Star of the new action-packed thriller Normal, Bob Odenkirk, joined IGN Fan Fest 2026 to talk about his role in the creation of his character Ulysses, and why he does his own stunts.

"I like doing my own fighting. And if I'm doing my own fighting, they can keep the camera on me and I can play the guy. I can do his expressions," Odenkirk explained. "I wanted to play a guy who actually got hurt, who actually got worn down as you watch the movie. He gets tired. He gets hurt. He gets dinged up because I just feel like that is actually not something you've seen a lot of. Action stars that I know of, I don't know all of them, but the ones that I know are somewhat... they're machines. They never really get hurt. They never accrue damage. And I wanted to play a guy who in these movies starts with a little bit of self-doubt and also accrues damage along the way."

His character in Normal, Ulysses, is a man sent to be temporary sheriff to the town of Normal, Minnesota, and soon finds himself caught up in way more excitement than he was expecting.

Odenkirk also spoke about his character in Normal compared to Hutch Mansell from the Nobody movies. "Both guys are, for different reasons, holding back their reactionary impulses. In the case of Hutch, he's doing it to present as a family man and to live that life, to live a double life, forcing himself to hold that in. So that's nobody. In Normal, here's a guy who's a little bit broken when we meet him. And it's because he made a choice once before that just destroyed his life that he had, his perfect life. And so he's just gotten gun-shy. But believe me, by the end of the movie Normal, he's not gun-shy any longer. Is he gun-crazy? A little bit. He's a little bit gun-crazy."

Normal is directed by Ben Wheatley and also stars Henry Winkler and Lena Headey. It will be released in theaters on April 17.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026, check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Samsung has officially announced its highly-anticipated Galaxy S26 lineup of smartphones with a release date of March 11. With the powerful new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip serving up meaningfully better performance, as well as a larger battery, more base storage, and other quality-of-life improvements, the Galaxy S26 is already turning some heads in the tech arena. And if you're interested in grabbing one, the entire Galaxy S26 family is already available for preorder.

Similar to every other high-end GPU on the market, the AMD Radeon 9070 XT graphics card is selling for above MSRP in 2026. Fortunately, it's not as egregiously marked up as Nvidia cards, and now there's an even better incentive. For a limited time, you can purchase an AMD Radeon 9070 XT GPU on Amazon and get a free Crimson Desert code. Since Crimson Desert isn't out yet, you'll have to wait to download the full version of the game when it releases on March 19.

Buy an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, Get Crimson Desert Free

The Radeon RX 9070 XT Received a 10/10 at IGN

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the only 2025-released GPU that we gave a 10/10 score. Even though it costs $150 less than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, the 9070 XT beats it out in several of the games we tested. In a few benchmarks, the results aren't even close. The 9070 XT approaches the performance of the $1,000 RX 7900 XTX but with better ray tracing and upscaling performance than its predecessor.

This is the least expensive graphics card from either AMD or Nvidia that I would comfortably recommend for playing the latest and most demanding games in 4K at 60fps or higher framerates.

The Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU is the best model to get

Open-world action-adventure game Crimson Desert is coming on March 19 and a new IGN Fan Fest 2026 behind-the-scenes look at the game gives the cast of voice actors a chance to add some more fuel to the hype fire.

Crimson Desert stars Rebecca Hanssen as the voice of the fighter Damiane, Stewart Scudamore as the orc with the impressive axe Oongka, and Alec Newman as main character Greymane Kliff Macduff. All three give an insight into working on the project and bringing their particular characters to life.

"Oongka is a nomadic warrior," Scudamore says in the clip. "I think he has a passion for everything that is fighting for the cause, for his people, for his tribe, and for the Greymanes. First impressions, you're thinking, what can I bring to the table that I can connect? What's the in? His DNA was very economical."

"With Oongka, what surprised me was that he was more of a philosophical orc," Scudamore continues. "He had that sort of world-wise nomadic element. And what I found challenging for Oongka is that he often communicated in grunt, but it was finding those levels of grunt that was challenging."

Crimson Desert will be released on March 19 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), and the Mac App Store.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of games and entertainment.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Archenemies. Bitter rivals. Lifelong friends? The relationship between legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his supreme rival James Moriarty is the stuff of legend. Over the decades (and centuries), the dynamic between the two characters has served as the focal point of countless literary and on-screen adaptations. They’re the embodiment of good and evil. Holmes is moral and just; Moriarty cold and calculating. But the new streaming series Young Sherlock, premiering March 4 on Prime Video, puts a new twist on the classic rivalry.

Debuting at IGN Fan Fest 2026, a brand-new exclusive clip – which you can watch in the player above – shows the moment Sherlock Holmes meets his future adversary. And if the scene doesn’t scream “soon-to-be foes,” that was by design. I sat down with series star Hero Fiennes Tiffin (Harry Potter, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare), who plays Sherlock, to talk about his character’s relationship with Moriarty, working with Guy Ritchie, and what kind of Sherlock video game he’d like to see.

“Sherlock always needs a counterpart,” Tiffin says. “It is usually Watson. And in our story, having it be Moriarty, you realize they learn so much from each other. Enemies who used to be friends, that's just a fascinating thing to explore. So it is fun watching, knowing that this plane is going to crash and burn. They have slightly different approaches, but they still have loads of similarities and they make a great team. Butch and Sundance was a reference that our showrunner used a lot.

“I did some chemistry reads with people auditioning for Moriarty. We met with loads of people and everyone was really, really exceptional. And Dónal Finn [who plays Moriarty] came in and I think about 5 seconds into his first line, I was like, ‘This guy is going to make me look bad if I'm not careful.’ He is a sensational actor. We have very different approaches to acting. He's theater trained, and I've only done screen acting. We worked a lot of scenes in prep, making sure that we kind of finish each other's sentences or we sip our drink at the same time, stand up at the same time, sit down at the same time. And there are a few little moments where we try to create some kind of nuanced indications of their synchronicity because they are a great team.”

In the series, Sherlock Holmes is far from the detached and analytical detective we've come to know. As portrayed by Tiffin, he’s young, inexperienced, and somewhat cheeky. Tiffin says that while he wanted to make the character his own, he was definitely inspired by the renowned actors who’ve played Holmes on screen.

“Just being a fan I subconsciously digested a lot of Sherlock,” Tiffin says. “Specifically, Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayals. But when I got the role, I'd already watched the films two or three times, so I didn't want to directly watch [them] again and draw inspiration and make notes. I felt like I'd, in quite a healthy general sense, digested what I needed to before getting the role. So when it came to preparing for the role of Young Sherlock, it was prep directly correlating to the script.”

Given the almost-superhuman abilities of Sherlock Holmes, it’s easy to consider the character among the ranks of quick-witted superheroes like Batman, Black Panther, and Iron Man. Tiffin says he took inspiration from those characters as well.

“it's something that I've thought about a lot,” Tiffin says. “When I think about why people gravitate towards this character, I think it's because he is as close to being a supernatural character who isn't a supernatural character. He's as close to being beyond human in his capabilities. He’s just skin and bone the rest of us, but just an exceptional intellectual person. He’s close to being [a superhero], but he's not. And I think that's what makes him so alluring and intriguing.”

Guy Ritchie, who directed Downey Jr. in two Sherlock Holmes movies, serves as Executive Producer of Young Sherlock. Tiffin, who had a role in Ritchie 2024’s film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, says working on Young Sherlock was the quintessential Guy Ritchie experience.

“When I worked on The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare, Henry Cavill had three pages [of the script] delivered to him about 20 minutes before shooting,” Tiffin says. "There were about four other actors [who] have no lines in response. We are just watching and listening, and we were all thinking ‘better him than me.’ [With Young Sherlock,] it became my turn. There's a scene at a party [where] Guy gave me a good two or three pages of dialogue with less than half an hour to learn, and it was terrifying. But if he gave you the option to just read the lines that you've learned the night before, you would always pick his. You're in good hands. He's asking a lot of you [but] he helps facilitate by knowing how he's going to edit it. So even if you feel like your acting might take a hit, you'd still want to do that. That's the biggest challenge with Guy: when he hands you dialogue last minute. But it's always for the best.”

Tiffin, who at times has been a big fan of Call of Duty and FIFA games, says he’d love to see his version of Sherlock Holmes adapted as a video game at some point.

“Maybe [like an] early Uncharted game,” Tiffin says. “You've got a mix of action, but you're also kind of puzzle solving. [Maybe] early Prince of Persia, the platform versions. I think there would have to be a lot of problem solving, I guess story mode. A single player combination of fighting and problem solving. I'd buy it, I'd play it."

Young Sherlock streams March 4 on Prime Video.

Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment at IGN, leading entertainment content and coverage of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He's spent 20 years working in the games and entertainment industry, and his adventures have taken him everywhere from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him on Bluesky @MichaelPeyton

A new exclusive clip for Devil May Cry Season 2 has a couple of new characters it wants you to meet: Ebony and Ivory, Dante's trademark guns from the games. Devil May Cry Season 2 arrives on Netflix on May 12, 2026, and will see Dante once again at odds with his twin brother, Vergil.

"The interesting part is that Vergil’s a guy who can stand completely still and still feel like the most dangerous one in the room," Adi Shankar, the showrunner and executive producer of the animated series, told Collider. "His presence does the talking."

Season 1 of the show focused on Dante's conflict with the terrorist White Rabbit and an impending apocalypse. Shankar promised Season 2 will continue to deliver plenty of surprises for fans. “I’m allergic to formula. I dislike when successful shows turn into comfort food," he said in the same Collider interview. "Devil May Cry won’t be TV that loops. My mission for Season 2 was to capture the feeling of a 2000s film franchise entry where the audience can’t predict the next turn.”

Johnny Yong Bosch will return as Dante, Robbie Daymond will lend his vocal cords to Vergil once again, while Scout Taylor-Compton is Lady, AKA Mary Ann Arkham.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Lenny Kravitz is playing villain Bawma in 007 First Light, and the latest trailer shows that he can serve Bond bad guys with the best of them. We've had a glimpse of the charismatic pirate king before, but this extended look shows just what happens when you upset him. Spoiler, it involves crocodiles.

“I’ve met some folks that are… similar to his character," Kravitz told IGN in January. "I grew up in the Bahamas as well as New York City, and there were guys who had [Bawma’s] vibe and were doing similar things in the islands. He’s an interesting guy. We’re not quite sure how he’s going to turn.”

“We wanted more than just a one-sided villain, like we wanted to have some kind of charisma," added 007 First Light Director Hakan Abrak. "He has more sides to him that could maybe turn out surprising in the story. You’ll need to wait to see that until the game comes out.”

007 First Light will be released on May 27, 2026, so while you wait check out our first big preview from last year.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of games and entertainment.

Whether you’re looking to entertain the whole family with Shrek 4-Movie Collection in 4K Ultra HD or want to do things solo and delve into The Ghost in the Shell Legacy Edition Manga Box Set, the deals are solid today. I love nothing more than a solo movie theater day, and with AMC Stubs A-List for $0.99 for the first month, you don’t need to break the bank to watch all the latest movies. Plus, don’t forget to grab all the ridiculously great PS5 game discounts right now. Check out those deals and more below:

TL;DR - The Best Deals Today

27% Off Zelda: Breath of the Wild for Switch

Get AMC Stubs A-List for $0.99 for the First Month

PlayStation 5 Video Game Deals

PlayStation Direct launched an awesome sale on PS5 games and other retailers have followed suit. Notable discounts include God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West - Complete Edition, Death Stranding 2, and more from PS Direct. While Astro Bot, Returnal, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound are on sale at Amazon, or you can score Ghost of Tsushima - Director's Cut, The Last of US Part 1/Part 2, and Gran Turismo 7 for $30 from Best Buy. There are some incredible deals worth grabbing.

The Ghost in the Shell Legacy Edition Manga Box Set Hits Low Price

New Low Price for the Shrek 4-Movie Collection - 4K Ultra HD + Digital [4K UHD]

27% Off MTG x Final Fantasy VII Commander Deck - Game Edition

$28 Off Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Amazon Exclusive Edition for Nintendo Switch

Free Game with Discounted 27" Samsung G5 OLED Gaming Monitor

Lowest Price Ever on the Super7 ULTIMATES! Toho Godzilla Figure

MTG: Lorwyn Eclipsed Play Booster Box Back Down to Low Price

MTG x Universes Beyond Preorders

If you’re interested in the upcoming Universes Beyond sets, MTG x TMNT and MTG x Marvel Super Heroes, these preorders are worth grabbing below. The TMNT Booster Box got a nice discount ahead of the release next Friday. Amazon even has a nice preorder price guarantee. Whether the price goes up or down, you’re paying the lowest amount.

Season 2 of the Apple TV Monsterverse show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters launches on Friday, February 27, and Fan Fest 2026 gave us a look at the chaos those super-size scamps are getting up to now. Spoiler: tentacles.

Those appendages belong to Titan X, who is the real headliner for the new season and a new addition to the Legendary Monsterverse. Its official description suggests that it's going to prove a worth adversary for Kong and Godzilla: "In addition to Kong, Season 2 will feature Godzilla and introduce a new Titan: the enigmatic Titan X, now officially on the loose. Titan X isn’t just another monster; it’s a living cataclysm. When its massive bioluminescent form breaks the surface of the ocean, the world seems to hold its breath. In Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, Titan X stands at the center of the mystery – an ancient force emerging from the deep, its purpose uncertain, its power unmatched, its awe and terror in equal measure."

If you need a recap, Season 1 continued the story of the 2014 Godzilla movie and the covert organization known as Monarch, combining it with flashbacks to the early days of the monster monitoring outfit. In the 2015 storyline, Cate (Anna Sawai) and Kentaro Randa (Ren Watabe) searched for the truth about their father, Hiroshi (Takehiro Hira), while the 1950's timeline followed Bill Randa (Anders Holm) and Keiko Miura (Mari Yamamoto), a cryptozoologist and scientist studying big old beasties.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

What's cooler than vampires? Rockstar vampires. The follow-up series to Interview with the Vampire gets meta with the Vampire Lestat (Sam Reid) seeking to control his own narrative by starting a band, and we'll get to see it happen in June 2026 when the series premieres on AMC. A new sneak peek at IGN Fan Fest 2026 revealed the date, along with Lestat and Louis being adorable on FaceTime.

On February 13, we got a coppery taste of what is to come, with the first official single from Lestat de Lioncourt, with Long Face releasing on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and more. The track is performed by Reid as Lestat, and written by composer Daniel Hart. AMC also released a statement from Lestat himself about the song and its composer.

"Long Face is the first song Daniel Hart ‘produced’ for my album. He decided early on to steal where he could from Bowie because he hasn’t had an original idea for five years now (is that his Green Knight score fading in the rear view?). As for Long Face, the bass should have walked down with the guitar at the end instead of pedaling on E. Predictable. Like everything Daniel Hart touches."

At San Diego Comic Con 2025, the stars of the show – Reid, Jacob Anderson (Louis) and Eric Bogosian (Daniel Molloy) – spoke about the new season of The Vampire Chronicles, the change from the focus on Louis to Lestat, and the movement between the different eras in Lestat's life.

"The tone of the show now is so different and it's heightened in such a different way that I think that it's apples and oranges, but they're also telling the same story," said Anderson.

"We'll see a lot of the past," added Reid. "That's kind of one of the joys of the show is how jarring those jumps are going from the 1790s into today.

"[Showrunner] Rolin [Jones]'s done a wonderful job of integrating the two time periods simultaneously as we go along," Reid continued. "So it's not quite like the books where you get a bit at the beginning and a bit at the end and a whole bunch in the middle. It's intertwined through the beautiful songs written by Daniel Hart. So it's a really really hard book to adapt, I don't think anyone could have done it better than Rolin Jones and [executive producer] Hannah Moskovich."

The original Interview with the Vampire novel was published in 1985 and had its first iconic adaptation with Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst in 1994. AMC's series version first hit screens in 2022, and scored a full-blooded 9 in its IGN review.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

IGN just debuted the newest trailer for Mortal Kombat 2, which hits theaters on May 8, 2026. Like the first, this trailer focuses heavily on Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage, one of the new kombatants joining the fight in the sequel. All signs point to Johnny being the de facto main character this time around, and we think that’s a very good sign for the movie.

Let’s break down where 2021’s Mortal Kombat went astray and why the sequel is showing every sign of getting back on track, with a lot of help from Mr. JC himself.

Why 2021’s Mortal Kombat Didn’t Quite Work

1995’s Mortal Kombat still stands as one of the best live-action video game movies released so far. It says a lot about the state of the genre that it peaked so early and has had so little to offer since, but there’s no denying the fact that MK ’95 just got a lot right. It faithfully adapted the premise of the games, basically playing out like a more high-concept version of Enter the Dragon.

And crucially, it did so by striking just the right tone with the source material. The 1995 film is nothing if not a campy, silly martial arts romp. It’s got multicolored ninjas, a rubber, four-armed miniboss monster, and Christopher Lambert hamming it up as a thunder god. It’s got a mid-’90s techno/industrial mash-up soundtrack that goes way harder than it has any right to. The movie treats the source material with reverence, but it never behaves as if that source material is high art. Mortal Kombat is best when it allows itself to be silly and campy.

That’s something the franchise occasionally loses sight of. Certainly, the less said about the dreadful mess that is 1997’s Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, the better. The games themselves have tended to strike the right balance between building up the surprisingly complex lore of this universe and wallowing in the campiness of it all. But then you have something like DC’s Mortal Kombat X prequel comic, which became entirely too enamored with said lore and forgot to just tell a fun, goofy story about colorfully clad fighters eviscerating one another.

That’s an area where the 2021 movie reboot never really found its footing. On paper, the reboot had a lot going for it. It had much better special effects and production values than its predecessors. It also took a fairly novel approach to the script, focusing not on the interdimensional martial arts tournament, but on the eternal rivalry between Hiroyuki Sanada’s Scorpion and Joe Taslim’s Sub-Zero. In a perfect world, the reboot would have been a great showcase for how far the video game movie genre has come since 1995.

But in execution, not all the right ingredients were there. Mortal Kombat ’21 is exactly what Mortal Kombat shouldn’t be - too serious by half and too absorbed in the mythology of this universe. The film mostly leaned on Josh Lawson’s Kano to provide the humor and camp absent everywhere else, but that only served to make Kano feel like the odd man out. It also tries to cram entirely too many characters into a conflict that really boils down to the family drama between Scorpion and Sub-Zero, leading to a great many MK icons feeling like underdeveloped hangers-on.

And don’t even get us started on Lewis Tan’s Cole Young, the central protagonist of this grim little conflict. As an original creation for the film, Cole is meant to be the stand-in for the audience - the outsider suddenly thrust into a world of deadly martial arts duels and conflicts between realms. But Cole is also a character with zero charisma or depth. There was nothing to endear the character to the audience, and the whole movie suffered as a result.

Mortal Kombat ’21 is far from the worst video game movie ever released. It has its definite merits, particularly when it comes to the well-choreographed, hyper-violent fight scenes. And at least they kept the classic ’90s theme song. But it ultimately falls short of the bar established by the original film. It’s not as fun or campy as MK ’95, and it plays things a little too straight with the franchise and its mythology. Fortunately, that seems to be a mistake Warner Bros. aims to correct the second time around.

The Campy Appeal of Johnny Cage

It took five years, but Warners is finally releasing a sequel to the Mortal Kombat reboot in May 2026. Mortal Kombat II is again directed by Simon McQuoid, though this time the script is written by Jeremy Slater. Much of the cast from the original film are returning, such as Sanada’s Scorpion, Jessica McNamee’s Sonya Blade, Mehcad Brooks’ Jax, and Ludi Lin’s Liu Kang, but there are plenty of new additions to the mix as well, including Damon Herriman’s Quan Chi, Martyn Ford’s Shao Kahn, and CJ Bloomfield’s Baraka.

But easily the most significant newcomer this time around is Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage. As in the games, Cage is presented as a washed-up action movie star unwittingly dragged into the tournament between Earthrealm and Outworld. Urban has been the focal point of the film’s marketing so far, with Warners even going to the trouble of commissioning a short film that acts as a faux-teaser trailer for Cage’s magnum opus, Uncaged Fury. All signs seem to point to Cage being the main character in the sequel, supplanting Tan’s Cole Young this time around. Cole is reportedly still appearing in MK II, but you wouldn’t know it based on the trailers.

Right away, this looks to be an example of the sequel trying to make up for past mistakes. Cole clearly wasn’t working as a protagonist and audience stand-in, so McQuoid and Slater are pivoting to a character fans are much more intimately familiar with. Already, it’s obvious that Urban’s Cage has the charisma Cole himself was sorely lacking in the original movie. He’s a self-absorbed narcissist who wants nothing to do with the larger-than-life conflict unfolding around him, even though he may be just the right guy to save our dimension.

Or not. The new trailer shows Lin’s Liu Kang battling Ford’s Shao Kahn in what we assume is the climactic final battle, so the game may still be sticking to a more traditional version of the MK mythos in that regard. But regardless, Cage is being positioned as the audience stand-in this time, and we can’t imagine a better character for that role.

The trailers are crammed with Cage’s one-liners and snarky comments toward his fellow MK fighters. It really feels as though the sequel has developed a self-deprecating sense of humor that the previous film lacked. And that’s exactly what needed to happen. The sequel isn’t sticking to the overly grim tone of the first, but veering into the campier direction of the original 1995 film. And it’s all anchored by what is already shaping up to be one of Urban’s more memorable movie performances.

Nor is it just Cage himself who seems responsible for this shift in approach. In general, the trailers are more stuffed with the familiar MK elements fans know and love. There are more iconic catchphrases and special moves from the games. Nearly every action shot in the trailer hearkens back to the games in some way, whether it’s Liu Kang summoning a Fire Dragon against Shao Kahn or Kitana performing her deadly Fan Lift. Mortal Kombat II shows every sign of leaning into the sillier trappings of the games in a way the 2021 film never fully committed to. And in the process, it’s telling a much more complete and cohesive story about the conflict between realms. It doesn’t come across as a sequel so much as the first proper film in this series, making the 2021 original more of a prologue.

This all seems to be a very intentional shift on the part of the filmmakers. Back in a 2022 interview with The Direct, Slater revealed that the new screenplay is a result of lessons learned from the 2021 movie.

“I can’t say anything about the actual story, but I think they definitely learned some lessons the last time around in terms of, ‘Here’s the stuff fans responded to, and here’s what people liked out of the movie, and here’s the stuff that didn’t work out as well as we hoped.' So we’re really looking at this as a chance to take everything that worked in the first one and do it even better and give the audience even more, and make something that is just incredibly satisfying, and really exciting, and unpredictable."

Slater added that the sequel is definitely veering in a different tonal direction, one that embraces the more outlandish qualities of the MK games.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily going to have the same tone as the MCU, but it’s definitely going to have some of my sensibilities. That was part of my pitch to them. This is Mortal Kombat. We have guys who are ripping off their faces and breathing fire—it’s a weird universe, let's embrace some of that weirdness, and let’s make a Mortal Kombat sequel that no one is expecting and that can kind of sneak in and blow everyone away.”

The jury is still out until the sequel actually lands in theaters, but between Slater’s comments and what we’re seeing of the Johnny Cage-heavy trailers, it really looks as though the Mortal Kombat franchise is getting back on the right track on the big screen. With any luck, we may soon have a new contender for the best live-action video game movie. It’s about time.

But let us know your thoughts on Mortal Kombat II. Do you think it’s shaping up to be an improvement over the original? Is Johnny Cage exactly what this series needed? Sound off in the comments.

For more, check out every video game movie and series in development.

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

On March 17, Street Fighter 6 is getting a new DLC character: the pro wrestling-inspired Alex, and All Elite Wrestling's own Kenny Omega is the man behind the motion capture. At IGN Fan Fest 2026, he explained how the opportunity to do the motion capture actually came out of a simple misunderstanding.

"When the news broke and they told me, we signed the NDAs and we know who the characters are and Alex will, in fact, be one of them. And they said, 'For you being such a good sport, it'd be cool if we put a move of yours in,' maybe one or two or a taunt or something," Omega told IGN.

"I had said, 'Wow, that would be great. I just don't know when I could fit that into my schedule to do the mocap for it.' And they'd said, 'Oh, wait, you do the mocap for it?' I said, 'Yeah, is that what you were talking about, or no?' They said, 'Oh my, if you would do the mocap for it, that would be awesome.' And so a misunderstanding on my part is what led to me actually going to the studio and doing a slew of mocap for the character. If there was ever a better time to be stupid, that was one of them, because it worked out in my favor completely to not understand what they were talking about at that moment. So because of that one discussion, I got invited back to the next year's Tokyo Game Show. And then before doing the game show, I stopped over at Osaka, where they do the mocap for Capcom. And we hammered it out in one day. It was a grueling 10- or 11-hour shoot. I remember losing like 8 or 9 pounds of water weight, but it was so worth it and so fun."

He also revealed that the developers were open to suggestions – he can see how his ideas were incorporated into the final game animations – and that wrestling without an audience wasn't as alien of an experience as people might expect.

"I think because of COVID, I got used to wrestling and performing in front of no one. It reminded me of being back into an empty arena and just having cameras all around me, but there's no sound. There's no adulation. There's no people. I see staff here and there, but it brought back memories of the COVID era, for sure."

Alex first appeared in 1997 Street Fighter III: New Generation in arcades. Early concept art shows the professional wrestler character was initially positioned as the new face of the franchise. In Street Fighter 6, his super moves include Raging Spear, Sledgecross Hammer, and The Final Prison. He also has an alternate level 2 super called the Omega Wing Buster, which is a sequence of moves inspired by Kenny Omega's own trio of signature moves, including the V-Trigger, Snap Dragon Suplex, and of course, the One Winged Angel.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of games and entertainment.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Another television goodbye, and trust me, they never get easier. HBO has revealed that Industry will return for Season 5 — but it will be the show’s final season as well.

The series will air its Season 4 finale on March 1, and there’s no exact release date for the final season just yet, but no matter when it hits our screens, it’s going to be a doozy. HBO’s logline for Season 4 proves just that.

“At the top of their game and living the lives they set out to have as Pierpoint grads, Harper (Myha’la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) are drawn into a high stakes, globetrotting cat-and-mouse game when a splashy fintech darling bursts onto the London scene,” according to a press release from the network. “As Yasmin navigates her relationship with tech founder Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington) and Harper is pulled into the orbit of enigmatic executive Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), their twisted friendship begins to warp and ignite under the pressure of money, power, and the desire to be on top.”

The series — which was created by Mickey Down & Konrad Kay, who also write on the show — stars Myha’la, Abela, Harington, Minghella, Ken Leung, Toheeb Jimoh, Charlie Heaton, Kiernan Shipka, and Kal Penn.

“For four seasons, Industry has thrilled us while examining power, money, politics, and class,” EVP of programming and head of drama series and films at HBO Francesca Orsi said in a statement. “Under Mickey and Konrad’s ambitious and singular vision, it has solidified itself as an important contemporary, genre-bending drama in HBO’s lineup that keeps viewers on the edge of their seat week after week.”

She added: “It is gratifying that viewers and critics have recognized season four as bigger and more thrilling than ever, buoyed by career defining performances from our magnificent cast. We are so proud we can announce the fifth season of this terrific show, which Mickey and Konrad have decided will take us to the end of Industry’s story.”

“This March marks a decade since we first began to conceive of the world of Industry and it exists because of the unwavering faith and vision of our partners and former partners at HBO,” Down and Kay said in their own statement. “For some time now we have been thinking about how best to end the show on an unparalleled high. Unlike some of our characters, we know when to leave a party.”

See? Even if they do know when to leave a party, it’s definitely going to be a doozy until the lights come on. What else would you expect from this series?

Image credit: Simon Ridgway/HBO.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

Powerplex, aka Scott Duvall, takes the spotlight in this new Invincible VS gameplay trailer, proving he can really take a punch. It's the latest look at the upcoming superhero 3v3 tag fighting game set in the Invincible universe. The game will be released on April 30 on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5.

Powerplex is just the most recent reveal on a roster that includes the titular Invincible, Atom Eve, Bulletproof, Battlebeast, Ella Mental, Lucan, and more.

The game features an original story from the same team that worked on the hit animated series, and Invincible creator Robert Kirkman told IGN players should expect the unexpected.

"What we're really trying to do is provide an in-game experience that is like watching an episode of the television show," he said. "It’s a really cool story that uses the characters in a really exciting and authentic way, and I think goes into some directions that people are really going to be surprised by. There's a lot of unexpected twists and turns."

Executive producer Mike Willette likened it to the special prequel episode focused on Atom Eve.

"We wanted it to feel like a playable episode," Willette said. "It's this standalone narrative. In the same vein that the Atom Eve special is like a special episode, this is a special episode, too."

The publisher Skybound Games promises that the game is being made by "both Invincible and fighting game lovers with deep roots in competitive and combat-focused games."

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of games and entertainment.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Karl Urban joined IGN Fan Fest 2026 today to introduce the brand new Mortal Kombat II trailer. It shows our boy Johnny Cage (Urban) looking pretty unhappy at a fan convention before finding himself battling other realms in a fighting tournament. It's a spicy little taste of the new movie, which will arrive in theaters on May 8.

"Johnny Cage, when we first see him in Mortal Kombat II, is a very dispirited character," Urban told fans at New York Comic Con 2025 back in October.

"His career is completely in the tank, he’s not been keeping up with his martial arts training. The world has forgotten who Johnny Cage is. He has very little of that brash, cocky Johnny Cage you know from the games. He’s a broken man… Through the course of the movie, we get to see him transform into a true champion of Earthrealm and involuntarily get launched into this insane action epic adventure. It’ll blow your minds, man."

Mortal Kombat II is directed by Simon McQuoid, with 2017's Death Note and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire writer Jeremy Slater on story duty. A third film, also announced at NYCC, is reportedly already in development.

This is just the latest news from IGN's Fan Fest 2026 – check the schedule to see what else is coming and to keep up to date on all the latest from the worlds of entertainment and games. And if you need a quick recap on the Mortal Kombat characters and their lore, check out this handy guide.

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 happens at 1PM EST / 10AM PST, and while I don't know exactly what the company has to show this year, it's probably going to be the Samsung Galaxy S26 lineup.

Every year, Samsung kicks things off early with an Unpacked event where it shows off its new lineup of flagship phones. And while we're almost in March right now, it's pretty safe to assume that this is going to be that Unpacked – even if it's a month later than it'd usually be.

If you want to watch along, you can tune in on Samsung's YouTube channel or on its website, or you can just stay tuned here, and I'll keep this article updated with Samsung's announcements as they happen.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 Live Blog

2:06PM: And that's a wrap. We got the Samsung Galaxy S26, S26 Plus and S26 Ultra, along with the Galaxy Buds 4 and 4 Pro. The very last thing on the screen was the Galaxy AI logo, and that really just says everything you need to know about these devices. While the cameras look incredible, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 looks like it'll be a powerful chip, Samsung is continuing to lean in hard on AI. Agentic AI is the name of the game this year, and only time will tell whether or not that'll be the security risk that my gut says it is.

2:02PM: Samsung is capping off the show by reiterating its dedication to making its products more sustainable. Samsung is deepening is commitment to the environment, which means more recycled plastics and working to add more water to the planet than it consumes.

1:57PM: The Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro will be available March 11, starting at $179 for the Buds 4 and $249 for the Buds 4 Pro. The Buds 4 Pro will come in Black, White and an online-exclusive Pink Gold, while the basic Buds will come in Black and White.

1:55PM: Apparently you can just talk to the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro to wake your Agentic AI agent. Does that mean they're always listening?

1:50PM: And here are the Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro. They look a lot different than 2024's Buds 3. They look a lot more like AirPods Pro, where the Buds 3 had kind of a sci-fi look. That's kind of the vibes for the S26, as well, very iPhone-coded.

These earbuds have better woofers, with a 20% larger vibration area, which should result in deeper bass. The tweeter is apparently also enhanced. These are both powered spperately by a new dual amplifier. Combined, the Galaxy Buds 4 is capable of 24-bit / 96 KHz audio, which should be good news for any audiophiles who might be using bluetooth earbuds for whatever reason.

1:48PM: The Samsung Galaxy S26 series will be available for preorder on March 11, with the S26 Ultra costing $1299, the S26 Plus costing $1,099 and the S26 starting at $899.

1:44PM: It looks like the AI photo editor features are a bit more capable now, I'll be testing this once I get the S26 Ultra in-hand. Thankfully, Samsung is tagging all AI generated content, so you'll know when AI has been used. Honestly more AI platforms should be doing this, but at least Samsung is.

1:42PM: You can shoot up to 8K on the S26 Ultra, and to help with the insane file sizes that'd come with that, Samsung will let you shoot directly to an external SSD. That means you shouldn't have to spend extra just to get a 1TB phone, because you can get a 1TB external drive instead, which should be much more affordable.

1:37PM: Now Samsung is going to talk about the cameras. Apparently every shot on the S26 series is "social media ready", so it sounds like there's going to be heavier post processing being done on the phone. It looks like the cameras should be a little better at handline low-light photography.

1:31PM: It looks like Samsung is going to make the Galaxy S26 Ultra's display more private. There's now a Privacy Mode, you can turn on to make your display harder to see from other angles. What's cool about this being a mode, rather than just a film that you put on top, is that you can turn it off when you're showing people stuff on your phone. Pretty cool stuff! It can also hide specific notifications, so you don't have to worry about an embarrassing message popping up when you're around friends.

1:29PM: Of course, the Galaxy S26 Ultra has a vapor chamber! It made absolutely no difference in the iPhone 17 Pro Max, but hey, maybe the S26 Ultra will be different!

1:28PM: Now we're talking about the SoC. The S26 Ultra has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 with a 39% more powerful NPU and a 19% faster CPU. Samsung claims this chip has 17% better ray tracing performance, which Samsung claims is "console-level" gaming performance.

1:23PM: Sameer Samat, the President of the Android Ecosystem at Google has taken the stage, talking about how Android is moving from an "Operating System" to an "Intelligence System". Ok then! Having some AI features doesn't stop it from being an OS, but go off I guess. The example he's using is having Gemini look at a text thread, pulling his family's pizza preferences to build an order for him.

1:20PM: Samsung is introducing "Keep" a suite of security features to keep the data needed for all of these AI features secure. On-device information is secured in its Knox processor, which keeps things secure, and for information processed in the cloud, Samsung claims it's deleted as soon as an answer is delivered. I hope that's true!

1:18PM: Apparently AI is just as big of an innovation as mobile hardware and apps. I don't know about that.

1:16PM: I'm not sure I'm comfortable with Galaxy AI reading my text conversations in real time, even if it's just to find relevant photos or reservations to the conversation. It might save me some time, I guess, but it sounds like a security nightmare. I really hope I can turn these features off.

1:14PM: From the Perplexity symbol at the bottom of the Galaxy AI screen there, it looks like they're partnering with Perplexity again with the S26 Ultra. I wonder if it'll come with another 1-year trial of Perplexity Pro.

1:11PM: Galaxy AI is going to take information from your messages and emails and give you reminders. The example they used on stage is reminding you about a dinner reservation that you forgot to put on your calendar. What's actually useful, though, is that you can ask the new Bixby about settings on your phone. There are a lot of on-device AI assistants that suddenly have no idea what they're doing when you ask them how to change something on the phone. If this actually works – which I'll be testing when I get my hands on the S26 Ultra – that'd be huge.

1:08PM: The new Galaxy S26 Ultra is apparently the "Agentic AI phone". Agentic AI apps have been a bit of a security nightmare, so unless a lot of the processing is being done on that new "co-designed chip" is very powerful, I'll have my questions. But, hey, at least it still has the S-Pen!

1:05PM: TM Roh, CEO and Head of Device Experience Division has taken the stage, to well, um, set the stage for Unpacked. He is claiming that AI is getting to the point where it needs to become infrastructure. Samsung is trying to make this tech more accessible, but in my experience on the last few Galaxy devices, the AI features have been largely pointless gimmicks. I'd be interested to see what the company can do to make the tech as useful as they try to tell us it is.

With Spider-Man: Brand New Day launching in just a few months on July 31, 2026, it’s an exciting time to be a Spider-Man fan. The Tom Holland-led franchise will become the first live-action iteration of Peter Parker to have four solo films, and will hopefully continue to be a part of the MCU for the foreseeable future. We're also currently set to see the third animated Spider-Verse entry, Beyond the Spider-Verse, on June 18, 2027, barring any further delays. But while there’s reason to be optimistic for the future of Spider-Man movies, we’ve also just received news of a potential dark shadow: Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman has confirmed that the studio intends to reboot their Sony Spider-Man Universe of spin-off films that recently crashed and burned with the failures of Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter.

Sony’s spin-offs have largely been savaged by critics, and they didn’t do well at the box office outside of the Venom trilogy. Given how little of an impact the movies have made despite being (somewhat) tied to Marvel’s most popular hero, it stands to reason that a change of approach is needed beyond just rebooting the franchise or hiring a new creative team. If Sony is serious about taking another stab at a spin-off universe, they need to stop working backwards by forcing villains into the roles of protagonists, and instead let actual heroes lead their superhero movies. Let’s take a look at how Sony’s Spider-Man Universe can make the second (or third or fourth) time the charm.

Paging Mr. Parker

The biggest frustration from fans in regards to Sony’s Spider-Man movies is that they simply never featured Spider-Man. We knew going into the first Venom movie that Eddie Brock wasn’t going to encounter Peter Parker, but the hope was that the two mortal enemies would maybe come to blows in one of the sequels. Venom: Let There Be Carnage’s post-credits scene even teased the possibility, only for it to be nixed by Spider-Man: No Way Home. Venom: The Last Dance set up the symbiote god Knull as a potential future threat, but now that we know a reboot is on the way, that thread isn’t going anywhere either. It really feels like the Venom trilogy gaslit fans by making them think we were going to see a showdown between Spidey and Venom, only for the latter to be stuck exclusively fighting other symbiotes and space monsters.

No matter how you feel about the quality of the Venom solo films, the fact remains that Venom never crossing over with Spidey was the trilogy’s biggest missed opportunity. There’s a long history of Venom solo comics that developed his own mythology and supporting cast apart from the wall crawler, but he debuted as an important facet of Spidey’s world, so it feels weird that the hero tied to Venom’s genesis is nowhere to be seen. We don’t know all of the specifics of the deal Sony and Marvel Studios have in regards to sharing Spider-Man’s film rights, so it’s plausible that there are legal obstacles preventing such a crossover. But surely it’s something that could be ironed out if Sony was serious about making their spin-off films the best that they could be.

What we do know is that Marvel intends to reset the MCU after Avengers: Secret Wars, so perhaps new spin-offs could be developed in closer collaboration with Marvel, allowing Tom Holland’s Spider-Man – presuming he’s kept around post-reset, although we’d wager he will be – to appear in them. Junking the likes of Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven, and starting fresh might make Marvel more willing to let Sony’s movies into the MCU continuity, especially since the Raimi and Webb films – and the Fox X-Men franchise – have been shanghaied into the shared universe via the multiverse in No Way Home and Deadpool & Wolverine. However, it’s just as likely that Marvel will continue to want to distance Holland’s Peter Parker from Sony’s side projects...but that’s no reason to give up entirely. They just need to shift focus to different Spider-Heroes, of which there are more than enough to choose from.

Holding Out For a Hero

We’ve discussed previously at IGN that Sony putting so many villains into leading roles was a huge part of what doomed their first attempt at a shared universe. By taking antagonists and making them follow milquetoast 'hero’s journey' plots, they made boring films that didn’t understand why those characters worked in the original source material. Even the one movie that did star a heroic character, Madame Web, was a bizarre mess that made its lead nearly unrecognizable from her comic book counterpart. The first step in building a new Spider-Man universe is understanding that it’s possible to make Spider-Man movies without Peter Parker, but not if they star villains or side characters who feel intrinsically tied to him.

There are multiple other Spider-Heroes with long histories in the comic books who could be the leads of spin-off films. Miguel O’Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099, had a solo comic that ran for nearly 50 issues in the 1990s. Audiences were already introduced to Miguel in something of an antagonistic role in Across the Spider-Verse, but you could easily make a film or even series of films with him as the main hero that sticks closer to Miguel’s personality from the comics. Likewise, Spider-Gwen aka Spider-Woman aka Ghost-Spider (they should really just pick a name for her already) has become hugely popular over the past decade, and could support a solo project that depicts the youth-oriented tales typical of Spider-Man films via a different lens.

The MC2 universe also gave us May "Mayday" Parker, aka Spider-Girl, the daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane. Audiences actually got to see an infant version of Mayday in Across the Spider-Verse. A film or show starring her in her prime could let us see Peter as a parental figure while also keeping the classic feel of Spider-Man stories intact. It’s not like Sony doesn’t understand the idea I’m positing here: They made Miles Morales the focus of their Spider-Verse trilogy, with Peter B. Parker as a supporting hero, and they're tackling an alternate reality series with Spider-Noir, albeit with that character renamed Ben Reilly instead of Peter Parker. If they keep the focus on characters who actually make sense as protagonists, their spin-offs could likely find success, but it would also involve treating these characters with the respect they deserve...something that hasn’t always been Sony’s strongest suit.

Scream 7 is almost here, and it’s clear that some fans are thrilled to see Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott back in the hot seat after she was famously absent in the previous installment. But for Campbell, the choice was clear: there was no way she could return to the franchise in 2022’s Scream 6 because her salary offer didn’t reflect the 25 years of dedication she felt she gave to this story.

“When I made that decision, I just didn’t think I could live with myself walking on set,” the actress recently told CBS Mornings in an interview about Scream 7. “I just didn’t feel right. I just knew that my value to this franchise was bigger than what had been offered. For me, I needed to make that choice.”

The sad but true fact was that, at the time of the salary dispute, Campbell was unsure she would ever get to go head-to-head with Ghostface ever again. “When I said goodbye to it, I thought that was it,” she added. “I knew that there was a good chance that would be it.”

She also highlighted that it was painful to not be on set knowing a Scream film was being made without her, but that she knew she had made the right decision for her at that time. “And when I spoke out about it, it wasn’t really to sort of rally everybody,” Campbell explained. “It was really just my truth at the time, and the fact the people got behind me, I got lovely support, and that was nice. And I do feel that other people need to make those choices.”

In June 2022, Campbell made a statement to Variety revealing that she would not return for Scream 6 for financial reasons. “As a woman I have had to work extremely hard in my career to establish my value, especially when it comes to Scream,” she told the outlet at the time. “I felt the offer that was presented to me did not equate to the value I have brought to the franchise. It’s been a very difficult decision to move on.”

That said, there were in-roads made between Scream 6 and Scream 7 that brought Campbell back into the fold. After Melissa Barrera, who played leading lady Sam in Scream 5 and Scream 6, was fired from the seventh installment in late 2023, and Jenna Ortega, who played her sister Tara, departed the film shortly afterward, Campbell was able to use her authority to negotiate a return that made her feel respected.

According to Variety, Campbell secured a nearly $7 million deal for Scream 7, whereas Scream mainstay Courteney Cox was paid $2 million. “Neve Campbell is to Scream what Jamie Lee Curtis is for the Halloween franchise,” director of movie analytics at Fandango, Shawn Robbins, told Variety. “She’s a big draw, especially for older generations who grew up with the original films.” And he’s absolutely right there; there’s always going to be some part of the fandom that wants to see Sidney’s story through.

Fans probably will get to see Sidney’s story through, because if this film does well, there’s definitely going to be a push for an eighth installment. But only time will tell at this point. Scream 7 arrives in theaters on February 28.

Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures.

Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.

IGN Fan Fest is back for its seventh edition today and tomorrow (February 25 and 26!), and we're so excited to once again present a show filled with exclusive reveals, trailers, gameplay, deep dives, and interviews with the incredible creators behind your favorite movies, shows, games, comics, and anime.

We can't wait to share all the surprises we have in store from LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, 007 First Light, Mortal Kombat II, Scream 7, Project Hail Mary, One Piece, and so much more, and we'll be gathering all the biggest announcements right here as they happen to ensure you don't miss a thing.

Our Exclusive New Mortal Kombat II Trailer Has Arrived

Karl Urban helped kick off IGN Fan Fest 2026 in a big way by introducing the brand new trailer for Mortal Kombat II. In the footage you can see above, we get to see Urban's Johnny Cage looking quite unhappy at a fan convention before finding himself battling other realms in a fighting tournament.

Mortal Kombat II will be released in theaters on May 8, 2026.

007 First Light Cinematic Shows Lenny Kravitz Was Born to Be a Bond Villain

Lenny Kravitz is lending his talents to 007 First Light, where he will become the villain known as Bawma. In this latest trailer revealed at IGN Fan Fest, we get to learn more about him and what happens when you upset him. Spoiler: it involves crocodiles.

“I’ve met some folks that are… similar to his character," Kravitz told IGN in January. "I grew up in the Bahamas as well as New York City, and there were guys who had [Bawma’s] vibe and were doing similar things in the islands. He’s an interesting guy. We’re not quite sure how he’s going to turn.”

“We wanted more than just a one-sided villain, like we wanted to have some kind of charisma," added 007 First Light Director Hakan Abrak. "He has more sides to him that could maybe turn out surprising in the story. You’ll need to wait to see that until the game comes out."

007 First Light will be released on May 27, 2026.

Hitman: World of Assassination - Official Patient Zero Requiem Briefing Trailer

If 007 First Light wasn't enough, fans of IO Interactive will be happy to know we also had a deep dive into the new Patient Zero Requiem mission (featuring Milla Jovovich as an elusive target) that is set to be playable in Hitman: World of Assassination from February 25 through March 24.

New Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Trailer Is Serving Tentacles

Season 2 of Apple TV's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is set to debut on February 2027, and it looks to feature not only Kong and Godzilla, but also the terrifying Titan X, who boasts some wild tentacles that are sure to be trouble. To help celebrate the launch, check out this brand-new clip of the show.

Devil May Cry Season 2 Gets an Exclusive Clip Showing Dante's Introduction to Ebony and Ivory

Say hello to Ebony and Ivory, Dante's beloved pair of guns that he gets introduced to in this exclusive clip for Devil May Cry Season 2, which will premiere on Netflix on May 12, 2026.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's Latest Clip Welcomes Us to Theater Class

Mary Wiseman's Sylvia Tilly takes center stage in this clip from Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and welcomes us to theater class. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is streaming now on Paramount+.

AEW’s Kenny Omega Brings Alex to Life for Street Fighter 6

We had the chance to invite All Elite Wrestling superstar Kenny Omega to IGN Fan Fest to talk about his upcoming Street Fighter 6 character, Alex. Omega provided motion capture for the character and fans will be able to try him out on March 17. He also shared a wild story about how his involvement in Street Fighter 6 came about.

"When the news broke and they told me, we signed the NDAs and we know who the characters are and Alex will, in fact, be one of them. And they said, for you being such a good sport, it'd be cool if we, you know, put a move of yours in, maybe one or two or a taunt or something," Omega told IGN.

"I had said, 'wow, that would be great. I just don't know when I could fit that into my schedule to do the mocap for it.' And they'd said, 'oh, wait, you do the mocap for it?' I said, 'yeah, is that what you were talking about or no?' They said, 'oh my, if you would do the mocap for it, that would be awesome.' And so a misunderstanding on my part is what led to me actually going to the studio and doing a slew of mocap for the character. If there was ever a better time to be stupid, that was one of them, because it worked out in my favor completely to not understand what they were talking about at that moment. So because of that one discussion, I got invited back to the next year's Tokyo Game Show. And then before doing the game show, I stopped over at Osaka, where they do the mocap for Capcom. And we hammered it out in one day. It was a grueling 10 or 11 hour shoot. I remember losing like eight or nine pounds of water weight, but it was so worth it and so fun."

The Vampire Lestat Hits AMC in June With Rockstar Vampires

Alongside a brand-new clip of AMC's The Vampire Lestat, we were able to help reveal that the series that will serve as a follow-up to Interview With the Vampire will arrive in June, complete with rockstar vampires.

Sherlock Meets Moriarty In This Exclusive Clip From Young Sherlock

Ahead of its premiere on March 4 on Prime Video, take a look at this exclusive clip from Young Sherlock where the famous detective meets the iconic Moriarty for the first time.

Crimson Desert Drops New Behind-the-Scenes Look With Official Voice Actors

Crimson Desert will be released to the world on March 19, and IGN Fan Fest helped reveal a new behind-the-scenes look at the game that lets the voice actors, including Rebecca Hanssen, Stewart Scudamore, and Alex Newman, take center stage and share why this is one game not to miss.

A New Electrifying Invincible VS Gameplay Trailer Has Been Revealed

Powerplex, aka Scott Duvall, is the electrifying star of the latest Invincible VS gameplay trailer. This 3v3 tag fighting game set in the Invincible universe will be released on April 30, 2026, and Powerplex will be joined by other fighters like Invincible, Atom Eve, Bulletproof, Battlebeast, Ella Mental, Lucan, and more.

Check Out The Vision's Entrance in WWE 2K26

Ahead of its debut on March 13, check out new gameplay from WWE 2K26, including the world premiere of The Vision's entrance, which features Bronson Reed, Bron Breakker, and Paul Heyman.

Watch an Exclusive Clip From the Season 2 Finale of Hijack

The second season of Apple TV's Hijack is coming to a close on March 4, and we helped present an exclusive clip that teases the drama to come in the series that stars Idris Elba, Christine Adams, Max Beesley, and Archie Panjabi.

In the thrilling second season of Hijack, a Berlin underground train and its commuters are taken hostage, while authorities scramble to save hundreds of lives. Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) is at the heart of the crisis on board, where one wrong decision could spell disaster.

Dive Deep Into Vampire Crawlers' World of Gems

Check out this deep dive into the world of Gems in Vampire Crawlers, the upcoming turbo turn-based, card-driven blobber with rogue-lite elements. Vampire Crawlers will be available later in 2026, but a demo is available now on Steam and Xbox.

Marvel MaXimum Collection Brings Together 13 Comic-to-Console and Handheld Counterpart Titles

Here's your first look at Marvel MaXimum Collection, which features 13 comic-to-console and handheld counterpart titles from the past, including, X-Men: The Arcade Game, Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge, Captain America and the Avengers, Spider-Man/Venom: Maximum Carnage, Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety, and Silver Surfer.

The Pegasus Carrier Arrives in This Exclusive, Whimsical Clip of Witch Hat Atelier

In this exclusive clip from Witch Hat Atelier, we get to see the arrival of the Pegasus Carrier from the first episode of this new series that will debut on Crunchyroll in April 2026.

In a world where only witches can cast magic, they must avoid being seen by ordinary people while casting in Witch Hat Atelier. While Coco does her chores, she daydreams of becoming a witch. When a young witch named Qifrey visits her village, Coco uncovers the “absolute secret,” becomes Qifrey’s apprentice, and begins her studies. This is the story of children who encounter despair, yet reach out toward hope.

Esoteric Ebb Gets a Release Date and Gameplay Trailer

Alongside a March 3 release date, Esoteric Ebb has released a new trailer that showcased this isometric, TTRPG-turned-CRPG that is set in an Arcanepunk-fantasy setting.

ARK: Survival Ascended Astraeos - Official Mega Update Launch Trailer

ARK: Survival Ascended Astraeos is now available on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, and you can check out its launch trailer to learn more about the expansion the the Greek Odyssey-themed DLC, which brings the Pyranthos Wasteland, the Grand Tortugar, and much more.

Drivers of the Apocalypse Gets an Explosive Alpha Gameplay Trailer

Drivers of the Apocalypse will be driving its way soon to PC, but until then you can check out some explosive footage of the game's alpha right now.

Flesh & Wire Is an FPS that Delves Into the Horror Roots of the Postal Series

Flesh & Wire made its grand debut at IGN Fan Fest, as we revealed this upcoming first-person shooter that delves into the psychological horror roots of the Postal series. Players will become Angel, a "hapless victim suddenly swept up in a fever dream of conspiracy and blood as she seeks answers and vengeance against the crazed gunman who changed her life forever."

Flesh & Wire will be released in 2027.

Mexican Ninja - Official Console Announce Trailer

Mexican Ninja is a 2.5D roguelike beat 'em up where you carve through Narkuzas in Nuevo Tokyo with "tight combos, wild spirit powers, and Mexican Jutsus." Alongside PC, Mexican Ninja is now confirmed for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One.

Windrose - Official Trailer

Enjoy a sea shanty while watching this new gameplay trailer for Windrose, a PvE survival adventure in the Age of Piracy that features sea battles, combat, customization, and so much more.

Going Medieval - Official Version 1.0 Release Date Trailer

Going Medieval is going 1.0! Take a journey through Early Access while also looking forward in this new trailer that also reveals Version 1.0 will be arriving on March 12.

Bellwright - Official Console Teaser Trailer

Alongside a new trailer, Bellwright is now officially headed to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in addition to PC. This medieval open-world survival RPG has players establishing and expanding their own settlement while also learning why you had to leave your life behind.

Everwind - Official Release Date Trailer

Everwind is launching into Early Access on PC on March 17, 2026, and this trailer shows off more of the first-person RPG and sandbox survival game that wants you to rise above the clouds and discover all the mysteries this game hold.

Into the Fire - Official 'What We Bring Back' Gameplay Trailer

Into the Fire is headed to PC via Early Access in 2026, and this new gameplay trailer shows off why you should care about this extraction survival game that will have players facing off against nature's wrath and fire spirits by an erupting volcano.

Join Us - Official Trailer

If you've ever wanted to start a doomsday cult, Join Us is the game for you! See exactly what that means in this new trailer for the game that features both a narrative campaign and up to 4-player co-op.

Frostrail - Official Gameplay Trailer

Frostrail is an upcoming open-world survival FPS set on a frozen, corrupted world. Operate and upgrade your steam-powered train while making smart choices if you hope to survive.

Solarpunk - Official Co-Op Gameplay Trailer

Grab a friend and check out Solarpunk, an upcoming survival game set on a technically advanced world of floating islands. Construct buildings, grow food, craft gadgets, explore in your airship, and much more.

Solarpunk will be released later in 2026.

Heroes of Newerth: Reborn - Official Hero Reveal Trailer

Say hello to Dampeer, a new terrifying hero headed to Heroes of Neweth: Reborn.

Where Winds Meet - Official Hexi Expansion Trailer

Where Winds Meet is getting its first major expansion in Hexi, and you can check out exactly what it entails in this new trailer. Hexi is a vast region and players will get to explore it over three chapters spanning deserts, ice fields, frasslands, and more. Chapter 1: Jade Gate Pass, will launch on March 6.

Outward 2 Is a Grounded RPG That Wants Challenge to Be Rewarding

Outward 2 is set to be released in summer 2026, and it is aiming to be a grounded and immersive action RPG that isn't afraid to let its players get lost and learn from their own mistakes.

Escape the Gyldenmist With Three Friends in Mistfall Hunter

Mistfall Hunter is a dark fantasy action extraction RPG heading to Steam, Xbox, and the Microsoft Store in July 2026, and you can get a new look at this game that lets you and up to three fellow Gyldhunters venture into the Gyldenmist for the best loot possible.

Tears of Metal - Official Ruadh Reveal Trailer

Ruadh is a new character headed to Tears of Metal, and this trailer showcases his massive hammer that can smash through shields, shatter armor, and knock enemies away. Oh, and he's also a pretty great healer!

Tears of Metal will be released on PC and a demo is now available.

New Poppy Playtime Figures From McFarlane Toys Revealed

During IGN Fan Fest 2026, McFarlane Toys has revealed a new look at their line of Poppy Playtime figures. The lineup, which includes 4.5-inch, 7-inch, and 12-inch models, features fan-favorite characters like Huggy Wuggy, Kissy Missy, Killy Willy, and Harley Sawyer. The 7-inch figures will be available for pre-order February 27.

Yunyun Syndrome!? Rhythm Psychosis - Official Demo Trailer

A new demo is now available for Yunyun Syndrome!? Rhythm Psychosis, the "rhythm adventure game about a psychotic hikikomori girl - also an avid anonymous poster - who corrupts the world with her severe brain rot from listening to too many denpa songs."

Valorborn - Official Announcement Trailer

Valorborn is an upcoming medieval fantasy sandbox RPG developed by Laps Games and it is aiming for an Early Access launch in Q3 2025 on PC!

How to Watch IGN Fan Fest 2026

IGN Fan Fest 2026 will feature over 80 exclusive reveals across two days of livestreams on February 25 and 26, and the show will start each day at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST. As for how you can watch the show, IGN Fan Fest 2026 will be streaming live on the following platforms:

• IGN.com
• IGN's YouTube
• Steam
• Facebook
• Twitter / X
• Twitch
• IGN mobile apps
• Eurogamer
• VG247
• GamesIndsutry.biz
• Rock Paper Shotgun

IGN Fan Fest 2026 Schedule

As we mentioned, we have a lot of surprises we can't wait to talk about for IGN Fan Fest 2026, but you can check below for an idea of what you can expect to see from each day of the show.

Day 1 (February 25)

• Mortal Kombat II
• WWE 2K26
• Invincible VS
• Street Fighter 6
• ARK: Survival Ascended Astraeos
• Vampire Crawlers
• The Vampire Lestat
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
• Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
• 007 First Light
• Hitman: World of Assassination
• Young Sherlock
• Hijack
• Devil May Cry Season 2
• Yunyun Syndrome!? Rhythm Psychosis
• Witch Hat Atelier
• Tears of Metal
• Valorborn
• Esoteric Ebb
• Outward 2
• Mistfall Hunter
• Crimson Desert
• Where Winds Meet
• Second Stone
• Heroes of Newerth Reborn
• Solarpunk
• Frostrail
• Join Us
• Into the Fire
• Everwind
• Bellwright
• Going Medieval
• Windrose
• Mexican Ninja
• Ranger's Path National Park Simulator
• Bus Simulator 27
• PowerWash Simulator 2
• Gate Guard Simulator
• Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection
• Normal
• Verminsteel
• Primal
• LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

Day 2 (February 26)

• They Will Kill You
• Necrophosis: Full Consciousness
• Faces of Death
• In a Violent Nature 2
• Diabolic
• Directive 8020
• The Mortuary Assistant
• Poppy Playtime
• Redux Redux
• Scream 7
• Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf
• Citizen Sleeper 2
• Project Hail Mary
• Space Scum
• Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes
• Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy
• Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2
• Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader
• Kiln
• Until Then
• Imprinted
• Will: Follow the Light
• Out Fishing
• Outbound
• Dreadmoor
• Gambonanza
• Monowave
• Town to City
• Hela
• Denshattack!
• Minos
• Celestial Return
• Samson
• Gallipoli
• Mixtape
• The Napa Boys
• The Copenhagen Test
• Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
• Scrubs
• One Piece

Developing...

Sony has announced the PlayStation Plus Monthly games lineup for March 2026, confirming a leak from earlier this week.

Four games hit PS Plus in March. As expected, PGA Tour 2K25 headlines the lineup, but in addition Monster Hunter Rise, Slime Rancher 2, and The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road are all available March 3 to April 6 to all PlayStation Plus members, as confirmed in a post on the PlayStation Blog.

PS Plus is a regular stomping ground for old 2K sports games (indeed previous PGA Tour games have hit PS Plus), so the addition of PGA Tour 2K25 comes as little surprise. The golf sim launched on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC in February 2025, so it hits PS Plus just over a year later. A Nintendo Switch 2 version came out earlier this month.

IGN’s PGA Tour 2K25 review returned an 8/10. We said: “PGA Tour 2K25 comes back strong, with substantial changes to how it looks and plays bringing it within striking distance of the competition.”

Monster Hunter Rise, meanwhile, came out in 2021 and went on to become a huge hit for Capcom. IGN's Monster Hunter Rise review returned an 8/10. We said: "Monster Hunter Rise mixes classic Monster Hunter ideas with some of World’s best improvements and a whole bunch of clever new mechanics of its own."

Slime Rancher 2 is a 2025 farm life sim video game developed and published by indie studio Monomi Park. And The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road is Zenimax Online Studios' MMO set in The Elder Scrolls universe, taking place nearly 1,000 years before the events of Skyrim. The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road grants instant access to all major Chapter zones, biomes and quest arcs across Tamriel, but the 2025 Content Pass isn't included.

PlayStation Plus March 2026 games lineup:

• PGA Tour 2K25 | PS5
• Monster Hunter Rise | PS5, PS4
• Slime Rancher 2 | PS5
• The Elder Scrolls Online Collection: Gold Road | PS5, PS4

This also means February’s PlayStation Plus Monthly Games will rotate out soon. You have until Monday March 2 to add Undisputed, Subnautica: Below Zero, Ultros, and Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown to your library.

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.

Physical copies of the highly anticipated Resident Evil Requiem are becoming increasingly difficult to come by online in the US, with the game just about sold out everywhere on all platforms.

Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, and Walmart are entirely sold out of Xbox copies of the game at the time of publication, while only Walmart is still stocking the standard edition for PS5.

Upheaval at Ubisoft continues today with the departure of veteran creative director Clint Hocking, in the middle of development on the company's next major Assassin's Creed blockbuster.

Hocking's exit from Ubisoft, first reported today by VGC, was reportedly revealed to staff this week by the Assassin's Creed brand's freshly-installed new leadership team. Hocking had been leading work on Assassin's Creed Hexe, the upcoming entry in Ubisoft's flagship series that's set to feature a witchcraft vibe.

In a statement to IGN, a Ubisoft spokesperson confirmed Hocking was "departing Ubisoft" without providing further detail as to why. His current role as creative director on Hexe will now be assumed by Jean Guesdon, the series' new Head of Content, who has a lengthy track record working on numerous titles in the series.

"Clint Hocking, creative director on Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe, will be departing Ubisoft," a Ubisoft spokesperson said in a statement provided to IGN. "We sincerely thank him for his vision, creative contributions, and dedication over the years, and we wish him the very best in his next chapter.

"Development on Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe continues with a seasoned team. The game will deliver something distinctive within the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Jean Guesdon, Head of Content for the Assassin's Creed brand, is now acting as the Creative Director on the project.

"We look forward to sharing more information in the future."

Hocking initially joined Ubisoft to work on the legendary 2002 stealth action adventure Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, which he contributed to as a designer and scriptwriter. Hocking then served as creative director on its follow-up, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, before holding the same role on 2008's Far Cry 2.

During a period away from Ubisoft, Hocking served years at LucasArts, Valve and Amazon, respectively, albeit without ultimately launching a game. Hocking then returned to Ubisoft to serve once again as a creative director, this time on Watch Dogs: Legion, which launched to a mixed response. Following that, Hocking moved over to Assassin's Creed, and had been leading work on Hexe out of the company's Montreal studio.

Earlier this week, Ubisoft named its trio of top staff tasked with taking the Assassin's Creed brand forward. Development on the series will now ultimately be led by Martin Schelling, a veteran Ubisoft producer who previously served senior roles on Assassin's Creed titles such as Black Flag, Origins and Valhalla, and has recently served as Ubisoft's Chief Production Officer.

Schelling is being assisted Guesdon, who has worked on more than a dozen titles in the franchise, back to Assassin's Creed 1 in 2007, and notably served in director roles for both Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed: Origins. Finally, François de Billy will serve as Head of Production Excellence, following previously acting as Production Director on Valhalla and Origins.

The changes follow last year's sudden departure of Ubisoft's previous Assassin's Creed boss Marc-Alexis Côté, a veteran staff member who announced his departure from the company last October, shortly after Ubisoft's new Tencent-backed subsidiary Vantage Studios took control of the brand. Côté has since launched a lawsuit against Ubisoft over the nature of his replacement.

Last week, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot reaffirmed that the company had "several" Assassin's Creed titles in development, comprised of both single-player and multiplayer experiences. Back in 2022, Ubisoft announced a raft of upcoming games including Hexe, as well as a multiplayer spin-off codenamed Invictus. The company is also widely-expected to announce its long-awaited Black Flag remake soon.

In the years since, nothing has been said of Hexe's progress, though fans had assumed this was simply because Ubisoft was focused on launching and marketing last year's Assassin's Creed Shadows. Almost a year on from Shadows' arrival, there's no suggestion that Hexe will debut in 2026, particularly after Ubisoft delayed a raft of upcoming titles back in January, as part of the company's major corporate restructure.

Image credit: Christian Petersen/Getty Images

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

Pokémon has been a part of my life for as far back as I can remember. I was just starting first grade when Pokémon Red and Blue came out on the Game Boy, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. My brother and I only had one Game Boy between us, and since he was older, he got to play it far more often than I did. Before we got a copy of Pokémon Blue for Christmas that year, the only Game Boy game we'd actually had the chance to play was Tetris. So needless to say, I was instantly enamored with the concept of catching and battling with all 151 of the original Pokémon.

And of those original Pokémon in that game, I was always particularly interested in Eevee. Not because it's arguably the most adorable, but because of all of the evolutionary paths you could take once you had one. And you could only have one per playthrough, after all, since you couldn't actually catch Eevee in that game. As one of the most versatile Pokémon out there and I always find myself choosing a different Eevee-lution each time I play a new game.

Now in 2026, with a new collaboration with LEGO, I had the chance to experience Eevee evolving into something much more exciting: an adorable little LEGO set. LEGO provided IGN with a copy of the set for a test build and I was lucky enough to be the one to put it together. At just 587 pieces, it only took me a few hours to assemble, but I was in love with every part of this build. Each new section of the set has you slowly piecing together a surprisingly lifelike LEGO Eevee, and the end result is nothing short of phenomenal. Once I placed the final touch of the build, I was honestly amazed at just how good it looks despite being made up of tiny plastic bricks.

At $59.99, the LEGO Eevee build is the most affordable of the three Pokémon sets now available to buy. And of those three, I think Eevee is the most realistic looking. Due to its price compared to the other sets, it's also the one I think most people are probably going to buy. Despite that lower price point, however, the whole build still felt like a premium experience. The set came with a total of six bags, all of which were made of nice recyclable paper. The instruction booklet also included the official Pokédex entry for Eevee, which I thought was a nice touch.

You start off the build with Eevee's core body. This is the foundation of the whole set, which you can see start to come together with various places for the legs, tail, and head to connect. This is the least exciting part of the whole experience, but I always enjoy these parts of the build due to the insight you get into how LEGO actually designed these sets to work. The connecting slots for legs give you a glimpse of how you'll be able to articulate those limbs once they're added, and the giant connector on top gives you an idea of just how massive Eevee's head is going to be compared to the rest of its body.

I was honestly amazed at just how good it looks despite being made up of tiny plastic bricks.

Once you move on to building the actual legs, the set really starts to come to life. Starting with the front legs, the instructions have you build one limb at a time before attaching it to the main body. Each of these is fairly straightforward to put together and looks fairly blocky until you get to the voluptuous fluff on each shoulder. You use a series of rounded pieces that really smooth out the overall look of each leg. Then the final touch of rounded pieces at the end ensure almost all of the LEGO studs are covered up. The end result is a surprisingly soft looking leg that will contribute to Eevee's overall fluffy visage.

After you finish building and attaching all of the legs, you can already start playing around with all of the different positions the final product will be able to move into. Each of the legs can articulate forward and backward, allowing you to move the body into various sitting and standing poses. I was even able to move it into a full standing position, which is admittedly much harder to balance once Eevee's head and tail are added to the equation.

The tail is where I really felt the build starting to add enough complexity to earn its 18+ age rating. Because you're essentially turning bricks into what will appear as a fluffy tail, you need to ensure that each of the pieces is facing the right outward direction. I ended up making a few mistakes here without realizing and had to backtrack later so I could actually connect all of the rounded pieces on both sides later on. You shouldn't have any issue here unless you try to rush through things and ignore instructions like I do. Once the whole thing is put together, it attaches neatly to the back of the set and can move from side to side.

"Each of the legs can articulate forward and backward, allowing you to move the body into various sitting and standing positions."

With the entire body and tail put together, you get to move on to Eevee's surprisingly massive noggin. I was particularly nervous about this part of the build because I had feared that it would involve some sort of sticker element. I had put together a LEGO Wednesday set last year that had a ton of different stickers and made some horrendous mistakes that made the end result look just weird enough to bother me forever. Thankfully, my fears of having an Eevee with horribly misplaced eyes were quickly banished when I found that the pieces themselves already had the designs printed on them. So once you build the actual head, all you need to do is attach a few pieces to get a perfectly designed face.

The final step of the build is Eevee's long pointy ears. These are relatively easy to put together, and like all of the other parts of the set, can be articulated into various positions. Each ear can be moved up and down, allowing for a symmetrical look or that cute lopsided look that you see on the box. And although you've already got a mostly complete Eevee set right up until this point, it isn't until you add the ears that the whole thing comes alive.

All-in-all, I found the Eevee set to be one of the most enjoyable LEGO builds I've ever done. I'm obviously a bit biased due to my deep nostalgic love of Pokémon, but it's honestly just a really cool build at a surprisingly affordable price point. And now that it's been fully put together I have a full-on Eevee action figure that I find myself adjusting and displaying in random spots throughout the house. It's my new favorite display set and it has me excited for what the LEGO Pokémon collab will bring in the future.

Jacob Kienlen is a Senior Audience Development Strategist and Writer for IGN. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, he has considered the Northwest his home for his entire life. With a bachelor's degree in communication and over 8 years of professional writing experience, his expertise is spread across a variety of different pop culture topics -- from TV series to indie games and books.

We're a little over a month away from the release of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and there are already some great toys for fans to pick up. The most popular one by far has been the Hatchin' Yoshi interactive figure at Walmart. And while its first drop sold out quite fast at the retailer, the good news it it's now back in stock for $49.88.

If you've been hoping to grab it, you'll want to be quick in the event it sells out again. It's also worth noting that it's on backorder right now, so you'll have to wait a little bit before you can actually get your hands on it. However, Walmart's site says that it you order today it will arrive by March 21, so you can still have it ahead of the movie's release on April 1 if you want to bring this little Yoshi to the theater with you.

Hatchin’ Yoshi Toy at Walmart