Category: IGN

Hold on, Hollow Knight fans — we’re almost there. Hollow Knight: Silksong is slated to release this coming Thursday, September 4 on PC, Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series for $19.99 / €19.99 / ¥2300.

The highly anticipated sequel to the award-winning metroidvania sees us play as Hornet as we journey to all-new lands, discover new powers, battle vast hordes of bugs and beasts, and uncover ancient secrets tied to your nature and your past.

Team Cherry finally revealed Hollow Knight: Silksong’s September 4, 2025, release date at gamescom. We learned the news via a nearly two-minute 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.

Here’s when the game will unlock for you in your timezone, as confirmed by Team Cherry earlier this week. And no, there’s no way to unlock early access, I’m afraid.

Hollow Knight: Silksong global release times:

Thursday, September 4, 2025

PDT (Los Angeles):

• 7am

CST (Mexico City):

• 8am

EDT (New York):

• 10am

ART (Buenos Aries):

• 12pm noon

BST (London):

• 3pm

CEST (Paris, Rome, Berlin):

• 4pm

GST (Dubai)

• 6pm

JST (Tokyo):

• 11pm

Friday, September 5, 2025

AEST (Sydney):

• 12am midnight

NZST (Wellington):

• 2am

It’s worth noting that Team Cherry has also confirmed that Hollow Knight: Silksong players on Nintendo Switch can unlock “enhanced” Switch 2 features for free.

If you’re playing (or replaying) Hollow Knight before Silksong, take a look at IGN’s newly refreshed Hollow Knight walkthrough and detailed Hollow Knight interactive map to make sure you don’t miss any collectible locations.

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.

Players jumping into Hollow Knight: Silksong on Nintendo Switch will be able to upgrade to the “enhanced” Switch 2 version for free.

That comes from Team Cherry itself, which explained in an update on Kickstarter that while OG Nintendo Switch keys will be delivered directly to backers via email, Switch 2 players will need to download the Silksong Upgrade Pack from the eShop to unlock “enhanced features” (thanks, Eurogamer).

“For Nintendo Switch 2 players, after redeeming your Nintendo Switch key and downloading the game, you will additionally need to download the (free) Hollow Knight: Silksong Upgrade Pack from the eShop to unlock the platform’s enhanced features,” Team Cherry advised.

Though not explicitly confirmed, this suggests the upgrade pack will be available to all Silksong fans playing on Switch 2, regardless of backer status.

Backer surveys close later today, so if you backed the team on Kickstarter, you have just hours to get your survey completed to get your game key, so don’t hang around!

“I didn’t receive a survey, but I would honestly prefer to buy the game to support you guys anyway,” commented one happy player. “It has been so long that I actually forgot I was a backer of the original! Congrats on finally getting here Team Cherry!”

Hollow Knight: Silksong will retail for just $19.99. Yes, really. While there were 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.

Team Cherry finally revealed a release date for the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong at gamescom: September 4, 2025. Expect 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 X and S.

We tried out two levels from the Hollow Knight Silksong demo at gamescom 2025, Moss Grotto and Deep Docks. One was easy, 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.

Oscar-nominated Canadian actor Graham Greene has died aged 73.

Greene secured an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Lakota medicine man Kicking Bird in Kevin Costner’s 1990 epic western, Dances With Wolves.

But he starred in scores of films and TV shows in a career spanning 45 years, including 1992’s Thunderheart, 1994’s Maverick opposite Mel Gibson, and 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance, where he played Detective Joe Lambert opposite Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson.

Magic: The Gathering launched Edge of Eternities last month, and here we are in September bracing for the release of Spider-Man.

Still, in the run-up to then, we’re still seeing some spaceship synergies (the set after Spidey) causing some market fluctuations, while now is a great time to pick up some Edge of Eternities cards.

Here are the big shifters for the start of September, as we prepare to swing into action.

MTG Climbers This Week

There’s an awful lot of love for Landfall this week, and much of that’s tied to the Edge of Eternities World Shaper precon.

I picked one up in recent weeks and have been very pleased with it, but now I might have to add a big ol’ bear, too. Lumra, Bellow of the Woods has seen a huge jump, rising from under $10 to almost $30 in the space of a few weeks.

This not-so-cuddly bear mills four cards when entering, then puts lands from the graveyard onto the battlefield. Not only does that power Lumra up, but it could allow Tannuk, Memorial Ensign to dish out a whole host of punishment.

It also gives the World Shaper’s Hearthull spacecraft plenty of lands to sacrifice for card draw and damage pings.

Sticking with World Shaper, Valakut Exploration could be explosive, too. You can use it to exile cards to use for a big hit of damage.

It’s up to around $5, having cost barely anything just a few weeks ago.

Next up, I’ve recently spotted a surprising team-up between Sonic the Hedgehog and the Tyranid Winged Hive Tyrant. The latter is up to $4 thanks to synergy with the Blue Blur, with the card giving other creatures with counters flying and haste.

That becomes a nice cycle of triggering an attack with Sonic, adding counters to other creatures, and then having them get flying and haste. Then, you can turn that into Treasure tokens, too.

If you want to try this combo, have fun – Sonic is just $3 right now, while Winged Hive Tyrant is on the climb but still under $5. There’s a bunch of brillaint Sonic cards up for grabs right now as well, if you’re not keen on picking up the full Secret Lair set.

MTG Crashers This Week

We’ve already mentioned him, but Tannuk, Memorial Ensign is a great card for aggressive landfall decks, and he’s down to just a 25-cent market value.

Given the synergies he has with the World Shaper deck and other cards we’ve mentioned here, that’s a steal.

It’s also not often to find an Eldrazi on the cheap, but Emrakul, the World Anew has seen a drop off in recent weeks.

This colorless 12/12 can gain control of opponents’ creatures and then sacrifice them, too. It’s a big cost mana-wise, but the dollar value has dropped to around $8.

Exalted Sunborn has dropped significantly, too. It’s still almost $20, but this flying, lifelink Angel Wizard (what a combo, by the way) is dropping a couple of dollars and could drop further.

Starfield Vocalist’s more expensive versions remain pricey, but the basic rare is down to $1.49. Given it gives you double triggers on ETB effects, it could be worth looking at.

Finally, The Seriema was one of the first cards revealed, and it’s dropped from $40 right down to $1.49 over the last month.

MTG Sealed Sets – Labor Day Deals

Battlefield 6 doesn’t have ray-tracing, and its developer has said there are no plans to add the feature down the line.

While ray-tracing has been notably missing from Battlefield 6’s open beta tests, it wasn’t entirely clear if this was just because the game was in beta or if it was a deliberate choice. Turns out, it’s the latter.

Despite being a popular inclusion in some games, ray-tracing’s more natural method of simulating lighting can also prove to be draining on your PC or console’s system resources — and it’s for this reason that the competitive shooter won’t include it. Indeed, Christian Buhl — studio technical director at Ripple Effect, one of the studios working on Battlefield 6 — has told Comicbook that while the PC version of Battlefield 6 will have over 600 different options in its settings menu, “ray-tracing won’t be one of them and there’s no plans to bring it into the game in the near future.”

“No, we are not going to have ray-tracing when the game launches and we don’t have any plans in the near future for it either,” Buhl said. “That was because we wanted to focus on performance. We wanted to make sure that all of our effort was focused on making the game as [optimized] as possible for the default settings and the default users.

“So, we just made the decision relatively early on that we just weren’t going to do ray-tracing and again, it was mostly so that we could focus on making sure it was performance for everyone else.”

While most people would likely sacrifice visuals to preserve performance during multiplayers mode, this may be disappointing news for some players who’d hoped to have ray-tracing in Battlefield 6’s upcoming single-player campaign, when the time comes to play.

Earlier today, we highlighted a nine-minute slice of Battlefield 6’s battle royale mode that has leaked online. This particular video 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, including swimming, one of the gadgets, and its “massive map.”

Battlefield 6 releases on October 7. 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.”

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.

Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima has announced plans to celebrate the 10th anniversary of establishing his own studio, Kojima Productions, with an event in Tokyo later this month.

Hosted by Kojima himself, the “celebratory event,” entitled Beyond The Strand, will include guest appearances “as well as offer a glimpse into future projects.” It’ll take place at TOHO Cinemas Roppongi Hills, Tokyo, Japan, on September 23, 2025.

Fans in the vicinity can enter a lottery to be in with a chance of securing a ¥7700 — the equivalent of around $50 — when tickets go on sale tomorrow, September 2. Or, alternatively, you can watch the action online.

Right now, it seems unlikely we’ll see much of Kojima’s mysterious upcoming PlayStation game Physint — as the developer recently told us the game remains “at the conceptual stage”. More likely, perhaps, we’ll get to know a little more about Kojima’s horror project OD, which is still in development in collaboration with Microsoft, despite Xbox’s recent cancellations of a number of projects, both internal and external.

Kojima first announced his OD collaboration with Xbox in November of 2022, then officially revealed OD along with several of its star cast members at The Game Awards 2023. We learned at the time that Kojima was working with filmmaker Jordan Peele to create a horror experience “no one has seen before.”

Hideo Kojima also, of course, created the seminal stealth series, Metal Gear, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be spending at time playing remake Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. When asked recently if he would be playing the remake, he laughed and replied: “No, I won’t.”. That said, Konami’s Metal Gear series producer Noriaki Okamura has said he’d love to work with Kojima again on the stealth series.

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.

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.