Category: IGN

Warner Bros. Discovery has announced a new Gremlins movie, due out in 2027.

During a financial call, David Zaslav, CEO and President of Warner Bros. Discovery, said the new Gremlins movie will launch on November 19, 2027, with Steven Spielberg involved as an executive producer.

Original Gremlins writer Chris Columbus returns to both direct and executive prodiuce this new entry in the series. Plot details and cast information remain under wraps.

Gremlins is a much-loved 1984 comedy horror movie written by Columbus and starring Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, and Hoyt Axton. It tells the story of Billy Peltzer, who receives Gizmo the Mogwai as a pet as a Christmas present from his father. After getting wet, Gizmo spawns more Gremlins who go on to terrorize the fictional, snowy American town of Kingston Falls, Pennsylvania.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch followed in 1990, with Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates reprising their roles, this time with the Gremlins causing havoc in New York.

And that’s where the Gremlins movie series ends, with a prequel animated series coming out in 2023. Season 1, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, is set in 1920s Shanghai, China, and tells the story of how 10-year-old Sam Wing met Gizmo. Season 2, Gremlins: The Wild Batch, came out last year.

Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP.

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.

The Battlefield 6 community has asked for bigger Conquest maps for months, so someone made their own – and they’re actually pretty popular.

Fans have spent the time since launch asking EA and Battlefield Studios for everything from aim assist tweaks to realistic skins, but few conversations have stolen the spotlight quite like the discussion around map sizes. While some players went to great lengths to determine if Battlefield 6 maps are as small as they look and others took to review-bombing, the more creative individuals are using Battlefield Portal and REDSEC to make larger maps of their own.

Thanks to work from Reddit users kurtinthegrind and andy_6170 (a.k.a. ViperAndyStudios), the Battlefield 6 community now has Club House, a large-scale Conquest play area that pulls elements from REDSEC’s Southern California-set Fort Lyndon map for an (unofficial) version of the kind of wide-open spaces they’ve been asking for. There are also Tech Center and Operation Tech Center map options, with the former set up as a large-scale, infantry-focused Conquest map, while the latter offers linear gameplay centered around one main building.

“The credit to the original version of Tech Center and the Conquest Script belongs to Andy,” kurtinthegrind says, “though I’ve made a few modifications to them.

“Club House and the smaller version of Tech Center are my creations, and honestly, I’m not too proud of them. But until Ripple Effect/Battlefield Studios provides improved Portal support and releases ALL parts of Battle Royale map, these will have to suffice.”

Both bot and bot-less versions of the Club House and Tech Center maps are currently available for players to create servers, but it’s Club House that’s attracting the most attention online. In the middle of a Wednesday, the map, also known as Golf Course, boasts a few hundred active players across different server browsers in Battlefield 6, with some 64-player servers populated almost entirely with real people.

MonsterVerze is a Roblox experience that revolves around fashion, where the afterlife gives you a second chance to serve looks. After suffering an unfortunate accident, you’ll be able to travel around the MonsterVerze from the Graveyard to the Train Station and Eerie High.

Along the way, you’ll dress up and customize your character, meaning you’ll want Ghoulars to spend in the shop. You can pick up Ghoulars while you’re running around, but we’ve also got MonsterVerze codes that you can use to boost your stacks of Ghoulars.

Working MonsterVerze Codes

The following codes have been tested and can be redeemed:

• WEAREBACK – Free Item (NEW)
• MVHOMECOMING – Homecoming Balloons, Opal Plushie, 6,000 Ghoulars
• MV1MILLION – Shattered Love Crown
• BUGFIXES02 – 10,000 Ghoulars

How to Use MonsterVerze Codes

Launch MonsterVerze and then follow these steps to redeem codes:

1. Press Play and get into the MonsterVerze
2. Click on the Coffin icon on the right side of the screen
3. Then click on Settings at the bottom of the coffin
4. Copy the code from this article into the Enter Code… box and
5. Press Redeem

Expired MonsterVerze Codes

MonsterVerze has just entered its beta, so there are no expired codes at the moment! Be sure to use the codes in the working section before they disappear.

Why Isn’t My MonsterVerze Code Working?

Codes for Roblox experiences are usually case-sensitive, so the best way to ensure you’ve got a working code is to directly copy it from this article. We check all codes before we upload them, so you can guarantee they’re working. Just double-check that you haven’t copied over an extra space!

When Is the Next MonsterVerze Update?

MonsterVerze updates every week, on a Sunday. For now, there are no special planned events but we’ll be sure to update this article if that changes. The Sunday updates are currently designed to address any bugs and improve quality of life features.

Lauren Harper is an Associate Guides Editor. She loves a variety of games but is especially fond of puzzles, horrors, and point-and-click adventures.

There’s a new patch today for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which makes adjustments to its ranked battles and fixes a number of bugs.

Version 1.0.2 of the newly-released Pokémon adventure is available to download now on both Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, following the game’s arrival last month.

While there are no new major features included within the update, a couple of adjustments here may prove useful as players continue to participate in ranked battles over the coming weeks and months in order to obtain the mode’s exclusive Mega Stone rewards.

Last week, The Pokemon Company revealed that these Mega Stone rewards — which unlock access to Mega Greninja, Mega Delphox and Mega Chesnaught — would be easier to obtain, beginning with the start of ranked battle mode’s Season 2.

Today’s update adjusts the number of points earned based on ranking so “that points are not reduced depending on the outcome of the match.” Rather vaguely, there’s also mention that “some battle rewards that can be received for each battle have been added and increased.”

A selection of bug fixes are also included, tied to Mega Evolutions, side missions and “some other issues” — the full details of which can be found in the official patch notes below.

Pokémon Legends Z-A – Version 1.0.2 (November 6, 2025) patch notes:

The following bugs have been fixed:

• If you have not opened the box screen since the box was full before the first Mega Evolution battle, you will definitely fail to capture a Pokemon. Also, if you proceed with a side mission that allows you to obtain a Pokemon in that state, you will not be able to complete it.
• In some side missions, if the day/night change occurs at the same time that a skill is hit on a target, it will no longer be possible to hit the target with a skill, and the side mission will no longer be able to progress.
• During a trainer battle, if the opposing trainer switches Pokemon and the player simultaneously Mega Evolves, the opposing trainer will not be able to send out a Pokemon and will be unable to proceed.
• Fixed some other issues.

Rank Battle Balance Adjustments:

• Adjustment of points earned based on ranking so that points are not reduced depending on the outcome of the match.
• Some battle rewards that can be received for each battle have been added and increased.

*The latest update data is required to play online features.
*Local communication is not compatible with previous versions. Please make sure that you and the people you play with have the same update data version.

It’s worth noting that today, November 6, Nintendo is due to reveal more information on Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s Mega Dimension DLC, via a trailer that’s set to go live at 9am Eastern / 6am Pacific / 2pm UK time. Perhaps there’s more hidden in today’s update that’s tied to that?

Since launch, Pokémon Legends: Z-A has gone on to sell almost 6 million copies in its first week, and has been getting a generally warm reception from fans. The adventure “finally feels like Game Freak hitting its stride in Pokemon’s 3D era, with a fun setting to explore, a well-written story, and a total battle system overhaul that works surprisingly well,” IGN wrote in our Pokémon Legends: Z-A review.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Battlefield lead producer David Sirland has taken to social media to clear the air about how Battlefield Studios uses bots in Battlefield 6 multiplayer to keep players engaged.

EA’s latest entry in the Battlefield series notoriously uses bots to populate standard matches that struggle to fill teams with real-world players. It’s led to some confusion in the community, as fans attempt to grasp when, how, and why BF Studios has been implementing them in online matches.

Sirland took to X/Twitter to shed light on bots, explicitly calling attention to “confusion” in the player base that he hopes to clear up. The thread of posts comes with an explanation for why some may see more bots than others, as well as the promise that EA and BF Studios will continue listening to feedback from Battlefield 6 multiplayer fans.

Players have noticed bots in standard multiplayer playlist options, especially for game modes with large lobbies like Conquest, since Battlefield 6 launched for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S October 10. EA proudly touted that it had managed to sell 7 million copies in just three days, leaving many to wonder why they are being tossed into bot-filled matches less than one month after launch.

Sirland explains that players should only find themselves fighting against Battlefield 6 bots in unique situations. Specifically, if the pre-round waiting period takes longer than about three minutes, than bots will be introduced as a last resort, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be forced to work with dozens of AI teammates for the duration of a 30-minute Conquest match.

“At that point, the game starts, and you can play with the bots instead of waiting,” Sirland explains. “Other players in the same region matchmaking on that same playlist – will join this server (as it has you on it). Each time a player joins, a bot leaves.”

It’s a sacrifice that gets players into a match with as little waiting as possible at the cost of filling a lobby with real people. Even if bots only temporarily fill a match, it sounds like BF Studios prefers the trade, with the alternative being wait times that could last forever for servers with low population.

2: you see no other players
Well, the reason for that is you are first. You need to stick it out (or atleast give it a minute or two, or how may you are willing to try and wait for)
We can and will test longer wait limits for the seed bots to kick in, but please spread the word!

— David Sirland (@tiggr_) November 5, 2025

One exception to the rule that sees bots eventually traded out for real players involves beginner playlists, such as Initiation Breakthrough. As made clear via an in-game mode description, bots will stick around in these matches to help players warm up for the typically more tense matches filled with real people.

Bots have remained a hot topic for the Battlefield 6 community for months, with BF Studios having addressed concerns regarding XP farms and open beta bots mutliple times in the past. Battlefield Portal fans and multiplayer playlist regulars have almost certainly encountered bots at some point, and many will no doubt continue to have their complaints as post-launch development continues.

“Like I stated in this thread earlier today – bots are only there to seed servers so they start,” Sirland said in response to a fan who expressed concern about the bot system. “The alternative would be no server under those circumstances. We will of course check for issues here too, and when and if servers spawn in the wrong way or when they shouldn’t.”

The Battlefield 6 team at EA and BF Studios has continued listening to fan feedback as post-launch development continues. Recent changes include an overhaul for challenge requirements, tweaks to Conquest ticket sizes, and a plan to revert aim assist back to the settings seen during the August open beta tests. Season 1 for Battlefield 6 and its standalone offshoot, REDSEC, is well underway, with more maps and weapons set to arrive in the coming weeks.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Rockstar Games has accused the employees it recently fired of leaking confidential information.

Last week, the Grand Theft Auto 6 studio reportedly fired between 30 and 40 employees in a move that the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) claimed was “blatant” and “ruthless” union busting.

At the time, Rockstar parent company Take-Two issued a statement insisting the firings were for “gross misconduct, and for no other reason.”

Mega Evolution, the start of the next era of Pokémon TCG, has kicked off in style, and we’re seeing product slowly come down to market value at big box retailers.

Could this be the Pokémania pricing bubble getting ready to burst?

I have a new, all-consuming obsession, and that obsession is Ball x Pit. I didn’t set out to replace all my free time with grinding its roguelite take on Breakout, but its reliance on strategy (with a butterfly kiss of luck) and enticing upgrade paths both on and off the playfield grabbed a hold of the primal lizard parts of my brain to the detriment of all other civilized activity. I am hooked. In fact, Ball x Pit is the only video game I’ve played since I first started it a couple weeks ago. I cannot break free from its satisfying loop of running a level and upgrading my balls, upgrading my city to unlock more balls, and then jumping right back in. It’s a sickness, a sickness with no cure – and, honestly… I’m not even sure I’d want to be healed from the madness that has taken hold of me. I’ve been recommending it to everyone and, so far, those who have taken my advice inevitably reach out to tell me the same thing: “You ruined my life, you sicko.” It’s fantastic. Join us. We all bounce down here.

At a distance, Ball x Pit looks like one of those crappy games you see advertised on TikTok or Reels. You know the ones: “We’re playing a game the comments said was fake part 17,” or something like that. At first blush, it does look like some endless runner game trying to hook you with playtime gems or whatever predatory garbage is in vogue these days. But, crucially, it’s not one of those games at all, as it’s entirely free of microtransactions and actually respects your time as it vacuums it all up. It doles out satisfying upgrades in each level and then gives you the opportunity to build up more permanent powers in your home base. There’s nothing cheap or underhanded about it. It makes you feel powerful, not cheated, and even with an element of RNG in each level, it requires you to make the most out of every opportunity rather than rely on dumb luck or random chance. When you beat a level, it feels like you earned it.

The actual gameplay seems straightforward on the surface, too: Your character, or characters, march up the playfield firing bouncing balls at wave after wave of enemies. The balls are weaponized, the enemies are crushed under the onslaught, and eventually you get to a given level’s unique boss. That’s the basic loop, but the operative word there is “basic.” Because, friends, Ball x Pit is much more complex. For starters, there are different kinds of balls to fire. For example, your initial character, the Warrior, starts with a special ball that imparts a “bleed” status effect that stacks up to cause extra damage on successive hits. As you defeat enemies, you’ll also pick up gems in order to level up, which then gives you a choice of balls and other power-ups to use during that specific run.

There are special balls with status effects or area-of-effect damage, balls that spawn more “baby balls” (weird), and loads of other options. Then there are buffs, passive effects, defensive boosts, and even allies who’ll join you in the march forward, dealing out damage or even health. Some of the power ups are much better than others. The Earthquake ball, for example, deals damage around the enemy it hits and, like most of the AOE balls, becomes incredibly powerful when fully upgraded. Others, like the Wretched Onion, kind of suck. Part of the fun is finding out which upgrades work best in any given level, as well as discovering what happens when you combine certain balls with Fusions and Evolutions that mix or modify their powers even further.

Fusions can simply save you a slot by mashing two effects onto a single ball, but specific combos instead get the chance to evolve into a new power. For example, fusing the Horizontal Laser with the Vertical Laser creates my personal favorite, the Holy Laser. It shoots beams of pure fiery death vertically and horizontally on hit while also dealing AOE damage, which is as useful much as it just rules.

It’s cool that fusing balls both scales the damage you are dealing and gives you room to add even more. It’s hard to keep track of all the possibilities, but there’s an in-game encyclopedia that shows you the combos you’ve unlocked. I’m more than 30 hours in and I still have fusions I haven’t found yet, which I find pretty damn exciting.

Honestly, the laser balls in any configuration do a crap-ton of damage, searing rows and columns, sometimes adding stackable status effects like radiation while also doing normal, hot laser damage. When you’re fully powered up and the RNG gods have held you in their favor, it’s a beautiful bloodbath. Lasers and explosions and effects are going off constantly, and the damage counters fill the screen as entire rows of enemies evaporate into experience gems, as well as gold you’ll spend back in your town between runs.

The town is the other half of Ball x Pit, one that’s enormously important to growing your characters. In addition to earning permanent stat boosts just by playing as them, constructing certain buildings and character houses will provide buffs and bonuses as well, which you’ll absolutely need in order to make it through the later levels. But while it’s very important, the city-building part of Ball x Pit is extremely clunky – in fact, it’s probably the worst part of what I think is otherwise a flawless game.

After you complete a level, whether or not you did so successfully, you’re thrown back into the town interface where you’ll build structures from blueprints you gathered out in the field. You also build resource tiles: forests for wood, fields for wheat, and rocks for… well, rocks. Those resources, in addition to gold, are required to build and upgrade new structures. Thankfully there are plenty of ways to gather resources outside of just harvesting, including during runs and with passive buildings like the stone quarry, but collecting it manually is the most fun.

In the harvest phase, you use your unlocked characters as balls, taking aim from the bottom of the board and letting them rip, Beyblade style, in the direction of the stuff you want to hit. They then bounce off the walls and buildings, collecting resources from the resource tiles and upgrading any buildings you marked for improvement. This process is amusing but also fairly tedious, as you can move buildings around before you harvest in order to optimize their placement, but there isn’t really a convenient way to do so.

What I usually end up doing is moving everything off to one side of the map, then shuffling all the parts and pieces back again to where I want them at that specific moment. It almost seems like Ball x Pit is aware of how cumbersome the city building is, because there’s no penalty or resource cost for moving tiles around. What I’d love to see is some kind of option to wipe the slate clean without needing to go through and manually remove every building, or maybe a holding pen where I could drop structures temporarily while I reconfigure my layout.

And you will be reconfiguring your layout a lot. Building upgrades require your characters to bounce off the buildings multiple times, and if that building is in a weird location, good luck getting the trajectory right to consistently hit it enough times during the harvest phase without reorganizing half the town. I often ended up moving relevant buildings down near the launch area, which meant moving all the other stuff away… and then reorganizing it again after all is said and done. I don’t like it at all.

It’s such a bummer because you can’t really ignore this, as city layout is extremely important to how powerful you are in the levels themselves. Some buildings provide buffs that make the effects of other nearby buildings stronger, so their placement is crucial to your continued success. That need for careful planning is at odds with the reality of constantly shuffling tiles around when it comes time to harvest, build, and upgrade.

However, building-specific issues aside, I do really like how your town structures contribute directly to the action itself. The better your city, the better your characters, and the more blueprints you find, the more options you have when it comes to a new run. It may be cumbersome to move everything around, but the results are meaningful and can sometimes be surprising in a way that is ultimately a positive.

Double Down on Strategy

Somewhat early on, you unlock a building that lets you bring two characters into battle instead of just one, adding another layer of complexity and experimentation to each run. At first, it almost feels like cheating, but it would be functionally impossible to get much further without it. I’m still figuring out which combinations work well and which ones are total crap. Since you still gain gold and experience even on a failed run, I don’t even mind when I pick a total dud combo because I’ve still made some progress. There have also been several times where I thought I’d figured out some god-tier combo, only to get three-quarters of the way through a level and realize I have made a terrible mistake.

The worst was when I paired The Warrior with The Flagellant for a New Game+ run of the first level. Balls shot by the Flagellant bounce off the bottom of the screen instead of the top, and The Warrior has no special attributes other than being your starting character. The first level boss, the Skeleton King, requires hits to the back of its skull to inflict damage. The RNG gods had graced me with some decent fusions, but all of them ended up bouncing harmlessly between his two arms out front, leaving me almost completely ineffective. An errant baby ball would sometimes bank off the wall to register a tiny amount of damage, but I ended up losing on purpose just to back out of the level.

As frustrating as that was, it’s emblematic of something I love about Ball x Pit: it requires strategy in almost every facet. The balls and upgrades offered to you are at the mercy of RNG, sure, but you also have the choice of which ones to use and which ones to fuse and evolve. I was able to identify good combinations and bad combinations of characters based on their attributes and would make mental notes about which pairings would work out for my specific needs as I pushed through each level. The Juggler, for example, throws balls over enemies – pairing him with The Shade, whose balls shoot from the back of the field, and then following a heavy AOE upgrade path allowed me to clear out basically any row of enemies on the board while still getting a ton of damage from balls bouncing in the back.

That combination of strategy and knowing how to best upgrade any given character combination for a specific level is what keeps bringing me back, over and over again, until I’m bleary eyed and tired. When everything aligns and you’re wiping out entire fields of enemies, when the screen is absolutely filled with lasers and explosions and baby balls scattering in every direction, you feel an enormous sense of power. From an outside view, honing in your upgrades combined with careful building placement and frequent stat leveling from buff buildings makes it seem like Ball x Pit would feel easier over time. But it does a rare thing: instead of feeling easy, it makes you feel powerful.

When I finally did beat the main story and watched the credits around the 20-hour mark, I immediately started up New Game+. I never do that. But the entirely inconsequential story is just a small part of Ball x Pit for me. The real joy here comes from building up your powers and combos and seeing what delights will unlock themselves during the course of a run. I play for moments when the music is nearly drowned out by the sounds of explosions and laser blasts, or when I get a gold bonus for clearing the field of enemies and then doing it two, three, even five more times in a given level. It scratches an itch deep within my lizard brain. Hard work pays off, but the right combinations of upgrades mixed in with a touch of luck pays off even more.

Holy pizza, they’re making an Overcooked reality TV show at last.

This news dropped today from Deadline, which reports that the series is in the works for Netflix from A24. This would be A24’s first reality series.

The reality show is supposedly an unscripted format along the same lines as Nailed It! and Floor Is Lava, and will feature kitchen challenges with a bent toward the kind of chaos you might see in the Overcooked video game. You know, trying to cook meals in the beds of two moving trucks, for instance. Probably. I’m sure.

The show is in the early stages and is being produced by Gemma Langford, Oli De-Vine, and Phil Duncan, all members of developer Ghost Town Games.

Overcooked first released in 2016, as an up-to-four-player cooperative game where players try to complete cooking tasks to build orders to meet customer requests, all while dealing with various kitchen obstacles. It’s a fun, chaotic time that we gave an 8.4/10 back in 2017 when its Nintendo Switch port first arrived. As our reviewer said then, “Overcooked is one of the freshest couch co-op games I’ve ever played. It’s a perfect blend of strategy and chaos, asking you and your teammates to think on your feet as its smart and strange levels do everything they possibly can to make sure you are shouting at each other.”

The “All You Can Eat” version of Overcooked, which includes both Overcooked and its sequel, Overcooked 2, online play, and all DLC, launched back in 2021.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

White Flare is the other half of the last and dual set of the Scarlet and Violet era, twinned with the Black Bolt set. Every Unovan-native Pokémon has either an Illustration, Secret Illustration, or Black and White Rare. It’s a big set, and you’ll need as many boosters as possible to master this bad boy.