Category: IGN

Following the release of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2’s game-changing patch 3.0 last week, dataminers have dug into the files and unearthed what looks like upcoming armor customization pieces — including one fans had hoped would be added to the game.

Images of the Mark 6 Corvus and Mark 7 Aquila Astartes helmets were posted to reddit, showing that developer Saber Interactive likely plans to expand the game’s Space Marine customization beyond variations of the latest Mark 10 Tacticus power armor.

Space Marine 2, which is set in Warhammer 40,000’s current and ongoing Indomitus Era, features Primaris (bigger, stronger, better) marines and thus focuses on the latest armor sets in the tabletop. However, this datamine suggests old favorites are potentially on the way, and it’s the “beaky” helmet popularized by the Raven Guard chapter of Space Marines that’s got Warhammer 40,000 fans most excited.

There’s more. Redditor agentduckman12 found a number of images in the game files that reveal what looks like the new customization pieces coming to Space Marine 2 as part of its big October patch and the launch of Season 2 of the game.

We see images of a number of weapons skins, that beaky helmet again, and winged Dark Angels helmets alongside the chapter’s new armor set. There’s also an image of a Salamanders Sniper Rifle skin, supposedly part of a Salamanders Champion Pack coming at some point for the Sniper class.

This tallies with what Saber has announced is coming to Space Marine 2 in Season 2 (a Dark Angels Champion Pack, Cosmetic Pack, and Weapon Skin pack).

Saber has yet to show off upcoming customization pieces, so for now this all remains firmly in datamined territory, but with October around the corner, it won’t be long before the developer reveals what’s to come.

Speaking of patch 3.0, IGN has reported on a seemingly innocuous change it made to Space Marine 2’s ending that got Warhammer 40,000 fans excited. IGN also recently interviewed Saber chief creative officer Tim Willits about the boost he expects the PS5 Pro will give the game, and how the breakout success of Space Marine 2 has “changed everything” for the studio.

Meanwhile, Warhammer 40,000 superfan Henry Cavill has been playing Space Marine 2 and delivered his verdict, and we also have details on what fans can expect from Space Marine 2’s seasonal post-launch content model. Season 2 runs from October until the end of 2024, and includes a new Operations map, a new enemy, a harder difficulty level, a new weapon, and various other improvements.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

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Country music legend and Hollywood star Kris Kristofferson has died aged 88, his family has announced.

Kristofferson, a Grammy Award-winning country music legend and star of films such as Blade and Planet of the Apes, died at his home in Maui on Saturday, September 28, surrounded by his family.

“It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, Sept. 28 at home,” a statement on behalf of Kristofferson’s wife, Lisa; his eight children, Tracy, Kris Jr., Casey, Jesse, Jody, John, Kelly and Blake; and seven grandchildren, read on Kristofferson’s official Facebook page.

“We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.” – The Family of Kris Kristofferson.

“The family asks for privacy during this time.”

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Warning: This piece contains full spoilers for The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II.

The Last of Us is part of an ongoing craze of faithful video game adaptations with roots traceable all the way back to the original Silent Hill film. However, adapting a game like The Last of Us Part II is a bit different from adapting its predecessor, not just because it has a more complicated, fractured narrative, but also because it’s a (phenomenal) game with much more dramatic meat to explore, both in terms of sheer length and in the thornier dimensions it mines from its characters. To make a show that stands up to its inspiration, it most likely will have to make some major deviations from the source material. While diehard fans may cry foul, it might be the only way this adaptation can feel as vital as the game does.

It’s something co-showrunner Neil Druckmann, who is also creative director of The Last of Us games, agrees on. Talking to Variety about the adaptation process, he noted that a common mistake is “staying so close to the source material that is built and designed and written for this other medium that has strengths and weaknesses, and trying to translate it as is, with no changes to this other medium that has different strengths and weaknesses.” Looking at the newly released first trailer for Season 2, we can already see the first signs of how Druckmann and his creative partner Craig Mazin may have altered the original story to suit the television medium.

Season II.

The HBO Original Series #TheLastOfUs returns in 2025 on Max. #TLOUDay pic.twitter.com/Wdzk759JIg

— Max (@StreamOnMax) September 26, 2024

Different Mediums, Different Priorities

With so many artistic mediums bleeding into each other these days, it can sometimes be hard to remember that video games and television are two very different things. Every medium for telling stories has pros and cons that are virtually inseparable from the form. The narrative techniques that make perfect sense in interactive fiction in regards to scene geography, atmosphere, environmental design, and use of player expression often don’t translate to something with a set runtime and no input from the viewer.

That’s not to say you can’t try. The first season of The Last of Us meticulously rebuilt many moments from the game’s cutscenes, sometimes literally frame by frame. But what purpose does that really serve? The story worked excellently the first time around, the game is available in its best ever form with The Last of Us Part I Remastered, and the cutscenes are readily available on YouTube. If people want a truly faithful version of the story, it’s already out there and has been for years. If anything, taking this cutscene cloning approach, rather than allowing the show’s direction and cinematography to present the story’s most critical moments in a wholly new way, only highlights the ways the original games frequently veered away from the strengths of interactive narrative. And it’s developer Naughty Dog’s adoption of non-interactive storytelling technique that makes such scenes so easy to plop directly into a TV show.

I say this as a massive fan of both games: they kind of already were HBO shows. They do use the possibilities of interactive storytelling to their advantage, but in terms of basic construction and scene direction, even during playable segments, there’s liberal use of the techniques and stylistic conventions of prestige television. This is why it isn’t just ironic that the games were eventually adapted as an HBO show; it was so easy to adapt them because the games did a lot of the work already. This is not to discount any of the contributions from the show’s directors, writers or performers, but the blueprint for a successful television show was already baked straight into the game. So if the next season wants to be its best self, it would do well to find a new way to present the story many of us already know.

Expand and Explore

Even with its fealty to the original game, the first season of The Last of Us often benefited from the deviations it did make. Hiring Latino actor Pedro Pascal gave a strong new take for main protagonist Joel by adding a softer dad-like quality to him compared to Troy Baker’s gruffer edge, adding new characters like Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen expanded the post-apocalyptic world explored in the original game, and devoting an entire episode to the unseen story of Bill (Nick Offerman) and his lover Frank (Murray Bartlett) led to what many considered to be the season’s best entry. Unlike a video game, which usually necessitates some kind of consistency to the player perspective through the controllable character, television affords the opportunity to shift focus more readily, and the show made great use of that in key areas.

The second season should use that technique to greater effect. One of the main structural conceits of Part II is playing through the same three days from both Ellie and Abby’s perspectives. Their separate paths don’t really cross over until the end of the three days, both of them going through intensely personal journeys of revenge and rebirth respectively, meaning that each lead character is essentially gone from the narrative for somewhere around ten solid hours apiece. This makes sense in a video game because jumping back and forth between protagonists each level would be jarring for a player, never allowing them to truly settle into the peaks and valleys of power and equipment a survival action game is supposed to foster. But do we really want to watch four or five episodes in a row without Ellie or Abby showing up?

Intercutting between their journeys and finding ways to draw thematic parallels between Ellie and Abby even when they’re not in the same physical space would help maintain emotional continuity and viewer investment in both characters. After all, the entire point of the extended lead-up to their confrontation is that it’s a battle we don’t want either side to “win,” because we’ve come to empathize with their experiences. It’s hard for an audience at home to go through that if a character is absent for several weeks of television. We also know that Season 2 won’t adapt the entirety of Part II, which gives the creators plenty of breathing room to add or expand on characters, subplots and world-building concepts that could give the series a fresh feel. If the trailer is anything to go by, we may have already seen hints of the show going in this direction.

Trust the Process

It’s a small detail, but the teaser trailer hints at what could be a major deviation from the original game’s setup: it looks like Abby will spend time in Jackson with Joel and Ellie. After we see Abby’s first encounter with Joel and Tommy where they save her from infected trying to get at her through a chain link fence (a scene ripped straight from the game), we later see a shot of the three of them fleeing on horses before what appears to be a horde of infected slamming themselves against Jackson’s perimeter wall. There’s also an earlier shot of a large group of infected being spotted through binoculars as they run through snow, indicating that they are heading towards Jackson, the only area in the game where snow is featured. This all suggests that there could be a sequence where Abby and Joel get back to Jackson and have more interaction than they do in the game (perhaps even involving Ellie) before Abby kills Joel. Such a sequence would be a prime opportunity for more character drama, as well as also giving us more scenes with Pascal before he’s relegated to flashbacks.

Abby ingratiating herself within Jackson’s community (a story thread concept art for the second game confirms the developers considered) and perhaps even casting her as an ally who helps them overcome an infected attack would provide us more context and inner conflict, giving the scene where she finally reveals her true motives a greater sense of dramatic weight. We get little time with Abby before she kills Joel in the game, which is a shocking scene in its original form, but viewers at home might feel a little lost if someone they assume to be one of the series’ two leads is killed so abruptly in the first couple of episodes. Getting us into Abby’s headspace earlier so we know exactly what she’s planning and why is the sort of shift that would help smooth that plot development over. And let’s be real here, more Kaitlyn Dever is never a bad thing (Did you see No One Will Save You? She was very good in that).

Ultimately, we don’t know exactly how The Last of Us Season 2 will pan out, but based on the first season, it’s fair to say the creative team behind the show can be extended a little bit of trust. There’s a murderer’s row of talent involved in the production, and although a game series as beloved as this can engender strong protective feelings from its fans, it can be rewarding to let an adaptation of a story you already know surprise you. The game isn’t going anywhere. The story will always exist in that form. So let’s have a little faith and see what the differences in the new season will add to the story, instead of assuming they’ll only subtract.

Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.

Today, card games are everywhere, but in 1993, the trading card game (TCG) genre was born with just one: Magic: The Gathering, created by Richard Garfield. I became a fan a few years later, in 1996, during the release of the Fourth Edition core set.

Once I got the hang of the game, I was hooked for nearly three years. The artwork drew me in, and the flavor text – often witty, dark, and sarcastic – kept me entertained, but what I loved most was playing. The tactile thrill of placing a card on the table, imagining myself as a powerful planeswalker commanding forces beyond mortal comprehension, was unbeatable.

Though other trading card games existed back then, my loyalty to Magic: The Gathering consumed both my attention and my budget. Fast forward to today, and the landscape is even more crowded. The old titans of the genre are still thriving, while countless newer games vie for attention, each bringing something unique to the table.

With that in mind, here are the 10 best trading and living card games to dive into in 2024 – games that are fun to play, boast active communities, and have the potential for long-term growth. Whatever you decide to try out and play, make sure you have a community to share it with: either a local one where you live or an online one that is supportive. The community surrounding the game is as important as the game itself.

The Big Three

These are the established choices for anyone who’s deciding on a trading card game.

Magic: The Gathering

Every year I get my hopes up thinking, “This is it: This’ll be the year that EA’s NHL finally gets it together and delivers on its full potential,” only to then spend dozens of hours playing a game that is almost fundamentally the same as the one I played the previous year. There are rare exceptions to this; even though I had my issues with NHL 24, the Sustained Pressure System and Exhaustion Engine at least added something new to the overall gameplay, and NHL 21’s Be a Pro Mode has become a staple. Unfortunately, it seems like NHL 25 isn’t going to be one of those exceptions. Keep in mind that these are just my initial, early impressions of NHL 25 after just a few hours on the ice. But you only get to make one first impression, and right now I’m not feeling too optimistic.

Mechanically I’ve yet to see a lot of meaningful changes, but on the surface level, at least, it’s clear right from the start that NHL 25 is the first game in the series built exclusively for current-gen consoles. The graphics are sharp and the action looks better than ever. Animations are smoother and there’s something satisfying about seeing how much wear and tear you put on the ice. Players now look much more like humans and less like animatronics, so zoom-ins on faces will hopefully no longer provide a lot of nightmare fuel. We can’t say there’s been no positive steps made.

However, Franchise is the only mode that’s been given a significant overhaul relative to last year’s version. The most immediately noticeable change is that the newly redesigned hub menu is sleeker and easier to parse. But there have also been actual gameplay additions, too. For example, GMs must convince free agents to sign with their team if the player’s interest in the organization is too low.

How they go about doing that is up to them. Maybe it’s by promising to let them play on the first line. You can attempt to charm them, but if it fails it might kill their interest in your offer entirely. And players can actually negotiate no-movement or no-trade clauses into their contracts, which is a feature that the NHL playerbase has been requesting for a while now.

GMs can also discuss what the team should be focusing on during the offseason with head coaches, which essentially provides season-wide buffs and debuffs for the team. Players can also be approached with the conversation system to let GMs develop them individually. Seasonal goals and on-ice plays can be assigned, which will lead to boosts if the player is successful. I haven’t had the time I’ve needed yet to see how much impact these types of decisions will actually have in a Franchise playthrough, so I won’t be able to say for certain if these are meaningful until my final review.

You might be wondering how Be a Pro is different this time around. Well, it’s not. Even the intro cinematics seem to be identical, which is doubly bad because I had this same complaint last year. The entire mode just seems shoehorned into each installment with the bare minimum of care or attention. I would love to have some type of story mode that was more than just text bubbles and choosing a response like in those annoying mobile game ads, but I guess that’s just not going to happen anytime soon.

So you can say I’m not wowed by what I’ve seen so far, but we’re still in the first period here: I’ve yet to touch the online modes at all, though I did briefly open a HUT Pack only to have NHL 25 crash midway through the lootbox animation. Hopefully I won’t encounter too many more glitches like that. I’ll be upfront and admit that Franchise Mode has never appealed to me too much because that type of sports sim management is not what I’m personally looking for in a hockey game – I prefer to be out on the ice than in the office – but I do plan to give it a fair shot and see if that mode finally clicks with me thanks to the new changes.

Based on what I’ve played so far, though? I’m just not feeling very impressed by NHL 25. For being the first NHL game exclusively for current-gen consoles, it’s a shame that it seems like it’s still stuck in the same last-gen rut.