Having never been any sort of tennis fan for my entire childhood — Wimbledon always seemed a bit posh to me — I fell completely and utterly in love with the sport in my teenage years through the medium of video games.
Yes. Video games. They’re a whole thing! And just as has been the case with American football, basketball, and ice hockey, my initial interest in tennis was stoked by a game; in this case, the incredible Super Tennis on SNES.
In an unprecedented and unforeseeable event, the Cyborgs have returned to once again threaten the liberty and sovereignty of Super Earth and its inhabitants. This nightmarish turn of events follows the discovery that the Automatons seized the schematics for the Star of Peace with the intent to build one for themselves and use it for their dark and violent purpose. They have been tasked by the Cyborg Legion to carry out these crimes.
The Helldivers have been ordered to take on the dark and grim streets of Cyberstan’s cities and stop this collusion of bots and Cyborgs in its tracks!
The factory cities
Now Super Earth is taking the fight to the heart of Cyberstan. Drop into the bot homeworld and prepare to breach the fortress walls of their massive factory cities. Fight through the inhospitable landscapes that power the Automaton war machine: industrial complexes that are heavily defended with hazards around every corner.
The community of Helldivers must work together to clear a path through Cyberstan’s factory cities–choose which cities to destroy, making sure to bring down every building and leave no bot standing as you democratize these heartless machines.
New mission & objectives
Your primary mission will be to stop the production of more Cyborgs, as well as compromise Automaton defenses trying to stand in your way. Helldivers will also have the opportunity to clean up: destroy their mega factories building by building, and tear down the symbolic statues of the war criminals and terrorists revered by Cyborg scum in order to further destabilize and demoralize their regime.
But beware–an old familiar threat rises in these dark, foreboding streets: the Cyborgs have returned with new weapons of mass destruction.
Old enemies return
You must face down three new types of enemies in the Cyborg subfaction. Outsmart the Agitators, who command the Automaton legion in the field, are heavily armored and can take control of enemy squads, making tactical decisions on the battlefield.
Fight them while the Cyborg Radicals rush you from every side to make the fight up close and personal. They are the most extreme vision of a wretched Cyborg-run future: they push their bodies to the limit with cybernetic and bio-enhancements, turning themselves into a mockery of humanity.
And finally, fight the Vox Engine: the Voice of the Cyborg Legion. This war machine, piloted by a high-ranking Cyborg officer, rolls across the battlefield, blaring Cyborg’s propaganda. It is armed with dual laser cannons, rockets, laser gatlings–all to ensure no one can stop the spread of their message.
Helldivers call for aid
And Super Earth shall answer! Along with the recently-deployed Siege Breakers Warbond which features defensive assistance like the G/SH-39 Shield, Helldivers will also be able to purchase the War Horses set of armor in the Superstore.
Global reinforcement limits
Sending reinforcements to Cyberstan is a great risk for Super Earth, which means it will be essential for the Helldivers to stay alive for as long as possible.
Every death will be counted in the Battle for Cyberstan, using a Galactic Reinforcement Counter marking the finite number of Helldivers able to be deployed. If the counter reaches zero, it means we have lost the Battle for Cyberstan.
Helldivers, we cannot lose to this renewed Cyborg threat. Your objectives must be completed while ensuring maximal lifespans for all divers. Stim your squadmates, bring defensive stratagems, and survive as you fight your way across Cyberstan, destroying the factory cities together!
The latest Helldivers 2 update, Machinery of Oppression, is live now!
*Requires base game, paid purchase of Super Credits, and game progression to unlock. Gameplay requires internet access and paid-for PlayStation Plus membership (sold separately) on PS5.
Take one look at Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, the upcoming RPG from ZA/UM, and you can immediately see the similarities between it and the studio’s previous game, Disco Elysium. It’s an isometric game with a striking art style, featuring dialogue-heavy gameplay where conversations are displayed vertically on the right-hand side of the screen.
Take a closer look and there are even more similarities. There’s a “Conditioning” system that replicates many of the functions of Disco Elysium’s unique Thought Cabinet. Its story aims to be deeply political and introspective. And then there’s the skills system, which manifests as a sentient inner monologue, commenting on your choices and the world around you.
For some Disco Elysium fans, this overlap may feel uneasy. In 2022, game director Robert Kurvitz and art director Aleksander Rostov – creatives key to the look, feel, and vision of the celebrated RPG – were among a number of staff who left the studio in an “involuntary” manner. ZA/UM claimed they were fired for misconduct, while Kurvitz and Rostov accused the company’s majority shareholders of fraud. Many fans believe those fired to be victims of corporate conspiracy. Those same fans may now be concerned to see the studio building a Disco Elysium successor based on such similar design foundations without the involvement of those original creatives.
In a recent interview, IGN discussed these concerns with Jim Ashilevi, writer and VO director at ZA/UM, and asked why the studio didn’t consider finding a new direction for Zero Parades.
“I think it would have made sense for us to go in a completely different direction if the entire team was comprised of new talent,” Ashilevi said. “But since such a large number of the key players that built Disco Elysium are here to build Zero Parades, it just didn’t make sense for us to just disregard that part of our experience as amateur game makers and start learning new ways of telling stories.”
ZA/UM’s head of studio, Allen Murray, estimates that around 35% of the studio’s current staff roster is made up of people who worked on either the original version of Disco Elysium or the expanded “Final Cut” release. The studio’s total staff numbers around 90.
“We’re still the same people,” Ashilevi continued. “We still have the same interests. The stuff that interests us in the world of video games, but also in other media – in film and literature and theater – that hasn’t changed. Hopefully it has evolved, but I think we’re still basically the same people.
“We’re just going by our gut, basically, and we’re following our own obsessions,” he said. “And a lot of that was present in Disco Elysium. It will be present in Zero Parades as well, largely due to the fact that those are the same people who were there to build that cool world.”
In a previous interview with members of ZA/UM, which took place just prior to Gamescom 2025, IGN asked Ashilevi and lead technical artist Nicolas Pirot how they felt about fans who may be feeling cautious about a new ZA/UM RPG following the departures of Kurvitz, Rostov, and others.
“I understand why some people might have reservations,” said Pirot. “It’s not up to me to tell them what to think or what to experience. I think what we are trying to do is tell an incredible story. And I think all we can do is hope that, when Zero Parades is ready, that people like it enough to participate and to see who we are as a group.”
“We are here to write more stories,” Ashilevi added. “That’s all we’re here for. And if that upsets people or makes them feel cautious, fair. But there is a new game coming out soon and I hope you check it out. And if you don’t like it, that’s fine. That’s completely fine.”
Management at Scottish studio Build A Rocket Boy, makers of notoriously panned GTA-like MindsEye, have reportedly installed monitoring software onto the PCs of their staff without informing the workers beforehand. The move appears to be linked to ongoing claims from BARB executives that the game’s prospects have been deliberately sabotaged by third parties.
Blizzard has said that its Warcraft-themed collectible card game Hearthstone is still not available on consoles because the team needs “a level of investment… to make that happen.”
That’s according to executive producer Nathan Lyons-Smith, who recently revealed that because of the 12-year-old game’s aging code — estimated to be 16 years old — any port to console must be done “right” and only when the team finds “the right time to do it.”
“There’s a level of investment that we need to make that happen, primarily in terms of UI and UX, and making sure that it’s very natural to go and play a card game on those platforms,” Lyons-Smith said, as reported by Eurogamer. “I know it’s possible — Duels of the Planeswalkers for Magic [The Gathering], many years ago now, was absolutely delightful with the controller — so I know we can do it.
“I asked an engineer who’d been on the project a long time, and he estimates the code is 16 years old,” Lyons-Smith continued, “and the team was 15 people 16 years ago. And so there’s more of an effort to go: ‘I want to make sure when we go that it’s awesome.’ That it doesn’t just feel like, yeah, they ported it here, and you can play…
“I want to make sure that when we go, we’re going to go, and it’s going to feel awesome for players that love that form factor, whether they’re leaning back on the couch or sitting on the couch with their handheld.”
Hearthstone originally launched in 2014 on PC, with a mobile and tablet version following very shortly after. Over the years there have been numerous calls for the game to launch on consoles — and particularly Nintendo Switch, for handheld play. But Blizzard has never gotten around to it.
Game director Tyler Bielman added: “If we’re going to bring it specifically to that living room big screen platform, we would want to make sure that the full experience is optimized for that mode that you’re in.”
Now, of course, with Blizzard owned by Xbox and parent company Microsoft, there could be more pressure than ever to bring the hugely-successful card game to console players. However, with Xbox’s high-level goal of enabling gamers to play “anywhere,” the Hearthstone team acknowledged an expectation to go “as wide as we could” to reach as many players as possible, regardless of platform.
“In the future, as we explore console and handheld, we’d probably go as wide as we could,” Lyons-Smith added. “Certainly, we have a different owner now than we did three years ago, and they’re more invested in Xbox and ‘anything’s an Xbox’. Their high-level goal [being] games playable anywhere.”
Hearthstone’s Cataclysm-themed expansion is set to launch on March 17, marking the return of Colossal cards and introducing a brand new story.
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.
Addressing fans in a video celebrating the open-world adventure game’s first anniversary, series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto teased that this expansion will be similar to Monster Hunter World‘s Iceborne add-on, but was otherwise coy about the details. He did, however, stress that this will be the “final update” for the monster hunting game.
“We are currently at work on a large-scale expansion similar to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak for Monster Hunter: Wilds,” Tsujimoto said. “We plan to share more information with you this summer.”
We also learned a little more about the update dropping on February 18, too, including details of Arch-Tempered Arkveld, 10-star Arc-Tempered monsters, a special collaboration with Monster Hunter Stories 3 — a spin-off series that releases next month — plus an anniversary event where all previous awards and quests will be “re-available.”
Players who log in during the anniversary event will receive a free item pack, and each previous seasonal event will return for a weekly rotation. “Almost all” previously released event quests will be made permanent from February 18.
“We have been implementing improvements to game stability and performance since Title Update 4,” Tsujimoto added, “and this update will introduce even further improvements.” Again, we’re told to expect more details closer to the time, so Capcom suggests you monitor its social media accounts for updates.
“While this marks the end of major content updates, the team is currently hard at work on a large-scale expansion to Monster Hunter Wilds,” the team added. “We look forward to sharing the first reveal of the expansion this summer.”
Monster Hunter Wilds has had something of a bumpy ride of late. Title Update 4 arrived at the end of last year and ushered in a long list of gameplay and balance changes, as well as CPU/GPU improvements, load reduction, and the optimization of “PC-specific processes and addition of options and presets to reduce processing load.”
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.
Pokémon Pokopia might just be one of our most anticipated games of 2026. If you’re in the same boat and you’re lucky enough to be attending the Pokémon European International Championships in London this weekend, then boy, do we have good news for you! Attendees will be among the first in the world to go hands-on with the upcoming ‘mon sim thanks to a surprise event demo.
The demo will be exclusive to the EUIC event (now sold out), but it poses a good opportunity to see what this weird spin-off is all about.
Here’s almost seven minutes of Black Myth: Wukong follow-up Black Myth: Zhong Kui. Well, kind of.
While developer Game Science has dropped the new in-engine trailer and labelled it as pertaining to the highly-anticipated sequel, it also features a “non-canon” disclaimer which suggests everything you see here could have no bearing whatsoever on the final game or its story, and has only been released by the team to celebrate Chinese New Year and welcome in the Year of the Horse.
But while you won’t see any gameplay or combat per se, the “non-canon, for entertainment purposes only” trailer nonetheless shows in-engine footage and gives us our best look yet at what to expect from the sequel, particularly in terms of how it looks and sounds. Let me take you through it.
It starts out normally enough as a young woman moves around an al fresco kitchen preparing a meal. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll realize that the figure that passes her near the beginning isn’t quite human, and the guy who opens the gigantic oyster-stroke-mussell shell reveals not a mollusc but, well, a little grey-faced man, uh, thing. She then prepares a slab of meat with blinking eyeballs embedded in it.
There’s more — much more — but it’s such a delight, I’d recommend watching it yourself. Just remember that it’s more of a tech demo and is unlikely to impact the eventual storyline of Black Myth: Zhong Kui, much like the spin-off story Game Science similarly released at Chinese New Year last year.
Black Myth: Wukong developer Game Science revealed sequel Black Myth: Zhong Kui at Opening Night Live 2025 last August. “Set against the backdrop of the classic Chinese folktale ‘Zhong Kui Banishing Evil,’ Black Myth: Zhong Kui is a single-player action role-playing game rooted in ancient Chinese fantasy,” GameScience said.
“The game will deliver distinctive experiences and gameplay features that push our limits, while also bringing fresh ideas and necessary changes to address past flaws and regrets.” As yet, there’s no release window, let alone a firm date.
Predecessor Black Myth: Wukong is the record-breaking action game that launched across PC and PlayStation 5 in 2024, selling 10 million copies in just three days. The Xbox Series X and S versions launched in August 2025. It returned a Great 8/10 in IGN’s Black Myth: Wukong review, in which we wrote: “Despite some frustrating technical issues, Black Myth: Wukong is a great action game with fantastic combat, exciting bosses, tantalizing secrets, and a beautiful world.”
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.
2XKO, Riot’s League of Legendsfighting spin-off, is having its development team significantly cut back not long after release. Game Developer report a Riot spokesperson as stating the publishers have put plans in motion to lay off around 80 developers on the game, about half of the global team who’ve been working on it, with the potential for some of the affected workers to land in new posts at Riot.
