If you're seeking chart-topping gaming performance, then Alienware's biggest and most powerful prebuilt desktop computer should be high on your list. For just a few more days the Alienware Area-51 AMD Ryzen 9800X3D Edition RTX 5090 gaming PC has dropped in price from $5,650 all the way down to $4,699.99, a savings of $950. Alternatively you can upgrade to the 9950X3D CPU for an additional $250, which comes out to $4,949.99. These are both competitive prices considering the fact that most RTX 5090 prebuilts are currently selling for $5,000 or more.

Alienware Area-51 Ryzen Edition RTX 5090 Gaming PC

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best gaming CPU for most people

...but you can also upgrade to the 9950X3D for a reasonable price

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is considered to be one of the best gaming processors on the market and outperforms any Intel or AMD non-X3D chip in games thanks to AMD's 3D-V-Cache technology. It only has eight cores, but that makes no difference in gaming since most games can't utilize more than eight cores (if that) anyways. That's why its gaming performance is nearly identical to the pricier 9900X3d and 9950X3D.

Now if you regularly use your PC for non-gaming applications that actually do benefit from as many cores as possible, then you can upgrade to an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D 16-core processor, which doubles the core count while offering similar gaming performance, for an additional $250. That's actually very reasonable as far as CPU upgrades go; the difference in MSRP between a 9950X3D and 9980X3D is $220, and you're not paying much more than that.

The RTX 5090 is the most powerful graphics card ever

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 has emerged as the most powerful consumer GPU on the market. Although with this generation Nvidia has prioritized software updates, AI features, and DLSS 4 technology to improve gameplay performance, the 5090 still boasts an impressive 25%-30% uplift over the RTX 4090 in hardware-based raster performance. If you want the absolute best performance for your gaming PC, there is literally no other option from any other brand.

Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

The Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has said he doesn’t want anyone else playing Frodo “as long as I’m alive and able,” with his involvement with 2027 movie The Hunt for Gollum all but confirmed.

Speaking to The Times, the 45-year-old actor danced around his as-yet-unconfirmed appearance in next year’s The Hunt for Gollum, but admitted he felt similar to Ian McKellen, who recently said he couldn’t see anyone else playing Gandalf.

“It hasn’t been officially announced, but at a convention last August, Ian sort of let the cat out of the bag,” Wood said, referencing last year’s Lord of the Rings panel at London's For the Love of Fantasy fan convention.

“So there is a good chance. I’m not able to officially say anything until it’s announced, but I will say I’m thrilled with the prospect of another film. It’s always a little nerve-racking when people talk about new movies for a world like Middle-earth. Everyone gets a little protective and hopes it retains its level of integrity, but this story is fun, thrilling. There is a genuine feeling of getting the band back together. “I’m just excited.”

Then, referencing McKellen’s feelings on playing Gandalf again, Wood said: “I certainly wouldn’t want anybody else to play Frodo either as long as I’m alive and able. And I can also recognise what fun that is going to be — when you are in the cinema and you see the hat turn around and it’s Gandalf. Because I’m also a fan, and excited to see how it all comes together.”

This isn’t the first time Wood has spoken about The Hunt for Gollum. In October last year, he said the film, set between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, had a great script and production team behind it.

While some have debated the need for a Smeagol spinoff, especially after mixed reactions to The Hobbit movie trilogy, Wood piled praise on plans for The Hunt for Gollum, which will reunite The Lord of the Rings director and scriptwriters Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens with Gollum actor Andy Serkis, who is set to both star in and direct the film.

"I know a great deal about it," Wood said at the time. "I've read it [the script]. It's really good. There are some wonderful people involved. The thing that is so exciting is that it is really getting the creative band back together.

"The brain trust behind Lord of the Rings, Fran, Peter, Philippa, they are heavily involved," he continued. "And then, the same production designers. It is going to be shot in New Zealand. So, it is going to carry with it such continuity with so many people who are a part of Lord of the Rings, and I am really excited about that. It feels like getting that old machine up and running again with all of the right people."

It has now been more than 20 years since audiences first saw both characters sail off from the Grey Havens at the end of Return of the King. With Hunt for Gollum set several years prior to this, it remains to be seen whether some form of digital de-aging will be used. Indeed, Legolas actor Orlando Bloom has previously expressed interest in also returning, though suggested "AI would have to come into play."

To date, only Serkis himself has confirmed he will appear in the film, though Aragorn actor Viggo Mortensen has said he is also open to returning. The Hunt for Gollum is due to begin filming in New Zealand next year, ahead of its release on December 17, 2027.

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.

Resident Evil Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi has warned fans over screenshots that supposedly show him confirming (or at least, strongly hinting) who Leon S. Kennedy has picked as his long-term partner.

Unlockable concept art found in Requiem confirms that the series' most eligible bachelor is now married, while the game's ending sequence subtly seems to show Leon putting his wedding ring back on at the conclusion of his time in the field.

It's a detail that has drawn huge interest from fans, and particularly those who believe Leon has wed one of two potential love interests from earlier games: either Ada Wong, or Claire Redfield. Exactly who he has married, however, Requiem leaves frustratingly unclear.

In the hunt for clues, fans have been contacting Requiem director Nakanishi via his social media accounts, requesting more information. Last week, a collection of screenshots purportedly showing Nakanishi responding to these queries was then posted online - with victory claimed by Team Ada.

"Requiem doesn't make it clear, but if you've played the previous games, you should get an idea!" reads one response supposedly by Nakanishi. "You already know the answer, don't you?" he also allegedly replied, to a fan who asked if Leon and Ada had tied the knot.

I saw so many people messaging Nakanishi about Leon’s marriage. I know it might not be the right thing to do,but I can’t hide how happy this makes me.After all these years,all the waiting, all the debates we can finally say it. Congratulations,Mrs Ada Wong Kennedy pic.twitter.com/FYpGvh20Bj

— Ada Wong (@urfavadawong) March 4, 2026

Now, however, the matter has been muddied once again - this time by Nakanishi himself, who in an Instagram story (spotted by Kotaku) said he had been "called out for screenshots of edited messages." Seemingly, it was now Team Claire's turn to cheer.

But what's unclear here is if Nakanishi is referring to "edited messages" to mean that the messages supposedly written by him were deliberately faked, or whether he's simply referring to the collage of messages now being passed around social media as being edited together.

The only person who can clarify the matter further is Nakanishi himself, but alas the director has apparently declared he is going into "hermit mode" - presumably to avoid the topic altogether. He's not the only one, either. Speaking last week, Leon's English-language voice actor Nick Apostolides held back from answering his thoughts on who Leon had married, as "half the fans would want to hang me" if he did.

If you're still negotating Requiem's monsters as well as Leon's love life, IGN's Resident Evil: Requiem guide will help you every step of the way through RE9. Take note of these key tips and tricks before you get started, and focus on finding these important items early. Plus, our comprehensive walkthrough will make sure you don't miss a single Bobblehead or file as you try to survive from the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center all the way to Raccoon City.

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

Smallville's Kristin Kreuk is not only the star of one of the most successful comic book TV shows of all time, but she's now making the jump to writing comics with a new gothic horror series called Black Star.

IGN can exclusively debut the first preview of Titan Comics' Black Star. Get a closer look in the slideshow gallery below:

Black Star is a five-issue series co-written by Kreuk, Peter Mooney (Rookie Blue), and screenwriter Eric Putzer, and illustrated by Joe Bocardo (Nightwalkers). Here's the official logline for the series:

Amidst skirmishes between two warring factions in the early nineteenth-century fur trade, Dashiell Carlyle discovers he has magical abilities… and that he's not alone. Thrust into a secret order with designs to use their magic to build a new and better world, Dashiell discovers that their utopia may come at a horrific cost.

It's a violent world: gritty, bloody, and dark. But that's balanced with a sense of discovery and awe. The storytelling’s propulsive, and the morality grey. It's The Revenant meets Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. It's a love letter to a frozen corner of the world that few know. It's weird. And wonderful. And something wholly its own.

EA has laid off an unknown number of individuals from across its Battlefield teams, including workers at Criterion, Dice, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studios, IGN understands.

Individuals are being informed that the layoffs are taking place as part of a "realignment" across the Battlefield studios, as the team continues its ongoing, live service support for Battlefield 6 following launch. All four studios will remain operational, though the layoffs seem to be impacting a variety of teams across multiple studios and offices.

IGN asked EA for comment on total number and types of roles impacted, as well as for the specific reasons for the layoffs. An EA spokesperson told IGN: "We’ve made select changes within our Battlefield organization to better align our teams around what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our biggest priorities, and we’re continuing to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs."

Battlefield 6 was the best-selling game of 2025 in the United States. It sold a "record shattering" 7 million copies in three days and was the best launch ever for a game in the franchise. While its campaign received a bit of a mixed response from critics including us, we gave its multiplayer an 8/10 at launch.

However, the months since Battlefield 6's launch have seen the game begin to struggle from patch to patch. Fans have criticized a number of updates due to reasons ranging from cosmetics to movement, and three months in, Steam reviews have fallen to "Mixed" from a "Mostly Positive" start. Major issues reported include criticism of heavy monetization, use of generative AI for in-game cosmetics, and fewer content updates than expected. The criticism was heavy enough that the teams delayed the start of Season 2 to allow more time to implement community feedback. EA recently published a three-month roadmap for its expected updates.

Steam concurrents have also dropped significantly following Battlefield 6's big launch, when it hit a huge 747,440 peak. Steam concurrents are now, typically, in the tens of thousands. For example, Battlefield 6 hit 67,000 peak concurrent players on Valve's platform yesterday. Of course, Steam numbers do not paint the whole picture of a game's popularity or success, given Battlefield 6 is also available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. But they do give us a sense of where a game is at, and in Battlefield 6's case the drop-off may have been more dramatic than EA had expected. Meanwhile, the free-to-play Battlefield battle royale, Redsec, has had problems of its own, with a 'Mostly Negative' Steam user review rating for recent posts.

These layoffs come just months after the unexpected death of Battlefield franchise head Vince Zampella in a car accident. They also come as EA is preparing to be acquired by an investor group composed of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners for approximately $55 billion. However, the acquisition has not yet closed (it's expected to close in the first quarter of the 2027 financial year, or April, May, and June of this year). IGN understands internally, EA is stating that the layoffs are unrelated to the acquisition.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

MAR10 Day is coming up tomorrow, March 10 (get it?), and already we're seeing some very fun deals and preorders pop up. If you're a big fan of Mario Kart World and looking to up your racing game, HORI is releasing a new Mario Kart Racing Wheel Pro Mini for Nintendo Switch 2 that's now available to preorder for $79.99.

Unfortunately, it won't be released in time for MAR10 Day tomorrow, but it's set to come out not long after on March 23. Head to the link below to preorder this racing set for your next Mario Kart match.

Preorder HORI Mario Kart Racing Wheel Pro Mini for Nintendo Switch 2

It’s hard to even know where to start with an RPG as deep as Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. I reviewed both Monster Hunter Stories in 2017 and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin in 2021 and, maybe unsurprisingly, so much of what I said about the first two carry over into my thoughts on the third. Monster Hunter Stories 3 has so much to do, all of it is rewarding, and I adored the every one of the 75 hours I happily sunk into it. Smart changes have also made it easier than ever to dig into all its different systems without watering them down in the process, making for a beautiful package that feels like a logical evolution of an already great series.

Twisted Reflection is another turn-based monster collecting RPG spin off of the long-standing, beloved (to me, for the last 22 years and counting) Monster Hunter series. Rather than only hunting monsters to turn their parts into cool outfits and weapons, here you’ll hunt them with other monsters by your side called Monsties (monsters who are your besties, of course). Like Pokemon, you can have up to six Monsties in your party and switch between them in battle, but unlike Pokemon, you fight alongside them using the weapons and armor that are iconic to the Monster Hunter series. Twisted Reflection hasn’t innovated on this particular formula much, but it’s a fun enough one that it really didn’t need to.

The most immediate changes are to your main character. First, you play as an adult rather than a child this time, which shifts the overall tone towards being somewhat more mature. Second, the protagonist has their own personality and dialogue – that’s right, for the first time in the series, your Felyne side-kick isn’t doing the talking for you. I know the Stories series is generally geared towards a younger audience, but Navirou’s over-the-top comedic puns and one-liners fit for a children’s show were always just a little too much in the first two games. Your new Palico, Rudy, is much more sensible and helpful, and he’s still humorous without acting like an over-the-top cartoon mascot. (Sorry Navirou.)

Your hero isn’t just some nobody, either. They’re a full-fledged ace Rider and captain of the Rangers – basically an environmentalist group that focuses on research and protecting the ecosystems in the kingdom of Azuria. This premise works so well with the actual gameplay mechanics, which have you taking out Invasive Species and reintroducing Endangered Species to the ecosystem. Oh, and you are also the princess/prince of your kingdom.

As someone who is already expert in their field, your character wouldn’t need someone to show them the ropes. But what about you as a new player? To get around this dilemma, Twisted Reflection handles its tutorial cleverly by making you the one who is teaching a newbie to the rangers, Thea, which is done seamlessly, painlessly, and quickly - though I do question if it’s enough for completely new players. It doesn’t waste much time before getting you to the real action, too – if you don’t get too distracted when the first map opens up for you to explore, of course, which happens very quickly. (At least unlock the Rite of Channeling before going off script, that’s my advice.)

All of these differences were so welcome and refreshing. Though the previous Stories games absolutely touched on emotional topics, the tone feels like it has shifted from a goofy Saturday morning cartoon to one more like Avatar: The Last Airbender. That said, the story itself isn’t as profound as that comparison. It tells another slight twist on what I’ve come to expect from Monster Hunter: Something bad (this time, the Crystal Encroachment) is causing monsters to run amok, you must face the affected monsters (this time, Feral Monsters) and save the region from whatever is causing it. There’s at least a more apparent impact on regular people and some bigger-picture political turmoil that’s interesting, but I wish Twisted Reflection had spent a bit more time fleshing that part out.

And while it’s not groundbreaking, I still enjoyed the story. There are moments here and there that caught me by surprise, made me tear up, and even rewarded me for being a long-time fan with references and cameos from the predecessors without shoving them in my face. I won’t spoil anything, but some of those even had me shouting enthusiastically as I played.

Exploring the Vast World

Another benefit of being an ace Rider from the very beginning is that you start with a fully-grown Rathalos as your partner, which means you immediately have the ability to fly around Twisted Reflection’s semi-open world. “Flying” is more like “gliding,” but it works well thanks to a generous number of updrafts around the map and certain high places you can fast travel to whenever you want.

Riding your Monsties around is just plain fun in general, and switching between them while riding is completely seamless. Each monster can have multiple Riding Actions, too, including the aforementioned Flying and things like Swimming or Climbing. There are also less movement-oriented options like Roaring, which stuns monsters in the overworld so you can ride right by them, and Breath Attacks, which can knock monsters over or out of the air! Having multiple Riding Actions per monster made it much easier to put together a team so I could explore fully, even early on. It’s a big improvement over Stories 2, where I felt pigeonholed into picking monsters based primarily on Riding Actions.

Variable Battles, Fluid Tactics

The battle system in Twisted Reflection is much more intricate than a lot of other turn-based RPGs I’ve played. Monsters have three attack types – Power, Speed, and Technical – that work like rock-paper-scissors, plus elemental weaknesses and resistances on top of that. Your Rider then also has three weapon damage types across six weapons to choose from, all of which have different mechanics. Monster parts can be targeted individually and are weak to specific weapon damage types, and you can switch freely between three weapons in battle in order to best exploit those weaknesses. It sounds like a lot, but the variety I knew I’d encounter encouraged me to always have a spread of upgraded weapons on hand, which kept battles fresh throughout.

This is all very similar to Stories 2’s battle system, but it’s been expanded upon. For example, you just about always have a whole crew of allies and their Monsties to choose from when deciding who will accompany you, each of whom has different strategies and items at their disposal. Your Kinship Gauge is now separate from your Stamina, so you can use skills without taking away from your “ultimate attack”– an amazing change, especially as someone who likes to rock the stamina-eating Hunting Horn. Enemy monsters now also have a Wyvernsoul Gauge – weapons and attacks have different damage values for Wyvernsoul, and depleting it will stun and then stagger the opponent, essentially skipping their turn. That smartly adds another layer of strategy beyond just choosing the best part to attack with the best weapon for the job, as sometimes targeting Wyvernsoul instead is the strategy that ensures your party will survive.

It’s a lot to think about, but it means the battles don’t ever become a simple race to spam your basic attacks. Though they take a while to get through, fights rarely felt too long for me, especially since you can double the battle animation speed. And just when battles began to feel like a little bit of a chore, I was able to start one-shotting weaker monsters in the overworld, which still granted materials and experience points without having to play through an overly easy fight. The fact that I never felt like I needed to grind for the sake of grinding helped a lot in keeping me from getting tired of combat. Instead, doing missions, tackling some optional tasks, and following my natural curiosity to fight every new monster at least once kept me leveled appropriately.

The Perfect Ouroboros

Twisted Reflection’s story and exploration are the driving forces that introduce mechanics and locations to you, but the loop of den diving, hunting, and upgrading is where it really shines. The various systems are all interconnected perfectly to create an ouroboros of a gameplay loop that feeds into itself, with micro-dopamine hits every single step of the way. I spent nearly 20 hours in the first area alone because I wanted to do everything I could before moving on, and just about everything I was really into was technically optional. But maybe that’s why it was so easy to get engrossed – nothing was spoon-fed to me or forced down my throat. Instead it simply introduced me to how things worked and then said, “Go forth.” And go forth I did.

If you don’t know Monster Hunter Stories, it works a bit differently than most traditional creature collectors. Instead of finding a monster in the overworld or in a random encounter, and then having to catch it or make it drop something, you instead search inside dens for eggs. There are multiple layers of “gacha” in this Stories system, with den spawns, eggs inside those dens, and the skills Monsties hatch all being somewhat randomized, but it all works incredibly well rather than feeling obnoxious.

Each microclimate across the large, open maps is inhabited by specific monsters, which are the species you can then find inside the eggs there. There are three rarity levels of dens to find in the overworld, which lead to three rarity levels of eggs. The eggs you “pull” from the nests inside the dens have patterns to identify the species, but hatching them into Monsties is the only way to learn what genes they have, which determine their active and passive skills. The rarer the egg, the better the three-by-three gene board that Monstie will be born with is.

Tally that all up and you have four different moments of randomized excitement. It’s an incredibly well-implemented variable reward system, which is a concept fittingly used in actual animal training as well (and to keep people doomscrolling on certain social media apps. Oops.) It might sound like that much randomization would be annoying – what if you only want one specific Monstie? But in my experience, I never had to spend very long to find what I was looking for, and the other things I picked up along the way made it feel like I never wasted my time.

Importantly, you’re getting much more than just those hits of excitement out of this cycle, too, even if some are only tangentially related. For example, it’s satisfying to pick up materials while exploring on the way to a den, which both grant my party experience points and can be used for crafting. I’m also likely casually hunting some monsters as I go, which will drop materials for weapons and armor. And if I defeat a new monster, that’s new equipment to look forward to!

Once you hatch an egg, you’re not only getting a Monstie for your collection or party, you’re also unlocking its gene skills for every Monstie you have. Genes can be freely moved between Monsties and rearranged as many times as you like using the Rite of Channeling at any camp. The ability to rearrange is important because if you match three of the same color or type of genes on the board, you’ll trigger a “bingo” bonus that buffs your Monstie in different ways. This process is a big change from Stories 2, which would consume your host monster upon transferring a single gene. You also couldn’t rearrange genes – with so many layers of commitment, and as someone who’s chronically indecisive, that system was practically torture. Twisted Reflection instead welcomes you to experiment as much as you want.

Those old gene restrictions would have also been at odds with the new system of Habitat Restoration, which has you reintroducing extra Monsties to the wild. First you must dispose of a Feral Monster in the area so you can set up a camp there, which are both relatively challenging and quite rewarding to beat. Each camp you unlock also increases the stat bonus a Monstie gets when it’s hatched from an egg from that map. And once camp is set up, you can release monsters back into that specific area – the more of a species you release there, the higher their ecosystem rank will rise, up to S-Rank.

To add even more complexity to your team building, S-Rank Monsties hatch with all three of a given map’s Environment Skills, which are especially advantageous as they don’t take up space on the gene board. Alternatively, you can send existing Monsties on an “Excursion” to different locations and they’ll come back with that region’s Environment Skills if its species is S-rank there, not to mention it will swap to that region’s stat increases regardless of its rank. That even applies to Ratha, the Rathalos permanently stuck in your party, who can gain the S-Rank environment boons even if there are no Rathalos to be found in a certain location. Hatching high rank monsties is also the only way to gain access to some powerful genes, noted as Egg Skills – yet another welcome carrot that encouraged me to engage with the Habitat Restoration system.

I became pretty obsessed with getting Monsties up to S-Rank both for the above mentioned boons, and also because a Monstie at at least A-Rank gets an additional element dictated by the area--changing its color. This system was scrapped in Stories 2, and I’m so happy it’s made its way back to the series. It’s like being able to create your own personal shiny Pokemon. This method to change a Monstie’s color is also much less convoluted than it was in the original Monster Hunter Stories, and is seemingly more advantageous as it keeps both the original and new element. I love this idea even more when I think about just how different everyone’s teams will be. I find it so common for people to end up with such similar parties in RPGs based on strength alone, but this system encourages more experimentation.

But wait, there’s more! A handful of Invasive Species have posted up in what were once Endangered Species nests tucked away in semi-hidden locations. If you repel them, you can get your hands on an Endangered Species Egg, reintroduce it to a habitat of your choice, and then meet certain requirements to get one or two more mutated species out of it.

Repelling an Invasive Species is easier said than done, though. The setup requires you to sneak around its territory to collect clues that might help you figure out how to make it run. The tutorial Invasive Yian Garuga needed me to topple it by breaking its legs, for example, to make it retreat. That’s probably the simplest of the Invasive Species mechanics. They’re all a different puzzle to solve, requiring you to figure out and execute a solution before the Invasive Species can one-shot your whole crew enough times to wipe you out.

I loved both searching for these hard-to-find monsters and challenging them, but I must admit I had to resort to taking screenshots of the tips as I found them. To my knowledge, there’s nowhere to check these clues after you pick them up for the first time. I also made the mistake of fighting these battles at 2x speed at times, causing me to miss important cues, like how the color around an Invasive Seregios temporarily changes when its roaring. Luckily, failing gifts you with a hint, but these weren’t nearly as detailed as the clues found in the den or your companions’ commentary.

The “Endgame”

After repelling an Invasive Species, you can try to actually slay it inside the Endangered Species den, but that’s very clearly meant to be an endgame activity – that’s made apparent by the fact that they’re level 50 when repelling them and level 75 when trying to slay them. The Calamitous Elder Dragons – at least the Namielle in Azuria – are also level 75. I was only level 65 when I completed the story, so that should give you a sense of how challenging these are meant to be. It’s also neat that they show up so early on. The Invasive Species arrive whenever you happen to find them, which can be as soon as you enter a new map, and the Elder Dragons have a random chance to spawn after battling at night.

Like during the rest of Twisted Reflection, none of my time felt wasted even if I spent 15 minutes getting absolutely bodied by an Elder Dragon. If I did well enough, I could repel it, meaning the next time it’ll come around pre-weakened. And even if I didn’t leave a scratch on it, those fights still rewarded me with a single Elder Dragon material. You only need three of these to make the first level of an Elder Dragon’s armor or weapon! That’s a very nice boon to rock in the early and mid game, and it’s cool to have these challenges motivating you to get stronger. And when I finally did slay an Elder Dragon, I felt truly accomplished – just like in regular Monster Hunter. It even makes it so Monsties hatched in the slayed Elder Dragon’s region get a stat increase!

However, these late-game monsters – and, of course, completing the Monsterpedia by hatching and mutating all of those endangered species – are the only endgame to speak of. I was a bit disappointed that nothing changes at all after the credits roll. While the previous Monster Hunter Stories had PvP, and even multiplayer dungeons in Stories 2, there’s nothing like that in Twisted Reflection. At least, not yet – I’m assuming (hoping) we’ll get a free title update at some point. But even if there isn’t, it still took me a good 65 hours to finish Twisted Reflection’s story, and I’ve spent 10 more hours so far happily finishing up side content after that – and I’ve enjoyed it that entire time, though I have one final Elder Dragon still waiting to be slain, a handful of Invasive Species to put to rest, and more than half the side quests left.

Maybe you won your office pool. Maybe a bank erred in your favor. Maybe you got a refund on your tax return. What are you going to do with that money?

You could put it all in your savings account. Or, you could purchase a next-level, multi-thousand piece LEGO set, build it, and display it in your home. It's important to have priorities. And all kidding aside, it's also important to have fun, even as an adult.

LEGO was never cheap, per se. But particularly on the high end, it's never been more expensive. The company explains this by way of its quality pledge: that its bricks are tested rigorously against gravity, pressure, and anything else an adult or small child might subject them to – even human saliva. Combine this quality control with the 3rd party licensing agreements for LEGO's collaborative partnerships, and the costs quickly add up.

The cheapest LEGO set available is about $10. The most expensive LEGO set available is 100 times that amount. Here, for your morbid fascination and possible purchase, are the 10 most expensive LEGO sets currently for sale, as of March 2026. Hopefully, we won't have to establish an even higher ceiling in the months and years ahead. But we probably will.

TL;DR: The 10 Most Expensive LEGO Sets

10. Tropical Aquarium

9. Jabba's Sail Barge

8. Avengers Tower

7. The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell

6. Eiffel Tower

5. Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser

4. Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise

3. Titanic

2. Millennium Falcon

1. Death Star

Three years ago, LEGO released Lord of the Rings Rivendell – a 6,000-piece tribute to Peter Jackson's vision of Middle-Earth and the J.R.R. Tolkien-written books that inspired it. You can check it out on Amazon. I reviewed the set for IGN and interviewed the designer in a follow-up feature. It is one of the best, most detail-oriented builds of the past five years.

In 2024, LEGO released another massive Lord of the Rings set, this time of Barad-dûr, the massive tower in Mordor that's topped with the Eye of Sauron. Similar to Rivendell, it is laden with numerous, movie-accurate details. Then 2025 brought us The Shire, another rich, albeit smaller build.

Currently, there are very few Lord of the Rings sets on sale, but this wasn't always the case. LEGO and Lord of the Rings first partnered in June 2012, and between June 2012 and October 2014, LEGO released numerous sets that celebrated both the original Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the subsequent Hobbit trilogy. The last of these went out of print in July 2015; the only way to obtain them now would be to go on the expensive secondary market.

Here is a showcase of the major LEGO Lord of the Rings sets over the past decade plus: what was released and subsequently retired; what is currently on sale; and what we might expect to see in the future.

Attack on Weathertop (Retired)

This set captured the moment when Aragorn defended Frodo and the Hobbits from the Ringwraiths. It included the key details, such as the spiral stone staircase that led to the top of the watchpoint, as well as the black horses that the Ringwraiths rode as they searched the realm for the One True Ring. This was part of the first wave of LEGO Lord of the Rings sets in June 2012, along with the second entry on this list.

The Mines of Moria (Retired)

This Mines of Moria sequence is one of the coolest parts of the Lord of the Ring movies. The set based on it included a massive cave troll and several freestanding elements to represent Balin's Tomb. The LEGO designers rigged the tomb to fall apart at the press of a lever, and you could also recreate the scene where Pippin knocked the skeleton into the well (via a trap door), thereby alerting everyone to the Fellowship's presence.

The Orc Forge (Retired)

A small but richly detailed build, the Orc Forge was a blacksmith forge with fanciful elements, with a chain lift and bucket to transport ore, and a chute that fed into a cauldron to melt the ore down. It also included an anvil and a light brick to make the fire glow.

The Battle of Helm’s Deep (Retired)

Based on the climactic siege that concluded The Two Towers, this was a massive castle set. It had the Horn of Helm Hammerhand at the top of its tallest tower, and its signature, curved outer wall, including a breakaway portion so you could recreate the moment when the orcs breached the defenses.

An Unexpected Gathering (Retired)

A charming build of Bilbo's home, An Unexpected Gathering included Gandalf, Bilbo, and 4 of the 12 dwarves who imposed themselves on his hospitality. Green was the predominant color of the set's exterior, which gave it the fertile, bountiful atmosphere that we associate with the Shire.

Battle at the Black Gate (Retired)

Obviously, the Battle of Black Gate, which was the climax to the entire LOTR trilogy, was much grander than what could be accomplished with 656 LEGO pieces. This is the exact sort of build that would most benefit from a modern reimagining. Can you picture what the LEGO designers could do with 3000 or even 4000 pieces? Still, there was lots to appreciate about this set, especially the Mouth of Sauron Minifigure, the Great Eagle, and the angular severity of the Gate itself.

Tower of Orthanc (Retired)

This model of Saruman's massive tower was two-and-a-half feet tall, and it was as imposing as the LEGO designers had hoped. But as intimidating as the exterior was, the interior was equally impressive and included a throne room (where Gandalf and Saruman had their wizard duel), a dungeon, a library, and an alchemy room. It also comes with a massive Ent and a Great Eagle, so that Gandalf can hitch a ride off the roof.

The Lonely Mountain (Retired)

This was Bilbo's big moment, when he discovered the entrance to the Lonely Mountain on Durin's Day. And this set includes the secret door, Smaug's lair, the mountain of gold, and a number of play mechanisms the dwarves' battle with Smaug, when they try to submerge him in liquid gold. This set was part of the last wave of Lord of the Rings sets from 2012-2014. We wouldn't get another set in the series until January 2023.

Gandalf the Grey & Balrog (Retired)

In January 2023, LEGO released several LOTR-themed pairings as part of their collectible Blockheadz line. There were four different sets available for purchase, each for $20: Gandalf the Grey & Balrog, Aragorn & Arwen, and Frodo & Gollum. LEGO retired them at the end of 2024.

Lord of the Rings: Rivendell (Currently on sale)

Lord of the Rings: Barad-dûr (Currently on sale)

Lord of the Rings: The Shire (Currently on sale)

Lord of the Rings: Balrog Book Nook (Currently on sale)

Lord of The Rings: Sauron's Helmet

Fortnite has confirmed that The Foundation, its heroic character voiced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, will return next season - and begun an Avengers: Doomsday-style countdown for his reappearance.

A cinematic teaser trailer released today shows The Foundation currently frozen in ice, captured by The Ice King (another important character in Fortnite lore). Still, players expect they'll be able to break out The Rock's character in the battle royale mode's next season, which begins in shortly over a week's time.

Indeed, today's teaser reveals the official name for Epic Games' next slice of Fortnite, and riffs on the wording seen in recent Avengers: Doomsday teasers (not that they're actually teasers, apparently) to confirm the return of several key characters.

"The Foundation and The Ice King will return in Fortnite: Showdown," the teaser states, before the words shift into a date (March 19, 2026) and then a countdown clock revealing the weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds left to go until the update drops.

The teaser itself reveals a new in-game location, which looks to be a fresh and more detailed version of The Ice King's classic Polar Peak fortress. Previous in-game imagery had teased this wintry palace, and suggested it was home to one of the game's current Zero Point shard macguffins.

The suggestion here is that this new Ice King is working with Fortnite's current baddie, The Dark Voyager, to reunite the Zero Point's broken shards for nefarious means. But previous Fortnite lore, doled out through graphic novels, painted the original Ice King as something of a more noble figure, who freezes beings he has deemed a threat to reality. Fans have suggested the Dark Voyager is capable of corrupting previous Fortnite characters (such as Lynx) to do his bidding. Or maybe the Ice King really has just broken bad?

The original Ice King was a mysterious character who kept a prisoner in his dungeon back in Fortnite's first chapter (something recently glimpsed again via the Fortnite OG mode, which retells the game's original storyline). In today's teaser, however, the new Ice King is shown to have several other captives, too, including golden skeleton lady Orelia and Marvel's own Steve Rogers (though his may just be yet another nod to Doomsday).

The teaser concludes with The Ice King sidling up to The Foundation, frozen mid-punch. How he'll escape remains to be seen, though one things for certain: with newly-tweaked designs for The Foundation and The Ice King on show here, fans will have several must-have new skins to obtain next season.

Recent weeks have seen several surviving members of Fortnite's heroic Seven faction return in game, including a new version of The Visitor voiced by a very familiar-sounding actor. Fortnite is yet to officially confirm the return of Dwayne Johnson to his own role, though fans seemingly won't have long to wait until The Foundation speaks once more.

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

A UK newspaper has posted a major leak from the set of HBO's Harry Potter TV reboot, revealing the series' lavish new incarnation of Diagon Alley.

The major set leak, first published by The Sun, has now spread further online, where Harry Potter fans are poring over the details. The video itself encompasses a minute-long walkthrough of the long Diagon Alley set, where numerous magical stores can be seen.

Diagon Alley is of course the Potter universe's main magical shopping street in London, hidden away from Muggles behind the Leaky Cauldron pub. It is visited numerous times throughout the series, and looks to have been constructed a standing set for use throughout the HBO show's lengthy run.

The Sun has released the first video from the set of Diagon Alley in the HARRY POTTER TV series

We also have a better look at Gringotts and some of the new shops

🔗: https://t.co/irt7d91WXp pic.twitter.com/ohErcr83Mt

— Wizarding World Direct (@WW_Direct) March 9, 2026

Already, fans are comparing it to the version of Diagon Alley seen throughout the original Harry Potter movies, where Harry Potter first receives his wand, and in later years visits the Weasley twins' joke shop, or investigates its darker side street Knockturn Alley.

Noticeably, the new version of Diagon Alley is much narrower than seen previously. It looks, really, more like an actual London alley and less like a film set, though other details do stand out.

A new business not previously mentioned in the books or movies is Acciocoffee!, which looks to be a barista spot with a (magical?) neon sign. At the far end of the street, as expected, is Gringotts Bank. This does not look too dissimilar to how fans have seen the location represented previously, though is now situated in something of a leafy square.

Quite how this footage has managed to find its way onto the internet is still a mystery, as filming for the series has been kept top secret, with codenames used to hide the production's brief appearances on locations around England. Otherwise, much of the shoot is being hidden behind closed doors at Warner Bros.' Leavesden Studios, where this set is likely located.

HBO's new Harry Potter TV series is expected to debut in early 2027 with an eight-episode first season. Filming began last summer, with various glimpses spotted by fans including work on fresh scenes not from the prior movies or books. Indeed, last month we learned the surprising news that we'll be seeing more of Draco Malfoy's home life, as the show won't be told from "over Harry's shoulder" like the books or movies.

As for other big changes, the show plans feature John Lithgow's Dumbledore meeting Nicolas Flamel, reintroduce History of Magic lessons with Richard Durden as Professor Binns, while Lucius Malfoy, Draco’s father played by Johnny Flynn, is expected to join the story in the first season of the show, before his introduction in the books and movies.

Image credit: Warner Bros./HarryPotter.com

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

If the absurd silliness of 2019’s Untitled Goose Game is the type of thing that floats your boat, then the upcoming multiplayer puzzle game Big Walk by the same developer should rank pretty high on your list for 2026. This wacky adventure occupies the growing number of games lovingly dubbed “friendslop,” in the same vein as Lethal Company, R.E.P.O., and most applicable here, Peak, making use of proximity chat and goofy gameplay to create memorable times with friends. And if the opening hour is any indication, then Big Walk stands a strong chance of capturing the attention of those, like myself, who will happily jump online to joke around with their buds during some low-stress shenanigans.

Big Walk is a cooperative puzzle game meant to be played with friends that emphasizes creativity, silly scenarios, and limited communication options as a core game mechanic. Unlike many games in this genre, you’re not stuck in a survival horror scenario, but instead solving a series of increasingly challenging puzzles that require your team to work as a group. Playing as weird, birdlike creatures, you’ll run around searching for oblong key items hidden throughout the island, tackling puzzles that have you doing things like describing hieroglyphs to your friends while they enter them into a codepad, or stacking up on top of one another like a circus troupe in order to get to areas unreachable on one’s own. The goofy and low-stakes nature of these obstacles means that, if you’re anything like my group, you’ll spend most of your time messing around and making very little progress while you crack jokes and come up with lore for the completely unexplained and odd world you find yourself in.

Talk About It

Like other multiplayer-focused indies of its kind, you’ll be limited strictly to proximity chat and won’t be able to hear your co-op partners if they’re standing more than a few feet away, so will have to make use of signs, hand signals, and other non-verbal forms of communication. This creates some unique hurdles, especially when players are required to split up to solve a puzzle. For example, in one scenario where one player had to hold down a button while I ran a long distance away to grab an item that was only accessible while said button was being held, my teammates had to keep an eye on me with binoculars so they could verify that I’d recovered the item.

To help ease the communication limitations, a whole bunch of the controls are dedicated to your character moving their arms about, including raising them in the air, holding them out at your sides, or pointing directly forward, and individual buttons are assigned to your left and right arm as well, allowing you to get quite specific with the different combinations. All of the puzzles placed before us in this demo were simple enough that we weren’t really required to get fancy with hand signals, but I could see the building blocks there that could lead to more complicated scenarios.

Stick Together

It’s also notable that in my time with Big Walk I encountered no puzzles that could be solved without the assistance of my companions, which I learned early on after becoming separated from the rest of the group and stumbled upon a puzzle and tried to solve it myself, only to quickly discover that I needed at least two players to complete it. Not only is solving puzzles with friends just fun to begin with, but I think it’s a good decision to make it so your friends can’t take off in different directions and make progress on their own, since it meant I never had to worry about missing out on any of the puzzle solving if I got lost or stopped to smell the roses while the others forged ahead.

In fact, puzzles actually change dynamically to fit the number of players in your party, from 2-4. For example, one puzzle requires everyone to stack on one another to reach a button located high up, and the height of that button is adjusted relative to the number of teammates you have. In another area, our prize could only be acquired when all four of us hit four buttons at the same time, and the number of buttons that had to be pushed simultaneously was determined by our player count. These examples are obviously quite simple since I effectively only played through the tutorial area, but I really like the idea that the participation of everyone on the team is required to make progress, and could see them coming up with some really devious challenges that require everyone taking on a vital role, overcoming communication obstacles along the way.

Low Stakes

Aside from solving puzzles, you’ll also find things in the world that seem intended purely to waste your time, like one area where we found a paintbrush that allowed us to change the color of various parts of our weird bird characters’ bodies, and another where we found an odd rest stop of sorts, which had no puzzle to speak of, but played some chill jams and provided a nice view to admire. In a game that relies so heavily on creating silly memories with your friends, it’s great to see how apt Big Walk is when it comes to knowing when to slow things down and give players an opportunity to be childish dorks. We definitely took the developer up on every chance they gave us to do just that, and much of the joy from our demo came not from any novel game mechanic, but from us finding our own fun within their bizarre sandbox. At least in this short demo, they did a really great job at making room for this kind of fun, and it was surprising just how quick all four of us fell into a comfortable state of juvenile behavior. It’s the kind of pure, good-time nonsense vibes that we just don’t see enough of these days.

The premise of Big Walk might seem like it won’t have staying power, and that’s because it probably won’t. The whole thing is roughly 10 hours long according to developer House House Games, and none of the puzzles change aside from adjusting to your player count. But a lack of longevity or replayability isn’t such a bad thing with games like these, where a few amusing nights with your friends is well worth the time invested. I think of it a bit like doing an escape room – you likely won’t have a reason to return to the same collection of puzzles more than once, but it’s the kind of unique experience you’re unlikely to find elsewhere. In an era where more and more games are asking for absolutely every minute of our time for years and decades to come, I really relish the opportunity to play these bite-sized adventures that leave a lasting impression and then let me move on with my life (Don’t worry, GTA V. I still love you, baby).

I should also mention that the build of Big Walk I played was running on a (wait for it) Mac Mini. That’s right – A. Mac. Mini. Look, it’s not like this goofy co-op game could be even remotely demanding on hardware, since you’re mostly just hopping around and stacking on top of one another, but it’s still pretty impressive just how approachable this game seems to be, not just in terms of gameplay, but by the low barrier of entry in terms of the hardware you play on. For that reason, this might even be a good option if you’re looking to play with friends and family who aren’t normally into video games. After all, goofing around as a weird bird creature seems like a pretty universal kind of experience.

After a very memorable first hour, I’m absolutely sold on this as the next friendslop for my crew and I to jump in on. If it managed to be this enjoyable when all the puzzles were super simple, I can only imagine how ridiculous and memorable it’ll be when they introduce more complicated scenarios.

Sony is reportedly testing dynamic pricing on the PlayStation Store.

As first reported by PSprices, Sony is allegedly running an A/B testing system that shows different prices to different users as part of an experiment. The report suggests the test has been running since November 2025, and currently impacts over 150 games in 68 territories.

You may remember the backlash to dynamic pricing when concert ticket vendor Ticketmaster was accused of hiking the price of high-demand tickets for the Oasis reunion tour, prompting intervention from the UK government and new rules to prevent the resale of tickets for live events above the original cost. Of course, the issue there was scaling prices up when demand surged, whereas Sony's test appears to be examining the impact of discounts and a customer's prior purchase history.

PSprices said it spotted the trend because it "tracks PlayStation Store prices in more than 50 regions."

"Our system detected unusual offer structures containing experiment identifiers (IPT_PILOT, IPT_OPR_TESTING) in PlayStation API responses," it explained. "These experimental prices are shown only to certain segments of users selected by Sony."

Games thought to be part of the test include PlayStation-published titles like God of War, Spider-Man, Helldivers 2, and Stellar Blade, with "personalized discounts" also popping up during sales, offering discounts as high as 12.5%. Some third-party games have also seemingly been involved, including WWE 2K25, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and more offering discounts anywhere from 5.3% to 17.6%.

It seems the games are designated as either IPT_OPR_TESTING or IPT_PILOT and have been tested in a number of countries, including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. The test has not been conducted in the US or Japan due to alleged "stricter regulation and higher market sensitivity."

Last week, a new report revealed that both Ghost of Yotei and Saros will remain exclusive to PlayStation 5 as Sony begins to pull back from PC. The expectation is Insomniac's Marvel's Wolverine won't make the jump to PC, either. The news came shortly after we learned Sony may have to delay the release of the PS6 to 2028 or even 2029 as a result of the AI-fueled chip crisis.

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.

An official teaser on the Doctor Who website has sparked fan speculation that the series' upcoming climactic Christmas special will be a sequel to Doomsday, the iconic episode where David Tennant's Doctor originally bid farewell to his companion Rose Tyler.

A fresh in-universe blog post from UNIT, available on the Doctor Who website to logged in users, serves as a reminder of the "Rose Tyler (2006 Cold case)" incident — essentially, the events of Doomsday, where Rose Tyler crossed over into a parallel universe, parting her from Tennant's Time Lord, before she briefly returned to save the day once more.

"As Rose Tyler is currently both missing from this universe and flagged as a complex space-time event, maybe keep an eye out," the blog reads. "I've got the Vlinx scanning all media channels and the subwave network," the note continues, referencing UNIT's resident robot assistant. Maybe someone should tell it to check BBC1 on Christmas Day?

Of course, the final episode of last year's Doctor Who season saw the apparent return of Rose Tyler yet again, or at least someone also played by actress Billie Piper. The show dropped her latest return as a last-second shock reveal, as outgoing Doctor Ncuti Gatwa seemingly regenerated into her, somehow.

One explanation for all this was that Billie Piper had actually been cast as the next incarnation of the series' hero, but the episode's credits deliberately kept her role vague, while fans strongly suspected yet another headscratching fakeout by current showrunner and writer Russell T. Davies.

Now, in the wake of Gatwa's abrupt departure and Disney's decision not to continue funding the show, this year's upcoming Christmas Special is expected to wrap up this bizarre cliffhanger, and likely provide another dose of nostalgia for fans of Davis' acclaimed original run as showrunner back in the early 2000s.

Rumors have persisted that Davies will next mine Doomsday, the emotional conclusion to Piper's original period as a series regular, for material on which to base his next episode (which many fans have speculated will likely also be Davies' last hurrah as showrunner for the series, following a mixed response to his work over the past few years).

The stage is certainly set for some kind of Doomsday sequel, too, with Billie Piper now somehow back, and the second incarnation of The Doctor played by David Tennant also back (and parked living an apparent suburban life, for now).

As ever, reaction to the blog from Doctor Who fans has been mixed.

"You guys are gonna hate me, but nostalgia is my weakness, and I started watching Doctor Who during Season 2," wrote Listen-5980 in a long thread on reddit. "I'm hyped."

"Russell, you already undid that iconic farewell scene two years after it happened," wrote Clara_Finn. "You don't need to go back to it again boo. Original ideas that don’t fawn over the show's history, I beg."

"There was no reality where this special wasn't going to be a Tennant and Piper nostalgia fest," concluded SuicideSkwad.

Doomsday, originally broadcast 20 years ago this summer, earned Doctor Who its first perfect 10/10 episode score from IGN. "This action packed episode one of the most emotionally moving and poignant stories about loss and refusing to let go," we wrote at the time. But, two decades on, is the show finally ready to let go of Tennant and Piper?

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

Slay the Spire 2 has enjoyed an enormous early access launch on Steam, breaking into the top 20 most-played games of all time on Valve’s platform.

Mega Crit’s sequel had already become the most-played roguelike ever on Steam after it launched last week, but now, after hitting an astonishing 574,638 peak concurrent players over the weekend, it’s joined the special top 20 club — and there are some big hitters within its sights.

Chief among them in the indie space is Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight: Silksong, which hit a peak of 587,150. And it’s that game the developers at MegaCrit cheekily pointed out as its target in a social media post celebrating their success.

“Our team is TOTALLY blown away by the amount of people who have been playing and sharing their love for the game we've been working on for the past half decade,” MegaCrit tweeted. “We're excited to continue to make StS2 the best that it can be!! Also obligatory joke: we'll getcha one day Silksong.”

Mega Crit had already playfully took aim at Bungie’s Marathon, which came out the same day as Slay the Spire 2, in a tweet they eventually admitted came off meaner than intended. But the truth is Slay the Spire 2 is the hottest video game on Steam right now, and is behind only the eternally popular PUBG, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike 2 in terms of current popularity.

You might be wondering what MegaCrit will do to capitalize on its success. Many developers would go hard on microtransactions, but it doesn’t sound like they’re coming to Slay the Spire 2. “We’re microtransaction haters,” Casey Yano, MegaCrit co-founder, told Destructoid, despite the fact that “a lot of our players threaten to buy all and any cosmetics we may ever release.”

I’m among the many playing at the moment, and I initially found it a tad confusing having not played the original. If you’re new to Slay the Spire, our Slay the Spire 2 Beginner’s Guide can help you get familiar with the basics, and for fans of the first game, take a look at the biggest changes in Slay the Spire 2. We’ve also got a guide to all the Slay the Spire 2 characters and how to unlock them, plus how to play co-op with friends.

Not only are a huge number of people playing Slay the Spire 2, but the vast majority are loving it. On Steam it enjoys a user review rating of ‘overwhelmingly positive,’ with nearly 14,000 user reviews already online. Check out IGN’s Slay the Spire 2 Early Access Review So Far to find out what we think.

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.

My early days with Marathon have reminded me of how I fell in love with Apex Legends. Respawn's battle royale famously dropped out of nowhere in early 2019 and I was instantly in awe of its maps, its guns and, above all, its heroes and their unique abilities. Marathon is an entirely different genre but its own hero classes, called "shells", elicit that same wonder.

They feel fresh and flexible, deep and customizable, and as I play I'm constantly discovering new wrinkles in their skills. I know it's early days but these shells feel like they set Marathon apart from Arc Raiders and other extraction shooters: you get the underlying tension, joy and despair of the genre with a pungent hero shooter smeared on top.

The Thief shell is perhaps the most brilliantly bizarre.

Her grappling hook – which flings you onto high ground or catapults you behind enemies – is the most boring part of her kit, which tells you a lot about how electric she feels. Her other two abilities are instantly among my all-time favorites in a multiplayer shooter, for very different reasons.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has offered Xbox staff words of reassurance following the exit of previous gaming boss Phil Spencer.

Last month, Microsoft announced a huge shakeup at its gaming business, with Spencer retiring, would-be successor Sarah Bond out, and Asha Sharma drafted in as new Xbox CEO.

Following the news, Seamus Blackley, who co-created Xbox at Microsoft, said that because Xbox is not a core part of Microsoft’s all-encompassing AI push, it was potentially “being sunsetted.” Blackley added that the fact Sharma came over from Microsoft’s AI team with no gaming background was further evidence of the company’s strategy. “They don’t say that, but that’s what’s happening,” Blackley said. “I expect that the new CEO, Asha Sharma, her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night.”

But Nadella has countered that concern by saying Microsoft is “long on gaming.” As reported by Windows Central, last week Sharma and Nadella held an internal Q&A to discuss Microsoft's gaming strategy. And in it, Nadella said Microsoft will always invest in gaming.

“Phil, he's always talked to me about how gaming is the largest entertainment category — what is gaming in its most expansive form going forward?” Nadella said. “This doesn't mean we walk away from people are doing today — when we think about a AAA game on a console. The question is about where else can we go to extend that. For me, we're long on gaming. We'll continue to invest, and we'll always do so. It's up to this team to show an excellence in execution, and creativity. Software always carries risk, but this is software with lots of creation risk. It's way different. But yet, we have to be the best-in-class at it."

Nadella’s comments emerged after Microsoft confirmed the codename for Xbox's next-generation console – Project Helix – as well as rumors that the device will play Xbox and PC games.

"Great start to the morning with Team Xbox, where we talked about our commitment to the return of Xbox including Project Helix, the code name for our next generation console," Sharma posted on her Twitter / X account last week. "Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games. Looking forward to chatting about this more with partners and studios at my first GDC next week!"

Sharma has already promised to deliver “the return of Xbox,” and, as part of that, has vowed to reengage with core Xbox fans. There was even a promise to commit to console at a time when so many Xbox fans feel disenfranchised with Microsoft’s shifting strategy. As for Nadella, he had previously said he was “long on gaming and its role at the center of our consumer ambition,” countering the doom and gloom.

There is also a question mark over Microsoft’s multiplatform strategy. In a previous interview with Windows Central, Sharma indicated that nothing is off the table when it comes to big decisions about recent controversial policies, one of which is Microsoft’s decision to leave console exclusives behind. Some hardcore Xbox fans are hoping for a return to the policy of old, at a time when even Halo is making the jump to PlayStation.

"Right now, I need to learn, candidly,” Sharma said. “About the 'why' of these decisions, what we were optimizing for, and what the data says about the Xbox strategy today. That's the honest answer. I'm looking at lifetime value, not just what happened in a previous moment, or in short term efficiencies and things like that. The plan's the plan until it's not the plan."

Of course, it’s hard to see Microsoft all of a sudden pulling out of multiplatform game releases, especially when its studios have put so much effort into making Microsoft's policy a reality, and in some cases seen great success on the likes of PlayStation. Halo is coming to PlayStation this year, and that’s unlikely to change.

But it’s worth noting that Sony has recently done just that. Last week, Bloomberg reported that while Sony will continue to release online games on PC, single-player games will now remain console exclusive, marking a significant strategy shift and move away from PC. That means the likes of Saros, Ghost of Yotei, and the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine will remain PlayStation 5 exclusives and not release on PC.

Bloomberg suggested poor recent sales of PlayStation games on PC and the risk to the PlayStation brand, as well as a potential impact on PS5 and maybe even PS6 sales, were to blame for the policy shift. Meanwhile, there’s also the suggestion that the prospect of PlayStation games running on the next Xbox via expected Steam integration may have also encouraged Sony’s return to console exclusives.

Photo by Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via 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.

Amazon has unofficially made Pokémon Pokopia an $80 Nintendo Switch 2 game, after the retailer suddenly increased the price for the new life sim's physical edition amid supply constraints.

Numerous retailers have completely run out of Pokémon Pokopia boxed copies, though Amazon still has availability in the U.S., albeit now at the higher price of $80.

It's the second time in as many months that Amazon has jacked up the price of a physical Switch 2 game while demand is high. A couple of weeks ago, the retailer was selling Resident Evil Requiem on Switch 2 for $76.84, almost $7 more than its recommended retail price.

Pokémon Pokopia has an RRP of $70, which Amazon has maintained if you just wish to buy a digital download code. But, right now, a boxed copy of the game will cost you $79.99, up $10 for seemingly no reason other than the fact its stock is hard to find.

Physical copies of Pokémon Pokopia appear limited outside the U.S., too. This morning, The Game Business chief Chris Dring wrote on social media that the game was "seriously undersupplied at UK retail," which has resulted in less than half the Switch 2 physical launch sales of last year's Pokémon Legends: Z-A.

So, what's going on here? Has Nintendo intentionally kept physical stock low? Pokémon Pokopia's physical edition is just a Game-Key Card launch, something the company may have expected would push more people towards its digital version. The game's Animal Crossing-esque life sim genre may also have been considered more likely to attract digital sales, so that the game is always available as people continue to play for weeks and months to come.

Officially, Nintendo has only marked Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World as an $80 game, though the full price of several Switch 2 Edition re-releases of existing Switch 1 games have also hit the same high price point (such as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario Party Jamboree - Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV). Previously, Nintendo has said it will experiment with variable pricing for games on its latest console, while retailers are of course able to charge whatever they like.

IGN's Pokémon Pokopia review returned a 9/10 score, and dubbed the game as "an enjoyable building and town simulator that capitalizes on the charming personalities of its monsters in a way that appeals to both the creative and collector alike."

Wondering which Pokémon you'll be able to live alongside? Check out our list of all the Pokémon in Pokopia, and take a look at our Things to Do First in Pokopia guide to make the most of your first few days. To help you get started, we've also got a list of 17 things that Pokopia doesn't tell you, plus How to Raise the Environment Level and How to Raise Pokémon Comfort Level.

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

The Pokémon Company is actively recruiting PhD holders with backgrounds in ecology to work in Tokyo. This is perhaps the closest chance Pokémon fans have to channel their inner Professor Oak in real life.

As posted on Japanese recruitment site HRMOS, The Pokémon Company is specifically looking for those with research experience in animal and plant ecology, with Japanese and English language skills on top. In addition to the salary, there's a PhD holder bonus of 1 million yen (approx. $6,300) upon joining the company, plus another 1 million annually each March. The job listing doesn’t give specific duties, just that candidates will be considered for positions across the company’s different business units.

Although this seems a bit out of left-field at first glance, having employees with a solid understanding of real-life ecosystems and how animals and plants interact within these systems could help the Pokémon series continue to develop in a way that feels realistic and organic. Real world knowledge of predator-prey relationships, habitats and how creatures adapt to their environment are all things that could come in handy when advising on the designs of regional Pokémon and their evolutions. The job listing does not ask for any game development-specific skills like programming, the only requirements listed are for PhD holders with ecology-related research experience, and Japanese and English language ability.

Pokémon Pokopia, the franchises’ new venture into building/life sim territory, starts off by dropping players into a drought-ravaged Kanto region, which they then need to restore. The game gives the player the ability to design habitats to attract certain Pokémon, with these Pokémon themselves having varied wants and needs depending on their species. With the Pokémon series continuing to evolve in more detailed and vibrant ways, it makes sense that The Pokémon Company would want to hire experts that can make sure the Pokémon world feels as vibrant and real as our real world.

Of course, the Pokémon universe itself is full of experts and their assistants who study Pokémon for good and sometimes nefarious purposes. Professor characters pop up in nearly every game in the franchise, even in the spinoffs, from Pokémon Go's Professor Willow, who studies the regional distribution of Pokémon, to Pokémon Sleep's Professor Neroli, who researches their snoozing habits.

In the most recent mainline entry Pokémon Legends Z-A, players can assist Pokémon Research Lab’s acting director Mable by capturing specific Pokémon types to aid her with her research. But working at the actual Pokémon Company in real life and potentially using your years of PhD study to shape future Pokémon ecologies and evolutions may sound like a dream come true to some avid Pokémon fans.

Wondering which Pokemon you'll be able to live alongside? Check out our list of all the Pokémon in Pokopia, and take a look at our Things to Do First in Pokopia guide to make the most of your first few days. To help you get started, we've also got a list of 17 things that Pokopia doesn't tell you, plus How to Raise the Environment Level and How to Raise Pékemon Comfort Level.

Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.

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 Amazon is still stocking the standard edition for PS5.

“If I could tell you the game that I turned down twice, it would shock the world,” claims Tim Willits, chief creative officer of Saber Interactive.

The multi-studio developer has become famous of late for its impressive collection of existing IP video game adaptations, primarily taking the form of playable versions of popular film series such as The Evil Dead and upcoming John Wick, Hellraiser: Revival, and Jurassic Park: Survival, but also tabletop games in the case of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

Saber is an incredibly busy, and productive, company, seemingly suffering from its own success to a certain degree, inasmuch as it can’t take on all of the dream projects it would like to. As Willits told IGN in a recent interview, “I can't say it, but there's a game that they came to me twice, and so it's my ‘like someday in the future, I will brag about it’. I can't say it now because I'll get in trouble, but it’s the coolest IP ever, and I can't make the game because we just have too much going on.”

Such is Saber’s commitment to translating movie licenses into video games, that it now finds itself in a situation where rights holders are coming to it in order to pitch games, rather than the other way around.

“Now they come to us,” reveals Willits. “We've had so much success with our past IPs and our license collaborations that big studios are coming to us. I mean, again, I'm not going to give you any specific examples, but some of the really biggest titles that we have, they came to us and it goes to show you that media companies, they know that gaming is the future and there are so many good properties in the world and there are just not enough good teams to make great games. So when you prove yourself that you can take and respect a license, and you respect an IP, and you make a great game, everyone else wants to work with you. So everybody has called us and wants to work with us.”

Willits appears to find the challenge of working with existing IPs highly satisfying, not only because it's enjoyable to play around in these already established universes and unlock the fun, but also because there’s already a huge fanbase to target your game towards.

“It is actually really exciting,” states Willits. “As someone who's created my own IPs and someone who's now worked with all these great IPs, it is truly exciting. I personally feel it's actually much better because you have millions of fans, you know the world that you can get into, but you still need to make a good game, and that is critical.”

That last part is crucial, because Saber isn’t in the business of ‘easy cash-ins’, but instead dedicated to crafting unique game experiences inside of these worlds. The IP and licenses are all a very cool base point, but Willits and the team’s focus is always primarily on creating a great game first and foremost.

“At Saber, we have embraced big licenses,” explains Willits. “I believe that we have more licensed products in development now than any other developer in the world. We have things we haven't even announced yet. One of the great things about Sabre is that we are an independent company, so we work well with every license holder. We have a great relationship with Universal, Lionsgate, and Disney. And if you have a talented development team, and if you focus on gameplay and making the experience as rich as possible, you can take all the advantages of having a licensed property and that built-in fan base and be really successful with it.”

What IP would you love to see Saber take on next? Let us know in the comments! For more from our interview with Saber’s Tim Willits, you can find some new details about the upcoming John Wick game, confirmation that the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake is still in development, and the news that extreme horror game Hellraiser: Revival has secured its ESRB rating.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

Today brings an ultra rare Pokémon card from the upcoming Mega Evolution — Perfect Order expansion, and it's the first time this Mega Evolved ex creature has appeared in the Pokémon trading card game.

Mega Skarmory ex sees the recently-revealed Mega Pokémon appear in powerful form, with 260 HP and a punishing special attack.

Sonic Ripper will require two Steel energy and one Colorless energy to pull off, and comes with the requirement that you shuffle all energy attached to the creature into your deck. In return, though, you'll be able to damage any one of your opponent's Pokémon, including those that are Benched.

If there's one upgrade that all Switch 2 owners need, it's additional storage. While the 256GB is an upgrade from the OG Switch, it can still fall a little short when plenty of third-party games can push 50GB or more when downloading digitally.

To counteract this, I highly recommend picking up one of the best Switch 2 microSD cards going right now, but you'll want to find one at the best price possible (especially with how volatile the market is right now).

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 director Naoki Hamaguchi has opened up about what to expect when the third instalment of the highly-anticipated multi-chapter game releases "not too far in the future," including new gameplay mechanics and locations, some of which we have yet to visit in the remake series.

Talking to Bloomberg, Hamaguchi teased that allowing fans to visit Rocket Town and space is "one of the elements [the team] had to switch around with Rebirth," as well as Wutai, not least because "Yuffie's made a very prominent appearance, stating her case about her homeland. So if Wutai's not featured, I think the fans are going to yell at me."

Hamaguchi also revealed he has expanded on the Highwind "gameplay experience," and "flying is a very large part of the third instalment."

Sadly, he wouldn't be drawn on Chocobo breeding — "I can't say yay or nay on the actual breeding, but there is an element in the third instalment involving Chocobos that is a little different than Rebirth" — or whether or not we'll go underwater — "[Motomu] Toriyama handled the submarine portion of the game, so perhaps he has injected himself into there. And I will leave it at that," — but he did suggest that given how and where Rebirth ends, that should "hint" at how the third instalment will begin in the Great Glacier area.

He also suggested players give fantasy game Esoteric Ebb a try, describing it as very goofy and entertaining: "Disco Elysium meets Dungeons & Dragons by way of Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett."

Hamaguchi recently discussed the impact of expanding the platforms on which the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series is available, insisting that going multiplatform "will not in any way lower the quality of the third instalment." The director said both the Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox versions of the game's prior instalments "have been incredibly well received and generated a lot of buzz online," but did note some community concerns.

The director also recently teased that the "core game experience is almost complete," and while he "really want[s] everyone to play it as soon as possible," the team has now moved on to "refining and polishing." And yes, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's Queen's Blood card game is making a “powered-up” comeback for the final chapter in Square Enix’s remake trilogy.

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.