Elden Ring Nightreign has been out for over two months now, which means players have had ample time to puzzle over and tease out every morsel of its lore. But there’s still one ultra-rare item in the game that most players have probably never seen before, but which some in the community believe still holds an enormous secret: the Cord End.
If you play Nightreign and, like me, had no idea what this even was until just now, here’s the rundown: the Cord End is a legendary consumable item that only appears in big and small churches in Nightreign from breaking boxes. Its drop percentage is ridiculously low – just 0.035% – meaning most players will likely never even run into it. Its listed use is cryptic: “Gain entry somewhere.” If you don’t know where that somewhere is, the item is totally useless to you.
But for those in the know (or those following our handy guide), it’s not too hard to find the secret door it opens. Hidden in a cliff wall in a ravine at the center of the map, there’s a sealed entrance that only opens if you have the Cord End on hand. Inside is a strange statue of a girl, and three Sacrificial Twigs, talismans that allow the wielder to die exactly one time without losing runes or levels. It’s an interesting reward, to be sure, but admittedly a little underwhelming given the ridiculous rarity of the Cord End required to get them.
Now, granted, it’s likely at least part of the Cord End’s mystery is in adding lore details to Elden Ring Nightreign via its description and the statue of the girl in the chamber it opens. We won’t cover that here, as the meaning behind it is pretty deep into endgame spoiler territory for Nightreign, but lore YouTuber VaatiVidya has a great breakdown of what the Cord End is from a lore perspective and why it matters.
But that all said, the lack of real mechanical payoff for such a rare find has players speculating that there’s something more to this secret door. For the last two months, the community has been testing out theories around the Cord End and the Sacrificial Twigs. With a lack of any new or recent clues, the secret hunting had largely slowed down, but a cryptic post on the Nightreign subreddit recently fired up everyone’s curiosity again, inspiring people to float new theories about how to do… something… with those twigs.
The biggest barrier to finding anything is the sheer rarity of the Cord End. Some players are reporting seeing their first one after hundreds of hours of play. So anyone who wants to test theories has to get extremely lucky in actually getting a Cord End to begin with, and then also getting the exact perfect other circumstances they’re looking for (specific bosses, certain locations appearing, certain characters in the party, and so forth) to test out whatever it is they want to test. So while it’s unlikely that there’s anything new to discover regarding the Cord End at this stage, there’s at least a whisper of possibility in the fact that so few people are in a position to make that discovery to begin with.
Is it a secret? Is it merely lore? Is it something we’ll be able to unlock in a future DLC, as some have theorized? Who knows! But what’s genuinely cool here is that an ultra rare item is still sparking this level of curiosity and discussion and mystery in the community months after the game’s release. Whether there’s anything deeper to the Cord End or not, its enticing rarity is sufficient to get me, at least, fired up… if I can ever get one to drop.
We gave Elden Ring Nightreign a 7/10, saying that “when Elden Ring Nightreign is played exactly as it was designed to be played, it’s one of the finest examples of a three-player co-op game around – but that’s harder to do than it should be, and playing solo is poorly balanced.” Nightreign recently saw the addition of a duos mode, and the game had sold five million copies as of July.
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.
Marshall Mathers III is no stranger to other names. You probably know him as Eminem, or Slim Shady, or as the latter half of hip-hop super duo Bad Meet Evil. Or, perhaps if you’re a little younger, you might know him as… ‘The Guy From Fortnite.’
Eminem’s involvement with Fortnite goes back several years, with a guest turn in 2023’s The Big Bang live event that saw him rapping over a post-apocalyptic skyline, before popping up in the game’s in-game shop as a skin.
Next, Eminem returned for the conclusion of 2024’s Chapter 2 Remix, this time holding a rap battle version of the battle royale’s memorable monster versus mech fight — one of the funniest things the game has done in some time. (That mini-season included Eminem’s hideout as an in-game location, and also featured an exotic minigun that rapped Eminem lyrics as you fired.)
Popular stars who have made appearances in Epic’s battle royale subsequently being referred to “as that guy from Fortnite” is not a new meme, but someone has now taken the (brave) step of referring to Eminem as such in front of his face.
Thankfully, judging by the video of this moment, the rapper took it humorously and laughed along.
Fortnite’s new season kicked off today with more characters from Halo, plus the Power Rangers battling a fresh insect invasion of the game’s beloved battle royale Island. No word on a fresh appearance by Eminem just yet — though his skin is rarely out of the item shop.
Since its debut, the Mafia series has steadily marched forward through the decades – the original is set in the 1930s, its sequel spans the ’40s and ’50s, and Mafia III unfolds during the late ’60s. If the next step was going to be the ’70s, or the ’80s – or both – I was certainly ready. Casino intrigue, shine boxes, borrowing huge kitchen knives from Martin Scorcese’s mother in the middle of the night – whatever it was, I was up for it. However, instead of moving closer to the end of the 20th century, Mafia: The Old Country takes us back to the beginning. And not just the beginning of the century, but to the formative era of the Mafia itself. Part mob drama and part Western, The Old Country may be a safe and conventional third-person action adventure on the surface, but it’s a moody and engaging one that makes great use of its uncommon setting and is brimming with old school atmosphere so heady you can practically smell the sun-dried tomatoes.
After experimenting with a more freeform open world structure in the divisive Mafia III, Mafia: The Old Country returns to the format of the original Mafia and Mafia II. That is, it’s linear and tightly story-driven, and the open world is largely just a vivid backdrop to move through between objectives, and during some missions. This has always worked well for the Mafia series, and The Old Country is no exception.
This approach gives The Old Country an effective sense of place and scale – immersing you in a rich and evocative Sicilian countryside – but without bloat. It’s a very detailed, varied, and convincing map, but there are no towers to scale or arbitrary icons to visit and clear. Your attention is simply required on the story, and the story alone. As a single-player sucker who inhales this kind of thing for its story, setting, and style, I was quickly hooked. If you’re the kind of person who might be tempted to use the Sicilian language option alongside subtitles in the language of your choice, you’re in the right place. If you’re the kind of person who pounds through cutscenes craving their next chance to slap the citizens of Steelport with a giant purple dildo, it’s possible the Mafia series may not be your speed.
Family Splatters
Beginning in 1904, The Old Country charts a chronicle in the life of young Sicilian Enzo Favara, who escapes a life of slavery in the region’s dangerous sulphur mines – run by the ruthless Spadaro crime family – to find himself working for their local adversaries, the Torrisi family. The story hits a lot of standard beats, and all the usual suspects are here. The fair and kindly mentor, and the loyal best friend with a habit of testing the patience of others around him. The stern and powerful Don and his cynical consigliere. The slimy and treacherous rival boss, and the forbidden love. There are some neat connections to the existing games in the series too, for fans who pay close attention.
So yes, it’s a fairly familiar and predictable 13-hour saga for anyone with a basic level of gangster movie literacy, but the writing is strong and the voice performances are stronger. The highlight is arguably Don Torrisi himself, whose English voice actor Johnny Santiago injects with a quiet, husky intensity that is as credibly intimidating as a man in his position would need to be. He stalks the screen as the kind of guy that men who kill for a living would actually take orders from.
It’s a fairly familiar and predictable 13-hour saga for anyone with a basic level of gangster movie literacy, but the writing is strong.
Familiar too is the third-person action, as The Old Country plays like any typical cover shooter from the last decade or so. This was the case in 2020’s Mafia: Definitive Edition, and it’s the same again here, albeit with a wild west flavour thanks to the era-specific arsenal (like revolvers, repeaters, and various shotguns) and the fact that shootouts sometimes occur on horseback, and/or against fellas who look like they’ve just stumbled home off the set of a Sergio Leone picture after a full day of making Clint Eastwood look cool.
Even without engaging much with its rosary bead system of minor combat buffs (which I did regularly forget about), it’s not a massive challenge with the default, soft-locking aiming controls. However, I don’t play these sorts of games to be relentlessly punished. Some enemies will hunker down behind large objects and walls, and others will stoically stride towards you to be blown out of their boots. The AI isn’t always sharp (and it’s definitely a little janky to find yourself completely flanked but still have the time to stand up and clumsily blast a bloke who had you dead to rights at point blank range) but the shootouts are nonetheless serviceable.
The Old Country’s stealth doesn’t rewrite the rule book either, but it does strengthen the action overall. Stealth is sometimes required by the design of the mission at hand, but on other occasions it’s available as an option. There are a number of encounters throughout with environments that have been laid out for us to be able to sneak around and pick off all the enemies one by one, but also seamlessly pivot to hosting an out-and-out gunfight should you flub it and be spotted.
You can toss coins and bottles for distraction, but unfortunately only some bottles (that is, the ones arbitrarily marked). It’s always a bit of an immersion breaker when levels are decorated with inconsistent props. I’d vastly prefer to just be able to pick up any bottle. Failing that, just delete the bottles we can’t pick up during missions. Crucially, you can pick up and move bodies, and there are boxes to stash them in. The stealth is pretty standard, but with distractions and body hiding it does feel like a proper stealth system and not a tacked on afterthought.
The stealth is pretty standard, but with distractions and body hiding it does feel like a proper stealth system and not a tacked on afterthought.
Enzo can temporarily highlight nearby enemies in the environment, which is essentially a superpower that’s handwaved away as his impeccable instincts (it probably could’ve been more logically introduced during the underground intro as some kind of innate ability he honed after spending the bulk of his childhood in a dark sulfur mine, but no matter). At any rate, once you have a feel for where your enemies are and which way they’re headed, all that’s left is to sneak around, grab them, and either button-bash to strangle them or tap your knife attack to speed up the process. That said, I actually rarely used the latter. Not because I was feeling merciful, but because stabbing your victims costs you a block of “durability” off your knife (which needs to be sharpened with a whetstone if and when it “runs out” of… stabs). It’s not a gamebreaker, but I’m not really into the idea of not being able to stab a bloke simply because my knife is immediately no longer pointy enough to do so after slaying a few of his mates (and whetstones were a consumable I didn’t always have).
I mainly just strangled my enemies to avoid this issue, but it feels like a slightly unnecessary system – particularly when durability concerns disappear during The Old Country’s new one-on-one knife fights.
These knife fights are essentially boss encounters, presented as a one-on-one showdown with another man. They occur outside regular third-person action gameplay, and you’re locked into these battles until there’s a result (or your opponent is scripted to scarper). The attacks, parries, and dodges in knife fights are bespoke to this mode alone. They’re flashy and bloody, but a lot of the time I did just feel I was simply dodging and slashing my way to a cutscene, where a further complication or a switch in momentum will occur. Sometimes you’ll trigger an animation that makes you a passenger for a while, then Enzo’s health bar recharges while your enemy’s does not. I’m not sure what the thought was there. The knife fights look cool, and they’re not like anything in the series to date, but they do feel a little low stakes at times.
Red Dead Redenzione
As a linear adventure, The Old Country admittedly doesn’t share the same scope of Rockstar’s genre-defining Westerns – but it’s certainly adjacent to them in tone and atmosphere. There’s a certain undeniable swagger that comes with riding into town on horseback (and on the wrong side of the law), and The Old County captures this with similar effectiveness to the Red Dead series.
The early 1900s setting doesn’t just shine a spotlight on the early days of the Sicilian Mafia, it’s also a window back to the Edwardian era of automobiles – when cars began competing with horses as the primary method of transportation. Developer Hangar 13 has done an exceptional job in this department, especially with the sound.
These 120-year-old cars have primitive engines, whining chain drives, and open cabins with no sound deadening, and The Old Country has captured their raw and lumpy burbles immaculately. It definitely can’t be understated how much richness this adds to driving around the map. It’s not just engine sounds, either. When a gramophone is brought on a drunken car trip, be sure to listen as it misbehaves when you bounce around off road. There’s a lot of consideration here, and I respect that.
Yes, there’s a race mission – but it’s not been shoehorned in here to taunt those who are still haunted by the infamously tricky racing event in the original Mafia. Sicily was the home of the Targa Florio – established in 1906 and one of the oldest motor racing events in the world – so it makes perfect sense in context.
The Old Country’s riff on this race is sadly all too brief – it’s over in less than seven minutes – but it is one of the most memorable and thrilling missions. It certainly made me wish Enzo could’ve cut ties with the Cosa Nostra and raced around Europe full time. I don’t know what’s more dangerous: betraying your oath to the family or trying to tame an aircraft engine that’s had four tyres and a steering wheel strapped to it.
On the topic of engines, however, it should be noted that The Old Country shifts the Mafia series off its previous proprietary one and onto Unreal Engine 5. From my perspective, the impact isn’t a dramatically profound one – 2020’s Mafia: Definitive Edition remains a handsome looking game, and so is The Old Country. What I can say is that I haven’t experienced any of the minor bugs that occurred during my first playthrough of Mafia: Definitive Edition, and that I haven’t had to restart checkpoints to overcome unexpected jankiness (or fallen through the map) – at least on PC, as we weren’t provided access to the console versions ahead of launch, so we’ll have to wait and see how those run. But outside of the occasional framerate flutter and some light pop-in, my time with The Old Country has been quite robust.
Although, perhaps not quite as robust as the incredible array of food and produce on display throughout. Games rarely make me this hungry. A game may have never made me this hungry. I’m craving cannolis and cake. I’m wading through arancini ball recipes. I’m considering a vegetable garden to grow tomato varieties I can’t find.
I’ve officially turned into my dad, and The Old Country is the game that did it.
Battlefield 6 developer DICE has said it’s working on a “substantial” increase in server capacity for the Battlefield 6 Open Beta, after the early access launch was met with huge Steam concurrents and equally huge queues.
At time of this article’s publication, the Battlefield 6 open beta had over 300,000 concurrent players on Steam alone, making it the third most-played game on Valve’s platform behind only Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2. We don’t have concurrent player figures from Sony or Microsoft, so the open beta’s true concurrent figure will be much higher.
But not all those players are actually playing. Those with early access were met with huge queues (we’ve seen 250,000 in screenshots posted to social media) as the servers hit max capacity. In response, DICE issued a statement to say it was working to improve matters:
“The team is now working on a substantial increase in server capacity, which will reduce your time in the queue,” DICE said. “Thank you for your continued patience as we work to get as many of you into the game as soon as possible.
“We’re looking forward to seeing you experience Battlefield 6, and we appreciate your patience!”
That statement followed a message in which DICE explained why it was using queues in the first place.
“We will use queues to protect the player experience but expect this impact to be minimal,” DICE insisted.
“You may encounter this during high peak moments, such as the start of servers going live. The team is working constantly to reduce any queue that takes place.”
Holy sh*t 🤣 More than 270.000 players are waiting in server queue!
The suggestion here is that the open beta is peaking now as the early access kicks off, but the queues will ease. Given the open beta has gone live in early access form ahead of the U.S. waking up, it seems likely the player count will grow in the coming hours, and again when the open beta goes live for all this weekend.
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.
If you’re trying to play the Battlefield 6 Open Beta on PC, you might have run into a problem: ‘Secure Boot is not enabled.’
You are not alone. PC gamers hoping to play DICE’s latest now open beta early access is live have no choice but to enable Secure Boot on their PC. And a cursory glance at social media, subreddits and IGN’s own comments suggest some are having trouble with it.
To be clear, EA has published a user guide for how to enable Secure Boot on PC, and promoted that guide across social media. It’s a guide I myself had to use to boot the Battlefield 6 Open Beta. But it certainly requires a degree of confidence, as it involves tinkering with a part of a computer not all PC gamers will be instantly familiar with: the BIOS.
There are things like TPM 2.0 (which must be turned on) to deal with, and you need to make sure your Windows disk is GPT and not MBR (not everyone will know what these are). All this before you can even enable Secure Boot — and then you may not be able to enable it anyway, which then means you need to refer to your manufacturer for guidance (gulp!).
Yes, this won’t be a problem for more experienced PC gamers, but it will be an intimidating process for many others. And if you think this is something isolated to Battlefield 6, you’d be wrong. Just yesterday, Activision announced the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will require the exact same thing: Secure Boot enabled.
So, what’s all this in aid of? Strengthening game security using built-in Windows PC features. It’s no secret that cheating in competitive multiplayer games is a huge problem for publishers. Activision has spent millions trying to reverse the narrative for Call of Duty. EA will be mindful of Battlefield 6 getting overrun at launch. It seems TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are the new reality for PC gamers.
Here’s Activision’s explanation, from a blog post published yesterday:
TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module) is an industry-standard, hardware-based security feature built onto CPUs or motherboards that verifies the PC’s boot process has not been tampered with. Secure Boot makes sure a PC can only load trusted software when Windows starts.
When Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 releases later this year, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot will be required to play on PC. “These hardware-level protections are a key part of our anti-cheat efforts, and we’re asking all players to get compliant now,” Activision warned.
Back to Battlefield 6, and the open beta Secure Boot process has certainly caused some people to panic, and others to find themselves with additional problems they didn’t have before. Early indications suggest there’s huge interest in the Battlefield 6 open beta, so it will be interesting to see how this one develops over the course of the weekend.
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.
Grow a Garden has quickly become one of the biggest games of 2025. The Roblox farming simulator first launched back in March and has seen rapid success thanks to various updates and events since then. The overwhelming interest in this Roblox game has shown no signs of slowing down, and the latest cooking-themed event has only fueled it further.
Now that the game has entered further into the mainstream, we’re already starting to see unofficial merch become available. A third-party seller on Amazon called VatanFari has a variety of Grow a Garden plushies for sale based on the pets from the game. The product pages for these plushies claim to be “drawing inspiration” from the Grow a Garden universe.
Grow a Garden Plushies at Amazon
There are a ton of pets available in Grow a Garden, but only a select few are available in plushie form so far. There’s the more traditional animals like a Chicken and a Racoon as well as rarer options such as the Disco Bee. Despite the lack of choices, however, the Chicken Zombie that was part of a limited-time giveaway is included here as well.
All of the Grow a Garden-inspired plushies are available in a 10-inch size and cost around $18. The exception is the Chicken Zombie one that sits at 12-inches thanks to the little jockey. It’s also quite a bit more expensive at $30.
As far as I can tell, there isn’t any “official” merch yet available for Grow a Garden. For now third-party sellers on sites like Amazon or Etsy appear to be ramping up offerings as the latest Roblox sensation continues to take root.
Is VatanFari a trustworthy seller?
One of the dangers of buying from third-party sellers on Amazon is that the products might not end up being of the highest quality. That being said, VatanFari appears to have a decent track record of reviews on some of its other offerings. And plushies are a pretty low-risk item to order from Amazon. All of the options available from this brand offer Amazon’s 30-day refund/replacement window that you can take advantage of.
More than four years after it’s release, Guilty Gear Strive is still going strong, with perhaps its most prolific DLC character yet, Lucy from Cyberpunk, releasing on August 21 as the final part of Character Pass 4. But that’s not the only exciting thing going on in the world of Guilty Gear. During the finals of Strive at Evo, there was a trailer announcing a mysterious new chapter called Guilty Gear Strive 2.00, with two silhouhettes of characters that clearly indicate that longtime favorites Robo-Ky and Jam Kuradoberi are going to be making their way into Strive’s ever growing roster.
To get some details on Strive’s future, I caught up with Ken Miyauchi at the show so I could pick his brain on all of these points and more.
So at finals for EVO 2025, you guys revealed Guilty Gear Strive 2.00. Can you tell us a little bit about what’s going to be in that version?
Ken Miyauchi, Producer on Guilty Gear Strive: Yes, we just announced a teaser trailer of something showing the version 2.00. We are not really particularly explaining what’s in 2.00, but there’s a reason behind why we show the number 2.00. We want to provide new, more exciting content toward Guilty Gear Strive and I’m expecting to show more details in the near future.
We also saw two silhouettes of characters that are going to be coming to Guilty Gear Strive 2.00. It seems like it’s going to be Jam and Robo-Ky. Can you talk a little bit about those two characters?
Miyauchi: So yeah, we are showing that we are still working on developing more additional characters. Of course, Lucy is coming out in August 21st, but we are still continuing developing more character updates and those are going to be the two characters that we are currently working on. So please stay tuned.
What can you tell us about Lucy and what her play style is going to be? Obviously she uses strings from Cyberpunk, but can you give us a little taste of what she is going to be like in Strive?
Miyauchi: Yeah, I think people are watching the trailers and trying to find out what she’s doing and one of the biggest core mechanics that a lot of players might be very excited to see is her Quickhack move, which is really directly inspired from the Cyberpunk 2077 game mechanic. So we made it visually look very like the Cyberpunk 2077 Quickhack. And she has very, very unique moves that go along with that Quickhack. So the way she fights is going to be very unique, even compared to the entire Guilty Gear Strive cast. So yeah, I hope everyone enjoys her when she’s out.
Another thing that’s coming to Guilty Gear Strive is going to be the ranked mode. What can you tell us about how the ranked mode will be in Guilty Gear Strive and how it’s going to be different from the regular tower format?
Miyauchi: So yeah, I explained this in our own website column, Developer’s Backyard. So if you want to find out more details about the rules of how you earn points and how you get ranks and what kind of variety of ranks you have, you can check that out. And so it’s pretty much a regular standard rank match system that we’ve been also doing, and I think all other fighting games were also doing. We have battle points that you climb up together whenever you win a match and depending on your battle points, you will have higher ranks, and you get to the top, which is the rank called Vanquisher. You’ll get into a rating match, almost like a master rank kind of, a rating match. So people who are playing really competitively can keep grinding to compete in the rating ranking and try to aim to the top of the ranking. And there is of course rewards to it. So I hope everyone who plays regularly will enjoy playing this mode.
In Ranked Match we also have several features that people would be excited. I mean, I hope they appreciate is that we also have the Wi-Fi indicator and also if there’s a bad ping match-up goals, you will be able to vote a no contest. So those kinds of features will also be included. So I hope you find out how you can use those features.
So you’re also looking to make adjustments to things like RISC, Wild Assault, and I believe Guard Crush is another thing. Can you tell us a little bit about specifically what kind of changes you’re looking to make about those mechanics?
Miyauchi: So yeah, we also announced that we are working on the battle balance patch and that’s also coming out along with the Lucy character update. And so we are kind of trying to see the game balance and trying to incorporate a lot of player’s feedback regarding how Guilty Gear Strive is currently playing. And we think there needs to be some tone downs on several, how do I say… the game mechanics, general game mechanics, the tools that everyone has access to.
We think there needs to be some tone downs on several game mechanics, or tools that everyone has access to.
And so there are lots of toning downs, but at the same time we also want to focus on the character uniqueness and making sure that characters can play how they would like to be played. And I think we had a lot of feedback from players that the current version of Guilty Gear Strive is in favor of those characters who have more access to those game mechanics. So not too much relying into the game mechanics and that’s the direction of how we are balancing out for this patch.
So Arc System Works recently announced Marvel Tokon, and I think a lot of people are wondering, is there anyone from the Strive team that moved over to Marvel Tokon, or what is Strive’s relationship with that game?
Miyauchi: Well, I wish I can say anything about Marvel Tokon, but unfortunately I don’t have a right to, and I honestly don’t know much about Marvel Tokon because that’s really a high-end secure project that’s also internally in Arc System Works.
So no knowledge of Strive developers working on Marvel Tokon then?
Miyauchi: Well, we do have, it’s a small company, so we do have a chat or discussion going on between teams. But yeah, that’s everything that I can say.
Fair enough. So with each new update of Guilty Gear Strive, it feels like you’re kind of going down a list and just kind of knocking off different features from 3v3 to now ranked mode. Are there any other kind of features that you want to add to Strive that are still on the list?
Miyauchi: So we have a lot of things that we would like to do, which is also something that a lot of players has been asking for and I can’t share any details about it for now, but I’m hoping if I will be able to show that off in the next version of 2.00.
Do you ever see Guilty Gear changing direction from being a fighting game series or even just a spin-off to do something other than fighting games? Obviously Guilty Gear 2: Overture was an action adventure. Is there any kind of future for Guilty Gear that’s not a 2D fighter, do you think?
Miyauchi: Well, I don’t have any projected plan or anything that I can share for now, but as a producer I’m always interested to expand Guilty Gear as an IP to open to different genres so that people who are not fighting games would also get into the IP. So yeah, if I have a chance I would like to try on some different kind of genre. But yeah, I don’t have anything to share right now.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
World of Warcraft just dropped a new major patch, the big kind that adds a new area, new quests, dungeons, a delve, a raid, loads of story, and much more. And while it’s normal to have a few bugs any time new content comes out, 11.2 seems to be riddled with weirder problems than usual…including a goofy bug that’s turning some players’ banks German.
The German bug in particular has been reported by several players on English clients, not on EU servers. It’s not game-breaking by any stretch – just odd. It changes the player’s bank tabs to German language. Everything else is unaffected. Funnily enough, some players in other countries and languages are reporting the same bug, but with different languages, such as this German player who says their tabs are in French, and this person playing on the English client from Poland who has French tabs, while their wife’s are German.
That’s not the only bug players are facing, though. I’ve experienced several myself just questing in the new zone, K’aresh, with quests not completing, disappearing from the questlog mysteriously, and certain interactable objects needing the game fully reloaded in order to be used. I also experienced a lot of disconnects last night, and I’m not the only one. Some people are having trouble logging in at all.
Others are running into weirder bugs. This person reports that the game is trying to charge them 500,000 gold just to visit the Darkmoon Faire, which is…a little high. Another person found a bug (which admittedly may be related to a downloaded mod) where their bags have somehow been increased to hold 98 items apiece – far more than any bag currently in the game actually allows.
At the moment, it’s difficult to say if Ghosts of K’aresh is exceptionally buggy compared to other patch releases, or if it just feels bad in the moment because we’re all eager to play as much as possible as fast as possible. Most likely, all of these issues will be fixed within a few days, or at minimum by next Tuesday’s weekly game update.
But in the meantime, if you want to use your bank, you might need to brush up on your German. Viel Glück!
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.
One of the most exciting games to watch at Evo 2025 was Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. From KojiKOG’s memeworthy and dramatic reaction to his loss in top 8, to the incredible grand finals betwen Go1 and ET, and all of the exciting moments in between. It was a great reminder of how much fun the game can be. While I wasn’t able to talk to anyone from SNK at the actual show itself, Producer Yasuyuki Oda and Animator Masari Obari were kind enough to answer several questions of mine via email relating to the release of Ken in City of the Wolves and a few other topics that I felt would be of great interest to fans of SNK and fighting games in general.
One of the biggest surprises to me once I got my hands on with Ken is how similar to his SF6 counterpart he is, despite this being a completely different game. Can you talk a little bit about some of the challenges involving taking a beloved character from one series and making them fit under a whole new set of rules and mechanics? Yasayuki Oda, Lead Producer on Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves: The biggest initial concern for us was finding how to bring Ken into the Fatal Fury gameplay system and world without compromising his identity as a character. Our development team has so many people that are passionate about the Street Fighter franchise, and I think their love and dedication to the series really shined through in all the little details we worked on for Ken. We slowly worked out over time how to incorporate Ken’s fast speed and flashy flame-based attacks into the system of City of the Wolves, constantly asking ourselves “What was missing?”, “What could we improve on?”, “What were Ken’s strengths and where could we leverage that?” After much repeated trial and error, this version of Ken finally took form.
Ken is a character that’s always been very strong in Street Fighter 6, thanks to being able to convert most regular hits on block to a Jinrai Kick that forces some risky decision making on defense, a plus on block gap closer in his heavy dragonlash kick, on top of just having really good neutral buttons and a balanced tool kit. Were you ever concerned that some of these elements might make him a bit too strong in Fatal Fury? Oda: As you said, bringing Ken over the same way he is in Street Fighter 6 would undoubtedly make him a strong character in City of the Wolves. Of course, we had to make careful adjustments as we adapted him to the game. Integrating mechanics like Braking and REV Accel were challenging, but I think we were able to highlight what makes Ken special while also giving fans a chance to experience a different playstyle within the systems of City of the Wolves. We’re looking forward to seeing what fans think and how they engage with this version of Ken.
With Terry and Mai appearing in Street Fighter 6, and now Ken, and later Chun-Li coming to Fatal Fury, do you have any interest in working together with Capcom once again for another entry in the Capcom vs SNK series? Or is that a far off dream?
That would be something, wouldn’t it?
Oda: That would be something, wouldn’t it? However, there is nothing I can talk about at this moment. We are always happy to receive questions like this because it shows how enthusiastic the fans are for another Capcom vs. SNK. It’s a great source of motivation for us.
How do you feel overall about guest characters in fighting games? Do you think it’s a healthy trend for the genre, and do you think we might see more in future SNK games, or even in future updates of Fatal Fury?
Oda: I think it’s a great trend. Of course, it is important to respect the story and world of other games, but the introduction of guest characters has great potential for the future of fighting games to create new “chemical reactions.” That is to say, it can lead to unexpected outcomes and birth something new.
As for City of the Wolves, there are still characters we need to bring back before we start thinking about more guest characters. Please rest assured that we are putting all of our focus on that right now. Even after Mr. Big releases, there are still many new characters and new aspects of the game we are working on, so please look forward to them!
I know she’s still a bit of a ways off, and we’ve got Joe coming first, but can you share any details about Chun-Li’s appearance in Fatal Fury? Will it be similar to the approach of Ken, in that you’re looking to her iteration in Street Fighter 6 as a primary source of inspiration?
We have a few surprises and finer details we’re planning to add. We’re looking to make this version of Chun-Li a culmination of her past iterations.
Oda: We are using her SF6 version as a base, but since many of our staff are fans of the entire Street Fighter series, we have a few surprises and finer details we’re planning to add. We’re looking to make this version of Chun-Li, like Ken, a culmination of all her past iterations, so please look forward to it.
For Obari-san, what was it like getting to create the animations for such an iconic character that’s outside of the world of SNK, like Ken. Were there any kinds of signature touches you felt like you were able to add, or did you try to keep things as close to the source as possible?
Masami Obari, Animator on Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves: First of all, I would like to say that it was a great honor to work on this project. I am extremely grateful to Capcom for this opportunity. As for the original elements, I would say the most work went into designing these characters in my style. I’d like to call it Bari-Ken! (Haha). It was extremely fun to draw Ken within the style and animation of the Fatal Fury anime.
Are there any dream crossovers that you’d like to work on, either within the realm of fighting games or outside of it?
I would be extremely happy to see a collaboration with a real pro wrestler.
Obari: I’m a huge pro wrestling fan, so I would be extremely happy to see a collaboration with a real pro wrestler. In terms of fighting games, I would be excited to see a crossover with Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, a game I was originally in charge of the story and character design!
And finally, canonically, who do you think would win in a fight between Ken and Terry?
Obari: To be honest with you, I think Terry would win. I think they are evenly matched in terms of strength, but Terry is carrying a lot on his shoulders, and his will is strong because of that.
That being said, as a director of the anime, I would prefer not to decide and have the two work together to fight a common enemy.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
Every August, 70,000 gamers head to Indianapolis to attend the largest tabletop gaming convention in North America, Gen Con. This year’s event had large crowds packing the convention center and spilling into the nearby streets. Over 500 vendors filled the hall and a slew of new releases made their debut.
After four days of glorious dice rolling and cube pushing, 10 board games have emerged as the most compelling and unique titles I saw on offer. Most of these will be available in general retail shortly, and many are already open to preorder. This list is organized alphabetically.
Featured in this article
Don’t have time to read blurbs? These are them. If you do have time for blurbs, though, read on, because we have lots of info about why each one deserves a spot on this list.
Age of Galaxy
It’s a difficult task cramming a 4X space conquest into a small box, but this intriguing card game from Portal Games does just that. Each player controls an interstellar alliance of three unique factions drawn from a pool of 40 distinct options. This creates an asymmetric suite of abilities that informs and influences strategy. Utilizing a selection of multi-use cards, players explore new systems, settle planets, research advanced technologies, and build shiny galactic cruisers.
While quick and sharp, the main focus is on executing tough decisions on how to use cards for either long-term benefits or short-term bursts. The inclusion of a solo mode is also a very nice addition that extends the life of the game.
Ace of Spades
Solo gaming is not a new concept, but it’s certainly exploded in recent years. Ace of Spades is the latest noteworthy title in this category, allowing a lone player to utilize a hand of cards to battle progressively tougher bosses. On the surface, it looks a lot like the tabletop version of Balatro, but a closer gander reveals an interesting card game brimming with identity.
The wild setting helps as you head to Sweet Haven, Arizona seeking vengeance upon a vile necromancer. This leads to a cemetery where you are confronted by horrific denizens of hell intent on claiming your soul. Best of all, if you get tired of facing these terrors alone, you can call in a partner and play the game in two-player cooperative mode. This works surprisingly well, even if the core engine feels more comfortable as a solo endeavor. This is a heavy-metal charged experience with distorted riffs and a thick tracklist of content.
Dying Message Card Game
This is the oddball entry of the list, a party game for a collection of people where one is ruthlessly murdered and the others attempt to solve the crime. The twist here is that the victim tries to form clues from a randomly dealt allotment of cards. These contain symbols and characters of various types, requiring some creative thinking from the murdered participant. You’re given a few minutes to arrange the clue cards how you’d like, using them in conjunction with several suspect cards placed off to the side. The idea is that in the last moments of life, you’ve done what you can to leave a message for those who find you.
After arranging the murder scene, the victim sprawls out on the table capturing their final position at time of death. The ensuing discussion as people try, often in vain, to tease out the meaning of the scene and decipher the clues can be riotous and engaging. Ultimately, the group guesses the murderer and either succeeds or fails.
This is a quirky design that absolutely requires the right set of people. Acquire the wrong crowd or a misaligned mood and it runs the risk of firing blanks. However, with some performative buy-in and a deductive attitude, Dying Message will hit its mark and result in a tabletop game that is wholly unique.
High Tide
Cozy games are all the rage right now. These are designs that present a relaxed experience which is more focused on meditative play and chill vibes over brutish competition. High Tide is the latest to break out in this category, selling out at Gen Con due to its stellar aesthetic and intriguing play.
This is a small game, easily portable and completely unassuming. But it boasts a surprising amount of depth. Tiles are arranged randomly in a grid and players take turns stacking pieces upon ones that are higher. You may only move your own or neutral tiles, however. It teases out just the right level of strategic thought without tipping over into a cerebral grind. High Tide is a neat, novel work that stood out among the swathe of new games.
Lightning Train
Much of the buzz surrounding Lightning Train is the pedigree of designer Paul Dennen. His previous work, Dune Imperium, is a modern classic that has caught on like wildfire in the gaming community. This new release uses a similar concept of bag building as players add various resources to their bag in a strategic bid for developing their company.
The goal is to open train stations and railroad lines across North America, facilitating the delivery of goods to cities in need. The interesting detail is that players can share each other’s infrastructure, sending cargo along another participant’s route. Both receive benefits from this cooperation, birthing a more nuanced and fuzzy strategic space. Unlike most games in the train category, Lightning Train is a more approachable design that slots in as a step up from Ticket to Ride.
The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship
Pandemic has dozens of spinoff games at this point, and The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship appears to be just another iteration on Matt Leacock’s modern classic. That is not the case. This new design does contain some faint indicators of that previous game’s DNA, but it’s so much more than that.
This is a rich adventure game where players cooperate to take the One Ring to Mount Doom while evading the attention of Sauron. It’s part tower defense, with players recruiting Free World troops to battle invading Orcs and Southrons, and it’s part stealth thriller as Frodo must constantly sneak past armies and Nazgul. This is a tense affair, and it’s far more detailed and thematic than expected. In fact, it barely feels like a Pandemic property at all, which may take some people by surprise. Regardless, this is perhaps the most exciting game I played at Gen Con this year, and I’m enraptured by it.
Nature
Evolution, the board game that captures the pressures of a dynamic ecosystem and how this influences species, has been wildly successful over the past 10 years of its life. It’s spawned numerous expansions and spinoffs, and may have just found its final state with Nature. This latest version of the system is pared down to a straightforward and approachable core game that retains the interesting card play of its predecessor.
Some of the elements have been simplified, and it’s easier than ever to introduce this game to beginners and non-hobbyist of any age. The magic resides in the game’s module system. Multiple add-ons exist that can be inserted to layer on sub-systems for flight, dinosaurs, and environments. This slightly increases the complexity, while boosting the strategic potential. A huge boon is that it changes up the feel of each session, and allows North Star Games to expand this properly infinitely. Nature is poised to have the longest legs of any game in the Evolution line.
Star Wars: Battle of Hoth
Battle of Hoth was the most talked about game heading into Gen Con. This was for good reason, as it puts a Star Wars board game spin on the popular Memoir 44 series of games. Players take on the role of either the contingent of Imperial AT-ATs and snowtroopers, or the Rebel soldiers holding the line in order to protect the planet’s shield generator. Each takes turns playing cards from their hand to activate one portion of the battlefield, choosing from a selection of units occupying that flank. This restriction of the card system is a hallmark of the Memoir series, forcing tough decisions with only a modicum of rules overhead.
While this is a wargame of sorts, it’s also a very streamlined and rules-light design. It’s a dramatic game, full of dice rolling and big moments where units are scattered and lines are broken. The Star Wars backdrop only helps.
Spooktacular
During the 1986 Spooktacular horror film festival, a freak accident occurs involving a lightning strike and a little bit of mystery. This results in dozens of monsters spanning the length of cinematic history being released from their fictional bonds. Now they are free to terrorize the festival goers and wreak havoc.
This dynamite concept is realized through a highly asymmetric yet still smartly restrained system. Players take on the roles of movie monsters animated from the screen, competing to scare and devour guests. Each of the 20 included monsters is unique, featuring its own suite of abilities and cards. Yet, this is not an overstuffed game and the core processes are direct and sensible. The concoction here is magnificent, and this monster mash is full of delight and terror.
Vantage
In my review of Vantage, I declared it as possibly being the top game of 2025. It seems the crowds of Gen Con agreed, as this game was everywhere. This is a fully cooperative adventure where players crash land on an uncharted planet and must navigate its many mysteries in order to fulfill a collective mission. While this was clearly designed in the tradition of modern narrative adventure games, it goes about things its own way, massively improving on the pre-existing approach.
For one, it’s not a campaign game. Each individual session has a complete arc, which makes it far more approachable for most groups. It also does away with narrow objectives requiring players head to specific locations. Instead, many of the missions may be fulfilled in numerous ways. This highlights the game’s focus on creativity and freedom, allowing you to wander and explore whatever catches your eye. Finally, the mysteries of the world are special and worthy of the effort required. This is a fantastic game, and it was the closest thing to a singular standout title of the convention.
Charlie Theel is a tabletop games freelancer. You can follow him on Twitter @CharlieTheel.
