-encompassing war.

The plan is very different now. Kang is seemingly forgotten, destined to go down as one of many MCU loose ends, with Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr., drafted in to play Doctor Doom in next year’s Avengers: Doomsday and 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars.

Waldron was one of the writers on Avengers: The Kang Dynasty before moving on to work on Doomsday, and in a recent Reddit AMA, he was asked if there was anything he learnt from those initial drafts of the script that moved over to help him write for the new version, Avengers: Doomsday.

In his response, Waldron revealed a pitch for the Young Avengers to defeat a variant of Kang who would turn out to be… less of a scalp than they’d hoped.

“Jeff Loveness and I spent an afternoon pitching on the Young Avengers defeating a version of Kang and being so stoked about it… only to discover that that particular Kang carried a little card that said to Be Patient with him, it was his first day as a Kang,” he said.

“And then they were so bummed. I think he was gonna be the Lizard Kang from the end of Kang Dynasty? I don't know. Anyway we had fun.”

Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding developer Hideo Kojima says he was "surprised" to read that the creators of The Matrix wanted him to develop a game based on the franchise, insisting: "no one ever told me such a conversation had taken place."

Yesterday, IGN reported that The Wachowskis, the writers and directors behind the Matrix movies, once asked Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima to design a Matrix video game, but publisher Konami reportedly turned it down. "The Wachowskis were big fans of Kojima," Konami Digital Entertainment VP of licensing, Christopher Bergstresser, said. "So Kazumi Kitaue, Kojima, Aki Saito (who still works with Kojima), and I were at the Konami HQ, and we got a call from the Wachowskis, who wanted to come in and meet with Kojima. So they did!

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has dropped yet another hint that the next-gen Xbox is basically a PC.

A new report this week claimed the next Xbox is a console / PC hybrid that will play PlayStation games released on PC via Steam. That means the likes of Sony Santa Monica’s God of War, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, and Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima and pretty much all other PC games will all be playable on the next-gen Xbox in an industry first.

Windows Central reported that while users of the next-gen Xbox can remain inside the Xbox ecosystem if they want, they can exit to Windows, where the console acts like a traditional Windows PC. That means having access to PlayStation games on Steam, and mouse and keyboard games from Blizzard's launcher, Battle.net (World of Warcraft), and Riot's launcher (League of Legends).