Square Enix is planning to “share more updates than ever before” on its Final Fantasy 7 Remake project this year, according to game director Naoki Hamaguchi.
“We’ve announced that FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH will launch on June 3.
“With the addition of Switch 2 and Xbox, the game will be released as a full multi‑platform title.
“This year, we plan to share more updates on the FINAL FANTASY VII Remake Project than ever before.
“We look forward to celebrating together with even more players around the world.”
We’ve announced that FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH will launch on June 3. With the addition of Switch 2 and Xbox, the game will be released as a full multi‑platform title. This year, we plan to share more updates on the FINAL FANTASY VII Remake Project than ever before. We look… https://t.co/GFImeiPiC7pic.twitter.com/f0TaiDHlhJ
— 浜口直樹 /FFVII REBIRTH launches on Switch2&Xbox Jun 3 (@nhamaguc) February 5, 2026
This is exciting news for Remake fans, who have been on the edge of their seats for the last few years, waiting for news of the third game in the trilogy, which we have yet to see at all. Though Hamaguchi didn’t outright say it, this feels like a tease for a reveal this year. Rebirth left the story on one heck of a cliffhanger, with players left doubting whether the game’s most famous twist really took place or not. The third game has a lot of work to do to land the plot plane set up by Remake and Rebirth, and it will be interesting to see how Square Enix does it. Fans have already been speculating as to what Part 3 will be called, following the “Remake” and “Rebirth” titles as well as “Reunion” on the recent Crisis Core remake. Popular suggestions include Reincarnation, Revival, Reawakening, Redemption, and Return.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was also excellent, with us giving it a 9/10 and saying it “impressively builds off of what Remake set in motion, both as a best-in-class action-RPG full of exciting challenges and an awe-inspiring recreation of a world that has meant so much to so many for so long.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Fans of 2023’s Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, got a delightful surprise this morning during the Nintendo Partner Direct, with the reveal of a surprise sequel coming to Nintendo Switch. It’s called Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse, and it’s coming out in just two weeks, on February 19.
The Mermaid’s Curse follows a young pearl diver named Yuza who one day, while working, sees a ghostly version of himself. This sets off a chain of other strange incidents: corpses washing up, a girl with no memories, and townsfolks with ulterior motives. As Yuza, you’ll question people around the island to try and find out what’s going on, while also diving into the waters of the bay for clues. All of it has ties somehow to a centuries-old legend of a mermaid, and true to form, it all seems kind of creepy!
The original Paranormasight debuted in 2023 on Switch, PC, and mobile. While thematically similar, it told a different mystery story with different characters, and it’s unclear if there will be narrative times between The Seven Mysteries of Honjo and The Mermaid’s Curse. The first Paranormasight was well-received, and currently stands at an 85 critic score and 8.9 user score on Metacritic. We’re still waiting to hear if the new game will come to other platforms, but given the mobile and PC releases of The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, it seems like a reasonable expectation.
You can catch up on everything announced at today’s Nintendo Direct right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Wait, Leon Kennedy is in Resident Evil: Requiem? Yeah, okay, we’ve known that for a bit now, perhaps longer than Capcom wanted us too. But what is news today is that the long-rumored Leon S. Kennedy amiibo is real, and coming alongside the previously announced Grace Ashcroft amiibo this summer.
This was announced during today’s Nintendo Partner Direct, which showed a trailer for Reqiuem mostly containing footage and news we’ve seen already. We knew about the February 27 release date, the Gold Editions of Resident Evils 7 and 8 releasing alongside it, and the special Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller. We’d also already heard about the Grace Ashcroft amiibo before.
But we didn’t actually know about Leon. He was, uh, strongly suspected, even before we officially knew he was going to be in the game, something Capcom tried to keep hidden way longer than was necessary. Since his officialy reveal at The Game Awards, we’ve seen a sudden surge of love for the classic protagonist, with fans referring to him as a “Hot Uncle” and comparing him to Keanu Reaves. He’s set to be getting a roughly equal amount of screentime to fellow protagonist Grace, so it only makes sense they’d both get amiibos.
You can catch up on everything announced at today’s Nintendo Partner Direct right here.
With perfect timing, the modders behind the Van Buren remake in Fallout: New Vegas have released a new teaser trailer.
UnitedWestTeam released the teaser, which sets up Fallout: The New West, the fan-made total conversion mod for Fallout: New Vegas inspired by Fallout: Van Buren, the cancelled Fallout 3 that was in development at Black Isle Studios in the early 2000s before the franchise moved over to Bethesda.
Fallout: The New West aims to adapt the core narrative threads of Van Buren and turn them into a fully playable story built in the New Vegas engine. Expect modern gameplay systems, expanded roleplaying opportunities, and “the mechanical depth and tone that defined classic Fallout,” the modders said.
Here’s the official blurb:
Fallout: The New West is a fan-made total conversion mod for Fallout: New Vegas. In many ways, it tells the same broad story envisioned by Fallout: Van Buren, but restructured and expanded to form a cohesive, playable experience. The project’s primary narrative goal is to take the disparate plot threads and unfinished concepts found in the original design documents, including for example, the NCR–Brotherhood conflict, the Great Tribal War between Caesar’s Legion and the Daughters of Hecate, the fight for the soul of the Mormon State and much more, and weave them into a satisfying, unified narrative that adheres to the main plot as described in the design documents.
Players assume the role of a new protagonist, released from captivity in 2253, known as “the Prisoner,” and the story is set in an alternate continuity that predates and reinterprets the events of Fallout: New Vegas. Unfortunately due to many Van Buren concepts being folded into FNV, we cannot set the project in the same timeline. Our secondary goal is to incorporate many of the modern gameplay conveniences introduced through Fallout: New Vegas and its more than 15 years of modding, while preserving the distinctive mechanics and design quirks of classic Fallout found in the original design documents. Much of Fallout’s original charm is an acquired taste, and one that we believe remains worth acquiring.
It sounds exciting, and given the success of Fallout: London, which had Bethesda’s blessing, it may even have a chance of survival. Indeed, a new demo is apparently due out soon (an initial demo, which released under the name Fallout Revelation Blues, came out last year). This alternate start demo under the new name of Fallout: The New West will be followed up with the entirety of Act 1 of the game as a vertical slice, the modders said.
Cain, who worked on the first two, much-loved Fallout games in the mid-to late 90s before leaving Interplay to start a new studio called Troika Games, revealed that in the middle of 2003, an unnamed Interplay vice president asked him to play the Van Buren prototype, saying: “I don’t think they can get it done, so I’m just going to cancel it. But if you look over it and give me an estimate there’s a chance I wouldn’t cancel it.”
Cain said he played the prototype for two hours and asked the development team a number of questions before delivering his verdict to the vice president. “I said, ‘I’m convinced in 18 months you could have a really good game shipped.’ And he said, ‘huh, could it be done any faster?’ And I was like, ‘oh, shoot, I’ve said too long.’ I said, ‘well, even if you did a death march crunch I don’t think you could do it faster than 12, and then you’d be shipping something that was unbalanced and buggy, and the team would be destroyed. So I don’t recommend that.’
“And he said, ‘OK, thanks.’ As we walked out he basically explained any answer over six months was going to result in him having to cancel it, meaning the answer I just gave got the game canceled. But he was going to cancel it anyway. He thought it couldn’t be done in six months, and I just confirmed that to him.”
According to Cain, the cancellation of Van Buren was, ultimately, about money; Interplay’s dire financial situation meant it simply did not have enough cash to fund more than six months of further development. Interplay went on to close Black Isle Studios and cut its entire staff. The company released the console spinoff Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel in 2004 for the Xbox and PlayStation 2, but it was not enough. That same year, Interplay announced a licensing deal with The Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda for future Fallout games, and in 2007, Interplay sold the Fallout IP to Bethesda outright. The rest is history.
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.
With just hours to go until today’s Nintendo Direct broadcast, an updated ratings board listing suggests Hollow Knight could get an imminent Switch 2 release.
Team Cherry’s long-awaited game is now listed for Switch 2 with a February 5, 2026 release date, per the website of European ratings board PEGI. Hey, that’s today!
Nintendo is due to air its latest Partner Direct later today, at 6am Pacific, 9am Eastern or 2pm UK time. This third-party game showcase will include 20 minutes of announcements featuring titles headed to Switch and Switch 2 that aren’t developed by Nintendo itself — such as Hollow Knight.
Don’t tune in expecting a new Mario game announcement, then, but do keep an eye out for more news on other upcoming Switch 2 releases such as this month’s Resident Evil Requiem, and the promising-looking 007: First Light. Oh, and Hollow Knight now too. What will this new edition contain?
Alongside releasing Hollow Knight again on Switch 2, Team Cherry is now busy working on Sea of Sorrow, its first expansion to Hollow Knight: Silksong. Will we see more of this today as well? Time will tell, but as ever IGN will be reporting all of the major announcements live.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
As unhappy players fight to get refunds out of Steam, an update from one of the studio’s directors claims the “entire” development team working on the ill-fated MMO Ashes of Creation was reportedly laid off without notice or their January paychecks.
The shocking revelation comes from Intrepid Studios’ former director of communications, Margaret Krohn, who revealed in a lengthy post on Twitter/X that three days after originally being told around 100 developers would be losing their jobs, a “confusing email” arrived confirming “all” staff would be laid off. “It is still shocking,” Krohn wrote. “The entire studio gathered to try to understand what had happened and what it meant for our future.”
Earlier this week, Steam quietly withdrew Ashes of Creation from sale after its director and leadership team quit just weeks after it launched as a $50 Early Access game on Steam. The game’s director Steven Sharif said “much of” the senior dev team had quit “in protest,” claiming that its management board had asked him to do things he “could not ethically support.” According to Sharif, the Board then issued WARN Act notices — layoff warnings, in other words — to the remaining staff. It’s unclear who sits on this mysterious board.
According to a new public record request, we now know that the formal WARN Act notification was issued on January 31 and indicated that 210 employees were “affected” by the filing, 123 of whom worked in California.
“In the end, none of us are receiving our final paychecks, the 60-day notice and pay outlined under the WARN Act, PTO payouts, or other compensation owed,” Krohn explained.
“What matters most to me now are the people — both the players and developers. To my colleagues: this team is truly a family. The culture we built together is something I have never experienced anywhere else. In the midst of heartbreak and uncertainty, we have come together to review resumes, help with portfolios, share job leads, and support one another emotionally. That says everything about who we are as people.”
“To the players: the entire development team was working extremely hard, pulling long hours, and wishes with all our hearts that we could give you Ashes of Creation. There are no words that fully express how sorry we are that this journey ended this way. You should pursue a refund, you deserve it.”
Unfortunately, Steam doesn’t seem to agree. While you can find plenty of people across Discord and Reddit claiming to have received refunds despite having played more than two hours, there’s an equal number of players frustrated that their requests have been denied, and there seems to be little consistency across Steam’s Support team.
“They denied me with 2.3 hours played. Bought in December and denied because it ‘exceeds refund time,'” wrote one player, while another said: “I can’t believe it… and I’m hearing they froze/reversed the December payment to Intrepid so basically Steam have stollen [sic] my money.”
“How many hours did you have? I had 15 Hours played and got refunded on a manual process,” replied one. “[Steam support] said to me if I open another ticket about this they will close it without reading,” added this unhappy player who had failed to convince Steam of a refund despite several attempts.
The most successful requests seem to be via human checks, so players are still suggesting that those looking for a refund check the box to “request a refund,” but instead contact Steam via the “I have a question about this product” box. That way, your request will be routed to a member of customer support, and not an automated service.
19,576 backers pledged $3,271,809 on Kickstarter to help make Ashes of Creation a reality, the most ever raised on the platform for an MMO. Refunds via Kickstarter seem unlikely given the game launched in Early Access form.
Meanwhile, Sharif popped up on Discord briefly on February 4 to write: “It is certainly heartbreaking to see the impact to the people I care about both my developers and community, but given what has transpired and the lack of facts available to the public, the reputational impact is something that cannot be avoided until the record is set straight with the proper public filings. Unfortunately that takes a little bit of time.”
While you can’t buy Ashes of Creation from Steam right now, its website is still live and accepting payment for cosmetics. While the site is typically updated several times a month, only one update was posted in the whole of January, and that was alluding to a developer diary livestream coming up on February 13. It’s not clear who will host that given reports the entire team has been laid off.
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.
Sony has highlighted the performance of PlayStation 5 exclusive Ghost of Yotei, insisting it outsold predecessor Ghost of Tsushima during the same period, and made a “significant” contribution to its financial results.
Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei went on sale October 2, 2025, and sold 3.3 million units as of November 2 (at the 32 day mark). Reporting its financials for the quarter ending December 31, 2025, Sony failed to provide an updated sales figure, but did highlight the game in its webcast, reviewed and transcribed by IGN.
“In the studio business, Ghost of Yotei, a tentpole title we released in October, exceeded the sales of the previous title in the same period of time and significantly contributed to the financial results of the quarter,” Lin Tao, Sony’s chief financial officer, said.
“Our established live service titles like Helldivers 2 and MLB The Show also contributed stable recurring revenue.”
The statement here is a little vague (we assume “same period of time” reflects each game’s first quarter on sale, which would be the first three months of availability), but Sony sounds happy with Ghost of Yotei either way. How exactly does it compare to Ghost of Tsushima? Ghost of Tsushima, which was initially released for PlayStation 4 on July 17, 2020, sold 2.4 million copies in its first three days, then hit 5 million after 118 days (just shy of four months). Latest sales figures provided by Sony show Ghost of Tsushima on 13 million copies sold, including sales of the PC and PS5 Director’s Cut, as of August 11, 2024.
We should consider that Ghost of Tsushima came out on the PS4, which in the summer of 2020 had a much bigger install base than the PS5 does today, and released into the stay-at-home gaming boom fueled by lockdowns. Ghost of Yotei also sold for $70, which means its dollar sales are greater compared to the cheaper Ghost of Tsushima, whose standard edition launched at $60.
Meanwhile, multiplayer add-on Ghost of Yotei: Legends comes out at some point this year, which will undoubtedly give Ghost of Yotei a shot in the arm. And we all know that Ghost of Yotei, like Ghost of Tsushima before it, will eventually launch on PC in Director’s Cut form. Perhaps there will even be a PS6 version, whenever that console rolls around.
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.
Overwatch 2 is officially ditching the “2” from its name. It’s all just Overwatch now as the game enters a “new, story-driven era” with a year-long narrative, 10 new heroes, and a major overhaul.
Announced today at the Overwatch Spotlight, Blizzard revealed its first year-long storyline, entitled “The Reign of Talon”. As it sounds, the plot is going to focus on the antagonistic faction Talon as it takes over around the world, while Overwatch continues to fight back. In-game events, hero trailers, animated comics, short stories, and map updates will tell a story across six seasons rolled out throughout the entire year, beginning with the launch of five new heroes on February 10 as Season 1 begins. On the Talon side, new heroes will include Domina (tank), Emre (damage), and Mizuki (support), and on Overwatch we’ll get Anran (damage) and Jetpack Cat (support). More heroes will join in the future, with a new hero added in each of Season 2-6 to come. A new story arc is planned to begin with another Season 1 in 2027.
Other updates include a new Meta Event called Conquest, where players choose to align with either Overwatch or Talon over five weeks to compete for rewards including lootboxes, skins, and titles. We’ll also be seeing a major UI and UX overhaul with a new hero lobby and a promise of faster navigation. And we’re also getting a Hello Kitty-themed in-game event from February 10-23.
Amid all of this, Blizzard is officially dropping the “2” from Overwatch 2, and referring to it going forward just as Overwatch. As a press release explains: “Overwatch is more than just a digit: it’s a living universe that keeps growing, keeps surprising, and keeps bringing players together from around the world. This year marks a huge turning point in how the development team envisions the future of Overwatch, so we are officially dropping ‘2’ and moving forward as ‘Overwatch’.”
The newly-dubbed “Overwatch” will also be getting an upgraded Nintendo Switch 2 edition in the spring (both the original Overwatch and Overwatch 2 are currently available on Nintendo Switch, and thus Switch 2, but do not have dedicated Switch 2 upgraded versions).
Overwatch 2, or I guess as I should call it now, Overwatch, is about to get a massive overhaul as it enters the year-long storyline entitled The Reign of Talon. With the big update coming on February 10, players will get five new heroes (with five more coming over the rest of the season), a number of quality of life updates, new in-game events, and later this spring, an upgrade option for Nintendo Switch 2 players specifically.
Announced during today’s Overwatch Spotlight 2026, it was revealed that a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition of Overwatch 2 is finally on its way later this spring. We didn’t get any real details as to what the release was going to entail as of yet. Overwatch 2 is already on the Nintendo Switch and thus playable on Switch 2, but it’s just the regular edition, and a Switch 2 would presumably have some upgrades attached. We’ll have to wait until Season 2 sometime this spring to find out.
This will be welcome news for Switch players, as there have long been complaints that Overwatch 2 on the Nintendo Switch offers no meaningful technical improvements over the original Overwatch. A Switch 2 edition could also potentially introduce mouse controls, which might be desirable for those wanting something closer to a PC experience.
Overwatch 2 will now be known as just Overwatch going forward, as was also announced during today’s Overwatch Spotlight, as the game undergoes a major overhaul headed into a year-long narrative of events, hero trailers, stories, comics, map updates, and more telling the story of a Talon takeover. Ten new heroes are planned for release over the next year, with a new story arc planned to start in 2027 when this one has concluded.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
David Jaumandreu and I are supposed to be having our interview about his upcoming game, Denshattack, in a studio built out to look like a train. And we will, eventually, as you’ll see from the video above. But before we shoot the video version, we chat for my written piece in a very different setting: a dungeon.
Jaumandreu is sitting on an inexplicable throne, like you’d find in a king’s palace, while I sit atop a different sort of throne: an actual toilet. There are fake shackles against the stone walls around us, and bars on the window. Behind us, through a sliding door, is the train studio we’ll be using in 30 minutes.
I don’t have a clever way to transition Jaumandreu and my dungeon adventure into something about Denshattack!, or even trains. But Jaumandreu is effusive about the silly setting we’re in. He has every reason to be happy right now: he’s in his favorite place in the world, after all.
No, I don’t mean the dungeon. I’m talking about Japan.
Jaumandreu has traveled halfway around the world to promote his upcoming game: Denshattack!, which he describes as “Tony Hawk with Japanese trains.” He’s leading its development as the studio director of Undercoders, which was founded in 2005 in Barcelona. It began as a mobile development studio and eventually transitioned to DSi development and later to console with games like Conga Master and Treasures of the Aegean. The core team is just 12 people, even a whopping 20 years after its founding, though Jaumandreu says they do work with external developers on things such as music and animation when support is needed.
So what’s a Barcelonan studio doing making a game that’s hyperspecifically focused on Japanese trains? Put simply, Jaumandreu loves Japan, and he loves the train system there. That’s the long and short of it.
“I came [to Japan] in ’98 for the first time,” he tells me, speaking from the throne. “I came just for tourism. My father used to travel a lot for work, so I had the opportunity to follow him on one of his trips here, and it captivated me so much that I just wanted to come back again and again and again.”
Jaumandreu was 16 on that first trip – he’s a few decades older now, and has been back to Japan almost yearly since that first trip.
“There’s so much to like,” he continues. “When I came here, it was obviously because I was a kid. I loved Dragon Ball, I loved video games, you know? And back then, Japan was the biggest force in making video games. Nintendo, PlayStation, whatever. But I came through this fascination, and then got fascinated by the country itself. Its history, it’s super interesting, its culture. Whenever you get to know it more, there are more layers of interesting stuff to get. The cinema is fantastic, the food is incredible. Pop culture. No, it’s a mix of a lot of things, and whenever you get deeper into the country, you find more interesting stuff. So of course the first time I got here was Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Then you start exploring more the rural side, and that’s what it started to get to me.”
Of course, Jaumandreu especially loves Japan’s train system. He rode the subway on his first visit, the Yamanote line that runs in a circle through Tokyo’s biggest areas. At the time, trains in Japan didn’t have any English voices on the intercom or English words on the signs, so all he had to go on was his guidebook for navigation. “It felt like a big adventure.” Especially, he says, compared to trains in Barcelona, which were good but not nearly as advanced technologically. “To put it in perspective, back when I came here, the difference was it was like looking 20 years in the future, and now we’ve kind of reached that point, I guess.”
Then, Jaumandreu got to ride the Shinkansen, the bullet train, and he was blown away. “It’s incredibly fast and silent at the same time, so it feels super calm, and you’re going so fast. It feels, I don’t know, discontextualized. The incredible speed that you’re going, and it doesn’t move or shake or whatever. It’s a super smooth ride. It’s super comfortable.”
It was out of this love that Denshattack! Was born. One day, Jaumandreu says, he was playing with a little toy train he had, and the ideas began to flow.
“I was, you know, finger skating with a train. Like you’re bored. And I was doing this and that. I was like, ‘Whoa, this is cool. We could make a game out of this.’ I started thinking about it and giving a lot of thought to how that would translate into gameplay. And I used to skate, and I’m big fan of the Tony Hawk games especially, and it was like, ‘How would you do this? How would you control this?’ So yeah, I brought a train piece to work, started showing the team some moves, and then I presented to the rest of the team and they told me, ‘They’re shit.’ ‘Are you crazy?’ And then [my coworker] who is super fast in Unreal, I think he spent couple of days with that and he came out and said, ‘There’s definitely a game here. It’s super fun.’”
Denshattack! has been in development now for three years. It’s visually inspired by Jet Set Radio, Hi-Fi Rush, and Persona, and set to music by Sonic Mania’s Tee Lopes. In it, you control a train as if you were controlling a skateboard, where the landscape, cities, and other landmarks become a skate park. Jaumandreu describes gameplay in two parts: there’s a “flow state” gameplay where you’re focused on getting from point A to B, doing tricks and avoiding derailing as you go. And then there are missions where you’ll race rivals, try to get a high score from doing tricks, or even fight bosses like giant mechs. And Denshattack! combines all this with a Shonen anime story about found family, rebellion, and making friends with your rivals.
As we wrap up our interview and prepare to move out of the dungeon and into the train studio to record, I ask Jaumandreu one last, critical question. What’s his favorite ekiben, or train bento box?
He starts to say his favorite is the ones that self-heat when you pull a little tab out. But then he brings up an even more apropos answer: he likes the kid’s meals, because they come in a box shaped like a train.
Denshattack! is planned for release in spring 2026 for PC, Xbox Series (including on Game Pass), and PlayStation.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
