Mega Evolution is making a major comeback in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and as IGN learned in a recent hands-on with the new action-forward title, there’s more than one new spin on the years-old mechanic: you can trigger Mega Evolution multiple times in a single battle.

In the core Pokémon games, like in X and Y where Mega Evolution was introduced, you can only Mega Evolve one Pokémon per battle, even if your first Mega Evolution Pokémon faints.

Unexpectedly, that wasn’t the case during IGN’s battle against a Rouge Mega-Evolved Victreebell in Legends: Z-A–they were able to Mega Evolve all three Pokémon on their team capable of Mega Evolution, as long as they gathered the required Mega Power.

In Pokémon Legends: Z-A, the Mega Ring icon in the bottom right of the screen displays how much Mega Power you currently have. Each attack builds up Mega Power, but you can also charge it up by collecting Mega Power orbs in Rogue Mega-Evolved Pokémon battles, and by breaking certain crystals in the city.

We didn’t get to test if you can Mega Evolve multiple times in trainer battles, but were told by a public relations representative that you’re not limited to a single Mega Evolution per battle–as long as you have the Mega Stone and Mega Power to support it. It’s also been confirmed you can Mega Evolve the same Pokemon multiple times, as the Mega Evolution is retained only as long as you have the Mega Power to sustain it.

Read more about Mega Evolution, and how Mega Power can be used besides Mega Evolution, in Pokemon: Legends Z-A in IGN’s final preview, plus check out every new Pokemon in Legends: Z-A revealed so far.

Casey DeFreitas is a deputy editor on the guides team at IGN and has been catching Pokemon since the very beginning. Catch her on socials @ShinyCaseyD.

Marvel’s Spider-Man set for Magic: The Gathering arrived in prerelease form last week, and if you cracked open some packs early, then you could be about to be happier than Eddie Brock on Emo Night.

That’s because, aside from the Infinity Stone debut for the new set, one card is already up for a market price of $1,250 on TCGPlayer. Here’s what you should be looking out for.

For this new set, Wizards of the Coast has released a series of Spectacular Spider-Man cards with a textured foil finish. There are five different versions going for a lot of money right now, and while it’ll be tough to find them unless you’re looking in the horrendously overpriced Collector Boosters, one is reaching new heights of market value.

The Bombastic Bag-Man Suit, pictured above, is up for $1,250 on TCGPlayer, meaning its market value is actually higher than The Soul Stone right now. The thrown-together suit, which includes a Fantastic Four hand-me-down and a literal paper bag, is clearly well worth it for collectors.

Kojima Productions’ recent Beyond the Strand livestream gave us our first proper look at OD, the developer’s horror game that’s being produced in collaboration with Xbox Game Studios. While the project’s first trailer features barely more than a couple of minutes of gameplay and is set entirely in a single room, it’s already creating quite a buzz. That’s because it’s distinctly reminiscent of P.T., Hideo Kojima’s famous 2014 “playable teaser” for a Silent Hill game that never was. P.T. went on to influence an entire wave of dread-fuelled horror games, but it seems like Kojima is finally returning to those ideas himself for OD.

While there’s no suggestion that OD and P.T. are directly related, it’s already clear that this new Xbox exclusive horror is reusing and reinterpreting many of the themes, motifs, and designs that were established in the Silent Hills teaser. From ominous knocking to terrifying babies, let’s explore the significant connecting threads between these two projects.

Suburban Terror

Perhaps the most clear link between OD and P.T. is their perspectives and settings. P.T. is played from the first-person perspective and takes place in what (at least initially) seems to be a mundane and unremarkable suburban home. OD appears to be following that approach, at least with the sequence we see in the trailer. The area in which the terror unfolds could be a room in anyone’s house – the dull walls, herringbone flooring, and miserable weather outside suggest another boring day in suburbia. But, like P.T., there are unnerving elements that pierce through the mundanity. For one, why is the room only furnished with two armchairs, both of which are oddly positioned? Secondly, and most importantly, why is there a shrine of burning candles?

Cryptic Puzzles

P.T. earned widespread acclaim because it approached horror in a way largely unseen in video games prior. While its first-person perspective and complete lack of combat may well have been influenced by 2010’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent, P.T. went several steps further and avoided any sense of traditional video game enemies. Instead, your foe was the environment itself: an endlessly looping corridor that holds you hostage until you can solve its many mysteries. With no tools provided aside from a simple flashlight, these puzzles were cracked through the use of simple observation. Find the right clues, and the house would morph on your next loop, slowly revealing the disturbing components that pieced together to tell the story of a murdered family.

While there’s no suggestion that OD will feature any kind of looping hallway, it does appear to take a similar approach when it comes to puzzles. The trailer opens with the protagonist, played by Sophia Lillis of It and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, being told to “Light the fires to celebrate their [redacted]”. She then proceeds to light a number of candles using a box of matches, with each new flame causing changes in the environment.

Hush, Little Baby

Perhaps the most obvious and immediately scary element of this puzzle is its use of crying infants. As Lillis lights a baby-shaped candle, the shrieks of a crying newborn immediately fill the room, causing her to flinch and drop the match.

Kojima, of course, has a famous connection to babies via Death Stranding, in which “Bridge Babies” are used to detect spirits. However, P.T. also prominently featured crying babies, as well as the more horrifying image of a mutated, bloody fetus lying in a bathroom washbasin. The trailer does nothing to explain how babies are related to OD’s story, but it’s clear that Kojima is once again turning to the chilling sound of a distressed infant to give you goosebumps.

Who’s There?

While the baby’s cries are certainly disturbing, the more ominous noise is the constant knocking that becomes increasingly louder and more frantic as the trailer progresses. This will clearly be a significant element – as revealed as part of the Beyond the Strand livestream, OD is subtitled “Knock”.

“I really am afraid of big knock sounds,” explained Kojima. And, once again, we can see that expressed in P.T.. Since the entire game takes place in a corridor, the environment is naturally filled with doors, and creepy knocking echoes through the hallway as you complete loop after loop.

Of course, it’s not the knocking itself that’s frightening, but what it signifies: someone (or something) that wants to get inside. It’s a warning that your safety is about to be breached. And considering that you have no weapons in P.T., that’s a terrifying prospect. The same seems to be true of OD – Sophia Lillis’ character has no ability to defend herself from whatever is trying to get through that door.

Don’t Look Back

If it wasn’t already obvious from the oppressive atmosphere and screaming babies, it’s generally considered a bad idea to conduct a ritual about which you know nothing. Sophia’s candle lighting seems to summon something – we never see it, but after all that knocking, we hear that it opens the door and slowly, dramatically approaches. While neither we nor Sophia can see this foe, something else does: an image of an eye stuck to the window. As the man (or monster?) closes in, we see the image change – the eye opening wide in horror at what it observes.

Once again, there’s a link to P.T. here. During one of the loops, all the pictures mounted on the corridor’s walls are replaced with images of eyes that move and change as you walk through the house, as if they are observing you.

P.T. also preyed on the idea of a malevolent figure lurking behind you. The house is haunted by a spectral woman known as Lisa, who appears in a variety of frightening sequences. But beyond those scripted moments, there’s always the unsettling feeling that Lisa is close by – flickering shadows and eerie sound effects make it seem as if she’s just beyond your peripheral vision. And that’s because she quite literally is: her character model is tethered to you, constantly following behind you as you explore the house. While we have essentially no information on how OD will play, the final moments of the trailer do suggest that the fear of someone being right behind you will be explored, just as it was in P.T..

The Hills are Silent

As the unseen enemy approaches Lillis, you can hear the increasingly erratic sound of a Geiger counter. It seems to act as some kind of proximity sensor, akin to the motion detector used in Aliens. Or, perhaps more appropriately, the screeching static of Silent Hill’s radio.

P.T., of course, was both a “playable teaser” and reveal for Silent Hills, a collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro that would have been the next, potentially revolutionary chapter in Konami’s Silent Hill series. And while there’s absolutely no chance that OD is a secret Silent Hill game – Konami is not involved at all – there do appear to be a few nods to the series throughout this trailer.

Aside from the Geiger counter replicating the function of Silent Hill’s enemy-alerting radio static, there’s also the fact that the message that begins the trailer’s ordeal is delivered on a card through a gap in the door. This is reminiscent of Silent Hill 4: The Room, in which cryptic messages are slipped under the locked door of protagonist Henry Townshend’s apartment.

The door through which OD’s mysterious message is delivered may also be hiding a small nod to Silent Hill – the design features nine red panels arranged in a three-by-three grid. This resembles the same three-by-three grid of red squares seen in Silent Hill 2, which featured on the game’s Japanese box art and can be found in-game as the story’s final save point.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see a number of other subtle references to Silent Hill in OD, but once again, this certainly isn’t Kojima finally making Silent Hills. And so while there are clear parallels between OD and P.T., the two are not canonically connected. It seems more likely that OD will relate to P.T. in the same way that Death Stranding – particularly its sequel, On The Beach – relates to Metal Gear Solid. DS2 features a refreshed approach to combat that echoes the stealth sandbox of MGS 5, and one of its central characters, Neil Vana, is a clear nod to Kojima’s most enduring hero, Solid Snake. While Kojima no longer has any official ties to his former workplace at Konami, it’s clear that he still enjoys making connections with his past projects, and so it’s only logical that OD – his first horror project since Silent Hills – will echo P.T. in a number of ways.

But it’s not how OD replicates P.T. that’s the interesting thing – the more exciting prospect is how it will build on P.T.’s successes. And so now we look forward to learning much more about this project. After all, we know so little about it. We do know that Get Out and Nope director Jordan Peele is involved, but that he’s working on a separate OD experience, one that will replace the “Knock” subtitle with a different kind of fear. So is this an anthology of games, each one exploring unique phobias? Or will OD be a collection of different media, breaking boundaries between games and films? P.T. reimagined the shape of horror over a decade ago, of course, so we’re more than ready to see Kojima do it all over again.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Executive Editor of Features.

After years of waiting, Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally in the hands of the people. By this point, many will even have completed it. Gone are the days of applying clown makeup during each major gaming event, replaced instead by widespread love for Team Cherry’s sequel. Yet, for me, I’m struggling to be excited about Silksong, despite the fact it’s the latest entry in one of my favorite genres.

For this issue of Access Designed, I’m not going to be analysing Hollow Knight: Silksong in the traditional sense. The game’s demands of speed and precision, combined with a lack of accessibility features and my own disability, has meant that I physically can’t play it. And so I’m unable to give an accurate analysis of gameplay, story, and even the art direction of different zones, all of which can be examined through an accessible lens. Instead, I want to talk about the overarching problems of the Metroidvania genre itself, and how Silksong is just perpetuating and reinforcing inaccessible barriers.

It Goes Beyond Difficulty

Like its predecessor, Silksong continues the trend of challenging players with complex platforming and boss battles. While difficult experiences have become mainstream successes in recent years, some Hollow Knight players have noted that Silksong can be particularly punishing. Those concerns have been at least partially addressed by the developers, who notably nerfed two early game bosses within the first week of Silksong’s release. And while difficulty is absolutely an accessibility issue, I’m not going to argue for or against it in Silksong.

Difficulty is the proverbial low hanging fruit of accessibility critiques. Accessibility consultants, champions and journalists have written articles about what difficulty is or isn’t, produced clips or reels talking about the importance of difficulty settings, and created countless threads on social media, advocating for more diverse accessibility tools to adjust a game’s difficulty. We spend so much time championing the inclusion of difficulty options that we often miss other crucial barriers that prevent a variety of disabled individuals from enjoying a new game. Is Silksong difficult? According to reviews and conversations, yes. Should we focus all our accessibility arguments on that alone? Absolutely not.

What Silksong Lacks

Aside from no accessibility settings for difficulty, Silksong’s overall settings options are minimal, especially for a game released in 2025. Volume can be adjusted through sliders, the HUD can increase in size, and some actions can be rebound, but only on specific buttons. For disabled players looking for a variety of accessibility menus, Silksong is objectively a disappointment.

While I acknowledge that studios do not all share the same engine and thus don’t have a unified toolbase to create accessible options, nor do developers all have the same level of knowledge to implement these features, I do wish Team Cherry had taken direct inspiration from Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s Memory Shards system. Ubisoft’s smart new addition to Metroidvanias allows you to take a screenshot of a location and pin it to the map, which provides a persistent reminder of previously-visited zones that may require specific items to traverse, or places to return to once you’ve become stronger. This option revolutionized the Metroidvania genre, with The Lost Crown becoming one of last year’s most accessible games. While Silksong does feature the ability to purchase and place markers on your map to help remember safe areas and other important points of interest, there’s nothing that comes close to The Lost Crown’s Memory Shards. I understand Team Cherry may not have the same resources as Ubisoft, but to offer nothing that aids accessibility beyond the bare minimum in the form of map markers is frustrating.

What Silksong Gives

As I’ve mentioned through previous editions of Access Designed, options are not the only form of accessibility. While Silksong fails to provide numerous accessible settings, its use of inclusive design, particularly through Tools, can give some relief. The Fractured Mask, for instance, prevents a fatal blow from killing Hornet. This is fantastic for physically disabled players that struggle with precise motions, or cognitively disabled players that need more time to memorize boss attack and movement patterns, allowing for a second chance at life before returning to a rest bench. The Fractured Mask is also great for difficult parkour sections, and the fact that this Tool recharges on rest means you always get that second chance on every attempt. The Compass, meanwhile, tracks your position on Silksong’s sprawling map, and is another helpful item for cognitively disabled players. And my personal favorite Tool that I’ve discovered through watching let’s plays is the Magnetite Dice, which randomly nullifies a single hit. Despite the random chance associated with this item, this is great for physically disabled players that may lack energy during extensive play sessions.

But these Tools aren’t offered immediately. Players are forced to progress through the game, beating challenging bosses and completing side quests before unlocking them. While I’m a firm believer that disabled people deserve to be challenged by the games they play, offering crucial pieces of accessibility from the very start of the game doesn’t limit that challenge – it just enables us to play like everyone else. In Silksong, some players may not make it far enough to unlock the Tool that would provide them with a vital accessibility feature.

The Overarching Metroidvania Problem

Silksong’s difficulty and lack of accessibility offerings make for an inaccessible challenge, but that’s not why I can’t play. As my disability progressed and I lost function in my hands, I found the speed and precision required to play Metroidvanias became too much. Even The Lost Crown, with its accessibility offerings, was too taxing for me to finish.

Before I decided to purchase Silksong, a friend advised me to wait until he could play. After several hours, he told me not to buy the game because the speed, combined with the dexterity needed to platform, fight, and use items, would undoubtedly leave me exhausted and frustrated. Therein lies my biggest critique of this genre – beyond what we’ve seen in The Lost Crown, no accessibility settings or system designs have yet to address the speed and inaccessibility of the core combat and platforming gameplay.

I am the first person to admit I am no game designer. I also acknowledge it’s virtually impossible to make every game accessible to every disabled player. Yet, as a lifelong fan of the genre, I genuinely miss playing these games. I’m not critiquing them out of baseless anger, but rather a desire to play one of my favorite genres once again.

Hollow Knight: Silksong, from the perspective of a sequel, is an achievement. Yet, for disabled players looking to dive deep into Team Cherry’s newest game, it’s an accessibility failure. Difficulty aside, disabled players have few offerings to help them navigate the map and defeat challenging enemies. And for those comments undoubtedly proclaiming that not every game is made for everyone, let it be for the individual to decide – not based on inaccessible practices, but rather just a fondness of the genre. For developers looking to Silksong’s success, I ask that they please use its lack of accessibility as motivation. As a lifelong fan of the Metroidvania genre, I hope someone will use Silksong’s failures as inspiration to make me return.

Grant Stoner is a disabled journalist covering accessibility and the disabled perspective in video games. When not writing, he is usually screaming about Pokémon or his cat, Goomba on Twitter.