It’s time for my weekly Pokémon TCG sealed product price watch. Suprise suprise, the secondary market in TCGPlayer is giving big box retailers like Amazon a run for their money. Let’s just keep in mind that TCGPlayer is a marketplace, so this is small to medium sellers undercutting billion and trillion dollar companies here.
TL;DR: Deals for Today
I’ll give it to Amazon, some in-demand products are cheaper on there today too, we’re talking Mega Evolution sealed product, Black Bolt and even a premium collection ex box. Don’t forget that Pokémon Legends: Z-A drops on Thursday too, and I’ve got all the preorder links you’ll need above and below. There’s a song in that somewhere? Let’s get into it:
TCGPlayer is really showing up big box retailers. The secondary market is saving trainers a fortune right now, and will continue doing so until the Pokémon Company floods the marketplace with sealed product, which will happen eventually. A good example here is the Surging Sparks ETB, which is currently $92.94 on Amazon. If you check over on TCGPlayer right now, you’ll pay $74.95. That’s nearly $20 over market value, and there’s plenty more where that came from in the carosel above.
MTG: TMNT Preorders are Live
New game mode aside, MTGs latest Universes Beyond addition is another huge IP with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Play Boosters are available, so getting a box is a great idea before preorders sell out and it becomes harder to build a deck. The Commander Deck is ideal if you want a solid foundation for a game of Commander but want to modify it with single cards down the line. Of course, the TMNT bundle comes with a few goodies including 9 play boosters, foil alt art promo card, 30 land cards and some tidy accessories.
Pokémon Legends: L-A Preorders
It’s nearly time trainers! Thursday see’s the release of the most radiacally different mainline Pokémon game, Legends: Z-A. Set as a continuation of Pokémon X and Y and continuing the game mechanic changes seen in Legends: Arceus, Legends: Z-A is going full real-time combat over it’s tried and tested turn-based battle style. It’s going to be a landmark moment for the worlds most popular entertainment franchise, so make sure you have your preorder in.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (3 Months)
Well, Xbox isn’t in the good books of gamers worldwide right now, but you can dodge the Game Pass (eventual) price hike with 3 months of Ultimate for $59.99, which is $30 cheaper than the dramatic price hikes. If you’re on Xbox, this is a good time to stack up on Game Pass.
Final Fantasy IX (Nintendo Switch)
We gave Final Fantasy IX a 9.2 back in 2000, so $40 for a JRPG classic isn’t much to ask, right? Well if the re-release hasn’t sold you on it’s own, this version comes with high resolution cut scenes, and game modifiers including high speed and no encounter modes topped off with an Auto Save function. Also, character models are high resolution now too, so this physical edition of FFIX should wet you nostalgia appetite.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of “Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior”. Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
Ubisoft staff were informed of the news this afternoon via an internal email which simultaneously discussed the need for Vantage Studios’ leadership team to be “aligned” with its core goals, while wishing Côté well for the future. IGN understands that Côté was offered a role as part of Vantage Studios’ leadership, but declined.
In an internal note to Ubisoft staff obtained by IGN, Vantage Studios co-CEO Christophe Derennes said he was “disappointed” by Côté’s decision, and that the former leader “had his own expectations and priorities related to Vantage Studios’ creation and future.”
“Following the organizational restructuring announced in March 2025, Marc-Alexis Côté has chosen to pursue a new path elsewhere outside of Ubisoft,” a Ubisoft spokesperson told IGN today. “While we are saddened to see him go, we’re confident that our talented teams will carry forward the strong foundation he helped build.
“We are deeply grateful for the impact Marc-Alexis has had over the years, particularly in shaping the Assassin’s Creed brand into what it is today. His leadership, creativity, and dedication have left a lasting mark on our teams and our players. We thank him sincerely for his many contributions and wish him continued success in all his future endeavors.”
Côté, known internally by his initials as Mac, joined Ubisoft in 2005 as a software engineer, before working as a lead engine programmer on Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. From there, he joined the Assassin’s Creed series in time for Brotherhood, working as a lead level designer, before serving as a game director on Assassin’s Creed 3.
As creative director, Côté led development on a string of projects built at Ubisoft Quebec, the talented team which made Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag DLC Freedom Cry, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, and then Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, for which Côté served as senior producer.
In March 2022, as Quebec worked on Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Ubisoft sought to relaunch the series with a more consistent story focus via the Animus Hub (then referred to as Assassin’s Creed Infinity), it was Côté that took the reigns on the entire franchise, laying out a Marvel-style slate of upcoming projects that included the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed Hexe, which still lacks a release date.
More to follow…
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
When Pokémon Legends: Z-A was first revealed, we all immediately got to work speculating on when it would take place in the Pokémon timeline. Not where, we knew that: it takes place entirely in Lumiose City from Pokémon X and Y’s Kalos region. But given that Legends: Arceus was a time-traveling narrative going back hundreds of years into Sinnoh’s past, we had every expectation based on trailers that Z-A would be many, many years in Lumiose City’s future.
We were incorrect! We now know exactly when it takes place, and it’s not nearly as big a leap as you’d think.
We’ve been playing Pokémon Legends: Z-A for review and the embargo has now lifted. So we can confirm, from first-hand experience talking to multiple characters (most of which we unfortunately can’t directly cite or show due to the ongoing embargo restrictions), that Z-A takes place just five years after the events of X and Y. It’s not a time traveling narrative, it’s a direct sequel that offers a follow-up to many of the characters and situations introduced in X and Y.
For instance, we already know that you get to hang out with AZ, a 3,000-year-old man who plays a pivotal role in X and Y. We also know that Mable, a former member of Team Flare, takes on the role of Pokémon professor in this game and sends you out to catch Pokémon with various challenges. Other characters you’ll remember from X and Y show up as well, some of them dramatically changed, but we can’t and won’t spoil them just yet.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A being a direct sequel is actually a pretty big deal. The Pokémon universe has been real hand-wavey with how the different games and regions relate to one another over the years. While there have been some direct sequels before (Gold and Silver after Red and Blue, Black and White 2 after Black and White, etc), later games have introduced time travel (Legends: Arceus), alternative universes (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire), and basically every game has implied that all the other games’ locations and monsters exist in the same world, but events taking place in those games may or may not be canon depending on which one you’re playing. The Pokémon timeline, if drawn out, probably looks far more ridiculous than the Zelda one at this point.
But if you were wondering what happened to most of the main cast of X and Y five years after the events of the game, here you go: this is just a straightforward sequel! In hindsight, we should have seen this coming when they named it “Z-A” after X and Y.
My review-in-progress of Pokémon Legends: Z-A is now live, if you want to check out my impressions of the first 24 hours, with a full review coming next week. I’ve also been writing about how the Nurse Joy job is now open to people who don’t look exactly identical to the original Nurse Joy after 27 years in Z-A.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Review codes for Pokémon Legends: Z-A were only sent out less than a week ago, but I’ve already put in around 24 hours or so in the last five days. Across that time I’ve been catching every new species of Pokémon I find, doing every side quest that pops up, and stopping every so often to completely change my outfit. I’ve currently got a full team all in the level 50s, and I can’t wait to stop writing this review-in-progress to go play more. It’s real good so far!
There are a few reasons why I don’t feel comfortable scoring Z-A right now. Apart from simply not having beaten it yet, the embargo we’re publishing this under is pretty strict about what we can and can’t say or show. We always try to avoid spoilers (and recent leaks mean plenty are already in the wild), but here we can’t even talk about basic plot details that happen literally in the first 10 minutes. We can’t mention loads of the specific Pokémon in Z-A, despite the fact that any number of them might casually roam across our footage at any time. We can’t even show you the map of Lumiose City, where everything in Z-A takes place. It’s difficult to say exactly how close to the credits 24 hours puts me, but I’ll likely be back with my final, scored review shortly after launch.
We also haven’t had the chance to test it on Nintendo Switch 1 ahead of time, although I am at least so happy to report that Pokémon Legends: Z-A runs great on Nintendo Switch 2. It glides along at a smooth framerate with very, very few hitches or hiccups. There is occasionally still some sudden pop-in of NPCs, including ones positioned very close to the player, and here and there I’ve seen a character do that creepy thing where their head and neck suddenly snap into place as I get closer. But critically, unlike Scarlet and Violet, none of this is horribly distracting, nor does it really detract from the overall experience. Because of Scarlet and Violet, I spent the first 20 minutes or so paying close attention to whether or not Z-A ran well. But then, after that, I barely thought about it again, a state of mind which I consider ideal. Here’s hoping that’s still the case with the Switch 1 version, which I will take into consideration as part of my final review either way.
Running well doesn’t equate to a game being pretty, of course, and Z-A isn’t going to win any beauty contests. Lumiose City looks fine. Its buildings are covered with mostly flat images of the same couple of window and terrace patterns over and over again. Up close, the effect is pretty weird – like someone painted a Looney Tunes door on a wall so Roadrunner would crash into it. The samey buildings are broken up with occasional trees, battle courts, parks, and the same bench copy-pasted about 100 times. There’s a greyish sewer system with greyish water running through it, and rooftops occasionally interrupted by same-looking cafe set-ups.
The reduced scale of this world has worked in Game Freak’s favor.
That said, I do think that the reduced scale of the world has worked in Game Freak’s favor with Z-A when compared to, say, Arceus or Scarlet and Violet. The city is smaller, so it’s more densely packed with trainers, Pokémon, items, shops, and other actually interesting things to see and do. I’m not running for minutes on end through massive fields of flat, GameCube-style textures, with nary a point of interest in sight. As a result, similar to Z-A’s performance, it was easy to stop thinking about the low-quality building design fairly early on.
That’s also helped by the fact that building interiors and the character and Pokémon models themselves look pretty good, and the human characters in particular are more varied than ever before. While almost every NPC you meet in the city is categorized by trainer type and given an appearance to match, Game Freak is now experimenting not just with diverse facial features and skin tones, but also clothing items. We saw some of this in Scarlet and Violet, but almost everyone was wearing school uniforms, so it wasn’t nearly as noticeable. Now, you might see two athletic trainers wearing differently colored versions of the same athletic gear, or two artists with different colored aprons.
Small a touch as this sounds, combining that with facial differences does a lot to make Lumiose City feel inhabited by many different, diverse people instead of the same 10 trainer types repeated ad nauseum. That customizability extends to the protagonist, too. There are tons of hair, facial, and fashion choices to choose from, including new options to mix and match certain types of outfits (different undershirts with different jackets, for instance). It’s a massively refreshing improvement after spending most of Pokémon Violet expressing myself via the same four ugly purple uniforms and a variety of mismatched hats.
Another element that I think elevates Lumiose City far above the much larger overworld of Scarlet and Violet is that it’s dense with interesting landmarks, items, obstacle courses, stores, Wild Zones, shops, and people. Lumiose is round, with different streets running out from the center like wheel spokes, and the entirety of it is open to you within just a few hours of starting your journey. You can, if you want, scour the whole map very early on, though it won’t be especially interesting at first blush. But over time, you’ll gradually unlock new ways to get around and new things to see when you get there: a new travel method that lets you scale scaffolding to collect rare items at the top, new ways to get onto buildings and Assassin’s Creed your way to little nooks of the city you couldn’t quite reach before, and new Wild Areas teeming with new Pokémon to catch. That steady unlocking of a city you always had free reign of adds to the feeling of getting to know a new place you’ve just moved to.
Every Pokémon location in Lumiose City feels deliberate and well-considered.
Exploration is often rewarded, too. While I criticized Scarlet and Violet for just sort of slapping large quantities of Pokémon haphazardly over a big map, especially in later areas, every single spawn location in Lumiose City feels deliberate and well-considered. A line of trash bins might not have anything interesting to see when you pass by on one visit, but there could be a Trubbish on top the next. Flocks of Pidgey and Fletchling scatter as you dash into a courtyard. Spinarak regard you calmly while hanging from tree branches. If you really explore, you might encounter a rare dragon-type on a rooftop (the embargo forbids me from saying which one despite the fact that its evolutions have been confirmed for the game already); a Spritzee floating idly in a hidden cafe; once, I turned just in time to see an Eevee sprint past me into an alleyway, and I barely threw a PokeBall quickly enough to catch it.
I won’t (and can’t) spoil too much of the story, but what I can talk about is the interesting rhythm it establishes that feels, in practice, quite different from any other Pokémon game so far. Like Arceus, Z-A foregoes the traditional “gather eight badges” structure, though here you’ll divide their time between day and night – during the day, you’ll be catching Pokémon in Wild Zones, battling rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon, performing goofy side quest errands for individuals around the city, shopping, and exploring. At night, you have the option to visit Battle Zones where you take on trainers and complete challenges to raise your score and eventually collect a Challenger’s Ticket, which unlocks your promotion match for the next level of the “Z-A Royale.” There are 26 ranks total, one for each letter of the alphabet. I am currently at rank D, though I wish this was slightly more fleshed out as a proper competitive mode rather than just a story vehicle – for instance, you don’t exactly spend a meaningful amount of time at every single one of the 26 letter ranks.
I’ll have more to say on this in the final review, free from my embargo shackles, but I am really enjoying the story so far. Ditching the eight badge trainer journey like Arceus before it allows Game Freak to flesh out a deeper, more interesting cast of characters, both the heroes and the villains. There’s simply more reason for them to be where you are, doing things alongside you and participating in the world-changing events you’re experiencing. I’m also fascinated by how much Z-A appears to be inspired by the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. The enclosed city setting, the absurd and silly tone of the side quests, the story’s concerns with community and civic issues, and the protagonist bopping around a metro area solving problems by being absurdly stronger than everyone else all lend Lumiose City big Kamurocho energy.
Which leads me to the meat and potatoes of any Pokémon game: the battling. With Z-A, Pokémon has gone full action game. Not a turn-based battle in sight. While I don’t think I want Pokémon to fully depart from doing turn-based combat forever, this works pretty well as a detour. Game Freak did an admirable job translating its traditional battle system into one that works in an active-time environment, especially with moves seemingly so specific to the turn-based format. Protect and Detect now stop damage for a set period of time instead of one “turn.” Spikes dumps, well, spikes all over the floor in an area, forcing you to steer your Pokémon out of it. Long-range moves keep Pokémon out of harm’s way, but take longer to execute and recharge than more risky, short-range ones.
There are a lot of new tactics and strategies to mess around with.
There are a lot of new tactics and strategies to mess around with, such as how movement and dodging works. You control your trainer directly, and can either hold ZL to open the move select menu to send your active Pokémon into the fray, or release it to have them follow you around, allowing you to guide them while dodging. This makes for an interesting combat flow as I strategize around calling my Pokémon back to me to dodge an attack, then positioning them ideally to set up their next move before the opponent can swing again. The system is a bit awkward at times, especially in enclosed areas, but I’m interested to see what a competitive meta looks like with this format.
These tactics grow even more critical and chaotic in boss battles with Rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon, of which Z-A has many. These battles all take place in uniform, wide, circular arenas, but the Pokémon themselves are far from ordinary. Rogue Mega Evolved Pokémon are essentially Z-A’s answer to Arceus’ Frenzied Noble Pokémon. In addition to their regular movesets, they each have additional unique abilities you’ll have to avoid, such as turning the arena into a bullet hell you have to dodge around, or suddenly appearing right in front of you for an attack. Like in Arceus, your trainer can get hit and even die (sorry, I mean “black out”) if they’re attacked too many times by an enemy Pokémon, and that becomes a legit concern as Rogue Megas will enrage partway through and try to attack you directly.
The best way to counter this is to Mega Evolve your own Pokémon or use “Plus” moves, which are superpowered versions of regular moves that also consume the energy you need to Mega Evolve. Unlike in Pokémon X and Y, where you could get away with fighting Mega Evolved Pokémon with regular monsters, you really do need to engage with the Mega mechanics in Z-A. Though it starts off pretty tame, Z-A quickly ramps up the difficulty – even doing every side quest, I’m still finding its boss battles will make me sweat a little.
Man, I was going to try and hold back a bit on this review-in-progress since I still have plenty to see before my final review, but I’m just so genuinely excited about what Game Freak has done here. I liked Arceus a fair amount and thought it showed promise, but have been broadly disappointed with the slow backslide I saw from the studio in its move to console game development, and worried the quality dip was a new trend for 3D Pokémon games that we’d never escape. Pokémon Legends: Z-A, at least across the first two-dozen hours, is putting a lot of my fears to rest. It’s not revolutionary by any stretch, but it’s really good! I’m having fun, I’m excited to keep playing, I feel rewarded for exploring every corner, the story’s got my attention, and I’m not distracted by my Pokémon falling through the floor while they battle or everything crashing when I try to climb a ladder. If the rest of my adventure holds up (and the Switch 1 performance isn’t a disaster), we could finally have a 3D game worthy of the Pokémon franchise on our hands. It’d be about dang time.
Cain, the creator, producer, lead programmer and one of the main designers of Interplay’s 1997 post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout, released a video in which he talked about lore in the original Fallout that the team assumed was true but was never directly stated.
This “non-expository Fallout lore,” as Cain calls it, is lore from the first game only, lore the original team discussed among themselves and decided was true, and then made the game based on that. “None of this was written down” by any one of the 15 core people who developed Fallout, Cain said.
As a result, it is “not canon.”
“This is stuff that was true in the first game, but because it doesn’t exist in a design document anywhere, Bethesda is free to invent different reasons that the things that are in the game exist,” he prefaced. “I’m not canon, not anymore. You’re not canon just because you played the game or like it a lot. Bethesda’s canon. You don’t have to like that. You don’t have to like that water’s wet. I don’t like that white chocolate exists, but it does. So there we go.”
Why China nuked first
Top of the list is the explanation for why China nuked first. This is in reference to Fallout’s Great War, which took place on October 23, 2077 (Bethesda now hosts showcases on October 23 each year, aka Fallout Day). Cain had already said China nuked first in a previous video, putting to bed decades of fan speculation. But in this latest video he explained why China nuked first.
“This is not canon, but let me explain what I mean and why we thought that,” he began. “In the original game we had established FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) and that the U.S. was doing bio-weapons research. We weren’t supposed to. In fact, we had signed a UN treaty saying we wouldn’t do that, and I think you can find that out in the game. China discovered that we were doing it. How did they discover it? Espionage. But they found out we were doing it, and we went, ‘Oops our bad, we won’t do that anymore.’ But we kept right on doing it, we just moved the research to another base. It was the hidden base that’s in The Glow, where you eventually discover ZAX the supercomputer.
“When China found out we were still doing it and we had just moved, well they had already tried diplomacy and espionage and none of that was working, so they just nuked us. They nuked us. We nuked back. Other countries nuked because all we saw, all anyone saw, were missiles flying.
“China technically started it by firing the first nuke. But you could argue that the U.S. technically started it by doing illegal bioweapons research and then lying about it multiple times.”
And what of Russia’s involvement? Cain went on to explain that the development team assumed Russia in the ‘90s (and therefore in the ‘50s projected future in the Fallout alternate history timeline), had broken up to become “a bunch of little bickering states.” The EU had unified, and the U.S. had annexed Canada (a prediction not lost on Cain given current events). “But anyway, we were kind of on friendly relations with Russia in the Fallout universe,” he added.
This is why one of Fallout’s pre-made characters is Natalia, the granddaughter of a Russian diplomat. “Obviously, we were friendly enough with the Russian embassy that they got some of their diplomats into one of the vaults, the vault you’re in,” Cain explained. “So, obviously, this wasn’t a country we were at odds with.”
The Vault 13 lottery
So, that explains the unspoken lore behind why China nuked first. But Cain had a lot more lore to reveal. It turns out that the three pre-made characters the player could choose from were in fact selected via a lottery by the inhabitants of Vault 13 — a lottery that was rigged.
“We had three pre-made characters in Fallout,” he went on. “There was Max, who was the big dumb idiot combat guy. There was Natalia, who was the dextrous thief kind of character. And then there was Albert, who was the smooth talking manipulator talkie guy.
“If you look at those three characters, you may go, that’s the best the vault had to offer? No, the vault did a lottery. They basically drew straws. They knew they had to send someone out. So they had people draw straws and whoever drew the short straw had to go out into what was presumed to be a radioactive wilderness that would kill them. But hopefully they would get back before the radiation killed them with a water chip replacement.
“This was just assumed. The pre-made characters support it. I believe there’s some dialogue here and here that kind of supports that no-one chose, especially if you play Max, no-one chose for that character to go. That wasn’t their first choice. That wasn’t even their best choice. That wouldn’t even been anywhere near the choice.
“Except one thing we also talked about and laughed about as also possibly being true was that the entire lottery for who leaves the vault was rigged. And that would explain those three characters. You have this guy who’s an idiot. Why would you send him out? Well, gets him out of the genepool. Then you have Natalia who’s stealing everything. Probably had pissed people off because she had stolen other people’s stuff. She’s gone. Albert was always trying to manipulate everybody because he’s such a smooth talker. He’s gone. So getting rid of these characters was probably high on someone’s list.”
Cain said that all this is hinted at by the corpse wearing a vault suit you see as soon as you step out of Vault 13 at the beginning of the game.
“They’d already sent someone out,” he said. “That also explains why they didn’t have much to give you. They probably had supplies for doing external exploration, maybe a radiation suit, maybe better weapons or whatever. But you’re not the first person they sent out. You have evidence of that the moment you step out. Whoever that guy was, I think we said his name was Ed, which means you knew him or you knew his name. Ed stepped out. Ed got attacked by rats. Ed died. All that’s left is Ed’s bones and a raggedy old vault suit. So, there’s evidence that yes, there was a lottery for and and you were not the first person sent out.”
Vault suits are 3D printed from a machine
Here’s a fun bit of ‘Non-Expository Fallout Lore’: the series’ iconic vault suits aren’t made of cloth, nor were they sewn together. There wasn’t a warehouse room full of them somewhere in the vault. Rather, vault suits were extruded. Yes, that’s right… the vaults had a machine that 3D prints the vault suits.
“I know this was something we had because one of the vault ideas we had was the vault suit extruder was broken, so everybody in the vault was naked,” Cain revealed.
“The reason, though, we wanted to do an extruder was first of all, that vault suit was skin tight. It was obviously highly tailored, but if this vault was supposed to be closed for hundreds of years, there’s no way you could have enough suits in there for everybody because there’d be multi-generations. Suits would wear out. People come in all shapes and sizes, especially if you throw kids into the mix. So, there was no way they could possibly stock vault suits for everybody, or even cloth to make all those suits for everybody.
“So, we just said, ‘Oh, there was some kind of extruder.’ You know, you typed in measurements, you stood in front of a scanner or whatever, and then a vault suit expressly for you was extruded. And that’s why they were all skin tight. That’s why they all had the numbers on the back. That way they didn’t have to make vault suits, a different vault suit for every single vault. When it extruded, it added your vault’s number on the back.
“So, we used to always assume that was going to be true, but then it never ever came up again. But if you do look in vaults, you never find, at least not in the base game, you never find boxes and boxes of vault suits.”
What the hell is Harold?
Next up is fan-favorite Fallout character Harold, a presumed unique FEV mutant who was once a sort of ghoul, but had become a sort of tree thing. Harold appeared in Fallout, Fallout 2, and even Bethesda’s Fallout 3, where he is worshipped as a deity at Oasis, but we’re never quite sure what he is or why he is in the state he’s in.
According to Cain, all the developers were trying to do with Harold was create a character who clearly wasn’t normal, someone who hinted at what might be possible beyond the confines of Fallout’s Southern California setting and all the horrible things that people were exposed to beyond the realm of the first game.
“People called him Harold the ghoul in the hub, but we didn’t necessarily agree that he was a ghoul,” Cain said. “I kind of thought he was a ghoul. Other people on the team thought he was FEV. Other people thought he was some mix of ghoul and FEV, even though FEV wasn’t supposed to work right on people who had been radiated.
“Harold was weird. That’s what we all agreed on. Harold was our example of, there’s some weird stuff out here. You want to see an example of that? Look at Harold. We don’t know what Harold is. Harold doesn’t know what he is.”
Why Sugar Bombs?
And finally, Sugar Bombs. For the uninitiated, Sugar Bombs are the Fallout franchise’s sugar-drenched cereal aimed at children despite being entirely unhealthy for anyone. Sugar Bombs didn’t actually make it into Interplay’s Fallout games, but were picked up by Bethesda for Fallout 3 and beyond (we even see them in the Amazon Fallout TV show). But Cain remembered how he came up with the idea, pointing to his obsession with the daily American comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.
“We designed Sugar Bombs,” Cain said. “I found notes where I mentioned Sugar Bombs. I was a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan. I had the box set. It was designed, but it was never added. We talked about it. We never added it. And it was purely I loved Calvin and Hobbes, so of course Sugar Bombs are in one of my games.”
So there you have it: why China nuked first; the lottery that decided who left Vault 13; vault suits being extruded; Harold not being a typical… anything; and the origin of Sugar Bombs. That’s quite the treasure trove from Cain, a collection of things that were a part of the original Fallout but were never described directly.
But remember, none of this is canon. As Cain says: “This is just for fun.”
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.
Pokémon Go’s new level cap requirements have leaked, and some fans say the fresh XP total required, as well as the some of the extra tasks involved, are too easy.
This week, Pokémon Go will raise its current level 50 cap for the first time in five years, and allow players to reach level 80 for the first time. But this change will come alongside an overall rebalancing of XP — meaning many players will find themselves transported to a much higher level, and potentially far beyond the XP needed to instantly hit level 80.
Of course, players won’t simply log on and find themselves at the finish line. As is the case currently, a fresh set of additional tasks will need to be completed to progress through the game’s final tier of levels (from 70 to 80, replacing similar tasks required to move from 40 to 50). But even these — which have been datamined by fans — have been dubbed as rather straightforward.
Last night, a post on the official Pokémon Go blog listed out the new XP requirements needed after the game’s level cap increases tomorrow, October 15.
Pokémon Go rebalanced XP requirements:
Level 10: 48,000 total XP
Level 20: 258,000 total XP
Level 30: 1,083,000 total XP
Level 40: 3,953,000 total XP
Level 50: 12,753,000 total XP
Level 60: 34,353,000 total XP
Level 70: 85,853,000 total XP
Level 80: 203,353,000 total XP
It’s interesting to compare these fresh totals with the amounts of XP needed to hit the game’s level 50 cap now. Currently, hitting level 50 requires a lifetime total of 176 million XP. (This week, following the game’s rebalance, level 50 will require just 12.75 million XP.) This means the new level 80 cap requires just 27 million more XP than the current level 50.
While it’s been clear for a while that Pokémon Go’s new level cap will come alongside an overall smoothing of the game’s overall XP requirements, hardcore fans have still been surprised to discover that many of them will once again be in Pokémon Go’s new endgame, with little to no actual XP grinding required.
Moving on to those level up tasks, fans examining a datamined list of what will be needed have judged the requirements as rather straightforward. Each level requires players hold an increasing number of platinum in-game medals, though these can be earned in a way that reflects your playstyle. Some will take time — Purifying 100 Shadow Pokémon — but with planning there’s nothing here which should hold up hardcore players for too long.
Indeed, there is also palpable relief among fans at the lack of any artificial timegating here — such as requiring a Pokémon be caught on 30 days, holding progress back a month — something which has been found in other challenges previously.
Pokémon Go Level 71-80 level up tasks
Level 71 Earn 15 platinum medals Power up Legendary or Mythical Pokémon 20 times Make 999 Nice Throws Catch 100 Pokémon in a single day
Level 72 Earn 20 platinum medals Complete a Route 7 days in a row Use 200 supereffective Charged Attacks Earn 1,000,000 Stardust
Level 73 Earn 25 platinum medals Purify 100 Shadow Pokémon Power up 3 Pokémon to their max CP Win 30 Raids
Level 74 Earn 30 platinum medals Level up a Max Move 20 times Explore 200 km Complete 250 Field Research tasks
Level 75 Earn 34 platinum medals Make 999 Great Throws Hatch 75 Eggs Send 500 Gifts to friends
Level 76 Earn 38 platinum medals Defeat 100 Team GO Rocket Grunts Explore 300 km Catch 200 Pokémon in a single day
Level 77 Earn 41 platinum medals Win 100 Max Battles Power up 7 Pokémon to their max CP Make 10 trades with Pokémon caught at least 300 km apart
Level 78 Earn 44 platinum medals Earn 400 hearts with your buddy Explore 400 km Complete 500 Field Research tasks
Level 79 Earn 47 platinum medals Defeat a Team GO Rocket Leader 30 times Obtain 50 Lucky Pokémon in trades Hatch 100 Eggs
Level 80 Earn 50 platinum medals Win 80 Trainer Battles in the GO Battle League Make 999 Excellent Throws Win 80 Raids
With these tasks, and with Pokémon Go’s new XP rebalance, it feels clear that the game is adjusting itself for newer players, and leveling the playing field somewhat so there’s a chance for newcomers to catch up with those who have been playing for almost a decade. As the game approaches its 10-year anniversary next year, its developers will likely want to ensure Pokémon Go continues to welcome fresh blood to its userbase, without giving them too steep an XP mountain to climb. But some veterans are less impressed.
“These are all so easy,” wrote Old_Indication_4379 on top Pokémon Go fan reddit TheSilphRoad.
“I’m disappointed beyond disappointment,” added another fan, avaible17. “I’m sitting at 352M xp and I doubt that it is very impressive number for most of the old players. I hoped for a challenge and motivation to play, I’ve got easy and repetitive tasks, that most of them can be done in a day (except walking ofc).
“I was hoping for introduction of new type of medals, that would make my grind beyond capabilities of human flesh,” they continued. “Now I’m writing this and thinking, that they just make it easier for beginners, not more challenging for old dogs.”
Fresh incentives to climbing levels will include permanent boosts to Pokémon, inventory and gift storage, and an improved chance at gaining Lucky Friends status when players are level 70 and above. Finally, and most mysteriously, there’s a new 1km Daily Adventure Incubator for players over level 15. Alongside the game’s current Daily Adventure Incense item, which rewards players with extra spawns for 15 minutes, this is designed to reward players who walk at least 1km per day.
Exactly which Pokémon the Daily Adventure Incubator will hatch, however, remains unknown — though fans are already speculating that the mechanic will eventually include an ultra-rare Pokémon (Manaphy and Phione seem a good bet!) similar to how the Daily Adventure Incense has a rare chance at spawning a Galar Legendary bird.
Rapper Skrilla says his viral hit Doot Doot (6 7) is in Grand Theft Auto 6.
The soundtrack and radio listings in GTA games have long been something of a cultural phenomenon, boosting plenty of musical careers. In this instance, however, the song in question is already a mega hit that has inspired a global meme.
Skrilla’s 6 7 blew up earlier this year on TikTok and Instagram. It’s a slang term referring to gun violence but became popular when it began appearing in clips about basketball players like LaMelo Ball, who is 6ft 7 inches tall. It then went viral when a boy known as the 67 Kid used it in a meme, and now kids the world over are saying it.
Talking about the game on Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, Skrilla told the hosts (thanks, Dexerto): “I’m waiting for GTA 6 to come out… 6 7 is on there, too. Yeah, 6 7 is on there. I’m going to be my own person on there, playing my own music.”
Rockstar has yet to announce any songs appearing in GTA 6, and it no-doubt won’t until its good and ready. But Skrilla, at least, sounds convinced 6 7 is in there, and you’d like to think he’d know.
Meanwhile, Faheem Rashad Najm, better-known as singer-songwriter T-Pain, confirmed that he’s contributing to GTA 6 (in the course of bringing T-Pain aboard, it seems that Rockstar requested he stop role-playing on NoPixel, a popular GTA 5 role-play server that runs on third-party servers).
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Post-launch support for Hollow Knight: Silksong continues, this time with patch version 1.0.28891 out now.
The update makes a number of improvements and fixes, and some light balance changes. The game now pauses when the controller disconnects, which is an important safety net for such an intense game. Indeed, there are controller support improvements across the board.
On the balance side of things, there’s a slight increase to Sharp Dart and Cross Stitch damage, updated damage scaling on Rune Rage to match other Silk Skills, and a slight decrease to Thread Storm damage at higher needle levels. It’s also worth noting that the patch changes Fine Pins wish drops from 50% chance to 100%, but raises the required quantity.
Fixed various smaller controller issues (more fixes to come in future).
Fixed remaining instance of certain players getting stuck cursed while in the late game.
Fixed Curveclaw not reacting to Hunter down-stab.
Fixed rare instances of being able to air dash and double jump when not intended.
Fixed several out of bounds situations.
Fixed Pharlid Divers sometimes sliding on roofs after ambushing in certain scenes.
Fixed Eva Hunter Crest upgrades unintentionally clearing tool equips.
Fixed rare instances of Harpoon sometimes granting 2 Silk instead of 1.
Fixed Cogflies sometimes appearing from odd locations after scene transition and, in rare cases, having their active quantity reduced by 1.
Fixed Crafting Kits not increasing the damage of offensive blue tools (eg Sawtooth Circlet).
Slight increase to Sharp Dart and Cross Stitch damage.
Updated damage scaling on Rune Rage to match other Silk Skills.
Slight decrease to Thread Storm damage at higher needle levels.
Fixed Surgeon enemies sometimes pulling the hero out of bounds.
Fixed instances of some Spool Fragments being permanently missable if a player immediately quit after collecting the item.
Fixed Crust King Khann sometimes falling out of bounds during entry, when fought on low-end systems.
Fixed rare instance of Second Sentinel becoming rotated when defeated.
Fixed additional case of Seth sometimes getting out of bounds and not returning.
Fixed Seth sometimes remaining invincible for a moment at the start of a refight.
Fixed Vaults slide blocks incorrectly responding to damage sources other than the needle.
Changed Fine Pins wish drops from 50% chance to 100%, but raised required quantity.
Fixed issues when consuming a Silkeater while in water.
Fixed Scuttlebrace sometimes allowing a wall jump when not intended.
Fixed a soft-lock during the Grand Gate opening sequence, if the Citadel had been visited and some bellshrines remained inactive.
Various smaller fixes and tweaks.
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.
Amazon is having another one of its “Buy 2 Get 1 50% Off” sales and it is absolutely filled to the brim with puzzles this time around. There are hundreds of options included in this sale from some of the best puzzle brands out there. If you’re on the hunt for your next puzzle, or are just looking to grab a nice gift for the puzzler in your life, this promotion makes it a great time to save some money.
To take advantage of the promotion, you’ll just need to add two eligible jigsaw puzzles to your Amazon cart and the 50% discount will be applied to whichever one is the least expensive. And since it isn’t just puzzles included (there are board games as well), you can also mix and match with other items to still get that discount. I’ve gathered some of my top picks from this sale below, but there’s a ton of other options available if you want to browse the sale yourself.
Jigsaw Puzzle Sale on Amazon Today
Like I mentioned above, there are a ton of puzzles included in this sale. I couldn’t possibly include them all, so I’ve only highlighted a few top picks that I think best represent what is included here. There’s a fairly wide variety of piece counts, from 300 to 3000, but I mostly stuck to 1000-piece puzzles here as they are the most popular whenever I’ve covered a puzzle sale.
If you are looking for some suggestions for what to buy, the Spider-Verse puzzle from Buffalo games has been on our list of the best puzzles for adults for over a year now. It’s got a ton of different Spideys and is consistently one of the most popular marvel puzzles out there. There’s also the Disney & Pixar Shop puzzle from Ravensburger that offers something similar for fans of Disney instead of Marvel. There’s a bunch of characters and easter eggs hidden in each one.
I’d also recommend checking out The Drippy Trip puzzle. It’s the latest puzzle made by The Magic Puzzle Company and actually features a few fun secrets from the popular cartoon Adventure Time. If you aren’t familiar with Magic Puzzle Company Puzzles, they are a mix between jigsaw puzzle and magic kit and are generally very popular with families. There have been five different series of these types of puzzles and Amazon has a bunch of them featured in this sale right now.
Board Games Are Also Included
Amazon’s buy 1, get 1 50% off sale also extends to board games. So if you want to purchase a puzzle and a board game you can still get that 50% off. There are a surprising number of board games included in the sale and you can mix and match to your heart’s desire. There’s even some crossover between IP so you can purchase a Lord of the Rings puzzleand a Lord of the Rings board game all at once if you want.
Amazon’s October Prime Day has ended, but the online retailer is already offering a new “Buy 2, Get 1 50% Off” sale this week. There’s a little bit of everything for everyone in here, from classic family games to modern party games. If you’ve been hoping to add some more board games to your tabletop collection, right now is a great time to do so.
The sale itself is fairly straightforward: Amazon has a big list of items that are included in the promotion and all you need to do is add two in your cart and the 50% discount will be applied to whatever the cheaper one is. That means if you want to take full advantage of the savings, you’ll want to buy two similarly priced items. I’ve gathered some of the best options in the sale here, which are based off of IGN’s own board game reviews and recommendations.
Buy 1, Get 1 50% Off Board Games
The amount of options to choose from in this sale is truly staggering, and it’s difficult to choose only a few recommendations to highlight. Are you looking for intriguing murder mystery games to play during a Halloween party? Do you need a fun family board game you can break out on weekends? Are you hoping to find a great strategy game that will take all night to play? There are tabletop options for all of those scenarios right here.
For those working with a smaller budget, I’d recommend checking out Flip 7. We reviewed it earlier this year and absolutely loved it. It’s a fairly easy push-you-luck card game that can be played in under 20 minutes. At only $8, it’s already cheap, and this promotion will end up dropping that price down to just $4 when you buy something else (that’s at least $8) with it. All-in-all, it’s an easy recommendation to make for anyone who just wants a fun game that has a shallow learning curve.
If you’re looking for something a bit heartier that’s still family friendly, Ticket to Ride – both the original U.S. and some of the European versions – is also included here. This game is a modern classic that does a great job of combining simple gameplay with stimulating turn-based strategy.
Once you find a game you like, the next step is picking out a good second option to take full advantage of the discount. I’d recommend browsing through some of the classic board games here that are essential for any collection, stuff like Clue, Catan, Sorry!, and multiple versions of Monopoly. If you don’t already have those, now is a great time to pick one or more up for a substantial discount.
