The Stuntman Series Returns After Almost 20 Years, With Fast & Furious, Back to the Future, and More

Saber Interactive is resurrecting the long-dormant Stuntman series with Stuntman: Hollywood, which is currently in development for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. What’s more is that it’s being injected with real movies and TV shows for the first time thanks to a partnership with Universal Pictures.

Present in the trailer were segments based on Fast & Furious, Back to the Future, Knight Rider, Miami Vice, and 2008’s Death Race. This first glimpse of Stuntman: Hollywood reveals it will feature a range of cars from these TV shows and films, from Brian O’Conner’s rides from The Fast and the Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious, to the armoured Mustang driven by Jason Statham’s character in Death Race. The massive tanker truck from the latter also makes an appearance; here’s hoping we get to drive it. The enormous crash of The Dreadnought (which was filmed practically) is perhaps the most impressive and memorable shot in that film.

Not all the cars appear to be licensed (for instance, the Miami Vice vehicle is an obvious lookalike based on its distinct lack of the iconic strakes of Sonny Crockett’s white 1986 Ferrari Testarossa), but K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider and the Time Machine from Back to the Future are legitimate models and namechecked in the official announcement.

“The classic Stuntman game was so memorable for me, it’s always been a dream to recreate such a legend of gaming history and evolve it into something new,” said Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits in a statement alongside the announcement. “At Saber, we love working with classic IPs, and we’re excited to team up again with Universal to bring back a true adrenaline rush for fans.”

But what is Stuntman? Well, if you’re under 30 you could probably be forgiven for not having much of an idea.

The original Stuntman was released way back in 2002 on PlayStation 2, and was developed by Reflections Interactive (now Ubisoft Reflections) – a studio that, at this time, was still riding high on the success of Destruction Derby, Destruction Derby 2, Driver, and Driver 2. While Driver was never shy about its big-screen inspirations – and was always intended to make you feel like you’d been thrust behind the wheel of a classic, Hollywood car chase – Stuntman made this its entire premise. That is, it took Driver’s sublime handling model and injected it into a game that literally cast you as a professional stunt driver.

While Stuntman became a cult favourite action-driving game, it’s famously harder than a woodpecker’s lips and attracted a degree of criticism for the level of perfection required to nail all of the required stunts in a single take.

Stuntman did not feature any real films as part of its career mode, but it was very easy to interpret the movies it was paying homage to throughout. These included a Guy Ritchie-inspired London crime caper, a pair of off-brand Indiana Jones and James Bond films, and a clear riff on The Dukes of Hazzard called A Whoopin’ and a Hollerin’.

Outside of the regimented film shoot levels, Stuntman featured a construction mode where you could build and perform your own wild, freestyle stunts. Experimenting with the advanced destruction system and physics was a huge amount of fun.

A sequel would follow in 2007, but not from Reflections Interactive. The rights to the Stuntman brand had instead shifted to THQ, which enlisted the services of now-defunct Paradigm Entertainment to put it together. As a result, 2007’s Stuntman: Ignition had a significantly different feel to the original. Paradigm’s driving pedigree was not quite as robust as Reflections, although it did develop the 2001 SpyHunter reboot for PS2, as well N64 racers F-1 World Grand Prix and Beetle Adventure Racing (known as HSV Adventure Racing in Australia).

Stuntman: Ignition featured six more fake films to speed through, including shoots inspired by Dante’s Peak, The A-Team, Batman, and Bullitt, plus another Bond parody, and the satisfying return of A Whoopin’ and a Hollerin’ II.

Unfortunately, Stuntman: Ignition underperformed commercially and THQ announced it would not pursue any further instalments of the series.

For nearly 20 years, that was all she wrote for Stuntman – but now it’s back, courtesy of MudRunner and SnowRunner publisher Saber Interactive.

A release date for Stuntman: Hollywood has not been confirmed, but here’s hoping it feels good behind the wheel – as a racer requiring the precision of Stuntman will live and die on the strength of the handling model.

Here’s also hoping it’s not the last Reflections racer to receive a long-awaited comeback.

It has been 5,391 days since the release of Driver: San Francisco.

Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.

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Everything Announced at PlayStation's State of Play June 2026 — Updating Live!

Today marks the start of a big summer of gaming, as Sony presents its State of Play at 2pm PT/5pm ET/10pm BST. We'll be updating this page live with every big moment from the stream, whether it be details of brand new Marvel's Wolverine gameplay, another look at Naughty Dog's Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, or some unexpected PlayStation surprises. You can look at our full preview of what to expect from the over-hour-long showcase here.

Rumours have been flying around the internet ever since the announcement of the State of Play, and include a potential look at what's next for the God of War series from Sony Santa Monica, a remake of the original Infamous games, and, I'm sure, somewhere out there will still have their fingers crossed for some sort of Bloodborne remaster. One day it might happen. What are you most excited to see? Let us know in the comments ahead of the show.

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.

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007 First Light Budget Reportedly More Than $200 Million

Developer IO Interactive's 007 First Light reportedly had a budget of more than $200 million and took seven years to make.

Behind-the-scenes details on the Denmark-based studio's latest were shared in a report by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. According to the outlet, the James Bond video game was especially expensive to bring to life at 1.3 billion Danish krone (a little more than USD $202 million) to develop.

According to reporting from Denmark's TV 2, that makes 007 First Light the most expensive entertainment product in the country's history. IO had no comment to share regarding its reported budget when contacted by IGN.

It's worth putting that $200 million figure into context. Most of the triple-A video game budgets that make headlines do so for being in the hundreds of millions of dollars range. Bungie's recently released extraction shooter Marathon reportedly had a budget of over $250 million, for example. Concord's initial development deal was around $200 million, according to a report by Kotaku. In 2023, documents submitted as part of the Xbox Federal Trade Commission case accidentally revealed The Last of Us: Part II and Horizon Forbidden West each cost more than $200 million to develop. So, in that context, 007's $200 million seems par for the course.

Some games have astronomical budgets much bigger than 007's. For example, last year the development budgets of the Call of Duty games were revealed for the first time after a court document confirmed Activision pumped $700 million into Black Ops Cold War alone, although that was over the shooter's life cycle. At the top of the tree is GTA 6, which may well be the most expensive video game ever made; parent company Take-Two is estimated to have spent $1 billion to $1.5 billion so far on its development.

As for IO's development timeline for the new James Bond game, we already know the project was officially unveiled back in late 2020. If the Danish Broadcasting Corporation's reporting is accurate, it would mean the Hitman studio had entered some form of development on the project around one year before its reveal.

IO launched 007 First Light for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S last week, May 27. It's unclear exactly what numbers the studio would need to hit to recoup its costs or how that reported $200 million budget breaks down, but we do know that it's already off to a strong start.

On May 29, just two days after its launch, IO announced the game had already managed to become its fastest-selling game ever at 1.5 million copies sold in just 24 hours. According to Alinea Analytics head of market analysis Rhys Elliot, Valve's Steam platform accounted for 500,000 copies from that number, generating about $25 million in revenue alone.

The success of 007 First Light all arrives without the help of a Nintendo Switch 2 version, which is expected to arrive later this summer. Should IO's third-person adventure game prove successful enough, it could potentially spawn a sequel, though details on that front have not been officially mentioned quite yet.

IGN called 007 First Light "amazing" in our 9/10 review. We said, "Demonstrably obsessed with bringing the Bond fantasy to life in a way no one has ever managed before, 007 First Light is the best Bond game I’ve ever played."

Our 007 First Light Guide has all the Essential Tips and Tricks you need to survive your first assignments, plus 6 Tips for Mastering Stealth so you can stay out of sight. There are plenty of achievements to unlock and collectibles to get your hands on, so check our guide to All Collectible Locations to make sure you don’t miss out. For a helping hand with your missions, head to our in-progress Walkthrough, and our guide to all the Safe Combinations and Keypad Codes.

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

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New Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Stuns Fans With Official Look at the Emperor

Games Workshop just threw a grenade at the Warhammer 40,000 community with a stunning cinematic that shows the Emperor of the Imperium sitting on the Golden Throne — the first official look at the Master of Mankind in the current setting for years.

The Warhammer 40,000 setting is built upon a galaxy-shaking civil war that took place 10,000 years earlier, called the Horus Heresy. It ended with the Emperor finally defeating his Chaos-fueled Primarch son, Horus Lupercal, and save the Imperium of Man from destruction, but at a terrible cost: the near-death Master of Mankind was interred upon the Golden Throne as a carrion Emperor sustained by the daily sacrifice of thousands of psykers.

The iconic art of the God-Emperor by John Blanche, below, is seared into every Warhammer 40,000 lore fan’s mind. This is how the Emperor looks in the 41st millennium: grim, dark, and barely there at all.

But is this actually how the Emperor looks? We rarely see official art of the Emperor in the current setting from Games Workshop, and he’s never been depicted in an official cinematic before. Well, over the weekend, in a new trailer confirming a June 20, 2026 release date for the 11th Edition of Warhammer 40,000, that all changed.

The stunning new Warhammer 40,000 cinematic sets up the grim darkness of the far future, depicting a pilgrim’s journey from Golden Throne on Terra (called Earth in the trailer) to inevitable death on some war-torn battlefield. Throughout, we see the Emperor actually sat on the Golden Throne in various forms, or, perhaps more accurately, three faces of the Emperor: the Emperor in all his glory, the Emperor being sucked dry as he sustains Humanity even now, and the Emperor as little more than a skeleton.

These brief looks at the Emperor flash on screen, so it’s hard to make them out initially. I went through the trailer frame by frame and picked out the best shots of the Big E so you can see him for yourself in the slideshow, below.

We see the Emperor riddled with wires that resemble intestines, as a husk of a man with mere shreds of humanity left. One image shows the Emperor with flesh on his face, teeth in his skill, and an eyeball that appears to be looking directly at us, the viewer. He almost… almost… looks alive.

It’s important to note that, with pretty much everything Warhammer 40,000, there is an unreliable narrator element to this cinematic. While these are official images of the Emperor, are we simply seeing what the Emperor wants us to see? Are we seeing manifestations of the Emperor’s will? Are we even seeing the Emperor here at all? Is it all just propaganda?

In Era of Ruin, a Horus Heresy book released last year, it is suggested that the image of the God-Emperor we see in John Blanche’s art and, ergo, the images of the Carrion Emperor we see in this cinematic, are misleading. Some fans believe the book describes a very early piece of Warhammer 40,000 art found within the 1987 Rogue Trader rulebook (the 1st Edition of the Warhammer 40,000 core rulebook), which shows the Emperor in a different light, complete with blood bag, mist, wires that resemble intestines, and Custodes with black helms. That is to say, the actual Emperor is hidden behind the Emperor we see sat on what we think of as the Golden Throne, and he looks like this:

An accompanying post on the Warhammer Community website reaffirms the idea that the Emperor is everything and nothing all at once.

“The exact health and fate of the Emperor by the 41st Millennium is both vague and hotly debated,” Games Workshop said. “Is he alive? A god? Or just a rotting corpse on a throne acting as the bulb for a glorified psychic lighthouse? The trailer artfully skirts this problem by showing all of these possibilities. You’ll just have to decide for yourself.”

There have been rumblings about the Emperor being “alive,” at least in a metaphysical sense, in the current setting, based on various events that have happened either in novels or tabletop books. For example, Ultramaines boss Roboute Guilliman was saved from certain death at the hands of his Primarch brother Mortarion, the Daemon Primarch of the Death Guard Chaos Space Marines, by what most consider to be an intervention from the Emperor himself. Some fans believe Games Workshop might be setting up the Emperor’s dramatic return, however unlikely that feels.

Personally, I don’t think this cinematic is anything other than a spectacular teaser for 11th Edition, and a primer for the Warhammer 40,000 setting itself. I don’t think it suggests anything further, and certainly not the return of the Emperor. In many ways it muddies the waters further. The precise status of the Emperor is one of the biggest and most discussed ongoing mysteries in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and this cinematic is smart in that is doubles down on the idea that this mysery can never be unraveled, as if the Emperor's true status is unknowable. I quite like it like that.

And let’s remember that Games Workshop hasn’t even got round to Roboute Guilliman and his loyalist Primarch brother Lion El'Jonson finally meeting up after the latter returned to the current setting. One step at a time, eh?

Still, the cinematic has certainly got Warhammer 40,000 lore fans talking, and there is much debate about what the images may signify, not just of the Emperor but across the cinematic. From that perspective, it’s mission accomplished.

Image credit: Games Workshop.

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.

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Factorio Set for Its Last Major Update, a Decade After Launch

Factorio is set for its last major update soon, developer Wube Software has announced in a blog post.

The influential strategy game about building and creating automated factories launched on Steam in early access form in February 2016, before launching proper in August 2020. It is a huge hit for Wube, one of those eternal Steam games with addictive gameplay mechanics, complex systems, and near infinite replayability. Factorio, which has seen superb support over the years, is credited with popularising the factory-building and automation genre on PC, and retains an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ user review rating on Valve’s platform.

"I can’t imagine how different Steam gaming landscape would have been if there was no Factorio," John “Bucky” Buckley, communications director and publishing manager for Palworld developer Pocketpair, said in a post on social media. "Thank you for making an incredible game!"

Managing expectations on the scope of the 2.1 update, Wube said: “Generally, we are happy with the game design of Factorio and Space age. The progression is good, things are mostly well balanced (one or two exceptions), and there isn't anything we feel is majorly missing. That is to say, we didn't go into 2.1 development with grand designs of large new pieces of content or huge features.”

To that end, the 2.1 update will focus on quality-of-life improvements, add some “small” features, polish the game in some areas, and makes improvements to modding. It will not add new planets, enemies, or research trees or resource chains.

Wube will spend the next few weeks in closed beta testing, with an experimental 2.1 release set for the end of June. “Once released, we will have the usual bugfixing, before our summer vacations start in July,” the developer added. “Importantly, we plan to keep 2.1 as experimental over the whole summer (I.E, not mark it stable), so that mod authors will have plenty of time to update.”

Long-term, though, 2.1 signals the end of major updates for Factorio.

“We envision 2.1 as our last major update of Factorio, and we will shift the focus onto long term support,” Wube explained. “So things like bug fixes, platform support/compatibility, modding features, etc. Other than that we feel we've reached a good place to conclude the active gameplay development.”

So, an end of an era for Factorio, but Wube is already working on other projects. Just don’t expect to hear about them for a while (“honestly there will not be anything to share for a long time”).

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.

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Hot on the Heels of Katsuhiro Harada's Exit From Bandai Namco, the Director of Tekken 7 and 8 Has Left Too

Kohei 'Nakatsu' Ikeda, game director on Tekken 7 and 8, has left Bandai Namco after 20 years at the company.

His exit comes hot on the heels of Tekken legend Katsuhiro Harada’s exit to form a new video game company.

“There were joyful moments, and many difficult ones as well,” Ikeda said in a farewell message posted on social media. “There were times when we celebrated together, and times when I received passionate criticism and encouragement. Yet every one of those moments helped push both myself and the Tekken Project forward.”

Ikeda didn’t say what he plans to do next, but most fans are speculating that he is set to rejoin Harada at his new venture, VS Studio, which has partnered with SNK Corporation.

The Tekken community is now left wondering what’s in store for the fighting game franchise. Just last week Bandai Namco delighted fans by announcing Yujiro Hanma from the Baki manga and anime franchise as the guest character of the Tekken 8 Season 3 Pass, which ends early 2027 with his arrival. But with both Harada and now Ikeda out of Bandai Namco, will fans get a Tekken 9? If so, what might it look like?

Certainly, Tekken fans have had a rough relationship with Bandai Namco in recent years, criticising various aspects of the game and balance changes. Harada has spoken publicly about his difficult relationship with both the Tekken franchise and Bandai Namco, stepping in multiple times on social media to respond to fan concern, including the time he addressed a row over the sale of premium stage DLC.

“Makes me worried about the fate of Tekken 9,” said one concerned fan, responding to Ikeda’s departure. “The franchise might have to take a bit of a break after this game,” another suggested. “This game has definitely been a nightmare for developers AND players.”

Bandai Namco itself has yet to say what’s in store for Tekken beyond Tekken 8 Season 3.

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.

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Rayman Origins Remaster Leak Reveals First Details About Enhanced Edition from Ubisoft

Ubisoft seems to have another leak problem, as what appears to be a remastered version of Rayman Origins has appeared on the Xbox Store – and it's only $2,000.

Nintendo Everything caught and shared a Microsoft listing for an unannounced game called Rayman Origins: Enhanced Edition before it was pulled offline yesterday. Along with a few screenshots, the page revealed the promise of 4K resolution, 60fps, and modern enhancements.

Although there may be some fans willing to pay the $1,999 for Ubisoft's classic platformer, the price tag is almost certainly an error or placeholder number. Considering the page has been taken down, we'll probably see a corrected price when an official announcement eventually arrives.

Oh cool, Rayman Origins Enhanced Edition complete with Vita Exclusive cont-FOR 2,000$!?!
by u/RealDealMous in TwoBestFriendsPlay

Rayman Origins brought the floating mascot back to the world 2D gameplay when it launched in 2011 for the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. Although PC, PlayStation Vita, and Nintendo 3DS versions rolled out in the years that followed, the title has remained a bit stuck when it comes to its presence on consoles.

Elsewhere in the leaked description for Rayman Origins: Enhanced Edition is the mention of "60 hidden Relics," which were previously only available on the Vita version of the game. Potential platforms remain a mystery, but should Ubisoft announce Rayman Origins: Enhanced Edition, there's a good chance players with modern hardware will get to relive the classic 15 years after its original release.

The Rayman Origins leak follows another slip-up for the character from that saw first details about the unannounced Rayman Legends Retold tumble onto the internet earlier this week. This title is said to be a remake of Ubisoft's 2013 video game and is expected to launch this October.

For now, we do not know how the publisher plans to address Rayman Origins: Enhanced Edition or when it may release. With events like Summer Game Fest just around the corner and more leaks popping up every day, we can only hope to hear an update soon. In the meantime, you can read IGN's original 9.5/10 Rayman Origins review. You can also read about the Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition that may have leaked in January.

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

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