Category: IGN

The thunder of bolters repelling an Ork incursion and the distinctive red and white ceramite armor of the Blood Ravens bring me right back to the moment the trailer for the original Dawn of War made me an instant Warhammer 40K fan more than 20 years ago. And it’s that first game in the series that serves as the jumping off point for the upcoming Dawn of War 4. A lot has changed, but a lot remains the same, bringing bigger battles and snazzier graphics to a classic take-and-hold RTS that is equal parts spectacle and tactics. I played through the 1-2 hour demo a few times and it felt like Dark Crusade never left.

The last we heard of this franchise was in 2018 when Relic ended support for the divisive Dawn of War 3, and this next chapter is deploying under different masters. King Art Games, the developer of the alt-history dieselpunk RTS Iron Harvest, has taken up the banner, and I can definitely see a throughline between the big, stompy robots in that game and the classic dreadnoughts and titans in this one. King Art has also elevated the cinematic carnage by adding a synced animation melee system that can simulate a scrape between any two of its many dozens of units.

Like the recent editions of the tabletop game on which it’s based, Dawn of War 4 has jumped 200 years deeper into the 41st Millennium, after the Eye of Terror opened and split the Imperium of Man apart. The Blood Ravens are a scattered and beleaguered chapter trying to put themselves back together, serving as one of the four… and a half playable factions. Their roster reflects the newest Space Marines codex, with Primaris Intercessors and Bladeguard Veterans leading the charge. Older, tracked mainstays like the Rhino and Predator have been swapped for the higher-tech repulsor vehicles. But some classic favorites like the Dreadnought and Terminators have stuck around.

Space Marines focus on small, elite squads that are expensive to build and reinforce, but outshine most of their opponents pound-for-pound. Their buildings are large and expensive, with defensive structures being fully automated rather than manned. In fact, they barely pay attention to cover at all, which was an adjustment from having replayed Dawn of War 2 fairly recently. They do have a lot of tactical flexibility though, with most infantry squads being trained into a pool of strategic reserves that can be deployed by drop pod to anywhere you have vision. The drop pods are even armed, and will stay on the map as a light defensive turret until destroyed.

ENEMIES OF THE IMPERIUM

The other ubiquitous Dawn of War race from that very first trailer, the Orks, are the second faction, and the primary enemies in the demo I played. They have much more of a horde style of combat, though with a few units like the Meganobz in their petroleum-fueled power armor that can go toe-to-toe with a space marine. Their buildings are cheap, and all of them have some kind of little guy with a machine gun on them, so vomiting production structures across the map is also how you create defensive positions. The animations are especially thematic and entertaining, as it really looks like a giant heap of scrap that was chucked unceremoniously through the atmosphere.

The Orks also, of course, get a WAAAGH! mechanic that lets them earn powerful deployable stratagems for causing all sorts of havoc.

Just as I was coming to grips with the Orks, though, one of my control points was taken by surprise by the other hostile race, the terminator-like Necrons. Hinted at in the epilogue of Dawn of War 3 but never fully materializing, they make a dramatic return with the monolith super unit that can warp in new squads to its location. For balance reasons, Necrons can’t simply get right back up when killed like they can in the tabletop game. But they do get a special building called the Resurrection Chamber that can respawn a certain number of destroyed squads for free.

They play the most differently from the other factions in that they aren’t especially concerned with the requisition and power capture points dotted around the map. Rather, their economy relies on spreading their matrix – like an eerie, cybernetic form of zerg creep from Starcraft – that grants bonuses to their units when fighting on it and provides them with resources the more of the map is covered in it.

STALWART ALLIES

Having barely fought off the Necron incursion and getting pushed back hard by the Orks due to my divided attention, who would arrive at the crucial moment to join the Blood Ravens in turning the tide of battle? Would you believe it’s a faction completely new to the Dawn of War series? The final of the four fully-playable multiplayer factions is the Adeptus Mechanicus, with their swarms of cyborg servitors and impressive, well-kept war machines.

The AdMech have a unique ability to see enemy contacts as blobs of color relative to their size and power on the minimap, even in the fog of war, so it’s almost impossible to surprise them. Their buildings are also networked, providing them with powerful boosts to production for being in range of a network node, which can make them vulnerable to surgical strikes severing the connection. Their super unit is the titanic Imperial Knight, which really shows off Dawn of War 4’s scale next to the puny units it’s stomping over.

I did say four and a half factions, though. The Imperial Guard were present on the mission I played as AI-controlled allies, although with a limited roster of units. They will also be playable in the tutorial mission of the campaign, but not in multiplayer. Not yet, at least.

The other four factions will each have their own campaigns with branching story paths, taking us back to the planet Kronus from the Dawn of War: Dark Crusade expansion. The story features more than 40 minutes of CGI cutscenes across all factions, and was written by prolific Black Library author John French, author of the recent Ahriman novels among others.

Dawn of War 4 will also bring back the popular Last Stand mode from Dawn of War 2, though in a way that was described to me as less hero-centric and “less MOBA-like,” focusing more on the classic RTS mechanics like Dawn of War 1. Co-op is also on the slate, and there was a conspicuously greyed-out “Painter” option on the main menu. The devs weren’t ready to talk about this one yet, but told me their goal was to include everything the previous Dawn of War games had in terms of customization and then add a bit more.

I certainly wasn’t expecting a new Dawn of War any time soon, much less from a studio other than Relic. But from the bit of it I’ve played, it seems like King Art Games understands the assignment. As a Dawn of War 2 fan, I miss the emphasis on cover and move-and-fire tactics. But Dawn of War 4 has nevertheless made a big first impression. I can hardly wait to get dug in next year.

Developer Positive Concept Games and game management platform indie.io announced at gamescom Wednesday that 16-bit action RPG Shrine’s Legacy will release October 7 on Steam.

If you’re not already familiar with Shrine’s Legacy, it’s inspired by classic RPGs of the SNES era and blends that retro look with more modern real-time combat and puzzle solving. The story takes place in a land called Ardemia, a magical world threatened by a returning evil. It can only be saved by uniting the Sword of the Shrine and the eight elements of magic scattered across the world.

You play as two young heroes, Rio and Reima. Rio is heir to the Sword and a descendant of the last hero to banish the ancient evil, while Reima is a mage who’s been desperately seeking the Sword. The two are brought together by the rise of this evil and will go on a journey to find the eight elements before it’s too late.

That journey will take you across an expansive world full of dungeons to explore, puzzles to solve, and secrets to discover. Investigate its nooks and crannies to find crafting materials and magical jewels, and face down treasure-guarding bosses to earn stat-increasing items and learn powerful spells.

This is a character-focused tale, one that will force its two heroes to deal with pain, tragedy, and loss. Vanquishing an ancient evil isn’t possible without sacrifice, and we won’t go into spoilers here, but you’ll find out just how much Rio and Reima are willing to lose to successfully complete their quest.

You can play all of Shrine’s Legacy either solo or in two-player co-op. As you could probably guess from their descriptions, Rio is a melee fighter and Reima is a ranged magic user. If you play solo, you can swap between them at any time, with AI controlling whichever character you’re not actively playing. For co-op, you can go the old-fashioned way and play with a friend on the couch or pair up online via Steam Remote Play Together or Parsec. Either way, there’s full controller support and customizable keyboard controls.

If you want to try Shrine’s Legacy for yourself, there’s a free demo available on Steam now. It contains about two hours of the game’s story, including two dungeons, two towns, and multiple bosses. Just like the full game, the demo can also be played solo or in co-op. If you want to stay up to date with the latest news and previews, you can also follow the game and developer on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The only game IGN has awarded a 10 in 2025 has been discounted only a few weeks after it launched on Nintendo Switch 2. Donkey Kong Bananza is down to $62.99 at Amazon right now, $7 off its original list price, and a 10% saving for those counting.

I finally played Hollow Knight: Silksong. No, I don’t mean to brag, but instead find myself having to type it out just to convince my eyes that it actually happened. Yes, it may have only been for around 20 minutes, but the long-awaited sequel shows little sign of disappointing.

During my demo at gamescom 2025, I was faced with a choice of two areas to play in: Moss Grotto or Deep Docks. Of course, I was going to try both, but first went for Moss Grotto — based on nothing apart from green being my favourite colour — which turned out to be the right decision. This sunlit grassy zone appears to be the very beginning of Silksong, as I fell into it following a brief cutscene in which a caged Hornet (the playable princess-protector protagonist) breaks free from the metal wagon she’s held captive in by collapsing the bridge it’s being paraded on. Developer Team Cherry seems keen on immersing us straight back into the world of Hollow Knight right from the very beginning, teasing lore via a passage of Conductor Romino’s Pharloom Folly.

As for Moss Grotto itself, it felt very much like a (re)introduction to the core mechanics of Hollow Knight. A mixture of rudimentary platforming and simple battles was littered across its grassy floors in a short but sweet section of Silksong’s presumably sprawling labyrinth of a world. It all ended with a boss fight against a large queen-bee-like insect that attempted to lock me in her lair. Moss Mother gave me little boss bother, though, dispatching them by unlocking that long-dormant Hollow Knight muscle memory as I leapt over darting diagonal attacks and evaded crumbling rocks falling from the sky. It was action platforming 101, but still felt incredibly satisfying.

I then swiftly moved onto Deep Docks, which turned out to be an entirely different proposition. Tools such as kunai, which can be thrown horizontally to pierce foes, were added to my arsenal, along with skills such as a familiar dash ability. Things naturally get more complex with more items to juggle, t, which is reflected in Deep Docks’ level design that comprises a maze of clanking metal elevators and the numerous semi-hidden levers that operate them. I may have only spent a handful of minutes there, but I could already see myself getting hopelessly lost without the aid of one of Cornifer’s ever-valuable maps.

Upon unlocking a boss arena, I was confronted by an enemy of far greater threat than any I had encountered yet. Lace, a balletic white insect, not too dissimilar in look to Hornet herself, dazzled me with intricate combos delivered at a speed my poor brain could not compute quickly enough. Defeated, I moved on, knowing this would be a battle for another day and not one I particularly wanted the dozens of people waiting in the queue behind to witness me losing again and again.

While it’s too early to gauge the overall difficulty of Silksong, the jump up in this later area was noticeable, with enemies capable of far more than simple prods and darts. I usually welcome added complexity and evolution of combat when it comes to sequels, so I have no great issue here. I just hope that in totality, fights won’t become too tiresome with exploration and progress being halted too often. Discovering the secrets of Hollow Knight’s world was maybe the purest of its joys to me; I wouldn’t want Silksong to feel like running into a brick wall too often.

There are concessions to make you feel more powerful compared to the original, though. Health regain is now divorced from skills, meaning you can throw those kunai liberally without having to sacrifice a potential life-saving heal. Attack is still the best form of defense, echoing some of my favourite systems from the likes of Control, Doom Eternal, and, of course, the original Hollow Knight. This is emphasised by the fact that you can only trigger health regen when your silk-white bar is full, encouraging even more offensive maneuvers to build that up quickly. Dodging will only get you so far in Hollow Knight Silksong.

All of these tweaks and changes tie together to create a more aggressive minibeast, and, although I certainly have a soft spot for the original Hollow Knight, I’m finding myself instantly drawn to Silksong more. 2018’s game often placed you on the back foot, but here I felt instantly more empowered and ready to go toe-to-toe with my aggressors. As someone who traditionally enjoys the push of faster-paced action games as opposed to the pull of more modern examples of the genre (I’m really trying my hardest not to use the term soulslike here), I’m left encouraged. Creature design is still one of the highlights in the sequel, with the borderline adorable adversaries almost being too cute to stab. At one stage, I got locked in a room with some flying nuisances with pots over their heads who lobbed molten rocks at me, as well as a pudgy little round lad with a saucepan for a shield. I almost felt bad killing them.

But in truth, combat was never the highlight of Hollow Knight for me anyway, but rather the layers of exploration and discovery lurking beneath each of its beautifully crafted environments. And while I’ve barely scratched the surface of what secrets Silksong has stored in this regard, initial impressions promise a similar bounty of nooks and crannies packed full of insect friends and foes. Platforming through these mazes is still a joy; a delicately delightful balance between precision and floaty jumping that tests your skills, that crucially never feels unfair when dropping into a gap unwillingly. The addition of mantling in the sequel helps this massively, with edges freely within grasp even when slight misjudgments are made.

I was instantly taken by how much more colourful the environments are this time around. Cinders dance around caves dripping with lava and glowing green moss dresses earthy overhangs, themselves floating precariously above pools of glistening water. Hornet’s red cape billows against the painted backdrops, both acting in harmony to form the sort of Saturday morning cartoon look you’d expect if one were to hang in the Louvre. Hornet also feels bigger on the screen, dominating the frame to a greater degree than her meeker-yet-still-mighty forebearer. That visual design feels like a deliberate choice, one aimed at creating more of a power trip sensation this time around. It’s these ideas — from revamped combat design to its repainted world – that appear to be acting in concert to a magical degree, and impressive proof, even in this small dose, of what Team Cherry has been brewing.

Yes, we’ve been waiting many, many years for this sequel, but everything at this stage points to it being worth it. Each aspect feels authored and prescribed to a clear vision — a piece of playable art that is as fun to wield as it is to watch (I should know, the gamescom queue was very long). It may have been the shortest of demos, but so far, Silksong is very much singing to me, maybe even more than the original.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

Since 2017’s Resident Evil 7, a regular staple of Capcom’s horror series has been the inclusion of an enemy that stalks you. Jack Baker burst through a wall and into our hearts, the world fell in love with Mr. X, and Lady Dimitrescu provoked *cough* her own kind of online adoration. Resident Evil Requiem appears to be keeping up this tradition with its own take on the hulking, relentless pursuer. And so far, from my small 20-minute sample at gamescom 2025, it feels like Capcom has created a new, lumbering foe that more than lives up to the mantle of a Resident Evil stalker.

The short demo takes place at the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center and stars our latest protagonist, Grace Ashcroft, who creeps through the dimly lit and suitably spooky setting armed only with a lighter and glass bottles. While I expect combat will be part of the full game, there are no firearms to be seen in this demo, so there’s an inherent emphasis on caution while creeping around the clinic’s handful of rooms and a single long connecting hallway. If you think that sounds like an incredibly small location to explore, then you’d be right. My sample of Requiem lacked any real kind of exploration and was largely a task of collecting item A to open item B, which allows you to get item C and so forth. All sounds simple enough, right? Well, in classic survival horror fashion, your uneasy confidence is quickly jump-scared out of existence upon the arrival of the as-yet-unamed stalker enemy.

After Grace discovers a lifeless zombie (or “infected,” in her words), a hulking claw lurches into frame to manhandle the corpse. The camera lifts just as the creature plunges its teeth into the zombie’s skull, both demonstrating the beast’s sheer mass and how it has little consideration for the series’ iconic fodder. This new stalker is Lady D tall, with the frame of Resident Evil’s Lisa Trevor, and the vice-like jaw of a Wendigo. She has bulbous eyes, claws for hands, and a hunched posture. Once unleashed, this stalker – like its recent relatives – is persistent, promptly reacting to the sounds, sights, and smells of Grace. And like her Xenomorph stalker cousin from Alien: Isolation, this monstrosity can and will travel above you through the ceiling space, dropping down as quickly as it can scarper up. Basically, she’s relentless and can easily out-manouvre you.

Fortunately, there are a few tools in Grace’s arsenal that can help you survive, the first being the aforementioned glass bottle. As you might expect, they are primarily used as a distraction tool, drawing the stalker’s attention to the other end of the hallway and buying you time to slip past. It can also, in theory, be used as a weapon, although I’m not sure I’d recommend it – as with most stalking enemies, you can’t damage or kill Grace’s pursuer.

Perhaps Grace’s most valuable weapon though, as you might have gathered by now, is sneaking. While crouching, you are afforded some moments of mercy, as you take advantage of whatever small pockets of space you can find, be that under tables or behind corners. It’s a useful skill, particularly in the Nurse’s Station room when drawing the attention of the beast is inevitable due to a scripted sequence. It does, however, only buy you a moment to slip by, and even when you reach a safer spot, flicking open your lighter to illuminate the darkness will draw the stalker’s attention back to you. Creep as much as you wish, but your pursuer is always hot on your heels, no matter how carefully you tread.

Interestingly, this new enemy type does have an Achilles heel, though: Light. Or, more specifically, the bright white light of a room’s ceiling lamp (the lighter’s tiny flame didn’t appear to make any difference). When chasing Grace into a well-lit room, the monster’s skin visibly burns, causing her to scream and retreat. Not only does this put some of the power back into your hands, but it’s also a nice interpretation of Resident Evil’s safe room rules. If you’ve ever seen Mr. X’s bizarre backpedalling when he’s confronted with a safe room, you’ll know this change is a welcome one, adding some well overdue logic to the classic gameplay trope that magically blocks the stalker from entering your safe haven.

While there was neither much space nor opportunity to explore, thanks to the small environment and constant presence of the terrifying stalker, what little exploring I did do felt – perhaps to no surprise – very familiar. Like Resident Evil 7, Village, and the series in general, you’re managing inventory slots, examining items, finding strange keys to unlock strange doors, and fitting fuses into circuit breakers. It’s all very traditional and fans of the series will feel completely at home. The first-person perspective of the more recent mainline games also remains, and at the suggestion of both the developers and myself, it’s the optimal way to play a horror sequence like this one. However, following in line with the upgrade Capcom provided Resident Evil Village, you can also play Resident Evil Requiem from the classic third-person perspective. Your choice of camera can be changed on the fly in the menu anytime you wish, allowing you to freely switch and create a different atmosphere. It’s an interesting choice for a non-remake Resident Evil game, and certainly doesn’t feel like an afterthought, even if it may cynically appear to be at first. In a way that perhaps only a triple-A budget game can, both viewpoints are extremely well-designed, with moments tailored for each experience to maximise the player’s fear.

In first-person, the stalker looms larger and feels significantly more imposing, the restricted field of vision allowing for scripted scares to have more impact. During the demo, you’re forced to make noise by moving a cart across the room to create a step to reach your next item of importance. With the more focused first-person viewpoint, mid-action, you’re treated to a giant, claw-shaped signifier of the beast’s impending arrival scraping past the window. It’s a panic inducing moment, and one that loses its power when your hyper-specific point of view is opened up by a wide, third-person camera.

It’s clear that Capcom is aware of this, though, and has made an effort to maintain scares despite your preference. In this short gameplay slice, that ethos was perfectly demonstrated. In first-person, just after the stalker’s introduction, you simply turn around to smoothly run down the hallway as fast as you can, leaving the stalker in your wake – it’s only the sounds of her shambling that follow you that remind you of the danger. In third-person, however, perspective-specific animations have Grace stumble and fall, ratcheting up the tension to make up for the reduced level of threat produced by the wider, vision-granting perspective.

It’s a lovely touch, and something I hope to see a ton more of in the full game – hopefully providing ample amounts of horror despite your perspective preference. My short playtime was such a small sample size of Resident Evil Requiem that it’s very hard at this early stage to know where the ninth entry in the mainline series will fit in comparison to its predecessors. And that’s assuming that the scenario in this demo will even feature in the full game at all – there’s the possibility of this being a bespoke demo, something Capcom has prior experience in with Resident Evil 7’s “Beginning Hour” demo. But even if this is just a tonal example, it’s very hard to not be excited for what horrors Resident Evil Requiem has in store for us when this unstoppable beast arrives early next year.

Dale Driver is an Associate Director of Video Programming at IGN. Be thoroughly bored by following him on Bluesky at @daledriver.bsky.social

As a general rule, any first-person game where you’re walking around derelict areas and pointing a camera at things is probably going to be super creepy, and upcoming asymmetrical shooter Project Spectrum certainly seems like it will reinforce this tried-and-true guideline. The brief eight-minute hands-off demo of this suspenseful shooter left me with as many questions as I got answers, with lots left unexplained about how exactly this weird idea will work, but it also showed signs of a fairly new take on the asymmetrical multiplayer genre that’s become one of my favorite pastimes in recent years. Taking a page out of fellow supernaturally inclined monster slaying game Hunt: Showdown 1896, you and your friends explore the map and take down dangerous creatures as you hunt the boss in each area for a final confrontation – in this case, using your camera to track the source of the reality-warping ghostly corruption that plagues the world. But instead of competing against rival crews, you’re being hunted yourself by player-controlled, bizarre looking monstrosities with frightening abilities, adding a bit of Evolve-like flavor to the mix.

From the few bits of story I was able to glean, Project Spectrum has you playing as special paranormal hunters entering areas affected by a supernatural entity called Ember Zones where you’ll track down the source of the corruption and kill them dead. Mixing horror elements, like zombies rushing at you and spooky investigation sequences where you’re looking over your shoulder while snapping a photo of some strange anomaly, with more traditional FPS gameplay where you’re shooting humans in a rundown mansion and crafting improvised trip mines to keep would-be interlopers at bay, will hopefully make for a nice pairing of action-packed combat and tense creepy sections that could be a match made in heaven, even if I didn’t get the impression that story was a major focus (though it’s hard to tell from such a short demo).

There was also a pretty clever crafting system where you could do things like scavenge a soda pop can from the ground and convert it into a silencer for your pistol with a bit of good ol’ survival game ingenuity. I still have a lot of questions about how crafting works, since at one point they crafted a trip mine using a grenade and wire that they got seemingly out of nowhere, but it was still a nice touch.

The most interesting part of the demo, though, came when a powerful multi-armed creature suddenly popped out of nowhere and started hunting the players, and it was revealed to be controlled by another human. As a freaky-looking ball of smoke with dangerously flailing limbs, this player hopped on top of the mansion the human players were exploring and hunted them down one-by-one, leaping from place to place when they were separated from one another to pick them off. I wasn’t able to get a sense of what the creature’s abilities might be, or what it might feel like to play as them, but seeing it crawl on top of buildings, stalking unaware players down below definitely sounds like my idea of a good time.

There are some pretty big things I’m still not entirely clear on, like what the meta progression looks like, for example. The developer didn’t say if Project Spectrum will have a traditional story-driven campaign, or will be limited to one-off matches on a preset map where you’re making progress in some other way. Since it’s a free-to-play game with a multiplayer focus that has a lot in common with Hunt: Showdown, my guess is it’ll be the latter, but with a lot of focus on worldbuilding, it’s a bit hard to say for sure.

And although there were some neat ideas, like the crafting system and the ability to play as a creepy monster hunting players, there’s a bit too many unanswered questions for me to get excited just yet. For example, the gunplay looked a bit basic, with generic pistols and assault rifles that seemed a tad boring in a game about hunting ghosts, and melee gameplay looked a bit sloppy as well. Also, there was one part where a character revived another player, and the animation for doing so was grabbing a whole med kit and rotating it around their own arm like they were applying gauze, which broke my brain for a minute. It seems pretty likely to me that this is a very early look at a game that is likely to change quite a bit before we’re able to understand how it’s taking shape.

I’ll need to see more (and hopefully get my hands on it) before I get my hopes up, but a new IP with some interesting new ideas and the chance to scare the pants off my friends as an interdimensional monster certainly is welcome news. Here’s hoping we get the chance to take a closer look at Project Spectrum in the coming months.

After zipping around in Kirby Air Riders for maybe an hour, I rushed back to my apartment to get in a round of Mario Kart World just to see. In the game’s Direct earlier this week, director Masahiro Sakurai said (even if he was just being cheeky) his unlikely GameCube sequel was “basically Mario Kart.” And yeah, if you compare the two on the level of “a bunch of guys from decades of Nintendo games race around and/or duke it out” then sure, I guess.

In every other way, Kirby Air Riders is so extremely not just a Mario Kart redux that riding around 150cc matches at home felt practically quaint. Wall rides and bar grinds? That’s cute. In Kirby Air Riders, I’m drifting corners so screamin’ fast that I barely had time to blink. Whirlpool traps and gentle river runs? How serene. Air Riders’ Waveflow Waters race course has violent vortexes and corridors of walls made of water to punch through. Oh, and brace yourself for a gigantic meteor shower of fireballs that reign down during City Trials too!

In the time I spent with Air Riders, I got through a good chunk of tutorials, raced through two Air Rider courses (Floria Fields and Waveflow Waters, both of which were featured in the Direct), and crushed three rounds of City Trials, the topographical brawler and power-up collection zone that ends in a challenge of your choosing. Getting through the checklist of lessons to get a handle on maneuvering, as patronizing as they may seem for a game that now relies on two whole buttons (up from one!), was actually quite nice. Because once an Air Ride or City Trial started, it was buckle-up time and not as easy as it might seem on paper.

Part of that boils down to each of the many machines having distinct characteristics that aren’t just a matter of alleged differences in weight and handling that a chart claims when I’m picking it. The way, say, a tank drives, which is heavy and super directionally flexible, is wildly different from Meta Knight’s soaring shadow glider, and I think a lot of the fun will be in the trial-and-error of those. As for the expanded cast of characters, I only got to mess around with a few, but Bandana Waddle Dee with his spear flurry is my early frontrunner for favorite. (I wanted to love Starman, but I need some more time for him to grow on me.)

Like my NVC host colleagues have already called out about Kirby Air Ride (2003), City Trials is still the standout game. It’s also the most derived from Sakurai’s Super Smash Bros. directorial sensibilities, from its brawler nature down to the selection screen and slow-mo KO animations. It is, however, utter pandemonium, like the aforementioned meteors that you’ll need to avoid or sudden calls to zoom over to a highlighted area to fight in a dust-up, if you so choose. The five-minute countdown breezed by as I attempted to manhandle my gliders to collect power-ups, food items that were practically copy-pasted from the real world into the dreamy palette of Kirby Air Riders, and also wreck some other players. Was I excelling at any of this? Not really, but the game didn’t make winning feel like it was the priority (which I guess is quite different from Smash Bros., where loser characters look onto the winner with existential anguish). It was more important to simply have fun, and it’s easy to imagine anyone from grade schoolers to college kids and cool adults (ahem) turn Kirby Air Riders into a shouty party game.

The maximalism of Kirby Air Riders is its core charm; it feels brewed from impish, chaotic-neutral alchemy. Even Nintendo is calling this a “vehicle action game,” not a kart racer, which honestly seems apt – a silly genre distinction for a purposefully unserious game. It might not have been the sequel the people were clamoring for, but I’m glad that it exists.

The PlayStation store is selling guitars now. If you’re a fan of Naughty Dog’s Last of Us series, either the games or the TV show, you can now preorder a replica of Ellie’s guitar that Joel customized with the custom moth inlay fretboard. This guitar was first featured in The Last of Us Part II and made an appearance in the second season of the HBO series.

The guitar is a collaboration with Taylor Guitars and is a special edition of the Taylor 314ce. You can preorder it for $2,999.99 at the PlayStation Store and it will officially release on November 18, 2025. It’s listed in the PlayStation store’s hardware section among various consoles, controllers, and other accessories.

Taylor 314ce The Last of Us Part II Replica Guitar

Sony and Sucker Punch Productions have announced Ghost of Yōtei will receive free Legends multiplayer co-op DLC in 2026.

A new trailer for the bonus mode showed up during gamescom Opening Night Live 2025, revealing little more than some intriguing art and a promise to launch next year. Still, it’s footage that comes with even more from Sucker Punch’s new action sequel as its October 2, 2025, release date inches closer.

While we wait for more updates on Ghost of Yōtei, be sure to read up on everything announced at gamescom Opening Night Live 2025.
Developing…

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).

Silent Hill f made an appearance at Gamescom Opening Night Live this evening with a brand new trailer, and our first listen at the English actor portraying main character Hinako, Suzie Yeung.

The new trailer opens with Hinako waking up in a dark room, seemingly confused. As she wanders, it seems she’s in some kind of shrine, and ends up following a figure with a blue lamp deeper in. She’s then attacked by those freaky dolls we’ve seen in past trailers, and we see shots of a number of other unsettling rooms in the shrine.

The trailer cuts to another scene at an old house on a rainy day, which Hinako seems to recognize as her own. We see her with her clothes torn and bloody, and a creepy woman’s voice giving instructions to kill everyone, and then Hinako confronting one of her classmates. All-in-all, not nearly as gory as the last trailer, but still plenty unnerving.

Silent Hill f is set in 1960s Japan, with a story written by Ryukishi07 intended to contrast beauty and horror. First announced in 2022, we’ve since learned that it’s standalone from the other Silent Hill games, and that it’s Japan’s first M-rated Silent Hill game, and comes with some frankly disgusting content warnings. We’ve also recently learned it’s expected to be combat-heavy, with series producer Motoi Okamoto saying, “Challenging action games are gaining popularity among younger players nowadays, so I believed that if we implemented such elements into the game, it would resonate well even with people who are new to the series.”

Silent Hill f will be out shortly, on September 25 of this year, on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. We played it for five hours earlier this month, and you can read our preview right here.

You can catch up on everything announced at Gamescom Opening Night Live right here.

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.