Category: IGN

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered development studio Virtuos has said it remains “fully committed” to ongoing work on the game, as well as its contributions to Cyberpunk 2077 and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, despite shedding up to 270 staff.

In a statement today, Virtuous said it was “evolving to meet the changing needs” of its partners and the wider video games industry by cutting several hundred staff members, predominantly from its Asian workforce.

Describing the job losses as a “rebalancing of roles across our studios and geographies,” Virtuos said its changes would impact 200 roles in Asia and a further 70 roles in Europe.

Still, the company has made clear that its team behind the recent, well-received Oblivion Remastered is not among those hardest hit. “Fewer than 10” roles will be impacted in France, Virtuos continued, “where the core team working on Oblivion Remastered is located.” Oblivion Remastered update 1.2 will soon be released widely.

Ongoing work on Cyberpunk 2077 — which only today received its latest patch — will continue, Virtuos assured. The same is also true of its team working on Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, due out on August 28.

Discussing its staffing changes in more detail, Virtuos said the company’s focus had shifted over the past 12 months after acquisitions of teams in North America and Europe, and it was now “selectively exiting service segments where demand is weakening.”

“We are grateful for the contributions of those impacted,” Virtuos concluded. “We are providing separation packages, career transition assistance, and opportunities for redeployment across our global network where possible. The company’s immediate focus is on managing this transition with care, transparency, and respect.”

Headquarted in Singapore but with studios across the world, Virtuos employed 4,200 staff before these latest layoffs. The company is a renowned co-development partner that has contributed to a laundry list of recent blockbuster games, from Hogwarts Legacy to Call of Duty, and Horizon Zero Dawn to Mortal Kombat 1.

Virtuos’ Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.3 is available today for all platforms and adds new vehicles, jobs and a photo mode to CD Projekt’s futuristic open-world, while CD Projekt itself is busy building Cyberpunk 2.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

The Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim, CA are just around the corner in August, and with it comes an exclusive line of cute Pokémon merch, which IGN has an exclusive first look at. Each year, the Pokémon World Championships hosts a special Pokémon Center pop-up shop, and we’re getting three uniquely themed exclusive lines out of the event this time. Last year, we got a tropical, Hawaiian-themed Pokémon line. Check out the unique new Pokémon items, including a first-ever Pokémon bodyboard, below.

“In honor of this year’s Anaheim, CA location, Pokémon Center will be releasing three product lines – the Varsity Line, SoCal Beach Skater Line, and Rockabilly Line,” said Cindy Ruppenthal, senior director of Pokémon Center and e-commerce at The Pokémon Company International. “This year’s collection draws inspiration from bright, retro-diner design, blending vibrant colors and nostalgic elements that capture the spirit of our SoCal location.”

Check out a large selection of the exclusive merch that will be at the Pokémon World Championships in the slideshow above, but keep in mind, this won’t be everything!

The 2025 Worlds Pikachu Plush sporting a varsity jacket, revealed at this year’s North America International Championships in New Orleans, is sure to be a popular item along with the other SoCal-themed plush of Fennekin, Machamp, and Jigglypuff, but there’s a lot more to look forward to.

The standout premiere item this year is the SoCal Bodyboard, which is fully functional for riding waves at the beach, and is priced at $79.99 USD.

Ruppenthal “expects strong demand” for the SoCal Bodyboard along with other functional items from the SoCal Beach Skater Line, like the SoCal Beach Towels.

“Additionally, following popular reception from Pokémon Worlds in Honolulu, we teamed up with Reyn Spooner to create a Pokémon Aloha shirt, bucket hat, tote, and more to celebrate the event in Anaheim,” Ruppenthal said.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s the very first movie in James Gunn’s revamped DC Universe!

Now that Superman has hit theaters, James Gunn’s DC Universe is fully underway… Or is it? While Gunn has now released a movie, a TV show (Peacemaker), and an animated series (Creature Commandos) under his stewardship, there’s still a missing piece of the DC Universe puzzle: video games.

Gunn told fans back in 2022 that his master plan for an interconnected DC Universe includes video games. But unlike on the movies and TV side of things, there have been no official announcements regarding what the first DC Universe video game will be.

An absence of reveals doesn’t mean we don’t have a reasonably clear picture of what to expect, though. Across multiple interviews and press events, Gunn and co-studio head Peter Safran have explained their plans, including the fact that while they don’t technically oversee Warner Bros.’ gaming division, there’s now a much deeper collaboration between WB Games and DC Studios that could dramatically alter the way future DC video games are made. With that in mind, let’s analyze what the future of games will look like in the new DCU era.

Gunn Takes Over DC

The first time we learned that video games factored into Gunn’s DC plans was shortly after he and producer Peter Safran were announced as co-heads of DC Studios on October 25, 2022. While answering fan questions on X, Gunn responded to one user who asked if games would be connected to the DCU alongside films and TV. To this, he simply replied, “Yes.

It wouldn’t be until a few months later that Gunn revealed what movies and shows were in development as part of Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters, which is the DCU’s equivalent of the MCU’s Phase 1. And while video games were conspicuously missing from the Chapter 1 roadmap, Gunn told members of the press, “Television, movies, and games all intertwine within the same universe. We’re going to cast actors who are going to be able to play the characters in [animation and TV], as well as in other things.” This was the first clear indication from Gunn that video games were indeed a part of his plans for the DCU.

One important thing to know is that Gunn’s job as head of DC Studios doesn’t include control over any of Warner Bros’ video game studios, which include developers like Avalanche Software (Hogwarts Legacy), NetherRealm Studios (Mortal Kombat), Rocksteady Studios (Batman Arkham), and TT Games (Lego).

Under the current Warner Bros. Discovery corporate structure, Warner Bros. Games exists separately from DC Studios and is overseen by Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO of global streaming and gaming, JB Perrette. But after Gunn and Safran were named DC co-heads in 2022, Perrette appears to be deferring to the new DC bosses when it comes to matters of comic book video games.

The Walls Break Down Between WB Games and DC Studios

In an interview with Variety in 2024, Perrette revealed, “Frankly, there hasn’t been as close a relationship between the studio and the games business as there should have been. And James [Gunn] is actually a gamer, so having someone who’s passionate about it is super helpful.” Perrette added that the games departments are now “actively working with [Gunn and Safran] on the core franchises within the DC Universe.”

Based on this interview, it appears there was once a wall that divided WB’s gaming division from the movie and TV studios. And according to Perrette, it was only after Gunn and Safran took over DC Studios that a newfound sense of collaboration was achieved.

This dividing wall was confirmed a year later during a DC Studios Presentation held on February 24, 2025. During the event, James Gunn and Peter Safran confirmed Perrette’s statements regarding the separation between the two WB divisions and how that relationship has changed since they took over.

“We work incredibly closely with JB Perrette, who runs that division, and it’s really the first time ever it’s been this way at Warner Bros,” Safran confirmed. “It’s been great, and we’ve enjoyed it enormously. Everything had been so siloed, and now that’s completely broken down, and it’s been great. Because it also applies to consumer products and experiences, and everything that DC touches runs up through us now, which is awesome.”

“James [Gunn] and I sit with literally the guys that run the studios underneath JB,” Safran added. “Whether it’s NetherRealm or whether it’s Rocksteady, [we] sit with them and talk about characters and stories that we’re interested in and that they’re interested in.”

It’s funny that Safran mentions Rocksteady, as it was reported earlier this year that the studio is developing a new single-player Batman game. While it may be too soon to tell, at least according to Gunn and Safran, there will likely be some input from their side of things at DC Studios.

“We see designs for the projects in their very earliest stages,” Gunn said at the event. “When they’re talking about what the story might be, we say, ‘Well, maybe you want to go this way because we’re planning on maybe doing something with this character and so forth and so on,’ and help deal with that.”

Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds will be sold as a physical Nintendo Switch game with the “full base game” included on a 64GB cartridge.

Switch 2 Game-Key Cards are physical cards that contain a key to download your chosen game. That means there’s no actual game data on the card you insert into your Switch 2, and you’ll instead need to download the full game once the card is inserted. Every Game-Key Card case should be appropriately labeled on the front of the box, but the practice has been troubling some gamers, especially those who prefer to physically own their games, not just license them digitally.

This is particularly good news for Sonic fans because there had been confusion and conflicting reports about CrossWorlds in particular. Now, however, Sega has removed all doubt, confirming in a new FAQ that “the physical version will feature the full base game on a 64GB cartridge.”

The FAQ also confirmed that crossplay will be available for Nintendo Switch 2 players, progress will carry over from the original Switch to the newer edition, and yes, there will be a $10 upgrade pack for anyone hoping to upgrade to the Switch 2 version in the future.

By contrast, Square Enix was criticised by fans earlier this week for confirming there would be “no upgrade path” for its Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake on Switch 2, and that its save files would not be compatible across platforms.

Sega has said CrossWorlds will feature a huge roster of over playable characters, if you include DLC. Characters you’d expect to see, such as Sonic, Dr. Eggman, Knuckles, Shadow, and Tails are present and correct, but now you can add the likes of SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the mix.

CrossWorlds is, of course, going up against Switch 2 exclusive kart game Mario Kart World, which has so far resisted adding guest characters from outside Nintendo’s portfolio. Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds is set for release on both the Switch and the Switch 2, so it looks like we’ll be set for some old-fashioned Mario vs. Sonic kart racing rivalry when Sega’s effort launches in September.

IGN recently went hands-on with Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and came away impressed. “It’s a vibe,” we said, “and one that I’ve enjoyed and will look forward to drifting through.”

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

The alleged risk of using a well-known Pokémon Go exploit is causing widespread confusion among the game’s community, fuelled by a dire warning from a senior player that supposedly originates from the app’s own development team.

Said warning states that Pokémon Go’s developers are aware of the exploit in question — which allows users to interact with in-game locations from further away than normally possible — and consider it “a violation of the Terms of Service of the game.”

Continued use of the exploit is detectable by the developer’s anti-cheat teams, the warning goes on to claim, and risks users’ accounts being flagged for cheating — an offense that can eventually result in a permanent account ban.

The appearance of this message, and the claim it is being passed on from Pokémon Go’s makers, has sparked a firestorm of debate, primarily over the rights and (mostly) wrongs of this exploit being viewed as cheating in the same vein as more nefarious tactics.

Many players have said that this “trick” simply makes use of a unintended bug in how the game functions, and is not comparable to the tools some players use to actively break the game, such as by using third-party apps and hacks to spoof their location.

There’s also a debate over the veracity of the message itself — both over its origins, which appear to be from a senior player marked as a Community Ambassador who has spoken to the game’s developers, and over the likely intent behind what was said.

To understand the nuances here, it’s worth taking a look at the issue in more detail. At a base level, the exploit allows players to access a raid lobby slightly beyond their normal interaction radius via a Daily or Premium Raid Pass, rather than by using a more expensive Remote Raid Pass.

Performing the exploit — referred to locally among players as “flying,” “floating,” or “tricking” — is clearly not intended behavior, but can hardly be considered game-breaking. Accessing a raid lobby that’s less than 100m away but slightly out of your normal range is considered by many players to simply be a convenience — and potentially an aid to taking part in more raids overall, even if this is done so without the top-tier Remote Raid Pass.

That said, a simple glance at the game’s Terms of Service (TOS) shows that, according to the letter of the law, this could indeed fall under the game’s description of cheating as it stands.

IGN contacted the Pokémon Go development team to ask about the origins of the warning, whether the exploit was indeed considered cheating, and what actions players might expect if they continued to use it. In response, a spokesperson pointed us back to the game’s TOS document, and specifically its section on cheating, which we’ll quote below.

Now, it’s entirely possible to see how this exploit could fall under the TOS’ definition of using “techniques to alter or falsify a device’s location” and therefore — again, according to the letter of the law — is something that could be considered cheating.

But by pointing IGN back to its TOS, the Pokémon Go development team is also — deliberately or not — highlighting something potentially crucial around this issue’s enforcement. And that’s the fact that, once again, according to the letter of the law, playing with multiple accounts is also considered cheating — despite it being something that a percentage of the game’s playerbase does, with absolutely zero infraction.

What this may all ultimately boil down to is someone purportedly asking the Pokémon Go development team for its view on an issue that the game’s makers would obviously never sanction, but which seems unlikely to suddenly result in waves of players being banned. And yet, because of the murky origins of the warning, and because nuance can be difficult when messages get passed over the internet, players have now been left aggrieved and concerned.

Will the exploit stick around in the game forever? It seems unlikely. Will players suddenly find themselves banned for using it while it’s still possible? This seems unlikely too. But, we should state, this is just one reading of the situation, in lieu of any formal statement being provided — something which, if formalised, would likely only prompt the need for actual enforecement, which the majority of players seem to be against.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Good news, ‘80s action fans: Blasting bad guys’ brains out and balls off is still RoboCop’s business, and business is… unfinished. A standalone expansion to 2023’s entertainingly authentic RoboCop: Rogue City, RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business takes Robo’s relentless rampage off the scum-riddled streets of Old Detroit and up through the heavily guarded heights of OMNI Tower in an all-new, 10-hour killing spree. The bad news is that with precious few new weapons and enemy types, the action of Unfinished Business never really elevates enough to match the skyward trajectory of its setting or distinguish itself as little more than a replay of the original. There’s still plenty of ultra violence to indulge in here, but it’s a form of mindless fun that’s as familiar as it is ferocious.

Not unlike the 2012 sci-fi splatterfest movie Dredd, the action of Unfinished Business is contained almost entirely within the one highrise building and sees RoboCop making his way from the ground floor to its upper reaches in search of some stolen OCP equipment. It borrows a bit of BioShock as well, since Robo is initially led along by an anonymous assistant on the other end of a two-way radio, and that helps to lend a welcome air of mystery to the story’s opening half – even if it doesn’t eventually pay off with any shocking plot twists like Irrational Games’ underwater classic.

As was the case with the previous game, the success of Unfinished Business’ storytelling largely hinges on the often hilarious deadpan delivery of original RoboCop actor Peter Weller in the main role. Whether he’s repeating iconic lines from the movies or making subtle mockery of almost everyone he meets, Weller’s performance is a noticeable cut above the rest. Admittedly, that’s not a super high bar to clear since the supporting cast often sound like they’re voiced by hastily dashed-out placeholder recordings someone forgot to fill in with the real ones, and each seem to draw from the same shallow pool of character heads, making it tough to really distinguish one from the other. In the end, I was happy to go along for the ride all the way to Unfinished Business’ bullet-riddled gore-gasm of a climax, in spite of the fact that I didn’t particularly feel compelled to focus on anyone other than the scumbags standing squarely in front of my ironsights.

Business As Usual

Beyond the story, though, Unfinished Business is a fairly flat 10 hours because while it increases the amount of bad guys you have to shoot, it doesn’t do nearly enough to expand the variety of ways you do it. If you’ve played 2023’s Rogue City, then you’ve already experienced the bulk of what Unfinished Business’ combat has to offer. Once again, you’re able to ricochet bullets off walls to stylishly snipe enemies hidden behind cover, perform breach-and-clears on almost every door you come across in bloodsplattered slow-motion, and shoot explosive barrel after explosive barrel as you RoboStop and RoboDrop absolutely every criminal you come across. It’s all presented with the same fan-pleasing flair, from the green Apple IIe-like graphics of Robo’s heads-up display to the iconic theme music that swells along with the increasing enemy numbers, and that certainly still goes a long way. It’s just a shame to see the skill and Auto 9 upgrade systems copied across seemingly unchanged. You unlock the exact same perks like armour-piercing rounds and the ability to automatically deflect incoming enemy fire, just a little faster this time thanks to the story’s shorter runtime.

There are a handful of new mechanical enemy types to contend with at least, though none of them really shake things up to a dramatic degree. I did find myself making more consistent use of Robo’s returning slow-mo skill in order to combat the fast-moving robobombs that rapidly roll towards you, as well as the swarms of flying security drones that dart unpredictably through the air above. But while the nimble killbots that cartwheel around the place seem threatening at first blush, they quickly prove to be about as resilient as a jar of baby food as I either shattered their robot skulls with a quick burst of bullets or simply picked them up and disposed of them like katana-wielding Kleenexes, even on the hardest difficulty setting.

OMNI Tower itself does offer the occasional interesting space to host the slaughter in, from the vibrant video arcade and cinema found in the relaxation zone to the trashbag-strewn underbelly of waste management (complete with a Star Wars-style trash compactor to frantically blast your way out of). Those are the exception, though, and most of the carnage takes place in the charmless concrete corridors in between. That’s to be expected from a tour through a corporate dystopia, sure, but it doesn’t make for a lot of fun surprises. Despite the striking gallery of gore and particle effects that shower over each firefight, there were times that Unfinished Business’ drab interiors made it feel less like a thrilling action adventure and more like wandering in circles through a shopping mall carpark trying to work out where I left my 6000 SUX.

Still, the biggest problem I had with Unfinished Business’ gunplay was the same one I found with 2023’s Rogue City. That is, Robo’s signature Auto 9 – blessed as it is with unlimited ammo, easily upgradeable attributes, and an undeniable cool factor – makes the dozens of other firearms found throughout the campaign almost entirely redundant. It’s just so overequipped to deal with everything that’s thrown your way that I never found a good enough reason to holster it. It would be akin to a Star Wars adventure in which you default to the use of a lightsaber – you’re probably not ever going to clip it to your belt and pick up a Tusken Raider’s gaffi stick to crack heads with instead.

There is one exception: the cryo cannon that’s introduced in the second half proved to be worth a few charged-up trigger squeezes, especially since its sub-zero rounds turn your targets into instant ice sculptures that can be subsequently shattered like the T-1000. That’s a time-honored video game tradition that dates back to Duke Nukem 3D. But otherwise I almost never felt the need to bend over and grab any other dropped firearms – and not just because Robo appears to have the knee joints of an 80-year-old man (as well as the voice of a 78-year-old). In fact, the only time I felt forced to employ enemy uzis and shotguns was during an especially violent rescue mission late in the story – and that’s only because the thing I was trying to rescue was, funnily enough, my stolen Auto 9.

Murphy’s Law

Unfinished Business’ structure is effectively built around a cycle of using your Auto 9 to deep-six hordes of mercenaries, pausing to settle disputes between citizens in side missions that veer from moderately humorous to completely banal, and then flicking some switches and turning valves in its basic puzzle sections to open the path ahead before resuming the unrelenting blaze of glorious gore. There are only a handful of detours along the way that at least try to mix up the otherwise predictable pacing, with varying degrees of success.

In one flashback mission we get to pull on the kevlar-lined vest of Alex Murphy in his pre-RoboCop days, as he and his fellow officers are dispatched to investigate the whereabouts of some known perps. I enjoyed this small glimpse of Murphy’s origins in the Metro South precinct even if the stilted banter between his squad was more than a little wide of the mark, and there were some fun Easter eggs to find here including a memo that referenced the ominous rise of a new criminal on the scene that I won’t spoil here.

However, the setting of this sequence lacks imagination given that its abandoned mill surroundings are a bit too similar to the site of Murphy’s infamous ‘crucifixion’ scene witnessed in the first film, and its combat feels somewhat topsy turvy. Where RoboCop must scramble to find OCP charges in order to replenish his rapidly depleting health, regular flesh-and-bone Murphy somehow magically regains it in between shootouts. That’s typical for a lot of first-person shooters, but it’s less of a contrast to playing as a walking tank than I’d been expecting. On the flipside, Murphy can only wield his boring old service pistol, which is frustrating because this was one of the few times I actually wanted to pick up a gun I found but couldn’t. It all makes for a diversion that’s important to the plot, but not particularly compelling to play.

Thankfully, the same can’t be said for the late-game level where you get to pilot an ED-209 mech. This fabulously frenetic stretch of fan service allows you to use twin arm cannons to shred through each hapless human like they’re that one poor bastard executive that probably should have hid in the bathroom during the original ED-209 demonstration, blast through concrete walls with rocket barrages, and even trample over a model of Old Detroit’s skyline while battling rival robots like you’re revelling in a small-scale clash of Kaiju. Sure, it’s perhaps not as cathartic as it could have been given that by that point I’d already very efficiently turned hundreds of mercenaries into mincemeat with Robo’s Auto 9. But I can’t pretend I wasn’t grinning like an idiot through the entire sequence, which ratchets up the carnage to ludicrous levels and doesn’t linger long enough to outstay the welcome of playing as a near-invincible killing machine.

I never got tired of seeing RoboCop himself onscreen either. As was the case with the previous game, his polished steel armour looks absolutely spot-on and he always seems to be lit with ambient neon lights like he’s emerging out of the driver’s side of a Ford Taurus on the poster for the 1987 film. That said, outside of the smooth lines of Robo’s movie-accurate character model there’s a noticeable roughness to Unfinished Business, at least on the PlayStation 5 version that I played. During my time with it I suffered frame rate dips, audio dropouts, animation glitches, dodgy lip syncing, ridiculous moon physics during slow-motion breaches, characters disappearing completely during finishing moves and story cutscenes, and even the occasional crash to the home screen. After a while I started to wonder if the “Unfinished Business” title was a nod to RoboCop’s everlasting quest for justice or merely a reference to the launch state of the game itself.

Games Workshop has added a Black Library logo to its official Big Summer Warhammer Preview showcase, sparking speculation the company may announce new novels that finally move the overarching Warhammer 40,000 narrative forward.

Big Summer Warhammer Preview, set for this Friday, July 18, will contain reveals for Games Workshop’s main tabletop games, including Age of Sigmar, The Horus Heresy, and of course Warhammer 40,000. Its initially released digital poster for the event did not feature the logo for Black Library, Games Workshop’s in-house book publishing division. However, on July 16, it released a new version of this poster with the Black Library logo added, sparking speculation that fans will get new novel announcements as well.

There’s an old idea called the sophomore slump that says second efforts generally aren’t as good as the first. Sophomore students don’t care as much as freshmen; bands have less time to make a second album than the “out of nowhere” breakout hit they worked on for years; athletes who have exceptional rookie years regress to the mean; and so on. There’s no denying the power of new car smell, and part of the reason College Football 25 popped off as hard as it did (and trust me if you’re unsure: it popped off) was because it’d been more than a decade since NCAA 14. People really, really wanted a new game based on college football. It didn’t hurt that it was also a good one, but the annual “it’s the same game as last year” fatigue of the sports genre hadn’t set in yet. College Football 26 doesn’t benefit from new car smell anymore, but it’s not a game suffering from the sophomore slump, either. This season is better than last year’s; it’s just more focused on steady improvement than breakout success.

Here’s the secret, y’all: once a sports series “solves” the gameplay, it’s never really going to be bad. And College Football 26 (and frankly, Madden, too) has largely solved the “make the football video game play good” part of the football video game. At worst, it’s going to feel samey from year to year, like you’re stuck in football-themed purgatory at a party that’s never quite bad enough to leave. That’s not College Football 26; this is good-ass barbeque, and I’m happy to be here. But like a good-but-not-great QB working on his footwork and release, the devil is in the details. Improvements here are more evolution, less revolution, but this is an annual sports game. You kinda knew that going in.

Part of that is because College Football 26 is built on a really firm foundation. College Football 25 was a good game, and it still has that infectious spirit and sense of tradition that made it a nice change of pace from the more straight-laced Madden. This year’s iteration expands on that in good ways. One of the things I appreciate most is the Trophy Room, which tracks the real world trophies you’ll accumulate across your entire career, no matter what mode you’re in. It’s cool to see stuff like the Heisman Trophy, the Unitas Golden Arm Award, and the Orange Bowl Trophy collected in one place, and be able to learn about them, too. There’s a lot of history to college football, and I appreciate that EA has tried to capture that.

Aside from the addition of the Trophy Room, though, there are no new modes in College Football 26. The options are the exact same as last year, so I am going to copy and paste last year’s paragraph breaking down the modes. Fair’s fair, right?

“You’ve got Play Now, Road to the College Football playoffs, which is a quickfire online ranked mode where you’ll pick a team and try to guide them to a National Championship; Road to Glory, which lets you create your own player and pilot them through their college career; the flagship Dynasty mode, where you’ll helm one of College Football 25 26’s 136(!) [Delaware and Mississippi State are new additions] teams as either a head coach or an offensive or defensive coordinator; Practice and Minigames; and finally, College Ultimate Team (CUT), the college version of Madden Ultimate Team. Just like its big brother, CUT is a slot machine masquerading as a trading card game that will almost assuredly make EA hundreds of millions of dollars and eventually earn the ire of the community as it gets more updates per year than every other mode combined.”

I was kinda hoping that College Football 26 would move its tutorials out of Ultimate Team, but no such luck. This is still a bad system and it’s still a deeply cynical move on EA’s part. Again, I quote from last year’s review:

“The only reason to do it this way is to corral new players into CUT so they can fall down the money hole – of course, it’s somewhat self-defeating that they have to figure out that the tutorials are in CUT in the first place, which is something College Football 25 26 doesn’t actually tell you. As someone who doesn’t play Ultimate Team beyond my obligations as a critic for obvious reasons [and presuming I hadn’t played College Football 25], I would’ve just assumed that there were no tutorials at all and EA simply wanted college football-curious folk who didn’t already play their football to wander around aimlessly until they figured it out for themselves. In actuality, EA wants all of us to get hooked on CUT and spend lots and lots of money. I’m not sure which is worse.”

That’s all still true, but the College Football team has at least made some really nice quality of life updates to Ultimate Team. I’m going to single out two I appreciated in particular: One is the Pack Helper, which will immediately tell you if a player is better than someone in your current lineup and let you equip them on the spot without entering another menu. The other major one is that you can now see your challenges from the play call screen and bring them up at any time pre-snap, no more pausing required. These, as well as some other changes, are very nice tweaks. That said, I functionally believe, deep in my soul, that these modes are predatory, more than a little evil, and designed to trigger the dopamine-producing parts of our brain that gambling stimulates in the hopes that you will continue to spend money for a chance at a good outcome, which is what gambling is, and I cannot endorse anything about them. Yes, you can build a team without spending money, but it is designed to take much longer than just opening your wallet, and given that doing so can literally make your team better, it is pay to win. These are unremarkable and verifiable truths. Do with them what you will. I say we move on to greener pastures.

The mode that has seen the most meaningful changes in my eyes is Road to Glory, where you’ll create a player and begin your college journey. Notably, you can now (kind of) play through your high school phase, which determines how colleges view you. Last year, my very own Joe Throw was a five-star recruit because I work hard enough already. This year, I said “f*** it, we ball,” and legendary QB Joe Throw started down the more challenging path of a two-star prospect because why not? You have more customization options this year – I could select my throwing style, shotgun stance, running animation, line up look, and so on – that is really cool, and once I got Joe Throw all prettied up and ready for the dance and selected my archetype (I opted for Backfield Creator), it was time to step out onto the floor. There are six preset teams to play for (I played for the Rattlers), but you can build your own in the Team Builder if you’re so inclined.

After a brief interview with a local reporter allowed me to talk about what I was looking for in a college program, I set up my recruiting board, which showed me what potential schools thought of Joe. You might think you’d play full high school games, but the reality is you’ll select up to four of five possible goals and play through drives based around them, whether that means throwing a play action pass while avoiding a ball-hawking safety, leading your team on a late drive to win the game, or converting an important third down.

How well you do will determine what you put on tape, which is how colleges will evaluate you. Each school has its own criteria and is looking for different things in its players, so some will jive with certain goals (and player archetypes) more than others. Navy is probably more interested in a mobile QB who can run the option than a pocket passer, and will evaluate you accordingly, while a school that runs a pro style offense probably wants a cat who can sling it.

It’s a solid system, even if I wish we were playing full games instead of regular drives. That said, I do like it overall, and it’s a big improvement over last year. I also like that you get a limited number of retries per game depending on your difficulty, and that teams will give you special challenges you can undertake to improve your tape score with them, or tell you that they’re just not that into you thanks to their current lineup or because they’ve just secured a commitment from another player at your position. That doesn’t mean they won’t give you a scholarship or you can’t try out for them as a walk on; it’ll just be harder.

As a two-star recruit, my path was really difficult. I essentially had to play perfectly to get an offer from my preferred school (Virginia), but I liked the challenge. I also like the little touches EA has added: Senior Night, how the camera trails your player during run outs, and a hat ceremony where you can fake people out before you select your school. I started off as a third string QB at Virginia, but it wasn’t long before Joe Throw was in a position battle for the backup spot. Once I won that, he was soon promoted to starter.

Otherwise, stuff is more or less the same as last year, and the same problems persist. It takes too long to get access to things like audibles and hot routes, your coach will make boneheaded play calls (why are we constantly running play action when we never run the ball, coach?) with limited options for you to change them, and your coach will blame you for “stalled drives” when your receivers drop the ball or your running back gets stuffed. You know, things that are not your fault, reducing his trust in you. Some of these restrictions don’t even make sense. Why am I allowed to call timeouts and not audibles? Why can I flip the play on the play call screen but not after I come to the line? It’s maddening until you earn the ability to do basic things. I get that this is meant to simulate earning your coach’s trust and serve as progress in what is essentially a sports RPG, but it can also be frustrating to deal with.

Outside of the games, Road to Glory is largely the same. You’ll manage your time between studying, resting to restore your health, upping your leadership skills, training, and managing your brand. There are occasional extras, like NIL deals and the opportunity to study for or cheat on tests, and so on, all of which mostly boil down to text exchanges that offer their own risks and rewards. You now have to manage Coach Happiness and Career Health, which are nice additions, though the former is very easy if you’re smart (and don’t get caught cheating). The latter requires making sure your Season Health stays as high as it can, otherwise it reduces your career health pool in the subsequent season. These are good additions, if still a little easy to manage. Joe Throw is once again almighty, and Road to Glory is still the same as it was: solid, but not great.

Dynasty is where most people will spend their time, and it’s got the same highs and lows as it did last year, though there are some great upgrades. Over 300 real world coaches are in College Football 26, complete with their own playbooks, tendencies, and skills. Custom coaches have more customization options, from their clothing to how they behave on the sidelines, and they all now have a level cap of 100 up from College Football 25’s 50. Jack-of-all-trades builds are harder than specializing, though you can compensate for this by hiring coordinators who supplement your weaknesses.

There have also been an enormous number of quality of life changes here. I won’t go into all of them because we’d be here forever and EA has a blog explaining all of that anyway, but I dig many of them, like how bringing in a player close to your school costs fewer recruiting hours than flying in someone from across the country, and that you can always see your team needs when you’re on the recruiting menu because they’re now pinned to the top of the page. Oh, and now every player has a dealbreaker (some of which change over time), so there’s more players in the Transfer Portal at the end of any given year, and how much they progress between seasons (or how much weight they gain) is based on how good your school’s training facilities are. Better still, you can finally level them up manually. It’s great stuff, and I saw how much harder it is to recruit at a school like UConn (my online dynasty) and Boise State (my solo world). All very good, very welcome changes, among many, many others.

However, many of Dynasty’s improvements are largely still around the edges, under the hood kind of stuff. This is the same engine and the same car, and you have to love the act of recruiting, leveling up your coach, and playing games because, beyond that, there isn’t much else to do. Dynasty is still good, but it’s very much “more of the same, just better.” If you liked it last year, you’ll like it this year. If, like me, you wish there was more to do, that hasn’t changed. I’m going to try to stick with my Online Dynasty longer than I did last year, but it still doesn’t compel me the way Franchise does in Madden.

The best stuff might be the on-the-field tweaks. The little change I’m happiest about is to how defenders play the football when it’s in the air. If you’ve played College Football or Madden in the last few years, you’ve probably noticed defenders intercepting passes that they couldn’t have seen without turning around. They essentially had eyes in the back of their heads, and it could be very frustrating. EA has said they’ve changed that, and in my testing, it’s proven true. Now a defender has to see the ball to pick it off, and you’ll notice defenders turning their heads (or not) before the ball arrives. If they don’t, however, it doesn’t mean that defender can’t make a play on the ball. They can still swat it. It’s a good change because it’s two-fold: you now actually have a reason to swat the ball down instead of going for the pick every time, and better defenders can now make plays average ones can’t.

I’m also a big fan of dynamic subs and custom zones for defenders. The former allows you to swap players on the field and not just on the playcall screen (thank God), though you have to wait a play for the substitution to take effect, and the latter is the defensive version of last year’s custom stems for routes on offense. I enjoy the defensive game more than the offensive one, so being able to set where I want my zones to be on the field in real-time and not in a menu is welcome. I’m enjoying playing around with this stuff, and I imagine I’ll be using it quite a bit. And man, being able to sub on the field is a godsend, even if it’s not immediate. Maybe one day we’ll get to the point where players are running on and off the field in real time. That would be neat, but this is a good first step to that (hopefully possible) future.

While nowhere near as popular as Mario games, Donkey Kong has continuously released some of the best 2D platformers in the entire market. The Donkey Kong Country series, which started on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, has released two remasters on Nintendo Switch specifically. One of these is Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, launched earlier this year for Nintendo Switch, and if you’re a fan of 2D platformers, this is easily a must-own game. Then there’s also Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which is on sale for the same price at Woot as well.

These deals are part of an ongoing video game sale at Woot, which lasts until August 1 and includes a ton of other Switch games.

Donkey Kong Switch Games Are on Sale at Woot

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD features over 80 levels across nine different worlds. This version of the game brings the new features found in the 3DS release, in addition to a new Modern Mode that increases the number of hearts per level. Some of the levels you’ll come across will be incredibly challenging, but the platforming is very fair and exceptionally fun, whether playing alone or with a friend.

DKC Returns initially launched on the Wii in 2010, but even 15 years later, the game still holds up. We gave the game an 8/10 in our review, stating, “Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is a passable remaster of an amazing platformer – more modern improvements and a larger graphical update would have been nice, but this is still one of the greatest 2D platformers Nintendo has released this century.”

The other deal worth mentioning in this sale is Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which was originally released for the Wii U. We gave that game a 9/10 in our review, stating, “Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze is a fun and challenging platformer that isn’t afraid to make you work hard.”

Now is the perfect time to jump into DK’s previous adventures, as Donkey Kong Bananza (out tomorrow!) is set to feature numerous references to older games in the series. If you’re excited for Donkey Kong’s big debut on Nintendo Switch 2, be sure to check out our 10/10 review of the game.

We’re a few weeks into the Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Universes Beyond set, and things are starting to settle down as we head into (you guessed it) another set.

That’s right, Edge of Eternities is right around the corner, but before the space-themed set arrives, there have been yet more price fluctuations in the world of Magic: The Gathering.

Crashers: Vivi Drops Again

Vivi Ornitier was around $70 a week or two ago, but is now at around $45. He’s still incredibly popular, but he is dropping off.

Vivi’s synergies are also dropping. Harmonic Prodigy reached $13 but has started to roll downward, closing in on the $10 mark.

Perch Protection from Bloomburrow is also down, now as low as $8 for all you Chocobo lovers. It’s still up, but it’s lower than it has been.

Remember when Tifa, Martial Artist was absolutely flying at around the $50 mark? She’s seen a steep drop, likely because she’s included in the FF7 Commander precon.

She’s down to under $4 now, when just a few weeks ago she’d have set you back $50 (although she’s great fun to use in a game).

Climbers: Cloud Nine

For the first few weeks of the Final Fantasy set, a big focus was on counters thanks to Tidus’ Final Fantasy X deck, but now Cloud is our spiky-haired boy of the week.

His focus on Equipment cards is seeing a series of synergies bounce into the limelight, notably Sigarda’s Aid, Sword of the Animist, and Panharmonicon.

The former lets you cast equipment as if it had Flash (and is up to over $20 from $3 in the last 3 months), while Sword of the Animist is up to $14 and lets you rack up land like there’s no tomorrow.

Finally, Panharmonicon gives you extra triggers, meaning you could build an absolutely savage board state very quickly indeed. Interestingly, Pnaharmonicon is sitting at around $5 still. I might have to invest.

Sticking with Cloud, the Kaldheim set’s Halvar, God of Battle is up to around $30 It gives equipped (and enchanted) creatures Double Strike, lets you mix and match equipment, and turns into the Sword of the Realms which can power up a card and protect it from death by sending it back to your hand. Not bad, Halvar.

Finally, another clash of Universes sees the RMS Titanic from the Doctor Who set rising in prominence. Why? Because the now $5 card is likely to be a big winner for the new rules in Edge of Eternities, which will see vehicles become more important since they can be used as Commanders.

MTG Sealed Sets

Everything else Final Fantasy is pretty hot right now, so if you manage to find anything in stock, it might be worth picking up ASAP to avoid disapointment.

Looking for more TCG discussion and market watch? Check out the full MTG release schedule for 2025, last week’s MTG price movers and shakers, or, on the Pokemon side of things, our latest crashers and climbers for Pokemon TCG and the most expensive 151 cards going right now for Pokemon trainers

Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.