We factory sim perverts have all known the joy of combing a mile of conveyor belt tagliatelle for that one empty hopper or unplugged furnace that’s stalled the entire production line. Now, imagine that the stalled production line is producing plasma swords for your army of murder droids.
You need your army of murder droids to fight another army of murder droids, but unfortunately, all of your murder droids are now swordless, and therefore murder droids no longer. They advance placidly into the firestorm, falling like mown dandelions, while you run your cursor desperately over the hexagonal smokestacks. There it is! A misfiring 3D printer, right in the centre.
Oh look, zombies. And in full colou…ah, they’re eating me!
Back in the middle of 1999 (a weird time for everyone, rest assured), British developer HotGen attempted something that was considered to be somewhat of an impossible task. Namely, porting the full glory of 32-bit Resident Evil to the dinky little 8-bit Game Boy Color. In the end, not only did these maestros manage to do it, but they did it in a way that, judging by the gameplay vid above, makes for a more than decent stab at the “impossible”.
Unfortunately, the port was then cancelled and thought lost to time before popping up online in various states throughout the years – though none of these were anywhere near playable from start to finish. That is until now, thanks to Games That Weren’t (thanks to VGC for the heads-up).
Invincible VS: Extended Look at Brand-New Character, Ella Mental
Mike Willette, Executive Producer, Invincible VS
Summary
Ella Mental, the first original character in Invincible VS, is joining the roster.
Skybound’s in-house studio, Quarter Up, unveiled the brand-new fighter at The Game Awards, and is now sharing extended gameplay for a deeper look at Ella Mental.
Invincible VS is a new 3v3 tag fighting game based on the beloved comic book and TV series, coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud as an Xbox Play Anywhere title on April 30, 2026.
The Invincible universe just got even bigger. Our upcoming 3v3 tag fighting game, Invincible VS, arrives next year with an abundance of fan-favorite characters like Mark Grayson (Invincible), Rex Splode, Omni-Man and more. But our latest fighter is someone Invincible fans didn’t see coming.
Revealed at The Game Awards last week, Ella Mental is an all-new original character born from the creative minds of Invincible co-creators Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker, and is sure to make waves across the universe. At Quarter Up, Skybound’s in-house game development studio, it’s been our honor to bring Ella to life, and we’re excited to give you an extended look at what this powerhouse is capable of.
Ella Mental radiates positivity and energy, always the first to jump in and solve a problem. She comes from wealth and is the heiress to her family’s fortune. Due to her humble outlook and studious, hardworking nature, Ella quickly became her grandfather’s favorite and was given access to an ancient totem — the source of her superpowers. Ella is nothing like what we’ve seen in the Invincible universe thus far, capable of controlling all four elements: earth, water, fire and air.
Able to pull energy from these elements, Ella unsurprisingly has a very versatile move set. She is primarily a ranged fighter who uses her Elemental Auras to adjust her combat approach and upgrade her Special Moves, which are super impactful in battle. Earth Wall allows Ella to conjure a floating mass of earth in front of her that can be destroyed to cause a shotgun blast attack or used as cover. Water Needle has Ella generating and compressing water between her hands until she unleashes it like a bullet. Flame Burst summons a cloud of rolling flames that hang in their air before causing a major explosion. Whether attacking in-air, on the ground or with her specials, Ella will find a way to take down any opponent.
The story behind Ella Mental is a unique one. We always thought it would be super fun to bring an original character into Invincible VS, so our team approached Robert Kirkman with the idea — and he loved it.
“What was cool was that this idea gave Cory Walker and I an opportunity to create someone new,” said Robert Kirkman. “Our way into the character was a ridiculous-sounding name we came up with: Ella Mental. We thought, ‘hey, look at that, that sounds like an Invincible-type name.’”
From there, Cory Walker gave us an amazing sketch for her.
“The name originated from Robert, and from that came the element-based powerset,” added Cory Walker. “I just started throwing stuff on her, and it was important that everything be asymmetrical, and just overall cool-looking.”
Contrary to belief, Ella’s parents are actually nice, a real change from many others in the Invincible universe. This was a purposeful choice from Robert, and makes her an even more distinguished addition to the lineup. When constructing Ella’s backstory, Kirkman noted, “The Invincible universe’s thing is that everyone has terrible parents, so we wanted to give Ella nice parents and a constructive family dynamic.”
Beyond her background, bringing Ella into the game was a welcome challenge for us. When you’re dealing with attacks using all four elements, there’s a lot happening on screen, and we’ve made sure her gameplay looks amazing without sacrificing performance.
Speaking of performance, we were so excited to get visionary rapper, Tierra Whack, to voice Ella Mental. We knew our Ella Mental needed to be the right combination of talent and presence, and Tierra is just that. She’s also a huge Invincible fan, and her passion comes through in each voice line. And in case you were wondering, her dream team is Ella Mental, Rex Splode and Atom Eve — solid choices!
I’ll leave you with some tips for kicking butt as Ella Mental: make sure you truly spend time understanding her kit and getting used to her ranges. She’s excellent teamed up with Robot for a good juggling pair, and Atom Eve for an immense power overload.
We’re so excited to see what our players pull off with our badass roster of fighters, especially Ella Mental.
Invincible VS launches on April 30, 2026 for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud as an Xbox Play Anywhere title. The game is available for pre-order now.
Invincible VS is a brutal superhero 3v3 tag fighting game set in the Invincible universe, where you can battle to the death as a team of fan-favorite characters in iconic locations. Unleash bone-breaking combos through fast combat and smart defensive tactics to leave a trail of blood and destruction. Land vicious Super moves and Ultimates to leave your opponents in a mess of blood.
Invincible VS features a variety of game modes including a captivating cinematic story mode with an original narrative from a writer of the animated series. Jump into Arcade and battle with your team, hone your combos in Training mode, and test your skills against the world in competitive and casual multiplayer. Show, comic fans, and fighting game lovers will experience unparalleled heroic brutality, where every earth-shattering blow will leave you feeling… Invincible.
This is the debut title from the newly formed Quarter Up—the first in-house studio at Skybound—led by former members of the core Killer Instinct (2013) dev team.
“I wouldn’t go in there,” warns traveling storyteller Ugetsu, as Atsu approaches two large and looming wooden doors. “Because you may not return.”
It’s a caution many Ghost of Yōtei players loved to ignore. As the trigger point for revered side-quest The Spider Lily General, that ominous gate is the start of a haunting mythological adventure that lingers long in memory after its completion. Only fitting for a game that launched so close to Halloween.
I spoke to Creative Directors, Nate Fox and Jason Connell, to find out the inspiration and secrets behind The Spider Lily General, and how they felt about the optional quest’s popularity. But, similar to Ugetsu, I must warn you – there are spoilers ahead. You might want to play this mission before venturing any further…
The quest’s origins
“The Spider Lily General was actually one of the earliest missions in the game and one of the first Mythic Tales we created,” reveals Jason. “It came from one of our designers and writers, and we dissected what makes a great Mythic mission, how they’d look and feel.”
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While these particular side-quests can be inspired by historical figures, The Spider Lily General was crafted as an original tale to represent the trauma of war. The titular warrior’s battle prowess and armour turned him into a legend, but after retiring, the General accidently injures his daughter during a sparring session. Seeing his child die from a wound he inflicted poisons the General with unrelenting grief, leading to him haunting the forest. And now looters hunt for his armour, often dying by the ghost’s sword.
“We knew we wanted the story to maybe have some tragedy associated with it,” says Jason. “And at some point the writer suggested it could be a point of reflection for Atsu, who helps him heal. She’s fighting him, but understands his trauma.”
But why spider lilies? Was there some specific symbolism in their use, given the myth says they sprouted wherever the General spilled his victims’ blood?
“They’re actually toxic, and in real life they’re planted in graveyards to keep away animals,” explains Nate. “So they represent death, as well as connecting to emotional relationships. They also had a functional in-game purpose – early playable feedback suggested it was a bit hard to understand where to go and what to do in the mission because the area is so large. So the lilies made it clearer how to move through the mist.”
Developing horror
The practical use of the lilies were just one of many mechanical aspects Sucker Punch had to consider for a quest which took on such an eerie feel in contrast to much of the main game.
“We don’t have a lot of experience with that sort of horror tone,” says Nate. “So there were specific ways to make it feel like the world is not as you know it. The little maze, a music stinger, and hearing people wailing in the distance. Or reaching a bunch of enemies before a mist rolls in and you then find them all slaughtered.
“There’s also the use of negative space, like when you start the quest and go up a staircase with the mist coming down and the spider lilies going up, with old corpses present… but nothing is attacking you. That long walk is simply there to immerse you in the tone.”
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Early development concepts of the Spider Lily mission by Sucker Punch.
“We were inspired by elements from past survival horror games,” explains Jason. “The prototypes explored weird camera angles. It was really challenging, but even if we didn’t use them it set the vibe for what we were trying to achieve.
The atmosphere is one of the biggest tools we have. You paint the whole scene with mood. We made the spooky moon a little bigger and changed the lighting and colour grading to get the right black level. Sound design is a big thing, too, as well as the music, like the special track during the duel.”
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Its influence on the wider game
Similar to the impact The Spider Lily General had on players, its early inclusion to Ghost of Yōtei’s development helped set a high bar not just for the other Mythic quests, but also for the entire adventure.
“The mission paved the way to ensure that the rest of the game had that level of quality and majesty,” says Jason. “A lot of the core parts of what makes the atmosphere and visual style of a Ghost game distinct got re-pioneered in that moment – and it reminded us of how important it is to use really great visual attractions to draw the player in.”
“That’s one of my favourite things about the mission,” agrees Nate. “When you’re riding your horse in this expansive field, the player has the choice of where they want to go. But when you look at the forest, it’s got a little bit of mist on it and you see this beautiful pagoda popping up out of the top, and it really excites your curiosity. The player discovers the story under their own power. It’s a powerful experience.”
The impact of myth on players… and the studio
The work and thought gone into The Spider Lily General is reflective of the entire game, but the team is happy with how players have responded to this particular mission, especially given how invested the studio was in creating the Mythics.
“Nate and I were pretty excited about the way they came out in Ghost of Tsushima,” says Jason. “So we knew that we wanted to build them again in their own new way for Ghost of Yōtei. And it’s cool to see people really enjoy The Spider Lily General. It’s got a lot of the hallmarks of a Ghost game in its roots. So as creators it’s really joyful to see people take photos and talk about why they like that mission.”
“We set out to make a game that is an anthology of stories where the player is invited to really wander, and follow their curiosity,” says Nate. “And The Spider Lily General is a great example of the kinds of things you can discover by going out there and exploring, in its own self-contained short story.
“It has a really strong beginning, middle, and end, with characters you get to know. Everyone in the team is very proud of how it came together.”
“In short, yes,” Howard told BBC Newsbeat. “Fallout 5 will be existing in a world where the stories and events of the show happened or are happening. We are taking that into account.”
The Fallout TV show, which is set after all the existing Fallout video games, has sparked much debate within the fandom. Questions on how it fits into the overarching Fallout timeline and whether it makes particular video game endings canon have dominated discussion in the run up to each season’s release. Indeed, Fallout Season 2 had left fans wondering about the fate of New Vegas following the events of the video game, although the show’s creators have avoided making a clear call.
What Howard is confirming here is that TV show characters such as Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul and the events of the show must now be factored into Fallout 5, although we don’t know when or where the game will be set. Could either actually appear in Fallout 5? It sounds like it’s possible, but we’ll have to see what happens in the show itself.
It’s worth remembering that we’re guaranteed Fallout Season 3, and the hope is there will be more seasons after that. There’s a long way to go before the show wraps up, and there’s a long way to go before Fallout 5 comes out. In the meantime, could Bethesda follow The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered and release a remaster of Fallout 3 or New Vegas, or perhaps even a Fallout: New Vegas 2 as a stop gap? In a recent interview with IGN, Howard remained coy on the possibility.
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.
The ongoing RAM shortage (and subsequent and pricing explosion) is imposing a wider range of grim effects than even the Great GPU Famine of 2020. First came the death of one of gaming hardware’s most reliable memory and SSD makers, and now… uh… Larian’s new Divinity game is going to be more optimised for PC than it otherwise would have been?
That’s what Larian CEO Swen Vincke (clearly on a media tour – here’s him discussing Divinity with our Edwin) told TheGamer, anyway. Vincke notes that because the lack of affordable RAM options is making it harder to predict the horsepower of future PCs, “we already need to do a lot of optimization work in early access that we didn’t necessarily want to do at that point in time.” That doesn’t sound especially horrible to me – higher performance on lower-end rigs ultimately means more players can join in – though nowhere in the full interview does Vincke acknowledge that the shortage is being directly caused and sustained by demand from data centres that power generative AI, a technology that Larian are using in Divinity’s production, and that Vincke himself is defending the use of.
The holiday period is a great time to catch up on some of this year’s games that may have passed you by. If Ninja Gaiden 4 was on your list of games to play, Best Buy is offering a $15 discount on both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X versions right now as part of its Deal of the Day (see it here).
This offer brings its price down from $69.99 to $54.99, which is a nice little early holiday treat to jump on. Again, since it’s part of Best Buy’s Deal of the Day selection, the timer on its sale page has already started counting down until the end of today. Now is the time to take advantage of this limited-time deal and add it to your library for a little less.
Save $15 on Ninja Gaiden 4 (PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X)
Ninja Gaiden 4 was one of our favorite action games of 2025, earning a runner-up spot in our IGN Awards. Our 8/10 review from IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman said, “When it comes to combat, there are few games I’d consider to even be in the same ballpark as Ninja Gaiden 4. It is quite simply the most fun I’ve had with a 3D action game since Devil May Cry 5.” With praise like that, why not add it to your list of must-play games over the holidays?
If you’re grabbing this game as a gift for a Ninja Gaiden fan this year and are on the hunt for more gaming-related items to pick up before the holidays, we can help there, too. Our roundup of the 10 best gifts for gamers features even more recommendations we think are worth gifting this year, from hardware to apparel to the very cool LEGO Game Boy build. If something catches your eye, now is the time to buy to make sure you have it in time.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
Superhero workplace comedy game Dispatch has just popped up on the Nintendo eShop for Switch and Switch 2, and is already available to pre-order.
There’s been no formal word yet by developer AdHoc Studio, but the Nintendo eShop listing is now live in Australia, where Switch owners can pre-order the game. There’s even a release date, too: January 29, 2026.
For Nintendo Switch 2 owners, a free upgrade pack will be available to download separately, providing a version of the game with enhanced resolution and improved frame rates. As of yet, there’s no sign of the game arriving on Xbox — though we’ll update this article again when AdHoc makes any formal announcement.
Dispatch first launched back in October for PC and PlayStation 5, where it quickly won over a legion of fans for its quirky, episodic storytelling, and shifted 2 million copies over its first month on sale — something its team had projected the game would reach after two years.
The game features an ensemble cast of heroes voiced by some famous faces, including Aaron Paul, Laura Bailey, Jeffrey Wright, and Matthew Mercer, while its development team features key personel from Telltale Games’ heyday, who previously worked on The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands.
“Dispatch is a sharp-witted workplace comedy that charms with its smart dialogue choices, great writing, and lovably aggravating cast,” IGN wrote in our Dispatch review, scoring the game with a super 9/10.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Steam Replay, Valve’s yearly roundup of where all of the hours spent playing games in the Steamy place have gone, has emerged from its hidey-hole yet again. 2025’s edition is out now – you’ve likely already seen it if you’ve hopped into Steam since yesterday afternoon. Amid all the bits telling you that you’ve spent 1000 hours playing Umamusume: Pretty Derby thus far, the annual report’s dished out some fresh stats about how old the games everyone across the platform’s user base has been playing this year are.
We know what you’re thinking… You don’t need yet another reason to pick up Resident Evil Requiem, right? Well, you know us, we’re here to deliver the goods.
GameStop has announced that it will be issuing a free tote bag (gasp!) for in-store pre-orders for Requiem on all available platforms. It depicts the ruined landscape of Racoon City with the game’s title at the top. Form an orderly queue folks, come on now!
—the first in-house studio at Skybound—led by former members of the core Killer Instinct (2013) dev team.
