Category: IGN

Labor Day deals have arrived to offer shoppers a little taste of savings before the big sale events kick off in the coming months. If you’ve been looking to stock up on video games, you’re in luck: quite a few are on sale right now, including some that are back at their lowest prices yet.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is one of these deals, with the Limited Edition (and Amazon Exclusive) version for PS5 marked down to $49.99 (see here at Amazon). This discount offers you $20 of savings from its list price of $69.99 and marks a return to its best price so far, according to price tracker camelcamelcamel.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows Down to Just $49.99

A nine-minute slice of Battlefield 6‘s battle royale mode has leaked online.

Despite presumably signing NDAs, participants in Battlefield’s closed beta environment, Battlefield Labs, are continuing to share snippets of their experiences. This particular video from Misako_Mikato_01 on bilibili not only gives a good look at what to expect from the mode, but also reveals a couple of gameplay mechanics we didn’t previously know about, too.

As highlighted on the Gaming Leaks and Rumours subreddit, Misako_Mikato’s video confirms players can swim, go underwater, and shoot from within the water, reveals the ladder gadget apparently has two modes — one as a ramp, another as a ladder — and there’s a “massive map.”

The video kicks off from when the player picks their loadout and departs the jumpship, landing in a built-up area on the shore. We see them swimming and later pulling out a sledgehammer to knock down what appears to be a public bathroom in real-time. Apparently the ruckus gets unwanted attention, though, although they seemingly sacrifice themselves to go back into the sky, this time moving in-land and visiting a fancy, if ransacked, villa. Cue the sledgehammer again.

Commenters seem quite impressed by the video.

“I know many Warzone players that will be happy to finally have a serious [battle royale] alternative,” said one viewer. “This could, potentially, pull in a large amount of players. If they stay depends on how good it will be.” Another added: “If this Battle Royale retains the destruction from the base game, it has the chance to be the most dynamic [battle royale] of all time. That destruction will make every game feel different.”

Battlefield 6’s playtests have proven to be leaky indeed, though developer DICE has said it gathered “loads of feedback from the very active testers selected.” Unlike Battlefield 2042’s lukewarm reception, fans seem pretty pleased with what they’ve seen so far, and for some time EA wasn’t even trying to take their leaked opinions down. So far, we’ve seen evidence of a new drag mechanic and the ability to cling on to vehicles, as well as improved in-game movement, 3D maps, improved destruction, quality of life improvements, and the start of a battle royale match.

We’re having a great time with what we’ve played so far, writing in our Battlefield 6 review-in-progress: “Right now, even in beta form, Battlefield 6 might be the most fun shooter I’ve played this year.”

Don’t forget that from now until October 7 — Battlefield 6’s launch day — EA has a “wave of content” planned for Battlefield 2042, including a free new pass “celebrating the legacy of Battlefield,” new hardware, and a reimagining of the fan favorite Iwo Jima map. As you progress through the ‘Road to Battlefield 6’ pass, you can expect 50 exclusive cross-rewards, including 20 for Battlefield 6 that will be ready for you on launch day, on which you can also expect big changes to player movement, maps, modes, and player counts.

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.

The fate of PlayStation’s upcoming live-service game Fairgames is once again under scrutiny as its creative director, Daniel Drapeau, has confirmed he has left Haven Studios to join Warner Bros. Games Montreal.

It’s the second high-profile exit of the summer, with studio founder Jade Raymond also exiting back in May, several weeks after an external playtest reportedly met a lukewarm response.

“As of this week, I joined WB Games Montreal Inc. as creative director,” Drapeau announced in a LinkedIn post. “I can’t wait to start this wonderful adventure with all the great people here at the studio. I also want to particularly thank Yves Lachance, Logan A. Lesage, and Bryan Theberge for their trust and support throughout the process. Now, let’s do this!”

The news follows a rocky time for the game’s development, and incorrect industry speculation surrounding its future. Last month, analyst Michael Pachter wrongly claimed the game had been canceled, though was later forced to walk back his statement and admit he had “no info on the game at all.”

Neither Haven nor Sony have commented publicly on Drapeau’s departure.

Regardless, the news will hardly restore confidence in PlayStation’s embattled live service ambitions. Sony announced plans in February 2022 to launch more than 10 live service games by March 2026, later saying the push would bring games of different genres to different audiences. It spent big on studio buyouts as part of the drive, bringing in Destiny developer Bungie, the now shuttered Firewalk Studios, and, of course, Haven Studios.

Firewalk, you’ll remember, was the studio behind Concord, one of the biggest disasters in PlayStation history. Just a couple of weeks after it launched to eye-wateringly low player numbers, Sony decided to kill the game entirely and shortly thereafter shut down its development studio.

The Concord flop came after Sony had already canceled Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer game. And earlier this year, Sony reportedly canceled two unannounced live-service games, one a God of War title in development at Bluepoint, the other in the works at Days Gone developer Bend.

On the flip side, Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 has been a breakout hit, and became the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks.

Fairgames — stylized as Fairgame$ — is described as “a competitive modern heist game where you team up to break into exotic locations and steal the cargo.” The twist is that you not only need to outsmart guards and security systems, but you also need to compete against other teams, too. There’s no word yet on when it’ll launch.

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.

Hollow Knight: Silksong will retail for just $19.99.

While there’s been a lot of rumors over the last few days — including a $20 price on Gamestop (since removed) that was later corroborated by noted leaker Billbil-kun — developer Team Cherry has now confirmed it, revealing the game will retail for $19.99 in the U.S., €19.99 in Europe, and ¥2300 in Japan.

It’s an eye-catching price, not least because many publishers are quietly testing more and more expensive games. Xbox recently priced the highly-anticipated The Outer Worlds 2 for $80 — the first of its games to break the typical $70 ceiling — but after a furious backlash, ended up dropping the pre-order price to $70 “in line with current market conditions.”

That’s not all, either. The team also revealed exactly when we’ll get to play it, too: 7am PT, 10am ET, 4pm CEST, and 11pm JST.

Team Cherry finally revealed a release date for the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong at gamescom: September 4, 2025. We learned the news via a nearly two-minute new trailer dropped by Team Cherry, which showed a ton of new footage from the game. We see Hornet exploring, loads of new insectoid NPCs, dreary graveyards, swamps, a bustling city, new enemies, new bosses, an Ori-style escape sequence, and more. It’ll be available on PC, Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series.

At the same time, we learned the original game has managed to top 15 million copies sold, a rare feat indeed for an independent game. And perhaps not coincidentally, Hollow Knight, eight years post-release, has repeatedly hit all-time high concurrent player counts on Steam (per SteamDB) over the last two weeks, topping 70K just this past weekend.

Hollow Knight: Silksong is currently the most wishlisted game on Steam, but is it actually fun to play? We tried out two levels from the Hollow Knight Silksong demo at gamescom 2025, Moss Grotto and Deep Docks. One was easy one, and one was very challenging, but does it live up to the hype? Find out in our Hollow Knight: Silksong preview from the show floor.

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.

PC gaming is more popular than ever. You have traditional desktop PCs, handheld PCs like ROG Ally or Steam Deck, and the best of both worlds, gaming laptops. Out of all gaming laptop brands, Alienware is one of the most recognizable. If you’re someone who has thought about purchasing a gaming laptop before but never ended up doing so, the latest IGN Rewards giveaway could be your chance to take one home. IGN has teamed up with Delta Force and Alienware to offer one lucky reader a Delta Force x Alienware 16 Aurora Gaming Laptop.

Win a Custom Delta Force x Alienware 16 Aurora Gaming Laptop

We’ve rounded up the best deals for Saturday, August 30, below, so don’t miss out on these limited-time offers.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 for $34.99

If you’ve played more than a few role-playing games, you’ll know how your hero’s journey typically plays out. In the prologue, a terrible thing will happen – an event that demands you move quickly to prevent an apocalypse or defeat an all-encompassing evil. In the following hours, you’ll spend 90% of your time completely ignoring that impending threat, instead helping randomers you met in the pub and collecting loot from dungeons. That’s okay, though, because the big bad will always wait for you. The world perpetually teeters on the brink of extinction until you’re ready to fix it.

Not so in The Blood of Dawnwalker, the first RPG from Rebel Wolves, a new studio founded by former CD Projekt Red staff. Its campaign puts you on a clock: you have 30 days and 30 nights to save your family from evil vampires.

That hold-on-while-I-do-a-thousand-side-quests meme “was definitely one of the reasons” for this interesting approach, creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz says with a smile. “I wouldn’t say it was the sole reason, but I would say this was definitely a starting point for a conversation.”

To properly understand that time pressure system, it’s best to start with how The Blood of Dawnwalker’s campaign is structured. Dubbed a “narrative sandbox,” it doesn’t follow a linear sequence of events. There’s no quest one, quest two, quest three and so on.

“After the prologue, you can go directly to the castle. You could try to rescue your family immediately,” explains Tomaszkiewicz. “There’s a variety of quests you can participate in. You can ignore them, or you can do them. There are a lot of activities that are directly targeted against [main villain] Brencis that will weaken him, for example, and make the attack easier. But at any point you can decide, ‘Okay, I’ve got enough, I’m going to the castle, I’m going to do it.’”

If The Blood of Dawnwalker was a book, then, you’d read the first chapter and then would be free to skip directly to the end. As for the optional chapters between those two points, you can read them in any order… but you’ll need to find the pages first. “You are not railroaded into these plotlines,” Tomaszkiewicz reveals. “You have to find them [in the world] on your own. We do leave breadcrumbs of course, but we want to make sure that it doesn’t feel like ‘These are the three plotlines, do them and then go there,’ right? We wanted to enhance the feeling of exploration and finding these stories in the world.”

That brings us back to the time system. You have 30 days and 30 nights to explore Vale Sangora, a 14th-century kingdom nestled in the Carpathian Mountains, and undertake as many (or as few) of those plotlines as you want. That time element evolved out of Dawnwalker’s protagonist, Coen. A man suffering from both silver poisoning and a vampiric curse, he lives as a mortal during the day and becomes a blood-sucker at night. “The time passage was kind of central to the character,” Tomaszkiewicz notes, especially since your vampiric abilities allow for a very different, more supernatural playstyle after dark.

A Clock That Never Ticks

Perhaps the most important thing to know is that there is no real-time ticking clock in The Blood of Dawnwalker. The minutes do not start counting down from the moment you start a new game. This is not Majora’s Mask or Outer Wilds. “We were thinking that if time would flow naturally, it might be quite unpleasant. The playstyle would change on the go [from human to vampire and back to human] constantly without your input,” explains Tomaszkiewicz. “So that’s where the time as a resource idea came in.”

It’s best to think of time in The Blood of Dawnwalker as a currency rather than a stopwatch. A bar, split into eight sections and displayed in the upper-right of the screen, represents your daily allowance of that currency. Performing significant actions marked with an hourglass icon, such as completing objectives or engaging in certain conversations, will “spend” a section of the bar. Similar to Deathloop, then, simply exploring or completing lower-level tasks will not progress time. Theoretically, you could stay in the noon period of the seventh day for dozens of in-game hours, provided you don’t do anything marked with that hourglass symbol.

While Rebel Wolves is very excited about the way time has shaped The Blood of Dawnwalker’s choices and quest design (of which you can learn more about in our recent preview), Tomaszkiewicz is aware that many people will be skeptical of the system. “I know there are a lot of players that are afraid of missing out, so we definitely tried to not cut off too much content,” he explains. “We are aiming, at least in a normal, average playthrough, for you to be able to do 80% of the content.”

Rebel Wolves has twisted temporal rules to deliver on that goal, particularly when it comes to how time-sensitive events are handled. For example, one storyline involves a burning house, but the flames will blaze indefinitely until you actually discover the building. Only then will you need to act before you spend too many sections of the time bar. There’s no chance of you turning up one day to find a house you never knew even existed is now a pile of rubble and ash.

Of course, regardless of how quests and time are handled, there’s always that looming pressure: 30 days and 30 nights to save your family. But there’s unwritten nuance in that deadline. “Don’t think about it as a game over thing,” Tomaszkiewicz hints. “It’s more like a choice and consequence thing.”

That’s the vital takeaway: you may have a time limit to save your family, but there is no time limit to complete the game. You can continue to play indefinitely after that point. And who is to say that saving your family will even be the most important part of your story? The Blood of Dawnwalker’s Steam page states: “Embark on the quest to save your family, or swear revenge on your sire and destroy everyone standing in your way.” Perhaps that tale of revenge will provide an alternate journey for the main campaign? I ask Tomaszkiewicz to elaborate, but he refuses. That Steam description is already more than enough, he says.

Control Your Dark Urge

It’s easy to see time, even when it only moves during specific actions, like sand slipping through your fingers. As something you lose. But it’s important to remember that progressing time brings you closer to one of The Blood of Dawnwalker’s most exciting features: Coen becomes a vampire at night. When the moon rises, you unlock the ability to walk up walls and along ceilings, and to teleport to rooftops and out-of-reach balconies. Such skills unlock a variety of opportunities, not to mention a stealthier play style. And so, if you want, you can skip the days and play only during the night. It’s a “totally viable way to play,” Tomaszkiewicz confirms, albeit with a warning that ignoring the day also means missing quests only available during the waking hours.

A vampire’s supernatural strength and skills come at a price, though, and it’s one we all know: gulping down vast quantities of blood. You’ll need to satisfy Coen’s hunger regularly, and the only truly gratifying meal is found in the neck of a human. You can opt to ignore that hunger, or feast on much less-satiating animals, but there are consequences to such a lifestyle.

“If you starve Coen, if you don’t feed him enough, and if you go into important conversations, he can lose control and just kill off important NPCs,” Tomaszkiewicz reveals.

Rebel Wolves isn’t unique in creating a game in which you can kill significant characters, but it’s doing so in its own way. You can’t just stride up to someone and cut them down with your sword, for instance – it’s always to do with your vampiric urges. But you do have a choice. “You can decide to give into your vampiric nature whenever it comes knocking,” Tomaszkiewicz explains, describing it as “the whispers of your dark nature.” But that’s only possible if Coen is merely hungry. If you starve him, then every conversation is a roll of the dice. The hunger could seize control, and you’ll have no option but to watch him chow down.

This system is possible thanks to that aforementioned “narrative sandbox” campaign structure. “In a game that has more of a strict core narrative, you couldn’t kill off a character that is pivotal to the story, right? Because the story would fall apart,” notes Tomaszkiewicz. Since all quests in The Blood of Dawnwalker (aside from the first and last) are essentially optional, it means anyone can be killed without derailing the story. Instead, those deaths become the story. You can punish characters you hate, or be caught off-guard by surprise slaughter.

This bloodlust is part of a wider set of overlapping systems designed to make the kingdom of Vale Sangora feel alive. NPCs have routines, and they’ll raise the alarm if they see you stealing or feeding on their neighbours. Rival factions will brawl each other in the streets. And the evil Brencis watches you from afar.

“As you gain more notoriety in the valley, as you do these acts against Brencis, he won’t stay passive,” Tomaszkiewicz reveals. “He will enact these edicts that will hamper your progression. So he might send out more soldiers into the streets, or patrolling the roads, or enforce a curfew. So now it’s more difficult to feed at night.”

Notoriety initially sounds like GTA’s wanted level, or the escalating response of Metal Gear Solid’s guards. But it’s actually more complex than a simple difficulty spike. “Sometimes it can actually be a boon,” Tomaszkiewicz explains. “It’s not just Brencis and his soldiers [who react to your notoriety,] it’s also the people in the valley. They will recognize you and be afraid of you. So in some quest situations it actually might be helpful. There are some factions that fight against Brencis, they don’t like him. So building up notoriety is actually a good way to gain a good standing with them.”

The End and Beyond

The narrative sandbox approach means Rebel Wolves has had to pay close attention to how the story ends. The ability to skip over every major quest, or kill off significant characters, means every player will hit the finale with different levels of knowledge. Some may not even know what a Dawnwalker is, while others will have found solutions to all the major problems. And so when I ask how many endings the story has, Tomaszkiewicz doesn’t have an easy answer.

“This is a very complicated web of connections,” he says. “I can tell you the designer working on the endings is… let’s say the meme of [It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Charlie Day] with the red tape. That’s him basically. It is a lot of fun, but it’s a lot to keep track of.”

That’s not the only thing the story team needs to consider, either. The Steam page claims that this project is “the beginning of a brand-new saga built with love for the role-playing genre,” and so The Blood of Dawnwalker is just chapter one. The Rebel Wolves team may be building a game, but they are also building an entire universe that they plan to explore in subsequent games.

“We have ideas for the overarching story of Coen,” reveals Tomaszkiewicz. He says sequels are, of course, not guaranteed, but the team has ideas of where to go should this first game be a success.

“There is much more in the IP than just vampires, let’s say,” he teases. “There is this whole hidden world that we are not exploring on purpose in this first game. We want to leave a lot of fuel for the sequels and so on. But we do leave breadcrumbs and hint at these things. So yeah, we have a general idea of where we want to take Coen.”

Such sequels and grander saga ambitions are beyond Rebel Wolves’ grasp for now, just as The Blood of Dawnwalker is beyond our own – at this year’s Gamescom, we were only able to watch a demonstration rather than go hands-on ourselves. And as exciting and promising as that demo was, it’ll take first-hand experience of the narrative sandbox to truly tell if the studio’s bold approach to RPG design has paid off. But just as Coen thirsts for the blood of mortals, I hunger to taste more of this fascinating, risk-taking Slavic fantasy.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Executive Editor of Features.

In the world of Kaiju No. 8, titanic, otherworldly beasts are a constant threat in Japan: to the extent that not only is there a military organisation – the Japan Anti-Kaiju Defense Force (JAKDF) – set up to deal with them, but there are also regimented clean-up crews whose jobs are to come in and cut up then cart away the often skyscraper-sized foes once they’ve been felled.

Lead character Kafka Hibino dreams of being a JAKDF officer, but at the start of the series is working in clean-up, and hoping that when there’s work to be done he doesn’t get assigned the intestines… for obvious reasons. It’s not long, however, before he’s – season one spoiler alert here – both a member of the JAKDF and dealing with the fact that he’s somehow been gifted/cursed with the powers of a kaiju himself, designated by the powers that be as Kaiju No. 8.

Stylish action, goofy humour and bad-ass characters all come together to make what follows a whole heap of fun, and frankly, excellent fodder for a video game. Why so? Well, in terms of action, the series focuses around squad-based combat against bizarre and menacing enemies both large and small, with battles decided by exposing each creature’s core (i.e. weak point) and finishing it off. Pair that with highly individual characters, who have a range of expertise in different weapons and fighting styles, and you’ve got a video game waiting to happen.

Enter Akatsuki Games, and Kaiju No. 8 The Game. This free-to-play turn-based RPG on mobile (with PC to follow) very much fits the mold for modern Japanese live service mobile games, with gacha rolls for characters and weapons, and numerous different currencies and crafting materials that allow you to level up characters, moves, weapons and more. This is a game with daily check in rewards, time-limited events and grinding for materials so you can enhance your characters and take on the next challenge.

Whether that’s your kind of thing is up to you, but there’s no doubt that the team has put a lot of effort into this title. Akatsuki Games has been working on Kaiju No. 8 The Game for more than two years – since well before the anime started airing – with a team size of around 200 people.

The result is a game with excellent presentation, thanks to well-realised 3D character models, a good sense of scale, and super slick combat animations. The core gameplay loop is compelling too, putting you in control of a four person squad in turn-based battles that move quickly and have plenty of room for strategic depth.

Kaiju No. 8 The Game also has an impressive amount of content out of the gate. Not only does it have an original story to play through (set during the second season of the anime, which is airing now), complete with an impressive amount of voice acting (in Japanese), but it has other modes that highlight iconic moments from the manga/anime’s story, tell side stories for the main characters, and so on. It even has a side-scrolling combat mini-game.

In many ways, Visual Concepts’ long-running NBA 2K series mirrors the careers of players it works so hard to emulate. Sometimes, it’s a flash of potential: a hotshot rookie catching fire after putting up duds in consecutive games. Others, it’s more comparable to a wily veteran nearing retirement – we see a glimpse of talent, that peek into what it could still be. That’s what keeps me, for better or worse, hoping for the best as I start playing NBA 2K26. It’s both flashy and old school, like a “how do you do, fellow kids” teacher who wears different Jordans to class every day, it has enough cool new kicks, fits, and gimmicks to make it a much more interesting and enjoyable experience than last year’s entry, even after spending only a dozen hours with it so far.

Of course, “cool” probably isn’t the right word to describe that teacher, let alone NBA 2K26. After all, an annual sports game is obviously not going to be a radically new game, since most of its gameplay and mechanics are fundamentally similar to last year’s iteration, and the one before that, and so on. But in the context of the genre it’s made a good first impression, because several minor improvements cumulatively make such a huge difference to the whole that I’m willing to say it and risk being called a nerd. Yes, I am talking about the new-and-improved shot meter. As always, one of the smallest components in its vast hardwood floor of dribbling and criss-crossing parts leaves a massive influence on how just about everything else on the court plays out.

Green and Slightly Curved

If you were lucky enough not to have experienced last year’s shot meter, I envy you. In place of the nightmare-inducing dial/arrow/ring design from 2K25, NBA 2K26 features a much more intuitive, easier-to-time, and infinitely better-curved bar shot meter. If you’ve heard that before, it’s because it’s similar to 2K23’s – but this isn’t entirely a reversion to that. Instead of remaining static, the new meter’s green field adjusts based on defensive coverage: if a defender is right up in your face, you’ll have practically no chance of making the shot. But if you’re open, it’ll be much easier to time the release right and make a shot.

Trust me, I’m having so much more fun shooting jumpers now than I was this time last year because I’m actually making them consistently. There is a slight tradeoff, though: because it’s easier to get greens, there’s also less room for imperfection. Meaning if you get a slightly early or slightly late timing, you might as well start running back on defense because the shot will more than likely brick. That said, I’ll take this shot meter any day of the week over a barely improved chance to make mistimed shots.

Now, I’m a big believer in the concept of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” because why ruin a good thing, right? But I’m an even bigger believer that if something is broke – like last year’s janky player movement – you b7etter get to fixin’ quick. Visual Concepts did just that because NBA 2K26 makes running, cutting, and defending so much smoother that it makes NBA 2K25’s motion feel like you were stuck running in quicksand. This is no small change because it permeates every single mode, making the entirety of NBA 2K26 feel less robotic and far more natural and enjoyable.

Plus, it makes one of my favorite new features, Go-To Post Shots, look even more accurate and realistic. Remember in last year’s review how disappointed I was that I couldn’t dominate the paint with Jokic’s or Embiid’s shimmy shake fade-aways? Well, dreams do come true because for the past day I have been spamming the Sombor Shuffle an ungodly amount of times in each match I play. It is a delightfully methodical, bruising alternative to the agile, quick-twitch motions of the typical Go-To Moves, and I will continue using it until the AI learns to stop it. Until then, it’s barbecue chicken alert each time down the floor.

Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

Now for the bad news. What, you thought it was going to be all good from here on out? Sorry, Dorothy, but the years haven’t been kind to this yellow brick road. And by “yellow brick road,” I mean NBA 2K26’s offline-only modes. Last year, the so-called improvements to MyNBA were underwhelming, to say the least. This time, dear friends, they are practically non-existent, and, as an offline-mode truther, I am very disappointed.

With 2K25 we at least had the addition of the Steph Era, even though it already felt redundant alongside two other eras in the 2010s (in addition to the LeBron Era). Are you ready to hear what the 2K26 MyNBA modes have in store? Drumroll, ple…you know what, don’t even bother. It’s called Offseason Scenarios for MyGM. These are tailor-made, long-term quests for each franchise that you must fulfill to appease the fanbase and, more importantly, the owner.

These scenarios come in threes and are given out at the beginning of the offseason. But much like my issues with last year’s MyGM mode, these tasks (and many of the features in the mode itself) again feel forced and, at times, unrealistic. The RPG elements, with their perk and attribute point systems, seem out of place and unnecessary because they hardly make a difference in the grand scheme of basketball operations. At the end of the day, it’s still all about winning as many games and championships as you can. Or, if you’re on the other end of the spectrum, losing and tanking as much as possible. Overall, the whole mode feels like a side project hastily thrown together just to get that last bit of extra credit needed to pass the class.

Despite my problems with its offline-only modes, the fundamental gameplay tweaks show plenty of promise in what I’ve played on my first day with it. I’m especially excited to see how it looks in MyCareer with its new-and-improved storyline, as well as in the potentially wonky online gameplay of MyTeam. But after suffering through last year’s shot meter and molasses-like movement, there really is nowhere to go but up. Whether that shows in my final verdict and score next week, though, remains to be seen.

From Calorie Mate snacks to hidden Kerotan frog statues, 2004’s Metal Gear Solid 3 was packed with varied real-life Easter eggs, even if they contradicted the game’s 1960s setting. One memorable gimmick for eagle-eyed players to spot in the indoor areas of MGS3 (and MGS2) was the posters of current Japanese gravure idols — female models who pose in revealing outfits.

These sexy posters make a return in the remake Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater — with an added twist. If you play on Legacy Style mode, the posters are as they were in the original. But if you are playing using the New Style mode, with its modern over-the-shoulder camera angle, you’ll notice that although the models are the same, the photos have been swapped out for recent shots of what they look like now, two decades on.

In a recent interview with Famitsu (and previously reported on by Automaton), the developers at Konami revealed how this change came about. They say that their aim with Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater was to evolve the game while staying true to the core essence of the original MGS3, and recreate its jungle setting so that it looked extremely realistic. However, they also ended up making small, unexpected tweaks to the content of the original, with the gravure posters being one such tweak.

Apparently, the initial plan for the model posters was to use higher resolutions of the images used in MGS3. However, once the team had decided to implement a Legacy Mode and a New Mode, they hit upon the idea of changing up the gravure posters to reflect the 21 years that have passed since MGS3’s initial release.

Delta’s creative producer Yuji Korekado (who also worked on the original MGS3) explained that for New Style mode, the team decided to reach out to the models that featured in MGS3 and ask them to send in new, recent photos. This does not mean that all the models are decked out in bikinis, though. Rather, the team asked them to simply send in pictures of how they look now. According to Korekado, every single model from the original sent in photos that span the gauntlet from sexy swimsuit shots to family snaps. “We would like players to seek out and find all the different types of photos,” said Korekado, with series producer Noriaki Okamoto adding that “if you are familiar with the original graphics, seeing the current photos really packs an emotional punch.”

MGS3 also featured issues of real-life video game and glamour magazines that you could amusingly use to distract guards (the magazines featured differed depending on the region). However, Korekado said that the decision was made not to update these magazine covers, as many of the publications that popped up as items in MGS3 have since ceased publication. So, the real-life mags that you could find in MGS3 remain the same in both versions of Metal Gear Solid: Delta Snake Eater.

Korekado also expresses gratitude towards all the people that returned to work on the remake. He explained that the team was able to get Cythia Harrel to re-record the game’s Bond-esque opening theme ‘Snake Eater,’ as well as Kyle Cooper, who designed the intro movie.

In related news, Lori Alan, who has reprised her role voicing Snake’s mentor The Boss in the game’s English language version, stunned fans yesterday by posting a seemingly recent picture of herself cosplaying as her character:

Choose your fate, finish the mission! Can’t wait for you all to experience Delta tomorrow!
You’re going to have your mind blown!
“I hold the legacy—but the battle has only just begun. Choose your fate in MGSΔ” 🤔#TheBoss #MGSDelta #YouveWaitedLongEnough@Konami pic.twitter.com/NS0HInAMnF

— Lori Alan (@LoriAlan1) August 28, 2025

We’ve got plenty more Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater news, including very early mods (one of which lets you play as Hideo Kojima!), and patch notes for the first post-launch update. IGN’s Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater review returned an 8/10. We said: “Between its old-school stealth-action gameplay and engaging spy-thriller story, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater largely succeeds as a faithful, visually impressive remake of the 2004 classic.”

Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.