Introducing The Dark West, a hardcore action-RPG for PC set in a cursed frontier that got too greedy and paid the price. Occult skills and a poker-esque deck let you customize your build and blast through the black-magic-fueled foes of The Order and The Damned as you aim to be the last one standing.
Developer Black Hand aims to bring the community along with them at every step of development. “We made The Dark West because we love ARPGs and wanted to create the kind of game we have always wanted to play,” the team said. “From the start, we’ve included the community in every step of development. Their feedback is shaping the combat, the story, and the world. This is a game made with players, not just for them.” Check out the announcement trailer above and the first screenshots in the gallery below.
Black Hand says that The Dark West will challenge “both your skill and sanity.” It takes aim squarely at fans of Diablo and Path of Exile. There’s no release date as of yet, but you can wishlist The Dark West on Steam if you’re intererested.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
Ahoy! Welcome, one and all, to another edition of Box Art Brawl!
Last time, we checked out Red Alarm for the Virtual Boy, which of course will be joining the launch lineup for Virtual Boy – Nintendo Classics on NSO later this month. It was a surprisingly close contest, with North America just about claiming victory with 54% of the vote.
Hello reader who is also a reader! It’s finally time for another edition of our thrillingly erratic column on game developers and their bestest books. This week, we’re having our ears bent by Marcia Shange, chief operating officer of South Africa, Johannesburg-based developers Nyamakop, creators of puzzle platformer Semblance and the forthcoming postcolonial heist ’em up Relooted. Cheers, Marcia! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?
Nintendo is launching its Virtual Boy- Nintendo Classics digital library for the Switch Online + Expansion Pack service later this month, and the previews are now in.
First up are our own impressions from Nintendo Life staff writer Ollie Reynolds:
For all of their faults (the list may be endless), the interesting thing about live service games, when done well anyway, is the way they can change from day to day. There’s an actual living quality to them that, even if I’ll always prefer them, a singleplayer game can’t capture as well. One such game that can change quite drastically is Arc Raiders, with its varying map conditions and events, swapping in and out at the whims of its developers. This rotation isn’t something universally loved, but CEO Patrick Söderlund has said that they’re here to stay.
In a few months time we’ll be approaching the anniversary of Square Enix realising that actually, their commitment to releasing certain games only on particular platforms isn’t that good for them after all. These following two years will supposedly have been a time of internal change for the studio, with that translated externally via the Final Fantasy 7 Remake games releasing on more than just PlayStation. Perhaps they’re finally making smart choices! And then last year, instead of finally showing off something like, I don’t know, Kingdom Hearts 4, which was first revealed four years ago now, they announced Killer Inn. Okay! And now, you can try it out for yourself.
Magic: The Gathering is continuing where it left off in 2025, rolling out a whopping four crossover sets under its Universes Beyond branding in 2026: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Marvel Super Heroes, The Hobbit, and Star Trek.
That’s quite the mix, but at a time when fans are crying out for some consistency and continuity, Wizards of the Coast is about to make the same mistake it made with last year’s marketing cycle.
In short, it feels like it can’t wait to get Secrets of Strixhaven out of the way, forgetting why many people play Magic in the first place.
Magic’s Universes Beyond Sets Shouldn’t Come At The Cost Of Its Own Identity
There’s a running joke that Magic crossovers are the worst thing about the game until it’s a franchise you love, and as a longtime fan of Peter Parker’s adventures, I admit I bought into the Spider-Man hype last year.
It was easy to do, too, since Wizards started revealing cards and products super early, trampling over the Edge of Eternities set in the process. The rest, as they say, is history: Spider-Man was inarguably Magic’s most disappointing set of at least the last year (maybe longer), and Edge of Eternities was much more well-received but invariably didn’t get its chance in the limelight.
While I was hoping that Wizards would take some lessons from it, we’re now entering a 2026 roadmap with seven full sets planned. Lorwyn Eclipsed is great, and only just launched, but that’s January’s set. Preorders are now live for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Secrets of Strixhaven, and even Marvel Super Heroes.
That last set, by the way, is around five months from launch. While I appreciate that a company needs a line on a graph to go up to show success by bringing in new players, it’s starting to feel like Wizards of the Coast is trampling on Magic’s own legacy in its desperation to talk about crossover sets.
Lorwyn Eclipsed should be a celebration, a chance to return to a beloved Plane full of classic creature types, and instead, we’re getting close to the Turtles landing on store shelves. Looking past Strixhaven to a Marvel crossover, this early (and with the taste of the Spider-Man set still lingering), is just a bad look.
Please, Wizards – don’t let Secrets of Strixhaven suffer the same way Edge of Eternities is. It’s almost unavoidable with such a packed release calendar, but if you can’t pay enough time to your own universes, the ones that have captivated players for over three decades, does that not tell you a change is required?
Honestly, all of this is moot anyway – I’m part of the problem. I’ve pre-ordered some Marvel Superheroes products, and you can bet your Bilbo Baggins that I’ll be first in line for The Hobbit.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
