As we do regularly, we’re looking at how the latest set has affected pricing across the cardboard game we love so much, leaning on data from our friends at TCGplayer. Spoiler alert: Black and Blue cards are in vogue this season, it seems.
Climbers
Kicking off with an Elemental that makes for a nifty inclusion for upgrading the Dance of the Elementals precon, Sunderflock is a nine-cost card that gets cheaper the more Elementals you have in play.
It also puts non-Elementals back in their owners’ hands, and is a 5/5 with Flying for good measure. It’s selling for around $10, having gone for (according to TCGplayer data) a single cent in recent months.
Next up, Eddymurk Crab. Another Elemental (Crab), this one has Flash and costs less to cast for instants and sorceries in your graveyard. It also taps target creatures and is a 5/5 in its own right. It’s sitting at under a dollar right now, but has spiked from being worth next to nothing not long ago.
Moving from Blue to Black, and Elementals to something a little more demonic, Doomsday Excruciator is a card that’s “spiked” to around two dollars. Not a lot, sure, but this six-cost, 6/6 with Flying was half of that last week. It exiles all but six of everyone’s cards, and dares you to finish a match more quickly by giving you an extra draw.
Pairing nicely with that is Insatiable Avarice, which forces a player to lose life and draw three cards. This one is up to around $15 at the time of writing, but was $2 just a couple of weeks ago.
Harvester of Misery jumped from $3 to around $18 (with some sellers shipping it for much more). This 5/4 with Menace dishes out -2/-2 to other creatures, and that might be enough to trigger a big with the Blight Curse precon.
Crashers
Now that Lorwyn has been released, we’ve got a few Crashers from the latest set that are worth a pickup.
Everyone went mad for Hexing Squelcher, with the Goblin Sorcerer preventing counters and dishing out Ward. It’s not around $18, down from $50 before launch.
Another big drop is the 6/6 dragon, Spinerock Tyrant. It deals damage as -1/-1 (making it a Blighter’s dream), and doubles up spells. Now, it’s under $3, having been close to $30 at pre-launch prices.
Sticking with big numbers, Curious Colossus is a 7/7 that makes everyone else’s creature a 1/1. If you can pair that with a Massacre Wurm or something similar, you can board wipe an entire table in the late game. It’s now under $3.
Finally, Ashling, Rekindled is a 1/3 that transforms into Ashling, Rimebound to generate more mana. It’s a cheap card in terms of mana cost, but it’s now just $2 – down from $15.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
Girls Frontline 2: Exilium recently revealed the new content that’s coming in its next patch on February 19, and there’s a lot. The headliners are two new T-Dolls, Alva and Voymastina, the latter of which is the strongest Doll in the game. Alva will arrive on February 19, and Voymastina will arrive on March 12. On top of that, there’s new story content, limited-time outfits and events, and lots of free rewards.
New T-Dolls Join the Fray
Alva, the dependable leader of Task Force DEFY, is the first new Doll to join the roster. Though reserved in demeanor, she is fiercely protective of her squad. She’s a Support-class Doll and excels at providing powerful shields and enhancing team survivability, making her a natural fit for shield-focused teams. With her signature weapon, 6P33, she increases the critical damage of Freeze-based allies and further amplifies the damage of shielded units, turning defense into offense. She synergizes particularly well with Robella, creating a 1+1>2 effect, and her arrival marks the full realization of shield-centric Freeze teams.
The new story content, called Corposant, will be released in three parts on February 19, February 26, and March 12. It features CG animations and delivers an experience comparable to a visual novel, with more than 100,000 English words. When the final chapter launches on March 12, it will also introduce the highly anticipated new Doll Voymastina, who is officially recognized as the strongest second-generation Doll in the game.
Codenamed “White Mastiff,” Voymastina is a physical-team core damage dealer who specializes in defense-ignoring capabilities, delivering massive physical damage through both active and support attacks. Her exclusive effect, Predator’s Principle, boosts burst damage, while Eye of the White Mastiff enables sustained offensive pressure. Debuting alongside her is the Elite assault rifle 6P71 (Medium Ammo), Voymastina’s imprinted signature weapon, designed to complete her combat profile and reinforce her role as a top-tier damage dealer.
Free Goodies on the Way
The patch will add lots of new free rewards, led by the ability to earn 55+ pulls, 11,000+ Collapse Pieces, an Elite Doll (Balthilde), and a Commander outfit during the themed Corposant event that launches February 19.
Plus, there are multiple upcoming log-in events that can score you additional goodies. Starting February 19, you can log in to receive 10 Targeted Access Permissions (which are used to pull for characters) and sign in to receive another 10. And another event starts March 12, where you can get an additional 10. Also starting February 19, you can get one reward mail every week, each containing one Access Permission, 100 Collapse Pieces (which can be used to get more Targeted Access Permissions), and 100 Next-Gen Memory Sticks (which can be used to increase your affinity with individual Dolls).
From February 19 to April 1, the limited-time Splash Bash event introduces a PK-style gameplay mode featuring interactive matchups between Dolls and players. There’s streamlined gameplay guidance and stage-clearing tips, making the mode a light but competitive change of pace. And you can unlock the exclusive Commander outfit Leisurely Heat by participating.
On top of all this, the upcoming patch will also add limited-time discounts on three new outfits: Alva – Antje, Lenna – Flying Phantom, and Nikketa – Night on the Silver Bay. And there will be a new permanent gameplay mode called Ashen Tales in Artifact Recovery.
As always, Girls Frontline 2: Exilium will continue to release more new content in the future. In the next six months, you can expect extensive story updates, new gameplay modes, new Dolls and outfits, and collaborations with other major IPs. If you want to stay up to date on those details and announcements, you can visitthe official website or join the community onTwitter,YouTube, orDiscord.
The FIFA/EAFC game franchise has been going strong for more than 30 years, and in that time it’s featured some of the most iconic players in history on the cover. But only one can be crowned the true GOAT, and now is your chance to tell us who that should be.
We’ve created a tournament presented by McDonald’s and their limited-time Hot Honey sauce. Just as these cover athletes elevated the FIFA/EAFC franchise, the Hot Honey sauce elevates your faves to a new level. The tournament will have 32 cover athletes organized into a bracket that you’ll vote on, and they cover just about the entire run of the series, from Erik Thorstvedt (FIFA Soccer 95) to Jude Bellingham and Jamal Musiala (EA FC 26).
Players will face off in 1v1 matchups, with the one who gets the most votes moving on to the next round. All the matchups in each round will be done at the same time, and voting will be conducted through polls on the bottom of the page you’re currently on as well as IGN’s Instagram stories. If you come back to this page on the dates listed below, the polls will be updated to the latest round and you can vote again.
Nintendo’s upcoming Virtual Boy accessory can be used to play Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Super Mario Odyssey, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it’s been reported.
VGC has tested the new Virtual Boy headset (and its cheaper cardboard alternative) with the four games, which previously received VR modes to become compatible with Nintendo Labo VR following its launch back in 2019.
As VGC reports, the new Virtual Boy accessory works in an identical manner to Nintendo Labo VR, essentially acting as a shell with a pair of lenses for your Switch screen. (And yes, you can remove those red Virtual Boy lenses.)
Viewing the four classic Switch games in their VR modes, players are treated to a VR effect, and can look around naturally by moving their head — which is tracked by the console’s motion sensors.
Does Nintendo intend for you to use your new Virtual Boy accessory this way? It’s debatable. On the one hand, using the actual Virtual Boy accessory for this is a little difficult, since it is designed to sit on a flat surface, removing your ability to look around easily. On the other, VGC notes that Breath of the Wild’s Switch 2 upgrade retains its VR mode option, so perhaps this was the plan all along.
Nintendo will officially launch its Virtual Boy Nintendo Classics collection next week on February 17, which you’ll need a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription on either Switch or Switch 2 to access. You’ll also need a Virtual Boy ($99.99) or cardboard Virtual Boy ($24.99) accessory, sold via the My Nintendo Store.
As of next week, the Virtual Boy library will arrive with the following games:
Galactic Pinball
Teleroboxer
RED ALARM
Virtual Boy Wario Land
3-D Tetris
Golf
The Mansion of Innsmouth
Over time, Nintendo will then slowly launch more, including two games that previously never saw the light of day.
Mario Clash
Mario’s Tennis
Jack Bros.
Space Invaders Virtual Collection
Virtual Bowling
Vertical Force
V-Tetris
Zero Racers (previously unreleased)
D-Hopper (previously unreleased)
“Would I recommend the average Nintendo fan drops $100 or even $25 to play these games? No, probably not,” IGN wrote after going face-on with the Virtual Boy accessories recently. “There are only seven of them to play at launch, and they are more enjoyable from a historical perspective than an entertainment one. You could buy seven superior indie games for 100 bucks that come in more than just one color. But if you love exploring wacky bygones from past eras and want a really cool accessory to display in your game room, you’ll probably really like the new Virtual Boy like I did.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Last night’s Sony State of Play broadcast ended with an announcement and shadow drop for God of War Sons of Sparta, a side-scrolling spin-off listed as having 1-2 player support via the PlayStation Store. The only problem? Fans can’t find its two-player option.
Early reports from those who’ve paid the game’s $29.99 asking price and revisited Kratos’ origins say that his sibling Deimos only appears at certain points, there’s no two-player option in the game’s menus, and plugging in a second PS5 controller doesn’t provide extra options.
It’s an odd situation that’s led some to suspect the PlayStation Store listing is simply incorrect — as it appears to be the only firm evidence a two-player mode exists — and seek help from others online also searching for its multiplayer.
Writing on reddit and social media, fans say the store’s listing didn’t initially seem odd — since the game’s title is “Sons of Sparta” plural, in-game footage shows the two brothers killing bosses together, and its cover artwork focuses on them fighting side-by-side.
The game’s store description could also be ready ambiguously, referencing the exploits of both brothers:
“Experience an untold chapter in Kratos’ journey set during the harsh years of Spartan training alongside his brother Deimos,” Sons of Sparta’s official blurb reads. “Through endless trials, their minds, bodies, and hearts have been molded to become Spartan soldiers for whom duty and honor mean everything. After a fellow cadet goes missing, Kratos and Deimos vow to find him and embark on an adventure that will put their training and Spartan spirit to the test.”
“Just got it installed and running,” wrote God of War fan Mephistocheles on reddit, in a lengthy thread with much discussion on the game’s lack of co-op play. “So far it’s not allowing drop in play on 2nd controller and there were no two-player options on start menu. Will update if I find it does allow co-op, but it doesn’t look like it.”
“I’m so sad,” wrote bob_th4_build3r. “I bought it instantly because i thought it would be co-op… maybe they will add it in the future?”
Other comments say they are now escalating the matter to PlayStation’s customer support, while several fans say they have tried to request refunds. IGN has contacted PlayStation and Sons of Sparta developer Mega Cat Studios for clarification on the game’s two-player capabilities, or lack thereof.
Sega has written off $200 million of its $776 million acquisition of Angry Birds maker, Rovio, stating the “profitability of [the mobile] business had fallen below the initial forecast” — corporate speak for, ‘this hasn’t made us as much money as we thought it would.’
Sega confirmed back in April 2023 plans to purchase Angry Birds developer Rovio for $776 million, with Rovio’s mobile game expertise intended to help boost Sega’s own position in the mobile market. The acquisition completed in September that same year.
Now, in its most recent financial report, Sega Sammy said that while Rovio was “a company with strong development and operational capabilities in the mobile game area, a sector with major growth potential,” the “business environment in the global mobile game market [has] rapidly changed, with multiple major titles emerging within a short period, and competition for customer acquisition [is] intensifying.” Which is why it’s now alerting shareholders of “extraordinarily losses and revision of operating results forecast.”
“Rovio found it difficult to advance its initially planned business development, and the profitability of this business has fallen below the initial forecast,” Sega admitted.
Because the “recoverable amount” related to the buyout fell “significantly” short, the company has written off $198 million (¥30.4 billion), essentially downgrading the value of Rovio to around $578 million — $200m less than it paid for it.
Rovio is just one of the companies Sega owns. It is also home to Company of Heroes developer Relic Entertainment, Two Point Campus developer Two Point Studios, and perhaps most notably, Persona developer Atlus.
And on the plus side, Sega’s tentpole Sonic series continues to impress. IGN’s Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds review returned an Amazing 9/10 when it released in September 2025. “Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds fires on all cylinders with a fantastic roster, excellent courses, and lengthy list of customization options,” we wrote at the time.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
A developer who worked on Highguard has discussed the “hate” he received after the free-to-play shooter debuted at December’s The Game Awards, saying the game, and by extension its team, “turned into a joke from minute one, largely due to false assumptions about a million-dollar ad placement.”
Just two weeks after the free-to-play game’s January 26 launch, yesterday Wildlight let go all but a “core group of developers” despite the newly unveiled Episode 2, and despite debuting in the top 10 in weekly active users on US Steam, and the top 20 on both US PlayStation and Xbox.
Now, in a candid statement posted to X/Twitter, tech artist and rigger Josh Sobel — who was one of those let go — talked about the impact of the launch on himself and the wellbeing of the entire team.
“The day leading to The Game Awards 2025 was amongst the most exciting of my life. After 2.5yrs of passionately working on Highguard, we were ready to reveal it to the world. The future seemed bright. Everyone I knew who had any connection to the team or project had the same [positive] sentiments,” he wrote, adding that “unbiased” internal pre-reveal feedback was “quite positive,” and when it was negative, “it was constructive, and often actionable.”
“But then the trailer came out, and it was all downhill from there,” Sobel added. “Content creators love to point out the bias in folks who give positive previews after being flown out for an event, but ignore the fact that when their negative-leaning content gets 10x the engagement of the positive, they’ve got just as much incentive to lean into a disingenuous direction, whether consciously or not.
“The hate started immediately. In addition to dogpiling on the trailer, I personally came under fire due to my naïveté on Twitter, which almost all of my now-former coworkers had learned to avoid during their previous game launches,” he explained. “After setting my Twitter account to private to protect my sanity, many content creators made videos and posts about me and my cowardice, amassing millions of views and inadvertently sending hundreds of angry gamers into my replies. They laughed at me for being proud of the game, told me to get out the McDonald’s applications, and mocked me for listing having autism in my bio, which they seemed to think was evidence the game would be ‘woke trash.’ All of this was very emotionally taxing.”
Sobel acknowledged that there’s “much constructive criticism” about Highguard’s trailer, marketing, and launch, but also isn’t sure if things would’ve been any better had the game not been announced at The Game Awards.
“We were turned into a joke from minute one, largely due to false assumptions about a million-dollar ad placement, which even prominent journalists soon began to state as fact,” Sobel said. “Within minutes, it was decided: this game was dead on arrival, and creators now had free ragebait content for a month. Every one of our videos on social media got downvoted to hell. Comments sections were flooded with copy/paste meme phrases such as ‘Concord 2’ and ‘Titanfall 3 died for this.’ At launch, we received over 14k review bombs from users with less than an hour of playtime. Many didn’t even finish the required tutorial.
“In discussions online about Highguard, [Sony’s troubled live-service shooter] Concord, [Riot’s recently launched] 2XKO, and such, it is often pointed out by gamers that devs like to blame gamers for their failures, and that that’s silly. As if gamers have no power. But they do. A lot of it. I’m not saying our failure is purely the fault of gamer culture and that the game would have thrived without the negative discourse, but it absolutely played a role. All products are at the whims of the consumers, and the consumers put absurd amounts of effort into slandering Highguard. And it worked.”
As a consequence of this, Sobel said many of Highguard’s hitherto independent team will “now be forced” to return to the corporate industry “many gamers accused Wildlight of being a part of.”
“If this pattern continues, all that will be left are corporations, at least in the multiplayer space. Innovation is on life support,” he added. “Even if Highguard had a rocky launch, our independent, self-published, dev-led studio full of passionate people just trying to make a fun game, with zero AI, and zero corporate oversight…deserved better than this. We deserved the bare minimum of not having our downfall be gleefully manifested.”
Sobel finished on wishing the colleagues that remain at Wildlight “the best of luck,” and thanked a slew of “incredibly supportive journalists and creators” for their “empathy, intuition, and integrity.”
“Some of the best times of my life were spent with [the techart team],” he concluded.
A number of high-profile video game developers defended Highguard following the online backlash during the game’s launch. Developers from the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3 studio Larian, as well as Fortnite maker Epic, have hit out at the discourse surrounding Highguard, and the internet’s capacity to “hate” on video games at launch. Developers like Cliff Bleszinski of Gears of War fame, Epic executive Mark Rein, and Larian boss Swen Vincke spoke up against, in particular, negativity from critics.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
At the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences in Las Vegas tonight Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took home an impressive five of the awards across 23 categories, including Game of the Year.
The Sandfall Interactive game has been a critical hit and a stand out at award shows since it was released in April 2025, and the development team was even given the status of Knight under the French Order of Arts and Letters in recognition of its work.
Ghost of Yotei took home three awards, including Outstanding Achievement in Character, while Arc Raiders won Online Game of the Year. Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells, former president and co-founder at the studio, was inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame.
“The games recognized at this year’s D.I.C.E. Awards showcase the extraordinary range of talent and creativity that define our industry,” said Meggan Scavio, President of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.
“It’s inspiring to see how these developers continue to elevate interactive entertainment through innovation, storytelling, and meaningful player experiences.”
This year the DICE Summit also marked the passing of Vince Zampella, the co-creator of the Call of Duty franchise, co-founder of Infinity Ward, and co-founder of Respawn Entertainment, who passed in December 2025. Hideo Kojima, Phil Spencer, Todd Howard and others from across the industry spoke about how his work had impacted both the world of video games, and them as people.
DICE Awards 2026 Winners
Outstanding Achievement in Animation – South of Midnight
Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Outstanding Achievement in Character – Ghost of Yōtei – Atsu
Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition – Ghost of Yōtei
Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design – Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Outstanding Achievement in Story – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Outstanding Technical Achievement – Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
Action Game of the Year – Hades II
Adventure Game of the Year – Ghost of Yōtei
Family Game of the Year – LEGO® Party!
Fighting Game of the Year – Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection
Racing Game of the Year – Mario Kart World
Role-Playing Game of the Year – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Sports Game of the Year – Rematch
Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year – The Alters
Online Game of the Year – Arc Raiders
Immersive Reality Technical Achievement – Hotel Infinity
Immersive Reality Game of the Year – Ghost Town
Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game – Blue Prince
Mobile Game of the Year – Persona5: The Phantom X
Outstanding Achievement in Game Design – Blue Prince
Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Game of the Year – Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Rachel Weber is the Head of Editorial Development at IGN and an elder millennial. She’s been a professional nerd since 2006 when she got her start on Official PlayStation Magazine in the UK, and has since worked for GamesIndustry.Biz, Rolling Stone and GamesRadar. She loves horror, horror movies, horror games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and her Love and Deepspace boyfriends.
Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remakedoesn’t open with a jump scare; it opens in a trance. As Mio, you watch helplessly as a crimson butterfly lures your twin sister, Mayu, into a fog-covered forest. There, the Lost Village swallows her whole. For over twenty-two years, this scene has haunted fans, myself included. Seeing the village emerge from the mist, modern lighting draping every rooftop and tree branch in dense volumetric fog, I knew immediately: this isn’t a low-budget remaster. The dread in Fatal Frame 2 stems not only from the individually named wraiths stalking you through its haunted Japanese village – a place trapped in a festival of death – but also from the way Mayu grips your hand, dragging you toward dangers you’re unprepared for. After roughly four hours with the first four chapters on PC, this remake already has its hooks in me — not only is it a faithful yet modernized take on what many consider the scariest game ever, its added visual fidelity makes the core mechanic of looking directly at what’s trying to kill you that much harder to endure.
Fatal Frame 2’s central mechanic remains one of the cleverest in survival horror. Your primary weapon is the Camera Obscura — a modified camera that damages wraiths by photographing them. That’s it. No shotguns, no grenades stashed in a locker. You point a camera at something terrifying, and you take its picture. The series has been doing this since 2001, and it’s still unlike anything else in the genre.
The Camera Obscura uses focal points: crosshairs that identify a wraith’s weak spots. Aligning more of these points when you take a photo increases the damage dealt. You can upgrade these focal points with prayer beads found throughout the environment, making each shot more lethal and rewarding exploration in classic survival horror style. But your camera can also deliver special shots that require willpower, and the effect varies depending on the equipped filter. While auto-focus helps you lock onto targets, manual focus rewards precision with more serious damage. And, despite Fatal Frame 2’s penalties for proximity, keeping the viewfinder pulled back and standing dangerously close to a spirit was often the better strategy for dealing more damage and taking control of a fight.
However, willpower is a limited and valuable resource. If you get too close, a wraith will drain your willpower, leaving you vulnerable to a leering attack that flashes your screen and momentarily steals control, or allows the wraith to strike you more easily than it would at range.
Film types serve as your ammunition and create their own layer of resource tension. The basic Type-07 film is infinite but reloads slowly and hits weakly, while stronger film like the Type-61 deals significantly more damage but caps at eight shots and must be scavenged, as you can’t buy more when you run out. Interchangeable filters add further complexity: the Standard Filter stuns enemies, the Paraceptual Filter blinds them at range and can eventually be upgraded to see through walls, and the Exposure Filter can unlock secret items and areas by reconstructing certain scenes with the Phantom Exposé mode. Each filter has its own upgrade path covering range, reload speed, and special shot duration, and since special shots cost willpower, you’re also incentivized to invest your limited prayer beads into upgrading willpower recovery at the expense of raw damage. There’s a lot of strategy here for players who want to dig into Fatal Frame 2’s intricate system.
There’s a lot of strategy here for players who want to dig into Fatal Frame 2’s intricate system.
This excellent combat loop revolves around timing. You enter camera mode by holding the left trigger, frame the wraith with the right thumbstick, and slam the right trigger to activate the shutter. But your shots will typically be weaker unless you wait for it to telegraph an attack — you’ll hear the wraith moaning while the screen flashes red — and then you hit the shutter for a Fatal Frame shot, which staggers the spirit and deals massive damage. Nail one while a wraith is already vulnerable and you trigger Fatal Time, a window for rapid-fire photos that automatically burns through your basic Type-07 film. The whole system punishes impatience and rewards the nerve to stand still while something horrible lunges at you, but it is slow. Deliberately so. Film reload times are long, enemies take a while to go down, and the rhythm of shooting, exiting camera mode, backpedaling, and re-entering is methodical by design — kinda like jousting, but with a camera instead of a lance. When the atmosphere is doing its job, which it usually is, the deliberateness feels meditative. Whether it stays that way across a full campaign is one of the bigger questions this preview can’t yet answer.
Through the Viewfinder
Three difficulty modes are available: Story, Normal, and Hard (Battle). Each is meaningfully tuned, with harder settings increasing wraith damage while rewarding more Photo Points for skilled shots. Those points feed into an item shop where you can purchase healing items and equippable stat-boosting charms, creating a risk-reward scale that shifts rather than simply punishing the player. I played most of the preview on Normal before switching to Story after Chapter Three. Even in Story, enemies hit hard enough to maintain tension — meaning these difficulty modes preserve the horror rather than trivialize it.
Speaking of customizing the experience, I previewed Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake on a machine equipped with a Ryzen 3900X, RTX 4070 Ti, and 32GB of RAM at 3440x1440p ultrawide with max settings. In typical PC gamer fashion, my first adventure was the options menu itself, which deserves mention for its satisfying granularity. You can adjust vibration intensity separately for damage feedback, item searching, and even how hard Mio’s heart races during cutscenes. You can fine-tune camera behavior down to obstacle avoidance and rotation inertia; customize your graphical settings with precision; and even change the Camera Obscura’s viewfinder style between a classic and modern look. If you can imagine a setting, this remake probably has it. It also ships with both English and Japanese audio, which is a welcome touch for a series with such deep roots in Japanese horror.
PC players expecting an unlocked frame rate should note that it is capped at 60fps. Considering the attention to detail in areas like viewfinder styles and vibration settings, Fatal Frame 2’s lack of broader accessibility features stands out. It already offers a deep UI and subtitle scaling, customizable text colors, named character labels, and text backgrounds — a solid foundation. However, the absence of screen reading or colorblind modes is particularly striking for a game built around photographing ghosts, where visual feedback like crosshair lock-ons, screen flashes, and color inversions drive the core loop. Screen reader support for the extensive menus, item descriptions, and collectible documents seems a natural extension of the text customization already in place. Games like The Last of Us Part 2 have shown that colorblind accessibility can be addressed through audiovisual indicators that don’t rely on color alone, an approach that could work here without undermining the atmosphere.
Spirited Away
Fatal Frame 2’s engrossing story centers on twin sisters Mio and Mayu, who stumble into Minakami Village — a place that vanished from a mountainside on the night of a failed ritual. The village was built over a gate to the underworld called the Hellish Abyss, and its residents performed a gruesome twin sacrifice to keep it sealed. When the ritual failed, the village was consumed by mist, and now it’s full of restless spirits who want to reenact the whole thing using you.
The story setup hooked me immediately. Every room feels handcrafted to maximize unease — items clattering off shelves in adjacent hallways, rain pattering against rooftops while ghosts stalk corridors, the distant wail of a wraith telling you exactly where it is and exactly why you shouldn’t be there. The sound design is relentless. Everything is precisely mixed, which makes the jump scares land harder because the baseline atmosphere is already ratcheted tight. Reach out to pick up an item, and a wraith may grab your hand instead, draining your willpower until you frantically mash the A button to shake it off. It’s a small touch, but it means even looting feels dangerous.
Each ghost has a name and backstory you can piece together through collectible documents and a spirit list that catalogs every encounter: the drowned woman on the bridge, the woman sealed in a box, the spirit in the Osaka house still searching for her lost boyfriend Masumi. It goes deep into the lore as well: by digging into the richly detailed village for scraps of lost journals and other items left behind, I uncovered that Masumi was a folklorist’s assistant who vanished while surveying a forest slated for a dam, only for his girlfriend Miyako to follow him into the mist and meet the same fate.
She’s the spirit I fought in the Osaka house, and I loved playing through an entire 30-minute side quest dedicated to demystifying her background. Throughout the campaign, you photograph the former residents’ spectral remnants and slowly build a picture of the tragedy that consumed Minakami Village, giving Fatal Frame 2 a level of world-building that rewards curiosity without requiring it and gives every encounter a layer of melancholy underneath the fear.
Outside of combat, Fatal Frame 2 plays like a classic Resident Evil game, and that’s a specific comparison.
The preview build also featured the Kusabi, a massive, unkillable entity that patrols certain areas. When it shows up, you can’t fight it; you hide. It drains your willpower on contact, forces your screen into black and white, and disables the Camera Obscura entirely. One extended sequence in the Kurosawa mansion strips you of your flashlight while the Kusabi hunts you through dark hallways, and it’s the most effective horror set piece in the preview. It’s the kind of sequence that makes you realize how much the Camera Obscura normally functions as a security blanket.
What in the Junji Ito?
Outside of combat, Fatal Frame 2 plays like a classic Resident Evil game, and that’s a specific comparison. Players navigate interconnected rooms, find keys, solve puzzles to unlock new areas, and occasionally discover that previously safe rooms now contain threats. Save points can be blocked by enemies. The structure creates a loop of dread, relief, and fresh dread that survival horror fans will immediately recognize.
Puzzles are straightforward — one has you arranging dolls on a temple altar based on clues from a photograph — but they’re woven into the environmental storytelling in ways that keep them from feeling like arbitrary roadblocks. Hidden collectibles include pairs of twin dolls that unlock items at the Photo Point exchange shop when photographed together. The previously mentioned Phantom Exposé system lets you recreate old photographs found in the environment to reveal hidden items. You match the framing of an old photo to uncover something that had vanished, giving genuine reason to revisit earlier areas with fresh eyes and a charged filter.
Additionally, your flashlight helps spot items but makes it easier for enemies to detect you, adding a stealth element that feeds directly into the tension. Some areas are better to sneak through if you can’t afford to fight a wraith head-on, and running away from a fight to the nearest save point is usually an option. It’s great that you heal automatically at save points, and while holding Mayu’s hand also regenerates health, she was separated from Mio for two full chapters during the preview, leaving me reliant on rare healing items and careful play. Equippable charms provide small stat boosts — the Moonstone extends your dodge window, while Mayu’s Charm increases health recovery when holding hands. They’re small build decisions that add texture without overcomplicating things.
Finally, Fatal Frame 2 Remake’s controls feel deliberately stiff — you dodge on A, crouch on B, and open your inventory on X. There’s also some inertia when entering and exiting the Camera Obscura’s viewfinder with the left trigger. This layout makes sense after a while, but during the first two chapters, I often fumbled for the right input with a wraith bearing down on me. Depending on your tolerance, that’s either a control issue or a horror feature.
Point and Shoot
It took roughly four hours to clear the first four chapters, partly due to combat difficulty and partly because the world rewards exploration, with plenty of nooks and crannies to dip into while scavenging for critical items and uncovering the elaborate depth of Minakami Village itself. The graphics and UI translate well to ultrawide, and fans will find the rebuilt classic scenes rich with detail. But some questions do remain about how well the rest of the campaign fares. The 60fps cap is an annoying albeit forgivable ceiling; the deliberate combat pacing could grow tiresome over a full campaign. It’s also too early to tell how faithfully the remake handles the original’s multiple endings, although Fatal Frame 2’s history and the deft handling of its campaign so far suggests greater narrative complexity ahead.
The Camera Obscura system remains unique in survival horror, the atmosphere is thick enough to feel physical, and the storytelling rewards the slow, careful attention this genre demands. If you loved the original, this is shaping up to be a worthy reintroduction. If you’ve never played Fatal Frame, this is the place to start — the entries are largely standalone, and this one was already considered the best back in 2003. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake launches for PC, PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series on March 12, 2026.
Tonight has brought our best look yet at Silent Hill: Townfall, the next installment in Konami’s classic survival horror series that’s set and developed in Scotland.
In an initial trailer shown during Sony’s State of Play broadcast, and then Konami’s own dedicated Silent Hill Transmission show, fans got to see the suitably foggy setting of St. Amelia and the game’s protagonist Simon Ordell, all in Townfall’s first-person perspective.
Made by Scottish development team Screen Burn (of Stories Untold and Observation fame) and published by Annapurna Interactive, the game looks set to offer a unique take on the Silent Hill formula, while still retaining some core elements.
So, yes, you can defend yourself from horrible-headed enemies with planks of wood, pipes and a pistol. But you can also use stealth to sneak and hide — equipped with a portable “CRTV” device.
The analog-looking CRTV handheld is a tool to deliver narrative (and you’ll need to tune it during gameplay) but also a clever way to show the outlines of enemies while you’re ducked behind cover. The outlines of said enemies show up in its static, which is a clever touch.
Townfall’s story is designed to be something of a mystery, with Ordell repeatedly waking up in St. Amelia. One moment in the Silent Hill Transmission highlighted the fact he was wearing a hospital tag on his wrist. Could it all be a dream, or hallucination from within a coma?
Tonight’s look at the game concluded without any further word on when we’ll get to play Townfall ourselves. (Several references to 8-19 in the trailer had me thinking it was set for an August 19 date, but alas this was not confirmed.) It is, however, now available to wishlist on PlayStation, and on PC via Steam and the Epic Game Store.
