Category: IGN

Similar to every other high-end GPU on the market, the AMD Radeon 9070 XT graphics card is selling for above MSRP in 2026. Fortunately, it’s not as egregiously marked up as Nvidia cards, and now there’s an even better incentive. For a limited time, you can purchase an AMD Radeon 9070 XT GPU on Amazon and get a free Crimson Desert code. Since Crimson Desert isn’t out yet, you’ll have to wait to download the full version of the game when it releases on March 19.

Buy an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, Get Crimson Desert Free

The Radeon RX 9070 XT Received a 10/10 at IGN

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is the only 2025-released GPU that we gave a 10/10 score. Even though it costs $150 less than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, the 9070 XT beats it out in several of the games we tested. In a few benchmarks, the results aren’t even close. The 9070 XT approaches the performance of the $1,000 RX 7900 XTX but with better ray tracing and upscaling performance than its predecessor.

This is the least expensive graphics card from either AMD or Nvidia that I would comfortably recommend for playing the latest and most demanding games in 4K at 60fps or higher framerates.

The Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU is the best model to get

Chapter 5 of the popular survival horror game Poppy Playtime just came out, but now fans of the game’s creepy monster dolls are closer to having a Huggy Wuggy of their very own. As part of IGN Fan Fest, McFarlane Toys is revealing some brand-new looks at their line of Poppy Playtime figures.

The lineup, which includes 4.5-inch, 7-inch, and 12-inch models, features fan-favorite characters like Huggy Wuggy, Kissy Missy, Killy Willy, and Harley Sawyer. The 7-inch figures will be available for pre-order February 27. You can purchase the entire lineup in-stores like Walmart, Target and GameStop as well as online at Amazon, BigBadToyStore, Entertainment Earth and the McFarlane Toys Store this Spring.

I spoke exclusively with Todd McFarlane about his company’s collaboration with Mob Entertainment, producer of Poppy Playtime, and what makes the game the perfect target for collaboration.

Amazon recently discounted the 2025 27″ Samsung G5 OLED to $349.99, making it the lowest price I’ve ever seen for an OLED gaming monitor. Today, the deal just got even better because you can now get a free Resident Evil: Requiem game code with purchase. The offer will automatically be applied during checkout. With this voucher you’ll be able to download the full game when it releases on February 27. The monitor also includes a 3 year warranty with burn-in coverage.

27″ Samsung Odyssey OLED G5 Gaming Monitor for $349.99

Free Resident Evil: Requiem game code with purchase

Pokémon has been a part of my life for as far back as I can remember. I was just starting first grade when Pokémon Red and Blue came out on the Game Boy, but I still remember it like it was yesterday. My brother and I only had one Game Boy between us, and since he was older, he got to play it far more often than I did. Before we got a copy of Pokémon Blue for Christmas that year, the only Game Boy game we’d actually had the chance to play was Tetris. So needless to say, I was instantly enamored with the concept of catching and battling with all 151 of the original Pokémon.

And of those original Pokémon in that game, I was always particularly interested in Eevee. Not because it’s arguably the most adorable, but because of all of the evolutionary paths you could take once you had one. And you could only have one per playthrough, after all, since you couldn’t actually catch Eevee in that game. As one of the most versatile Pokémon out there and I always find myself choosing a different Eevee-lution each time I play a new game.

Within the hallways of the sinister sanatorium where Resident Evil Requiem’s opening hours take place lies some of the most frightening encounters I’ve experienced in the series to date. With my headphones on and the lights off, the ninth mainline adventure in Capcom’s longrunning survival horror saga forced me to endure moments so palpably tense and prolonged I discovered muscles to clench that I didn’t previously know I had. Yet hours later I was no longer holding my breath, but holding my fist in the air instead, as I gleefully mowed down masses of undead meatsacks like it was D-Day in World War Z. In an effort to please both survival horror stalwarts and action-horror advocates, Resident Evil Requiem runs the gore-soaked gamut from anxiety-inducing chills to trigger-happy thrills. The result is yet another supremely hair-raising horror story, despite the fact its most potent scares have all been delivered by the time it arrives at its more gloriously gung-ho second half.

Not unlike 2023’s Alan Wake II, Resident Evil Requiem initially focuses on a young FBI agent, in this case series newcomer Grace Ashcroft (Angela Sant’Albano), a fresh-faced analyst who’s sent to investigate a series of mysterious deaths among the survivors of Raccoon City, several decades after the 1998 outbreak. Grace’s flashlight-lit forensic search through the grimy insides of a shuttered hotel is ultimately short-lived, however, since she’s soon ensnared by Victor Gideon (Antony Byrne), Requiem’s main antagonist whose menacing air, disgustingly disfigured face, and greasy goggles make him seem like some sort of steampunk Emperor Palpatine. Victor traps Grace in the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, a Spencer Mansion-style labyrinth of locked doors crawling with all manner of flesh-eating freaks, but thankfully help is on the way in the form of uber stylish series veteran, Leon S. Kennedy (Nick Apostolides).

Survival horror’s preeminent himbo has clearly seen better days – the strange bruising on his skin suggests he’s battling some sort of affliction potentially related to T-Virus exposure, while the shiny new Porsche he’s driving implies he’s also not immune to a midlife crisis. But it’s Grace who is the standout here. Resident Evil characters have historically exhibited an exaggeratedly campy quality that’s injected a large dose of goofiness amidst the gore, but for my money this inexperienced FBI agent is by far the most relatably human heroine the series has ever had. Her evolution from being perpetually on the brink of a panic attack to becoming self-assured enough to fight back made for a journey that I found as captivating as it was consistently creepy.

Saving Grace

Requiem allows us to alternate control between Grace and Leon at specific story junctions over the course of its roughly 10-hour campaign, but it’s the former whose predominately stealth-based sections are undoubtedly the most fear-inducing. Underpowered and under constant threat from twisted stalker ghouls that are liable to descend from the rafters at any moment, Grace’s efforts to escape from the terrors of Victor’s hospital is a wonderfully stressful slab of unrelenting survival horror. There’s precious little ammo to find, a miserly number of inventory slots to manage, and Grace moves at such a slow speed that it makes timing your careful crouch-walk to avoid a prowling pack of zombies an exercise in pinpoint pathmaking, especially if you don’t have a rare breakable bottle to toss in order to create a distraction. All the while you have to puzzle through a stimulating series of body part-based riddles and elaborately locked doors, never really knowing when you’re going to turn a corner and come face to flabby face with a grotesquely girthy golem that’s urgently squeezing its way down the hallway towards you.

I spent so much time trying to steer clear of the numerous considerable threats, that on the occasions Grace was forced into a confrontation the results really rattled me. When played in the default, claustrophobic first-person perspective, her guns feel genuinely startling to fire and the impact of every precious pistol shot is immense. Bullets tear the festering flesh off zombie faces leaving eyeballs to dangle from their stems, and blood spatter paints the walls and persists even when you backtrack through the area later on.

The gallons of gore that covers the floor isn’t just there for spectacle, mind you, since Grace is equipped with a handy blood collector that allows her to syringe up the infected plasma pooling around zombie corpses, and combine it with other pieces of scrap to craft invaluable items like medkits and single-use hemolytic injectors. The latter can be jammed into the spine of an undead monster caught unaware, causing their entire body to swell up and explode in the most gloriously blood-soaked manner of stealth-kill possible, but you can also use it to effectively dispose of a body you’ve downed previously. I found that to be a smart move in areas that I knew I’d be revisiting, since Requiem’s zombies also have a terrifying tendency to reanimate and mutate when you least expect them to. (Seriously, these guys reform and come back more often than The Eagles.)

Grace’s quest only grows more intense as it takes her through the suffocating shadows of the hospital’s basement and beyond, but moving through Requiem’s danger-filled surroundings at a snail’s pace didn’t just keep my nerves on edge, it allowed me to observe and appreciate the efforts that Capcom has put into enhancing the eerie behaviour of its undead army. These are no longer the groaning, foot-dragging mouth-breathers encountered during the original Raccoon City outbreak, instead they retain traces of humanity that somehow makes them seem far more unsettling than the more animalistic werewolves in Resident Evil Village. Like the ones that idly flick light switches on and off like bored toddlers, or the others that wander around muttering and laughing to themselves before suddenly collapsing to their knees to hungrily feast on the corpse of one of their former friends.

Leon: The Professional

While Grace’s plight is a desperate and deliberate crawl that had me second-guessing every shadow, the ominous sounds of silence are shattered by the roar of ferocious ultraviolence when you switch control to Leon for what are initially brief, tension-breaking bursts, as everyone’s favourite ex-RCPD recruit attempts a not-so-subtle rescue mission. These levels default to a third-person view to really show off the slaughter, and within minutes of his arrival I’d slipped comfortably back into Resident Evil 4 mode, nailing headshots and ending the undead with effortless execution moves. To my surprise, however, Requiem quickly pushed the insanity meter beyond Resident Evil 4 into Dead Rising levels of delirium by allowing Leon to actually wield a chainsaw to carve through the zombie crowds. Leon’s sections are up-tempo and gruesome to a degree that left me giddy, and almost every major zombie Leon dispatches is met with a delightfully deadpanned dad joke.

Where Grace must use the scarce amounts of scrap in her surroundings to make her own rapidly destructible knives, Leon is toting a powerful hatchet that can be easily maintained with an everlasting flint. While Grace has to carefully count each round in her small handful of handguns, Leon enjoys an extensive bevy of teeth-rattling boomsticks from beefy shotguns to head-splitting sniper rifles. Plus, if Leon gets bored of his own weapons he can use someone else’s – after killing a zombie who drops a fire axe or lead pipe, he has the option to smoothly scoop it up and launch it at another enemy nearby, which is every bit as slick and satisfying as the similar sword-flinging feature of last year’s Ghost of Yotei. That’s not to mention that instead of having to painstakingly harvest blood samples to craft with, Leon is rewarded with a special currency for every kill that can be conveniently cashed in at a de facto ATM for artillery to buy useful weapon upgrades, extra ammo, and even body armour.

Simply put, there’s no off position on Leon’s arse-kicking switch – his gunplay is John Wick-slick and bloodier than ever before – and in addition to his surging slaughter of zombie hordes it’s also within Leon’s levels that the bulk of Requiem’s appropriately epic boss encounters take place. There are plenty of colossal clashes to be found here, from brand new behemoths to brilliantly reimagined threats from previous Resident Evil stories, and there isn’t a single Del Lago-sized dud among them. I particularly loved how the hulking nasty faced inside a cramped chapel midway through the story subverted my expectations of how a Resident Evil boss fight should play out. Sure, being tasked with blasting the glowing weak points that cover a marauding monster’s torso is nothing new. That is, until you realise that while piercing each swollen blister does inflict damage to the beast, it also spews streams of infection onto the zombie underlings around him, instantly mutating them into brawnier forms of backup for you to contend with. Leon may be armed to the teeth, but that doesn’t mean Requiem doesn’t still find creative ways to ramp up the challenge.

Shorn of the Dread

As much as I love Leon, though, I do wonder if perhaps his sections become a bit too dominant once Requiem settles into a more action-oriented groove in its second half, as the story moves beyond the grounds of Rhodes Hill and deep into what remains of Raccoon City. Let me be clear, Resident Evil 4 is my personal favourite instalment in the series, so it certainly gave me a great deal of pleasure to once again wield a military grade arsenal and pull-off skull-shattering finishing moves as the series’ hunkiest mutant murderer. There’s also plenty of variety in the violence, from a full-throttle highway chase sequence to heavy artillery strikes that seem straight out of a Call of Duty campaign. But after playing almost exclusively as Leon through a roughly five-hour stretch towards Requiem’s conclusion, I did find myself yearning for a few more tastes of Grace’s superbly nerve-shredding stealth sections as a more regular change-up from Leon’s comparatively scare-free carnage.

That desire was eventually gratified to some extent by a terrifyingly taut late-game tip-toe through a facility crawling with some truly menacing monsters returning from the series’ past, but given that the story ended soon afterwards my overriding impression of Requiem was that it was very much a game of two halves. The former predominately a slow and steady scare-a-thon, and the latter largely a run-and-gun splatterfest. I very much enjoyed both flavours in their own right; I just wish for the sake of its pacing that they’d been blended together a touch more over the full course of the journey. Instead, Requiem is a bit like ordering a whiskey and Coke and having it served in two separate glasses instead of being mixed into one.

To be fair, Grace’s absence from a significant stretch of Requiem is justified within the context of its story, and overall it’s a tale that gripped me harder than a zombie nurse gnawing on my neck. There are a number of blindsiding twists that cast new light on the origins of the Umbrella Corporation and the ambitions of its founder, along with an excellent mix of zombie-riddled locations both fresh and familiar to puzzle and pummel your way through, and plenty of vital notes to collect along the way. Some of these memos are crucial to understanding the intriguing mystery behind Grace’s abduction and the truth about her past, while others are just genuinely funny gags to help ease the tension. After encountering a specific zombie type in one medical wing that was obnoxiously singing at the top of her lungs, I got a good laugh out of uncovering a doctor’s report that had diagnosed her with ‘Main Character Syndrome’, for example.

There’s also one particularly iconic location that Leon explores that I’m reluctant to spoil here (although it has been teased in pre-release trailers), which is jam-packed with fun Easter Eggs that made it a real treat to revisit as someone who’s been enjoying Resident Evil adventures ever since the T-Virus made its first outbreak on a black-bottomed CD for the original PlayStation.

Following various delays, Bungie is now ready to open Marathon‘s doors courtesy of a ‘Server Slam’ event from tomorrow, February 26, which will run until March 2.

Marathon is a PvP-focused extraction shooter set on the mysterious planet of Tau Ceti IV. Players inhabit the bodies of Runners, cybernetic mercenaries who have been designed to survive the planet’s harsh environments, exploring the lost colony that once inhabited Tau Ceti’s surface.

Marathon’s full launch is scheduled for March 5 across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, so this is an opportunity to try before you buy. Furthermore, Bungie’s also using the Server Slam to test its anti-cheat systems, and is calling on players to report cheaters if they encounter them.

Here’s everything you need to know about what content’s available, the rewards you’ll get for participating, and when the free server test goes live where you live.

Marathon Server Slam start times

Depending on where you are in the world, Marathon’s Server Slam is set to go live on:

Thursday, February 26 — Monday March 2, 2026:

PST (San Francisco):

• 10am

CST (Austin, Mexico City):

• 12pm

EST (New York):

• 1pm

GMT (London):

• 6pm

CET (Paris):

• 7pm

Friday, February 27 — Tuesday March 3, 2026:

JST (Tokyo):

• 3am

CST (Beijing):

• 3am

AEST (Sydney):

• 5am

NZST (Wellington):

• 7am

Marathon Server Slam Missions and Activities

• Infil into two zones:
  • Perimeter, an edge-site expansion on the colony’s outskirts
  • Dire Marsh, the colony’s agricultural research hub
• Take on the early contracts for five factions: CyberAcme, NuCaloric, Traxus, MIDA, and Arachne
  • Progress though the early faction levels and progression trees for each faction
• Try out five of the six Runner shells that will be available at launch, plus our scavenger experience Rook
• Play as a crew, solo Runner, form uneasy alliances with proximity chat, and more

Marathon Server Slam Rewards

Time spent during the Slam will “bank loot rewards you’ll receive at launch, based on how far you progress”:

• Complete your first mission: Unlock the Standard Arrival Cache
  • Standard implants (6x)
  • Standard Runner shell cores (4x)
  • Standard weapon chip mods (6x)
  • Weapons: Overrun and Hardline
• Reach Runner Level 10: Unlock the Enhanced Arrival Cache (Green)
  • Enhanced implants (6x)
  • Enhanced Runner shell cores (2x for each shell, 12x total)
  • Enhanced weapon chip mods (4x)
  • Weapons: Enhanced Magnum and Enhanced Hardline
• Reach Runner Level 30: Unlock the Deluxe Arrival Cache (Blue)
  • Deluxe and Enhanced implants (3x each, 6x total)
  • Deluxe and Enhanced Runner shell cores (1x each for each shell, 12x total)
  • Deluxe and Enhanced weapon chip mods (2x each, 4x total)
  • Weapons: Deluxe Magnum and Enhanced Volley Rifle
  • Backpack: Enhanced Base Backpack

Final Fantasy 7 — and by that, I mean the original, not the three-part remake — is clocking up negative reviews after developer Square Enix re-released the game on Steam with quality of life improvements that seem to have had the opposite intended effect.

Announced last month and released just yesterday (February 24), this updated version of Final Fantasy 7 comes with a handful of new features, including a 3x speed mode — more on that in a bit — the ability to turn off random encounters, a “battle enhancement mode” that will max out the Limit gauge and let players recover HP/MP during battles, and a handy autosave feature.

Shortly after launch, though, it was clear there were significant issues with the new edition, not least the speedier combat that doesn’t match the speed of the animations or menus, plus blurry textures, including in its important cinematic sequences.

Square Enix was on the case within hours and released a small update just a short while later, claiming it had “fixed the speed of certain scenes, including battles,” and addressed other, unspecified “minor bug fixes.” What it didn’t address, however, is the forced 4:3 resolution, and while there will undoubtedly be players happy to jump in and experience the game in its native resolution, the 2013 edition that this new version replaces did let you select other resolutions, leaving some wondering why on earth this was changed.

The problem is compounded even further given this new version of the game replaces the 2013 Steam edition on the Steam storefront entirely, so players looking to buy Final Fantasy 7 for the first time will only have this option available — only those who already owned the 2013 edition are able to switch between the two.

“The battle animation speeds are WAY too high, even without the 3x speed, so the game just plays wrong and feels wrong right now. Hopefully, they fix this,” wrote one player. “In addition, you appear to be locked into a 4:3 display, which makes sense as the original format, and many people will prefer to have it that way, but even the 2013 PC version has the ability to stretch it to full screen (which is how I prefer). This should be an option.

“It’s very hard to recommend. May I suggest that companies make sure their re-releases at least function on a basic level before delisting their old versions? That'[d] be great,” added another.

“I’d just play the 2013 version without glasses on if I wanted the game to look like this,” quipped someone else.

All in all, the issues have brought the game’s overall Steam user rating down to ‘Mostly Negative,’ with just 36% of players leaving positive feedback.

As for the remake? Final Fantasy Remake Part 3 director Naoki Hamaguchi recently discussed the impact of expanding the platforms on which the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series is available, insisting that going multiplatform “will not in any way lower the quality of the third instalment.“

“Both the Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox versions have been incredibly well received and generated a lot of buzz online,” Hamaguchi said. “That attention has also made me realize how many people are worried about this issue. However, our decision to go multiplatform with the FF7 Remake series will not in any way lower the quality of the third installment.”

We also recently learned that the “core game experience is almost complete,” and while Hamaguchi “really want[s] everyone to play it as soon as possible,” the team has now moved on to “refining and polishing.”

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.

AA publisher and developer Nacon has filed for insolvency, raising questions over the future of games such as GreedFall 2, Hell is Us, RoboCop, and Test Drive Unlimited.

Nacon, which is home to 16 development studios as well as a publishing arm, said it was forced into the decision after its majority shareholder, Bigben Interactive, failed to make a loan repayment. It has now asked a French court for permission to restructure its debt.

“The aim of this procedure is to assess all possible solutions to ensure the sustainability of the Company’s activity under the best possible conditions, protect employees, and preserve jobs, while renegotiating with its creditors in a calm and constructive framework,” Nacon said. This procedure will enable the Company to continue its business, renegotiate its debts, and develop a credible and effective continuation plan.” The Court is expected to make its decision at a hearing in early March.

Nacon has a number of AA games under its belt, including GreedFall 2: The Dying World, which will release in its full 1.0 version on March 12. Nacon this week alerted press to its annual showcase event, dubbed Nacon Connect, which was set for March 4. It is expected to show off the likes of Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss, The Mound, Edge of Memories, and Endurance Motorsport Series. And just this morning Nacon launched the third major update for Dragonkin: The Banished, which is still in Early Access.

The publisher just released Styx: Blades of Greed last week. RoboCop: Rogue City – Unfinished Business came out last year, as did Rogue Factor’s Hell is Us. IGN has asked Nacon for comment on its ability to continue to release its games and maintain and support those it has out already.

BBI, which currently holds 56.72% of the share capital and 65.79%% of the voting rights of Nacon, announced last week that it was unable to make a partial repayment of €43 million “due to the unexpected refusal of its banking pool to respond to the drawdown notice.” At the time, Nacon issued a warning to the financial markets, and suspended trading in the company’s shares.

Nacon’s hope now is that it gets approval from the court to restructure its debt. If it is successful, its existing liabilities will be frozen for a period that could last up to 18 months. During this time, the debtor will present a continuation plan for its activities by restructuring its debt, hopefully ensuring its recovery.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Arc Raiders players heading topside for the new Shrouded Sky update have their tin foil hats on after video of a mysterious UFO started circulating online.

Just as soon as clips of the new Firefly and Comet Arc threats began making the rounds on social media, so too has footage of a mysterious being not detailed in the patch notes. Originally posted by Reddit user Bewarden with the caption, “What in tarnation is that?” the 20-second video shows their character walking through a Hurricane at the edge of the Spaceport launch tower before a collection of bright blue lights can be seen moving overhead.

Mysterious UFOs have been spotted in ARC Raiders during the Hurricane map condition.

This might be a teaser for the new ARC unit coming in March. 😳 pic.twitter.com/xjkKN6pJPf

— ARC Raiders Alerts (@ArcRaiderAlerts) February 24, 2026

It’s unnerving at best and terrifying at worst, but things get spookier upon closer inspection. The low visibility brought about by the Hurricane makes it hard to get a good look at the lights, making it seem as though the Raider is watching two groups of drones moving quicker than normal. Watch again, and you’ll see those lights are attached to an enormous ship, gliding through the storm.

The AI entity known as the Arc is capable of many things. Drones, death orbs, giant spider-like robots, and more are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to enemy types, but players haven’t seen anything quite like the UFO shown in the clip. Studying it hasn’t been easier either, as only a few others have managed to capture and share their sightings online while developer Embark Studios remains silent.

It feels reminiscent of the time game developer Arrowhead Studios launched an update for Helldivers 2 that quietly added flying bug enemies without notifying players in its patch notes. As players spun a web of theories, that team denied that such creatures could possibly exist. Now, Embark seems to be following a similar strategy, leaving players to try and piece together what a building-sized UFO could mean for the future of Arc Raiders. Some even believe these sightings could be tied to the new large Arc teased to arrive with the Riven Tides update this April.

“Is that the f***ing mothership???” one player guessed.

“No explaining the thing will be murdering people probably in April,” one player theorized. “Who knows it could be the new ‘large arc threat’ they roadmapped. That would be cool af. A flying gigantic arc matriarch/queen type battle.”

pic.twitter.com/26peRCUUtK

— Tommy Marion (@tommy_marion) February 24, 2026

We played through multiple raids since Shrouded Sky launched and were successful in seeing the ship just once. Although Bewarden was able to catch a glimpse of the UFO on Spaceport, our sighting occurred on Buried City. While we were also able to hear the ship fly overhead during a Blue Gate raid, it sped off before we could get a good look at it.

If you’re interested in hunting down the latest Arc Raiders mystery, we recommend playing during the Hurricane map condition and keeping your eyes on the sky around the time the raid has reached the halfway mark (about 15 minutes). Based on our testing and what others are sharing online, don’t expect to catch one of these on your first run.

This isn’t the first time Arc Raiders fans have spotted giant Arc in the distance, but don’t expect Embark to come out with an explanation any time soon. While we wait for updates, you can read our interview with studio CEO Patrick Söderlund to learn more about how the team will continue to shape Speranza and the enigmatic, post-apocalyptic Rust Belt. You can also catch up on why some fans aren’t happy with how Shrouded Sky altered the recipe for Wolfpacks.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Now Xbox has a new boss, what happens next? In a new interview, Asha Sharma, a Microsoft executive who previously oversaw some of the firm’s AI initiatives, kept things frustratingly vague, but did indicate that nothing is off the table when it comes to big decisions about recent controversial policies.

Last week, Microsoft sent shockwaves throughout the video game industry when it confirmed Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond were leaving Xbox, with Sharma in place as new CEO of its gaming business. Fans are split, with some choosing to believe in the promised “return to Xbox,” others expressing concern about the future of Microsoft’s gaming business. Even the ‘father of Xbox’ is worried about what happens next.

One of the big questions fans have for Sharma is whether Microsoft will reverse some of its recent policies, many of which have alienated the core Xbox fanbase. Fans have criticized Microsoft for leaving Xbox game exclusivity behind in favor of a multiplatform approach that has seen the company’s biggest brands — including Halo — make the jump to PlayStation. Why buy an Xbox now, when all Xbox games come out on everything?

In a new interview with Windows Central, Sharma avoided specifics when asked about the future and recent strategic decisions, only offering the cryptic “the plan’s the plan until it’s not the plan.”

Here’s the quote in full:

“Right now, I need to learn, candidly. About the ‘why’ of these decisions, what we were optimizing for, and what the data says about the Xbox strategy today. That’s the honest answer. I’m looking at lifetime value, not just what happened in a previous moment, or in short term efficiencies and things like that. The plan’s the plan until it’s not the plan.”

What does that mean? It’s hard to tell. It feels like a holding statement, the kind of thing you might say when you don’t want to commit to anything either way. But it’s hard to see Microsoft all of a sudden pulling out of multiplatform game releases, especially when its studios have put so much effort into making Microsoft’s policy a reality, and in some cases seen great success on the likes of PlayStation. Halo is coming to PlayStation this year, and that’s unlikely to change.