Battlefield 6 launched mere hours ago, and someone has already managed to recreate the iconic Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare map, Shipment, in its Portal mode.
After years of waiting, leaks, and hype, EA and Battlefield Studios launched Battlefield 6 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S today, October 10. Its promise of a back-to-basics approach for the series has attracted a lot of attention, especially in the Call of Duty community.
Battlefield 6 players can hop into the community tab on the main menu and play on the close-quarters map for themselves right now by simply searching “Shipment” in the Search Experiences or Browse Servers tab. It’s chaotic, noisy, cramped, and constantly riddled with bullets or, in other words, exactly the same as it is in Call of Duty. There are even some Shipment 24/7 servers already live for those looking to dive headfirst into the action.
The most popular result already features more than one hundred likes and sends their thanks to X/Twitter user PR officer at Deep Worlds, Matavatar, who is responsible for bringing Shipment in Battlefield 6 to life. They began posting their progress just yesterday, teasing work on a recreation of another Call of Duty map, Killhouse, as well as a map that could feature a Star Wars Star Destroyer.
Portal is a Halo 3 Forge-like game mode introduced in Battlefield 2042 that allows players to build their own maps and modes. It’s mostly been used to recreate and remix fan-favorite experiences from across Battlefield’s long history, but Battlefield 6 removes many of the restrictions, encouraging imaginative fans to even bring maps from other franchises. Classic Call of Duty map, Shipment, seems to be the first to make waves.
We’ll have to wait and see what other wacky fan-made maps will come to the Battlefield 6 Portal mode. Matavatar, at least, has already teased they’re interested in bringing more classic FPS maps – including Firing Range, Nuketown, Ziba Tower, Metro, and more – to Battlefield 6.
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).
During its panel at New York Comic Con, Playground Productions not only looked back on the return and relaunch of the beloved Backyard Sports video games, but it also announced it will be completing its Backyard Sports retro collection with Backyard Basketball ’01 and Backyard Hockey ’02 in mid-November, that there are high scores and events coming to Backyard Baseball ’92, and it shared a few new details for the series’ upcoming animated special.
To learn more, IGN had the chance to speak to Playground Productions CEO Linday Barnett and Chief Product Officer Chris Waters about the past and future of this fan-favorite franchise, and we began by chatting about what makes these games so special.
“We think it works because the games have always been character-first, comedy-forward, and accessible,” Waters said. “These games weren’t, ‘Hey, let’s make the most incredibly realistic simulation,’ they were, ‘let’s recreate the experience of what it felt like to go out and pick up a bat and a ball, grab whatever friends you had around whether they’re athletic or not, and go out and play baseball and see what madness ensues.’ That madness transcends time and transcends technology.”
Backyard Sports’ Retro Library Will Be Complete in Mid-November, New Features Headed to Backyard Baseball ’97
Whether you are new to the franchise or returning to it, you’ll be happy to know that the Backyard Sports retro library will be complete when Backyard Basketball ’02 and Backyard Hockey ’02 are released on Steam in mid-November. Oh, and did we mention both will be free to download and keep?
These games, alongside Baseball ’97, Baseball ’01, Football ’99, Soccer ’98, will also be part of the Backyard Sports Retro Bundle, which will be available for $26 – a 40% savings from buying all the games individually. Players will even be able to ‘Complete the Set’ and only pay for the games you don’t have yet at the cheaper price.
Furthermore, the Backyard Soccer ’98 and Backyard Basketball ’02 mobile versions will be free on iOS and Android when that Steam retro bundle goes live later next month.
Speaking of mobile, Backyard Baseball ’97 is getting a new gamification feature in collaboration with Lucra. Fans can now compete against each other in week-long and month-long events like Home Run Competitions or Most Strikeouts.
Global high scores will be tracked in real-time, and the new feature will be free for fans and even includes a chance to win tickets to the 2025 World Series, a Pablo Sanchez trading card, and more. This feature will begin on iOS to start, and players will need to opt-iin and provide some personal information.
“What we want to do is allow that community to grow and for players to be able to engage with each other,” Waters said of the new gamification features. “And again, without the source code, we can’t make these games, but by adding a tournament layer onto them, we’re sort of creating a backdoor co-op mode.”
Fun fact, Playground Productions did not get the source code for most of these games when they acquired the rights, so the team had to hack the old CD-ROMs and rebuilt the games themselves.
“We thought those games were just dead,” Barrnett told us. “And it was an incredible feat that Mega Kat Studios was able to do, which is reverse engineer and hack the CD-ROMs to make them playable. The thing that we didn’t know in all of this, however, was that we’d be able to make the games even better and we were able to remove certain bugs that existed in the original games and add leaderboards and add competitions and just make them playable on systems that didn’t even exist back then, like Nintendo Switch.”
The Future of Backyard Sports Includes an Animated Special That Just Finished Production
We then shifted our talk to the future. While the team wasn’t ready to reveal anything about future games, they did confirm that Backyard Sports officially wrapped production on their new animated special that builds upon the brand’s beloved IP and characters.
This special is being produced by Lighthouse Studios, which is known for its work on Bob’s Burgers and Rick & Morty, and it will feature an “all-star cast” that will be announced in early November. As for when you can see it, the special will be released at Dave & Buster’s in early 2026 and direct to consumer shortly after.
“What makes Backyard Sports special is the characters,” Waters said. “For us, the opportunity to take your favorite characters and bring them to life in a new way was a no-brainer as we’ve already said this is a multi-platform franchise we want to go beyond games. We all loved how beautiful the animation was in the games and how much love and care they put in, and it made you love and understand the characters and made you want to pick a certain character. So, we are really, really humbled to be able to extend that into more animation.
“This special was our way of establishing a tone, establishing a look, and really putting our flag down to say, Backyard is a multi-platform franchise. You’re going to be able to experience it in lots of different ways. I can’t wait until we can say more, but I can promise you that I’ve got a 20-year history in animation and we have pulled out all the stops to make something that captures the tone and magic and comedy of this world.”
With Backyard Sports, the team wants these games and multimedia projects to showcase just how fun sports can be and for this new generation to enjoy all of this alongside those that grew up with them.
“Streamers have picked these games up and people aren’t watching them because they’re amazing video game players,” Waters said. “They’re watching them because they’re bringing these kids to life through their own lens. It reminds you of what it was like to play baseball the first time you picked up a glove and a bat and a ball and you were just playing for fun. I think that’s been the big thing for why this really is a timeless and classic franchise.”
“It is celebrating all of the different characters in your backyard and all their strengths and maybe even some of the weaknesses,” Barnett added. “You laugh and you get through everything together. You play together and you might win, you might lose, but you always had fun doing it. And unfortunately, a lot of sports, not just sports video games, but also just sports in general aren’t really like that anymore.”
Let’s get one thing out of the way: I hate Bubsy. Not Bubsy 4D, the interesting, vibrant game I’m actually previewing here, but rather Bubsy himself, the mangy, atrocious feline, a poisonous product of a cynical age of mascot marketing. Born in a dark hour when it seemed practically every video game company tied their fortunes to some clone of a clone of a Sonic sidekick, Bubsy has a well-deserved reputation as a D-tier cash-in character better left forgotten.
Fortunately, I have much more positive things to say about what I’ve seen of Bubsy 4D, a brand-new reconstruction of the furball’s tainted legacy that, while far from perfect, distinctively improves on Bubsy’s dubious past in almost every way. During a little over an hour with the Bubsy Steam demo, I found a great deal worth exploring… as well as some less encouraging signs.
It’s true: there are quite a lot of things to like about Bubsy 4D. It’s a colorful game with some cute creative accouterments scattered around the thematic worlds, like the knitted doily highways in the thread-and-needle themed opening stages. Voice work is solid (even if the script is a bit uneven) and my preview build was mostly glitch-free. The movement mechanics are fairly solid, outside of a little camera frustration on very long jumps to some small targets.
It’s true: there are quite a lot of things to like about Bubsy 4D.
The tutorial area is concise and useful, a rare enough combination in games, teaching valuable skills with minimal exposition. Bubsy’s jump mechanics are logical but take a little getting used to – with various kinds of combinable jumps tied to a face button and both triggers – and it’s nice to be able to practice getting around with minimal risk or consequences before moving into the main campaign. Not that dying is that much of an issue… checkpoints (represented by litter boxes) are fairly generous, and even if he dies, Bubsy rarely respawns all that far from where he last fell.
And the obnoxious little cat gets around pretty well. Bubsy’s main strength is his airborne mobility. He can jump, double jump, leap forward and gently descend like a parachute, and pounce ahead to cover great horizontal distances… or do them all at the same time. Bubsy can also inflate himself into a ball to roll along hills and half-pipes, building momentum to execute even longer jumps. He can pounce on certain sheer surfaces and scramble up them, or claw at special points to gain mid-air distance boosts. He’s very capable of getting around, so much so that he can occasionally get ahead of the camera when stringing his pounce onto the end of a combo.
That pounce doubles as Bubsy’s primary attack, although in truth I found very few threats in Bubsy worth attacking. The demo stages are populated with plenty of steep jumps and acrobatic challenges, but there are very, very few enemies wandering about, and those that are present are braindead and quite easily dispatched. Platformers with few enemies aren’t unheard of (Portal, Super Meat Boy, and Thomas Was Alone come to mind) but it was still a little odd how remarkably vacant the colorful platforming environments felt without the usual crowds of Goombas, Koopas, or Giant Enemy Crabs. And while Bubsy’s level layouts are clean and competent, none of them approach the more subtle complexity of the classic platformers listed above.
And that’s my biggest question about where the full version of Bubsy 4D will ultimately land. The demo stages struggle somewhat in the fundamental level design, not in terms of the aesthetic production, but in the layouts themselves. The worlds, while adequately themed, are not especially well laid out. Most are obvious main paths with clearly-visible spokes and isolated islands. Scattered around the spokes are the most valuable collectables, while along the main path are myriad yarn-balls hovering in space. The results are mid-sized, explorable levels which should encourage curiosity and discovery… but often fail to do so.
The problem is not in the overall method, but its glaringly obvious lack of refinement. It is, in a sense, a return to the PlayStation 1-era world design of many mascot platformers, or perhaps more accurately, the kitchen-sink, haphazard-style popularized by many C64 and Amiga platform games, including classics like the Turrican series. Wherever the inspiration comes from, it doesn’t quite work yet here. The goals of each small section of a level feel repetitive, with the layout either too obvious or the goals not challenging enough. You can tell where you should probably go next, which is a good thing, but it’s often so obvious that the sense of discovery really suffers. There are a metric ton of collectables to seek out, but they’re rarely concealed in interesting ways or blocked by compelling challenges. And the lack of enemies greatly reduces the layered threats that might otherwise enhance the nuance and challenge.
Jumping between towers and collecting baubles is as old as video games, but what separates the mediocre from the classic is the refinement that takes place in implementing these rote mechanics into practice. After playing Astrobot and Donkey Kong Bananza within the past year, I can say that Bubsy 4D’s level design feels unfinished by comparison. The play areas, while visually interesting, are unpolished in their dynamic interactions. Leaping between obstacles and avoiding spikes feels clean, fair, and competent, but rarely feels exhilarating. There’s just enough openness to the worlds to obviously require tremendous testing and refinement on the part of the developers when designing obstacles that can be approached from multiple available angles and elevations, yet it’s painfully obvious this testing process has not come near final fruition. It’s not bad at all, it’s just not nearly as good as you know it could be. Within a few minutes of getting into Bubsy 4D, you realize you’ve done most of this before, but much better… and that’s not a feeling you want a video game to give you.
After playing Astrobot and Donkey Kong Bananza within the past year, I can say that Bubsy 4D’s level design feels unfinished by comparison.
Fortunately, these are problems that can be addressed with time and attention on the part of the developers. This is a preview of a work in progress, not a review of a finished product, and there’s a lot of room yet for vast improvement before release next year. The potential is certainly there… Bubsy’s MASSIVE horizontal mobility is a great deal of fun in practice, and if the environments continue to be tightened up to match the cat’s core abilities, the team at Fabraz could be on to something really fun.
I do have one specific complaint about a design choice that doesn’t work so well: the demo’s only mandatory timed challenge, a racing romp across some steep blind hills and a bridge that pretty much demands memorization to be successfully completed. I had hoped that in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Five we might have moved beyond cramming an unskippable, fairly unintuitive, timed obstacle race into the golden path through a level, yet here we are with Bubsy 4D. These were not fun in the PlayStation 1 era, and 30 years later they are unforgivable sins.
Elsewhere, Bubsy purchases additional abilities from a central hub store run by his annoying niece and nephew, trading collectables for power-ups. My favorite of these was a Wile E. Coyote-inspired power that allowed me to float above empty space for a second like a Looney Tunes cartoon character who’s just run off a cliff, a flavorful and genuinely useful inclusion. It was thematically appropriate and adorable.
Finally, on the audio front, Bubsy 4D’s sample scores ranged from unremarkable to droning. The theme music for the first three stages started with an innocuous quality, but after a few loops became grating. I can only qualify the sound as something that began its life as elevator music that was then run through an N64 nostalgia filter and digitizer, and what came out the other side did little to add to the platforming experience. Maybe that one is just me and others might enjoy it more.
Voice work, on the other hand, is solid, and the script has a lot of nods to the mascot-platformer era. Bubsy maintains a heightened self-awareness throughout his new journey. He’s openly unenthusiastic about his latest quest for the golden fleece. He’s older, tired, and kind of over it all, and the comments that reflect that sense of 40-something exhaustion mostly work. The occasional sarcastic quips and poop jokes seem obligatory nods to the era that birthed Bubsy, but nothing I heard was laugh-out-loud funny. I did not like Bubsy’s family and cohorts, who sort of came across as worse iterations of Sonic’s terrible friends or DK’s annoying extended catalog of characters.
Overall, Bubsy 4D is, thus far, a bright, interesting template for a 3D platformer. Whether it will grow to fulfill its full potential before release is difficult to predict. The obvious care of the developers in treating the character with some reflection, even a possible wisp of dignity, works in 4D’s favor. Hopefully the final product will capitalize on the strong start evident in this demo.
Jared Petty likes writing about how wonderful and silly video games are. You can find him at Bluesky as @pettycommajared and Threads as @pettycommajared.
Glenn Israel, a 17-year veteran of Halo game development, has announced his departure from the series via a startling message that has left fans worried over the future of Xbox’s flagship shooter franchise.
Originally an artist at Bungie, Israel ultimately served as an art director at 343 Studios (now Halo Studios), with contributions to a long list of Halo projects from 2009’s Halo 3: ODST, through Halo: Reach, Halo 4, Halo 5 and Halo: Infinite.
Now, however, Israel has announced he is “officially no longer contributing to the Halo universe” via a post on LinkedIn, and updated his profile to indicate he departed Halo Studios this month.
“As of today and after 17 long years, I am officially no longer contributing to the Halo universe,” Israel wrote. “There is little more I can say for the moment, though I intend to share this particular story in its entirety when it is absolutely safe to do so next year. In the meantime, I have a message for anyone and everyone who needs to hear it.
“I know that the state of our industry seems dire, but never forget that you are *free to choose*. No illusion of security nor promise of wealth or fame or power is worth trading away your health, your dignity, your ethics or values – and no one can force you to. Stay strong, take evidence when necessary, and find where you belong.”
Needless to say, Israel’s statement has prompted concern and confusion among Halo fans, at a time when the future of Microsoft’s once-emblematic series is far from certain.
Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer has previously suggested that a new Halo project will launch in 2026, with the expectation being that this is the previously-reported Halo: Combat Evolved remaster that will also see the series launch on PlayStation for the first time.
With all this in mind, however, fans now say the timing of Israel’s departure seems particularly ominous, with Halo Studios on the cusp of revealing what it has planned for the franchise’s future, and just a few weeks after the quiet departure of Halo Studios chief of staff Melissa Boone.
For Microsoft, meanwhile, which has suffered a tumultuous year marked by layoffs and increasing fan dissatification around price rises, Israel’s public statement likely couldn’t have come at a worse time. Though more worrying still, perhaps, is the developer’s statement of sharing a more detailed account at a later date.
IGN has contacted Microsoft for comment.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
With a week to go until the official launch of Pokémon Legends: Z-A, fans have issued a warning over online spoilers, as datamined details from the game have begun to leak online — including word of even more new Mega Pokémon.
Pokémon Legends Z-A is due to launch on October 16 for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, but already there’s evidence of early copies filtering out into the wild. And now, as of this morning, IGN has seen evidence that the game is actively being datamined to extract its secrets.
To date, The Pokémon Company has revealed just a handful of the new Mega Pokémon expected to make up the game’s final roster of fresh Mega species. And while an older leak had listed out many of the still-to-be-confirmed Mega Evolutions, there’s evidence today that even more creatures may be included than first expected.
In response to all this, Pokémon fans have now begun signalling that anyone hoping to go into Pokémon Legends: Z-A without seeing spoilers should be mindful of where they click online over the next few days — or log off social media completely. (IGN will not be spoiling any of the new species here.)
New Mega Evolutions include the majestic-looking Mega Dragonite — which has also now made its Pokémon anime debut — plus Mega Victreebell, Mega Hawlucha and Mega Malamar.
Post-launch, Pokémon Legends: Z-A will unlock Mega Evolutions for each of the three fully-evolved Starter Pokémon, available via online play: Delphox, Greninja and Chesnaught. And beyond that, you can already buy Pokémon Legends: Z-A: Mega Dimension, a paid DLC which will add two new Mega Evolutions for Raichu.
EA has insisted players won’t see anything made by generative AI in Battlefield 6.
The use of generative AI is one of the hottest topics in the video game industry, with the pressure on publishers to cut costs and speed up development in order to boost profits despite the risk of backlash from some fans. Indeed, according to a report by The Financial Times, EA’s new prospective owners (the ones who just spent $55 billion to take the company private) are betting on the use of generative AI to do just that.
For now though, at least when it comes to Battlefield 6, generative AI is taking a backseat. Rebecka Coutaz, general manager of original series developer DICE in Sweden, and Criterion, the UK studio now also a part of what’s collectively called Battlefield Studios, told the BBC that while generative AI “is very seducing,” currently there is no way to work it into the developers’ daily work.
However, Coutaz clarified that generative AI is used in preparatory stages “to allow more time and more space to be creative.”
Based on Coutaz’s comments, and the current lack of an AI generated content disclosure on the Battlefield 6 Steam page, we won’t see something similar in EA’s rival first-person shooter.
“We live in a world now, where there are AI tools,” Leslie told IGN ahead of Black Ops 7’s reveal at Opening Night Live 2025. “I think our official statement we said last year, around Black Ops 6, is that everything that goes into the game is touched by the team a hundred percent. We have generative AI tools to help us, but none of that goes in-game.
“And then you’re going to say, ‘Yeah, but it has.’ I’ll say it has by accident. And that was never the intention. We’ve come out and been very clear that we use these as tools to help the team, but they do not replace any of the fantastic team members we have that are doing the final touches and building that content to put it in the game.
“So everything you play: human-created and touched. AI tools in the world we live in: it’s, how do we streamline it? That’s really the goal. Not replace, but streamline.”
It’s worth noting the Black Ops 7 Steam page does include the AI disclosure.
But will Battlefield Studios’ stance on generative AI hold for much longer, especially with EA’s new owners breathing down its neck? In the interview with the BBC, Coutaz sounded optimistic about the use of the tech going forward. “If we can break the magic with AI it will help us be more innovative and more creative,” she said.
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.
The latest versions of the PS1-era Final Fantasy games are getting physical editions for Nintendo Switch on December 9. Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII Remastered are being released together in a “twin-pack” box, while Final Fantasy IX will have a box all its own. All of the games feature some modern conveniences that weren’t available in their initial release. They cost $39.99 each and are now available for preorder at various retailers.
All of these games are already available on Switch (and other platforms) in digital form. But this is the first time they’ll be available in the US in physical form.
Final Fantasy VII was a major release in 1997, and was the first time the series debuted on a non-Nintendo platform. It follows former SOLDIER Cloud Strife as he and a team of freedom fighters battle against the evil Shinra corporation. This version of the game features 3x speed mode, the ability to turn off random encounters, and “battle enhancement mode.”
Final Fantasy VIII Remastered is an enhanced version of a game that hit the PS1 in 1999. It follows Squall and the rest of the members of SeeD as they fight back against the sorceress Edea, who’s causing quite the global ruckus. This version of the game has various battle assist options, a 3x speed boost, and the ability to turn off random encounters.
At the time of its initial release in 2000, Final Fantasy IX was something of a throwback to the medieval-settings settings of the first six entries in the series. This game follows Zidane and a troupe of actors, who “kidnap” Princess Garnet, who secretly wanted to be kidnapped to get away from her deranged mother, the queen.
The visuals have been gently revamped to look better on modern displays. It has other new features as well, including auto-save and seven game boosters, including high speed and no-encounter modes.
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Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.
Invincible VS just announced its eighth playable character: Cecil. The no-nonsense director of the Global Defense Agency is a surprise addition to the roster. He lacks any superpowers, so it’s hard to imagine him lasting more than a blink of an eye against the likes of Omni-Man and co. But Invincible creator Robert Kirkman was adamant Cecil be in the game, and left it to the developers at Quarter Up to figure out how to make him work.
Their answer is to lean on all the cool gadgets we see Cecil use in Invincible, which in this 3v3 tag fighting game levels the playing field somewhat. But there’s more: Invincible VS has a sizeable Story Mode in which Cecil plays a crucial role. Kirkman and Quarter Up won’t say much about it, but they describe is as a “playable episode,” so expectations are high.
In this interview with IGN, Kirkman, Invincible VS executive producer Mike Willette, art director Dan Eder, and narrative director Mike Rogers, talk as much about Story Mode as they are allowed to right now, and delve deep into how Cecil actually works in the game. Read on to find out if Invincible VS is canon to the show, details on Cecil’s kit, and much more.
IGN: It must have been an interesting challenge with Cecil. He doesn’t have any superpowers, but he’s smart and can teleport and uses a lot of weapons. So how did you go about making him work in a fighting game?
Mike Rogers: From a lore and narrative perspective, Cecil’s always in control. We often see him as the man in the ear or the man watching the screen, but people forget that he’s a trained agent. He knows how to get his hands dirty and he’s got all the tech and all the money of the U.S. government behind him that can allow him to do that. There’s just a lot of cool things that we’ve got in there that allow Cecil to be a really different character. We wanted him in there. There was no way we wanted to exclude him. And we saw opportunities like using his teleporter, like using Reanimen, like using The White Room, to get him in there in a unique way that people might not expect.
Mike Willette: From a gameplay perspective, you have all these different types of archetypes, and where Cecil really fits in, in a really unique fashion in our system, is manipulating space, almost like he manipulates people, right? So the ability to put out projectiles like his Sonic Mine, that will basically just hover in space and then detonate after a few seconds. So he can put hazards, put roadblocks, put almost like a bullet hell for the opponent to try to get through. And because of our active tag system, he connects one time, he can tag in one of his assists. And so he’s got a lot of utility for just manipulating the screen, getting around it, pelting the opponent from afar, making it frustrating for them, and then putting him back into our combo system.
IGN: So is he a zoner, would you say?
Mike Willette: Yeah, absolutely. So his combo structure, while he does have auto combos like most of our characters, and the magic chain of light, mediums and heavies, he has a lot of utility for the mid and the long range. He can make people try to chase him down. He has a lot of boosted moves that can cause pop-up or hard knockdown. Or for his… we call it Shellhock, he goes down with a Flaxan weapon and he basically launches like a grenade, but when you boost it you can launch multiples. You can do it
while retreating and try to fill the screen and try to just set up roadblocks, so you can kind of like reset and then continue to pelt from afar.
So he can manipulate a lot more than other characters can, because he has to use these tools. He doesn’t have an air dash. He doesn’t have double jumps. He uses the teleportation a lot to make those old bones work.
IGN: Robert, I’d love to know what your input was on this. He’s not the obvious choice for a fighting game when you look at the characters in Invincible. I’m sure fans will love that he’s in there. Was he a character you were keen to see realized in a fighting game particularly? How did it come to be that he was in the game?
Robert Kirkman: His presence in the game is something that’s really exciting for me because it shows the versatility of what these guys are trying to accomplish with the game, by having characters that you wouldn’t expect and working out how Cecil can be equally matched with all the other people that are coming into it.
It’s really great the way they’re pulling in story elements. There’s a lot of character that is intact from the comics and the show that is clear in every frame of these characters. Cecil actually puts his hands in his pockets when he moves backwards, which to me was something that I thought was just absolutely brilliant. And it’s just a really fun aspect of the character that’s there visually as he’s moving around.
There’s definitely a wish list of characters that I wanted in the game. And Cecil was one where I thought it would be really cool and unexpected if he were to show up in the game. Never in a million years did I think they would be able to pull it off and pull it off this well.
I’m gonna tease too much… I’m going to get in trouble, I can’t say anything! But I’m very excited about this game!
IGN: I wanted to ask you about the story and the story mode. I don’t know if that’s something that you can talk about at this stage, but it’d be great to get some input on the narrative side of things, because I do understand that you’re going big on that.
Robert Kirkman: I’ve been working very closely with Mike Rogers, the narrative lead, and Helen Leigh, who’s one of the key writers on the series. She wrote the Adam Eve special episode with me and has done a lot of great episodes for the show. What we’re really trying to do is provide an in-game experience that is like watching an episode of the television show. It’s a really cool story that uses the characters in a really exciting and authentic way, and I think goes into some directions that people are really going to be surprised by. There’s a lot of unexpected twists and turns.
Mike Rogers: We wanted it to feel like a playable episode. It’s this standalone narrative. In the same vein that the Adam Eve special is like a special episode, this is a special episode, too. And just getting to work with Robert and Helen and really craft something that feels right for the Invincible universe, it’s been a real treat.
IGN: Is this canon, or is it like a What If? sort of scenario? I know it’s an original story, so it’s not something we’ve seen before. But, you know the fans will wonder how it all ties in with everything. They always do. I mean, I do! So what do we actually have here?
Robert Kirkman: It definitely fits very neatly into the narrative of the show. There’s a tremendous level of care going into making sure that the characters are authentic and that everything works. Internally, there’s actually a window where we’re like, ‘Yeah, could fit there.’ But, you know, we’re not going to talk about that.
Mike Willlette: Just sit back and enjoy yourself!
IGN: You’ve got Cecil going up against Omni-Man, for example, which on the face of it would be impossible. But as designers of a fighting game, how do you balance everything where that can be a valid matchup, even though you would think that Omni-Man would essentially tear everyone to shreds?
Mike Willette: What’s so awesome about just jumping right into this universe, there’s so much deep lore and personality with these characters and things to pull from, from like all that comic resource. And then you have the show. And it’s kind of the rule of cool, what makes this character and what’s really fun for gameplay? And then merging these ideas together. And then you get to see what archetypes do they fit within or it’s like, are they rushed down? Are they a grappler, are they strikers? Are they long range? You have this kind of triangle and then you’re like, ‘Oh, do they fit more along these two aspects or these two?’
And then things just naturally start to fall in place, and especially within the meta that we’ve created of like, it’s not just a single character, it’s three characters that actually represent your kit. So you get to mix and match all these different things. I want to play pure keep away, or I want to have something that’s a little bit more balanced where I do have a big bully who can push the corners and then I support that character with a bunch of ranged or mid-range characters.
So when it comes down to balance, it’s really just seeing what’s the essence of the character, what belongs in their kit, and then how it works within our omni tag system, how do characters play well with each other or support each other, whether it’s through the assist systems and the different types of assists that they can have, or how they naturally tag into each other. You can play almost any character like a point character or have it dedicated for a very specific role. It’s really play the way that you want. And again, we’re just given this beautiful sandbox by Robert and company that’s just like, God, we have so much great source material.
Dan Eder: I will say one of the challenges of using an established IP is that you have to find the middle ground between being authentic to the IP but also making a fighting game that’s gonna work. If you’re authentic to the quote unquote power levels of the show, then that wouldn’t be a very satisfying experience because it just wouldn’t be very balanced. And if you know anything about fighting games, it’s that balance is key. We do want to allow people to be able to play with their favorite character and not be completely demolished just because the other one is so OP.
So I think as long as you’re authentic to the character and there’s some sort of plausibility of, okay, that character would use those powers, right? Then I think a lot of it comes down to pure skill of whoever is playing that character. And that’s how you stay true to the source material, but also just make it stand on its own. Because I think the reality is that not everyone is going to be intimately familiar with Invincible. We don’t want to make this game just for the fans. We want to make this game for people who may not be aware of Invincible, and this would be their starting point. So then that wouldn’t matter as much to them. ‘Hey, why is Omni-Man so…’
Mike Willette: We’re gonna turn them into fans, Dan!
Dan Eder: Exactly. So I think there’s a big opportunity to do our own thing, make the game stand on its own, without relying on the fandom, but also make it very pleasing for the fans. At the end of the day we’re gonna have a lot of Easter eggs, we’re gonna have a lot of small touches and character moments as much as we can. And I think it’s gonna be an all around great experience.
Mike Rogers: And Cecil was a character where we got to think about this also. Every character has a round reset in between rounds of the fight where they fly at each other, their fists smash and like, okay, if Omni-Man’s fist is smashing into Cecil’s, that’s not gonna end well for Cecil, but he’s got these Reanimen and can jump in and do that for him. He’s got the teleporter that can allow him to dash around, sort of in the way he has a conversation with Nolan at the end of Season 1. And we got to interpret that and bring those into like, how do they work in a fighting game? And I think it brought an extra level of authenticity to the character. And that challenge for a character like Cecil yields more specificity, which is great.
IGN: Did all you fighting game developers all over the world get together one day and decide 2026 was going to see the return of tag fighters?
Mike Willette: It’s the most insane thing — and it’s true — that all great minds think alike! Because we haven’t seen a really awesome tag battle fighting game since like Dragon Ball Fighterz, and that’s like, what? Eight years now. And then before that, the gold standard was Marvel vs. Capcom. So there was this huge void. And we all approached it differently. Our competitors are different from us. And that’s actually a really good thing. And it’s interesting, everyone has their own take, and we really like our take. We really like the universe that we get to play in, and we like the violence of it, the brutality of the stakes that are involved, and our unique style of combat and what it means to read someone — you read your opponent and be able to have large amounts of counterplay. Yeah, it’s an exciting time. 2026 is crazy!
IGN: Why was a tag fighter right for you? And then 3v3?
Mike Willette: Obviously being a huge fan of the comics in the show, when I was asked like, ‘Hey, Mike, what game do you want to do?’ I’m like, ‘I want to do an Invincible tag battle fighting game.’ There’s so many factions and teams that exist within the universe, whether it’s like the Teen Team or The Guardians or The Lizard League or The Order, like there’s just so many. And when you watch people fight, like yeah, there’s solo fights, but there’s also a lot of team fighting that takes place.
There’s been this lack of team fighter games for such a long period of time. And then this IP had lots of strengths when it came to teams and team synergy, and I always thought about the ideas of like, what happens when these characters team up and do shit together? Like when Eve and Mark fight together, how awesome is that? So we just wanted to play out those fantasies, and what better method than in a fighting game?
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.
[Editor’s Note: If you’d like more in-depth hands-on impressions of Age of Imprisonment, check out our recent preview.]
It’s time to go back – way back – with Zelda in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Set in the ancient past, during the founding of Hyrule, this hack-and-slash action game will pit the Princess and her allies against massive armies in their war against the Demon King Ganondorf. After several trailers, multiple runs of their hands-on demo at Tokyo Game Show, and probably too much time going over footage frame-by-frame, I’ve come away with seven key changes from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity that you should know before starting in Age of Imprisonment.
1) This is a True Prequel
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity had a fun story: reliving the war between The Champions and Calamity Ganon. Set 100 years before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it was an opportunity to spend extended time with fan favorite characters like Urbosa and Daruk, and take control of the Divine Beasts in the war. The only problem? It split off into a separate side story, making it non-canon to BoTW. That’s just fine for folks who love a good filler episode, but for those of us invested in the complex and often contradictory overarching Zelda story, that was a bit of a bummer. Fortunately for us lore Hounds, Age of Imprisonment is confirmed to be canon to the Tears of the Kingdom story. That means our adventure with Zelda, Rauru, Queen Sonia will tell us exactly how this ancient war with Ganondorf played out.
2) Combat is Evolving
The hack-and-slash combat at the center of Hyrule Warriors is alive and well, and it’s evolving further thanks to all new Unique Skills. These special moves are tailored towards specific situations and let you execute an aerial attack, targeted toward leaping of flying enemies, and a straightforward thrust attack to use against charging enemies. As the name implies, these are unique to each character. Zelda, for example, can unleash a barrage of Light Arrows from her Bow of Light to bring down flyers, or use Piercing Light on charging enemies, blasting them with a beam of light fired from the tip of her sword. These are strong options that will reward making the correct decisions quickly in the heat of battle, and if used correctly will do immediate damage to the Weak-Point gauges of tougher enemies, setting you up for devastating Weak Point attacks.
Zelda and company will have a massive array of moves to fight back against Ganondorf and his army.
3) Sync Strikes are your Ace in the Hole
Zelda won’t be fighting alone, and the way her allies factor into battles is evolving thanks to the new team-up attacks. This goes beyond the simple souped-up special attacks from musou games of old, as now the pairs of warriors employ unique tactics when paired together – to devastating effects. Two examples I saw in my hands-on demo were Zelda paired with Raru firing a powerful, aimable beam of pure light that tears through enemies, and Zelda with Mineru summoning Mineru’s hulking construct to use as an enemy-smashing battlemech. Whether it’s every pairing on just select compatible duos, it’s clear Zelda and company will have a massive array of moves to fight back against Ganondorf and his army.
4) New Hardware Means New Tricks
Age of Imprisonment is exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2, which means it takes full advantage of the more powerful hardware. While I haven’t done a full stress test just yet to see how far I can push the action before the framerate breaks down, I was impressed in my hands-on demo with how well it looked and ran. Also, fighting thousands of bokoblins is more fun with a friend, and Age of Imprisonment makes that easier thanks to GameShare. The idea is pretty simple: if one player has a Switch 2 and a copy of Age of Imprisonment, then another player can be their co-op body by joining the session from their own Switch or Switch 2. Just keep in mind that the session belongs to the player doing the sharing, so once they stop playing the session ends for both players.
5) Zonai Devices
So much of what made Tears of the Kingdom special was the way you could find and use Zonai devices – ancient machine parts – to aid your adventure. You can do that here too, as demonstrated when I tried out a Flame Emitter. This let me fry my enemies with an aimable stream of fire when I held it. It could also be activated and dropped on the ground to burn everything around it. I’ve thrown time bombs into the mouth of a Frox, and watched in trailers as Zelda combined the wind from a sideways fan with a Shock Emitter to create a massive electric cyclone.
6) The World Above and Below
Our entire demo took place in the Depths, in the area just beyond Mineru’s Lab. I didn’t get to see a map, but I do know that Age of Calamity covered the entire overworld, and the Depths spans an area just as large. That potentially doubles where levels could take place, and that’s before factoring in the Sky Islands, places we know from prior trailers where we will be fighting. Taken together, there is a lot of potential variety for where levels will take place, and it’s fair to wonder just how big Zelda’s fight in the ancient past will be.
7) Zelda and Link
Zelda, despite her title role in the series, has almost always been relegated to, at best, a secondary character, and at worst an off-screen motivation for Link on his adventures. While she was the star of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, her largely non-combat role in a retro-style adventure stands in stark contrast to her place in Age of Imprisonment, wielding a sword as the lead character as the vanguard in battle. Link, meanwhile, is in the “present” many centuries after the Imprisoning War takes place. While we have seen a construct with a strikingly Link-like visage show up in trailers and character art, we know this will be rare, and for Hyrule Warriors first, a case of Zelda taking the lead while Link steps out of the spotlight.
Even these seven items barely scratch the surface when it comes to what’s new in The Legend of Zelda: Age of Imprisonment, like a Korok warrior joining the fray, or an all new cast of Champions to defend Hyrule alongside Zelda. Fortunately you won’t need to wait much longer to uncover all the secrets from the great war near the founding of Hyrule. The Legend of Zelda: Age of Imprisonment launches on November 6, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2.
I have some good news and some bad news. The good news: to celebrate the upcoming video game LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, LEGO has announced four new Batman LEGO sets, and each one comes with a code for in-game DLC. They’re all up for preorder now.
The bad news? They’re not coming out until March 1, 2026. But three of them are iterations of the Batmobile, and some of them may just end up in our list of the best Batman LEGO sets. Let’s take a look, and you can lock in whichever set(s) you want right now.
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As mentioned above, all of the sets are associated with the upcoming video game LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which is scheduled to release sometime in 2026. Each of the Batmobile sets comes with a code for a gold variant of that vehicle in the game. The Batman Logo set gets you a gold variant of Batman himself.
LEGO DC Batman: Batman Logo
I have a real soft spot for the Batman logo. I was eight when Tim Burton’s Batman came out, and that logo was everywhere you looked for pretty much the entire 1990s. This set lets you build and display the logo, with tons of “greebling,” or LEGO-y texture on it. It even has a hidden compartment where you can house a minifigure. It comes with a buildable stand, a regular and a gold Batman minifigure, plus a gold coin celebrating 20 years of Batman LEGO sets.
LEGO DC Batman: Batman v Superman Batmobile
From the universally beloved 2016 movie Batman v Superman comes this sleek, gray, angular take on the Batmobile. It looks like a futuristic race car, but with sharp armored panels adorning it. Say what you will about the movie it came from, but this is an awesome Batmobile.
LEGO DC Batman: The Batman Batmobile
Batman’s vehicle in 2022’s The Batman is a boxier thing, more like the muscle cars from the ‘70s. It has vents on the hood, with the engine in the rear. It almost looks like a jet engine, pulsing blue when Batman puts the pedal to the metal.
LEGO DC Batman: Batman & Robin Batmobile
The Batmobile from the 1997 movie Batman & Robin is long and narrow, with sharp edges and no roof at all. Its spoiler looks like bat wings opening to take flight. The LEGO version isn’t too intricate: it replicates the rotating light in the hood with a sticker. But at $29.99, the price sure is right.
