Category: IGN

Terraria 1.4.5 will release on January 27.

In an excitable post, Re-Logic’s Loki confirmed that while the team “did have to resubmit a few things, which pushed us back a bit further than expected,” the release date is now locked in and will include “things that got left out of 1.4.4” plus crossover events with Dead Cells and a second collab with Pocketpair’s Palworld, this time for Terraria players.

While we’re on the topic of “cross,” no, unfortunately crossplay will not be a part of this update. The team does hope it’ll be “made available some time after 1.4.5,” but didn’t hint at a timescale for that.

“The ReLogic team has ALWAYS went above and beyond for the Terraria community,” writes one happy player. “For well over a decade, you guys have given us update after update for free. You guys even created a comic book AND a board game for us. On top of that, you’ve held tons of contests for us and have always kept us well-informed and up to date on everything relating to Terraria. What’s crazy is that’s not even close to all the amazing things that you guys do for us. That’s why the Terraria community is the greatest gaming community on Earth.”

To get an idea of just how long ago Terraria released, IGN reviewed it in 2011. Even then, though, we thought it was amazing, scoring it 9/10 and writing: “Though on the surface it looks like just another “me too” indie game seeking to ride the coattails of Minecraft’s success, Terraria expands on the familiar sandbox gameplay with a greater emphasis on combat and adventure that proves very satisfying. That’s rare indeed.”

Here’s the full update. Brace yourself — there’s a lot to read!

Terraria Update 1.4.5 — January 27, 2026

New items

• Items from Dead Cells, including:
  • A vanity outfit of the Beheaded, the protagonist of Dead Cells.
  • Hanging flasks that can display items in a similar way to Item Frames.
  • Weapons for all damage types, including:
  • The Flint, a melee weapon.
  • The Killing Deck.
  • The Mushroom Staff, which summons a Mushroom Boi minion and is crafted with some combination of Glowing Mushrooms. The minion’s eyes are visible in the dark.
  • A Barnacle sentry.
  • The Swarm.
  • The Ram Rune.
  • The Wings of the Crow.
  • A Health Fountain furniture item that gives the player a buff when interacted with.
• A summonable Digtoise from Palworld that can mine through blocks. It is unknown whether or not it is a pet.
• Several whips, including:
  • A whip dropped by the Moon Lord.
  • A Stardust-themed whip.
  • A Corruption-themed whip called the Soulscourge.
  • A Crimson-themed whip called the Vasculash.
  • A Duke Fishron-themed whip.
  • A Meteorite-themed whip called the Starcrash.
  • A Plantera-themed whip that releases homing petal projectiles after hitting an enemy.
  • A white whip.
  • An early-game whip called the Slime Whip. It is crafted from Gel and inflicts the Slime debuff.
• An early-game spear called the Slime Spear. It is crafted from Gel and inflicts the Slime debuff.
• Several furniture sets, including:
  • A Hallow-themed set inspired by the look of Hallowed armor.
  • An Aetherium-themed set.
  • A Fallen Star-themed set.
  • A Feywood-themed set inspired by Fairies and the Fallen Logs they can spawn at
  • A Corruption-themed set.
  • A Crimson-themed set.
  • A Gothic-themed set.
  • A Stone-themed set.
  • A modern-looking set.
  • A Moon-themed set.
  • A Snow-themed set.
  • A Flinx-themed set.
  • A complete Pine set.
• Fallen Star Bricks and Walls.
• Music Blocks that play notes.
• Several Boulder-related items or features, including:
  • A type of Boulder that “falls” upwards.
  • Boulder Rain, where Boulders fall from the sky during a Thunderstorm.
  • A Rainbow Boulder (initially teased as “🌈🪨”) found in secret seeds combined with Celebrationmk10. When activated it will bounce between ores and chests while passing through blocks and not hurting the player.
  • A Poo Boulder.
• A Shimmer Water Gun that allows the player to transform an NPC into their Shimmered form without submerging them in Shimmer.
• A potion or food item whose crafting recipe involves Bottled Water.
• Several transformation mounts (similar to the Wolf mount summoned by Lilith’s Necklace), including:
  • A transformation mount that resembles a velociraptor. The mount can be dyed and displays vanity items equipped in the head slot.When the player is flying, the velociraptor is carried by a pterodactyl. The mount-summoning item is crafted with some combination of Sturdy Fossils.
  • A transformation mount that resembles a bat
  • A transformation mount that resembles a Rat.
  • A transformation mount that resembles a Fairy.
• A roller skate mount which allows the player to scoot on surfaces and grind on Minecart Tracks.
• Paintings made by several members of the Terraria community, including:
• GreyL1me
• KirbyTG
• Artyrian (previously Timburr471)
• Orange Dude
• Shadouette
• Lady Forestia
• JzBoy
• BionicBandit
• Runic Pixels
• Waasephi
• A painting of the r/place 2023 art created by the Terraria community.
• An axe fairy pet harvesting wood from a tree.
• An Axe Fairy pet that looks like Cenx’s avatar and can harvest wood from trees.
• A pufferfish pet.
• A frog-themed accessory.
• An accessory resembling a Tamagotchi on a chain.
• A Silly Balloon-themed accessory.
• An item resembling a blue ribbon with a heart on it.
• A Stress Ball accessory that makes the player automatically attack when not moving and their inventory is closed. It has some type of interaction with the Extractinator.
• A Magic String accessory that causes yoyos to fly off the string and deal damage. It can be combined with the Yoyo Bag to make the Magic Yoyo Bag.
• Several vanity accessories that change the sound the player makes when hurt. These include:
  • The “Goat’s Tuft” which makes the player sound like a goat and can be found in Gold Chests. Its tooltip is ‘Quite the gruff tuft’.
  • An accessory that makes the player sound like a Zombie.
  • An accessory that makes the player sound like a turkey.
  • An accessory that makes the player sound like a chicken.
  • An accessory that makes the player sound like an arcade machine.
• A chest piece to complete the set of the Moon Lord Mask and Moon Lord Legs.
• An item whose sprite resembles the Cobweb’s with added sparkles.
• Cloud platforms.
• A variant of the Living Wood Wall that allows placing an unsafe wall (similar to the Forbidden Lihzahrd Brick Wall, Cursed Dungeon Brick Walls, etc.).
• An “Axearang” (a combination of axe and boomerang) that is capable of chopping down trees when thrown.
• A pink crafted banner.
• Throwable mud balls that place a Mud Block when they land. These deal 8 classless damage, inflict “Average” knockback (4–6), and have a “Very fast” use time (9–20).
• Placeable versions of background objects, including:
  • Demon Altar. It only drops “in the most extreme of circumstances and is not going to be easily obtained/readily available”.
  • Fallen Log.
  • Life Fruit.
  • Shadow Orb.
• An item that resembles a clay furnace.
• A placeable CRT Television that applies a visual filter when turned on like Monoliths.
• A developer set for Chicken Bones.
• An item called the “Mitey-Titey” that can place stalactite and stalagmite ambient objects in a similar way to the Rubblemaker.
• Hoppers that can pick up dropped items and store them in Chests.
• A stick-like item that kites can be attached to and flown from.
• A Freeze Bomb which turns water in its blast radius into Ice Blocks.
• A Bomb that can destroy Hardmode ore.
• Beach wear vanity sets.
• The Heroicis vanity set.
• Upgraded versions of Mining armor and Angler armor.
• Another headpiece option for Chlorophyte armor.
• Jungle Juice, a recovery potion which restores 180 health upon use. A stack of 3 Jungle Juices is crafted from 3 Greater Healing Potions and 1 Life Fruit.
• Infused Fertilizer, an upgraded version of Fertilizer which can be used to grow tall trees. Its tooltip is ‘It’s got what plants crave!’
• An “Acorn Slingshot” that shoots Acorns. When the acorn projectile lands on soil it turns into a tree sapling, in a similar way to how the Sandgun places sand.
• Rock Candy, a food item that can be crafted from Gem Bunnies or Gem Squirrels.
• A pylon.
• An RC Car that can be remote-controlled by the player, similar to the Kwad Racer Drone. It can move on both blocks and background walls.

Other new content

• Entities, including:
  • Several slime variants that carry items. The item inside the slime’s body changes its behavior. They are also more common in the new skyblock seed. These slime variants include:
  • “Cloud Slime”, a slime variant that jumps extra high and carries a Cloud Block.
  • “Dirt Slime”, a slime variant that carries a Dirt Block.
  • “Granite Slime”, a slime variant that spawns underground and carries a Granite Block.
  • “Slush Slime”, a spiked slime variant that glows in the dark, spawns in the Ice biome, and carries a Slush Block.
  • A slime carrying Moonglow that emits light and plants herbs.
  • A slime carrying a Dart Trap that can shoot darts at the player.
  • A pufferfish enemy/critter.
  • The Orca returning from the Old-gen console version Old-gen console version and Nintendo Nintendo 3DS version version, with updated sprites.
• A Seeds Menu that allows players to mix different secret world seeds together. Some seed combinations will trigger additional changes. Some examples include:
  • The player becoming a vampire, spawning underground, and burning under sunlight. The player can prevent burning under sunlight by holding an Umbrella or wearing a hat.
  • The water in the Ocean being replaced with Shimmer.
  • Flooding whenever there is heavy rain.
  • A functional use for Stink Potions.
• Slimes change their color when standing over painted blocks.
• A “skyblock” secret world seed, where the player spawns on a customized Floating Island in an empty world with very limited resources available to them.
• Meteor showers that cause Meteorite to fall from the sky. This may or may not be exclusive to the new skyblock seed.
• Players with bad luck will be pooped on by Birds and attacked by Squirrels.
• At least one hairstyle.A minion count underneath the buff icon that displays how many minions the player has summoned.
• An ambience effect of small cosmetic insects flying through wild grass plants.
• An effect that converts placed Torches to their biome variant.
• New boss music for the Eater of Worlds.
• New boss music for The Twins.
• At least 10 music tracks, including new themes for The Twins, the Eater of Worlds, the Torch God, King Slime, Skeletron, and Skeletron Prime.
• Achievements.
• A status message in multiplayer that tells how much damage each player did during a boss fight and how long the fight lasted.
• Content for the thunderstorm weather event. This includes lightning that strikes enemies and the tops of trees.
• A shader inspired by the “film noir” style.
• The ability to place critters as a small furniture item with the ⚷ Open / Activate button. The placed critter will stay near the furniture item.
• When reforging the best weapon modifiers like Legendary cannot be accidentally skipped. This is accompanied by a rainbow text effect and rainbow particles.
• More biome backgrounds.
• Modifiers for summon weapons, such as Eager, Focused, Loyal, Worthy, Rabid, Ballistic, and Fabled.
• Two Dungeon entrance variations that have a chance to replace the original Dungeon entrance during world generation.

Miscellaneous changes

• Localization for Japanese, Korean, and potentially Traditional Chinese.
• Possible improvements to localizations.
• Pumps in item form no longer burn in lava.
• Updated sprites for:
  • Multiple banners.
  • Multiple trophies.
  • Weapon Rack.
  • Demon Altar.
  • Slime Staff along with the Baby Slime it summons and buff icon.
  • Crimson Heart light pet.
  • Shadow Orb light pet along with its buff icon.
  • Shadow Orb background object.
  • Imp Staff along with the Imp it summons and buff icon.
  • Moon Lord.
  • Bewitching Table.
  • Alchemy Table.
  • Bar.
  • Bar Stool.
  • Banquet Table.
  • Jim’s set.
  • Lihzahrd Brick.
  • Lihzahrd.
  • Dungeon, Lihzahrd and Tundra Pots.
  • Mini Minotaur pet.
  • Pine Door, Pine Table, Pine Chair, and Pine Tree Block.
• More inclusive and customizable character creation that allows players to mix and match different character styles and voices. A third new voice type and the ability to change the voice’s pitch are also being added.
• Improvements to the Smart Cursor to relieve frustration when placing platforms.
• New graphical effects for the sun and clouds.
• Characters and worlds in the main menu are sorted by when they were last played, with the most recently played ones at the top. Additionally, all worlds that the selected character has visited before are marked with a small flag icon.
• A glitch was fixed which allowed creating almost any item. It involved the de-syncing of door tiles in multiplayer and placement of a Bast Statue.
• Liquid being stored inside Bubbles.
• Liquids can be stored inside Bubbles.
• The Rubblemaker and Echo Coating are available in pre-Hardmode.
• The different types of Planter Boxes are no longer unlocked by defeating specific bosses.
• Wormhole Potions and Potions of Return are easier to obtain.
• Moon Lord Boulders are in For the worthy.
• Flairon can be swung like thrown flails. It can still be used as a launched flail as well.
• Phaseblades can be thrown and stick to the ground where they land, dealing damage to any enemies that walk into them. They can be called back by the player.
• Zombie Arm creates Zombie gore when swung.
• Changes to the Harpoon.
• Several changes to town NPCs and their houses:
  • The Classy Cane can hit NPCs, which causes them to drop coins.
  • NPC houses no longer require a solid block for the NPC to stand on.
  • NPCs no longer require a house in order to appear. However, NPCs without a house will leave temporarily during the night.
  • The dialogue window of NPCs has a “Housing” option which includes hints on how a house can be built.
  • It is more transparent how a house is scanned.
• Slimes have a chance to drop Grass Seeds, Jungle Grass Seeds, and Acorns.
• Dungeon Bricks can be crafted with Hardmode ore.
• Stackable weapons, tools, and Clothier Voodoo Dolls.
  • Multiple items cannot be reforged at once, however.
  • Increased Rainbow Slime spawn rate.
• Changes to yoyos.
• Changes to the Paladin’s Hammer.
• Fish will appear in the water while fishing.
• In multiplayer, players can spectate other players while waiting to respawn after dying.
• The style of Party Presents and Presents can be manually set before placing, instead of being determined randomly when placed.
• Cannons and Snowball Launchers can deal damage when activated by Wires.
• Cannons also no longer require Cannonballs to be fired.
• Cannonballs can be placed as tiles. They can also be hammered to different shapes.
• Conveyor Belts can move enemies. They also can move items vertically.
• Earned banners no longer drop from their respective enemies. Instead, they can be claimed via a new menu in the inventory.
• Jungle Grass can be planted on Lihzahrd Brick.
• Improved Control Banners (the areas showing button mappings) for controllers on Console version Console and Mobile version Mobile, which display related buttons near their respective UI elements instead of displaying all buttons at the bottom of the screen.
• New graphical effect for when the Paladin’s Shield activates.
• New visual effect for pop-up texts when obtaining new items.
• New visual effect for pop-up text when crafting weapons and armor.
• Improvements to the Mobile version Mobile touch control editor:
  • Instead of placing buttons with a fixed size then editing their function, the user now places a type of button on the screen, then edits its function and size.
  • Control configurations can now be copied and pasted across loadouts.
  • New default presets.
  • New optional control scheme which removes the right virtual joystick.
  • New option of toggling “multi-touch” for a button, which has the following effects when turned on:
    • The button will remain pressed if the player drags their finger away from it, and will only be released when their finger leaves the screen.
    • If the player drags their finger onto another button that also has multi-touch enabled, that button is also pressed down. Dragging the finger away from this button will stop pressing it.
• Armor pieces now display their set bonus in gray text when not active.
• Hooks now mention their keybind in their tooltips.
• Mannequins (and Womannequins) can have their posture changed (e.g. sit down), hold items, and ride on mounts.
• The Slime debuff increases the damage of fire related debuffs, such as On Fire!.
• The defense icon shows how much damage is reduced by the player’s defense stat when hovered on, and has different sprites in Expert and Master Mode.
• Updated crafting features:
  • New UI screen for the Guide’s “Crafting” option and regular crafting, similar to the duplication menu in Journey Mode: listing all craftable items while having category tabs to show items by types, and a search bar to search for individual items.
  • Pressing ⚷ Open / Activate on a crafting station also opens the crafting UI.
  • Items in all nearby storage items can be used in crafting, instead of only a single opened one.
• New animation for the Barrel when a player interacts with it, indicating if it is open or closed, similar to Chests.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Magic: The Gathering’s new Lorwyn Eclipsed set is getting closer, but we can already expect another trip to New York not long after.

After the mildly disappointing Spider-Man set, though, we’re hoping the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collab will be a little more tubular.

And, if you’re already sold on meeting up with cardboard versions of the Heroes in a Half Shell, their friends, and their foes, then good news – Amazon is once again discounting boxes of Play Boosters, now down to their lowest ever price.

Attention Everyone: Animal Crossing: New Horizons has a jump button now!

You can also walk backwards, and sideways!!!

Why am I freaking out over this? Look. This is almost as exciting as when we all learned New Horizons would give us the ability to sit down on the ground.

This comes as a part of Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s 3.0 update, which dropped a day early today, giving access to a new Hotel area, loads of new decorative items, some quality of life features like bulk crafting, and Dream Islands you can build alongside friends. But as players have discovered since, it’s also added a subtle new feature to aid in construction and placement: essentially, a controlled way to step in the cardinal directions in very precise ways.

This feature is now tutorialed as part of obtaining the Construction App, though it’s possible it may be available prior to that, and it’s very easy to activate. You can use it any time by pressing the L button. Pressing it once will snap your character into place with a tiny little hop. Holding it down and moving the stick in a direction will let you take exactly one step in that direction, effectively the size of one “square” of space. This is ideal for activities such as precise furniture placement, or lining yourself up perfectly to hit rocks or even catch bugs.

So, sure, it’s not actually a huge deal – just a fun quality of life feature. It’s not like a REAL jump (and you can already jump small gaps automatically anyway). But Animal Crossing’s audience has historically gotten very excited about little touches like this, such as the wave of excitement when sitting on the ground was confirmed to be in the game, or the love for any number of other tiny details players have found over the years.

Anyway, if they ever add jump attacks it’s over for you people.

There are other small details in the new update worth celebrating, such as the ability to save individual custom designs to Slumber Islands (effectively giving you even more slots), and the fact that former Islanders visiting the Hotel will remember you.

We’ve got a comprehensive guide to the 3.0 update, including how to unlock everything and what’s included, as a part of our Animal Crossing: New Horizons Wiki guide. If you’re just getting back to New Horizons today after a long hiatus, we also have a number of tips for people getting back into the swing of things.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Umamusume: Pretty Derby’s anime film spinoff, Beginning of a New Era, released in theaters in Japan way back in May 2024. And now, it’s coming to the U.S. for a one-night-only theatrical release on February 27, 2026.

As shared by Crunchyroll, the film will hit select, to-be-announced theaters in the U.S. for a one-night screening next month, and shared an English-language trailer and poster alongside the news. Tickets will be available at a later date via the official English website, though it’s unclear how broad a release this film will actually get.

After about 10 hours in Hytale, the new survival crafter from some former Minecraft modders, there really isn’t a better way I could describe it other than to say it’s basically Minecraft 2. From the block-by-block breaking and building, to the stylized environments and enemies, to the procedural world generation, this feels like the, “What would we change if we had the chance to start over again?” version of the now legendary 2009 classic. Many games have been influenced by Mojang’s trendsetter, but this is more of a cover song than a subgenre from what I’ve seen so far (though I’ve got plenty more to play before my final review). And while developer Hypixel Studios’ lawyers might not love hearing me say that, I honestly don’t think it’s a bad thing. Even in Early Access, it’s a good cover!

All of the gameplay will be pretty familiar if you’ve put any time at all into Minecraft, but with some streamlining here and there. You no longer have to begin your journey punching trees, for instance, since basic tools are made with sticks and rubble that can be collected easily with your bare hands. Also, breaking the trunk of a tree will cause everything above it to collapse and drop its resources, which was almost enough to win me over on its own. I still to this day hate having to chop upwards to hollow out a tree in Minecraft!

Movement is also a lot more modern and fluid. You can jump up to three blocks high and pull yourself up, which feels like such a huge quality-of-life improvement over the one-block jump limit in Minecraft. It’s even possible to take a running leap at a ledge, hit the side, and pull yourself up. We’ve got proper parkour now, and I don’t know that I would ever want to give it up.

It also just runs better than Minecraft on my Ryzen 7 3700X, 32GB RAM, and RTX 4070 Ti-powered system. Even with the draw distance cranked up, my framerates sit comfortably above 60. We’ll see how long that lasts when I start building elaborate megastructures, but for now it’s like butter.

Combat is fine. There are a handful of different weapon types, from swift-slashing double daggers to a classic sword and shield setup with more defensive options, and every one has its own unique charge attack and a special meter that can be filled up to release a devastating finisher. I’m impressed with the enemy variety so far, with everything from goblin bomb-throwers to really terrifying lava toads that can catch you with their tongues and pull you in for a very painful bite attack.

Building can be a little bit fiddly. We have more pieces to pick from, like proper roofs that make Minecraft’s classic stair tricks redundant. But sometimes I had to do silly stuff like building a dirt “mold” to make sure all the pieces were facing the right way. Still, once I got the hang of its quirks, I was able to start making some pretty neat-looking stuff.

There’s very little direction in this Early Access version of Hytale, currently. The main hub area, the Forgotten Temple, is a rotunda of literal Under Construction signs. I even stumbled into some dungeons out in the world where I’d be excited to throw the doors open only to find one of these disappointing barriers. It’s not clear what the larger, overarching goal is supposed to be, although I’m happy enough to build cool stuff and seek out new ores for higher-level tools at the moment. But I’m not sure if there will eventually be a story or bigger bosses to find or anything like that. I haven’t run into them yet if they exist already.

Overall, I’m quite enjoying my time with Hytale so far, though. Even if it is just Minecraft again, it’s an enjoyable rendition with some thoughtful tweaks and additions. It’s almost like someone’s wishlist of things Mojang will never do, or can’t do with its legacy tech. I plan to put in at least a few dozen more hours before I give it a final evaluation, but check back for more updates on my progress in the coming week.

Hellboy star Ron Perlman has expressed his bemusement at the Fallout franchise and his legendary status within it as narrator of all the video games, joking he was paid “$40 and a sandwich” to record his iconic “war never changes” line for Fallout 1.

Perlman first recorded the “war never changes” line as part of the intro for 1997’s Fallout video game. He’s played the narrator for pretty much every Fallout video game since, with the “war never changes” line becoming seared into the memories of a legion of fans. It’s a line that even made it into Amazon’s Fallout TV show, although Perlman didn’t say it himself.

Good morning, everyone! If you, like me, popped open Animal Crossing: New Horizons before work today for a stroll around your island, you were greeted with a pleasant surprise: the 3.0 update just dropped a day early, and the Hotel is officially open for business, along with a number of other new features.

The meat of Animal Crossing: New Horizon 3.0 is a hotel that will set up on your island at the end of your pier, wherever that’s located for you. Just download the update (make sure you actually download it – there was a system update this morning as well for me and I almost missed it!) and it should be there waiting for you if you’re a returning player who put some time into your island already. It seems likely there is at least one other requirement for the hotel to show up that prevents it from being there for new players, but we’re still working out just what that is.

The hotel works a lot like the Happy Home DLC: you’ll be asked to decorate different rooms in it based on themes you’re given from Leilani. However, unlike the DLC, the catalog is the limit on what all you can put in these rooms. Though you’re given a list of recommended items if you need help, apart from that, any item you’ve ever collected (via DIY, purchase, gift, or whatever) is available for use in the hotel, as many times as you want.

Whenever you finish a room, it will become available for guests to stay in. This is a great way to meet other villagers you don’t have living on your island at the moment, as they’ll come stay and share cute and unique dialogue. You’ll also be given Hotel Tickets, which you can spend at the souvenir shop for unique decor newly added to the game that you can use in your own house or elsewhere on the island.

Additionally, outside the hotel, Tom Nook will invite you to use a box outside the hotel where you’ll be asked to craft certain DIY items to help promote your island elsewhere. Completing these requests will get you more Hotel Tickets to spend on more items. And, by the way, DIY crafting is easier than ever now that bulk crafting and crafting using ingredients from storage has been enabled with the new update.

In addition to all this, there are several other new additions: There’s tons of new furniture available both via the Souvenir Shop and the Nook Shopping app, including a bunch of LEGO items and classic game systems that you can use to activate games using Nintendo Switch Online from within Animal Crossing. Dream Worlds are now active, and let you build and decorate up to three Dream Islands either alone or with friends. And the new Zelda and Splatoon-themed amiibo villagers and themed items are available if you scan their amiibo.

Now, as of 1/14/2026, there are still a few new features you’ll have to wait for. Because while the 3.0 content update is now live, the Nintendo Switch 2 paid update feature isn’t available until tomorrow. So everything that comes with that update: improved graphics, 12-person multiplayer, the Megaphone item, and so forth, that’s not in the game just yet. But it will be soon, just hang in there one more day!

We’ve got a comprehensive guide to the 3.0 update, including how to unlock everything and what’s included, as a part of our Animal Crossing: New Horizons Wiki guide. If you’re just getting back to New Horizons today after a long hiatus, we also have a number of tips for people getting back into the swing of things.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Games Workshop confirmed this week that it has banned the use of generative AI for the production of its designs and content, a decision many Warhammer fans have welcomed.

As I’ve discussed before (and highlighted by a recent kerfuffle about Displate Warhammer 40,000 art), if Games Workshop were to start using AI to, for example, produce artwork, write stories, or design its games and miniatures, it would likely spark a community uproar. The Warhammer 40,000 setting is in many ways built upon the evocative and enduring art drawn by the likes of John Blanche, who shaped its “grimdark” aesthetic alongside other key Games Workshop staff. This official, human-made Warhammer 40,000 artwork is beloved by fans, most of whom take a dim view of the mere whiff of generative AI “art” sold or released in any official capacity by either Games Workshop itself, or its partners. Indeed, Games Workshop sells expensive Warhammer 40,000 ‘codex’ rulebooks that are packed with stunning official art as well as lore. Any suggestion that this art was created either in part or entirely by generative AI tools would likely cause a community uproar.

So, this anti-AI policy is being called a ‘Games Workshop W’ by many fans. But as any fan of Warhammer 40,000’s sweeping lore — pulled this way and that over the course of decades — will tell you, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

I appreciate what we’re about to talk about is in the Warhammer 40,000 weeds, but I’ve seen enough social media posts, reddit comments, and Discord messages delighting in the parallels here that I think it would be fun to explain what the fuss is about.

You see, in the world of Warhammer 40,000, AI does not stand for Artificial Intelligence. Rather, it stands for Abominable Intelligence. And, as Games Workshop has banned AI within the confines of its Nottingham headquarters, humanity has banned AI within the Imperium of Man. That’s because during the ‘Dark Age of Technology’ (stick with me here), AI rebelled against humanity in a bloody war that almost resulted in our extinction.

Eventually, humanity won out, and, sufficiently traumatized by… everything… forbid the use of AI at all. That is, you can’t have ‘thinking machines’ in the Imperium, which is in part why the future tech is all a bit backwards for the 41st millennium.

Rockstar has launched an official marketplace where creators can sell mods.

The Cfx Marketplace, described as a “curated digital storefront where talented FiveM/RedM creators can share and sell their work,” is currently only open to a select few creators, but players running their own servers can choose from hundreds of mods — some free, some not — to add new maps, scripts, characters, clothing, vehicles, and more to their games.

If the name Cfx sounds familiar, that’s because Rockstar acquired the modding team behind the wildly popular Grand Theft Auto 5 roleplay servers FiveM and RedM back in 2023. That came as something of a surprise given the company’s combative relationship with modders in the past.

Now, as part of that relationship, select creators worked with Rockstar to build and supply the new mod superstore as it rolls out “in phases to ensure the best experience for both creators and server owners.”

As one happy player said, the official marketplace makes it “much easier to find some trusted creators and hopefully more competition.” “Amazing idea! Hope this will be a better way for both creators and server owners to reach more people and find what they need,” added another.

Right now, there are hundreds of mods to choose from, some of which are free, and others, most typically bundles, are available for upwards of $450. The Attractions & Parks Bundle, for instance, includes a Theme Park, Water Park, and Maze Bank Theme Bank for $137.99.

Right now, most mods seem to be for GTA 5, but Cfx.re has mods for both Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, so we may see more Red Dead 2 mods as the marketplace expands.

Grand Theft Auto is an enduring juggernaut, with GTA 5 having sold 220 million copies to date. Rockstar is yet to detail how GTA Online will change as a result of November’s release of GTA 6, but it seems likely the Cfx Marketplace lays the groundwork for a similar offering in whatever’s next for the game.

It also seems in preparation for whatever other plans Rockstar has for monetising GTA RP when GTA 6 comes out. GTA fans had begun speculating about what Rockstar RP servers would look like when the company announced it was working with Cfx.re back in 2023. That excitement then only increased when popular musician Faheem Rashad Najm a.k.a. T-Pain teased in 2024 that he was working on GTA 6 but had been asked by Rockstar to stop engaging with RP servers like nopixel.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Meta is laying off around 10% of staff at its Reality Labs division as part of sweeping cuts set to affect more than 1,000 people. This includes the closure of a number of VR-first studios, such as Twisted Pixel, the studio behind Deadpool VR, Resident Evil 4 VR developer Armature Studio, and Asgard’s Wrath maker, Sanzaru Games. According to Bloomberg, the cuts come as Meta pivots away from the Metaverse towards AI, phones, and wearable tech.

The cuts come just over four years after Facebook changed its name to Meta and went big on virtual reality and the Metaverse.

Letters reportedly went out yesterday (Tuesday, January 13) morning, and developers from the impacted studios shared their shock on social media throughout the day.

“I’ve just been laid off. It appears the entire Twisted Pixel games studio has been shut down. Sanzaru Games, too,” one now former member of staff said, while a designer wrote: “unfortunately, I was part of the layoffs today at Meta, and will be seeking a new role. To my Twisted Pixel Games family: it was an honor to work alongside you for 3.5 years and ship Marvel’s Deadpool VR. We made something really special together and no one can ever take that away.”

Twisted Pixel is the studio behind a number of popular Xbox Live Arcade games, such as 2009’s The Maw and ‘Splosion Man. It became a part of Microsoft Studios in 2011, and went on to release Xbox 360 Kinect-exclusive shooter The Gunstringer, and Xbox One game LocoCycle, before becoming an independent company again in 2015 and moving into VR game development.

Meta only acquired Armature and Twisted Pixel in late 2022, and Sanzaru in 2020. However, it is now seemingly shedding much of its internal VR business as Meta scrambles to recover billion-dollar losses and pivot to AI.

In a statement, Meta confirmed the three studio closures: “we said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward Wearables. This is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the growth of wearables this year.”

According to Reuters, CEO Mark Zuckerberg prioritized and spent heavily on the Metaverse, only for the business to burn more than $60 billion since 2020. The Reality Labs business also produces Meta’s Quest mixed-reality headsets.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.