The Alters Developer Confirms It Used Generative AI Text and Translations, Promises Updates

The Alters developer 11 Bit Studios has responded to fan accusations it used generative AI text and translation in the game, and has promised an update to both to replace the AI-generated content with handcrafted assets.

Last week, players of The Alters spotted what appeared to be text generated by AI in the game, on a screen in the Command Center. Specifically, the text includes the line, "Sure, here's a revised version focusing purely on scientific and astronomical data:" followed by a Captain's log, which suggests that someone prompted an AI for the text and forgot to delete the AI's lead-in response.

Did The Alters (captain) use a little bit of AI?
byu/EarthlingKira inTheAlters

In the English-language version of the game, that was the end of it. However, players of other language versions began to point out that some of the game's translations include lines like, "Sure! Here is the translated text into Brazilian Portuguese.", suggesting that 11 Bit Studios had used generative AI to localize at least some portion of the game. The Alters does not include a disclosure on its Steam page stating that it includes generative AI, which Valve makes mandatory for all games that use the technology.

In a statement sent via email to IGN and published across social platforms, 11 Bit Studios offered an explanation for the generative AI text and translations. The studio explained that the Captain's Log text was intended as a placeholder and simply got missed during final release, and that no other such instances appear in the game. As for the localization, 11 Bit says that generative AI translations were limited to a few cutscenes added very late in development that needed last-minute translations, and that it always intended to replace them with professional translations.

Here's the studio's statement, in full:

We’ve seen a wide range of accusations regarding the use of AI-generated content in The Alters, and we feel it’s important to clarify our approach and give you more context. AI-generated assets were used strictly as temporary WIPs during the development process and in a very limited manner. Our team has always prioritized meaningful, handcrafted storytelling as one of the foundations of our game.

During production, an AI-generated text for a graphic asset, which was meant as a piece of background texture, was used by one of our graphical designers as a placeholder. This was never intended to be part of the final release. Unfortunately, due to an internal oversight, this single placeholder text was mistakenly left in the game. We have since conducted a thorough review and confirmed that this was an isolated case, and the asset in question is being updated.

For transparency, we’ve included a screenshot to show how and where it appears in the game. While we do not want to downplay the situation, we also want to clearly show its limited impact on your gaming experience.

In addition to that, a few licensed movies that the alters can watch in the social area of the base were added at the final stage of development. While those were externally produced, our team was not involved in the creative process, and these required additional last-minute translations. Due to extreme time constraints, we chose not to involve our translation partners and had these videos localized using AI to have them ready on launch. It was always our intention to involve our trusted translation agencies after release as part of our localization hotfix, to ensure those texts would be handled with the same care and quality as the rest of the game. That process is now underway, and updated translations are being implemented.

To give you a better understanding of what a small part of the overall scope of the game’s narrative layer they are, those few external movies are approximately 10k words out of 3.4 million across all languages in the game, or just 0.3% of the overall text. The alternative was to release those specific dialogues in English only, which we believed would be a worse experience for non-English speakers. In hindsight, we acknowledge this was the wrong call. Even more so, no matter what we decided, we should have simply let you know.

As AI tools evolve, they present new challenges and opportunities in game development. We’re actively adapting our internal processes to meet this reality. But above all, we remain committed to transparency in how we make our games. We appreciate your understanding and continued support as we work towards that goal.

11 Bit Studios is just the latest company to come under fire for generative AI usage. Just last week, Jurassic World Evolution 3 developer Frontier Developments had to walk back its use of generative AI characters portraits after widespread criticism. Activision has been skewered repeatedly for its generative AI use, including recent examples of an ad for a Guitar Hero game that doesn't exist, and certain Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 assets. Other games, such as Palworld, have been accused of using generative AI but have gone to great lengths to prove the accusations were unfounded and that no generative AI was used.

Regardless of generative AI usage, we gave The Alters an 8/10 in our review, calling it "a highly atmospheric sci-fi character study mixed with simple but effective resource and base management that cleverly builds existential and interpersonal pressure throughout its story."

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

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The Biggest Magic: The Gathering Crashers and Climbers This Week - June 30

It’s hard to believe we’re a couple of weeks into the Final Fantasy set already, and yet it won’t be long until Edge of Eternities arrives thanks to Magic: The Gathering’s rapid product cadence.

In the meantime, there have been more big card price changes, and many of them revolve around everyone’s favorite new card, Vivi Ornitier.

Climbers: Let's Talk About Vivi Ornitier

Vivi has been a very popular card since his debut, and the diminutive spellcaster has made a big impression.

He’s dropped to just under $50 now, but he’s still seeing plenty of synergistic cards climbing.

One of those is Savor the Moment, which gives you a double turn for just three mana. That then powers up Vivi, too. Market price is up to $9.10, over a 50% boost versus last month.

As we covered in our recent synergies feature, Harmonic Prodigy gives double Wizard triggers – nice! That means it's gone up by 118.70% in the past month (246.76% in three) – not so nice!

That's good for those that own the card, not so good for those who are looking to pick it up standalone. Still, market is still just $12.75 right now, so it could be a lot worse.

Moving away from Vivi, Tifa’s getting some love from Bristly Bill, Spine Sower. This Outlaws of Thunder Junction card can help power up our martial artist heroine, but at a cost of almost $40 now.

Another nifty synergy that's climbing is Perch Protection. This Instant has climbed from a dollar to almost $6, since it handily ties into Chocobo decks.

Crashers: Doctor Whom?

As we also covered in our synergies feature, Doctor Who's Barbara Wright is a great companion (in and out of the TARDIS) for summon-focused Final Fantasy decks, and she’s dropping ever so slightly.

She’s just now at $3.80, down from a $4.44 high a week back (albeit still massively up versus 3-months ago... 2135.29%!)

Final Fantasy’s Golbez, Crystal Collector has dropped to well under $3 now, as has Aerith, Last Ancient, who was $15 just a short while ago.

Kefka, Court Mage has seen a big drop since pre-release, but keeps climbing and dropping ever-so-slightly since. It’s just $4 right now.

Still learning the basics? Check out our MTG beginner's guide. We've also put together an extensive gift guide for that special Magic player in your life you can check out here.

Climbers Again? A Surge [Foil] in Price

Surge Foils, which appear in other MTG Universes Beyond sets like Fallout and Warhammer 40K, are a unique style of foiling that is significantly prettier than their regular foil counterparts.

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER, currently has a $718.89 market price. Yes, you read that correctly. He has extremely powerful abilities, and is now a game-changer in Pioneer Sacrifice decks.

The market prices for some of these are obviously a little bit insane, but I expect they'll go down a bit once the hype dies down. Though, that could be a while.

Back in the old days of Magic (like ten years ago), single card prices were based mostly on their age, availability, and playability. For awhile, cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy were $100+ extreme outliers due to its power and prominence in that Standard format.

Now, with Universes Beyond sets, casual Magic fans buying into the game to chase these gorgeous treatments have driven up prices. Jace is now sitting around $4 since it's been a victim of power creep, but I'm not sure these Final Fantasy Surge Foils will follow the same trend.

MTG Sealed Sets

Everything else Final Fantasy is pretty hot right now, so if you manage to find anything in stock, it might be worth picking up ASAP to avoid disapointment.

Looking for more TCG discussion and market watch? Check out the full MTG release schedule for 2025, last week's MTG price movers and shakers, or, on the Pokemon side of things, our latest crashers and climbers for Pokemon TCG and the most expensive 151 cards going right now for Pokemon trainers.

Lloyd Coombes is Gaming Editor @ Daily Star. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay. He's also a tech, gaming, and fitness freelancer seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar, Tom’s Guide, IGN, and more.

Thanks to TCGPlayer, we’ve pulled together the biggest climbers and crashers for this week.

This article includes contributions from Robert Anderson and Myles Obenza.

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Card-Based RPG Sultan’s Game Releases New Update and DLCs

The card-based, narrative-driven RPG Sultan’s Game just dropped its latest update alongside new DLC. There’s new story content, a downloadable soundtrack, new cards, and the base game is on sale for 15% as part of the Steam Summer Sale right now.

For those who aren’t familiar with Sultan’s Game, the story begins with a tyrannical sultan who has experienced every vice and pleasure life has to offer, and he’s grown bored. But then a mysterious sorceress arrives with a card game meant only for the realm’s most powerful people. Each round of the game assigns you a Sultan Card and tasks you with destroying it, but each card has different requirements to defeat it.

Cards come in four different types with four different tiers within those types. The four card types are Carnality, Bloodshed, Conquest, and Extravagance. You sate Carnality cards with nights of passion, feed the hunger of Bloodshed cards with living sacrifices, fulfill Conquest cards by capturing locations, and satisfy Extravagance cards with wealth and treasure.

Each card also comes in one of four tiers of increasing value: stone, bronze, silver, and gold. To defeat a Sultan Card, you must use a card of equal or higher value. So, for instance, if you need to destroy a silver Bloodshed card, then you must kill a character card that’s either silver or gold.

While the game is played with cards, in-world those cards represent real people, so sacrificing cards means killing actual subjects. As you might expect, this is just the kind of game a tyrannical ruler would love. But you don’t play as the sultan — at least, not after the tutorial. You are one of his courtiers who had the courage to call out the game for its cruelty and depravity. Your punishment? The sultan puts you in charge of playing the game and having to make life-or-death decisions to defeat each Sultan Card. If you fail, he’ll execute you.

The beginning of each round will see you draw a new Sultan Card, and you’ll have seven days to figure out how to destroy it. There are activities available each day, and you can choose which activities to send cards in your deck to do. But you’ll need to be strategic about which activities you do each day and which cards you assign to them. Seven days can go by quickly, and there are limited resources at your disposal.

Some of those activities require dice rolls to determine if your chosen cards are successful. When you end the day, text-based scenes will play out based on who did what, whether they were successful, and your rewards. The primary rewards are gold coins (which can be used to gain access to other activities) or information cards (which can be used for a variety of things), but as the game progresses, more events get added with more varied results.

Ultimately, the story will be shaped by how you decide to approach each task and how moral or immoral you choose to be. Will you willingly go along with the sultan or secretly plot behind his back? Will you stay loyal to your wife or spend your free time at the local brothel? How will you treat the strangers that cross your path?

No matter what decisions you make, butterfly effects will follow in their wake, some of which won’t show themselves until long after you’ve made the initial choice. Some decisions might seem innocuous at first, but the story branches they open can continue branching from there and end up with wildly different outcomes.

Many of these decisions will test your morality. That starts as soon as the game begins, when you choose the background of your main character and his wife. Are you kind and charming or strong and intimidating? Are you a slave owner (this is a sultan’s court, after all) or a more enlightened friend of the nobility? Your starting deck and stats will be determined by the choices you make during this setup, but the moral decisions only get more complicated from there.

We won’t give any spoilers here, but we will say that there are some truly dark and extreme choices you can make, and they can dramatically alter the course of the story and the things you experience in your playthrough. You’ll have to grapple with questions like, “Who am I willing to kill?” and “What makes one person’s life more valuable than another?” Some moments might elicit excitement, others fear, and others maybe even disgust. A single playthrough takes about 10 hours, but seeing every ending can easily run you to 150+ hours, so there are lots of different paths to take.

The story has an extensive script, and the latest update refined that script. It also added new Steam badges, community items, and 10 new cards crowdsourced from the community (pictured below). But the biggest new additions come in the form of two DLCs: a downloadable soundtrack and prequel story.

The OST features 15 original tracks by Zeta and international artists, and it’s a fusion of Uyghur Muqam, guzheng, and Western orchestration that’s meant to represent the cross-cultural atmosphere of the game.

The prequel DLC is a digital novella called A Game for the Sultan, which will let fans read the original story that inspired development of the game. Written by the game’s lead writer, it takes place in the sultan’s court, tells a standalone story, and delves into the origin of the dreaded Sultan Cards and how they first corrupted a sultan’s court.

Sultan’s Game and its DLCs are currently exclusive to PC and are available now on Steam. The base game sold more than 600,000 units within its first month of release and is now approaching 1 million sales during the Steam Summer Sale. It’s also reviewed well on Steam, currently sitting at “very positive” with more than 16,000 reviews and “overwhelmingly positive” with 1,600 recent reviews. You can stay up to date on the latest info by following developer Double Cross Studio on Twitter.

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Dune Awakening Players Say Griefing Is Getting Worse, Not Better: 'This Game Has Massive Issues Ahead'

Dune: Awakening griefers are at it again, concocting ever-new and exciting ways to make other players' lives miserable. And once again, the griefing concerns Ornithopters.

Last week, Funcom launched Dune: Awakening's Public Test Client and then extended the PvE zone of the Deep Desert from about 10% of the map to 50%. It followed an AMA in which the studio told players frustrated by the endgame experience that it was "formulating a plan" to improve PvP in the Deep Desert. Previously, players branded the endgame as "toxic" due to griefing even after the ability for players to squish each other with their Ornithopter was supposedly patched out.

But despite Funcom's mitigations, unscrupulous players have discovered another way to grief players by landing their Ornis on top of unsuspecting players — this time to prevent them from farming.

"All the griefers are now coming into Hagga to farm spice. They're doing the same thumper and land on thopter technique they perfected in [Deep Desert]. But now they're using it to farm all the minor nodes in Hagga," wrote one aggrieved fan over the weekend.

"This game has some massive issues ahead. Griefers are in an all-out war against everyone else on their server, and yet there's zero way for solos to band together to stop it. And as a Dune fan, I don't think planting a thumper and then having four thopters land on you is part of the mythology."

u/RandoFinder then edited their post to add: "I kept my Thopter at 730 km for 30 minutes until a spice blow, and as soon as I moved, four thopters were chasing me. JFC, y'all are pathetic. This was in Hagga. I had players tonight telling each other to doxx me when I stood up to them in Hagga chat. I've been in WoW general and other horrible chats, but Dune general is the most toxic chat that I've ever seen."

"I think it goes without saying that PVP is PVP, and killing other players in a PVP zone is totally legitimate and expected," responded another player. "Entrapping someone by abusing game mechanics intended to prevent grief of a similar kind, ala pinning people with ornithopters that otherwise can't be destroyed or escaped in a PVE zone, is griefing. Griefing should be explicitly and implicitly disallowed. If you're in a PVE zone, you should not have to worry about players killing you through an abuse of mechanics."

At the time of writing, there has been no public response from Funcom about the issue.

Dune: Awakening has enjoyed a superb launch, with a 'very positive' user review rating on Steam. Within hours of going live on June 10, Funcom's survival MMO had clocked up over 142,000 concurrent players on Valve's platform, and hit a new high earlier this month of 189,333 players. And it's already clocked up over 1 million players, too, making it Funcom's fastest-selling game ever, and securing a Great 8/10 in our review.

If all that's got you interested but you're not sure where to start, make sure to check out all the Dune: Awakening classes you can choose from, and keep an eye on our Dune: Awakening walkthrough for a step-by-step guide to the story. We've also got Dune: Awakening resource guides that'll help you find iron, steel, aluminium, and a Dune: Awakening Trainers locations guide to help you survive on Arrakis.

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.

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Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Star Just Gave Fans Their Biggest Hint at a Remake Yet

While Ubisoft keeps quiet about a potential Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remake, the actor behind the game's hero Edward Kenway has offered up some teasing words to fans.

A souped-up version of Ubisoft's piratical Assassin's Creed entry has been the subject of numerous leaks over the past few years, and is now widely expected among fans. But Ubisoft itself has never confirmed the project — and declined to comment on the matter when contacted by IGN last month, when an Assassin's Creed merchandise maker also dropped an obvious Black Flag remake hint.

Now, at a fan convention, Edward Kenway voice actor Matt Ryan has given perhaps the most obvious tease so far that something is on the horizon.

"Have you beaten the game?" Ryan asks a fan, as captured on video by TikTok user therebelarchive. "Well, you might have to beat it again..."

When the fan replies "Is this true? I have to run through all of them again," Ryan responds with a knowing wink, and then says:

"Well, especially this one. There's a reason I say that, but I can't say anything."

Matt Ryan (Voice of Edward Kenway) Teases Black Flag Remaster via a fan interaction at a convention!

Quote
“Have you beat the game?… well you may have to beat it again 😉”
And
“There’s a reason I say that but I can’t say anything…”@TheHiddenOneAC @TheRealZephryss pic.twitter.com/vg6RghgcE7

— YT.com/Super DropKick (@SuperDropKick17) June 29, 2025

While Ryan is likely aware of the ongoing speculation around a Black Flag remaster, could his involvement in it extend beyond seeing his prior work re-released? Reports have suggested Ubisoft is working on a substantial re-working of Black Flag — does that mean Ryan himself is involved, re-recordling dialogue, or contributing to new story elements?

Multiple reports charting the game's development have surfaced over the past couple of years, with the Black Flag remake allegedly being worked on by Skull and Bones studio Ubisoft Singapore (remember that Skull and Bones itself started life as a Black Flag spin-off), with work underway to offer something ultimately more substantial than just a simple remaster. Reports have suggested that this new version of Black Flag will boast all of the visual fidelity found in the recent Assassin's Creed Shadows, as well as expanded wildlife and combat systems.

With no all-new Assassin's Creed game set for the end of this year, fans believe the Black Flag remake would be well positioned to arrive in time for the holidays. Here's hoping Ryan isn't made to walk the plank for dropping this latest hint, and it's not too long before Ubisoft makes the remake official.

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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Sega Extends Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition Refunds as It Fights to Turn Around ‘Mostly Negative’ Steam User Review Rating

Sega has addressed Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition's rocky launch, extending its refund policy for the game, offering a 50% upgrade path discount, and promising a string of patches.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition is a re-release of Relic Entertainment’s 2011 action game, Space Marine. Both Games Workshop and publisher Sega are not calling this a remaster. Instead they point to quality-of-life and graphical improvements "that take the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine experience to the next level."

These include higher fidelity and improved textures, 4k resolution, "improved" character models, a modernized control scheme and interface overhaul, and remastered audio.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition launched on June 10 across Xbox Series X and S and PC, and straight into Game Pass (there’s no word on a PS5 version). While it appears to be going down okay on Game Pass, on Steam, where Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition costs $39.99 / £34.99, it has a ‘mostly negative’ user review rating.

Most of the complaints revolve around the high price of the game relative to the changes it makes over the Anniversary Edition, with other issues including usability problems and somewhat baffling visual changes. A lot of the negative reviews are from fans who say Sega should have given this Master Crafted Edition to owners of the original game for free or with a discount, which leads us nicely onto Sega’s latest update.

In a post on Steam, Sega said “we’ve heard your concerns around pricing,” and outlined the steps it was taking. To start, it has extended its refund window for Master Crafted Edition to July 10. This means that if you bought the game you can get a full refund, regardless of playtime, as long as you request it before 6pm BST / 10pm PST on July 10, 2025 (when the Steam Summer Sale ends).

Meanwhile, there is, as so many fans had asked for, now a 50% upgrade discount. If you own Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Anniversary Edition, you’re eligible for a 50% discount when buying the Master Crafted Edition until 6pm BST / 10pm PST July 10 2025 when the discount offer ends.

Yes, that means if you already bought the Master Crafted Edition and qualify for the discount, you’ll need to request a refund manually via Steam Support (before July 10) then re-buy the game at the discounted price.

“We know this situation has been frustrating for some of you, and we’re sorry for the confusion it’s caused,” Sega added. “We hope this approach offers a workable solution while we continue improving the game itself.”

Speaking of which, Sega released the patch roadmap for Master Crafted Edition. It includes a number of improvements all due out in the coming weeks. Highlights include user interface enhancements, fixes for the game running on Steam Deck, and networking improvements. The details are below.

“We’ll continue listening, improving, and communicating as these changes go live,” Sega concluded. “Thanks for sticking with us.”

Warhammer 40,000 video games have been on a great run lately, with the likes of Space Marine 2 leading the charge of well-received, successful titles. Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition is a rare misstep, then, ahead of the launch of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Definitive Edition later this year.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Master Crafted Edition Patch Roadmap

🌍 Localisation

• Updated Dutch, Polish, and Italian translations.

• Improved localisation for game modes, controller options, and key terms (e.g. Skar Boyz).

🧭 UI/UX Enhancements

• Major improvements to chat input, scoreboard layout, and HUD elements.
• Added glow effects, spacing fixes, and better alignment across menus.
• Improved mission selection, unlock notifications, and subtitle persistence.
• Added new button prompts, SFX, and controller glyphs (including Steam Deck and Switch Pro).
• Fixed softlocks, graphical glitches, and input issues in various screens.

⚔️ Gameplay Fixes

• Fixed softlock in Exterminatus wave 5.
• Restored coop live tokens and fixed weapon wheel ammo display.
• Improved challenge decorators and shield visualisers.
• Fixed campaign info and map loading inconsistencies.
• Legacy black screen issue fixed

🎮 Platform & Controller Support

• Steam Deck now launches correctly.
• Improved controller disconnect handling on PC.

🌐 Networking

• Fixed session code visibility in streamer mode.
• Improved EOS invite handling and native session stability.
• Disabled team auto-balancing during gameplay.
• Enhanced P2P connection handling to prevent lobby splits.

🛠️ Technical & Build

• Moved local user profile data to AppData to prevent config crashes.
• Added memory safety for loadouts and improved fade animations.

🔊 Audio & Visual

• Fixed missing or duplicate SFX events.
• Updated button textures and fixed VFX issues.

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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The Best Deals Today: Assassin's Creed Shadows, Super Mario Odyssey, and More

The weekend is officially here, and we've rounded up the best deals you can find! Discover the best deals for Sunday, June 29 below:

Assassin's Creed Shadows for $49.99

You can take home Assassin's Creed Shadows this weekend for just $49.99. This is still one of the biggest games of the year, and you are guaranteed to keep occupied for hours. In our 8/10 review, we wrote, "By sharpening the edges of its existing systems, Assassin’s Creed Shadows creates one of the best versions of the open-world style it’s been honing for the last decade."

Steam Summer Sale - The Best Deals Today

The Steam Summer Sale is officially live, and this is easily one of the best times of the year to score deals on PC games. Many of the biggest RPGs to release on PC in 2025 are discounted, including Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and more. Plus, you can score incredible games like Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy or Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy for under $6.

Twin Peaks: From Z to A Blu-ray Set for $52.51

Twin Peaks is one of the most beloved projects of the late David Lynch, inspiring countless creatives across TV, film, and even video games. Currently, the Twin Peaks: From Z to A Blu-ray set is discounted to $52.51. This 21-disc set includes all three seasons of Twin Peaks, the Twin Peaks: Fire Walks With Me film, and over 20 hours of special features.

Berserk Complete 1997 Series Blu-ray for $38.97

Berserk is one of the best beloved manga series of all time, and while there have been a few anime adaptations, it wasn't until 2024 when you could score the entire 1997 series on Blu-ray. This weekend, you can score the Complete Blu-ray, which includes all 25 episodes in both English and Japanese, for $38.97. If you've yet to enter the world of Berserk, this can be an excellent entry point.

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach Out Now

After almost six years, the sequel to Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding is finally available. I was a huge fan of the original game, and Australia has been an absolute treat to explore so far. The combat and gameplay have seen vast enhancements overall, and the story is sure to interest even players completely unfamiliar with the first game.

Save on LEGO Sonic The Hedgehog

Woot has a solid discount on the LEGO Sonic The Hedgehog: Super Sonic vs. Egg Drillster set. This 590 piece set includes three minifigures and four characters, for a total of seven Sonic characters included. With the Speed Sphere, you can launch Super Sonic into the air and break down the walls of lab, making this a unique and must-own set for Sonic fans!

Flow 4K Blu-ray Up for Pre-Order

Flow was a standout movie of 2025, with the film taking home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. This is a unique movie for a number of reasons. For one, there is no dialogue spoken throughout the entire movie. Instead, Flow manages to tell its story through animals and a desperate fight for survival. While The Criterion Collection 4K Blu-ray of Flow is priced at $49.99 normally, you can secure your copy for pre-order for $34.99 at Amazon this weekend.

The Best Deals on Mario Games for the Switch Today

Mario games rarely go on sale, but you can save on Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, Super Mario Odyssey, Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hopes this weekend. If you just picked up a Nintendo Switch 2 and did not own a Switch, these are excellent titles to get started with.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ for $29.99

The ultimate version of Tokyo Xanadu is available for only $29.99 this weekend, and this is a great deal you do not want to pass over if you own Nintendo Switch. Tokyo Xanadu eX+ includes all DLC released for the game, as well as a new localization, new playable characters, new mods, and even new scenarios. For $29.99, you can easily spend hundreds of hours with this one.

F1 25 for $49.99

If you're still reeling for more after watching Joseph Kosinski's F1 this weekend, you can head over to Amazon and pick up F1 25 for only $49.99. You can become the Owner of your own Formula One team, allowing you to make key decisions and manage your drivers and team. Additionally, a story mode awaits that sees you fighting for a chance to take home the World Championship title.

Death Strading 2: On The Beach 3xLP Up for Pre-Order

On Friday, Mondo revealed and opened pre-orders for the 3xLP Death Stranding 2: On The Beach - Original Video Game Score. Composed by Ludvig Forssell, this 3xLP includes 32 tracks from the score, with three unique discs: two unique black and white swirl discs and one zoetrope disc. This item is set to ship out in November 2025, but don't hesitate to secure your pre-order early!

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This Mash-Up Legend of Zelda Wall Art Is an Awesome Gift Idea for Wind Waker Fans

This Legend of Zelda canvas wall art is the perfect gift for any Zelda fan. It recreates the timeless Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai, but with a fun Wind Waker twist. It's the same exact art, but now Link and the King of Red Lions are sailing in the foreground. It's silly, fun, and a great mash-up of the famous painting and one of the best Zelda games of all time. If you're looking for a great Legend of Zelda gift for yourself or the Nintendo fan in your life, this is definitely worth considering.

The Legend of Zelda Great Wave off Kanagawa Canvas

There are 16 different versions of the print, with five main configurations. There's regular gallery wrapped, black-framed, 3-piece, 4-piece, and 5-piece versions to pick from, so you have plenty of variety to find the right one for your nerdy interior decorating. Each of the divided versions come in medium and large versions, and the gallery wrapped and black-framed styles come in five sizes.

They vary in price between $39.99 and $29.99. The 24 by 18-inch gallery wrapped version is 7% off, now at $69.99 while the 4-piece medium is also 7% off, bringing the price to $129.99.

Now is the perfect time to pick one of these up, since The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has gotten a second wind (nailed it) on Nintendo Switch 2. You can access the game on the Nintendo Switch Online GameCube app along with Soul Calibur 2 and F-Zero GX, with many more to come. The Wind Waker is one of my personal favorites, and we gave the 2002 original a 9.6, saying that it's "a masterful achievement -- a shining example, in fact, of how video games should be made and a case study for developers wondering what makes a compelling game".

See more Legend of Zelda gifts

Myles Obenza is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Bluesky @mylesobenza.bsky.social.

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The Best Deals Today: Steam Summer Sale, Twin Peaks, Super Mario Odyssey, and More

The weekend is officially here, and we've rounded up the best deals you can find! Discover the best deals for June 28 below:

Steam Summer Sale - The Best Deals Today

The Steam Summer Sale is officially live, and this is easily one of the best times of the year to score deals on PC games. Many of the biggest RPGs to release on PC in 2025 are discounted, including Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, and more. Plus, you can score incredible games like Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy or Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy for under $6.

Twin Peaks: From Z to A Blu-ray Set for $52.51

Twin Peaks is one of the most beloved projects of the late David Lynch, inspiring countless creatives across TV, film, and even video games. Currently, the Twin Peaks: From Z to A Blu-ray set is discounted to $52.51. This 21-disc set includes all three seasons of Twin Peaks, the Twin Peaks: Fire Walks With Me film, and over 20 hours of special features.

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach Out Now

After almost six years, the sequel to Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding is finally available. I was a huge fan of the original game, and Australia has been an absolute treat to explore so far. The combat and gameplay have seen vast enhancements overall, and the story is sure to interest even players completely unfamiliar with the first game.

Save on LEGO Sonic The Hedgehog

Woot has a solid discount on the LEGO Sonic The Hedgehog: Super Sonic vs. Egg Drillster set. This 590 piece set includes three minifigures and four characters, for a total of seven Sonic characters included. With the Speed Sphere, you can launch Super Sonic into the air and break down the walls of lab, making this a unique and must-own set for Sonic fans!

The Best Deals on Mario Games for the Switch Today

Mario games rarely go on sale, but you can save on Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, Super Mario Odyssey, Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hopes this weekend. If you just picked up a Nintendo Switch 2 and did not own a Switch, these are excellent titles to get started with.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ for $29.99

The ultimate version of Tokyo Xanadu is available for only $29.99 this weekend, and this is a great deal you do not want to pass over if you own Nintendo Switch. Tokyo Xanadu eX+ includes all DLC released for the game, as well as a new localization, new playable characters, new mods, and even new scenarios. For $29.99, you can easily spend hundreds of hours with this one.

Death Strading 2: On The Beach 3xLP Up for Pre-Order

On Friday, Mondo revealed and opened pre-orders for the 3xLP Death Stranding 2: On The Beach - Original Video Game Score. Composed by Ludvig Forssell, this 3xLP includes 32 tracks from the score, with three unique discs: two unique black and white swirl discs and one zoetrope disc. This item is set to ship out in November 2025, but don't hesitate to secure your pre-order early!

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FBC: Firebreak Review

When it was first announced that Remedy, the developer behind seminal single-player epics like Alan Wake and Control, was working on a multiplayer shooter, I was equal parts confused and excited. This is a studio with a knack for creating inimitable worlds, so revisiting one in a less expected way seemed like an intriguing experiment worth checking out. Now, after 15 hours of blasting through FBC: Firebreak’s striking levels, upgrading my loadout, and fighting off a plethora of infected monsters, I feel about as confused and excited as I did at its initial announcement. This is an imaginative jaunt that struggles to make its mark in a fiercely competitive genre, but it’s one that’s at least left me with plenty of war stories to share.

FBC takes place six years after the events of Control, and invites you back to the wonderfully strange architecture of The Oldest House under wildly different circumstances. Instead of saving the day as the reluctant director Jesse Faden, you and up to two friends control a trio of wildly underprepared first responders attending to oddball emergencies that would make even the most battle-hardened OSHA officer wince. If a sentient sticky note infestation is turning the workers into monsters, or radioactive leeches have infested a quarry and need to be thrown into a furnace on wheels that resembles Team Fortress 2’s Payload, it’s you and your team that receive the call. It’s a hard job, but someone's gotta do it!

You thought that was it? Think again. On top of completing the task at hand, you’ll face off against the hordes of Control’s interdimensional antagonist, The Hiss, which seems to have taken up permanent residence in The Oldest House. And, on top of that, once you’ve finished your Jobsite shift, your team will also have to trek back to the elevator you arrived in and survive until it reaches your station. It seems like a lot to handle on paper, and it would be if played solo. But, with the help of two other players, these surreal tasks begin to feel like just another day at the multiplayer office – that is, if your office also includes menacing floating helmets, safe rooms and molten furnaces.

When playing as a full team, which feels like the optimal setup for FBC, each player gets to wield their own ‘Crisis Kit’, which mimics the class systems found in other cooperative shooters. There are three available, with each Kit offering a unique skill that can expedite key tasks during a job. In the sticky note-laden Jobsite, Paper Chase, using the globule-hurling Splash Kit will let you douse the yellow notes to make them more vulnerable, while someone with the Fix Kit can run around bashing the soggy slips with their trusty wrench whenever they’re not using it to fix light boxes which illuminate contaminated areas. With all that going on, the Jump Kit operator can then keep Hiss agents at bay by using their secondary fire rocket jump to fly around the map. This meant that as I dipped between roles while figuring out my favourite Kit, I always felt like a key player in my team’s success.

The starting weapons are a decent intro to FBC’s approachable but limited combat.

That’s also due in part to the fact that gunplay is mirrored across all three kits. When you start your campaign, you’ll have a choice of two weapons: a Submachine Gun and a Double-Barrel Shotgun. Both provide more than enough firepower to take down basic enemies in close-quarter duels and offer a decent introduction to FBC’s approachable but limited combat. As you get into more complex levels, you’ll naturally start to unlock increasingly powerful choices like Machine Guns, Pump Action Shotguns, or my personal favourite, the humble Revolver. The rinse and repeat process of taking out hordes of possessed office workers can feel dull at times. Fortunately, FBC’s relentless array of flashy particle effects and vibrant lighting features ensures there’s at least something striking to look at as you work through its objectives.

There aren’t too many constraints on the composition of your cohort, as you always have alternative means to completing Kit-specific tasks. That wrench might make repairs a simple button press, but they turn into a surprisingly stressful rhythm game without it, where you tap Q and E (or L1 and R1) in sequence without making errors to progress a meter. Like much of FBC, what seems straightforward is not, and the surprise here is that if you make errors while button-mashing, you take additional damage. This process starts out cute, but grows quickly tiresome in emergencies, and eventually my team negotiated our roles to include all three kits – nothing makes you miss your Splash Kit operator more than burning to death while trying to extinguish a fire they could have ousted in seconds.

As of right now, there are five total Jobsites, with each site being split into three Clearance Levels that can be completed all at once or in segments. The visual identity of each mission is wildly different and wholly unique, and beyond what I’ve mentioned already, there’s also chubby pink foam-filled turbine halls and dimly lit office spaces consumed by frost anomalies. Unfortunately as much as the chaos is exciting at first, it’s not long before you run out of new zones to take in and enemy variants to fight – which right now includes little beyond tanks, grunts, and aerial attackers. In this way, FBC can feel a little bare.

That said, the inclusion of tweakable Corruption and Difficulty levels ensures that what’s here has reasonable replayability nonetheless. Take the level Hot Fix, for example: your main job in it is to sort out malfunctioning heat fans by zapping and whacking them with the Jump and Fix Kits while someone uses the Splash Kit to keep you both from igniting – easy, right? Well, once you push the Corruption slider to the max, you’ll need to complete that task with random level modifiers popping in, like a Globe that lowers the zone’s gravity or an evil flying Stapler that wildly increases enemy health. Now your team isn’t just avoiding being burned to a crisp; you also need to make perfect shots and watch your footing, too. The addition of these Corrupted Items frequently provided a fresh challenge and delivered some unbelievably frustrating and hilarious multiplayer moments. In retrospect, I wish I’d clipped the audio of my friends screaming, “Where’s the stapler, I’ve got to kill the stapler now!”

It doesn’t have the Easter Egg-ridden worldbuilding that always intrigued me in Remedy's games.

If you find yourself in trouble when under attack, each zone is equipped with healing decontamination showers and ammunition bays where you can restock and take a beat. Though true to FBC’s chaotic modus operandi, these essential zones can falter and break, which then requires either a kits or that button pressing minigame to get them back online. The bays also move around as you revisit levels, meaning you won’t be able to rely on your memory to find safety, either. While I can appreciate that this kind of mayhem might not appeal to everyone, I found the unpredictability to be quite moreish, especially when the confusion led to flash arguments in our Discord chat. Thankfully, if – or, more likely, when – it all goes up in flames, depending on what difficulty setting you choose, you’ll have a series of lives to use before it’s actually game over.

Perhaps what’s most disappointing, however, is that while FBC is a Remedy game, it doesn’t feature the same Easter Egg-ridden worldbuilding that always intrigued me about the studio’s other games. You won’t find Alan Wake cowering in a cell or a stray note about Mr. Door – at least, not in my experience so far. That’s not to say there isn’t anything curious to gawk at, and there are hints of the tonal brilliance of the Remedy Connected Universe in the sarcastic posters and redacted notes littered around these maps, as well as the sporadic lore dumps delivered via voice over when you’re waiting in the lobby. But when I went looking for more serious depth beyond the tasks at hand, I came back disappointed. It might be the nature of the genre, but it was still a bummer when I realised investigating the nooks and crannies would never reward me with any lore or secrets, and would instead just leave me open to getting swarmed by bad guys.

Beyond moment-to-moment healing and ammo drops, you can turn the tables more permanently by investing in FBC’s approachable perk and gear upgrade trees. As you attack the primary goal for each Jobsite and explore shelters, you’ll find Lost Assets and Research Samples, which act as upgrade currencies. And, thanks to a post-launch patch (v1.2), Lost Assets are now more visible and have a lot more purchasing power than when I started playing.

I started to feel more adept in FBC once I got into a rhythm of splitting my cash between practical upgrades in the Requisition tree and passive perk upgrades in the Research tree. As a shoot first and ask questions later kind of player, FBC allowed me to specialise with upgraded weaponry and meaningful perks to match, such as the ammo-hoovering Shop Vacuum that allowed me to stock up fast as I darted between zones. What’s more, a Perk will become “Resonant” when upgraded to its maximum level, which means it applies to the other players in your party when they’re in proximity to you, allowing your once-fragile group to share the benefits of an experienced party member and overwhelm Hiss forces. Still, despite these smart ideas, FBC doesn’t ultimately have a wide enough variety of upgrades to work towards in the long term, making it feel like a dubious investment. The heart of what’s here is promising, it just lacks the scope to make a big enough impact, which is a huge shame.

FBC also relies so heavily on team dynamics and coordination that it can alienate people who are matchmaking with strangers or riding solo. During my playtime, I consistently queued up with friends with whom I’ve already established a rapport, which meant that not only could we yap about what upgrades to choose and build our arsenal together, we could also laugh and poke fun when things inevitably went wrong. Without that kind of solid social backing, FBC’s stressful, sometimes unclear objectives become frustrating kick-off points rather than communal goals.

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The Top 10 Most Valuable MTG Final Fantasy Surge Foils Right Now

Magic: The Gathering's Final Fantasy expansion came out just a couple of short weeks ago, but the card chase is still on. Many collectors and longtime players have been on the hunt for the hottest printings of their favorite new cards, with some getting up to four versions.

Surge Foils, which appear in other MTG Universes Beyond sets like Fallout and Warhammer 40K, are a unique style of foiling that is significantly prettier than their regular foil counterparts.

TL; DR: 10 Most Valuable MTG Final Fantasy Surge Foils

The market prices for some of these are obviously a little bit insane, but I expect they'll go down a bit once the hype dies down. Though, that could be a while.

For context, the base printing of Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is sitting at a market price of $37.76 at TCGPlayer, so if you're looking for a copy for Commander and not trying to break the bank, just stick with the base version - they're the same card at the end of the day.

Make sure you know the difference in foiling; I opened a Noctis, Prince of Lucis borderless foil thinking it was a Surge Foil (they have the same art) and went to sell it at a vendor, only to be disappointed at the $3 offer.

Back in the old days of Magic (like ten years ago), single card prices were based mostly on their age, availability, and playability. For awhile, cards like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy were $100+ extreme outliers due to its power and prominence in that Standard format.

Now, with Universes Beyond sets, casual Magic fans buying into the game to chase these gorgeous treatments have driven up prices. Jace is now sitting around $4 since it's been a victim of power creep, but I'm not sure these Final Fantasy Surge Foils will follow the same trend. Time will tell. Whatever the case, let's have a look at these money cards.

Still learning the basics? Check out our MTG beginner's guide. We've also put together an extensive gift guide for that special Magic player in your life you can check out here.

10. Emet-Selch, Unsundered

A fan-favorite character from Final Fantasy XIV, Emet-Selch, Unsundered isn't the most powerful from a mechanics perspective, but we can't deny the character appeal. He's currently at a market price of $92.78, with some vendors offering as low as $77.99.

9. Clive, Ifrit's Dominant

Ben Starr's performance as Clive was one of the best parts of Final Fantasy XVI, and his MTG counterpart captures his essence well. Transforming into Ifrit, Warden of Inferno is a great flavor win. This card is at a $95.38 market price, but you can grab a Japanese version for as low as $60.69.

8. Squall, SeeD Mercenary

Another one that isn't the most powerful (you'll see this observation a lot on this list), but his design is undoubtedly unique and fun. I'm also a huge fan of this art, and the dozens (dozens!) of Final Fantasy VIII fans will scoop this up quick. Grab one at a market price of $97.57 and as low as $81.68.

7. Aerith Gainsborough

Sitting at a market price of $105.50, Aerith is the perfect example of artificial collector value compared to her playability. I can see this finding a home in some lifegain Commander decks, but not much else, and her design is pretty spot-on to her video game counterpart. Find one as low as $67.34 if you're ok with Japanese.

6. Tifa Lockhart

Tifa is quickly on her way to becoming a Standard powerhouse. With the right build, she can deal upwards of 300 damage in one turn. She's sitting at a whopping $142.30 market, but can be found as low as $130 for a lightly played copy.

5. Kefka, Court Mage

Final Fantasy VI is my favorite Final Fantasy game, so I'm just happy that this guy exists. However, despite the powerful ability, the cost to get him rolling is high even by Commander's standards. Still, the transformed side is a great representation of the game's final boss. He's sitting at $179.54 market price, and can go for as low as $140.

4. Lightning, Army of One

Now we're talkin'. I'm not much of a red or white player, but I can't deny that Lightning, Army of One has the potential to be broken in most formats. Pick her up for $260.93 market, or for as low as $173 for a Japanese printing.

3. Yuna, Hope of Spira

Currently at a market value of $275.20, Yuna, Hope of Spira is a creature I believe has a lot of potential. If I were a Standard player running the Zur Domain deck, I'd do my best to find a spot for Yuna. Find one as low as $235.

2. Cloud, Midgar Mercenary

This is a card that gets its value through fashion and function. He's one of the most recognizable video game characters of all time, and his card is pretty great to boot. Doing his best Stoneforge Mystic impression, Cloud is an auto-include in any white Voltron Commander strategy. The downside is he's worth $387.49 market value, and as "low" as $260 for a Japanese version.

Bonus: Honorable Mentions

These ten cards aren't the only Final Fantasy Surge Foils available. You can pick up a handful of other fan-favorite characters for a fraction of the cost compared to cards on this list. I adore Final Fantasy IV as much as I do VI, so I'm happy Cecil and Golbez aren't too pricey.

1. Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER

Yes, you read that correctly, $718.89 market price. Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER (who is my most recent Commander deck project) has extremely powerful abilities, and is now a game-changer in Pioneer Sacrifice decks. But like I said earlier, if you're just trying to build decks, buy the base version. You can find this Surge Foil for as low as $674 or $399.99 for a Japanese printing.

Where Can I Find Final Fantasy Surge Foils?

Final Fantasy Surge Foils can only be found in Collector Boosters or in the Final Fantasy Commander Collector's Edition decks.

Or perhaps, collectors will instead be most interested in the new Final Fantasy x Secret Lair drops, instead. It’s been a busy year for Wizards of the Coast’s limited-time mini-sets, and while the company sold out of all three Final Fantasy drops in record time (leaving many disappointed), you can still get them via third-party sellers... if you're willing to pay the inflated costs, that is.

There are a trio of Final Fantasy Secret Lair sets, Weapons, Grimoire, and Game Over, each offering unique art and names for Magic: The Gathering cards. Everything is available in standard and foil, alongside the Japanese variants as well.

But, since they've sold out, you won’t find Secret Lair drops at the same price as you’d find them directly from Wizards of the Coast (standard $30 nonfoil, $40 rainbow foil), with most being listed anywhere between $80-$150 or above.

This is a huge markup, so if you're looking to buy, be sure you're 100% informed of what you're paying for. You can buy them from eBay, but we’ve always found TCGPlayer, while still eBay-owned, to be the most secure and trustworthy way to nab Secret Lair drops post-release.

Myles Obenza is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Bluesky @mylesobenza.bsky.social.

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Brief Look at Resident Evil Requiem Gameplay Reveals First- and Third-Person Footage

Capcom has revealed our first look at Resident Evil Requiem gameplay in brief snippets shown during a livestream.

During the Capcom Spotlight event, Capcom showed a small portion of first-person gameplay, heavy on the horror and featuring new protagonist FBI Agent Grace Ashcroft. We see the character slowly move around creepy corridors with just a lighter for company. At one point, we see Ashcroft turn around to see a hulking humanoid creature close in on her from the shadows.

In another clip of first-person gameplay we see Ashcroft explore a grand hallway, this time holding a handgun (as an FBI agent Ashcroft is handy with guns). She's also able to "act with calm, deductive reasoning," and we see her inspect a toolbox in the classic Resident Evil up close style to demonstrate.

And finally, we get a very brief look at third-person Resident Evil Requiem gameplay where Ashcroft is, once again, exploring creepy corridors and poorly lit rooms. We see that horrible creature again, casually stomping in the shadows.

During the video, Capcom developers explain how the first-person perspective makes for "tense, realistic gameplay," whereas playing in third-person via the over-the-shoulder camera lets you see "more of the action." The third-person persepctive is "great for people who enjoy action-heavy gameplay," Capcom added.

Resident Evil Requiem lets players switch between first- and third-person through the Options menu at any point during the campaign. Check out IGN’s Resident Evil Requiem hands-on preview for more information.

Elsewhere, Capcom confirmed Resident Evil Requiem takes place 30 years after the missile strike on Raccoon City that occurs at the end of Resident Evil 3, which explains the enormous crater we saw in the announcement trailer. Indeed, the name "Requiem" was chosen because, as Capcom explains it: "This game is a requiem, a eulogy to those who came before."

There was no big Leon Kennedy reveal, as some fans had hoped for — and even expected. If the Resident Evil veteran is playable in the game, perhaps that reveal will come later.

Resident Evil Requiem launches February 27, 2026, across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. For more, check out all the reveals from Capcom Spotlight 2025.

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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Capcom Spotlight June 2025: Everything Revealed

The June 2025 Capcom Spotlight is here to deliver all of the latest news on games like Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata, Street Fighter 6, Monster Hunter Wilds, and more.

As promised, Capcom kicked off its latest digital presentation just moments ago, leaving fans eager to see everything it has in store for the near future. With some titles recently showing off updates elsewhere, many are expecting today's Capcom Spotlight to offer a deeper dive into some of the Mega-Man and Devil May Cry publisher's most exciting upcoming titles.

We know today’s showcase is around 40 minutes long, so expect a closer look at some of the company’s biggest games. We’ll be collecting all of the announcements you need to know about right here, so be sure to stick around to see all of the biggest Capcom Spotlight news.

Kicking Off With a Pragmata Gameplay Deep Dive

Capcom kicked off today’s presentation with more Pragmata gameplay footage, revealing a closer look at how players will be able to utilize the powers of an android girl named Diana and a lunar investigator named Hugh Williams as they team up to fight off a variety of dangerous robots. Gameplay involves thinking on your feet by hacking and shooting enemies in an adventure set on a seemingly abandoned lunar research facility.

Pragmata launches for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S in 2026. The public will be able to go hands-on with its puzzle-infused combat at gamescom 2025 this August.

Sagat Comes to Street Fighter 6 August 5

The latest post-launch Street Fighter 6 character addition is Sagat. Today’s Capcom Spotlight gave viewers a release date for the character, setting launch for August 5, 2025. We got a closer look at this updated take on the classic, eyepatch-wearing Street Fighter face with a special video.

Capcom Talks Resident Evil Requiem and (Kind of) Addresses the Leon-Shaped Elephant in the Room

A closer look at Resident Evil 9 means more details about protagonist, FBI Agent Grace Ashcroft, its gameplay, Raccoon City, and more. Although this was mostly an opportunity for the Capcom team to talk about some information that fans have already been made aware of, such as third- and first-person gameplay, the developers did touch on one hot topic: Leon S. Kennedy.

Unfortunately, it remains unclear if the legendary video game survivor will be playable at some point in Resident Evil Requiem, but the team did touch on why it's hard to make Leon the main character of a horror video game.

"We always thought about making Leon the protagonist, but making a horror game based around him is difficult," Director Koshi Nakanishi explained. "He wouldn't jump at something like a bucket falling. No one wants to see Leon scared by every little thing. So he's actually quite a bad match for horror."

Capcom has Big Plans for Monster Hunter Wilds

The latest entry in the Monster Hunter series, Monster Hunter Wilds, took up most of the Capcom Spotlight today, bringing news about future updates, a roadmap schedule, additional content, and so much more to the table. Highlights include a gameplay showing underwater fights with Lagiacrus, a treasure trove of quality-of-life updates, and even a collaboration with Fender guitars.

Monster Hunter Wilds fans can go hands-on with Free Title Update 2 when it launches Monday, June 30, adding in much of what was shown during today's presentation. The Festival of Accord: Flamefete seasonal event will then follow from July 23 through August 6, with Arch-tempered Uth Duna arriving from July 30 through August 20, and the Fender Event Quest available from August 27 through September 24.

Even more Monster Hunter Wilds content and gameplay adjustments are set to arrive in the future, too. Free Title Update 3, for example, is scheduled to launch in late September, adding a new Monster as well as another Festival of Accord seasonal event.

Developing...

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor 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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Apex Legends: The Board Game Review

Bottling the kinetic energy of a first person shooter video game and successfully transferring it to the tabletop is a herculean task. Publisher Glass Cannon Unplugged is up to the challenge, presenting Apex Legends: The Board Game in the form of an overstuffed box that spills cardboard and plastic onto the table like a body lit up by a VK-47 Flatline. This analog translation defies the odds, legitimately capturing some of the visceral action of its namesake with unique and clever design work.

Apex Legends the video game is a hero shooter battle royale. It has a full lineup of protagonists with their own suite of abilities and playstyles. This identity is likewise the heart of the board game adaptation, forming the basis for its team-based skirmish action. Characters such as Bangalore, Mirage, and Bloodhound all make an appearance, with each of their roles expertly captured and adapted to the turn-based setting. Everything is powerful and awe inspiring, and it feels extraordinarily faithful to the property.

The standard format is either two-versus-two, or three-versus-three, with each player fielding a single character. While there are a bevy of miniatures skirmish games on the market, including popular titles such as Kill Team, Infinity, and Star Wars: Shatterpoint, none offer this particular style of team-based small-unit approach. Distinctly, this is not a game of armies or squads – it’s one of personalities and legends. The result is an altogether different tone, one charged with dynamic abilities that form the centerpiece of a violent gunfight on a fully rendered board.

The board is quite the looker. Verticality is a core tenet of gameplay, as players are able to scale and fight from 3D cardstock buildings. Other elements pop off the map, including cardboard trees and boulders, loot containers, and even fully operational ziplines. The environment is active and responsive. It feels every bit a playground, albeit one with shrapnel and taunts whizzing by your dome.

This dedication to elevation fuels the aggressive FPS-style play, but it also is the root of Apex Legends: The Board Game’s primary challenge. I’ve mentioned the game’s bloated componentry, which contributes to a lengthy setup time, but all of these options and details add up to a relatively complex system. The central turn-to-turn action sequence is surprisingly simple and direct. One team activates all of their characters with each committing to two actions.

This board game defies the odds, capturing the visceral action of its namesake with unique and clever design work.

But that streamlined activity fragments into many intricate pieces. Line of sight is a strong example. Measuring from center square to center square and assessing any blockages is standard for this style of game. But when you consider elevation, all of a sudden there are three pages of lengthy examples displaying potential situations. Thankfully, the rulebook's diagrams do a good job of illustrating what you need to consider, but the downside is that line of sight can be difficult to assess on the fly and it can slow down the pace of play.

It's also tough to remember the difference between some of the keywords, such as "adjacent" versus "neighboring." Terrain items and cards use a similar library of tags that must be referenced. There are specific timing windows for reactions and a sub-system for handling abilities and cooldowns. None of these are overly burdensome on their own, but taken together they can become tricky to navigate. It’s important to understand that this is not a board game for beginners. Instead of going for wide appeal with a similar approach to Mass Effect: The Board Game, Apex Legends aims to satisfy hobbyist gamers familiar with sophisticated systems. If a 40-page rulebook scares you, then you’re not going to hack it on this battlefield.

The most interesting element of Apex Legends: The Board Game is also the most convoluted. Instead of a sophisticated physics engine handling the shooting mechanism, this game opts to zoom in on the firefight and simulate multiple factors, including recoil, stability, and rate of fire. Most games opt for a handful of dice and some quick arithmetic, but Apex Legends uses a sideboard and a dedicated set of cards to resolve gunshots.

It’s actually a pretty stellar system. Different guns have various rates of fire. They list a number of cards that are drawn from the shooting deck and placed alongside a track. Each card is placed in a slot representing an individual shot. Cards drawn later in the sequence have more recoil affecting their ballistics, which results in an escalation of penalties. The penalty is applied to the strength of the randomly drawn card, and then compared to the necessary hit value on the weapon.

That’s the quick and dirty explanation. In reality, it’s more nuanced as each drawn card also has a possible icon which can inflict headshots, bonus hits, or cause an automatic miss if the target is behind cover. Weapons that hit exceedingly hard with slower rates of fire – such as a shotgun or sniper rifle – may draw multiple cards to a single shot slot, thus avoiding the recoil penalties the system tries to emulate.

This can be a wonky process to resolve – it’s certainly slow going with new players. Until you get used to it, this is another part of the game that stunts the tempo of action. Obviously this is a cost of modeling the video game with a high level of detail, but it can be an outright turnoff as it highlights the shortcomings of board games and their inability to obfuscate and resolve math.

But this level of detail isn't all bad. What you sacrifice in momentum, you gain in realism. This system acutely captures the unique qualities of various firearms. Sub-machine guns spray several weak shots. Battle rifles fire tighter groupings and hit with power. Light machine guns spray all over the place but can level a building. Weapon attachments are mixed in with the loot, allowing you to alter a firearm’s properties mid-game. This includes optics, barrels, magazines, and stocks. It’s exceedingly cool and really juices up the impact of scavenging for supplies in the battle royale mode.

The end result is a weapon system that actually boasts gunplay. No other board or miniatures game I've played has so meticulously modeled this key feature of first person shooters. It’s a fantastic accomplishment and absolutely the standout feature.

Beyond this wonderful feat, Apex Legends: The Board Game offers several other killer features. Characters are expertly modeled. They have asymmetric tactical abilities and ultimates that affect the battlefield in various ways. You can pop smoke, call in airstrikes, and deploy drones. Each character is also paired with a unique deck of cards that can be played to tweak actions and react to opponents’ maneuvers. This creates a nifty fog of war, although again, at the cost of possibly slowing down the pace of play.

Another crowd pleaser is the variety of modes on offer. The battle royale option is the key offering, including a distillation of the final moments of the video game’s finale. This includes a barrier that closes on the battlefield, forcing combatants into tighter and tighter area. But there are also deathmatch, VIP, and capture the flag options. Each of these is fully realized and not at all an afterthought.

For those sickos who can’t get enough, this game also will be arriving with expansion products for additional characters as well as a new board and environment. Most notably, there is a sophisticated solitaire / co-op addition that adds AI behavior trees to each of the core game’s protagonists. This mode works fairly well, producing mostly logical enemy actions that sometimes surprise and dazzle. Again, much like the rich base game ruleset, it can be a sluggish pace to familiarize yourself with this additional layer of rules, but it certainly settles down once you’ve become comfortable.

As a first-person shooter airdropping to your tabletop, Apex Legends: The Board Game is a solid effort and certainly a success. There are challenges involved and the tempo can really drag as players learn the systems and assess the wide swath of options on their turn. Once familiarity sets in and the game starts collapsing towards that 60-90 minute estimated playtime, the bliss of gunplay coupled with dynamic action and a multi-faceted loot system truly shine.

Where to Buy

• Get it at Miniature Market

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