After nine years, Behaviour Interactive is finally bringing Five Nights at Freddy’s to Dead by Daylight – and Matthew Lillard is joining in on the fun.

It’s a collaboration that has been in the works for a while, but it wasn’t until today’s Dead by Daylight PAX East presentation that the studio was ready to reveal exactly how it will keep players scared as the asymmetrical multiplayer game approaches its ninth birthday. Freddy Fazbear and his animatronic-filled pizza emporium headline Behviour’s plans for this year’s anniversary chapter, which is expected to arrive in June.

Lillard, who starred as William Afton in 2023’s Five Nights at Freddy’s movie adaptation, has embodied the spirit of the role once again to lend his likeness and record new voice lines for Dead by Daylight’s latest Killer: Springtrap. This evil animatronic bunny, otherwise known as Yellow Rabbit or Spring Bonnie, will be available as a Legendary Outfit when the collection eventually arrives.

Behaviour calls Five Nights at Freddy’s the “most requested license in Dead by Daylight history,” so fans should be excited to hear that the content drop will also include a Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza map that is said to be filled with a buffet of Easter Eggs and surprises to uncover. More news, including a specific release date, is expected to arrive in the near future.

If there’s one thing that’s kept the name Doom up near the top of the list of first-person shooters, it’s how it’s always boldly reinventing being a badass, super powered, one-man army against the armies of Hell. Three decades ago we got the original old-school run-and-guns, then a jumpscare-laden horror shooter, then a modern reimagining of the old-school run-and-gun, and a mobility-focused action shooter in 2020’s Doom Eternal. The form that Doom: The Dark Ages takes on is actually one that is very different from Eternal, a game that I rank as one of my favorite shooters of all time. In fact, it’s so different that initially I was turned off by the heavier feel of the movement, the lack of a double jump or airdash, and the sheer chaos of having wide-open fields with seemingly hundreds of enemies closing in on me from all sides.

But a few hours into the 20+ hour campaign, my arsenal had expanded, the ways in which I could dispatch enemies had diversified, and I’d started to better understand and appreciate what Doom: The Dark Ages was and what it wasn’t. By the end of it I was left grinning like a Doomguy that just picked up a Super Shotgun as I ripped and tore until it was done

Doom: The Dark Ages’s campaign is all about setting up the dark sci-fi fantasy vibes. It follows our strong, (mostly) silent Doom Slayer before he was awoken in a Sarcophagus in a UAC space station back in Doom 2016. Of course, the Slayer himself isn’t much more than just a vehicle for badassery, so it’s not like we’re seeing a new side of him or getting any sort of deeper look at his character’s origins or motivations. Instead, The Dark Ages’ story is more about filling in the blanks in the Doom universe, diving into the history of the conflict between humans and demons, and further fleshing out both the faction of humanity defending Sentinels and the deity-like Maykrs. And in that way, it’s not only serviceable, but it also does a good job of at least taking us to both a wide variety of hellish landscapes that includes sci-fi themed medieval castles, and a very welcome trip to the Lovecraftian-inspired Cosmic Realm, which features a ton of really cool mind bending puzzles and creepy settings that are different from what we’ve seen before.

Perhaps the best thing about the story is that it no longer feels like it’s just the Slayer against the nameless forces of Hell. There are human companions that are central to the plot: it regularly feels like you’re fighting alongside humanity in this giant all-out war against the demons, and there’s actual intrigue involving the mysterious Maykrs and their role in this whole conflict. This is the strongest a Doom story has ever been, even if that’s not a bar you’d have to double-jump over.

Captain Doom Slayer

Besides the setting, the big thing that separates Doom: The Dark Ages from prior entries in the series is the addition of the Slayer’s Shield, and all of the abilities that come with it. Now, rather than being forced to avoid taking damage by constantly staying on the move and jumping around like a madman, you’re often encouraged to charge straight forward into danger with your shield at the ready to either block or deflect enemy attacks. Any attack that is red can be blocked until your shield’s depleted, and anything that’s green can be reflected with a well-timed guard to not only deal substantial damage, but also stun most monsters it hits. Even on Nightmare difficulty, which is what I did my playthrough on, the parry timing is very generous, but fortunately you can fine tune it however you like in the menus, along with a ton of other handy difficulty modifiers.

The other key shield technique is a charging bash attack that can be used to quickly close the distance between you and the enemy. Think the Super Shotgun’s grapple in Doom Eternal, only faster, you can use it with any weapon, and it’s on a relatively quick cooldown. This combination of being able to use the shield both defensively to block and stun, and then offensively to quickly zip in or out, is what really elevates The Dark Ages’ combat to the stratosphere by making it still feel very fast and exciting even with the removal of things like double jumps, quick dashes, and fast weapon swaps. We get the best of both worlds, in that this Slayer is still extremely mobile, but also feels like a heavily armored tank thanks to loud footsteps and a shockwave when you land from a high jump.

The shield’s utility doesn’t end there, either. Eventually, you’ll also get the ability to toss the shield out, Captain America style, to instantly decapitate tons of fodder enemies at once. Or, if you use it against larger enemies, it will continuously buzzsaw into them, keeping them incapacitated for a short while. This is an extremely useful skill, but I found this to be especially potent against the Arachnotron enemies that like to pepper me with a constant stream of non-refelctable bullets. If they’re unarmored, I can just toss my shield to stop them from shooting, dash in, and all it takes is a single super shotgun blast to ready them for an execution.

Those abilities are key to surviving tough fights because almost every enemy in Doom: The Dark Ages has some sort of weakness like this – and unlike Doom Eternal, they are rarely weapon-specific. There’s no more switching to the combat shotgun specifically to pop a grenade into a Cacodemon’s mouth, then swapping to the rifle to snipe the guns off a Revenant, then swapping between shots of your super shotgun and ballistae to quickly burst down a Marauder or other big and beefy enemy, etc. That’s fun in its own way, and I’m sure there will be those out there like myself who will still prefer it overall, but The Dark Ages still manages to find a way to be an absolute blast without requiring a StarCraft pro’s level of APM (Actions Per Minute) on the harder difficulties.

The enemies are largely the usual suspects that have been in most of the other Dooms, You’ve got your Imps, Hell Knights, the aforementioned Mancubi and Arachnotron, and even the Cyberdemon, all of whom behave as you’d expect. Others have gotten new facelifts to better match with the new setting, like the Pinkie who’s now a mount with a demon archer riding him, and the new Cacodemon that hails from the Cosmic Realm. The Dark Ages even brings back the Vagary as a mini-boss, who hasn’t been seen since Doom 3. Overall, there’s a nice variety in the enemies, and even those you’ve fought a million times before have a few new tricks to make them fit better in The Dark Ages’ combat.

Speaking of enemies, It’s worth mentioning as well that Id has exponentially jacked up the number of on-screen nasties relative to Doom or Eternal. When you get a bird’s-eye view of a battlefield, it truly looks like all-out war against the minions of Hell. This did lead to a bit of frustration for me early on because I was often getting attacked from behind by enemies that would spawn in without warning, but all it took was some adjustment in how I approached certain combat encounters. I had to make sure that I used my shield basq2sh to disengage in addition to engaging to keep them off my back.

One noteworthy omission from The Dark Ages is the iconic Chainsaw that has been used since Doom 2016 as a way to instantly kill a single enemy and regain ammo in the process. That has been replaced by an all new melee system that lets you get up close and personal and engage in melee brawls that also restore your ammo. I do miss the satisfaction of just sawing an Imp or other small enemy in half, but this system works better for what Doom the Dark Ages is trying to achieve by again making you rush towards the fight rather than away from it. The “ammo” pick ups for your melee attack are also much more plentiful than the gas for the Chainsaw was in either Doom 2016 or Eternal, making me run out of ammo far less, which was something I very much appreciated.

The Tools of Doom

As far as the actual weapons go, The Dark Ages plays around a lot with the look of each weapon to give it an old-timey flavor, but the functions are generally all the same as what we’ve come to know and love from this series. All the satisfyingly punchy stalwarts are accounted for: The combat and super shotguns, an assault rifle that shoots out railspikes instead of bullets (but don’t call it a railgun), a plasma rifle, and a single-shot sniper rifle-like weapon in the form of a satisfying steel ball launcher, just to name a handful. The only unique weapon of the bunch is the Skullcrusher Pulverizer, which sort of behaves like the chaingun but has a ridiculous spread that can just absolutely shred a football field’s worth of fodder enemies. It’s a fun weapon that goes great with The Dark Age’s absolutely insane amount of on-screen enemies at once, even though I typically opted to use the shield throw to mow down the hordes of fodder since there’s an upgrade that powers up the shield charge when you do so.

One interesting twist for how The Dark Ages handles its arsenal is that every gun has a sister weapon that uses the same ammo type and can be hotswapped between with the press of a button. So for example, along with a rocket launcher, there’s a grenade launcher; in addition to the aforementioned Pulverizer that does a little bit of damage spread out over a wide area, there’s a Ravager that concentrates the fire to hit single enemies. It all adds up to a ton of variety in the gunplay, and while I was never forced to swap between my weapons in the same way that I was in Doom Eternal, I still found myself jumping around from gun to gun simply because it’s fun.

But the absolute best part about the toolbox in The Dark Ages is – and this is a credit to the weapon designers at Id, because this is true for just about every Doom game – that every gun retains its usefulness throughout the entire game. Sure, I might have my favorites and gravitate more towards the Super Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, and Steelshot, but even the early weapons stay relevant once you get some upgrades into them. If I’m low on armor, I can swap to the combat shotgun that I upgraded to ignite enemies and make them drop armor shards; if I need health, I can swap to the Ravager to make them bleed h ealth pickups; and if I need to incapacitate an enemy while also dealing damage to others nearby I can throw my shield into a baddie, shoot the shield, and watch as my bullets ricochet and hit everyone else around.

To sweeten the pot, all of these abilities and weapons are sprinkled at a measured pace throughout the campaign. There was never even a chance for the gunplay to get stale because every level would give me a new gun, or a new ability for my shield, or a new melee weapon, or I’d find enough gold to afford a new upgrade at the shop that would alter something I already had in a way that made me want to use it more.

And it’s this need to upgrade that fed into my desire to explore and find both upgrade currencies and more traditional Doom collectibles like figurines, weapon skins, and lore pick ups. Appropriately, the levels of The Dark Ages welcome that exploration with open arms. While they all vary in size, the smaller stages are still big by the series standards, and the big levels are gigantic. They’re huge, open battlefields with tons of secrets, challenging enemy encounters, and more than a few breathtaking vistas.

Doomazord Power

Breaking up all of the running and gunning are giant mecha battles and flying sections where you pilot the Slayer’s dragon. Yes, the Doom Slayer has a dragon, because why not. These sections are shallow compared to the rest of The Dark Ages, with the mecha sections amounting to little more than a simple game of dodge, punch, punch, dodge, punch, punch, etc. And the dragon bits are little more than dodge, shoot, shoot, dodge, shoot, shoot. That said, they’re kind of like a turret sequence in that they’re infrequent and brief enough to never drag the pacing down, and they at least provide some cool moments in the cutscenes that precede and follow them.

And then there’s the soundtrack: holy hell. If you’ve played a Doom game before you probably know what to expect going in, but even so I was gleefully into it. It’s another banger of a heavy metal soundtrack that had me coming back to certain levels after beating the campaign and just turning down all the volume except for the music so I could listen without it being overpowered by all the sounds of shotgun blasts, explosions, and dying demons.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall Interactive has released Patch 1.2.3 for its well-received role-playing game across all platforms.

The update makes a long list of fixes and, crucially, balance changes, including nerfing Clair Obscur’s most game-breaking build (patch notes below).

Sandfall had signalled this change was coming, saying it hadn’t planned to make any balance tweaks this early — just bug fixes, “unless something clearly stood out.”

“Well, Stendhal did,” the developer continued.

The build in question is (was!) for young fencer Maelle and a sword called Medalum, which unlocks a Virtuose stance that deals 200% bonus damage. Players were combining this with ability-stacking and the Stendahl skill, which deals extreme single target Void damage, to dish out billions of damage, enough to kill the final boss in just one hit.

“It was underwhelming for most of development, so in our final pre-release balance pass, we gave it a big damage boost — and clearly overdid it. It ended up overshadowing most other options,” Sandfall said.

“We still want you to be able to break the game — and you absolutely still can — but Stendhal was making it a bit too easy.”

The nerf is included in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s first full hotfix set. While Stendhal is still a strong single-hit skill with great synergy potential, it’s now more in-line with everything else.

Here’s the relevant points from today’s patch notes:

• Stendhal: Reduced damage by 40%.

Clair Obscur is a breakout hit for Sandfall, and has already sold over 2 million copies. It’s worth remembering that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was, alongside Bethesda’s Oblivion Remastered, a day-one Game Pass title. That makes this sales milestone all the more impressive.

When Bethesda shadow-dropped The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered amid the launch of fellow role-playing game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, most thought there could be only one winner. However, it turned out that there was plenty of room for both games to succeed.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has done so well that French President Macron has praised the development team. Be sure to check out our tips for the important things to know before heading into the game.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 update 1.2.3 patch notes:

Steam Deck

• Fixed backgrounds of various menus not displaying properly on the Steam Deck

Various Ultrawide Fixes

• Gameplay no longer becomes zoomed after a cutscene occurs in ultrawide resolutions
• The Options menu image will no longer be stretched in ultrawide resolutions
• Combat UI now adapts correctly to ultrawide resolutions
• Game will no longer minimize upon changing settings in ultrawide resolution
• Cutscenes won’t letterbox in 32:9 aspect ratio
• Title screen now displays fullscreen when the game is launched in ultrawide resolution

Mouse and Keyboard

• UI button prompts in Expedition Menu are now visible and fully able to be triggered with Keyboard
• Mouse buttons do not become unresponsive after first use
• With mouse cursor on screen, using ‘WSAD’ or directional arrows to navigate in UI or trigger any other functionality will no longer hide the cursor instead of doing the intended action
• Left Mouse-button click will no longer block the player from using Keyboard to navigate menus
• Mouse input is not lost after the first Jump counter attack if it is pressed only once

Fixed areas of the world map where you can get stuck:

• Between lanterns scattered on the ground near Stone Wave Cliff portal
• While walking on the ship wreck near the Forgotten Battlefield level entrance
• Between lanterns on the ground near Bourgeon encounter next to Stone Wave Cliffs level
• Between two small rocks located between Spring Meadows and Abbest Cave
• Between vases and corals when jumping from rooftopps
• Between various rocks
• In ruins behind Flying Manor level entrance
• Near the bridge between Flying Waters and Spring Meadows
• In the rocks on the World Map, near Flying Waters
• Next to hardened land, close to the Flying Waters location exit

Fixed situations where Esquie specifically would get stuck (poor guy):

• When taking off from paint bridges, making him fall through the bridge and restrict movement
• When flying into bottom parts of levitating structures near Visages
• Near the Flying Waters entrance level
• Near a giant hammer when traversing close to Blades’ Graveyard level

Weapon and skill fixes and tuning:

• Fixed Lithelim attribute scaling not working at high level. Reduced initial Vitality scaling from A to C (will still end at S at max level). Added Luck scaling starting at D.
• Fixed Blizzon attribute scaling not working at high level. Reduced initial Luck scaling from B to C (will still end at S at max level). Added Defense scaling starting at D.
• Fixed Medalum third Lumina doubling all damage in Virtuose Stance instead of doubling only Burn damage.
• Stendhal: Reduced damage by 40%.

Other fixes

• Boss encounter in Stone Wave Cliffs can now be finished on NG+
• You will no longer be blocked by the Journal UI window after opening the first Journal in the Spring Meadows
• Fixed being unable to shoot in Free aim while exploring levels due to worn triggers
• Lune and Monoco no longer spawn in same place during end of theirs Level 6 relationship quests if they are completed without going to camp
• If at camp you pick “remember the objective”, then quickly choose to “go to sleep” and immediately after press “leave”, the screen no longer goes black
• You can no longer trigger the “Discovering the truth” cutscene in Old Lumière a second time in a row, splitting the party forever with only Verso and Maelle in it.
• Update to rolling credits

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

According to Cineverse, which has acquired the rights for the third Silent Hill film in the U.S. when it releases later this year, Return to Silent Hill will be a “faithful adaptation” of the original Silent Hill 2’s story.

“Silent Hill is one of the best video game franchises, period, and Christophe Gans did a phenomenal job capturing the atmosphere of the games once again with Return to Silent Hill,” Cineverse executive director of acquisitions, Brandon Hill, told Variety.

Director Christophe Gans added: “I am delighted to partner with Cineverse, which has shown a genuine understanding of fanship. Return to Silent Hill is an adaptation created out of deep respect for a true masterpiece of a game, Konami’s iconic Silent Hill 2. I hope fans will enjoy and be fulfilled with the experience this new film has to offer.”

The film’s plot will feel familiar to anyone who played the original Silent Hill 2 or the 2024 Bloober remake. It follows “James (Jeremy Irvine), a man broken after being separated from his one true love (Hannah Emily Anderson). When a mysterious letter calls him back to Silent Hill in search of her, he finds a once-recognizable town transformed by an unknown evil” and “terrifying figures both familiar and new.” It was unveiled in October 2022, but it took until May 2024 for us to get our first glimpse at Return to Silent Hill’s version of Red Pyramid Thing — AKA Pyramid Head.

Gans’ first Silent Hill movie, based loosely upon the first game, follows mother Rose as she searches for her missing daughter, Sharon, in a town where it snows during summer. Although the screenplay was written by Oscar-winning writer Roger Avary, who wrote Pulp Fiction, we thought Gans’ first adaptation was a mediocre 5/10, writing: “So there we have it. Our worst fears realized yet again. The video game-to-film genre has endured more than a decade of mediocrity. Silent Hill is probably the smartest and best-looking video game adaptation yet, it just doesn’t have much else going for it. After all, video games are about entertainment, and Silent Hill is a chore to sit through.”

The second movie, Silent Hill: Revelation — which was not directed by Gans but instead by Michael J. Bassett — was based loosely on sequel Silent Hill 3. That secured a less favorable 4.5 in our review: “Silent Hill Revelation 3D is an inferior sequel in every way, shape and form, a horror sequel that fails to either intrigue or scare, and one that just might have killed the franchise cold-dead.”

Return to Silent Hill is slated to release sometime later this year, with Cineverse promising a “wide theatrical release in America.”

Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.