Looking for some free fun October 1 to 4? Chupa Chups is teaming up with IGN Australia and Westfield Parramatta for four days of free gaming goodness this October school holidays.

We're calling it the “Chupa Chups Forever Fun House” - and Aussie IGNers are invited to come check out our 90s family dream home: four decorated rooms, loads of consoles and games, free Chupa Chups lollies and daily prize giveaways!

Doors open as soon as Westfield does - and it lasts all day until close, so come along and check it out. Did we mention it’s free?

Event details:

• When: Thursday, October 1: 9:30 AM – 9:00 PM
  Friday, October 2: 9:30 AM – 6:00 PM
  Saturday, October 3: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
  Sunday, October 4: 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
• Where: Westfield Parramatta, NSW, L2 Centre Court, Opposite Uniqlo
• Cost: FREE!

So what’s on show? We’ll have instant multiplayer party-makers like Mario Kart World, Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Minecraft Dungeons II.

Plus, we’ll have a few surprise titles throughout the week - so be sure to come back to the Chupa Chups Forever Fun House with your family and friends later on and flex your gaming prowess.

We’re also giving away a custom, one-off Chupa Chups Gaming PC by Aftershock! This beast is going to be showcased in the Fun House for one lucky winner to take home.

As if that’s not enough, you could also win a Xbox Series X, a PS5, a Switch 2 just by playing in the Fun House!

Entry's easy. Just scan a QR code at the event or head to Gleam.io, and follow IGN, Chupa Chups and Westfield on social for extra entries. Full details will be announced soon. Australian residents only, T&Cs apply.
Full event details drop soon, so follow IGN AU on Facebook and Instagram if you’re not already!

Stay tuned for more info and announcements in the coming weeks!

PlayStation users may be eligible for a cut of a $7.85 million class-action lawsuit settlement very soon.

The class-action lawsuit, Caccuri v. Sony Interactive Entertainment, alleged that Sony violated anti-trust laws by forcing "consumers to pay more for certain digital games than they otherwise would have paid on the PlayStation Store.” It did so by removing digital vouchers for games from third-party retailers like Amazon or key resellers, meaning if you want a digital copy of a PlayStation game, you must buy it directly from the PlayStation Store.

This move removed the freedom of choice for a lot of players and has only become a hotter topic in recent months, as PlayStation plans to exit the physical media market in 2028. The lawsuit alleges that this decision pushed customers into paying more for games through the PlayStation Store.

Sony denied any wrongdoing and pushed back against claims that members were damaged by its actions. The court also hasn't decided if the company actually violated any laws yet, but it has preliminarily approved a $7.85 million settlement, subject to a final approval hearing on October 15. That hearing will decide how the funds will be distributed, lock in the final sum, and pay out attorney fees. For further updates, you can check out the official settlement website.

To be eligible for a cut of this settlement, you'll need to be a United States citizen who purchased a game from this list between April 1, 2019 and December 31, 2023. If you are elligible, PlayStation will deposit funds into your PSN account at a later date. If you deactivated your PSN, you can request a cash payment by submitting your qualifying purchase history to this email address: info@PSNDigitalGamesSettlement.com. It's unclear if you can request a cash payment with an existing PSN account, but if you can, PlayStation users can view their purchase history directly through their account on PlayStation's website if needed.

As is the case with class-action lawsuits, we won't know how much money individuals will get until it starts going out. It could be a few bucks, it could be dozens of dollars. Either way, free money is free money.

In related news, a separate lawsuit has seen PlayStation admitting that players don't own their digital games. This may not come as a shock to some, since the terms of service often use the term "license" in relation to digital games, but it is messy optics as the company tries to navigate backlash from its pivot to an all-digital future.

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

An indie game where players share heartbeats with their pet cat, which can transform into a giant kitty big enough to ride on and defeat enemies, is going viral — and it’s not hard to see why.

The game, titled Ylem’s Cat, is the debut offering of a small, independent studio based in Guangzhou, China. It was first revealed at gamescom this year, and it’s already sweeping across social media.

Per its listing on Steam, the game’s official logline is as follows: “Ylem’s Cat is an action-adventure game driven by the bond between a girl and her cat. Led by curiosity and knowledge, Molly sets out on a journey to find her missing mother across a dying planet, exploring ruins and uncovering the truth buried within the giants.”

While the game’s graphics are truly stunning and its gameplay loop seems immersive enough, the cat is the real selling point here. It can join you in combat and bop enemies on the head, and you can even use the reflection from your bow to play with it like a laser pointer. The feline’s realistic behavior will no doubt be a selling point for cat lovers (but we have to warn you that it does seem like it falls into mortal peril at one point in the trailer).

The game follows Molly in the wake of a terrible disaster after a mysterious cat saves her life. The cat — which she names Mio, after its meow — now shares a heartbeat with Molly, and it’s being hunted by robotic beings named Sentinels.

Mio helps you both in combat and in exploration, and can grow bigger or smaller depending on the task at hand. “In combat, the more you learn to fight together, the easier it becomes,” the game’s Steam page reads. “In exploration, keep an eye on Mio — the little cat has its own curiosities, and those might matter more than you think.”

New game announced where your cat companion has its own mood swings

- You share the same heartbeat
- You name it Mio after the sound it makes
- The Sentinels are hunting your cat
- It grows giant and you can ride it

Game is Ylem's Cat pic.twitter.com/9x1FnjIiGv

— Indie Game Joe (@IndieGameJoe) August 29, 2026

Thus far, Ylem’s Cat has no release date, but developers are reportedly heading toward an eventual 2028 launch. Players are already impatiently waiting to get their hands on the game, with some making comparisons to the realistic animal behavior of Trico from The Last Guardian.

“Just imagine a cat of that size getting the zoomies,” one remarked.

“Bro, take my money now!” another said.

“Knowing my cat's mood swings, I would PROBABLY be murdered if it was that size,” yet another joked.

Just imagine a cat of this size getting the zoomies 🤣 pic.twitter.com/DcgEGbDA2C

— Monastery - Wishlist on Steam (@Unseen_Domains) August 31, 2026

Just like Toriko... So cute! pic.twitter.com/TvdPBTi6nQ

— Locke (@Locke3522) August 30, 2026

BRO TAKE MY MONEY NOW pic.twitter.com/as2JSdF2bK

— NinjaGato (@ninjagato465) August 30, 2026

This is the latest pet-focused action game to turn heads after Stray Dog: nobody cares went viral earlier this month. The Souslike title follows a stray dog searching for its captured master in a world overrun with danger, using a sword in its jaws to defeat foes standing in its way.

Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.

Infinity Ward has addressed the state of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's time to kill and tweaked a handful of weapons in a new beta update.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's beta is coming to a close, but Infinity Ward is still updating the hell out of it. The latest update was pushed this morning before the beta officially winds down tomorrow. Per the patch notes, a bunch of weapons have been tuned following feedback from fans, including the ISO Nightshade SMG, which got a slight buff with damage improvements. The PPSH, Krait P68, Han 86, and Hyeon Burst all got various buffs as well, with the latter's headshot damage multiplier increasing from 1 to 1.1.

A handful of weapons got nerfed, but the most notable hit was taken by the M4 Hurricane variant, which had its damage decreased. Infinity Ward also used the update as an opportunity to address the game's time to kill, which was divisive in the first beta weekend for being far too fast. Following some adjustments, MW4's TTK is more in line with where Infinity Ward wants it to be.

"Over the weekend, we've been reviewing your gameplay and feedback carefully," said the studio. "We feel that TTK on average is much closer to where we wanted it to be after Weekend 1, but there's always room to refine individual weapons to make sure they're balanced across the board. These changes provide tuning for each class to do well at its role."

Being responsive to feedback is a big part of Infinity Ward's mission this year. Fans were frustrated with Modern Warfare 2 (2022) because it felt like Infinity Ward ignored or brushed off critiques about major aspects such as gameplay pacing, mini-map functionality, and SBMM. With Modern Warfare 4, Infinity Ward is trying to be more receptive.

"I think in MW2, we definitely didn't communicate as well as we should have," said Studio Multiplayer Creative Director Joe Cecot in an exclusive interview with IGN. "I think we've remedied that in crazy ways with this project. Even with the amount of stuff that I get sent to my desk to review like, "Hey, we want to respond to this." And then I review copy or I'm writing something, it's a huge shift. That's going to continue into live support and I think you see it at our studio head level. [Infinity Ward co-studio head] Mark Grigsby is posting, the Infinity Word account is posting, the Call of Duty account is posting, and they're all in unison posting. They're not separate from each other. I think it's really powerful and it feels really good to us."

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

Dean Hall, creator of zombie survival game DayZ and founder of RocketWerkz, seems to have a complicated relationship with his biggest hit, which was first released as a mod for Arma 2 in 2012.

"When DayZ happened, it was like dying," Hall told PC Gamer. "It ended my old life. My relationship with everyone who I knew up to that point changed completely."

"It was obviously an amazing thing that happened to me," he added. "I loved making the mod, and I loved that feeling, and I've been chasing it ever since."

The game started life as a mod for Arma 2 and its expansion pack Operation Arrowhead and was so popular with gamers that just a few months later Hall announced that Arma 2 developer Bohemia Interactive was creating a standalone version of the game, with Hall as project lead.

"People think I'm a game developer who came up from [being] a modder, and I would say I'm a modder who makes games during the day," Hall added. "I was born a modder, and I will die a modder. And I think if there's a lesson out there for any aspiring game devs, I think it's mod games. You will learn even faster than making them."

In February 2014 Hall stepped down from the project lead role and went on to start his own studio, RocketWerkz. Its releases since include VR strategy game Out Of Ammo and space survival sim Icarus and is currently working on Kitten Space Agency. As well as being a spaceflight sim, the game is a proof of concept for Hall's contribution-based development model.

"With Kitten Space Agency, the game is completely free," he said. "It's funded entirely by contributions. So that really puts it in front of the gamer's face. If you want this game to exist, how much is it worth? Because it's all on you."

Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She's been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.

Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki confirmed that the company is no longer “aggressively marketing” the PlayStation 5, saying it’s not necessary now that the console is in the later stages of its life cycle.

It’s been nearly six years since the PlayStation 5 first released in November 2020. We’ve come a long way from the days of scalpers making purchases nearly impossible; but these consoles are now largely out of stock at several major retailers once again following Rockstar’s extended look at GTA 6 that released on Netflix this past Thursday.

This marks a sharp turn for the console after it experienced its lowest May sales in the PS5’s history after Sony announced price hikes across all versions of the hardware in April 2026. While highly-anticipated games like GTA 6 seem to be doing all the marketing on Sony’s behalf right now, the company has confirmed that it isn’t fussed about advertising the PlayStation 5 these days.

Hiroki Totoki, CEO at Sony, explained this strategy during an interview with the Wall Street Journal in mid-August, where he admitted that the business’s current goal is profiting off of its existing PlayStation Plus userbase as much as possible.

“We are in the latter half of the life cycle for a PlayStation console,” he said. “That means that we do not need to ‘aggressively sell’ the console today. And rather than that, we’re focusing on recurring revenue from the recurrent userbase. And already, PlayStation Plus has more than 125 million monthly active users today, and how to monetize from those users is quite important for us.”

As expected, comments beneath the video are making sure to point out the company’s future plans to end the production of physical game discs starting January 2028, with one writing on YouTube, “Bring back ‘Only on PlayStation,’ keep physical media.”

“They’ll regret terminating physical media,” another said.

“Maybe they can revert and bring back physical discs, for starters,” another wrote.

These comments are the same under any major post discussing PlayStation, or even posts from the brand, itself. Advertisements for film adaptations of popular games on its consoles are facing a similar fate as players inundate the comments section protesting Sony’s plans for an all-digital future — a future that’s looking increasingly bleak, based on the company’s recent statements to disgruntled customers.

In July, Sony’s chief financial officer, Lin Tao, confirmed that it will "cautiously move forward" with killing off physical discs, arguing that this decision was made in response to the increasing “digitization of contents.”

And on August 21, Sony responded to a class action lawsuit from consumers who argued that the PlayStation digital store doesn’t make it obvious that players are merely purchasing a revocable license, instead of fully owning the games permanently.

“In the digital age, it is not plausible to allege that reasonable consumers believed they were obtaining ‘ownership’ of a digital game,” the company said.

Thus far, the future of the PlayStation 6 is unknown, but players are worried that both this console and Xbox's Project Helix will be digital-only by default.

Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.

Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered will take on Grand Theft Auto 6 when both games launch this November, but the team behind the arena fighter said Rockstar's latest title was "never part of our thinking" when choosing a release date.

In case you haven't heard, GTA 6 comes out November 19, a choice that prompted a wave of other publishers to do everything they can to not launch their games anywhere near that date. The belief is the fallout from a game 13 years in the making will consume the weeks before and after its release, but Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered has emerged as one of the very, very few titles willing to brave the storm.

GTA 6 is indeed primed for an explosive launch, but the team at developer Pipeworks and publisher Atari haven't seemed too worried about how this could affect the remaster for a 2000s classic. In fact, after revealing their November 3 release date, the internet rallied behind the kaiju fighting game, filling feeds with memes as the King of the Monsters (and the upcoming Barbie Rewind) stomped forward.

As part of a sweeping interview about the new remaster, IGN asked longtime Pipeworks developer and senior designer Simon Strange about how the release date for Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered was chosen and how GTA 6 played a factor in that decision. You might be surprised to hear Rockstar's return to Vice City wasn't really on their radar.

"I have also loved all those memes. I think that's great. Honestly, wasn't even in our heads at all when we were picking the release date," Strange said when asked about how the date was picked. "That's not my business. I make the video games. I'm not too worried about when they come out. If Atari had come to us and said, 'Wow, we can't because we think it's going to affect the sales with GTA,' we would've had that discussion. But no one ever said anything."

https://t.co/Lh4c0SyWvl pic.twitter.com/4hzmDYUVVy

— 🐙Dumbo Octopus🐙 (@DumboOctopus4) June 7, 2026

Strange made a good point: November 3 is Godzilla's birthday. The original film released on that day in 1954, it's when IP owner Toho recognizes as 'Godzilla Day,' and this year, regardless of whatever is going on with GTA 6, it's when Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered is coming to PC and consoles.

Strange clarified that making sure Gojira kept his November birthday was simply a matter of respect. After Pipeworks landed its contract with Atari and pinned a timeline for physical disc manufacturing, the date was locked in.

"So, the GTA thing, that's hilarious," Strange continued. "It's a really cute meme. We've all really enjoyed that. It was never part of our thinking. I wasn't looking at that calendar and being worried in any way, or thinking about what other games are coming out because the Godzilla fans are very excited for it. They'd buy it on any day that it came out, and putting it on Godzilla's birthday, that's just respectful."

Atari admitted it was "certainly aware of the proximity" to the release of GTA 6 when running the numbers tied to its release date. Though still in November, the publisher felt the break between releases gave Godzilla – and Barbie – more than enough room to breathe.

"There were a number of factors at play that led to the selection of November 12 as the release date for Barbie Rewind," an Atari spokesperson told IGN. "In the end, it made the most sense in our calendar, and we felt the cozy/retro vibe of Rewind and the Barbie brand was going to pull in its own, discrete audience.

"It has been exciting to see fans' reactions to the idea of our two games, Godzilla: DAMM Remastered and Barbie Rewind, releasing in November with GTA. The amount and quality of creative content fans are posting online is astounding and a joy to watch. They have made the proximity of the releases a fun event."

GTA 6 or not, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered will launch for PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S November 3. Barbie Rewind will follow November 12, 2026, for PC via Steam, Switch and Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Pipeworks is also scheduled to release a PC demo for its Godzilla game October 15.

We'll have more to share from our talk with Pipeworks soon, so be sure to keep an eye out for the full interview. In the meantime, don't forget to check out our preview.

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

Sony has given a divisive response to a class-action lawsuit that argues the PlayStation online store doesn’t make it obvious enough that players are merely purchasing a revocable license to play a game, rather than owning the entire game itself.

The lawsuit, filed on June 18, 2026, says PlayStation “fails to clearly and conspicuously disclose to consumers at the point of sale that these transactions do not convey ownership of the digital games.” It argues that the company “relegates this information to inconspicuous text or separate agreements that consumers are not required to affirmatively acknowledge.”

This, at least, is true; before checking out on PlayStation’s digital storefront, a message is displayed in small text that reads: "By selecting [Confirm Purchase], you agree to complete the purchase in accordance with the PlayStation Terms of Service before using this content. You further acknowledge that your purchase of this digital product amounts to a license subject to the Software Product License Agreement.”

PlayStation has now provided its retort to this lawsuit. In an August 21 filing in California’s Northern District Court, it argues that it has done enough to make it obvious that customers are simply buying a license, rather than the full game for their permanent ownership.

“As Plaintiffs admit, Section 1 of the SPLA likewise explains that ‘The Software is licensed to you, not sold.’ This makes sense. In the digital age, it is not plausible to allege that reasonable consumers believed they were obtaining ‘ownership’ of a digital game. Were that the case, then Plaintiff Edward Heycock would not have been able to obtain the game Resident Evil Requiem on February 25, 2026 for $69.99 from the PlayStation Store after Plaintiff Jason Mendoza had obtained Resident Evil Requiem on February 14, 2026, because Mr. Mendoza, not Sony, would have owned it then," the company's response reads.

Needless to say, this reply has sparked a fierce wave of backlash from players on social media, who are already riled up over Sony’s decision to end the production of physical game discs starting January 2028. With this context in mind, many feel Sony’s counterargument is downright malicious: If the company continues to pursue an all-digital future, then players will truly own nothing outright, as the game licenses on Sony’s digital storefront can simply be yanked away at any time.

“‘The Software is licensed to you, not sold.’ Then why does the page say I'm ‘Buying’ it? Sounds like false advertisement to me,” one wrote on X.

“They can't simply take away your full game if you have the full file installed and it’s working and complete without the need of servers, and also can't make unaccessible or unplayable for no reason,” another argued.

“The United States needs to pass a law to catch up with the era of digital media. I should be able to own what is sold to me, and I should be able to do whatever I want to do with what I own,” another urged.

If “license” is being used as the legal mechanism that transforms an ordinary purchase into a restricted permission, shouldn't the law define what a consumer license actually is, rather than allowing every publisher to construct its own version and then rely on the same word to…

— aCat (@Alex1Ne0) August 29, 2026

“The Software is licensed to you, not sold.”

Then why does the page says I'm "Buying" it? sounds like false advertisement to me. pic.twitter.com/bvIz5J4iy9

— Backlog Dragon - Gaming VTuber (@BacklogDragon) August 29, 2026

If a company sells you a digital license, it must guarantee permanent access to a downloadable copy of the licensed product

If the company shuts down, abandons the product, or goes bankrupt, the game must automatically be transferred to an independent digital archive, together…

— Rage Crusader (@RageCrusader) August 29, 2026

This argument is at the heart of another lawsuit the company is facing in Mexico. Brought forward in July, Mexican lawmakers allege that PlayStation is engaging in “anti-competitive practices” by choosing to end physical disc production, as it would severely limit competition from independent games retailers by forcing players to go through its digital storefront if they want to play PlayStation games.

PlayStation's online store is central to another lawsuit in the Netherlands, where Dutch Consumer Group Stichting Massaschade & Consument argues that its customers are getting charged more for digital games in comparison to customers in different countries.

Sony, for its part, has made no move to renege on its choice to kill physical games. In July, the company's chief financial officer, Lin Tao, said it will "cautiously move this forward" with this plan, claiming that it is keeping players' high emotions around the topic in "consideration."

"In the future digital ecosystem, how do we engage the gamers is something that we would like to continue to explore," she said.

Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons recently released its long-awaited gameplay reveal at gamescom, and it gave us an extended look at main character Kaatri and the powers she has at her disposal.

If you weren’t already aware, Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is a single-player, third-person, open-world action-adventure game from developer Invoke Studios where you wield forbidden magic to bend the rules, outwit obstacles, and overcome challenges through creativity. Kaatri is the warlock, and the gameplay reveal begins with her and Tasha, her witch queen patron. We see Tasha upgrade Kaatri’s Warlock’s Eye, which allows her to see Raw Magic and is the key to finding new spells and improving the ones she has.

From there, Kaatri moves to Darkon, a Domain of Dread pulled directly from D&D. It’s unstable and on the verge of being ripped apart by Mists. There is time to explore Darkon, but it’s filled with danger and opportunity around every corner.

Exploration is clearly a big focus of Warlock. As you travel through Darkon, you’ll need to stay alert and use magic to help you make your way. Your Warlock’s Eye will point you toward Raw Magic, but it’ll be up to you to figure out what to do with it. You need to pay attention to the sights and sounds around you and decide what deserves your attention.

Kaatri heads into Crickshank, a settlement in Darkon that harbors a dark secret that players can uncover. Skev, her imp companion, flies alongside as Crickshank's biggest mystery pulls them underground, beneath its shops. Kaatri enters the ossuary catacombs, and we see her utilize both her dexterity and magic for rapid traversal.

She emerges into a large chamber full of monsters, including the eyeball-like aberration Death Kiss. Kaatri rushes into combat and uses a spell to latch onto a column and pull it down onto a monster. The developers have revealed that this spell is called Tasha’s Leash and is a brand-new cantrip that can be used to pull or throw objects whenever you want, showing that use of the environment will be a major part of combat.

With the Death Kiss closing in on her, Kaatri then uses another spell to swap positions with a different monster, allowing her to escape to high ground while the Death Kiss destroys the monster she swapped with. The developers shared that this is called Fey Switch, a new Warlock advanced spell.

These new spells are all well and good, but if you’ve played D&D before, you know there’s one tried and true spell that’s a mainstay for all Warlocks: Eldritch Blast. So of course, we get a look at that too. As with its D&D counterpart, Eldritch Blast’s value in Warlock is its versatility. It’s a cantrip, so it’s consistently available. And it’s helpful in just about any situation, whether you need a ranged attack to apply pressure to an enemy, want to cleanly finish one off, or want to keep your offensive momentum going in between melee strikes and bigger spells. It’s a key part of your kit, just as it should be.

The gameplay reveal then shows another way you can use the environment: weather. Kaatri makes her way into a misty field and invokes the Downpour Ritual, calling forth rain and forming puddles across a field where vampires are fighting a horde of zombies. Kaatri casts Witch Bolt, shooting out electricity that spreads across the wet surfaces and forks through enemies.

Since she’s a Pact of the Blade Warlock, Kaatri is then able to conjure a sword and other pact weapons to switch into melee combat. And that’s where it all comes together, as Kaatri weaves together magical and melee combat and showcases the core of Warlock’s combat system. The effects of one spell can feed into the next, as you chain together different abilities depending on the enemies you’re facing and the space you’re in.

The video ends with Kaatri finding a Strand of Magic, giving us a glimpse at the Raw Magic that’s hidden across Darkon that will fuel Kaatri’s progression throughout the game. It’s clear that Warlock draws on familiar spells, locations, and lore that D&D fans will immediately recognize, but tells a new and original story that newcomers can dive into and learn everything they need to know.

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is slated to release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2027. To get the latest news and updates, you can check out the game’s official website or follow it on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, or YouTube. And for more coverage of the game as we get more info, stay tuned to IGN.

A swath of angry spouses on social media believe that Grand Theft Auto 6's in-depth relationship mechanic is equivalent to cheating on your real-life partner and worth breaking up over.

Last week, we got a boatload of details on Grand Theft Auto 6 thanks to media previews and an extended look at the game from Rockstar itself. One of the big takeaways from this media blitz is that there is an actual relationship between the game's two protagonists, Jason and Lucia, that players can nurture. You can take the other character on dates, do crimes together, text them, and even hold hands (aw!). For some people, though, that last detail causing tensions in their real life relationships.

Over on TikTok, a variety of concerned partners stated that wouldn't allow their partner to play the game, and a concerning amount of comments on these posts echoed this sentiment.

"In absolutely no human way is my fiancé playing GTA 6," said one TikToker. "You literally have to maintain a relationship with a girl [in] the video game and text her, and she'll get mad if you don't text her back. You have to take her on dates and you can have [sex] with her. [...] Don't let your boyfriend or fiancé or husband play GTA 6."

Other TikTok creators outright labeled playing the game as cheating.

@el.michelle3

The whole relationship and yk what else

♬ life goes on - lucie

This has become a major subject of discourse on social media since the GTA 6 extended look went live on August 27. Some are pushing back on the idea, arguing that it's simply a video game and not that deep. Others have also pointed out that millions of people have played The Sims for years, having virtual sex and creating entire families without anyone raising an eyebrow.

Rockstar has also been very clear that you don't actually have to engage with this part of GTA 6 if you don't want to. The two characters want a relationship at the start of the game, but it's up to the player to actively pursue that. If you don't, they won't be as head-over-heels for each other, but will still have each other's backs when it matters most. If you do choose to make the two a power couple, you'll likely get more mileage out of the game, though.

"When you bring them together, it feels like you’re a steward of their relationship, and you feel protective of them as a unit," said Rockstar North co-studio head, Rob Nelson, in an exclusive interview with IGN. "But this is something we did not know when we started, and it really had to be something we felt our way through. But I will say that whether you’re getting in trouble, or you’re running from the cops, or getting in a car, or waiting for the other one — playing as them together feels very cool. It feels like you’re taking care of them, if that’s something you’re into."

Rockstar has yet to confirm if you can have sex with the two characters outside of scripted story moments. The trailers certainly imply there will be sexual scenes between the two, but whether you can actively initiate that by building the relationship meter is unclear. IGN broached the subject with Nelson, who noted that physical intimacy is a notable part of a relationship and that Rockstar is trying to figure out how to implement that side of things into the game in a way that feels right.

“For anybody that wants to play around with the idea of role playing their relationship, it's amazing," said Nelson. "So many people on the team have connected with the characters. But physical intimacy is a huge part of a relationship, and so it has to be done right. Like anything that we do, we have to iterate and try things and iterate on it until we figure out what feels right."

GTA 4 allowed you to develop relationships which would lead to Niko being invited for intercourse, but it was never explicitly shown. On a more controversal note, Rockstar Games developed an interactive sex mini-game in 2005's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It was eventually cut from the game to avoid an Adults Only rating, which would've prevented Rockstar from being able to sell the game at most major retailers. However, the files remained in the game and modders were able to add it back in. This led to major issues for Rockstar, including legal battles, a recall of existing copies of the game, and scrutiny from the government. As a result, you probably shouldn't expect any interactive sex mini-games in GTA 6.

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

Naughty Dog's next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, has wrapped shooting its performance capture.

Naughty Dog confirmed in a new social media post that Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet has concluded its "cinematic shoot." This means that all of the story content has been captured by the actors and likely suggests that the game is entering its final stages. Performance capture often takes years, with actors performing the game in chunks as the team simultaneously continues to create the game.

"See you, space cowboy..."
That is a wrap on the very ambitious Intergalactic cinematic shoot! This cast killed it! Cannot wait to show you their incredible work when the time is right! pic.twitter.com/WgqgcHGm8K

— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) August 31, 2026

For reference, The Last of Us Part 2 wrapped performance capture in April 2019, roughly a year before the game's release in June 2020. However, Naughty Dog had initially planned for that game to release in February 2020 before a delay pushed it to May 2020. Once COVID happened, the game was briefly delayed once more to June 2020.

With that said, it's possible that Intergalactic is just a year away from launch. A 2027 release has been rumored and speculated for a while, but nothing has been confirmed by Naughty Dog. There is a PlayStation State of Play later this week, so it's possible that Naughty Dog will share new details on the game there. It has been nearly two years since the title was announced, and Naughty Dog hasn't said much about it since its reveal.

Fans have also been frustrated that Naughty Dog hasn't had a game since 2020, but that was never part of the plan. The studio was meant to release The Last of Us Online between The Last of Us 2 and Intergalactic, but its cancellation created a more significant gap in releases for the studio. Going forward, there likely won't be big generational gaps as Naughty Dog has multiple projects in development, which are speculated to be Uncharted 5 and The Last of Us Part 3.

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

Nintendo fans believe Ubisoft may have just revealed the date of the next Nintendo Direct, and if true, it's very soon.

Recently, a bunch of content from the new Just Dance game, Just Dance: Decades of Hits, surfaced online, prompting a response from Ubisoft. The studio confirmed the content is real and stated that it would reveal more on September 10.

Fans have started to connect the dots that this may be the date of the next Nintendo Direct. Historically, Ubisoft shows off the dancing franchise during Nintendo Directs in September, and Nintendo tends to hold these Directs around the date mentioned in Ubisoft's post.

Hello Dancers, we are sharing an important message with you today. pic.twitter.com/Z0hFuKUVIz

— Just Dance (@justdancegame) August 27, 2026

Of course, this is just speculation, but it would track based on Nintendo's history. The company is overdue for some news on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, and Sony is also gearing up for a State of Play later this week. It's not uncommon for the two companies to have presentations back to back like this, though that is often coincidental.

Should this come to fruition, it means we will get a Nintendo Direct next Thursday, and we'll likely hear more about it early next week. It's unclear what else might show up at the Nintendo Direct, but you can likely expect a big focus on the Ocarina of Time remake, since that releases in November. We may also get a tease of what's on the horizon for 2027, but we'll just have to wait and see.

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

Housemarque co-founder Ilari Kuittinen has announced his exit from the PlayStation studio after 31 years.

The Saros developer shared the news with its followers with Kuittinen's final message, confirming today as his last with the team. It's a lengthy letter to fans that saw the studio head wave goodbye after overseeing the launch of arcade-y classics like Saros, Returnal, Resogun, and more.

"After 33 years in the games industry and 31 incredible years at Housemarque—the studio I co-founded with Harri Tikkanen—today marks my last day at the company," he said. "Starting out in 1993 with Terramarque, and then joining forces with Harri to establish Housemarque in 1995, we had a passion for games but no real blueprint for building a business. Looking back, I feel immensely fortunate. We had the luck of being in the right place at the right time during three decades of incredible industry growth, allowing us to stay fiercely independent for 26 years before finding a home within the PlayStation Studios family."

"My core purpose as a leader has always been simple: to facilitate an environment where extraordinary creators have the freedom and protection to do what they do best."

Housemarque has evolved in unique ways through the years. Though its commitment to gameplay has remained through the decades, it branched beyond simple shoot-em-ups throughout the lifecycles of the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles.

PlayStation fans will remember when Resogun helped the PS4 launch in 2013. Twin-stick shooters like Alienation and Nex Machina would then arrive in 2016 and 2017, respectively, but Housemarque then went on to truly push the boundaries of its capabilities with its more story-driven roguelike, Returnal, for PS5 in April 2021.

Sony officially cemented the company as a PlayStation Studio later that same year, and in April of this year, it released its follow-up, Saros. Kuittinen was there for it all.

In his letter, he pointed to Housemarque's evolution into a AAA developer, its games, and its status as a pioneering Finnish game studio as three particularly noteworthy achievements he and the team have managed to accomplish. He also clarified that this isn't a sudden change; studio veteran Sami 'Haxu' Hakala took over as managing director July 1, 2026. It's something Kuittinen said he, Hakala, and the rest of the team have been carefully planning behind-the-scenes.

"Housemarque’s strategy and creative vision are in exceptional hands," he added. "As for me? After 33 continuous years without a major break, I am taking a rare and well-deserved breather trying to find out how good I am at doing nothing! To Harri, our partners at SIE, our global industry friends, and every single team member who has ever walked through Housemarque’s doors: thank you for making the past 31 years the privilege of a lifetime."

A final message from our co-founder, Ilari Kuittinen pic.twitter.com/ubf0yZJBWq

— Housemarque (@Housemarque) August 31, 2026

IGN gave Saros a 7/10 review upon its launch earlier this year. We said, at the time, that it "tries at an interesting and ambitious story it isn't always able to effectively tell, but Housemarque has once again proved that its bullet-hell sensibilities mesh incredibly well with fluid and challenging action."

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

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be perfect for 10 seconds. To write the perfect sentence. One that sings, captures hearts, evokes emotion. To make the perfect play, to eradicate the gap between body and mind and live a complete life in an instant of pure movement. To be, for just a moment, free. There are moments in Onimusha: Way of the Sword where everything else fades. The controller falls away, the universe collapses, and the distance between you and Miyamoto Musashi is annihilated. There is nothing but move and counter move, sword clashing against sword, call and response. You will risk everything for another moment, another chance, and do it again and again until you claim victory or your chances are spent. As long as Musashi stands, you have a chance. Onimusha challenged me, and I used it to challenge myself. I found a connection to its hero I did not expect and will carry with me. It is a remarkable video game.

Strange as it may seem, Onimusha is a work of very loose historical fiction. Miyamoto Musashi, and his rival Sasaki Ganryu, both based on real samurai who share their names, are attacked and killed by monsters called Genma after Musashi bests the master of a rival school of swordsmanship. A strange man in hell then brings Musashi back to life and forces him to wear an Oni gauntlet that can absorb the souls of fallen foes – one that already contains the spirit of a woman named Shizuka. Now imbued with the power to stand against the Genma, Shizuka has Musashi join forces with fellow Onimusha Takamura, who guards the Oni Gate separating Earth and hell, and his assistant Okuni, to protect the city from the corrupting Malice that’s twisting everything in sight. But Musashi isn’t the only one the old man gifts with a gauntlet. Ganryu gets one, too, and it can feed on human souls just as easily as Genma ones.

There’s more, but I really do think you should discover Way of the Sword’s story for yourself. It’s more of a character-driven tale than a plot-driven one, and this cast sings. At the center of it is Musashi, as compelling and outright cool a character as you could ask for. He resents the gauntlet and the strength it has given him because he didn’t earn it himself. He’s not a hero by nature; he just wants to hone his skill with a blade and prove himself against the best the world has to offer, but his circumstances have left him no other choice. The only way to get the gauntlet off is to feed it enough Genma souls that it heals him. He’s crude and his confidence can border on arrogance, but it’s part of what makes him so interesting. He can give as good as he gets with both his mouth and his sword, and it’s incredible to watch him talk mad smack to demons as he cuts them down in the coolest ways you’ve ever seen. There are cutscenes here that are so insanely well done they've seared themselves into my brain, and watching Musashi do his thing often had me and my wife (who became so invested in the story that she watched my entire playthrough) saying “Oh my God, he's so cool” out loud what felt like every five minutes.

But it's not just Musashi's skills and swagger that endears him to you, it’s also the relationships he forms with the other characters. Watching him go from calling Shizuka “Gauntlet Lady” to forming a ride-or-die partnership is a joy, and I understood it because I cared about her, too. Musashi is the kind of guy who is smart enough to respect and listen to Takamura and a good enough man to mentor Okuni where he can. These relationships form Onimusha's emotional core, and as I watched its characters change and come to care about one another, I did, too. It doesn’t hurt that Way of the Sword has some of the best facial animations I’ve ever seen in a video game, effectively selling every second of how they feel. Musashi’s is based on the likeness of legendary Japanese actor Toishiro Mifune, who played Musashi in films directed by the equally legendary Akira Kurosawa, and Capcom has done a remarkable job of translating aspects of Mifune's on-screen mannerisms, right down to his habit of scratching the back of his head and the way he walks. Using the likeness of a dead actor is always fraught, but Capcom navigates it with aplomb here.

Onimusha treats its characters with respect, but it's never scared to have fun with them, either. Musashi is a brilliant swordsman, but it’s hilarious to watch him get into a boat to help Okuni and realize he doesn't know how to steer it because he doesn't know what an oar is – something Okuni rightfully roasts him for. But he gives it right back when Okuni volunteers to play “the most beautiful girl” in a nearby village so they can use her as bait to sneak into a fortress.

And Shizuka… man. If Musashi is Onimusha’ heart, Shizuka is its clear-eyed, iron-willed soul. It would be easy for the spirit of a woman trapped in the Oni gauntlet to be reduced to a supporting character, there solely to make Musashi (and by extension, you) feel good about himself. And while she does gas you up when you pull off something impressive, she's never presented as anything less than Musashi's equal. He may be the one doing the fighting, but he can only do it because he's borrowing her strength. They need each other, and their journey is one they could only undertake together.

The writing is impressive, but what truly elevates Onimusha is its voice acting. I played Way of the Sword in Japanese, and the performances are incredible across the board. The English cast does fine work, too, but everyone sounds like they're from some part of London, and it distracted me – besides, playing a game set in feudal Japan in English seems just as wrong as watching Seven Samurai or Yojimbo dubbed. And after rolling credits, it is impossible for me to imagine anyone other than Yoshimasa Hosoya as Musashi or Aya Endō as Shizuka. If you can get past the subtitles, it’s absolutely how I recommend playing.

Onimusha isn’t just an excellent story; it’s also a damn fine action game. Since Takamura’s duty is to protect the hellgate, he can’t leave it alone for long, lest a bunch of Genma pour out. That leaves Musashi to take the fight to them. Kyoto serves as your base of operations, but it’s also the city you’re fighting to protect. You’ll spend much of your time here killing Genma, closing the Rifts that spawn them, and destroying the Malice-producing plants infesting the city, which opens up more of it for you to explore.

But you’re not stuck here; Musashi and Shizuka will also often visit other areas – temples, mountains, forests, and even the Imperial palace – to hunt down powerful Genma and try to figure out why everything is going sideways. These areas feel like real, distinct places, each with its own vibe. Onimusha is more “wheel and spokes” than open world, but there’s plenty to explore and discover, including materials that can be used to upgrade Musashi’s sword, clothing, and Oni Gauntlet, providing more damage, health, and souls (which fuel the gauntlet's power), respectively. Any trip into the wider world means fighting Genma, but fortunately, that’s where Onimusha is at its best.

Initially, I actually found it too easy, so I gave myself a challenge: I would play without using any items. That meant everything from healing items to items that brought me back from the dead to items that granted temporary buffs. I figured it wouldn’t last; you aren’t meant to play this way, so I thought eventually I’d grow bored of the self-imposed handicap, get stuck, or just need to get this review wrapped up. I came close to giving in many times, but I’d always think, “I’ve made it this far, just a few more tries and then I’ll give up.” But I never did, and eventually the credits rolled. I’m not telling you this to brag; I didn’t do it to put it in this review, or to show off, or prove a point. I did it because I wanted to see if I could. I did it for myself. And I can’t write about Onimusha without talking about it.

Musashi is an incredibly skilled swordsman, with light and heavy attacks that he can chain together into short combos. It’s familiar stuff, but thankfully none of it (nor sprinting in combat) costs stamina. Musashi is always at his best. And where he (and Onimusha’s combat system) really shines is on defense. In addition to your standard block, Musashi can also dodge, parry, reflect, and do special Issen counterattacks if your timing is precise enough.

Each option has its own strengths and weaknesses. Dodging is the most reliable, but unless you perfectly time your move, it will only just get you out of trouble or allow for limited follow-up attacks. Parries require putting yourself in harm's way, but they both deplete a foe's stamina and open them up to further punishment, while deflects just take a massive chunk of stamina (unless you're returning a projectile to sender; that hurts). But the white whale is the Issen: by pressing an attack button at just the right time (in my experience, as soon as the enemy swings their weapon), Musashi will sidestep the blow so quickly it looks like he disappears and then reappears somewhere else, triggering a counterattack that deals massive damage and takes out an enormous chunk of stamina.

Landing this feels incredible, and if you time another attack as your Issen hits, you can chain them together to wipe out several small enemies at once. If you attack at the same moment an enemy does, you’ll even trigger a clash where you have to press the opposite button of the attack you started with to win (so if you trigger one using a light attack, you must follow up with a heavy). You might also lock swords and have to mash your way out to overpower your foe. All of these systems combine to form a combat system where you always have to pay attention, and anything feels like it can happen. It never gets old.

What makes Onimusha's combat special is that each move has its place. Blocking is a last resort as it depletes stamina. Run out, and an attack will break your guard and deal huge damage. But that doesn’t mean it doesn't have its uses in a pinch. Dodging is particularly good against unarmed attacks, and if you time one right, you’ll fill a special meter. Once full, a perfectly timed dodge – called a Reflex Dodge – will trigger a Reflex Combo, which will often kill smaller Genma outright and carve a chunk from elite enemies. Parries do a little of everything, and if you nail one, you charge the Blazing Gauge, which sets your sword aflame and boosts the damage of your attacks. Deflects sacrifice the parry’s ability for follow-up attacks in exchange for massive stamina damage, perfect against armored enemies who are largely immune to your basic attacks because you can focus on depleting their stamina entirely, staggering them, and landing the absurdly powerful Break Issen execution-style moves. But as powerful as deflects and parries are, they can’t be used against grabs, which require you to dodge.

The Issen is your defensive holy grail, but the timing is strict and it doesn’t work on everything: certain attacks can't be Issen’d but can be dodged, parried, or deflected, forcing you to pick a strategy on the fly. But the biggest risk of the Issen is that it leaves you wide open – miss it, and you're eating whatever attack is coming your way. And since the telegraphed (and most damaging) attacks are the most reliable targets for Issen attempts, the technique always carries huge risks. But lock down your timing and you can do things like Issen a lightning bolt. Yes, really.

What’s most impressive, though, is how Way of the Sword sells all of this. When you parry or deflect an attack, it doesn’t look like you are just performing some generic animation; it looks like you actually parry that attack. It makes each fight, especially against bosses, feel like unique clashes between individuals. Feedback is everything in an action game like this, and few feel as good moment-to-moment as Onimusha does. Combine all that with your regular attacks, the special Oni Armaments that serve as high-damage-but-meter-dependent attacks, and the ability to break a foe's guard (plus a few other things I won't spoil), and Onimusha is constantly forcing you to both come up with a strong gameplan and react quickly as the unexpected tests it.

Every enemy in Onimusha drops souls: yellow souls heal, red souls are currency used to upgrade certain skills, and blue souls recharge your Oni Armaments. There is another kind, but… well, you should see it for yourself. The only reliable way to get yellow souls is to use a certain Oni Armament (shout out to The Two Celestials) or pull off Break Issens. When you use a Break Issen on a regular foe, you kill them outright; against bosses, however, you choose a weak point to attack. Striking at weak points marked in red will deal incredible damage, while choosing a purple one will deal about half as much damage, but reward you with additional souls.

And here is where my own imposed limitations came into play most. By refusing to use healing items, I made it so I could only recover health by absorbing souls (or at the Spirit Mirrors where you save your game between fights). That meant staggering the boss or spending my limited gauge to use The Two Celestials. Success was built in small moments: knowing when to parry, when to deflect, when to risk the Issen, and managing my Reflex Dodges so I could spend Reflex Combos in the right moments. I had to truly learn the fights, to understand what was needed of me. Since many bosses have multiple phases and health bars, I would often master one only to get clobbered by the next. And every mistake cost me; getting hit by a powerful strike cost souls. I wasn't just losing health, I was being robbed of the resources I needed to get it back, too. And I wasn't the only one who could absorb souls – most bosses can as well, and if they get enough, they'll power up and gain access to new attacks that would normally be granted during the next phase, making the rest of the fight even harder. That rules.

Some fights took me hours to learn, and I was often tempted to give up. Onimusha wasn't doing this to me, I was doing it to myself – but each time I died, I would take a deep breath, wait a second, and press retry. To succeed required every tool I had. I couldn’t think beyond the next 10 seconds, the next decision, the next moment. Most Break Issens were spent to gain souls and restore my health. Each time, I was prolonging the fight. Each time, I was betting on myself for the next 10 seconds. I learned sometimes it was better to take the damage on the Break Issens when my health was in a good place, how to save The Two Celestials for the right moments.

After a while, the distance between myself and Musashi would fall away as I acted purely on instinct. This is yielding to the flow of the moment, not fighting it or trying to force it to what I wanted. I gave myself to the next 10 seconds, and in those moments, Onimusha soared. There are fights here – against Benkei, the Oni brothers, the Greater Nue, Ganryu, and several more I won’t spoil – that I will remember for a very long time. They would be excellent regardless, but by choosing to limit myself, I made the comebacks and the moments of perfection matter even more. Like Musashi, I put my belief in myself, in the strength of my technique and whatever I could carve from my opponent. Just when I thought it was impossible, I would find a way. My journey mirrored his.

Onimusha's bosses are its greatest strength, but its optional content is also strong. So strong, in fact, that I did all of its side missions (and everything else) over the course of my 39-hour playthrough. My favorites were quests from Lady Murasaki, a writer whose spirit stayed in the world of the living to tell stories. She would send me to get to the bottom of anything that seemed interesting so she could write about it, whether that was a child searching for a father consumed by revenge, a wife praying for her abusive husband's recovery, or a man who believed he had been blessed with immortality by the gods.

What's even better is that many of these side quests build upon one another, telling a single narrative across several smaller stories that Murasaki herself then records. Other side quests often don't feature the same level of detail (aside from Murasaki's and Shizuka’s, most side quests are not voiced), but using drawings to find hidden treasures scattered around Kyoto, returning to previous areas to shoot down flying Genma, or just helping average citizens is often funny and rewarding. Even hunting down and rescuing Murasaki’s missing Lion Dogs, a fairly normal take on collectibles, was entertaining because the dogs themselves were incredibly cute and each one also rewarded me with a retelling of a story from Japanese mythology. Some were funny, some were sad, and some were just plain weird, but I enjoyed reading them all. I also loved helping Shizuka find hidden Oni Portals scattered around the city, which illuminated more of her story and unlocked more tiers in my skill trees.

I normally wouldn’t spill much ink over skill trees. In many games, the options locked within them feel like things you should have from the start that have only been taken away so that you have something to pursue; Onimusha, however, makes upgrades feel meaningful.

And it's not just skill trees. Equippable charms and stat upgrades provide an incentive to hunt down the upgrade items scattered around Kyoto and the other areas, which in turn made me want to explore the city, figure out workarounds to areas that had been blocked off, and open shortcuts once I did so I could get back there more easily. Every part of Onimusha touches every other part, and each piece is better for how it combines into a greater whole. Even something as simple as earning a new look for my sword or finding a new haori for Musashi to wear pointed to how far I’d come on my journey.

That all said, some minibosses such as the Byakue and Dohatsu-ten appear what feels like dozens of times across the main story and all of the sidequests, and certain main boss fights happen a few times as well. It’s a Capcom classic, but I was never bothered by these recursions; in fact, I often welcomed them. It was a chance to test my skills again, to gain greater mastery, to pit the Will and Musashi that were here now against those that had come before. Each time, I learned something. Each time, I sharpened my skills. That will be handy when I go back for another run in New Game plus or on Carnage, an additional difficulty you unlock after you complete the campaign. This time, though, I think I’ll let myself use items. Probably.

Ever since I first got infected with Porphyric Hemophilia in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind or ran amok in Los Angeles in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, I’ve been patiently waiting for an open-world vampire RPG that I could really sink my teeth into. Frustratingly, despite numerous attempts in all those years, I hadn’t found anything that quenched that long-standing thirst. With The Blood of Dawnwalker, an RPG that shares a ton of DNA with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt made by some of its former developers, my hunt is finally over. Not only does it take the vampire fantasy to the neck-xt level, it also smartly finds workarounds for some of the limitations that can be a bit annoying (like having to stay out of the light), and introduces other interesting and clever ideas along the way. The day/night cycle that has you switching between human and vampire consistently makes for compelling questing, the limited time you’re given to complete your adventure makes even minor decisions carry enormous stakes, and the numerous ways to make its bloody tale your own have motivated me to rise from the coffin and replay this journey more than any game has in quite a long time. This is the vampire RPG I’ve been waiting for and I find myself entirely under its spell.

The Blood of Dawnwalker is a third-person action RPG that puts you in the shoes of a no-longer-fully-human protagonist with long hair and facial scars who runs around using swords and magic to kill monsters in a gritty, dark fantasy setting. Perhaps not the most original premise from a bunch of former Witcher devs, but hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t pull it off the stuffed unicorn. You play as Coen of Laslea, whose town is taken over by vampires, then through a series of unfortunate events, is infected with vampirism and begins practicing the dark art of witchcraft on the same day. Tough break! Naturally, you set out on a roughly 40-hour quest for revenge against those evil bloodsuckers, using your unique abilities as a Dawnwalker (someone who has all the strengths and weaknesses of a vampire by night but a human by day) to save the valley of Vale Sangora from the clutches of evil.

While the premise is pretty basic, Dawnwalker excels in the telling, with a cast of extremely well-written characters across the board, a world that’s filled with more mysteries than you could ever hope to uncover during your time-constrained journey, and some weirdly impressive arguments for why maybe vampires should be in charge of the world that made me pause to wonder if I was, in fact, the baddie. I instantly found myself eagerly spending time with Anca, the kind witch with a tragic past who split her time between either teaching me latin and magic or shamelessly flirting with me. Meanwhile, Crake, the rebel leader with a tendency to be heinously cruel in service of the cause, and Lacra, an allied vampire who casually committed war crimes half the time I hung out with her, managed to win me over despite being huge pains in my ass. Even the primary villains, like Brencis, who envisions a world ruled by vampires, and Ambrus, the footsoldier who revels in the displacement of the hierarchy of nobility and fancies a gentleman’s duel, were all incredibly compelling figures.

Dawnwalker’s best and most unique feature, quite appropriately for a game all about vampires, is its day/night cycle and the time mechanics built around it. As a spell-slinging human by day who turns into a blood-sucking monster by night, just about everything you do changes depending on the time of day. For example, in your human form you’ll guzzle down food and medicine to heal yourself, battle with swords and a fistful of witchcraft spells, and move around the old fashioned way by running, jumping, climbing, and whatnot. As a vampire, all that food and medicine is completely useless to you and your health can only be restored by consuming blood, plus you’ll primarily fight with your bare claws and gain a whole bunch of neat movement options – that includes teleporting around as a cloud of smoke, walking on walls and ceilings like the creepy little creature you are, and even turning into a wolf.

That means instead of building one loadout of armor, weapons, consumables, and abilities you’re happy with, Dawnwalker requires you to maintain two separate builds, which gave my stat-obsessed brain twice as much to joyfully tinker with. My vampire build was an absolute terror on the battlefield, with all my abilities centered around feeding off enemies to continually restore my health, and I sought out as many items as possible that increased my claw damage to turn myself into an unkillable unarmed freak of nature. Meanwhile, my human build primarily relied on high risk/high reward spells that put a whole bunch of nasty status effects on my foes at the cost of draining my own life and making me quite squishy. These two extremely different ways to play meant I was almost sitting forward during combat. Best of all, each of these loadouts is kept separate and automatically toggled between when you switch forms, so you don’t have to manually swap out all your armor and weapons twice a day.

Speaking of fighting, you’ll be doing quite a bit of that, since you’ll primarily solve your problems in Vale Sangora with the pointy end of your blade. The combat is quite good, with the caveat that it has a bit of a steep learning curve I suspect will be equally divisive. The main way in which it sets itself apart from most RPGs of this kind is that it uses a directional parry system where you have to match the direction the enemy is swinging, which kinda reminded me of For Honor. You can also just block attacks like normal, but doing so is fairly impractical (at least on higher difficulties) since it drains your stamina and doesn’t provide the openings for counterattacks that are so vital to success.

It sounds simple, but it took me longer than I’d like to admit to feel comfortable with it. The first handful of hours were fairly frustrating, and I frequently found myself fumbling through most combat encounters while cursing my ancestors. But there was light at the end of that tunnel – once I got over the hump and this system clicked, I grew to not only like it, but also feel pretty damn good at it. Now I’m able to down even the most formidable hordes without breaking a sweat, and that mastery felt earned beyond my stats going up. (Granted, I insist on playing most games on the hardest difficulty, so it’s quite possible I was just making things especially hard on myself and you’ll have an easier time from the jump.)

Aside from parrying, though, you’ll be using a pretty familiar bag of tricks for an action game like this, with a combination of standard attacks, special maneuvers that are specific to whichever weapon you’ve got equipped, and a bunch of abilities you can activate on a cooldown. Naturally, all of this will differ depending on whether or not you’re in human or vampire form, which goes a long way toward keeping things from getting too repetitive. For example, as a human, I fancied status effect spells that drained health and stunned enemies at the cost of my own life force, but as a vampire, I’d pummel things mercilessly with my bare hands and banshee shriek in my enemy’s face if I was feeling cheeky.

That said, these bouts definitely have some relatively minor but pretty obvious places they could improve. For example, the lock-on function consistently gave me trouble when trying to target a specific enemy, and it stayed annoying no matter how long I practiced with it. The camera could also get caught in odd spots in a way that was similarly aggravating. And while the variety of enemies you encounter is pretty good overall, the more common beasts you run into in the wild, like wolves and boars, appear way too frequently – by the end of my time with Coen, I was fully pissed off at the mere sight of the overpopulated canines.

While adventuring out in the world, certain activities are only available at specific times of day. For example, you’ll need access to your vampire form’s superior movement capabilities in order to climb to the top of lookout towers and add nearby points of interest to your map, while rituals that require blood magic are only available in human form. But even activities available at any time, like most side quests, can have drastically different outcomes depending on which form you take. Some characters will be less likely to trust you if you interact with them in vampire form, while some areas might be inaccessible if you choose to tackle it while human. If you really muck things up, your character might just straight up murder a super important NPC because you stupidly interacted with them while in a state of overwhelming blood thirst. Not that I ever did that at all, because I’m super smart and very good at video games.

The most interesting aspect of The Blood of Dawnwalker’s day/night cycle is how it ties the passage of time to specific actions you take, giving you a finite amount of time to complete your overarching quest. After the story’s opening chapter, you’ll have exactly 30 days to bring Brencis’ rule to an end, and that deadline is stressfully enforced as almost every action you take costs a certain amount of time to complete. There isn’t a ticking timer or anything – in fact, you can freely explore the world or just stand around idly as long as you want without time passing. Instead, time is treated as a resource: want to buy the next level in a particular skill? Well, in addition to the skill points required, you’ll also have to pay the much more costly price of the hours it takes you to train in it. Want to help that old man with his minor problem because you’re roleplaying as a good person? Fine! Go right ahead… but that’s one fewer segment of time you’ve got to potentially complete a more substantial sidequest.

At first I thought I might find this limitation irritating, since I quite enjoy taking my time to smell the roses and mark every checkbox off my list in these kinds of open-worlds, but I quickly realized how treating time as a currency makes just about every aspect of Dawnwalker better. No matter how hard you try, you won’t have enough hours to complete every side quest, buy every skill, or tie up every loose end as well as you’d like, which means you’re forced to compromise, pick your battles, and make hard but impactful decisions almost constantly. For example, early on in my travels, I talked my way into a prison camp to get some intel from a prisoner there, one I would have gone out of my way to rescue under normal circumstances. But when I saw that it would cost me three pips of time to do so (each day has 16 total), I decided to leave him to rot instead. I was forced to make compromises like this every step of the way, all in service of ensuring I had enough time for the important stuff, and I regularly found myself surprised at my own decisions. Fittingly, it made me feel like I truly was letting the darkness of my new vampiric abilities compromise my humanity in my quest for revenge. It’s brutal, nerve-wracking, and completely awesome.

This harrowing time-crunch ultimately has a pretty enormous impact on how your journey ends as well. I won’t spoil anything, but alternate endings will only open up to you if you’ve met certain characters or taken specific actions. On my first playthrough, there were entire supporting characters and story components I completely missed out on, and I didn’t realize the scope of what I hadn’t seen until I took an entirely different approach on my second playthrough. In a third (much shorter) playthrough, I just went for a brute force approach to see what would happen if I rushed straight to the end without meeting anyone while leveling up as little as possible, and I was not disappointed by the hilarious result. This is one of those games where I not only wanted to play through multiple times, but it almost felt mandatory in order to see everything Vale Sangora had in store. I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt that way about an RPG.

One thing I often worry about with open-world RPGs is just how bad their performance and technical bugs might be, and The Blood of Dawnwalker thankfully finds itself on the less egregious side of the spectrum. Sure, on a standard PlayStation 5 it’s got the occasional framerate wonkiness, the camera sometimes clips through stuff in awkward ways, and an enemy will occasionally go right through the floor when you kill it – but almost everything I saw like that was pretty minor and uncommon, and I never had a single hard crash, broken questline, or anything else frustrating like that. The worst thing I encountered with regularity were blurry textures on characters’ clothes (or sometimes detail in their faces), which would distractingly never smooth out from time to time. Importantly, the version I played did not include the 60fps performance mode that was recently announced, so I can’t say just how well it holds up on that front, but I wasn’t particularly bothered by the 30FPS quality mode since it usually looked and ran well enough anyway.

Sony has confirmed not one but two PlayStation State of Play presentations will air later this week.

As part of a PlayStation.Blog post, the company revealed the first of the two showcases will start streaming this Thursday, September 3, at 6am PT / 9am ET / 3:00pm CEST / 10:00pm JST. It's promised to feature "updates and announcements from PlayStation Studios and our third-party partners" and will end with an "extended look at the vast world" of Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 Revelation.

Then, immediately after the first show concludes, a State of Play Japan broadcast will begin. Attack on Titan and Octopath Traveler 0 voice actor Yuki Kaji has returned to host the show, which is said to "offer deep dives into upcoming games from game studios in Japan and Asia, including new gameplay, announcements, and more."

How long each show will be remains unclear, but we can already think of at least a few games that players are hoping to see. Social media feeds have already filled up with mentions of Naughty Dog and its long-awaited sci-fi game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Nearly two years removed from its initial reveal, we've still seen very, very little from the studio's new IP. PlayStation players were already upset to see it absent from June's show, so let's hope the September State of Play gives fans at least a little something to hold onto.

Another game on the horizon is Insomniac Games' Marvel's Wolverine. The next installment in its line of superhero video games has a PS5 release date of September 15, a little less than two weeks from when the presentation is set to begin. That makes this week's show the perfect opportunity for Sony to get its claws firmly into any hesitant fans, even if there isn't much left to show.

What else can we expect? Well, outside of an even closer look at Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, it's somewhat of a mystery, but if all else fails, you can bet livestream chats will be brimming with at least one topic: physical games. Gaming fans have continued to surround PlayStation with calls for Sony to ditch its plan to kill physical disc support in January 2028, and this week's presentation will likely be no different.

We'll know more about what Sony is planning for the next chapter of the PS5 when its two State of Play showcases air later this week. Until then, you can see why Sony said the discontinuation of physical discs will never have a negative impact on its business.

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

This is an IGN opinion piece from Ryan McCaffrey, who worked at Official Xbox Magazine from 2002-2012 during the original Xbox and Xbox 360 era before joining IGN, where he remains “the Xbox guy.” In the run-up to Xbox’s 25th anniversary, he’ll be sharing his memories from the platform’s first quarter-century.

I pushed my way to the front of the line of IGN editors to review South Park: The Stick of Truth in 2014. I’ve seen every episode of South Park before and since. I am of the opinion that show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the two premier satirists of our generation. In my view, the puppet-led Team America: World Police is a comedic masterpiece. Heck, I even love the box-office bust the guys starred in back in 1998, BaseKetball. So yeah, I’m a massive fan of these guys, and when I learned they were making a role-playing game with Obsidian Entertainment, of all developers (at Parker and Stone’s request!), I couldn’t wait to see the results of this match made in heaven. At least on paper. Because unlike previous infamous South Park video games like South Park Rally, Parker and Stone would be directly involved this time.

But then the business side of the games industry got in the way. At least for a while. You may or may not remember that THQ – the original incarnation of it – was funding and publishing The Stick of Truth. But a funny thing (sadly, not the good kind of funny) happened during the course of development: THQ filed for bankruptcy. Uh-oh. While the project thankfully wasn’t canceled, the publishing rights to it were put up for auction as part of the bankruptcy, and the South Park folks weren’t exactly happy about it.

Mercifully, gamers were not robbed of the chance to play The Stick of Truth, as Ubisoft bought the rights, enabling Parker, Stone, and the Obsidian team to finish the RPG. Despite its mammoth 850-page first script draft, the final game didn’t end up being a particularly long RPG at around 12 hours long. But boy oh boy did it make every minute count. I frequently laughed in a truly doubled-over way I’d never laughed at a video game before, and coupled with its classic (if simple) turn-based RPG gameplay, I happily gave The Stick of Truth a 9 out of 10, and to this day, if someone asks me what the funniest game I’ve ever played is, this is my clear-cut answer.

If you haven’t played The Stick of Truth, it is absolutely not too late. The graphics look exactly like the show, so they haven’t really aged at all. In fact, as a 12-hour RPG, The Stick of Truth is like playing a long season of the show. Parker and Stone’s fingerprints are all over this thing, with Obsidian’s game-building and genre expertise underpinning the whole thing. I dare you not to laugh hysterically at the Underpants Gnome boss fight, the scene with Mr. Slave, the Canada section, and so many more.

I’ve played plenty of genuinely funny games over the years. The classic LucasArts point-and-click adventure games of the ‘90s were formative for me (the Monkey Island games, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, etc.). Saints Row: The Third was full of funny stuff. Portal 2 is classic. High on Life is a great recent example. But for me, none of them come even close to the masterclass that Parker and Stone taught the gaming world with The Stick of Truth. Heck, even its sequel, South Park: The Fractured But Whole – which Park and Stone were also involved in – didn’t quite land the same way. So I’m incredibly thankfully that The Stick of Truth survived THQ’s bankruptcy and became a classic. It is one of my favorite Xbox memories from the first 25 years of this brand (though, by all means play it on any platform you can!).

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Stellar Blade: Complete Edition is officially coming to Switch 2 in 2026 and, to help with the wait, we're sharing over five minutes of gameplay from this upcoming version and our chat with Dong-ki Lee, CTO at Shift Up, about what it took to bring this action-adventure title to Nintendo fans.

We had the chance to speak to Lee at gamescom, and he began by sharing what fans can expect when the long-awaited port of Stellar Blade arrives later this year. Oh, and you can check out the new look at gameplay on Switch 2 below!

"As you know, Stellar Blade first released on PlayStation in 2024 and then PC the year after," Lee said. "Within that year gap, we added a lot of content, including two DLCs, additional outfits, and more seasonal content and events. Now, this is all coming to Switch 2 in one complete edition."

We enjoyed our time with Stellar Blade, in large part due to the "rock solid fundamentals of its Sekiro-inspired combat system, a deep well of hideous monstrosities to sharpen your sword against, and plenty of hidden goodies that do a great job of incentivizing exploration throughout."

If you played Stellar Blade on PS5 or just enjoy the DualSense's haptic feedback, you'll be happy to know the team translated it to Switch 2 in a very authentic way.

"If we had just tried to recreate the data for it to work on Switch 2 for HD Rumble, we wouldn't have been able to offer the same experience," Lee noted. "What we did was take the exact same data that we use for PlayStation 5 and convert it to fit HD Rumble on Switch 2. So, what you're feeling is actually the exact same gameplay experience that you would feel on PlayStation 5."

Beyond that, Lee confirmed Stellar Blade on Switch 2 includes touchscreen support, gyro mode, and even mouse controls.

"We wanted to ensure the player can play exactly how they want," Lee said. "And this is all while keeping and maintaining the beauty of the game and the experience that it gives."

We then chatted for a few moments about what it took to get Stellar Blade running on Switch 2, and Lee shared that the team had to really focus on memory optimization and "kind of change the internal logic so it fits the console." This all will hopefully lead to Switch 2 players being able to enjoy the game to its fullest.

What it has done is help for future titles, Lee shared. While Stellar Blade started as an exclusive and Lee wouldn't confirm one way or another if future titles will be too (Stellar Blade: Blood Rain has yet to confirm launch platforms), he did say that being able to port it to two more platforms helped the team familarize themselves with bringing the game to more players and preserving the "beauty" along the way.

And if you're wondering if anything has been added to the Switch 2 version of Stellar Blade, it appears to be mostly identical to that on PS5 and PC. However, there may be some surprises on the horizon...

"We plan on revealing something later, maybe, maybe not," Lee teased. "Well, in not wanting to give you an expectation, we just haven't revealed any more details just yet."

To end our conversation, we asked Lee what one of his favorite games was, and his answer may be the same as many of you!

"One of my favorite games is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," Lee said. "I would stay up all night playing that game and it made me think, "Oh, I really want to work on a console game." I was already a game developer, just not with consoles, and it it really made me think, "Okay, maybe one day I want to give that a try as well."

And so he did, and soon fans will be able to get their hands on the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Stellar Blade. For more, check out everything added to Stellar Blade since launch.

Approximately 12TB of data has been reportedly extracted from Steam, which apparently encompasses everything that was published on the platform between 2003 and 2013.

According to Valve-related content creator Gabe Follower, the data has allegedly been gathered via a publicly accessible endpoint, and the process to collect it involved no actual hacking. Valve transitioned to a different storage system in 2013, which is why the data cuts off at this point.

Gabe Follower notes this data includes the entire Steam library from the period between 2003 and 2013 – not just Valve games. The 12TB of data is said to contain both complete games and beta versions of games, and a variety of early and unseen prototype versions of games that were placed on Steam sometime within that 10-year period have already been uncovered by archivists, enthusiasts, and other interested parties. For instance, those digging have found a build of Left 4 Dead from several months prior to its actual release which features a different HUD, voice lines which never featured in the retail version, and sections of the map that were subsequently altered.

With the sheer size of the leaked data pile, it’s likely more such information will be revealed as people search through it.

Valve has not commented on the data leak at this stage.

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

The 2026 Pokémon World Championships ran simultaneously with the first official Pokémon fan convention, PokémonXP, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a slew of exciting announcements shared by president and CEO of The Pokémon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara, during the Pokémon World Championships closing ceremonies. Here's everything announced at the 2026 Pokémon World Championships you need to know.

New Movie, Pokémon Wild Card, Coming 2027

For the first time in seven years, a new animated Pokémon movie is coming. It's called Pokémon Wild Card and will release in 2027. A short trailer was shown during the closing ceremonies, featuring a Pokémon TCG player and Mimikyu. Read more about everything we know about the Pokémon Wild Card movie here.

2027 Pokémon World Championships Going to Singapore

The 2027 Pokémon World Championships is coming to Singapore, returning to Asia for the first time since 2023, when it was held in Yokohama, Japan.

Z-Mega Evolutions Coming to Pokémon Champions, Mega Heatran Revealed

Regulation Set M-C was announced for Pokémon Champions, which will now include Rillaboom, Baxcalibur, and new Z-Megas Mega Absol Z, Mega Lucario Z, and Mega Garchomp Z. Additionally, Mega Heatran was teased in the trailer but has not been confirmed otherwise. The additions arrive in Pokémon Champions on September 9 JST.

Armored Mewtwo Returning to Pokémon GO, Mega-Pokémon Gaining Extra Charged Attack

Beginning now, eligible Mega-Evolved Pokémon will gain an additional Charged Attack. Plus, beginning with Pokémon GO Fest 2026: Mega Finale, you'll be able to take Mega-Evolved Pokémon into all levels of the GO Battle League and Armored Mewtwo will return for the first time in six years.

New ex-Star TCG logo and Mega Lucario Z Revealed

A Pokémon Trading Card Game teaser showed sneak peaks of a new "series logo:" ex★ (ex-Star), the debut of Mega Lucario Z, and more new "Mega attack rare cards" featuring Mega Darkrai, Mega Greninja, Mega Rayquaza, and Mega Zygarde. The Legendary Beasts from Johto, Suicine, Raikou, and Entei, were also teased.

Pokémon UNITE: Final Eeveelutions, More Pokémon Coming This Fall

Flareon, Jolteon, Morpeko, and Toxtricity are all coming to Pokémon UNITE this September and October. This rounds out the Eevee line, with all eight evolutions playable along with Eevee.

• Morpeko - Speedster - Coming September 4
• Toxtricity (Amped Form) - Attacker - Coming September 24
• Jolteon - Speedster - Coming October
• Flareon - All-Rounder - Coming October

The news comes after Zeta Division won the Pokémon UNITE world championships during the final time it'll be featured on the Pokémon World Championships stage, marking the end of an era. Next year, there will be a separate tournament for UNITE, the Pokémon UNITE Aeos Crown 2027 Tokyo, tentatively scheduled for late March 2027.

PokémonXP Announcements and More From This Weekend

Though technically announced during a panel at PokémonXP on Friday, we got our first trailer for Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d and Pichu, which was also revealed to be exclusive to on Disney+ and DisneyXD.

The Fitbit Air Special Edition Pokémon Sleep was also revealed on Thursday. In an unrelated panel at PokémonXP, President and CEO of The Pokémon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara, spoke on how going forward, a challenge for the company may be figuring out how to integrate Pokémon more with wearable technology.

During the Pokémon TCG Pocket panel at PokémonXP, dual-type cards were revealed, and will be rolling out starting October 2026.

For more on PokémonXP, the Pokémon World Championships, and future Pokémon events, read the enlightening interview with Director, Global Esports and Events Producer Chris Brown. In it, Brown acknowledged the challenges that come with producing an event with more demand than there is supply.

Casey DeFreitas is the deputy editor of guides at IGN, and has attended the Pokémon World Championships since 2017. Catch her on socials @ShinyCaseyD.