The Warhammer 40,000 setting contains some pretty advanced technology. Blackstone Fortresses can destroy entire solar systems. The Aeonic Orb contains the power of an entire sun. And — get this — the Speranza, a massive vessel the size of a continent, can actually manipulate a black hole and fire it. Ouch!
So yeah, the Warhammer 40,000 setting has galaxy crushing might under its belt. But, it seems, the various races of the 41st millennium still don’t know what’s going on inside a black hole. And that’s not just the Imperium of Man letting the side down, either. It seems no-one — not even the incredibly advanced Necrons — have managed to work it out.
Confirmation comes from one of the latest Warhammer 40,000 novels, Guy Hayley’s Archmagos. It stars the much-loved 10,000 year-old dominus of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Belisarius Cawl, who travels to a Necron tomb world trapped on the event horizon of a black hole. And so, Belisarius Cawl ends up talking about black holes in general, and it’s this bit that surprised me as I was reading the book.
Warning! Spoilers for Warhammer 40,000 novel Archmagos follow:
Early on in the book, Belisarius Cawl ruminates on the big knowledge gap the races of the Warhammer 40,000 universe have when it comes to black holes. During this metaphysical ponder, he speculates that humanity, even during what’s called the Dark Age of Technology (the largely unexplored time period in which humanity was at its technological zenith), had no idea how they work. And, most surprising of all, neither do the Necrons.
Necrons, for the uninitiated, are terrifying mechanical warriors who wiped out an entire race of star gods long before the Emperor was even conceived (if he was, indeed, conceived). They’re meant to be the most technologically advanced of all the xenos, and use weapons far beyond our understanding. And so I was somewhat surprised to learn that the physics at play inside a black hole are a mystery to the Necrons, as they are to us in the real world.
Here’s what Belisarius Cawl, “the galaxy’s pre-eminent mind,” as he puts it, has to say about black holes:
Nobody really knows what these things are, even me. If we were to fall within, would we be destroyed, or would we emerge in some other place? I have never come across a satisfactory answer from any species. I doubt our ancestors at the height of their technology understood them. Some ancient Necrontyr records I… came into posession of by completely legitimate means, say they believe them to be the graves of their mightiest star gods. Maybe that is true. Why not? If a star can birth something with the power of a god, then why wouldn’t an astronomical body like this harbor similar secrets?
There was something grounding about reading this section of the book, something that made the often bizarre and unknowable Warhammer 40,000 universe ever so slightly relatable. The human race today does not know what goes on inside a black hole. I mean, we have theories, but we’re largely stumped. A black hole could lead to a new universe. Some think a black hole could lead to a white hole. Personally, I love the black hole leads to a 4D representation of a magical bookshelf idea. The point is we just don’t know. And it felt comforting somehow to learn that even 40,000 years in the future, we still haven’t worked it out.
A glance online at my usual 40k hideouts threw up a debate over this. I know — shock horror! — Warhammer 40,000 fans have something to say about the realism of the sci-fi universe they love so much. Some are pointing out that the C’Tan — those star gods I mentioned earlier — are said to have been able to call black holes into being. So if the Necrons defeated the C’Tan and ripped off their tech, shouldn’t they have black holes all figured out?
And others are pointing out that the Necrons, as they’ve been described to us in prior Warhammer 40,000 novels, are able to use black holes pretty effortlessly. “But… we have literally entire cryptek branch of black hole science called Voidmancers, they can just make black hole with wave of a hand… wear them as capes… it’s just author who didn’t know anything about it,” declared Mastercio before quoting from a book. “So we have entire group of them being able to just channel black holes, but this book just say that they can’t… bullshit.”
But Belisarius Cawl is not saying that the races of the 41st millennium are unable to use a black hole or interact with one in various ways, just that they don’t really understand their inner workings — literally what’s going on inside of them.
Which leads me onto the next thought: in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, what is going on inside a black hole? Having a bit of fun here, perhaps Warhammer 40,000 black holes have something to do with the warp, the alternate dimension hellscape in which the Chaos gods rile each other up and demons plot to tear into realspace and end all life as we know it. Maybe if you were to actually venture into a Warhammer 40,000 black hole, you’d end up in Grandfather Nurgle’s garden for a spot of (probably very bad for you) tea. Or perhaps you’d find yourself the inadvertent star of a Slaaneshi sex show. The mind boggles.
As with most things Warhammer 40,000, not knowing the truth of a thing is all part of the fun. Belisarius Cawl’s drive-by lecture on the nature of black holes should be considered as reliable as 90% of the lore fans like me fuss over on a daily basis. That is to say, not very reliable at all. And Games Workshop, as is its want, could one day decide to contradict everything Cawl says here and show us that someone somewhere in the Warhammer 40,000 universe knows exactly how black holes work inside and out.
Perhaps Trazyn the Infinite has had a peek.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
When I played Escape From Tarkov for the first time in 2018, I remember being captivated by its obtuse, insanely challenging structure. Like PUBG was to the battle royale genre, this promising prototype of what would go on to be called an extraction shooter had so many unique elements going for it, even if it was sometimes completely broken in its Early Access state. All these years later, now finally hitting 1.0, it’s pretty shocking how much has changed while it simultaneously remains exactly as exasperating as I remember it. The hands-off approach to onboarding that forces newcomers to beat their heads against its unforgiving mechanics for dozens of hours before claiming even a single victory captures the same relentless challenge I’ve always adored, while other frustrations, like its continued bugs, poor technical performance, and inability to address an abundance of cheaters, remains disappointingly worse than ever. After over 120 hours with the 1.0 version, there’s still something utterly compelling about the hyper-realistic combat simulation and never-ending loot treadmill it puts you on, but I can’t help but feel like this progenitor may have been left in the dust of the genre it spawned.
Escape From Tarkov isn’t just the original standalone extraction shooter, but also the one most fanatically adherent to the ruthless principles on which the genre was founded. Not only are you thrown into a deadly hellscape filled with lethal NPCs and merciless human opponents, you’re also given absolutely no guidance in your quest for loot as you fight to survive. Practically none of the progression systems are explained to you, there’s no map for you to look at while out in the field to indicate where you or the extraction points are, and you could easily spend tens of hours studying weapon attachments and ammo types just to understand how the heck to use the tools of death you’ll find on your journey.
In some ways, I really admire how unapologetic Tarkov is – its beautifully exacting game design, and the sense of discovery that takes place across hundreds of lessons learned the hard way can be incredibly rewarding. But then there are times where it’s all just so dang frustrating, like how atrociously the UI and menus are organized, as if they were designed specifically to offend you. Whether or not the payoff of finally feeling comfortable enough to bring your best equipment out and try for a proper extraction is worth it will ultimately depend on a couple things: your tolerance for pain, and your drive to master something designed to really test your expertise of systems Tarkov refuses to teach you.
I find myself somewhere in the middle, sometimes mesmerized by its impenetrable and challenging rough edges, while other times just downright disgusted by janky design decisions. For instance, I really got a kick out of figuring out various armor protection levels and corresponding ammo penetration ratings, even though it oftentimes proved to be a complete maze and came with an extremely harsh learning curve of figuring out why I died instantly in one raid but survived getting shot 20 times in the next. For me, this was unforgiving in all the right ways, and a noted lack of handholding is something I connect with much more than the growing number of games that annoyingly treat you like you’re stupid with ongoing tutorials. On the other hand, memorizing maps over the course of 10 hours apiece was less entertaining, specifically because this meant I frequently spent 20 minutes wandering around in search of an exit or a mission objective that was only described to me in the vaguest of terms. It seems like the community’s solution here is to use online tools to figure this stuff out, so it’s sorta baffling that they wouldn’t just integrate one of those directly.
Even with everything that frustrates me about Tarkov, it’ll likely keep me playing for hundreds more hours.
So, with everything that frustrates me about Tarkov, what kept me playing for well over 100 hours, and what will likely keep me playing for hundreds more over the next year? Well, it’s the fact that once you put in the time to dig your way through all the layers of grime and obtuseness, you’ll find a pretty stellar extraction shooter that is quite hard to put down. Combat is an incredibly tense process of listening for rustling footsteps nearby and leaning out from behind cover to take precise shots, where a single bullet is all it could take to end another player’s run or put down a marauding NPC. Running around with your rifle’s flashlight blaring is an invitation for every enemy on the map to head in your direction with the aim of taking the gear from your corpse, and extracting with your loot is almost always accompanied by a deep sigh of relief.
NPC factions, including bosses, add a really interesting element of surprise and randomness to raids, too, where your best-laid plans go sideways when you run into an unexpected badass. They range from a psychopath chasing you around with a giant sledgehammer to a cowardly wimp surrounded by four heavily armed and armored guards. You might also find some other unexpected factions, like robed cultists creeping around in the woods with poisoned daggers, which is exactly as terrifying as it sounds the first time you encounter them. Discovering these things organically and either getting destroyed by or besting especially tough enemies to claim their loot kept me invested in exploring maps even when navigating them was sometimes an enormous pain.
When you’re not raiding, you’ll spend an almost equal amount of time with the tasks any extraction shooter worth its salt will have you doing: managing all that loot back at your hideout and using it to unlock cool stuff. The UI built around those activities is downright bad, and you’ll have to work to figure out some of the unintuitive systems that compose them, but the loot game is just about the best one out there once you do. It puts you on a beautiful treadmill that realistically takes thousands of hours to properly complete. That rewarding sense of forward momentum isn’t always there, as you’ll spend lots of time just grinding for cash by selling everything you find out on raids to vendors and stuffing your pockets with an absolutely obscene amount of nails and screw nuts to craft items you need back at your base. But it’s hard to argue that developer Battlestate Games hasn’t created one of the longest, most consistently enjoyable progression systems out there.
The upgrades in question range from facilities in your hideout that let you do things like restore your damage taken from previous raids faster, store more loot in your stash, or test out your weapons at a firing range, almost all of which are genuinely worth the effort to unlock (though many of those demand a whole helluva lot of resources in order to do so). You’ll also have an absolutely enormous list of story missions and side quests to complete, special items to unlock from vendors by exchanging rare materials, and more. Missions run the gamut of killing a certain amount of enemy combatants or looting specific items while out on raids, to more involved, plot-focused stuff like a side quest where I set up camcorders all over a warehouse to record myself killing people, presumably to then cut into a sick highlights reel. Sure, actually chatting with each of the vendors, who only speak Russian and have little in the way of personalities, is a waste of time that only highlights how not great the story is, but in a game about loot and long-term progression goals, Tarkov absolutely nails that bit, with a truly brilliant, Sisyphean grind.
It takes work to figure out, but the loot game is just about the best one out there once you do.
Although most runs are quite stressful and require you to put all the gear you’re carrying on the line, one nice element of Tarkov is the ability to do “SCAV Runs” where you play as a street rat that uses a random set of borrowed equipment. In these low stakes runs, you have a whole lot to gain from taking out a rival player or geared-up NPC and basically nothing to lose from dying yourself, which provides a great opportunity for a come-up that’s especially helpful after your latest devastating loss. Plus, it puts you on the same team as other SCAVs, and pitting a group of poorly geared plebs against those with better equipment is an entertaining twist on the extraction formula in its own right. I tried to do SCAV runs in between each proper deployment and found them to be a pretty great cooldown option after each sweaty raid.
One of the upsides of bothering to learn each of Tarkov’s 11 maps is that they’re all actually quite diverse and are filled with unique takes on the extraction format. On one map, I fought my way through military bases and bunkers and had to stand my ground while a massive armored train arrived to spirit me and my loot away, while on another I wandered through the woods and the wreckage of a crashed airplane while constantly looking to the horizon for snipers due to a distinct lack of cover. Another level requires keycards to enter and is filled with incredibly good loot, but also has equally formidable foes stalking the halls, while another still is just a massive shopping mall filled with stores waiting to be looted. Learning the ins and outs of these levels can be a bit painful at the outset, especially since some things are quite annoyingly unclear, like how the boundaries of most maps are never explained and lethally enforced. For example, in one level you’ll get sniped by unseen enemies without warning if you walk beyond the ill-defined borders, and in another you’ll get immediately blown to pieces due to the edges of the level being a literal mine field.
Unfortunately, Tarkov’s intentionally punishing design is marred by completely unintentional issues that have made this full launch much harder to enjoy. At least in these first couple of weeks with 1.0, there are still numerous bugs I would’ve hoped to have been cleaned up after so many years in Early Access, like characters getting caught on objects or clipping through walls, desync and rubber-banding that monkeys with hit registration, loot that’s visible but painfully lodged in the environment so it can’t be picked up, and numerous issues with the already ugly-as-sin menus that make navigating them even more frustrating.
Even more alarming is the continued prevalence of cheaters, who continue to plague the PvP servers so they can sell their ill-gotten items back to the people they’ve ripped off via an in-game trading market. It’s all the usual stuff like wallhacks, aimbots, and moving at faster-then-normal speeds, but in a game where all your loot is on the line, not doing a better job to mitigate this kind of stuff is pretty hard to swallow. In fact, it was such an issue in my first 10 hours that I decided to spend the vast majority of my time for this review just focusing on Tarkov’s PvE mode for my sanity’s sake, which removes other players entirely aside from those you bring with you. For a sweaty PvP tryhard like myself, forsaking the competitive mode goes against every instinct I have, but with the exploitable state of the PvP servers as they are, it was definitely the right choice.
This thing looks and performs badly by the standards of the day.
There’s also the matter of just how bad this thing looks and performs by the standards of the day. I remember thinking Tarkov already didn’t look great when I last revisited it a few years ago, and coming back to it again in 2025 has not done it any favors. Objects in the environment are blurry and low res, and (with the exception of the vendors you’ll chat with as you complete quests) human faces look like they were modeled using the monster-generator that is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’s character creator. And although the servers have never exactly been speedy, it’s still pretty shocking that it took me about five minutes of loading every time I wanted to enter into a match, during which time my menu was locked up so I couldn’t even fiddle with my inventory or engage in stash organizing busywork while waiting.
Even if you can look past a lot of the jankiness, which I generally can, you still might be infuriated by the current monetization model. Now, normally cost has no actual impact on the quality of a game’s content, but Tarkov is a bit of an exception in that its uber-premium packages come with straight up pay-to-win perks that are just about as nasty as can be. Over the course of the past two weeks, I progressively purchased all four of Tarkov’s escalating packages in order to try them out firsthand, which range from the standard $50 up to a whopping $250, and each one offers more appallingly game-changing boons than the last.
The benefits granted are incredibly powerful boosts that give you quite an advantage. You can get an exclusive safety pouch that’s up to 50% larger, allowing you to keep more of your valuable items upon death. Certain hideout upgrades that offer huge benefits can be unlocked automatically, like a massive amount of additional storage space that normally costs millions of in-game dollars and rare materials to acquire. Most outrageous of all, though, are the boosts to vendor reputations that would otherwise take dozens upon dozens of hours to earn, which are a pathway to purchasing better gear that gives you a huge leg up on progression. It’s so insane and shameless that I honestly felt bad playing alongside my friends who had the standard edition.
Escape From Tarkov also has a purely PvP mode, called Arena, where you go toe-to-toe with rival players in claustrophobic stages, but I can’t really recommend it. Many of Escape From Tarkov’s interesting combat mechanics, like sparse ammo and the need to heal injuries by using a variety of medical equipment on the affected area, just don’t really work in a purely fast-paced arena FPS. Plus, I only spent a small amount of time playing this mode, but in this time I encountered some of the most toxic ghouls I’ve met online in any game. A typical match involves teammates with slurs for usernames threatening you to perform well in the lobby, before screaming at you and quitting the match after a single round. Some of Escape From Tarkov’s quests will point you toward this mode and playing matches can reward loot that you can bring back to the main game, but even so, I don’t suggest spending time here.
We’ve made it, friends. The last month of the year has arrived, and it’s bringing a handful of new PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, and PC games to see us through until the new year. Most (but not all!) of the biggest games of 2025 have already arrived, but a few more are yet to come. This month we get games like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Octopath Traveler 0, and perhaps most importantly, Terminator 2D: No Fate. Read on to see release dates for all the biggest games and expansions coming out this month and beyond. Let’s have a look.
If you’re the preordering type, you can click the links for the platform of your choice to see the game at Amazon (if available).
Last week, we reported that disturbing horror game Horses had been banned from Steam, with developer Santa Ragione claiming that Valve refused to provide a clear reason for the ban or discuss it further with the studio. Now, at the last possible minute before the game was set to release widely across other PC store fronts, Epic Games Store has also banned Horses.
This news was shared with us by Santa Ragione, who passed on a press release stating that Epic informed them 24 hours before the game’s release that it would not be distributing Horses, despite the studio’s build being approved for release weeks earlier. Per the developer, no specifics on what content was at issue were provided, “only broad and demonstrably incorrect claims that it violated their content guidelines.” When Santa Ragione appealed, the studio says it was denied 12 hours later “without further explanation.”
As Santa Ragione explains it:
Epic’s decision comes after the overwhelming support Santa Ragione received last week upon the disclosure of Steam’s ban, including the public announcement by Epic’s and Steam’s competitor GOG that they would promote and support the game. We do not know what triggered Epic’s sudden decision. Following the announcement of Steam’s ban, Horses became highly visible online, with strong support and a small but vocal opposition. It is difficult not to wonder whether this visibility played a greater role in Epic’s choice than any newly discovered issue with the game itself.
IGN has asked Epic Games for comment and will update when and if we hear back. At the time of this article’s publication, Horses is still listed as “Coming Soon” on the Epic Games Store.
Horses was previously revealed several years ago, and has made appearances in showcases like The Indie Horror Showcase and Day of the Devs. It’s gained some attention for its deeply unsettling premise: a young man travels to a remote horse farm to work for several weeks over the summer, only to find the farmer’s “horses” are actually enslaved, naked humans with horse masks affixed to their heads. Horses, says Santa Ragione, is meant to be upsetting: it’s at least partly a commentary on what sorts of morally horrifying things people will accept or even participate in without pushback, a subject we found was executed artfully, if upsettingly, in our 7/10 review of the game.
And yet, the game has been banned from now both Steam and Epic. Last week, we reported that developer Santa Ragione said it was rejected from Steam after the team submitted an unfinished but playable build of the game in order to create a store page, an unusual request that Valve said was necessary. Valve then rejected Horses, generally citing its Steam Onboarding Documentation, as well as the sentence, “Regardless of a developer’s intentions with their product, we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor.”
Santa Ragione has since guessed this was in relation to a scene in the game at the time that depicted a fully clothed child “riding” one of the horses on their shoulders. However, the studio says it has since changed that scene to involve an adult instead of a child, and that all characters in the game are clearly adults in their 20s and up, a fact that has remained true in the final version of the game that IGN reviewed, ironically, on the Epic Games Store. Santa Ragione says it was not given the opportunity to resubmit a build to be reconsidered by Valve, and remains unsure if this scene was even what triggered the ban in the first place.
In response, Valve issued a statement claiming it “gave the developer feedback about why we couldn’t ship the game on Steam, consistent with our onboarding rules and guidelines” and that its internal content review team discussed a re-review “extensively” but decided against it.
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has created a “slim” version of its explosive co-op third-person shooter that massively reduces its file size on PC.
For some time now PC gamers have complained about Helldivers 2’s bloated installation size on PC, and Arrowhead recently outlined plans to bring it closer to the size of the console version. In a post on Steam, Arrowhead said it had worked with Sony-owned PC port specialist Nixxes to reach its goal sooner than expected, reducing the PC installation size from 154GB to 23GB for a total saving of 131GB (85%).
Arrowhead has now rolled out this slim version of Helldivers 2 as part of a public technical beta, which PC players are free to opt into. “Our testing shows that for the small percentage of players still using mechanical hard disk drives, mission loading times have only increased by a few seconds in the worst cases,” Arrowhead explained.
The studio had warned that changing the file size of Helldivers 2 might have increased load times by a factor of 10 — indeed that’s why it duplicates data with update releases. But it turns out that its worst case projections did not come to pass.
“These loading time projections were based on industry data — comparing the loading times between SSD and HDD users where data duplication was and was not used,” Arrowhead explained. “In the worst cases, a 5x difference was reported between instances that used duplication and those that did not. We were being very conservative and doubled that projection again to account for unknown unknowns.
“Now things are different. We have real measurements specific to our game instead of industry data. We now know that the true number of players actively playing HD2 on a mechanical HDD was around 11% during the last week (seems our estimates were not so bad after all). We now know that, contrary to most games, the majority of the loading time in Helldivers 2 is due to level-generation rather than asset loading. This level generation happens in parallel with loading assets from the disk and so is the main determining factor of the loading time. We now know that this is true even for users with mechanical HDDs.”
Once the beta confirms no issues, Arrowhead will roll out the slim version of Helldivers 2 to all players and make it the default version for everyone. Assuming all goes smoothly, the legacy version will be discontinued some time next year.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Rumors and hopes regarding a Chrono Trigger remake have been raised again over the past week, driven by recent comments from Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii which do not deny nor confirm the existence of such a project.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Chrono Trigger. As a result, Square Enix has launched various projects to celebrate the classic RPG. This includes a brand new album featuring piano arrangements of character themes, a character popularity poll (Frog took the top spot, as reported by Famitsu), and orchestral concerts to be held in Japan next January.
However, this sudden celebration of Chrono Trigger after very little fanfare about the cult classic has prompted speculation that Square Enix is leading up to a bigger reveal of a Chrono Trigger remake.
Hopes were reignited again among Japanese-speaking fans on November 30, when Yuji Horii was directly asked in a discussion program on YouTube if all the recent Chrono Trigger 30th Anniversary projects and events are hinting that a remake is in the works. Horii did not outright deny it, responding with “I can’t say,” “You shouldn’t ask that!” and “I’ll get told off!”
This and publishing executive Kazuhiko Torishima’s jokey follow-up cries of “There is! There is (a Chrono Trigger remake)!” have led to Japanese speaking fans hoping, once again, that a remake is in the works despite the fact Square Enix hasn’t made any announcement. “I wonder if it will be announced next year?” users wondered on X.
Chrono Trigger was originally released for the Super Famicom/SNES in 1995. With the involvement of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, and Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, the RPG is beloved by fans and is considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time. Although an upgraded version is currently available to play through Steam and on smartphones, fans have been calling for Chrono Trigger to get the remake treatment for years.
The recent Dragon Quest HD-2D remakes have also got Chrono Trigger fans hopeful about seeing the SNES game recreated in the same style. “I want to play Chrono Trigger with beautiful graphics like these!” said a user on X. “Please, Square Enix!” Official posts by Square Enix accounts about Chrono Trigger anniversary merch have also attracted similar enthusiastic comments like, “If there’s a remake I’ll definitely, definitely buy it!” In November, Japanese game news site Dengeki Online did a poll of games readers most wanted to see get the HD-2D treatment, and Chrono Trigger topped the list.
The situation is similar to that of Final Fantasy IX, with the game’s 25th anniversary celebrations this year also stoking fans’ hopes that Zidane and Garnet’s adventures are in line for the remake treatment, although in IX’s case the rumors were backed up by the infamous 2021 Nvidia leak, which showed that a FFIX remake was possibly on Square Enix’s to-do list at one point. However, it seems that for both games, the anniversary celebrations were simply a chance to revisit these classic games through events and new merch. Until an official announcement is made, all fans of both games can do is continue to express their enthusiasm for these classic RPGs to Square Enix.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
Microsoft has announced the Xbox Game Pass December 2025 lineup, which is headlined by NetherRealm’s gory fighting game Mortal Kombat 1.
Also coming to Game Pass in the coming weeks as day one launches are first-person sci-fi horror Routine and soulslike deck builder Death Howl.
Available today, December 2, is Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) across Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass. Tomorrow, December 3, sees Monster Train 2 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) and Spray Paint Simulator (Cloud, Console, and PC) both hit Game Pass Premium.
December 4 is a decent day for Game Pass, with 33 Immortals (Game Preview) (Cloud, Console, and PC) and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) both arrive on Game Pass Premium. The aforementioned Routine (Cloud, Console, Handheld, and PC) launches day one on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass.
Moving on to December 9, A Game About Digging A Hole (Cloud, Handheld, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) arrives on Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass, as does Dome Keeper (Cloud, Console, Handheld, and PC). Death Howl (Handheld & PC) is a day one Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass release, also on December 9.
Here’s a big one: Mortal Kombat 1 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) arrives on Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass on December 10. A day later, on December 11, something that couldn’t be more different hits Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, and PC Game Pass: Bratz: Rhythm & Style (Cloud, Console, and PC).
Routine (Cloud, Console, Handheld, and PC) – December 4, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
A Game About Digging A Hole (Cloud, Handheld, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – December 9, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Death Howl (Handheld & PC) – December 9, Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
Dome Keeper (Cloud, Console, Handheld, and PC) – December 9, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Mortal Kombat 1 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – December 10, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Bratz: Rhythm & Style (Cloud, Console, and PC) – December 11, Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass
Microsoft’s post on Xbox Wire suggests this is the entire lineup for December 2025, but it only takes us to December 11. “We hope you have a chill rest of your December,” Microsoft said. “May your batteries be always charged, your sessions always end in GG’s, and you always have the perfect game queued up next. We’ll be back to talk about what’s coming soon in early 2026! Cheers!”
However, this leaves the door open to potential Game Pass shadowdrops, should next week’s The Game Awards have something up its sleeve.
As always a number of games leave Game Pass this month. You can save up to 20% off your purchase to keep them in your library.
Leaving Xbox Game Pass in December 2025:
December 15
Mortal Kombat 11 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Still Wakes the Deep (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Wildfrost (Cloud, Console, and PC)
December 31
Carrion (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Hell Let Loose (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
GameStop has highlighted its recent payout of more than $30,000 for a rare Pokémon card as evidence that the chain’s trade-in program offers fair value — while simultaneously admitting the card had actually been worth at least $3,000 more.
In its latest publicity stunt aimed at getting gamers’ attention, GameStop issued a typically jocular statement on social media declaring its record $30,494.70 payout for a PSA 10 Holo Gengar was a “historic” moment for the company.
“Any trolls who publicly claim that GameStop trade-in values are bad are hereby factually and demonstrably incorrect,” the chain wrote. “Any prior and ongoing objections to our trade values are now deemed without merit and factually invalid,” it continued, while admitting the card had actually been worth $33,883 — several thousand dollars more.
To be fair to GameStop, the chain does not hide the fact it paid $3,388.30 less than what it describes as the “fair-market valuation” for the card. Indeed, the company simply states it handed over its payout “upon completion of all required inspection, verification, and compliance procedures” — processes, the statement appears to suggest, which come at some cost.
But many responses to GameStop’s social media post have pointed to the chain still having “shorted” the card’s owner, and suggesting the card would have reached a higher value at auction. Others have noted GameStop’s own trade-in FAQ page states that the chain has a $1,500 upper limit for trade-in value, something that suggests this particular sale is something of an anomaly. IGN has contacted GameStop for more.
In its post, GameStop states its payout was executed “in accordance with the established terms and conditions governing the Power Packs Buyback Program,” an offer that some customers have criticized for allowing the retailer to repeatedly make money from the same high-value cards.
An example of this would be a customer buying a $100 Power Pack (a blind box with a rough value of a $100) from GameStop and finding a card that is indeed worth $100 inside. If it’s a card they don’t want, GameStop offers an Instant Buyback offer that’s worth 90% of the card’s value minus an additional 6% commission fee. Here, the card seller gets $84.60 back, while GameStop retains a $100 card, which they can sell again for $100 — and continue to repeat the process.
“They’re not speculating on card value,” one fan wrote in a reddit thread on GameStop’s scheme posted a few months ago. “They control the supply, the pricing tier, and the resale loop. It’s vertical integration disguised as a loot box.
“PowerPacks aren’t just about cards. The real edge is the buyback loop. On average, GameStop pays less than market for returned cards, then sells them again at full price. Every cycle is a profit opportunity. It’s repeatable. Scalable. Efficient. And it doesn’t rely on retail footfall or console cycles. PowerPacks might end up being GameStop’s most profitable product yet.”
“Right now, we’re still thinking about what to make next,” Okamura said. “Since we created an opportunity (with MGS Delta) for new players to experience the Metal Gear series, I do want to continue with it.”
He continued: “It could be a remake, or we might challenge ourselves by creating a brand new game. The Metal Gear series is part of videogame history, spanning pixel art to cinematic presentation, and so each title requires a different approach to expressing and remaking it.
“We won’t apply the methodology used to make the recent MGS Delta to all other games in the series — rather we intend to find the best approach for each specific game.”
Okamura also touched on the amount of time it took for the team at Konami to be in a position to remake Metal Gear Solid 3. “Most of the original staff members had left and the team had been reorganized, however we gathered people together and finally arrived at the point where we could make MGS Delta. As a team, we are confident that we achieved a level of quality that not only preserves the appeal of the original but also that modern players could enjoy. We are currently working out concrete plans for what we are going to do next.”
However, when asked about the possibility of a Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots remake, Okamura remained cautious, saying: “the hardware back then required very specific designs to get the most out of the 3D technology that was available at the time, so MGS4 ended up with some pretty unique code. It seems like it would be quite a challenge to bring that into the present day.”
At the moment, 2008’s Metal Gear Solid 4, which ties up all the loose ends in Solid Snake’s story, is only playable on PlayStation 3. Based on the original game release order and rumors, a remastered port of MGS4 is expected to be included in the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2, however Konami has yet to announce the official line-up for this second anthology of MGS games to be released on current gen platforms.
While Okamoto’s comments address a remake rather than a remaster, his thoughts on MGS4’s unique code may explain why it is taking Konami so long to release Volume 2. Okamura previously said that the team are taking their time on Volume 2 to avoid the performance issues that dogged Volume 1 at launch: “we’re going to do everything we can not to repeat that, but we just have to ask for everyone to give us time.”
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
A Fortnite artist has been forced to defend their work after fans suggested numerous images found within the game’s new season are AI-generated, including a suspicious-looking poster showing a character in a hammock with an odd number of toes.
Last night, freelance artist Sean Dove took to Instagram in response to fan claims that his Studio Ghibli-style depiction of Back to the Future hero Marty McFly was the product of AI generation. Dove, a frequent Fortnite collaborator, showed off his manual process for drawing the image. But while he drew the Ghibli-esque main character himself, Dove admitted he may still have inadvertantly included AI elements in the background.
“I guess someone on reddit thinks this was AI,” Dove wrote. “I think the culprit is a clock in the background. I grabbed some clocks off image search, collaged them, and halftoned them. The numbers are bad, entirely possible I grabbed an AI clock and wasn’t paying attention.”
And while Dove has personally responded, Fortnite developer Epic Games has so far remained silent on the topic, as fans on reddit create numerous threads pointing out other examples of images they think show signs of AI generation. (IGN contacted Epic Games for this story, but did not receive a comment back.)
Most egregious, according to fans, is an in-game poster for a location named Mile High Retreat. The image shows a pair of legs sticking out from a hammock, with five toes visible on one foot and four visible on another.
Amid all the confusion, and lack of clarification from Epic Games itself, what’s clear is that Fortnite fans are keen to push back against the perception of AI art usage within the game. An enormous thread on reddit is tracking every example where players have doubts of images being made by human hands, and searching for more.
“Awful decision,” wrote one player. “I hope it gets amended. As others have said, the art and style of this damn game is one of the main reasons we love it. Generative AI has no place in it.”
“I thought things like Darth Vader were cool, using AI to achieve something that simply wouldn’t be possible without it,” another fan wrote. “But, that was the only case so far that I’ve genuinely found neat. Creating art is something humans, and especially Epic due to their money and resources, are very capable of doing.”
Epic Games is no stranger to AI technology, of course, having previously used generative speech technology to reproduce James Earl Jones’ Darth Vader portrayal. But despite having the rights and approval of Disney, the character’s inclusion proved controversial, especially as players quickly began making Vader say things more aligned with the dark side of the Force.
“It doesn’t matter any more,” he continued. “The AI tag is relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation. It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production.”
Speaking of AI artwork, boot up Fortnite anytime recently and you’ll be greeted by a menu screen with dozens, if not hundreds, of user-made experiences that use AI artwork for their thumbnails, something Epic Games has previously said it is pointless to police, as technology rapidly improves to the point where AI images become almost impossible to distinguish.
Indeed, if nothing else, the whole matter has simply highlighted the increasing difficulty in 2025 of being able to tell what is AI-generated, and what is not.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
