At long last, Leon S. Kennedy has been confirmed to appear in Resident Evil: Requiem — via a leaked image on the PlayStation Store.
The reveal of new cover art for the game featuring Leon finally puts to bed one of this year’s biggest gaming mysteries — something developer Capcom has itself refused to address — just days ahead of Requiem’s appearance at The Game Awards. Presumably we’ll see Leon announced officially there.
This morning, Resident Evil fans began spotting the new cover art appearing on PlayStation 5 consoles in the pre-download screen for owners of the standard (non-Deluxe) version of the game. IGN has now verified this ourselves, and can confirm the image is legitimate. Leon is real.
The game’s cover shows a haggard-looking Leon looming over Requiem’s other main protagonist, Grace Ashcroft. In his appearance, Leon looks most similar to his iconic look from Resident Evil 4, his floppy hair set off by a snazzy leather jacket, its collar lined with fur.
Rumors have persisted for months over Leon’s involvement in Resident Evil: Requiem, with Capcom specifically declining to answer IGN’s questions over the character back at Gamescom in August. The game’s developers have even suggested that Leon would be a poor fit as a protagonist for the game’s quieter sections as he is now too grizzled to be scared. But through all of this, Capcom left itself with just enough wiggle room for Leon to still be lurking somewhere — presumably during Requiem’s more action-packed sequences.
Here’s a better look at Resident Evil: Requiem’s new box art, with Leon’s look shown in more detail:
Despite Capcom’s secrecy, persistent leaks pointed to Leon’s presence in Requiem, while the game’s story itself seems like it’s built around the character’s return. Requiem returns the franchise to its roots in Raccoon City, where Leon was once a rookie cop. An early trailer for the game even showed the remnants of his former Raccoon City Police Department, hinting at his involvement.
Throughout all this, Capcom had kept the secret the quiet — up until today, just 80 days from the game’s February 27, 2026 launch date, and little more than 48 hours from its big splash at The Game Awards this Thursday — where gameplay featuring Leon is now all but certain to be fully revealed.
More to follow…
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Sorry, puzzle geeks. Don’t expect a Blue Prince 2 any time soon. Or, ever, really.
That’s what we learned from speaking with Blue Prince creator Tonda Ros last month. We asked him loads of questions and you can read our full interview right here, but one big mystery we wanted to clear up was if he’d ever make a sequel to Blue Prince. And, no, he won’t. No sequel to Blue Prince, nor to any other game he makes in the future.
But he is going to make something else.
“I can say I will never make a sequel to my work because I love creating something standalone and then going on to something completely different,” he said. “It will likely not even be in the same exact genres. I will probably be mixing it up. You’ll start to see overlap. You’ll start to see overlaps with some of my interests. So it will be familiar, and hopefully I’ll inadvertently have things that really worked with Blue Prince that I’ll carry on in terms of at least technicals. But yeah, we’ll see. I’m hesitant to do another 3D game because for my first game, 3D was so difficult. I really wish I did a 2D game. I probably could have done it in five years instead of eight. But yeah, I think it’ll be something totally different.”
This might be disappointing to hear for Blue Prince fans, especially for those still mulling over the game’s remaining unsolved mysteries and wishing there was some sort of answer to them. It also sounds like, from our interview, he won’t be doing any more major content updates to Blue Prince after the upcoming so-called “final update.” “I do love complete games,” he said. “And I do love when something is definitively done. So I had tried my best to get everything into the game at launch because that was something I just really wanted. I didn’t want to eternally be updating this.”
Whatever it is Ros is working on next, it will be a while before we see it. He says he still expects to be working on Blue Prince in small ways for the next year, finishing the final update, bug fixes, and such. And given that Blue Prince took about eight years to create, he’ll need a lot more time on top of that to create something brand new. At least Blue Prince fans have already completed a serious exercise in patience by finishing the game at all.
You can read our full interview with Ros here, and check out our review where we gave Blue Prince a 9/10. As our reviewer wrote: “If The Witness, Portal, and Myst are already emblazoned on the Mount Rushmore of first-person puzzle games, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Blue Prince carved alongside them soon enough.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
There are a lot of skateboarding games, and I feel like I’ve played most of them. Some of them are majestic. Some are not. The Simpsons Skateboarding was the absolute pits. Tony Hawk: Ride was tortuous pain. This year’s Skate is a microtransaction hellscape.
Enter Skate Story. Like those latter examples, it too is a trip to skateboarding hell and a study in pain. In this case, however, that’s actually the whole point of this extremely peculiar journey through perdition on a piece of 7-ply. I wasn’t always aboard for the sheer and utter weirdness of Skate Story’s broader adventure, but there’s no doubt developer Sam Eng has successfully married it to a robust and approachable set of skate mechanics – and it certainly makes for a memorable skateboarding game like no other I’ve ever played.
Skate Story is a slightly tricky game to describe, if only because attempting to even discuss the plot sounds a little like you’re making it up on the spot. The deal is you’re a demon made out of glass and pain, marooned in Hell. It’s referred to as The Underworld, more specifically – but the Devil is here, either way. I know this because I have his pants.
From the Devil comes a deal. That is, you can be free on one condition: you find a way to flip, grind, and manual your way to the moon – and eat it. For some reason.
Are you still following? Because I haven’t even got to the frog barista yet. Or the subway train with legs.
Are you still following? Because I haven’t even got to the frog barista yet.
I’m hesitant to say much else lest I spoil any of the particularly quirky developments along the way, so just be aware Skate Story is an incredibly weird trip through a bizarre underworld. To be candid, this isn’t really the kind of thing I’d typically seek out. That is, the stories I like normally feature big guys causing problems in small towns, assassins with grudges, or pictures of fighter planes on the cover. That is, I’m more David Leitch than David Lynch, if that makes sense. Skate Story did largely win me over, though. There were definitely moments I found myself getting a little numb to the weirdness, on account of just how offbeat it sometimes gets, but overall I admire the commitment to its surrealistic vision.
Its story is told via text that you can read through at your own pace. There’s no voice acting or voiceover – and there’s an argument to be mounted that it might’ve gained a bit of gravity from some kind of baritone narration à la The Stanley Parable or Bastion – but Skate Story’s finely honed soundtrack means there’s still plenty to listen to. Assembled by New Jersey band Blood Cultures, the music is a generous mix of the group’s experimental, electro-pop sound, and it ranges in tempo and intensity as the locations and pace of the levels vary. This sort of music is also comfortably out of my usual wheelhouse, but nonetheless I found it extremely evocative and catchy, and it suits Skate Story to a T. It fabulously complements The Underworld’s abstract environments, and the atmosphere of its eternal night backdrop.
Don’t be fooled by Skate Story’s grainy, low-fi look, either; this is one of the most eye-catching and imaginative-looking games I’ve played in recent memory. Its psychedelic vision for a neon underworld blends jagged forests of spikes with broken slabs of ancient architecture, and twisted blocks of New York City with carpets of stars. Watching this wild world refract through a sneaker-clad demon made entirely of glass is certainly something.
Pain in the Glass
The controls are not immediately intuitive, because they’re noticeably different from the approach taken by the sorts of dedicated sports-oriented skating games a lot of us are familiar with. That is, Skate Story doesn’t have tricks mapped to flicking an analogue stick around like the Skate series (or both analogue sticks, as in the case of something like Session). It’s more in line with playing something like Tony Hawk, only imagine someone remapped all the buttons.
Basic tricks are activated by a combination of either a shoulder button or trigger plus a face button, and grinds occur when you pop and land suitably on a rail or ledge. A variety of other, progressively more complex tricks are rationed out and taught to us as the story unfolds over its roughly six-hour duration. It’s not a revolutionary approach, sure, but it’s a smart one since having us always picking up new tricks keeps things fresh throughout. There was a moderate learning curve as I sought to archive decades of THPS muscle memory in order to learn Skate Story’s own specific trick system – but it didn’t take too long to come to grips with.
It’s all very grounded and weighty, which I like, and the tricks look great in motion with the low slung camera that tumbles to the ground like a physical object each time you bail and shatter to bits. I love how the powerslides feel, and I love the slow motion enders we’re rewarded with for our successes. When it comes to vibes, Skate Story nails the landing.
It’s all very grounded and weighty… and the tricks look great in motion with the low slung camera.
There’s a timing mechanism for executing tricks that results in different pop heights, which is illustrated by an on-screen doodle (a different shape for each trick). Depending on the speed of your skater, a marker will trace the doodle slowly or quickly – and there’s a sweet spot for getting max altitude – but I have to admit I generally paid little attention to it. On default settings, Skate Story never demanded a fastidious level of timing finesse to get through its levels and defeat bosses. This suits me just fine, but the fact that you can just essentially spam your way through a lot of the most frantic-looking segments may come across as a little trivial to anyone looking for a stiffer challenge.
Tony Hawk’s Underworld
Boss battles are handled in an interesting way, and to win these encounters you need to build up combos and “stomp” them down inside a marked zone. They can be cleared with a bit of mild button-mashing, but there’s certainly room to be much more deliberate about your trick selection and timing if you choose to (and you will, admittedly, accumulate better combos and deal more damage – and faster – if you do). There are also a number of small and trippy sandbox-style levels to cruise around with various objectives to complete, but some of these tasks do get disappointingly trivial. For instance, one mission that called on me to gather up a selection of floating letters sounded like a cute nod to Skate Story’s ancestors – but most of them were just hovering at ground level, turning what could’ve been a brief but fun challenge into a basic fetch quest across the map and back.
My favourite parts of Skate Story, however, were the speed segments, where you must hustle from your spawn point to an ethereal exit door – like some kind of haunted hill bomb. The music ramps up for these high-speed bursts, and I like the fast-paced trial-and-error nature of them as your fragile demon smashes to shards and you instantly get another crack. I always felt a little pang of regret when I reached the end of these runs, and I wish there were a few more of them.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday have passed us by, but thankfully there are still plenty of toys and gifts getting discounts before Christmas. If you’re looking for an awesome Hot Wheels set to buy for a kid (or yourself), the Hot Wheels version of Bowser’s Castle has just dropped to its lowest price ever on Amazon. It includes Bullet Bill a massive loop, and storage for up to 38 vehicles.
Hot Wheels Mario Kart Bowser’s Castle Playset
As someone who has logged a lot of Mario Kart hours, I can honestly say this thing looks pretty fun to play with. My own son isn’t quite old enough to start messing around with Hot Wheels stuff, but my nephew would go crazy for this thing. He probably wouldn’t care at all that it’s Mario Kart-themed, but he would be smacking that launcher like nobody’s business.
At $41.99, this is the lowest price we’ve ever seen it go for on Amazon. It’s worth noting, however, that it only comes with one Hot Wheels car. You’ll get a 1:64 scale die-cast Kamek in a classic Kart. So if you want to build a larger collection of Mario Kart characters, you’ll need to buy the separate Hot Wheels packs for buy them individually. I’d recommend going with the four pack route, but it costs almost as much as the track itself.
It’s included in Amazon’s new limited-time coupon
The discount on the track itself is already pretty good, but it’s also included in Amazon’s latest promotion. For a limited time, you can save $25 when you spend $100 on a ton of different gifts included here. The list of toys, games, and other random gifts is pretty massive and there’s some surprisingly good stuff in here. You could easily spend $100 on Barbie dolls or board games, for example, and get the extra $25 off.
The promotion works similarly to the ‘3 for 2’ sales Amazon has run in the past. All you need to do is add $100 worth of eligible items to your cart all at once and the $25 discount will be automatically applied at checkout.
Jacob Kienlen is a Senior Audience Development Strategist and Writer for IGN. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, he has considered the Northwest his home for his entire life. With a bachelor’s degree in communication and over 8 years of professional writing experience, his expertise is spread across a variety of different pop culture topics — from TV series to indie games and books.
Following the cancelation of Perfect Dark and the dissolution of its dedicated studio, The Initiative, two of the project’s leads have found a new home at Take-Two Interactive, and more specifically at 2K.
As reported by Jason Schreier on Bluesky, Perfect Dark studio head Darrell Gallagher and director Brian Horton have been hired at 2K to start a brand new studio. No details have yet emerged as to what the new studio will work on, or if any other former Perfect Dark employees joined them.
When asked, a 2K spokesperson provided the following confirmation of the hire:
With a combined six decades of AAA game-making experience across franchises like Tomb Raider, Call of Duty, Destiny, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Hitman, Deus Ex, and more, we’re thrilled to confirm Darrell Gallagher and Brian Horton have joined 2K for their next all-new venture. We don’t have additional details to share at this time, but look forward to sharing updates on their work in the future.
While The Initiative was closed down upon the game’s cancelation, Crystal Dynamics had also been working on the project. Per Schreier’s reporting and corroborated by IGN’s own sources, leadership from both studio sides of the project spent two months after its cancelation shopping it around to publishers in an effort to save it. Take-Two Interactive allegedly was one of the interested parties, but the deal fell through, and Crystal Dynamics underwent layoffs (it’s second round of three this year).
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
This comes from tweets both by The Game Awards creator Geoff Keighley and the official Tomb Raider account. As Keighley puts it, “As just revealed in our The Game Awards Vote in Fortnite map portal, tune in Thursday night for a look at the future of one of gaming’s most iconic franchises, Tomb Raider. This is one you won’t want to miss.”
So, what could be shown? There are a few possibilities. The first and most likely is that we’re about to see the Tomb Raider game that’s been in development at Crystal Dynamics for several years now. First announced in 2022, we have yet to actually see this game in action, though we did get a look at the Lara Croft redesign last year.
One could forgive Crystal Dynamics for being so quiet the last three years, though, as the studio has been through it. Shortly before the announcement, Embracer Group purchased the studio and the franchise from Square Enix. Then, it sold both off to Middle-earth Enterprises in 2024. Amazon is still publishing Tomb Raider, but Amazon has had its own issues with the struggles of its New World MMO, its Lord of the Rings MMO, and mass layoffs. Amazon said over a year ago that the game would reveal was “not too far away,” leading one to wonder what exactly was meant by that. Meanwhile, Crystal Dynamics has undergone three waves of layoffs this year, including 30 individuals last month, an unknown number of workers in August following the cancellation of Perfect Dark by Xbox, and 17 people earlier in the year, as well as 10 others back in 2023.
That’s the game side of things. On the TV side, we know there’s a live-action Tomb Raider series in the works at Amazon in partnership with Story Kitchen, starring Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner as Lara Croft. The show will, per Story Kitchen, “reinvent the franchise on a massive scale” and will interconnect “live-action television series and video games into a unified storytelling universe.”
But again, it’s been in the works for a while with no updates. We first heard of its development in January of 2023, and it was officially confirmed later that year. There were reports in April of this year that the TV show was “dead” in part due to Tuner’s busy acting schedule and in part due to Jennifer Salke, who greenlit the show at Amazon, being “booted” from her job. There were also allegations that a script hadn’t been provided yet. But then, in September, Amazon re-confirmed the Tomb Raider series was happening and would start shooting in 2026, with Turner still to star.
That’s…a lot going on! With all that background, it seems most likely we’re going to see the game, as the series hasn’t begun shooting yet. However, it’s possible we’re due for a look at Turner as Lara Croft. Given the vagueness of Keighley and Crystal’s tweets…why not both? In the meantime, at least we have the anime…I guess. We didn’t much care for the first season.
The Game Awards will take place on Thursday, December 11, at 5pm PT/8pm ET. Here’s our guide on what else to expect at the show.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Management sim Esports Manager 2026, from developer Neurona Games and publishing platform indie.io, just released a new demo on Steam that gives an in-depth look at the systems that will be present in the final game.
As you could probably guess from the name, the game puts you in the role of a manager of an esports organization and challenges you to lead it to victory. The demo focuses on the three key systems that define the gameplay: talent acquisition, management of staff and players, and match simulation.
You can create your own organization from scratch or take control of a real esports organization, like EternalFire, Copenhagen Wolves, M80, and GamerLegion, and additional teams will be added when the game fully releases. And with the Transfer Module, you can scout, buy, and sell players, including real-life players like @neLendirekt,@BanKsEsports,@PiNGCasts,@bit1, and many more.
Each player has ratings in several different categories. Some define their technical gaming ability, like their skill with different weapon types or how clutch they are. Others define their personality, like leadership, amicability, and loyalty. And still others define their physical attributes, like eyesight, reaction time, and endurance.
You’ll be competing with other organizations for their services, negotiating contracts and building a roster that best aligns with your current goal. Timing and market conditions will affect these negotiations, so your strategy might need to change as circumstances do. And you’ll need to balance your income, expenses, and sponsorships to keep your organization from going bankrupt.
Once you’ve built your team, you can use the Talk Module to communicate directly with your players and staff members to manage their growth, morale, and relationships. You set training plans to improve players’ skills, but you also need to keep an eye on their well-being and how they’re feeling. You don’t want to overwork them or wear them down. You’ll also need to monitor how your players and staff members feel about each other and resolve any conflicts that might come up. It’s all part of the nitty gritty of running an organization; it’s not always sunshine and rainbows.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an esports team without the actual esports. Using the Simulation Module, you’ll take the team you’ve built into tournaments, where you can watch it perform in semi-3D simulated matches. Will all your hard work pay off in a tournament win? Or will it be clear you need to develop your team more? There’s no way to know until you actually see them in action. And with the Tactic Creator, you can design and test strategies that you can use during simulations.
These systems make up the core gameplay loop of Esports Manager 2026, and about 70% of the final systems are present in the demo. The demo doesn’t limit the real-life amount of time you can play it, but it is limited to one in-game month. That’s plenty of time to go through the full process of creating your manager profile, choosing a team, building your roster, communicating with players, signing up for a tournament, and going through simulated matches.
While most of the core gameplay is there, the developers have also made it clear that more is on the way. In particular, match simulations will be significantly expanded and more complex, with added options for tactical control and in-game events. And, of course, everything that’s present in the demo will be further balanced and polished between now and release.
Like the full game, the demo is meant to be replayed to test out new strategies and experience more of what it has to offer. And it should give you a pretty accurate idea of the scope of the final game. The demo is available to download on Steam now, and if you want to get the latest updates, you can follow Esports Manager 2026 on Twitter or Discord.
Fortnite is thawing out the Infinity Blade, arguably the game’s most controversial weapon ever, for an appearance in the next season of its OG battle royale mode.
Beginning this Thursday, December 11, Fortnite OG will shift to Chapter 1 Season 7, and let players experience the game’s beloved retro season where all the snow turned up and we got to fly around in planes.
It was a brilliant season, though one that will go down in Fortnite history as one of the most divisive — as Epic Games also introduced the Mythic-quality Infinity Blade sword that was notoriously overpowered. Only one Infinity Blade spawned each match, and lobbies turned into an absolute mess over who nabbed the game-breaking item first.
I remember enjoying the brief disruption to the game’s meta, which was turned on its head and has never seen anything quite like it since (perhaps for good reason). Because, after significant outcry, the Infinity Blade was made unplayable and literally frozen into its pedestal after only a few days, never to be used again — until now.
Epic Games has not said when it intends to unvault the Infinity Blade, or for how long. It’s possible the weapon will be offered at full strength for a brief period, or it could have been rebalanced — for now, players have been left to speculate.
For now, at least, players can expect everything else the original Chapter 1 Season 7 featured to arrive later this week, including items such as balloons and the ability to redeploy your glider, negating fall damage, as well as the fan-favorite X-4 Stormwing planes. Fresh areas of the map include Polar Peak — home to the Ice King, the cheery Happy Hamlet and the Frosty Flights airbase.
Remixed outfits include the feline-tailed Lynx (later the love interest for swole cat Meowscles), onesie-wearing character Onesie, and Fortnite’s battle-scarred take on Father Christmas himself: Sergeant Winter. Is the game really giving up its opportunity to reskin The Ice King? For now, it seems so — though rumors have suggested we may be seeing more of him in the near future.
Keep in mind it won’t be at that price for long, either. Offers from Best Buy’s Deal of the Day page only last through the rest of the day, so act quickly to save on it.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater for $40
Our Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater review had plenty of praise for this remake. IGN’s Michael Higham said, “Between its old-school stealth-action gameplay and engaging spy-thriller story, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater largely succeeds as a faithful, visually impressive remake of the 2004 classic.”
It’s even a game we consider to be one of the best video game remakes of all time, noting “what was once a groundbreaking stealth game is now an enduring classic, thanks to its playful approach to Cold War espionage and its dramatic, cinematic story.” Personally, I’m a big fan as well, and had a blast playing it this year.
While this is an especially nice one-day-only treat from Best Buy today, there are still some other video game deals floating around that are worth a look right now. We’ve gathered up some of the best gaming deals still live after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but they’re going fast. Have a look to see if any that caught your eye are still on sale, and grab them before they’re gone.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
Shenmue developer Ys Net has threatened legal action over a widely-circulated video designed to look like leaked footage of Shenmue 4.
The footage popped up on social media last week and was promptly shared by numerous websites, even as questions regarding the video’s origins and authenticity swirled.
Now, Ys Net has released a statement to confirm that the footage “has absolutely no connection” to itself and uses the company’s logo without permission. Additionally, Ys Net claimed that such acts “may amount to trademark infringement and unfair competition” and therefore it was now preparing “appropriate measures” and exploring legal options.
Breaking News ‼️
A trailer for Shenmue IV appears to have been leaked from Sega. It is not yet verified by Sega but it seems to be real. pic.twitter.com/GMOlFFgCuw
While some fans took the lengthy “Shenmue 4” clip as too elaborate to be fake, others pointed to a handful of wonky animation effects and its fan-baiting story to suggest it was an elaborate creation made by a fan using generative AI.
While generative AI and deepfake technology are nothing new, the past few months have seen a fresh generation of tools such as Sora 2 and Google’s Nano Banana Pro pump out generated content that’s now increasingly difficult to distinguish from the real thing. Last week’s Shenmue 4 video is, seemingly, yet another example of this.
“Ys Net Inc. has confirmed that a video has been posted on social media which uses our company logo without permission, falsely giving the impression that it is an an official ‘Shenmue 4’ related video produced by us,” the company wrote. “This video has absolutely no connection to Ys Net. Furthermore, at this time, Ys Net has not released any trailers, footage or other promotional materials related to ‘Shenmue 4.’
“We recognize that the unauthorized use of our logo, and any act that misleads viewers into believing such content is official, constitutes a serious issues that may amount to trademark infringement and unfair competition. W are currently working with relevant parties and preparing appropriate measures, including potential legal action.
“We sincerely apologize to our fans and all related parties for any confusion this may have caused. We will continue to ensure the proper and accurate dissemination of information, and we ask for your understanding and cooperation.”
“Rejoining Ryo Hazuki’s quest to avenge his father is exciting, but Shenmue 3 feels like a game that has ignored the innovation and progress of the last 20 years of video game development,” IGN wrote in our Shenmue 3 review, scoring the game 5/10.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
