No Rest for the Wicked Developer Blames Series S for Xbox Release Delay

The Xbox Series S is taking some heat once again following comments made by the founder of Moon Studio, the team behind action RPG No Rest for the Wicked, which has been available on Steam Early Access since 2024.

During the PlayStation State of Play, it was confirmed the game was coming to PS5 this October in celebration of its 1.0 release, but Xbox users will have to wait. This isn't due to any kind of marketing deal with PlayStation. Rather, it has to do with limitations with the Xbox Series S. In response to a fan inquring about the lack of an Xbox release date, studio founder and game director Thomas Mahler pointed to the Series S.

"Series S is making that rough," said Mahler in a comment on Discord. "We'll ship it after in a good way once it's optimized like crazy for Switch 2 and Xbox."

Another user joked that a mobile version would follow the Xbox and Switch 2 versions, to which Mahler responded: "Series S and mobile specs aren't too far apart at this point."

This is hardly the first time something like this has happened. The Xbox version of Black Myth: Wukong was delayed by a year and it was heavily rumored that it may be due to difficulties developing for the consoles. Microsoft responded to these rumors noting that it had not been informed of such troubles, but developer Game Science later suggested those rumors may have had some truth to them. Game Science CEO Yongar Feng-Ji noted in January 2025 that the Xbox Series S' 10 GBs of shared memory was creating issues with optimization. When the game was eventually released on Xbox, the studio confirmed that the delay was a result of spending extra time trying to optimize the game specificially for Xbox.

Baldur's Gate 3 also suffered issues when it came to developing for the Xbox Series S. The game had a staggered release across platforms, arriving in August 2023 for PC, September for PS5, and December for Xbox. That wasn't by choice, necessarily. Larian had troubles getting split-screen co-op to work smoothly on Xbox Series S. The studio even enlisted the help of Microsoft's own engineers to help get it all functioning.

With all of this said, there has been a lot of discussion throughout the current console generation over whether or not the Xbox Series S is worth the hassles. Microsoft mandates that all Xbox Series X titles must also work on Series S with full feature parity, but it has led to some games being released later on the platform. It begs the question whether Project Helix, the next Xbox console, will have a cheaper and weaker variant – or if Microsoft will go all-in on one SKU. Given how aggressive Xbox's new CEO Asha Sharma has been, it's hard to imagine the company doing two consoles again, but we'll just have to wait and see.

For now, No Rest for the Wicked will release on PS5 on an unspecified date in October. The Xbox release date is currently to be confirmed.

Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.

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Grab Octopath Traveler 2, Citizen Sleeper 2, and Six More Games in June’s Humble Choice

Summertime is right around the corner, but if you're hoping to avoid hot weather by hanging out inside, Humble Bundle is here to help keep you busy with some PC games. A brand new Humble Choice lineup has dropped for the month of June, and it's filled with some excellent games to add to your online library.

Octopath Traveler II, The Riftbreaker, and Life is Strange: Double Exposure are just a few of the PC games included in this month's drop, but you'll also get five more. As for how much all eight of these games cost? Just $14.99 when you sign up for a Humble Choice membership. That's a fantastic deal compared to grabbing them all at their retail prices, and that's not even the end of it.

A free month of IGN Plus is also thrown in the mix, which allows you to get rid of ads on the site, score some free games, and more. Check out the full lineup of games below, and head to the link to sign up.

Humble Choice June 2026

Games Included

• Octopath Traveler 2 (Steam)
• The Riftbreaker (Steam)
• Life is Strange: Double Exposure (Steam)
• INDIKA (Steam)
• Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector (Steam)
• Construction Simulator (Steam)
• Hell Clock (Steam)
• Overlooting (Steam)
• 1 Month IGN Plus

This is a pretty solid lineup of games to add to your library, too. Life is Strange: Double Exposure, for example, earned a glowing 9/10 score from us in its review. Writer Nick Maillet said: "With its excellent writing, exceptional characters, and fun-to-use new powers, Life is Strange: Double Exposure is a worthy sequel to the 2015 original."

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is another from the list that earned a high score from us. 8/10, to be exact. Our review from Jarrett Green said it, "fine tunes the slow-paced, dice-heavy gameplay of the original with its new and aptly named stress system and multi-stage, multi-character missions."

The praise certainly doesn't end there, though. We found a lot to love in The Riftbreaker and Octopath Traveler 2 as well, with each earning an 8 and 7 in their respective reviews. And Indika is quite a fun and delightfully strange indie to have in your library, in my opinion. Overall, there's a very nice variety to play here.

Alongside all this, Humble Choice members get an added perk of up to 20% off in the Humble store, too. And on top of that, 5% of your Humble Choice membership goes to support a charity each month, and June's is It Gets Better.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

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PlayStation Promises 'Many More Stories to Tell' With Kratos in Future, After God of War Laufey

God of War developer Santa Monica Studio has discussed Kratos' future as the figurehead of its flagship franchise, following the reveal of its Faye-starring next chapter, God of War Laufey.

Speaking in an interview uploaded to PlayStation's YouTube channel, Santa Monica Studio head of creative Cory Barlog said that "there's always going to be Kratos games" — a position backed up by a later post from the company's official social media account, which stated that the studio had "many more stories to tell with him."

Early reaction to God of War Laufey has been mixed, with some fans praising the game's combat and visuals, while others have been criticizing the simplistic gameplay seen in Laufey's opening section — and, predictably, the fact that fan-favorite Kratos wasn't center stage. (For a full catch-up, we’ve got an explainer on Faye herself for more on her story.)

"Faye is, while it's a different thing, it's still part of the larger tapestry of what we truly really want to explore, all of these different characters in there," Barlog said of the new game. "But there's always going to be Kratos games, like, throughout the whole history. We're super excited about that."

"Oh for sure," added God of War Laufey director Ariel Lawrence. "We can't not tell stories about the big guy."

Our first glimpse at God of War Laufey, seen in a 20-minute gameplay segment aired at the end of this week's PlayStation State of Play showcase, began with Kratos and Atreus burning Faye's body — as seen in 2018's God of War. Kratos then pops up again shortly after, aiding Faye while she's briefly imprisoned. It remains unclear if Kratos will make any other appearances before Laufey's credits roll, or if these brief glimpses of the hero are it, as he's then busy with the events of God of War Ragnarök.

"Kratos is the God of War – we have many more stories to tell with him," Santa Monica Studio's official X/Twitter account wrote in a post issued last night. "For now, we're excited to take fans on a journey into the afterlife of the gods with Faye and hope you’ll come along for the ride!"

Of course, Santa Monica Studio has also announced a remake of the God of War Greek trilogy remake — which, of course, will see Kratos back in the spotlight. The original God of War launched back in 2005 for PS2, with its sequel arriving two years later. God of War 3, for PS3, then debuted in 2010. No release date for the God of War Trilogy Remake was announced, and work is still in its "early stages."

"We'll always tell stories about Kratos, but I think for us, it was just a chance to talk about somebody who was so pivotal to the beginning," Barlog told IGN previously in an exclusive interview, which discussed why Faye was chosen as the protagonist. "For us, it's not a departure; it's more of an expansion," he added.

Here's everything announced at State of Play June 2026 if you need a catch up on what else PlayStation has in store.

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

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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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