The Mortal Kombat series has been kicking around (and pulling out gory human insides) for several decades now. It spans over two dozen entries and numerous gaming platforms. It’s a cultural behemoth. To celebrate the history of this over-the-top violent fighting game franchise, Insight Editions is set to release a new book on October 21. It’s called Mortal Kombat: Flawless Victory - A Visual History of the Iconic Series, by Ian Flynn, and it’s available to preorder now (see it at Amazon).
The book is packed with behind-the-scenes artwork ranging from the concept stages to the final products. You get close looks at beloved characters like Scorpion, Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, and Sub-Zero, as well as the stages and environments that make up the series. It also has exclusive interviews with the development teams that go into what it takes to design a series like Mortal Kombat.
Here’s a look at some of the pages you’ll find in the book, including some never-before-released exclusive spreads.
And if you want more, you can check out the slideshow below.
For more new books, check out our picks for the 10 best books of September. There are some big new releases, like Dan Brown's The Secret of Secrets, which brings back the Da Vinci Code's Robert Langdon, and Richard Osman's latest in The Thursday Murder Club series.
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN's board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him onBluesky.
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As a Yakuza fan, I’ve recommended the series from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, otherwise known as RGG, to plenty of people, but it has long come with one big caveat: Yakuza 3. It’s not that there is anything necessarily wrong with it, but with high-quality remakes of the first games in the series, and the more modern and refined graphics and gameplay of the newer entries, it has stood out a bit as a bit of an odd duck, looking and playing worse than the games before and after. However, with the just-announced Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties, a twin pack combining a remade Yakuza 3 alongside a brand-new companion game, that might all be about to change. I had a chance to play both at Tokyo Game Show 2025, and I came away impressed by how much RGG Studio is trying to improve and expand on the original.
Yakuza Kiwami 3
Yakuza Kiwami 3 isn’t just an up-rezzed port; it’s a full remake. Everything is rebuilt, from the graphics to the combat to the new cut scenes and voice acting – including some modern motion capture to better bring the characters to life. While it will still follow the story of Yakuza 3, some scenes will play out differently or expand. It’s an ambitious agenda, but probably the right one to bring the now 16-year-old game to modern audiences.
My hands-on begins with Kazuma Kiryu chopping wood outside the Morning Glory Orphanage, where he was raised and now runs, in Okinawa. The modern graphics look great as he swings his axe, his sweat glistening in crisp 4K (for those that are into that sort of thing). After the events of Yakuza 2, he’s moved on from being a Yakuza and is trying to live a peaceful life running the orphanage. An eviction notice arrives, and Kiryu heads into town to confront the head of the Ryudo family, the owners of the land on which the orphanage is built. He runs into Rikiya Shimabukuro, a member of the Ryudo clan and, naturally, a brawl ensues, giving us our first taste of the updated battle system.
Charging Kiriyu’s Heat Gauge to execute brutal finishers like smashing a chair on an opponent’s head never gets old.
Kiriyu has two fighting styles to employ. The first is Dragon of Dojima, his classic brawling style, mixing punches, kicks, throws, and environmental weapons like street signs, traffic cones, and even the odd bicycle when the opportunity presents itself. It’s as flashy as ever, and charging Kiriyu’s Heat Gauge to execute brutal finishers like smashing a chair on an opponent’s (in this case, Rikiya’s) head never gets old. The real magic comes when I switch to his brand new Ryukyu style, however. This style is rooted in Okinawan culture, and while using it, Kiryu combos through eight different weapons, like a pair of tonfa, a weighted chain, or, my personal favorite, a boat oar. I put away my opponent with a mix of all of the above, which was enough to convince Rikiya to direct me towards where to find his boss.
This opened up an opportunity for a bit of open-world exploration, which I took full advantage of, exploring a nearby street market, beating up some ruffians with a crowbar, and taking in a quick round of a golf mini-game. Okinawa looks great on the modern engine, and getting around was a breeze thanks to the new Street Surfer Mk. 0, a Segway-like rideable that Kiryu seems to be able to summon out of thin air for some quick joyriding. Zooming around on that, hopping off to beat the snot out of some goons with my tiny shield (also part of the Ryukyu set), then making a speedy getaway was so Yakuza in the best way.
Finally, I turned my attention back to the main story. As Rikiya escorts me to his headquarters, we are interrupted by a commotion as a rival family trashes a local market, taking the shop owner hostage. Kiriyu, sweet guy that he is, agrees to help, leading to a massive nine-vs-two melee, as he and Rikiya take on the boss and his lackeys. This really showcased how much more refined the combat is, as I was able to take advantage of the smooth movement and dodging, creating windows to bash the bad guys and escape, with a slick double-team KO of one poor crony eating a massive kick to the face from Kiryi while restrained by Rikiya.
My time in Yakuza Kiwami 3 ended there, but I barely scratched the surface of everything new coming to it. There will be more personal moments with supporting characters, time dedicated to running the daily operations at the orphanage and taking care of the kids, even a new team battle mode where you build your own biker gang to fight for turf with others.
Dark Ties
The bigger surprise of the Yakuza Kiwami 3 announcement was the reveal of Dark Ties, an all-new companion story to the main game. This places you in the role of Yoshitaka Mine, the antagonist of Yakuza 3. Dark Ties covers Mine’s rise from a disgraced businessman, driven from his own tech startup, to the underworld boss that acts as Kazuma’s foil in Yakuza 3.
His story begins with Mine reflecting on his life and the loneliness that drove him to pursue wealth and influence. By happenstance, he witnesses a deadly fight between rival Yakuza families, and seeing the bond of men willing to die for their boss, Daigo Dojima, acts as a catalyst, and he sets out to see if he can find that same loyalty in the criminal underworld.
My demo takes place early in the game, with Mine tracking down Tsuyoshi Kanda, an infamous Yakuza just released from prison. Mine hopes Kanda will be his entry point to begin his own rise, though as is Yakuza tradition, you don’t go more than a few early steps before some punks decide to pick a fight. Apparently, Mine's suitcase looks expensive, and they want whatever is inside. A bad decision.
The core battle system is roughly the same as Yakuza 3, but with a few significant twists. Mine’s fighting style is very different from Kiryu’s, relying heavily on quick boxing combos, technical wrestling moves, and new aerial attacks. He can jump and plant a foot on the chest of one enemy, then leap to another, dishing out damage all around as he delivers an array of flying moves, like springboard jump kicks or mid-air tackles. They look very cool, and make for a fun bit of planning ahead as you scope out which enemies to latch onto and jump towards.
The core battle system is roughly the same as Yakuza 3, but with a few significant twists.
In addition to the standard Heat Gauge that fills up to enable special moves, Mine has three chained hearts that fill up as he lands attacks. Once at least one is full, he can activate a powerful buffed mode called Dark Awakening. This functions like a new fighting style, with a different moveset unleashing extremely powerful attacks. More than one chained heart can be activated at once, increasing the potency of Dark Awakening. It’s a neat twist to make Mine’s gameplay more distinct, and tapping into the rage behind his calm exterior fits his character well.
It quickly became clear these punks picked the wrong suitcase to try to snatch, as I knocked them senseless to the cheers of onlookers who witnessed the attempted robbery. With the ruffians handled, I’m given the option to head to the prison to track down Kanda or kill some time exploring the city. This sorry mission seems important, so naturally I… immediately go find a karaoke bar to sing a song. Hey, it is Yakuza after all. I rent the room, and Mine pours his heart and soul into his solo performance, which is really funny given his normally extremely stoic nature. I nail rhythm on my button presses, delivering a perfect performance befitting a man of Mine’s talents.
Buoyed by my outstanding singing, I decide it’s time to get down to business and try to hail a cab to the prison where Kanda is being released. One more group of punks tries to stop me (nothing a fireman’s carry followed by a quick kick to the face couldn’t solve), and I find myself outside of the prison as Kanda takes out his frustration on his paltry, two-man welcoming committee. Kanda is penniless, his branch of the Yakuza family disgraced. As Mine tails him through the streets of Kamurocho, my hands-on time ends just as he rounds a corner to meet his future right-hand man for the first time.
As a sucker for a good organized crime story, I’m definitely intrigued to see how much we get to witness Mine channel his inner Vito Corleone and build his criminal empire from the ground up, especially if it means some proper bromance time with Mine and Diago. The fact that it comes as part of the package with Yakuza Kiwami 3 is great, and I’m excited to see how it all turns out when Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties release on February 12, 2026.
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If you missed MagicCon Atlanta’s announcements, there’s an awful lot to unpack. From a stacked Magic: The Gathering release calendar to new Secret Lairs for October and beyond, there’s a lot coming.
Below, we’ve rounded up the major new sets in 2026, including what we know about them so far, but we’ve also covered the new Secret Lair update (including PlayStation and The Office).
2026’s Magic Sets - At a Glance
Lorwyn Eclipsed - January 23, 2026 (Preorders Live)
Unannounced Universes Beyond Set - March 2026
Secrets of Strixhaven - April 2026
Marvel Superheroes - June 2026
The Hobbit - August 2026
Reality Fracture - October 2026
Star Trek - November 2026
Lorwyn Eclipsed - January 23, 2026
If you’ve been yearning for a return to Lorwyn, the first set of 2026 is here to get things started. The set is a Universes Within to kick off the year, and marks the debut of the Draft Night Box.
You can preorder it now, and it’ll see the return of Commander Decks for the first time since 2025’s Edge of Eternities with two options: A five-color, and a Jund.
Unannounced Universes Beyond Set - March 2026
Wizards of the Coast is keeping this one quiet until New York Comic Con on October 10, but we do know it’s a crossover with Nickelodeon, so make of that what you will.
Secrets of Strixhaven - April 2026
If Nickelodeon isn’t your thing, then the good news is you won’t have to wait long to get back to a more recognizable plane.
Secrets of Strixhaven will have its own Omens of Chaos tie-in novel, and the set will focus on the wizarding school.
We’ve already seen cards for Iron Man, Black Panther, Fantastic Four, and more, and the set will lean on comic book versions of the Marvel universe’s characters.
We’re expecting a Mentor/Sidekick theme, and for this one to be popular.
The Hobbit - August 2026
A return to Middle-earth was a pleasant surprise, but the only information we have so far is the following:
“Join Bilbo’s adventure of a lifetime with Dwarves to befriend, Trolls to trick, Elves to outwit, and songs to sing. There's gold or dragon’s fire at the end, so enjoy the journey!”
Give us some Five Armies Commander Decks, please.
Reality Fracture - October 2026
The last in-universe set of 2026 is Reality Fracture, and it’ll feature callbacks to Tarkir: Dragonstorm and Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
The team has suggested it has a theme players have wanted for a long time, but that’s all we know so far.
Star Trek - November 2026
If you felt Wizards had got the sci-fi out of their system with the (excellent) Edge of Eternities, think again.
November 2026 will see the arrival of a Star Trek set to celebrate that franchise’s 60th Anniversary, and it’ll incorporate everything from the original series to Strange New Worlds. It even got a trailer.
Magic's 2025 Sets - At a Glance
It’s also good idea to take stock of 2025’s sets, because it’s definitely a year that’s divided opinion.
Innistrad: Remastered - January 24
Aetherdrift - February 14
Tarkir: Dragonstorm - April 11
Final Fantasy - June 13
Edge of Eternities - August 1
Marvel’s Spider-Man - September 16
Avatar: The Last Airbender - November 21
That’s seven sets in total, with three of those being Universes Beyond collaborations with the likes of Square Enix, Marvel, and Nickelodeon. And, from looking at the 2026 schedule, it looks as though Wizards is looking to stick to that ratio.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He's a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife's dismay.
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PlayStation 5 exclusive Ghost of Yotei has a day-one patch that adds a number of important features to the game.
Sony confirmed the patch notes, below, to IGN and the fact disc owners will have to install the update. Sony asked players to ensure they're on Version 1.006 moving forward.
It’s worth running through some of what the patch does for Ghost of Yotei, given its clear importance. There are various improvements to performance, fixes for issues with ray tracing, and crash fixes. On gameplay, a long list of bugs is patched, there are general camera improvements, and various balance adjustments.
Meanwhile, there’s a long list of animation improvements, pretty significant improvements to the environments, and fixes for the user interface. It’s also worth noting that the patch includes new photo mode additions (stamps and some new particles like birds native to Hokkaido).
Overall, Ghost of Yotei’s day-one patch is an essential download. Ghost of Yotei itself has an official release date of October 2.
Ghost of Yotei is the long-awaited follow-up to Sucker Punch's blockbuster PlayStation action adventure Ghost of Tsushima. IGN’s Ghost of Yotei review returned an 8/10. We said: “A predictable but well-executed story takes you through Ghost of Yotei's gorgeous landscapes and satisfying, fluid action — it may not be revolutionizing open world games, but it's a great distillation of the samurai fantasy.”
Ghost of Yotei day one patch notes for Version 1.006:
Performance and Stability
Multiple improvements to environmental rendering performance.
Fixed issues affecting Ray Tracing Mode lighting consistency and performance.
Changes to improve performance and stability while in photomode.
Various improvements to performance in missions with high character counts.
Resolved uncommon crashes when playing or idling for long periods of time.
Fixed rare crashes related to loading certain saves.
Gameplay
Audio fixes to allow impact sound effects to correctly match surface types.
Fixes several bugs in mini games like bamboo chop and Zeni Hajiki.
Fixed an occasional long delay when starting buddy grapple pull.
Fixed pumpkins appearing transparent during the kunai training mission.
Fixed interrogation camera transitions to avoid popping between angles.
General camera improvements for world navigation and when using tools in combat.
Improvements camera behavior while engaged in combat, especially in optional camera modes.
Fixes various bugs and exploits during duels.
Various balance adjustments to weapons and charms, especially related to late game content.
Various balance adjustments and bug fixes related to Lethal difficulty.
Fixed bugs related to picking and throwing dropped weapons.
Balance adjustments and bug fixes to stealth kills with weapons other than the katana.
Fixed bugs with mission dialogue being cut short due to player or NPC actions.
Fixed several bugs in missions that players could perceive as blocking progress.
Various mission area improvements to help with mission flow and easier navigation.
Limit puzzle clues in some difficulty levels.
Prevent the horse from interrupting certain missions objectives or cutscenes.
Removed the ability to decapitate bounty capture targets.
Fixes a bug causing Standoff to select far away enemies.
Various adjustments and balance changes to wolf abilities, such as when fighting enemy leaders.
Prevent systemic enemies from appearing when the player is following foxes.
Added the ability for the player to open photomode (via R1) during certain stages when camping.
Various economy and loot balance changes to common metals.
Improved enemy responses to player actions in combat scenarios.
Reduced the occurrence of tutorials when camping.
Improved behavior of Saito's men hunting for Atsu in the open world.
Animation
Improved intro and exit transitions for some cinematics to present a better and more emotional experience.
Fixed multiple instances of armor blocking camera shots during cutscenes.
Fixes to prevent geometry fading or popping at incorrect times in cutscenes.
Fixes for cutscene animation artifacts.
Fixes multiple instances of weapons appearing incorrectly during cutscenes.
Fixes characters improperly appearing in some cutscenes.
Improvements to character expressions and emotions during some cutscenes.
Updated various NPC animations and voice lines to make characters behave more naturally.
Updated the intro and exit animations for katana attacks so they feel more natural.
Updating foot matching across animations to better match characters’ feet to the ground.
Added new into and exit animations to improve transitions smoothness in foot matching and posture.
Improved animations for the coal throwing game used in weapon training.
Fixed a bug that allowed dogs and other animals to play incorrect hunt animations.
Fixed various NPC animations that would play incorrectly during missions.
Improved the animation for the Brute enemy grabbing Atsu and throwing her down on the ground.
Improving various weapon draw and stow animations to reduce clipping.
Environment
Improved onsen environmental assets, layout, set dressing and world interaction to provide more unique experiences for each onsen.
Improving appearance and performance of some flower types.
Improved the look of erosion and details in mountain ranges seen across the world.
Improved various textures in caves to bring up level of detail and eliminate seams and some artifacting.
Updated lower levels of detail on various tree assets around the world to prevent visual popping when the player is navigating around locations.
Updated deep snow blending to better conceal characters and also improve the look of snow on other assets.
Improvements and optimization across many assets throughout the game to improve performance.
Improved textures and assets within various caves and dens across the game for general quality polish.
Tweaked assets across the entire game to fix issues with objects floating above the ground.
UI/UX
Fixed photomode flashes and bright glow when rapidly changing the time of day.
General improvements to the photomode menu UI and navigation.
Fixed bugs in mini games related to alternative controller schemes.
Fixed various bugs in spyglass.
Fixed conflicting UI elements in various menus and the map.
Fixed text overflowing in Large Text mode in various languages.
Fixed text overlap with the Key Items list and objective cards with multiple rewards.
Adjusted the position of certain UI elements, such as the Charm Level icon.
Fixed or improved icons for multiple cosmetics and skills.
Updated skill videos and allow colored glints for clearer instruction.
Fixed UI elements to avoid overlapping in various cases like duels.
Fixed a bug with items on the travelers map appearing incorrectly.
Updated the UI marker shaders, animation and size to improve legibility.
Fixed a bug where the loadout trainer inappropriately.
Modified bloom in the spyglass to improve visibility in bright scenes.
Reduced the number of pop-ups at the start of the game for a smoother experience for players with bonus content.
Improved various UI elements at vendors.
Fixed bugs related to loading and popping in menus.
Updated trophy and activity art.
Improved the appearance of some elements on the map.
Fixed the naming of some inventory items.
Added options to photomode.
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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Given that the LEGO brand has been slapped onto almost every kind of family-friendly multiplayer game you can think of at this point, from kart racers to Super Smash Bros clones and even a Rock Band spin-off, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for the world’s biggest brick maker to construct its own monument to Mario Party. LEGO Party is something more than a block-based knockoff of Nintendo’s long-running virtual boardgame series, though. Sure, it might use Mario Party’s fundamentals as a baseplate to build upon, with a host of wacky minifigs in place of the Mushroom Kingdom’s finest, but every last piece here is absolutely pulsating with personality and there isn’t a single stud-based dud in the 60 minigames on offer. If lots of laughter is what you’re after, LEGO Party has all the right parts for assembling a fun night in with friends and family.
If you’ve ever played one of Nintendo’s party-starters before then the basics of LEGO Party will be as easy to grasp as a tiny coffee mug in a minifig’s fist. In this instance, the goal is to collect gold bricks and studs instead of stars and coins, as you and three other players move around four uniquely themed game boards littered with various stud-sapping hazards and potentially lucrative event spaces to land on. Depending on the board you choose, each session can be as short as six rounds or roughly 45 minutes but can be extended all the way up to three-hour-long, 24-round epics, and each round pits all four players against each other in a minigame designed to be easy to pick up for LEGO Juniors and old-timer Technic fans alike, but tricky to master.
Everybody can carry up to three power-ups that can be bought with studs at the shop or collected from Wheel of Fortune-style spins, and these can have dramatic leaderboard-levelling impacts, like teleporting your minifig directly to a gold brick space, or slowing your roll so you can increase your chances of moving the exact number of spaces you need. Many of these basics have been established in the Mario Party blueprint several times over, and Lego Party takes an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fish the dog-eared instruction booklet out of the toy chest and rebuild it’ approach to keeping many of these proven core concepts intact.
However, there are some key elements to be found in LEGO Party’s Pirate, Ninjago, Space, and Theme Park boards that set them apart. For starters, each minigame is chosen democratically by moving your minifig in front of one of three options presented at the beginning of each round, and I liked that it meant my party was given a bit more control over which events we were able to enjoy in each evening’s session. (Of course, if you prefer a more randomised minigame experience like Mario Party, you can opt for that too.) I also prefer LEGO Party’s system of letting the results of each minigame determine the order of turns in each subsequent round, as opposed to Mario Party’s more rigid setup of dictating the order via a dice roll at the start and sticking with that all the way to the end. I find that LEGO Party’s results-driven method increases the ebb and flow of each board and brings extra incentive to do well in each minigame.
Each of LEGO Party’s wonderfully candy-coloured and brilliantly detailed boards has a number of special construction zones to land on.
More notably, each of LEGO Party’s wonderfully candy-coloured and brilliantly detailed boards has a number of special construction zones to land on, giving you the choice of two structures to build on that space that can dramatically alter the map and introduce a variety of game-changing additions. For example, in the Theme Park board you might opt to build the Extreme Zone, which introduces a gauntlet run of twitchy stunt challenges to successfully pull off in order to earn a gold brick. Alternatively you could go for the Royal Ramparts, which brings with it a ballista-based minigame for quickly snaring studs, and a catapult for lobbing you at another random player and stealing one of their gold bricks. Mixed in with the various other board-specific features, like when the Space map briefly transforms into a turn-based battle against a giant green alien, and each go-around of these game boards has felt fresh and fun over the dozen or so hours of playtime my family and I have put in together so far.
Everything is Awesome
It’s also been consistently funny, and that’s largely due to the inclusion of Ted Talker and Paige Turner, LEGO Party’s own quip-cracking commentary team. Seemingly inspired by gag-making game show playcallers like those of Wipeout or Holey Moley, Ted and Paige provide colourful context to each turn taken, as well as responding in real time to each player’s performance in a minigame – either bigging them up when they’re on top, or hilariously dragging them when they’re struggling. Surprisingly, even after multiple playthroughs of each of LEGO Party’s four boards I’ve barely heard the same joke twice, although in fairness that could be because half the time the commentary has been completely drowned out either by fits of uncontrollable laughter or salty bickering as a hard-earned gold brick is ruthlessly snatched away from another player. Seriously, if you’re playing with a competitive group, that tends to sting harder than suddenly finding a lost LEGO brick with the fleshy part of your bare foot.
The rest of the comedy in LEGO Party stems from the competitive chaos of the challenges themselves, and developer SMG Studio – who previously entertained with the slapstick-based shenanigans of its Moving Out series – has really outdone itself as far as crafting a construction derby of morish minigames. From memory-testing challenges to physics-driven races and rhythm-based dance-offs, Lego Party’s roster of minigames is as diverse as it is diverting, dripping with personality and creative flair. Besides, it’s always a great indication for how immediately engaging multiplayer minigames are when players get caught up in the competition without realising they haven’t even left the pre-game practice screen, which has been a regular occurrence during my time with LEGO Party so far.
Some minigames are terrific, toybox tributes to other titans of multiplayer mayhem, such as the obstacle course dash that feels straight out of Fall Guys or the zero-gravity space shuttle soccer that’s very much in the same orbit as Rocket League. Others lean into the familiarly tactile feel of playing with LEGO itself, like the one that involves trying to build monsters out of a pile of different-shaped blocks without being provided any instructions. There’s one challenge with four soccer goals to defend from an ever-increasing number of balls that plays out like an inverted game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, and another that sits each minifig on a LEGO motorbike and challenges you to navigate an undulating course like a cutesy recreation of Trials HD.
Some of the most popular minigames amongst the contestants on my couch are the ones that feel like nothing else we’ve ever played. There’s the frantic, four-way battle to smash your opponents’ LEGO vase with a brick boulder that gradually speeds up as it’s deflected off each player, or the nightclub-themed showdown that sees each of you scramble to fling your minifig onto a floating dance floor with elastic grappling hooks. Of course, everyone in my party has their own personal picks: I love anything on four-wheels, my son’s really into the zero-gravity games, while my daughter’s favourite is… basically whichever minigame she won most recently. But the quality of challenges here is so consistent across the game board, that even when we opt for a random minigame choice we’re rarely disappointed with whatever comes our way.
Everything is Cool When You’re Part of a Team
I also appreciate that success in these minigames is mostly reliant on a combination of skill and luck. You won’t find any cheap button-mashing challenge types here like the ones that often pop up in Mario Party, which I always felt put unnecessary wear and tear on my expensive game controllers, not to mention seeming somewhat unfair to the younger players in my lounge room who haven’t had decades of button-pressing practice pumped into their biceps.
There also aren’t any lopsided three-vs-one match types to force the majority to unfairly gang up on an individual, as LEGO Party’s minigames are always evenly split – either every man for himself, or face-offs in teams of two on the occasions you land on a Brick Battle square. These team-based clashes range from the pure intensity of a doubles game of air hockey through to more ridiculous co-op tasks where one person aims a T-shirt cannon and the other fires it at an audience of shirtless minifigs, and all of them demand effective communication and coordination between duos in order to get the win. In fact, I enjoyed these Brick Battles so much that I was slightly disappointed to find there were only nine of them included in the roster.
Even so, I am happy that LEGO Party doesn’t bother with random participation awards at the end of each board, like many Mario Party games do. There’s still plenty of twists and turns as fortune-changing chance spaces are sprinkled across the map in the closing stages, and many games I’ve played have seen the lead constantly change hands all the way through to the final round, but the winner is always clearly defined by the time you reach the end – not unfairly elevated into first position after the fact purely because of some arbitrary, unseen statistic like they happened to land on the most event spaces. It makes victory feel like it was achieved through genuine merit rather than more mystifying means. That doesn’t mean that other players won’t take any opportunity to knock you off the winner’s podium, though – and I mean that quite literally, especially during the riotously interactive results screen that typically devolves into delirious slap fights, slipping on banana peels, and background breakdancing.
Some minigames are terrific, toybox tributes to other titans of multiplayer mayhem.
While LEGO Party’s lineup of playable minifigs might not feature anyone as iconic as Mario or Yoshi, it makes up for it in terms of sheer numbers and the substantial suite of options for character customisation. Playing through each of the game boards or one of the curated minigame playlists earns XP that gradually unlocks new minifigs along a series of simple progression paths, as well as awarding you carrots that can be spent unlocking a separate collection of minifigs in the shop. There are more minifigs here than you could shake a mini twig at – by my count well over 200, from goth kid minifigs to person-shaped pizza slices and stylish ninja warriors – and as you unlock each one their individual parts can be used to craft entirely new creations of your own. Want a minifig with tigerprint pants, a Miami Vice-style linen jacket, and an American football helmet? Weird combination but sure, it’s all yours.
Speaking of bolting things together, I’d love to see LEGO Party leverage the many pop culture partnerships that the Danish brickmaker has amassed over the years and bring them to the party either in the form of expansion packs or future sequels. A LEGO Star Wars board with minigames designed around lightsaber battles and Death Star trench runs would be a treat, as would a LEGO Indiana Jones board that had event spaces to trigger Raiders of the Lost-ark style booby traps and boulders. Given Nintendo’s cosying up with the LEGO brand in recent times, it’s not inconceivable that we could even see a LEGO Mario LEGO Party expansion, at least in the Switch versions, to really bring things full circle. To be clear, nothing of this nature has been announced and I’m merely thinking out loud, but I’ve had a blast with LEGO Party so far, and I really hope that it’s set the fantastic plastic foundations for a series that’s here to stay.
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IGN recently held a fan-voted tournament to determine the greatest racing game of all time. There were a total of 32 entries split across four categories: Arcade Racing, Simulation, Street Racing, and Wild Card.
While Mario Kart 8 Deluxe ultimately won the fan vote and was crowned champion, it isn’t exactly known for its realism. Several other entries in the tournament give you the chance to drive cars based on real-life counterparts, including a wide variety of different Toyota models.
The Toyota brand has been around for almost 90 years and competes in several different racing series, meaning there are lots of different models that can be included in racing games. And some games make very good use of that. Here are five standout titles that were popular in our fan-voted tournament and also put you in the driver’s seat of Toyota cars.
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5 has the rare distinction of getting a 10 from IGN, and it finished as the runner-up in our fan-voted tournament, so we think it’s safe to call this one of the best racing games ever made. One of its many strengths is the dizzying number of cars in its roster. It had more than 500 vehicles at launch, and DLCs and seasonal additions have brought that number to more than 900 in the nearly four years since it released. That includes 32 different models of Toyota, ranging from classic sports cars like the 1974 Celica GT to pickup trucks like the 2020 Tundra TRD Pro to rally cars like the 2021 GR Yaris to modern sports cars like the 2022 GR86.
Gran Turismo 7
Gran Turismo 7 won the Simulation region of our tournament and made it to the Final Four before being ousted by Forza Horizon 5. It was a very close battle between the two, so this is clearly a beloved title. And IGN gave it a 9, so we’re big fans too. Like the game that defeated it, GT7 also sports an incredible number of different cars. It had 424 cars at launch and has since brought that number to more than 500, which includes 41 Toyota models. In addition to the kinds of sports cars, rally cars, and pickups that are present in Forza Horizon 5, there are also LMP1 cars like the TS030 Hybrid ’12 and TS050 Hybrid ’16, as well as concept cars like the FT-1 and FT-1 VGT.
Forza Motorsport 4
Forza Motorsport 4 might be 14 years old, but it still holds up as an outstanding racing game and celebration of all things four-wheeled. It had a tough draw in our tournament, dominating its first-round matchup before having to go up against the juggernaut that is Gran Turismo 7 in the second round. IGN gave Forza Motorsport 4 a 9.5, and like the two games that preceded it on this list, its vast selection of cars was a big reason why. That included 19 different models of Toyotas, highlighted by the S class 2002 Top Secret 0-300 Supra, one of the most powerful Unicorn cars in the game.
Project Gotham Racing 2
Project Gotham Racing 2 might not have catapulted into mainstream popularity like the previous games on this list, but IGN gave it a 9.5 and it holds a special place in our hearts, largely because of its focus on style in addition to speed. You earn Kudos points for doing things like powersliding, catching air, driving clean races, and drafting behind opponents. And many goals require that you finish with a certain number of Kudos points, meaning you have to balance driving fast with driving pretty, providing a gameplay experience that separates it from other racing games. That sense of style extended to the cars themselves, too. There were three Toyota models in the game, and they’re all classics: the 1967 2000GT, MR2 Spider, and 1996 Supra.
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix
In what some might have considered a surprise, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix made it to the quarterfinals of our tournament and put up a solid fight against Forza Horizon 5. This is the updated version of Rockstar’s third game in the series, which added new vehicles, songs, races, maps, updated UI, and brought back Tokyo from Midnight Club 2. It was a marked improvement over said predecessor, and while it was never the fastest or prettiest game around, it more than made up for that with depth and variety. IGN gave it an 8.8, and it let you drive, customize, and fine-tune the 1998 Toyota Supra Turbo.
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Dan Houser, Rockstar Games co-founder and the writer behind the studio's biggest games, including the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption series, has said Bully 2 didn't happen because of "bandwidth issues."
Bully was a humorous action game that put players in the role of high school outcast Jimmy while attending a pretentious private school. "Bully is a great, well-crafted action game that's been made even stronger with one of the best senses of humor around," IGN's Bully review read. Expect dozens and dozens of hours of fun."
In an exclusive interview with IGN on Saturday, September 27 at LA Comic Con, we asked Houser why we never got a sequel to 2006 fan-favorite Bully (also known as Canis Canem Edit). You can watch the full interview below:
"I think it was just bandwidth issues," Houser said. "You know, if you've got a small lead creative team, and a small senior leadership crew, you just can't do all the projects you want.
"And you know, we certainly — how we're structured at [Houser's current company] Absurd [Ventures], we're doing two projects with a fairly small team, and it's really trying to think through that. How can we do that and keep them both moving?"
Houser established transmedia company Absurd Ventures after leaving Rockstar Games in 2020. His new crime fiction comic series, American Caper, will be released on November 12, 2025, with the first arc comprising 12 issues.
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 atBlueSky.
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Gearbox has revealed Borderlands 4’s first of two new Vault Hunters coming to the game as part of the paid Story Pack DLCs.
C4SH, due out during the first quarter of 2026, is a playable character whose luck-based powers can make him either the best or worst character in the game, Gearbox development chief Randy Pitchford said during a panel at Tokyo Game Show 2025.
Here’s the official blurb, from Gearbox:
A former casino dealer bot, C4SH is now a drifter who chases the probability-breaking highs of cursed eldritch artifacts. As luck would have it, Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned is full of cosmic horrors that harbor uncanny curios, some of which can surely bend the odds in C4SH's favor.
C4SH has three unique Action Skills to choose from, as you’d expect, and three skill trees that each have three branches full of passives and other customization options. C4SH works differently to the other Vault Hunters, however, by having unpredictable Action Skills. Gearbox said they all involve an element of chance as part of a risk-reward playstyle that “can lead to good fortunes like buffing himself and allies, dealing devastating damage, sapping the strength from foes, and more.”
During the panel, Pitchford revealed a work-in-progress look at C4SH’s card Action Skill, which has big Gambit vibes. Pitchford, a professional magician himself, said C4SH was “very dear to me, very personal to me.”
“Because of chance, with luck he can be the most powerful Vault Hunter in the game. But of course, with bad luck it’s the opposite. The gameplay with cash is definitely high risk, high reward. I think it’s a lot of fun. It makes my heart pound.
“C4SH is important to me because I think he and I have a lot in common. Some of you might not know this, but I have played poker professionally, as a gambler. I have appeared on a live reality television show in America about playing Texas Hold'em Poker. And I’ve felt what it’s like to take risks and to have that work out and have extreme success from chance, but also to miss out and lose my money.”
He continued: “Another thing some of you may know about me is that in addition to being a game developer, I’m a professional magician. And I’ve mastered sleight of hand with playing cards, and we used my demonstration to help animate the character in the game.”
Pitchford proceeded to show behind-the-scenes footage of the developer in his office at the Texas studio palming, flicking, and throwing playing cards from a first-person perspective, footage he said the animators used to help animate C4SH. Pitchford then showed a work-in-progress look at C4SH’s card action skill alongside first-person footage of himself performing the card actions.
You’ll get C4SH as soon as he’s available by owning the Borderlands 4 Super Deluxe Edition, the Vault Hunter Pack (included in Super Deluxe Edition), or Story Pack 1: Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned (included in Vault Hunter Pack).
Mad Ellie and the Vault of the Damned, meanwhile, adds multiple main and side missions set in a new zone of Kairos, new gear to earn, and new cosmetics as well as C4SH.
Borderlands 4 launched this month with four playable characters: Vex; Rafa; Amon, and Harlowe. Here’s the post-launch roadmap heading into the first quarter of 2026 and beyond.
Gearbox is still working to improve Borderlands 4 following complaints about performance, and has delayed the Nintendo Switch 2 version. A patch released last week will be followed by a new balance patch early this week.
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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We've rounded up the best deals for Sunday, September 28, below, so don't miss out on these limited-time offers.
PAC-MAN World Re-PAC for $10
Amazon has PlayStation 5 copies of PAC-MAN World Re-PAC on sale for just $10 today. This is the lowest we've ever seen the game, and this isn't a deal that will last for long. If you're unfamiliar, Re-PAC is a remake of Pac-Man World, originally released in 1999. This is a great opportunity to pick up and play a brand new 3D platformer at a low price.
Apple Watch Ultra 3 for $734.99
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 just released, bringing a slightly bigger screen, better battery life, satellite connectivity, and more to Apple's premium watch line. Right now, Best Buy has Open Box Excellent units available for $734.99, which saves you $65 off the MSRP. If you're looking to upgrade but want to save some cash, this is a great deal to look at.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach for $59.49
For the first time since launch, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is on sale. You can score a digital copy of the game for $59.49 at the PlayStation Store, so you can instantly download and dive into the game. DS2 is still my favorite game of the year, especially as someone who loved Death Stranding. I'm still working on the Platinum trophy, even 130 hours later.
ROG Xbox Ally Up for Pre-Order
Xbox and Asus finally opened up pre-orders for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X this week, with both units set to release on October 16. These two portable handheld systems are set to allow players to play their Xbox and PC games wherever they are, with a dedicated Xbox button for quick access.
Avowed Deluxe Edition Steelbook for $41.45
Amazon has the Avowed Premium Edition Steelbook available for $41.15, which is a huge discount over the MSRP of $94.99. This package includes a Steelbook containing key art for Avowed, with a digital download code inside that gets you the game on both Xbox Series X|S and PC via Windows Store.
Raidou Remastered for $31.99
Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army launched in mid June, and you can save almost 50% off a PS5 copy for this weekend at Woot. This action RPG is a remaster of the 2006 PS2 game, and there are many improvements and new features to discover. For one, UI, visuals, and voice acting have all been tweaked to refine the experience, but you can also discover more than 120 different demons.
Sonic X Shadow Generations for $39.99
Amazon has Sonic X Shadow Generations for Nintendo Switch 2 on sale for $39.99 today. While this is a Game-Key Card, this is the lowest we've seen this game yet for Switch 2. If you haven't picked up the latest Sonic adventure, now is a great time to do so.
Pre-Order Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Switch
The latest Nintendo Direct featured the reveal of Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2, a collection that's part of the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. These games are set to receive enhancements to resolution, UI, and even new storybook content. If you haven't ever played either game, the Nintendo Switch is going to be the ultimate platform to do so. The best part? This collection is out this week, so be sure to get your pre-order in!
Lenovo Legion Go for $549.99
Best Buy has the Lenovo Legion Go priced at $549.99, saving you $200 off the MSRP. This capable handheld has plenty of features that stand out from the rest of the market, including detachable controllers, an 8.8" 144Hz display, and more.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves - Deluxe Edition for $39.99
GameStop has the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves - Deluxe Edition on sale for 50% off this weekend. This edition packs in the Special Edition base game, which includes the first year of DLC for free, a Steelbook containing the original soundtrack, an artbook, a double-sided poster, and two sticker sheets. If you haven't dived into SNK's latest fighting game, this is a great time to pick City of the Wolves up.
The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy for $49.99
The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy is one of the most underrated games of 2025. This massive game features a whopping 100 different endings to discover, each offering unique content and dialogue. Created by Kazutaka Kodaka and Kotaro Uchikoshi, The Hundred Line is a game any RPG fan will quickly fall in love with.
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The Silent Hill series has been at the forefront of feel-bad survival horror storytelling for close to three decades now, and with the success of 2024’s Silent Hill 2 remake and the recent release of Silent Hill f, it felt like the right time to take a look back through Konami’s catalogue of psychological horrors to see how each scarefest stacks up.
Now, admittedly the series hasn’t been immune to the odd misstep here and there, and there have certainly been periods of time where things have gone more downhill than Silent Hill. Thus you won’t find the likes of forgettable mainline entries like Silent Hill: Homecoming and Silent Hill: Downpour here, or the inappropriately aggressive shoot ‘em up action of Silent Hill: The Arcade, or indeed the co-operative dungeon crawling of Silent Hill: Book of Memories that absolutely nobody asked for.
With all that in mind, here’s IGN’s picks for the very best entries in the Silent Hill series, from portable terrors to playable teasers.
9. Silent Hill: Origins
A Silent Hill adventure that can fit into your jeans pocket and still scare your pants off? That’s Silent Hill: Origins, the 2007 prequel originally developed for the PlayStation Portable and later ported to the PlayStation 2.
With its story taking place several years before that of the original Silent Hill, Silent Hill: Origins puts you into the shoes of Travis Grady, a truck driver who takes a wrong turn into North America’s freakiest fog-shrouded town, and things get appropriately hair-raising from there.
What makes Silent Hill: Origins stand out from other instalments in the series is how it handles the exploration of the sleepy small town’s nightmarish otherworld. Unlike most other Silent Hill games that drag you kicking and screaming towards the jagged edges of the industrial nightmare realm when you least expect it, Silent Hill: Origins gives you full control in determining when and where you want to shift between realities via the use of special mirrors scattered around the town.
On the one hand, this does diminish Silent Hill: Origins’ ability to surprise you with scares, but on the other hand it creates some uniquely creepy scenarios for puzzle-solving, such as examining the plastic organs of an anatomy mannequin in one reality, only to find that it’s an actual corpse in the other.
Combined with a dread-inducing atmosphere on par with the foreboding feel of the original game, Silent Hill: Origins on PSP made for some truly terrifying train trips.
8. Silent Hill 4: The Room
Although it sounds like some sort of bizarre crossover between the much-loved survival horror series and director Tommy Wiseau’s infamous best worst movie ever made, Silent Hill 4: The Room isn’t quite as wild a departure as that – although it does shake up the formula pretty significantly. Shifting the terror out of the foggy streets of Silent Hill and into the new setting of Ashfield – specifically the locked-down apartment of protagonist Henry Townshend – Silent Hill 4: The Room alternates between claustrophobic, first-person exploration of Townshend’s home and more traditional third-person combat in the nightmarish otherworlds he can reach by stepping through the ominous holes in his apartment walls.
These otherworlds serve as small pocket dimensions, each visually distinct and with its own story to tell, from the filthy, tiled circular hallways of the water prison to the abandoned hospital packed with a variety of disturbing dioramas. As the story progresses, the apartment you return to gradually evolves from safe haven to haunted house, as Townshend’s tracking of an undead serial killer gradually consumes his reality and the game’s skin-crawling atmosphere grows all the more oppressive.
While the sudden switch in the story’s second half to an annoyingly dragged out escort mission proved to be divisive amongst fans, there’s no question that its cast of genuinely disturbing creatures, haunting original soundtrack from Akira Yamaoka, and the uniqueness of its decaying apartment hub made for arguably one of the most spectacularly tense Silent Hill adventures in the entire canon.
Silent Hill 4: The Room would also mark the fourth and final instalment in the series to come from Japanese developer Team Silent. That team would then disband, with its members going on to work on various other horror games like Forbidden Siren and The Evil Within, and it also saw the development of subsequent Silent Hill games shift into the hands of western developers with fairly mixed results… We’re looking at you, Homecoming and Downpour.
7. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Not all of the western-made Silent Hills have been bad, though. The only entry in the series to ever make it onto the Nintendo Wii, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories from British developer Climax Studios reimagines the original Silent Hill and features the same premise: Harry Mason is the survivor of a car crash searching for his missing daughter in the fictional American town of Silent Hill. However, its plot unravels in an entirely new way and the gameplay is dramatically restructured, shifting between first-person psychotherapy sessions to the more typical over-the-shoulder explorations of Harry’s harrowing journey through Silent Hill.
Shattered Memories is a tricky instalment to rank in the Silent Hill series, because it’s so unlike any other entry to date. It completely ditches combat, instead forcing Harry to flee in regular chase sequences inspired by the unstoppable antagonists of slasher movies. It swaps out the fog of previous adventures for ice and falling snow to limit player visibility and build an atmosphere of dread in interesting new ways. It also makes quite brilliant use of the Wiimote, using its motion controls to give players full command over the beam of Harry’s flashlight, and its built-in speaker for the hiss of the series’ signature radio static among several other unsettling bits of sound design.
Shattered Memories also profiles the player while they play, taking the answers chosen during the psychotherapy sessions to make subsequent changes to level and enemy designs, as well as altering how the story progresses and eventually determining which of the multiple endings you will arrive at. While this mechanic is yet to resurface in subsequent Silent Hill stories, Supermassive Games’ Until Dawn seemingly took a great deal of inspiration from it given its similar mix of psychotherapy sessions and slasher-style horror.
Meanwhile, Shattered Memories’ writer/designer Sam Barlow (who also worked on Silent Hill: Origins) has since gone on to find considerable success as an independent developer with his critically acclaimed works of interactive fiction: Her Story, Telling Lies, and Immortality. All three involve solving a mystery by sifting through assortments of out-of-sequence video clips, which in a way are their own form of shattered memories.
6. Silent Hill f
It took 13 long years for a new mainline Silent Hill game to emerge from the fog, but Silent Hill f finally arrived in 2025 with a brand new Japanese setting, a twisted and compelling story that continues to unfold and satisfy in subsequent playthroughs, and a strict focus on melee-based combat to further distinguish itself from the more gun-centric assaults of the previous year’s Silent Hill 2 remake.
To be fair, the deliberately sluggish feel of Silent Hill f’s fighting system might not be to everyone’s taste. With its mix of light and heavy attacks, dodges and counters, and a reliance on the careful management of health, stamina, and sanity bars, its monster-mashing seems inspired by the slow and weighty combat of the Dark Souls series, though thankfully minus the punishing difficulty. Yet even though your controller might not be in any danger of being smashed to bits after repeatedly dying to the same boss, your lead pipe or crowbar certainly is due to the irritatingly brittle nature of Silent Hill f’s destructible weapons.
However, if you can embrace the clunky combat clashes – or simply force yourself to endure them – there are huge rewards for persevering because Silent Hill f’s story is simply one of the most captivating tales in the entire series. The psychological effects of high schooler Hinako Shimizu’s domestic abuse and bullying is truly gut-wrenching to examine, the monsters she encounters provide a full-fat dose of nightmare fuel, and the world around her is an absorbing place to pore over, whether it's the misty streets of her mountainside village or the mysterious shrine realm she enters in her dreams.
You would think that a Silent Hill game that doesn’t actually feature the town of Silent Hill would be like a Resident Evil game without some sort of resident evil in it, but Silent Hill f successfully proves that you can take the series out of Smalltown, USA, but you can’t take the spinechilling psychological horror out of the Silent Hill game.
5. P.T.
While ultimately a proof of concept rather than a fully fledged Silent Hill game – the P.T. stands for Playable Teaser – this standalone slice of psychological torment got fans' appetites whet for a Silent Hills game that sadly never saw the light of day. Quietly shadow-dropped as a free download on PlayStation 4 amidst a number of more headline-grabbing announcements at Gamescom 2014, P.T. quickly took social media and Reddit threads by storm as more than a million players discovered it and collectively set about unravelling its most enigmatic puzzles.
Set in a single, looping, L-shaped corridor inside a suburban family home, P.T. was capable of delivering scares in ways both micro and macro; subtly rearranging the decor to unsettle you in one loop, before ensuring you’d never sleep with the lights off again by surprising you with a murderous ghost named Lisa the moment you dared to look over your shoulder. Much like the apartment sections of Silent Hill 4: The Room, P.T. also broke from the Silent Hill series’ typical third-person perspective, presenting its horrors in a more claustrophobic first-person view that made them all the more immediate. It was compact, cryptic, and completely terrifying.
What further adds to P.T.’s mystique is that it’s extremely hard to actually play at this point. After the cancellation of Silent Hills and Kojima Productions’ seemingly acrimonious split with Konami in 2015, P.T. was removed from the PlayStation Store for good, making it impossible to reinstall even if it was attached to your PSN account. There are some questionable PC-based workarounds to regain access to it, but otherwise the only way to play P.T. today is by somehow tracking down a PlayStation 4 console with it already installed, or playing a fanmade remake such as the impressively faithful recreation in Media Molecule’s Dreams. Or perhaps by breaking into that same warehouse that the Ark of the Covenant was stashed in at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
As for its legacy, though, P.T. has gone on to be one of the most influential horror games released in recent memory. Layers of Fear ran with P.T.’s looping environments to unsettle players exploring its artist’s mansion setting, while Resident Evil: Village terrified fans with the P.T.-esque tight hallways, combat-free puzzle-solving, and nightmare-inducing deformed fetus found in its House Beneviento section. That’s not to say anything of the countless P.T. pretenders that continue to flood Steam to this day. Not bad for a playable teaser for a Silent Hill game that never was.
4. Silent Hill 3
The storytelling brilliance of Silent Hill 2 made it a hard act to follow – and we’ll get to exactly why in a moment – but Silent Hill 3 distanced itself slightly from its landmark predecessor by positioning itself as a direct sequel to the original Silent Hill instead. The third game in the Silent Hill saga digs into compelling new details about the doomsday cult from the original game, as well as introducing an almost entirely new line-up of nightmarish creatures, brought to bowel-loosening life by visuals that pushed the PlayStation 2 hardware to its limits.
Its biggest departure from its two predecessors, though, is the fact that its protagonist is a plucky teenage girl instead of a miserable, 30-something year old man. Heather, who’s surname we’ll keep vague for story spoiler reasons, came as a breath of fresh air through the fog and proved to be one of the best written and most relatable leads in the series’ history. Not to mention that up until the release of Silent Hill f, she was the only playable female lead in the mainline entries (unless you count Maria in the Director’s Cut of Silent Hill 2).
Upon its release, Silent Hill 3 was criticised for lacking gameplay innovation and being a bit too similar to the first two games, but given the string of subpar Silent Hill games released in the aftermath of Silent Hill 4: The Room, perhaps in retrospect staying true to the look and feel of the two most respected entries in the Silent Hill series wasn’t such a bad thing.
3. Silent Hill 2 Remake
Unlike Shattered Memories which completely overhauled the structure and dramatically altered the plot of the original Silent Hill, the 2024 remake of Silent Hill 2 preserves the story, characters, and vibe of the PlayStation 2 original, but updates it all for modern audiences with superb visuals, anxiety-inducing audio design, and controls that allow for far more fluid player movement and inventory juggling.
Developer Bloober Team wasn’t exactly new to the horror genre nor the process of remaking of horror games, having previously both made and remade its own spooky stories in the form of Layers of Fear and Observer. This experience evidently served the team well since the Silent Hill 2 remake is by far and away its biggest triumph to date, dramatically enhancing the unsettling and claustrophobic atmosphere of the original, and expanding the small town setting to make it utterly absorbing to pore over for returning fans.
Crucially, almost every modernisation made here has resulted in Silent Hill 2’s overwhelmingly shuddersome setting seeming all the more immersive and alarming. The volumetric fog feels thicker and more oppressive than ever. The new level of detail applied to the dwellings you shuffle through make them seem infinitely more dank and depressing, if not completely disgusting at times. The use of light is particularly brilliant, and being forced to explore every inch of the Toluca Prison area in limited bursts of illumination thanks to failing circuit breakers makes for one of the most frantic and frightening sequences the series has ever seen. Or indeed, not seen, since so many of its horrors are quickly plunged into blackness.
Add in some superior voice acting and a terrifying soundscape from Akira Yamaoka that will have you doubting your own sanity, and there’s no question that the Silent Hill 2 remake is the best way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror.
2. Silent Hill
Take a splash of Stephen King, a dash of David Lynch, a flash of Francis Bacon, and filter it all through the Japanese cultural lens of developer Team Silent, and you have the twisted and truly terrifying journey through the original Silent Hill. Stepping away from the typically campy, B-movie style popular in ‘90s survival horror, Silent Hill plunged you into previously unseen depths of psychological torment, putting the emphasis on properly disturbing atmosphere in favour of cheap jump scares, and establishing the tone for a series that, at its best, is somehow incredibly uncomfortable yet utterly enthralling.
Unlike prior survival horror games like Resident Evil and Parasite Eve that relied on pre-rendered backgrounds, Silent Hill bucked the trend by putting you into an environment rendered entirely in 3D. Remarkably, this meant that the series’ signature darkness and oppressive fog were actually borne out of a need to mask the meagre draw distance and ugly graphical pop-ins that plagued the original PlayStation, turning the system’s hardware limitations into a powerful tool for terror that has remained a constant in the series to date.
From your first steps as Harry Mason entering the eerie small town searching for his lost daughter, Silent Hill assaults you from all sides with its genuinely unsettling nothingness, and the fear of not knowing what’s waiting for you in the fog is arguably more petrifying than the actual beasts that lie in wait. This unending sense of unease was only intensified further by ingenious atmospheric flourishes, like the screeching static from Harry’s radio that hissed with more urgency as you arrived in the vicinity of some unseen mess of pissed-off polygons.
Silent Hill ushered in a chilling new standard for slow-burn survival horror, and its influence can still be felt decades later in the likes of The Medium and Alan Wake 2. Yet it only took Team Silent a couple of years to drag players into new depths of depravity and despair…
1. Silent Hill 2
The original Silent Hill may have established the series’ combination of overwhelmingly bleak atmosphere and disturbing adult themes, but 2001’s Silent Hill 2 perfected it. A thoroughly absorbing and emotionally-draining examination of grief and guilt, Silent Hill 2 put us into the role of the recently widowed James Sunderland and set us on a tortured tour through his own private hell, one crawling with awful apparitions that symbolised his increasingly decaying mental state and the suffering of the people around him.
Whereas the original Silent Hill focused primarily on the corrupt religious practices of a local cult and how it permanently altered the town’s reality, Silent Hill 2 deals with themes that were more nuanced and extremely taboo at the time, at least in the world of gaming. Sexual abuse, suicide, and self-harm are all explored as Sunderland encounters other survivors trapped within the foggy lakeside town, with each form of trauma made all the more confronting by the twisted creatures they manifest as. 2001’s Grand Theft Auto 3 might be widely regarded as the first proper video game for grown ups, but Silent Hill 2 arguably beat Rockstar’s opus to the punch just one month prior.
Silent Hill 2 also introduced one of the most iconic antagonists in the series’ history, if not survival horror in general. There are few enemies as shit-your-pants scary as Pyramid Head, an intimidating and unstoppable tormenter who stalks Sunderland at several stages through the story, and who also does unspeakable things to mannequins. Ominously dragging one half of a giant pair of scissors and with an angular skull so rusty you need a tetanus shot just from looking at it, this pointy-headed predator’s potency was diluted somewhat by subsequent appearances in weaker instalments such as Silent Hill: Homecoming and Silent Hill: Book of Memories, but his importance to Silent Hill 2’s sustained sense of dread cannot be understated.
From its tragic story to its provocative symbolism and no shortage of genuine scares, Silent Hill 2 remains the bone-chilling benchmark for the series, and is therefore the obvious choice for the number one slot on this list.
And there we have it: the nine best games in the Silent Hill series. Did your favourite make our list? Let us know what we forgot in the comments.
Tristan Ogilvie is a video producer on the IGN reviews team, based in Sydney, Australia. He has over 18 years of experience covering video games. When he doesn't have a controller in his hand, Tristan is happiest playing guitar, taking photos, or watching cricket.
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We've rounded up the best deals for Saturday, September 27, below, so don't miss out on these limited-time offers.
Apple Watch Ultra 3 for $734.99
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 just released, bringing a slightly bigger screen, better battery life, satellite connectivity, and more to Apple's premium watch line. Right now, Best Buy has Open Box Excellent units available for $734.99, which saves you $65 off the MSRP. If you're looking to upgrade but want to save some cash, this is a great deal to look at.
Death Stranding 2: On The Beach for $59.49
For the first time since launch, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is on sale. You can score a digital copy of the game for $59.49 at the PlayStation Store, so you can instantly download and dive into the game. DS2 is still my favorite game of the year, especially as someone who loved Death Stranding. I'm still working on the Platinum trophy, even 130 hours later.
ROG Xbox Ally Up for Pre-Order
Xbox and Asus finally opened up pre-orders for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X this week, with both units set to release on October 16. These two portable handheld systems are set to allow players to play their Xbox and PC games wherever they are, with a dedicated Xbox button for quick access.
Raidou Remastered for $31.99
Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army launched in mid June, and you can save almost 50% off a PS5 copy for this weekend at Woot. This action RPG is a remaster of the 2006 PS2 game, and there are many improvements and new features to discover. For one, UI, visuals, and voice acting have all been tweaked to refine the experience, but you can also discover more than 120 different demons.
Sonic X Shadow Generations for $39.99
Amazon has Sonic X Shadow Generations for Nintendo Switch 2 on sale for $39.99 today. While this is a Game-Key Card, this is the lowest we've seen this game yet for Switch 2. If you haven't picked up the latest Sonic adventure, now is a great time to do so.
Pre-Order Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Switch
The latest Nintendo Direct featured the reveal of Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2, a collection that's part of the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. These games are set to receive enhancements to resolution, UI, and even new storybook content. If you haven't ever played either game, the Nintendo Switch is going to be the ultimate platform to do so. The best part? This collection is out this week, so be sure to get your pre-order in!
Lenovo Legion Go for $549.99
Best Buy has the Lenovo Legion Go priced at $549.99, saving you $200 off the MSRP. This capable handheld has plenty of features that stand out from the rest of the market, including detachable controllers, an 8.8" 144Hz display, and more.
Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves - Deluxe Edition for $39.99
GameStop has the Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves - Deluxe Edition on sale for 50% off this weekend. This edition packs in the Special Edition base game, which includes the first year of DLC for free, a Steelbook containing the original soundtrack, an artbook, a double-sided poster, and two sticker sheets. If you haven't dived into SNK's latest fighting game, this is a great time to pick City of the Wolves up.
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