3Decisions.
Gosh, the passage of time is a nasty one, eh? There we are just trying to enjoy our day, when all of a sudden, BOOM, we’re reminded that today is the 15th anniversary of the 3DS.
Yes, the 3DS, that console which, in our minds, is still a relatively young whippersnapper, was released on this day (26th February) fifteen years ago in 2011.
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Looking for your next challenge in God of War Sons of Sparta? Go to the place all aspiring Spartans prove their worth as warriors, the Pit of Agonies.
The Pit is a separate endgame roguelike challenge mode that gives you different enemies and reward pools each time you play.
Normally The Pit is accessible only after you beat the main story to ensure those who attempt it are familiar with both Kratos’ Spartan arms and the foes you will face, but if you feel ready to test your skills earlier, you can input this sequence below in the starting menu to unlock it early:
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, L1, R1, Touchpad
Once entered, you will see a new option on your menu that can be used to take you into the challenge mode.
While The Pit can be played entirely solo as Kratos, the team at Mega Cat Studios was inspired to bring back a gaming staple that defined so many childhood afternoons on the couch: 2-player co-op.
This is local, offline-only co-op in true retro style, so you’ll need to grab a buddy if you want to bring both Kratos and Deimos to face the challenges deep below.
Each run begins by selecting your starting Agony, a global difficulty modifier that will add variety to each run and impact the way you play.
For example, the Agony of Torment will manifest healing vessels that must be destroyed to prevent enemies from regenerating health, while the Agony of Calamity will cause defeated enemies to burst into a fiery explosion.
As you progress through your run, you will have the option to add more Agonies or increase the effect of your starting choice.
Upon finishing a run, you will earn a Symbol of Suffering for your chosen Agonies. As you reach certain thresholds of total Symbols, you will unlock new Agonies to choose from.
Upon completion, you will also gain Ashes of Agony, a Pit-specific resource which can be used to acquire permanent upgrades that last between attempts.
If you like to track your progress (or earn some bragging rights), you’ll be able to see your current and high score at the end of each run.
Thank you to everyone who has supported God of War Sons of Sparta, available now on PS5. We hope you’ll enjoy the challenge of The Pit.
With Housemarque’s new game Saros on the horizon, now is a great time to boot up the developer’s previous release, Returnal. If you haven’t added this one to your library yet but have been waiting for a good time to grab it, this is your chance: Amazon’s dropped its price to $29.83 (see it here).
Considering it usually comes with a price tag of $69.99, this deal saves you 57% on the game overall. It’s also just a few dollars away from its lowest price point at the retailer of $24.70. That’s not too bad at all. Plus, there’s still plenty of time before Saros is released, so the timing of jumping into Returnal couldn’t be better. You’ve plenty of time to get a feel for Housemarque’s style of roguelike shooter before jumping into the studio’s new take on that formula.
It’s not just the discounted price that makes Returnal worth adding to your library, though. We’re very big fans of it, regardless of price. IGN’s Mitchell Saltzman said in his review back when it was initially released that the “moment-to-moment gameplay of Returnal is sublime, with a great selection of weapons that each have a wide variety of interesting possible traits, meaningful strategic decisions that can either keep a run afloat or doom it to sink, and punishingly challenging yet rewarding gunplay that is consistently exhilarating.”
If you’ve decided to pick up Returnal and are curious what other deals are out there right now, you’re in luck: PlayStation has recently kicked off a big sale at PlayStation Direct, which a few other retailers have joined in on, that features even more great game deals (and some nice accessory deals).
There’s even a selection of PS5 games on sale for $30 or less right now, if you want to see even more game deals in Returnal’s discounted price range. And lastly, if you’re hoping to play Saros this year, check out our Saros preorder guide to secure a copy so you’re ready to start it up on release day.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
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Most of the time, life sucks. On rare occasions, however, the moons line up. Having spent a few hours this past weekend playing the Steam Next Fest demo of cosy campervan survivabuilder Outbound, I returned to my desk on Monday and stumbled across a campervan mod for my long-time vice Cyberpunk 2077.
Naturally, I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to compare the experience of driving around the countryside in a mobile home twice.
Resident Evil Requiem includes numerous Easter eggs and unlockable extras, but none seemingly as complex as ‘The Final Puzzle.’
Warning! Resident Evil Requiem puzzle spoilers follow:
As with other recent Resident Evil games, Requiem includes a list of challenges which add completion points to your playthrough score. At the bottom of the list is the appropriately-named ‘The Final Puzzle’ — which is proving to be something of a headscratcher.
IGN has a work-in-progress guide to The Final Puzzle where significant progress has been made through the challenge’s convoluted early stages, which feel more complex than anything seen in any other Resident Evil game to date — and, seemingly, with still some way left to go.
Exactly what the final outcome or reward for the challenge might be remains unknown — but as the game continues its launch around the world, the hunt for answers here will undoubtedly become a major point of community focus.
The game’s own description for the challenge offers only the vaguest of hints, to “Let the sweet pair hear the voice.” The mechanics of the puzzle, or at least its first part, appear to rely on players picking up or examining a variety of objects throughout the game to determine fragments of a code.
Requiem’s trail of clues relies on players picking up a specific severed hand which, if obtained, can also be scanned later on to provide a hidden RNA code in a blood sample analysis machine. Other items also hide their own codes, providing (with a bit more puzzling work) a version of that RNA sequence that can be plugged into a safe that features buttons labelled with a Star, Sun and Moon.
After that… well, it’s here the trail has gone cold, though likely not for long. We’ll be keeping an eye on further progress made throughout the next few days, as players uncover further steps. For now, however, it’s just fun to see that the game hides this kind of puzzle.
For a far more granular look at each step to-date, IGN’s work-in-progress guide to The Final Puzzle is right here. We’ve also logged how long Resident Evil Requiem takes to beat, and tracked Resident Evil Requiem’s global release times.
“Like the result of an experiment conducted in an underground Umbrella Corporation lab, Resident Evil Requiem successfully splices two separate strains of survival horror together into the one highly infectious new mutation,” IGN wrote in our full Resident Evil Requiem review, which returned a 9/10 score.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
The team behind Electronic Arts-published early access skateboarding game Skate have announced that they’re laying off an unspecified number of staff. Well, I say that, Full Circle have actually announced that they’re “transforming as a studio”, which happens to entail “making changes to our team structure” which impact some folks’ jobs.
Make sure you’ve redeemed those points.
Tomorrow (27th February) is Pokémon Day, and this year, that means a lot of different things are happening. We’ve got the annual Pokémon Presents to look forward to. Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen will go live on the Switch eShop. And it’s launch day for LEGO’s first wave of Pokémon sets.
It’s that last note that we wanted to remind you about today, because while we all lost our minds over the Pikachu, Eevee, and Kanto Starter sets on reveal earlier this year, we don’t want anyone to miss out on the bonus mini set, exclusive to LEGO Insiders members.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
You’ll never catch me watching a Saw movie. I don’t need even one night at Freddy’s to know it’s not for me. I wouldn’t even drive past Elm Street. And yet – I’ve played every single mainline Resident Evil game going back to the original in 1996 – including Resident Evil Requiem (available tonight for Xbox Series X|S). It’s easily one of my favorite series of all time.
So gather ’round, my jump scare-averse friends. Allow me to put my 30 years of Resident experience (and my natural immunity to the T-virus) to work to help you conquer your fears and enjoy one of the biggest games of 2026.
Some fans will tell you that the way to play a horror game is late at night, lights out, headphones on. Do not listen to these masochists. Setting up a calming environment goes a long way to ensuring that the terrors on your TV stay there, safely confined to a little glowing box on the other side of the room. Resident Evil games are intense, so to minimize my feeling of dread, I typically play during daylight hours – and aren’t those days getting noticeably longer?
Hell, turn on the lights for some added (lack of) ambience, if that helps. Turn the volume down a bit – you don’t need every creaking floorboard spiking your adrenaline in 7.1 surround. When things get overwhelming – and they will – you can pause, look upon your more serene surroundings, and return to the game when you’re ready to be horrified once more.
Now we’re almost ready to start the game – after a quick stop in the Settings menu to tone down the fear factor. A game’s difficulty can certainly contribute to its scariness; if you know death is lurking around every corner, you’re going to play scared. Fortunately, Resident Evil Requiem allows for a Casual game mode, allowing one to “Relax while enjoying the story and its puzzles.” See, just like a cozy game! Having played through the game on Standard (Modern), I found the difficulty balanced, with reasonably plentiful ammo and healing items.
Requiem also offers a series first: adjustable perspective settings. While the game will nudge you towards 1st person camera for Grace Ashcroft’s sections, the 3rd person option gives you a bit more situational awareness; essential when you’re trying to avoid detection… which you will want to do whenever possible.
OK, now we’re ready to start the game. While Requiem will see you alternate between playing as FBI Analyst Grace Ashcroft and Ageless Badass Leon S. Kennedy, early on you’ll spend much more time in Grace’s boots. While impressively brave, Grace is not nearly so battle-hardened as Leon, meaning you’ll spend a lot more of her time sneaking around, avoiding combat when possible, and running away from unkillable eldritch horrors.
There’s a trope in horror movies that the monster is always scarier when you don’t fully know what it looks like, and Requiem‘s early scenes utilize this technique masterfully. In an early encounter, Grace encounters a large… thing… in the dark, and I don’t mind telling you that I panicked and ended up sprinting directly into a dead end. Instead of struggling to make my way out I decided to use this as a learning experience… and just stood there. The creature soon came fully into view: yes, it was horrific, but when it lunged at Grace it wasn’t fatal. It attacked again, and yet Grace was still standing. It wasn’t until the third attack that I received a gruesome Game Over.
When the game reloaded, I came into the scene knowing that I didn’t need to be perfect in order to survive – just do your best and know that will probably be good enough to help you survive. Also, try not to get chased into dead ends.
New to the series, the living dead of Resident Evil Requiem aren’t all mindless shamblers. Perhaps due to the recency of being turned, many have retained a shred of their humanity, continuing to go about what they were doing before they became a zombified murder machine. Unless disturbed, orderlies keep mopping the floor, a cook chops rancid meat with a giant cleaver, another keeps the power bill low by turning off lights that you left on.
As much as you may want to, there’s no need to kill them all (and Grace doesn’t really have enough firepower to do so). But as they follow the pathways that served them in life, you’ll find that most zombies roam predictably, and can be easily distracted or avoided by flicking on a light, throwing an empty bottle, or just staying out of their way. Once you know how dumb the undead are, they cause a lot less tension.
That said, not every abomination in the game is so easily avoided. Without question, Grace’s early scenes inspire the most dread in the game; if you can brave the opening couple of hours, know that you can handle anything the game will throw at you. Personally, I find myself most sensitive to jump scares when I first start playing a new Resident Evil game.
After a few hours, you’ll become more confident in Grace’s abilities, improve her survivability, and get better at anticipating when the scares might happen – and how to react when they inevitably do. Surviving The Worst Night Ever is why we play Resident Evil games – if I can have fun doing it, anyone can.
Resident Evil Requiem is available tonight for Xbox Series X|S… but you’re excused if you wait ’til the sun comes up.
CAPCOM CO., LTD.
– This content may be made available at a later date.
– This costume will change Grace’s appearance only.
Resident Evil Requiem Deluxe Edition. Includes the full game and the Deluxe Kit. A must have for true survivors.
The Deluxe Kit contains the following content:
– Grace’s Costume: Dimitrescu
– Grace’s Costume: Film Noir
– Leon’s Costume: RE4
– Leon’s Costume: Apocalypse
– Leon’s Costume: Film Noir
– Screen Filter: Apocalypse
– Screen Filter: Film Noir
– Four weapon skins including S&S M232 Weapon Skin: Apocalypse
– Mr. Raccoon Charm
– DSO Emblem Charm
– Audio Pack: Raccoon City Classic
– Files: Letters from 1998
A new era of survival horror arrives with Resident Evil Requiem, the latest and most immersive entry yet in the iconic Resident Evil series. Experience terrifying survival horror with FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft, and dive into pulse-pounding action with legendary agent Leon S. Kennedy. Both of their journeys and unique gameplay styles intertwine into a heart-stopping, emotional experience that will chill you to your core.
*The items in this set can be purchased individually. Please be careful not to purchase the same item twice.
CAPCOM CO., LTD.
– This content may be made available at a later date.
– This costume will change Grace’s appearance only.
A new era of survival horror arrives with Resident Evil Requiem, the latest and most immersive entry yet in the iconic Resident Evil series. Experience terrifying survival horror with FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft, and dive into pulse-pounding action with legendary agent Leon S. Kennedy. Both of their journeys and unique gameplay styles intertwine into a heart-stopping, emotional experience that will chill you to your core.
*There are other bundles that include this product. Please be careful of duplicate purchases.
The post The Chicken’s Guide to Surviving Resident Evil Requiem appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Marvel Rivals players are asking NetEase Games to take action after the emergence of an unofficial bounty website triggered fears that it could harm the community it’s supposedly trying to protect.
Fans of the hero shooter sounded the alarm when third-party site Intlist.org went live on February 22. Established by Marvel Rivals content creator and X/Twitter user EchoRivals, its official Discord page says the goal is to give players an avenue to name those who intentionally sabotage or “throw” multiplayer matches and “put a price on their head.”
Tired of griefers getting away with it? 🚨
I built @IntlistOrg – post a bounty on any thrower. The community queues in, claims it, and earns 80% of the pool. 💰
⚡ Free to post
🎮 6 games supported
💵 Payouts via PayPalPortion of proceeds may go toward community tournaments -… pic.twitter.com/cipHg3WhnJ
— Carson (@EchoRivals) February 23, 2026
“Put a bounty on griefers & throwers,” the first post on its X account says, promising a system that offers an 80% payout for those who successfully throw matches in retaliation. “Someone queues in, throws it back, gets paid.”
Intlist allows any player to post bounties related to disruptive behavior across seven games: Deadlock, Overwatch, Valorant, Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends, Dota 2, and, of course, Marvel Rivals. The site has done its best to sell the pitch as a simple solution to a common issue, but as Marvel Rivals fans have pointed out, there a number of concerns going unaddressed.
Some have already called out how a widely used bounty website could cause a domino effect that sees not only griefers punished but everyone else, too. One Reddit user calling attention to the issue says they’ve already seen an increase in sabotaged matches for every kind of player, warning that “now every game is people throwing each other’s games.”
“Something tells me throwing the game of someone who throws already is not going to annoy anyone but the four unfortunate randoms on the team,” another popular reply from a fan says. “I do not see the point of this like at all.”
The Intlist account replied to the criticism above: “Collateral damage is an unfortunate reality of war.”
— Viper4K (@Viper4K) February 25, 2026
Another matter brought to the table by fans online revolves around how the community defines who is and isn’t sabotaging matches, as well as Intlist’s verification process. The primary purpose of the site was already facing scrutiny at launch, as players suspected there may be too few safeguards to keep well-meaning players from falling victim to retaliation through the bounty system. Reports that notable Marvel Rivals content creators like Jay3 had joined the list of offenders only added to these concerns.
Meanwhile, as of the publication of this story, Intlist has been pulled offline as the team backing it teases that “something big is coming.” Discord messages from EchoRivals paint a clearer picture, explaining that the site was locked down after they “detected unauthorized access to our database from a single bad actor.”
“A limited number of email addresses tied to bounty posts were exposed,” the post adds. “No passwords, payment info, or plaintext IP addresses were compromised – we don’t store any of those. The site is temporarily offline while we lock everything down – we were not taken down, one person just decided to ruin it for everyone temporarily. We’re also working on some upgrades while we’re at it.”
EchoRivals insists their intention is only to address problems that have plagued the competitive gaming community for years — Marvel Rivals included. Like so many other online games, the comic book character-filled spinoff has seen a consistent flow of reports of griefing activity since its launch in late 2024. The real-world story known as the Kingsman drama also seemingly led to an influx of reports of thrown matches recently, as less serious players have attempted to spoil fair play in the name of a quick joke.
“I see a lot of throwers in general now who die a couple times and then say they’re just playing for the vibes while AFKing or throwing,” one Reddit user said earlier this week, referencing events related to the Kingsman drama.
“I stopped playing the entirety of Season 6 because it just became so unbearable. Can’t believe people are still doing this stupid s**t a month later.”
Hey @MarvelRivals, there’s a website where people are offering money to throw people!
Please address it, thank you 🙂 https://t.co/cpIamSi9vl— Rocket 🙂 (@NoDamageRocket) February 23, 2026
Intlist targets players across a variety of experiences, but the site has expressed specific interest in Marvel Rivals. One of its posts goes as far as to promise to “gladly shut down” if NetEase bans nefarious players and fixes its Engagement Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM) — a tactic the studio has denied using in the past.
Many are calling for the website to be removed as they fear how it could affect all players, while others argue that something must be done to combat griefers. However, it seems almost everyone in between is asking the developers to step in.
“People resorting to soft doxing is kinda wild,” one fan argued. “I dont understand why [NetEase] refuses do to anything when they can clearly code a bare minimum system to pick up lord farmers. Profits. Its for profits thats why.”
“Because what we need in games is more throwers and not a system that rewards positivity instead,” another X user said sarcastically.
Marvel Rivals is currently in the midst of Season 6, which added Deadpool and Elsa Bloodstone as playable characters. NetEase has yet to address any long-term plans to deal with players looking to ruin the fun for others.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Valve’s Lionel Hutzes have been summoned to slide down the fireman’s pole and deal with yet more legal wranglings involving the behemoth behind Steam. New York state attorney general Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against the company for allegedly violating gambling laws via the use of loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike 2 and Team Fortress 2.
