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.
Behaviour Interactive has released detailed patch notes for Dead by Daylight update 9.1.1 following backlash to bugs and balance changes introduced last week.
The team behind the popular asymmetrical horror game offered a breakdown for its long list of new fixes on the Dead by Daylight website today. It’s a bug fix patch that arrives just one week after update 9.1.0 launched for players across PC and consoles, but according to fans, it’s already long overdue.
Dead by Daylight update 9.1.0 came with The Walking Dead representation, map changes, and balance tweaks for many of Behaviour’s playable Survivors and Killers. While the additions were celebrated by many, others struggled to focus on the positive aspects of the content update because it just so happened to come hand in hand with several new game-breaking exploits.
Lowlights from the patch saw players expressing concern regarding Perks like Streetwise, Blood Rush, and Last Stand, as each introduced either a fresh bug to squash. There’s also the issue of The Clown, who has paraded around player Trials with his lightning-fast speed and unstoppable, bottle-throwing arm. Thankfully, after Behaviour moved to Kill Switch (or disable) many of these issues yesterday, Dead by Daylight update 9.1.1 is here with more permanent fixes.
Streetwise and Last Stand will both be re-enabled with the new update, with both receiving tweaks to repair the problems introduced with the last patch. The troublesome Fog Vial, which was added as a new item just last week, is also getting a nerf to its opacity and volume. Meanwhile, a list of priority bug fixes mends issues related to Killers and chase mechanics, how Survivors see The Deathslinger’s aiming animation, and more.
Fixes for glitches tied to audio, characters, environments, and other Perks can also be found in Dead by Daylight update 9.1.1 as Behaviour works to regain lost ground with the fanbase it’s grown throughout the last nine years. Part of the plan to do so, which was outlined in a post published by the Dead by Daylight X/Twitter account yesterday, involves issuing another hotfix sometime next week. It’s said to come with a fix for Blood Rush bugs as well as additional tweaks to Fog Vials.
Behaviour says it will work to Kill Switch problematic gameplay elements and communicate with fans at a quicker pace in the future, thanking vocal players for their feedback as development continues. While we wait to see how the team rebalances The Clown and more of its Killers, you can read up on how Dead by Daylight players reached out to the Overwatch team at Blizzard when they were most desperate. You can also check out our recent interview with Behaviour, where we learned more about how the team developed its Five Nights at Freddy’s Chapter and the Springtrap Killer.
Finally, you can check out the full Dead by Daylight update 9.1.1 patch notes below.
Dead by Daylight Update 9.1.1 Patch Notes
Priority Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that often caused Killers to be unable to initiate a chase for the rest of the trial.
Fixed an issue that often caused the chase music not to play when a chase was initiated.
Fixed an issue impacting chest item charges while using Streetwise.
Fixed an issue impacting vault speeds while using Last Stand.
Fixed an issue where The Walking Dead theme was unaffected by the Copyrighted Music Setting.
Fixed an issue where both Survivors and Killers could be slowed down when running up the right-hand side of any staircase.
Fixed an issue where the Baermar Uraz’s Masquerade Musician outfit had the incorrect name and voice lines.
Fixed an issue where The Deathslinger’s aiming animation was missing from the Survivor’s perspective.
Fixed an issue where the “Be chased for 20 seconds” quest in “Into the Fog” would not progress.
Fixed an issue that caused a black screen when attempting to spectate for the second time after returning to the tally screen.
Content
The Streetwise and Last Stand perks have been re-enabled.
SURVIVOR ITEM: FOG VIAL
Decreased base opacity of the fog cloud to 33% (was 40%).
Decreased the fog cloud volume by 3 dB. (NB this does not refer to audio within the fog area, only the ambient fog audio)
FOG VIAL ADD-ONS
Potent Extract (Visceral):
Decreases visibility by5% (was 10%).
Decreases the fog cloud’s maximum size by 25% (No change).
Decreases the fog cloud’s maximum lifetime by 50% (No change).
Bug Fixes
Audio
Fixed an issue where lobby ambiance audio would occasionally stack.
Fixed an issue where sound effects were missing when hovering over Match Management options in Custom Game.
Fixed an issue where scream sound effects occurred while the Survivor had their mouth closed during The Lich’s Mori.
Fixed an issue where Rick and Michonne Grimes were missing certain voiceover lines.
Characters
Fixed an issue where shadows in The Nightmare’s Dream World were missing.
Fixed an issue where The Nightmare could use Rupture twice on a Dream Pallet.
Fixed an issue where The Nightmare could place a Dream Pallet and a Survivor could place a Fragile Pallet using Apocalyptic Ingenuity in the same spot.
Fixed an issue where The Ghoul’s Rize Kamishiro outfit would jitter during her idle animation in the lobby.
Fixed an issue where Mikaela’s arms to appear distorted in certain outfits.
Fixed an issue where The Animatronic’s model appeared distorted for the spectator when changing camera views while the Killer exited a Security Door.
Fixed an issue where Survivors were revealed to The Executioner after hitting a Survivor with Punishment of the Damned while using the Burning Man Painting add-on.
Fixed an issue where the Exhausted status effect would recover while running when affected by the Mannequin Foot add-on.
Fixed an issue where the game crashed when The Twins opened a locker that Victor was holding shut with a Survivor inside.
Fixed an issue where The Pig did not lose bloodlust when performing an Ambush attack.
Environment/Maps
Fixed an issue where The Knight would encounter invisible collisions on certain vaults while drawing a path for summoned Guards.
Fixed an issue in the Fallen Refuge map where the prison tower door could be triggered when moving behind it.
Fixed an issue in the Fallen Refuge map where Victor would not trigger the prison tower door.
Fixed an issue in the Ormond Lake Mine map where Victor would not trigger the elevator drop.
Fixed an issue in the Red Forest Realm where The Knight’s Guards could not traverse the shack’s window.
Fixed an issue in the Withered Isle Realm where The Singularity could attach biopods above map fences.
Fixed an issue in the Midwich Elementary School map where Survivors could land on top of an invisible collision.
Fixed an issue in The Game map where Killer projectiles would go through walls in the control room.
Fixed an issue in the Ormond Lake Mine map where players could climb on top of a rock which should be inaccessible.
Fixed an issue where Snug could become stuck on a snow mound in Ormond Lake Mine map
Perks
Fixed an issue where combining the Thrilling Tremors and Grim Embrace perks would cause the 4th token effect on Grim Embrace to not trigger.
Fixed an issue where Overwhelming Presence would not affect Key, Map, and Fog Vial items.
Fixed an issue where Hex: Two Can Play was unaffected by stun caused by Last Stand.
Fixed an issue where The Wraith remained invisible when stunned by Last Stand.
Fixed an issue where cleansing a Totem while Broken would activate Inner Strength once the Broken effect ended.
Fixed an issue where Survivors were unable to build a Fragile Pallet on pallet locations previously destroyed by vault actions affected by certain add-on and perk effects.
Fixed an issue where dying Survivors would make grunts of pain while affected by Come and Get Me!.
Fixed an issue where a Survivor using Conviction could remain in the “trapped” animation if they were in a Bear Trap.
Fixed an issue where a Survivor using Conviction could become stuck in a locker.
Fixed an issue where Blast Mine’s blind VFX were missing if damaging a generator while the Killer was already blinded.
Platforms
Fixed an issue on the Microsoft Store that sometimes caused the game to remain silently open after closing it.
Quests
Fixed an issue where progression for the “I Want It, I Got It” challenge was not saved after a Trial was completed.
UI
Fixed an issue where the followed quest tooltip would show partial progress for quests that needed to be completed in a single Trial.
Fixed an issue where audio would be missing from the Match Management screen.
Fixed an issue where the in-game quest tracker progress animation would begin at the incorrect value.
Fixed an issue where the mouse cursor would revert to the console cursor on consoles.
Fixed an issue where the anti-camp meter would disappear after a Survivor was hooked.
Fixed an issue where the Rift Pass tooltip would show an incorrect subtitle.
Miscellaneous
Fixed an issue where the beam of light duration was unchanged when using the Crimson Stamp add-on on the Bloodsense Map.
Fixed an issue where a Fog Vial’s fog cloud would disappear if another Fog Vial was activated.
Fixed an issue where the Fog Vial’s smoke explosion sound effects were missing.
Fixed an issue where Survivors held the fog vial differently depending on which item was previously held.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Dead by Daylight players were left to fend for themselves after a recent update introduced several game-breaking exploits, so, naturally, they turned to Blizzard Entertainment and the Overwatch team for help.
Behaviour Interactive, the studio behind the long-running asymmetrical horror game, found itself in fight or flight mode after issuing its July update last week. Two Survivors from The Walking Dead — Michonne and Rick Grimes — were the headliners, but the latest patch came with more than just bloody new content for players to feast on.
I’ve been in the dbd sphere for 9 years and I’ve never seen everyone this upset, even at dbds lowest points there was still a lot of great things to look forward to. I’m not gonna lie it blew my mind with how many people were upset, I’ve never seen this before.
Of Dead by Daylight’s many playable Killers, it’s The Clown who waltzed into patch 9.1.0 with the most changes. Specifically, any Survivors who encounter the bottle-throwing menace will notice that he is now much, much faster, with certain builds and strategies only increasing his speed further. Killers are usually always a bit faster than their prey, but the new update turns The Clown into a unique force of nature that makes him nearly unescapable.
As The Clown Killers flooded Dead by Daylight Trials, so too did several troublesome Survivor Perks. Builds using Streetwise, Blood Rush, and Last Stand were quickly becoming popular amongst die-hard fans who had discovered new exploits, including the ability to gain infinite item charges and occasional sprint boosts. These are bugs that can and have fundamentally shifted gameplay balance in Dead by Daylight as players take advantage of what many deem to be broken aspects of the experience.
These issues and more plagued the Dead by Daylight community for around one week, and with few promising updates from Behaviour arriving throughout that time, fans became desperate. There was only so much the memes of The Clown plastered onto Cars’ Lightning McQueen could do to ward off the negative feelings brought by game-breaking bugs, so players eventually took their concerns from Behaviour support threads to somewhere else entirely.
For some strange reason, they turned to Overwatch for help.
As Blizzard took to its official Overwatch 2 social media pages to push new Stadium builds for Mercy and celebrate its new collaboration with NERF, Dead by Daylight fans began asking for assistance with zero warning or context.
Many of these posts have hundreds — if not thousands — of likes, with most replies asking for fixes for the biggest issues causing players trouble. Some messages are also asking for reworks for the Onyro Killer, while others are simply pleading for any amount of support at all. You’re more likely to spot The Clown fan art than any reply actually related to Overwatch depending on the post you click on, proving that Dead by Daylight fans have truly had enough.
It’s not at all clear why Dead by Daylight players, among the hundreds of major game developers out there, latched onto the Overwatch team at Blizzard. The two games are multiplayer experiences and that’s… about it, as neither truly shares that much in common outside of an ability to control characters in an online setting. It’s pure chaos that was mostly contained in Overwatch threads, though you might find a few stray posts from players bugging official Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Fatal Fury, and more accounts, too, if you look hard enough.
On the Hook
Whether it was the crossover no one expected or just general fan outcry, Behaviour heard the pleas for help and finally offered a detailed game plan for the future. With its own post on X, the Dead by Daylight team temporarily and immediately Kill Switched the Streetwise, Blood Rush, and Last Stand Perks, removing them from play as the studio worked on fixes. A hotfix, titled the 9.1.1 update, is currently set to follow today and is said to come with fixes for Streetwise and Last Stand, specifically, as well as “small adjustments” to Fog Vials.
This is great and all but why does it always take so much community outcry for the team to actually realize something is bad? https://t.co/TDxL8icL6F
Blood Rush fixes are scheduled to arrive next week, as are more tweaks to Fog Vials. These are necessary fixes but only a small step to address the community’s wider issue with Behaviour’s communication strategy. As a result, the team says it already “rebuilding” its Kill Switch process “to be more nimble and better account for community sentiment.”
In other words, don’t expect game-breaking Dead by Daylight bugs to tamper with the overall experience for weeklong periods in the future. Fans are happy to see their feedback finally addressed, but only time will tell if it’s enough to repair the damage done.
“We’re grateful for your feedback, which helps us identify places where we can improve and re-evaluate our processes, changing course when it’s needed to improve the Dead by Daylight experience for all,” Behaviour’s message concludes. “As a live game, we know this conversation is ongoing, and we appreciate you for being a part of it with us!”
I’m happy these changes are coming, but DBD has ignored the health of their game for a VERY long time. It’s unacceptable.
I’ve never played a game that’s been around for nearly 10 years with as many bugs, especially game breaking ones. I’m really disappointed. https://t.co/NI2fQdqrLc
Dead by Daylight recently celebrated its nine-year anniversary with special in-game events and rewards. It was preceded by the long-awaited introduction of Five Nights at Freddy’s content, including the new Springtrap Killer and a pizza restaurant map. With The Walking Dead now fully integrated into the 1v4 experience, players are looking forward to a new Killer in September as well as another new Killer and two new Survivors in November.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
In 2023, a video game called Dredge hit a collective nerve with its story of trawling the seas for an increasingly horrible and disturbing catch of fish. One of the people it inspired was horror fan and board game designer Judson Cowan, and he set about riffing on its inspiration to deliver a cardboard equivalent, a marriage of theme and delivery as yet untapped on tabletop.
The result is Deep Regrets, and we’ve climbed aboard and sailed it out so we can check whether all’s shipshape and Bristol fashion. We also wanted to see how it compares to the top horror board games on the market.
What’s in the Box
Deep Regrets comes in a small box but it’s heavy with contents. Lifting the lid reveals a number of small player boards. There’s a main one to track the fish swimming in the three different depth levels available to dredge, a port board for when you sail back to dry land to sell your catch and equip your boat, the ocean madness board that tracks each player’s state of mind, and a number of double-sided player boards for tracking the status of your game. The sides are functionally identical, it’s just that one side has a sinister-looking old sea dog and the other side has… an even more sinister-looking old sea dog. That tells you a lot about what kind of game this is going to be.
Much of the weight comes from various decks of cards. There are three decks of fish, one for each depth, plus a deck of “dinks,” tiny fish you can gain if your main catch gets away. There are also decks of rods, reels and “supply” that you can buy at port. The biggest deck of all is the deck of regrets which you pick up for undertaking regrettable actions at sea. There’s also a cloth bag of custom dice shaped like fishing floats, various chunky wooden tokens and a metal “fish coin” used to flip and resolve some card effects. Finally there’s a paper pad for tracking your catches in the solo variant.
The biggest deck of all is the deck of regrets which you pick up for undertaking regrettable actions at sea.
It’s hard to overstate just how evocative the visual design of the game is. Everything is decorated with art by the game’s designer, even the inside of the box lid. He’s a talented artist, creating detailed, imaginative visuals that strike a pitch-perfect stylistic balance between fun and creepy. Once you start flipping the fish cards, the chance to see new ones, or re-examining familiar ones for details that you missed becomes a major draw to replay the game alongside the fun of dice-rolling and decision-making.
Rules and How it Plays
The game is normally played over six days from Monday to Saturday. Each day starts out with you rolling your clutch of dice and placing them in your fresh pool: you start with three but can gain more, which have higher numbers than your starting dice. You then make one of the game’s key decisions, whether you’ll spend the day at sea or head to port. Everyone starts at sea, so we’ll go through the possible actions as you plough the waves.
Most of your turns at sea involve trying to catch fish. Each depth has three card piles, called shoals, and the card backs indicate whether the card represents a small, medium, or large fish, with bigger fish generally taking larger dice values to catch. You pick which shoal you want to fish in and flip the top card. Some fish have effects when revealed, such as the whiptail stingray, which allows you to reroll one die. All fish have a value in “fishbucks” in one corner and a difficulty value in the other. To catch a fish, you’ve got to spend dice equal to the difficulty.
This makes flipping fish a calculated gamble, as it’s possible you won’t have enough dice to reel in whatever horror you’ve hooked. If you can’t, you get to take a dink card as a consolation prize, which generally gives you a small bonus like the shrimp, which reduces the difficulty of a fish by one. In addition, not all fish are created equal. Some have values that are significantly different from their difficulty, while others can have both good or bad effects on you or other players when caught. They also come in two flavors: fair, which are normal, real-world fish, and foul, which are body parts, repulsive mutants, occult creations and worse.
They come in two flavors: fair, which are normal, real-world fish, and foul, which are body parts, repulsive mutants, occult creations and worse.
However you fare in the fish lottery, the process is almost always enormously fun. For starters, there’s the big reveal, not only with the anticipation of matching the difficulty against your dice but of seeing what kind of freakish thing you’re up against and enjoying the art. There may be a reveal effect to resolve, many of which affect all players or otherwise mix up the expected catching process. Then, you may have an awkward decision about whether you want to spend multiple dice on it, whether you even want it at all, or whether it’s better to sacrifice a die and take the relative safety of a dink draw instead.
Spending days at port allows you to sell fish for their value and buy equipment. Rods, reels and supply cards all help your fishing efforts in various ways, and you can also buy additional one-use dice to roll, meaning you can land more and more difficult fish. But be careful with what you sell, because the value of your unsold fish is your score at the end of the game. You can also mount fish into one of three slots while in port, which multiplies their value by two or, in the top “prize catch” slot, three. Choosing which days to spend in port rather than at sea is a key strategic decision in which you’re torn between wanting better fish to sell or mount, and wanting to spend as much time on the waves for a bigger catch.
Landing foul fish generally leads to you drawing regret cards. Each of these has a numeric value between zero and three as well as a narrative tagline which varies from bleakly funny – “got a bad tattoo” – to seriously sinister – “partook of human flesh.” Depending on the number of regret cards you’ve accumulated, you may go increasingly mad, slowly reducing the value of fair fish, boosting that of foul fish and raising the maximum number of dice you’re allowed to use in a day’s fishing.
But there’s a major catch. While the number of cards you have is public knowledge, the values on them are not, and the player with the highest total value at the end of the game must discard one of those precious mounted specimens and the multiplier that goes with it.
Dice aren’t just spent on catching fish but can also be discarded to allow you to fish in deeper waters, which have more difficult targets and a higher proportion of foul fish. This allows you to manipulate an overall strategic curve. You can save dice, stay in safe waters, maximizing the value of your fair fish and resting safe in the knowledge you won’t be the one discarding when the game ends. Or you can dredge the depths, catching more and more appalling abominations, revelling in the horror and crossing your fingers that you’ll have fewer bleak regrets than your fellow fishermen when the game ends. Or try to chart a course between the two extremes, adjusting carefully depending on other player’s decisions.
On a tactical level, the game gathers momentum towards the finale. Initial fishing trips are fairly bland but as you begin to gain dinks, equipment, and a collection of fish, some of which can be eaten for an immediate ability, you can start to look for combo effects between the different cards. This snowballs as you get more and more of each, meaning you can pull off some pretty spectacular fishing turns late in the game, once you’ve learned to spot them. But each of these is laden with various risk vs reward decisions, most obviously that eating a fish means you no longer benefit from its value. In particular, once the regret deck runs out, additional regrets must be taken from other players, making for some very swingy turns.
While there are definite strategic and tactical choices of this kind in the game, it’d be overselling things to make too much of them. Fundamentally, this is a push-your-luck game where you’re eternally hoping for the highest dice rolls, the best fish card reveals, and for the fish-coin flips to always go your way. Experience and planning help, but anyone around the table can win, with that hidden regret value being particularly punishing. This cuts both ways, as it can make the game feel over-long at high player counts, and hardcore strategy hounds may find the game too lightweight to satisfy, but newer players will enjoy rolling with the punches in the knowledge that they’re in with a chance to win right up until the bitter end.
Pull on your gloves and ready your hose: PowerWash Simulator 2 approaches, and so far it’s looking ultra-polished (in a gloriously unhygienic kind of way.) I had an absolute ball of a time revisiting Muckingham to correct the townsfolk’s filthy ways.
In the niche of “oddly satisfying” games, its predecessor PowerWash Simulator (and its oodles of DLC) already blasts away competitors. So what does the sequel offer, besides just “more dirty stuff”? To find out, I went hands-on with a single-player PC build of PowerWash Simulator 2, checking out five levels showcasing hot new technology like abseiling and floor washers.
PowerWash Simulator 2 starts off with the expansion of your business to a fully fledged office building. Your first job is to clean up the mud-caked removals van that transported your furniture and gear over. Couldn’t you have found a neater moving company to work with? It seems that the residents of Caldera County are still unable to clean up after themselves, which is great – more work for you!
And it’s entertaining work, too. None of your jobs are quite ordinary. For instance, you’re not going to clean any old generic car – yours will have a dog tail and headlights that weirdly seem to flit around like eyes. Don’t forget to wash inside the ears!
You’ll be travelling farther afield this time, to hilariously named neighboring towns like Lubri City and Pumpton. And this time, the true hero of PowerWash 1, Ulysses the cat, tags along to supervise you. You’ll be glad to know that yes, you can pet the cat.
Gearing up
PowerWash 2 stays very true to its predecessor, with gameplay actually remaining mostly untouched. That’s not a bad thing – you can’t fix what isn’t broken, y’know? It means that, if you’re a PowerWash veteran, you’ll jump right in and feel like you’re simply picking up where you left off. And don’t fret if you’re new: PowerWash 2 is first-timer friendly as well, with simple controls and “no talk, skip to the action” gameplay that barely warrants a tutorial.
Progression mechanics have stayed pretty much identical to PowerWash 1 – you’ve got a checklist of specific details to clean, a key to highlight stubborn remaining dirt, and equipment upgrades to buy in the shop with your earnings. And, of course, the “ding!” that lets you know you’re doing a bang-up job.
One major addition is a brand-new, delightful, and very satisfying washing tool: the “SwirlForce,” a washer which has a wide, circular head.
One major addition is a brand-new, delightful, and very satisfying washing tool: the “SwirlForce,” a washer which has a wide, circular head. I think it’s supposed to be used for cleaning floors, but I used it on basically every flat surface I came across, from ornamental windows to trucks. It was too fun not to!
The other notable addition to your loadout? Suds. The soap mechanic has been retooled a bit – it’s now specific to certain types of washer tools. It coats a surface with a thick layer of foam that can then be hosed off in one gratifying burst. I’m curious to learn just how much this precious commodity will cost, because I hope to use it as much as possible.
To Muckingham, and beyond
Some levels now have multiple stages, which adds a bit of fun. For instance, I was tasked with cleaning a vaguely described “public facility,” which at first appeared to be a sort of knee-high pedestal in the middle of Detergento’s eerily quiet town square. Once I had it sparkling, it began to rise out of the ground – it was actually a pop-up bathroom! Yes, it was absolutely filthy. And yes, I was pleasantly surprised to have even more scum to clean.
My favorite job was the billboard level – a great opportunity for my SwirlForce washer, but also a great example of the new abseiling equipment. Just slap that equipment on a tall, wide surface, and you’re ready to get in the swing and bounce all over the billboard to make sure every corner is gleaming. Looking down at the highway from my billboard actually felt dizzying, in an unexpectedly thrilling sort of way. If PowerWash Simulator 2 also makes it to VR, I think that’s where abseiling will really shine.
The other new piece of heavy equipment is the scissor lift. Its purpose is similar to the scaffolding you’ve already got in your lineup – the difference is that it’s adjustable. Press the button to go up. And down. Up. And down. It doesn’t meaningfully add much to the whole cleaning experience, but it’s a fun toy.
Making it sparkle
With all sequels come visual upgrades, and PowerWash Simulator 2 is no different in that department. Mud looks slimier, and grime looks even more convincingly like it’s harboring bacteria.
Additionally, your jobs simply feel bigger now thanks to more detailed level backgrounds. The art deco house I scrubbed felt like a real part of the suburban neighborhood around it, complete with lush trees and even distant, snow-capped mountains.
One of my most anticipated graphical upgrades was water behavior, so I’m sad to say that PowerWash 2 does not introduce any new water physics. I was hoping to see rivers of mucky brown water streaming down walls and puddling at my feet, resulting in another mess I’d have to deal with. Dirt still pretty much disappears once you hit it with your washer, though, making it look more like you’ve taken a giant eraser to the town rather than hosed it down with an ocean’s worth of water.
There is one minor upgrade, at least: a new, momentary rippling water texture on windows and other glassy surfaces. It’s a small step towards the dream of water physics. Maybe for PowerWash Simulator 3?
The minimal change to water is understandable (adding new, from-the-ground-up physics is hard for developers!). But remember, there’s still a lot of satisfaction to be had in a classic, eraser-style deep-clean. Plus: we’ll always have gnome physics.
An epic tale of cleanliness
One of the best things about PowerWash 1, in my opinion, was the absolutely bonkers single-player campaign. It’s one thing to spray stuff with water, but another entirely to slowly uncover deep lore beneath the dirt. Given that the first game featured everything from the mayor’s cat to egg-flinging monks and even time travellers, I needed to know if the madness would continue.
It’s hard to say for sure; with two hours of hands-on time, there was only so much story that I could experience beyond “power-washing business opens a new branch, cleans a couple of things.” But the clues were there.
I scrutinized what lay beneath the grime I scoured away. What are those weird rainbow lasers in the sky? Why does the art deco house have a giant trilobite on it? In the oddball universe of PowerWash Simulator, such details usually have a deeper, quirkier meaning, and I can’t wait to find out what it is.
Fresh light has been shone on an interview that claims Nintendo once suggested Pokémon’s beloved mascot Pikachu should have breasts.
The interview, with The Pokémon Company’s veteran CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara, dates back around 25 years, and is in Japanese — something that has prompted debate over the exact translation of what Ishihara originally said.
Now, however, Japanese site Game*Spark (via Automaton) has examined the original interview in detail to uncover as firm an interpretation as possible — and yes, it really does seem to be what it sounds like.
Firstly, let’s examine what Ishihara says, before further discussing the specific issue over the word “breasts.” For context, Ishihara is discussing an early conversation he had with Nintendo of America employees regarding the localisation of the Pokémon franchise — before it launched in the West and became the global phenomenon it is today.
“When I first showed Pokémon to them, they told me it was too cute,” Ishihara recalled. “The staff at Nintendo of America then suggested their own designs for the characters – I won’t show those illustrations to anyone as long as I live, but they kind of looked like the characters from the Cats musical.
“So, for example, Pikachu was changed into a character shaped like a kind of a tabby cat with huge breasts.”
As Automaton notes, there is some debate here about the exact Japanese word used to describe “breasts,” which could also mean pronounced masculine pecs. However, there’s added context in what is said next.
When Ishihara is asked whether he means breasts “like those girls who do Pikachu cosplays at anime conventions,” the CEO replies in the affirmative.
“Yes, exactly,” Ishihara states, “they presented that kind of design to us for real. I thought it was interesting, in a sense of appreciating such cultural differences. However, I didn’t want to compete in the [overseas] market with that kind of thing.”
One final wrinkle in the matter is a subsequent anecdote from the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who in 2008 recalled early localisation conversations that featured a westernised Pikachu concept with big muscles, in an attempt to make the mascot “stronger and scarier.”
But, as Game*Spark notes, this could simply refer to an additional concept also being discussed in the same meetings, as Nintendo suggested a range of alterations. And, if anything, it’s yet more proof that Nintendo once had some eye-opening ideas to change the design of some Pokémon for the franchise’s rollout outside of Japan.
Judging by the popularity of Pokémon today, and the failure of Cats’ movie adaptation, that’s probably for the best.
Image credit: Universal.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
