Fortnite has just wrapped up its latest explosive live event, detonating the Death Star looming over the Island and welcoming DC Comics hero Superman in the process.
Tonight’s event, Death Star Sabotage, saw players infiltrate the Empire’s fully operational battle station that has hovered menacingly over the Fortnite battle royale Island throughout its Star Wars mini-season. Happily, and perhaps unsurprisingly, players were able to stop the station’s deadly space laser from obliterating the game’s map — although not without causing a bit of damage in the process.
As destruction rained down, the event’s closing moments saw Superman arrive — presumably to try and help with clean up duties during the game’s incoming superhero-themed season, which begins in just a few hours’ time.
Fortnite’s big Star Wars event began in orbit around the game’s battle royale Island, giving players a rare glimpse at the game’s setting from outside its usual boundaries. Fortnite’s setting exists as a bubble of reality floating through the multiverse (which handily allows any character from any franchise to turn up at any time!) and here, players were able to pilot X-Wings and TIE-Fighters to blow up orbiting Star Destroyers and engage in fun dogfights. In the continued absence of a Star Wars: Battlefront 3, this was a fun riff on its space battles to get things started.
The action then swiftly moved to within the Death Star itself, as Fortnite heroes Jonesy (Troy Baker) and Hope (Suzie Yeung) led players through the bowels of the station, initially disguised as Stormtroopers and their captives. Ultimately, players found themselves in an encounter with Star Wars’ Emperor (was that the voice of Sheev Palpatine himself, Ian McDiarmid?), and able to escape the Death Star as it exploded.
In a nod to Fortnite’s 2021 live event Operation Sky Fire (which also ended in a space station exploding above the game’s Island), players were initially left to celebrate their victory — until the realisation that huge flaming chunks of said space station were now raining down on their battle royale home. And here, one of these chunks smashed straight into the glowing Rift Gate used to access the spirit realm by Fortnite’s current antihero Daigo, unleashing its untold power.
The event’s final moments see players back on the Island, mysterious energy now crackling around them. (Will this be the explanation for why superpowers now exist in the next battle royale season? Quite possibly.) Meanwhile, Superman is seen watching the Island from afar, as it is flooded by spirit realm energy. The suggestion here, of course, is that Superman will be swooping in to help.
If you weren’t in-game at the time, you can watch a recording of the full Death Star Sabotage mission below:
You’ve got your MTG Final Fantasy cards, they’re all sleeved up, and you’ve even got yourself some fancy new dice and counters for the occasion, but something is missing.
That’s right, you need one of Ultra Pro’s latest Final Fantasy playmats. Ultra Pro, perhaps best known for its sleeves, tends to release a series of playmats for Magic: The Gathering sets, and they rarely disappoint. This time around, though, you can get a great new place to play while protecting your cards for just $26.99.
These mats will set you back $26.99, and I’m definitely tempted to snag the Cloud one as a big Final Fantasy 7 fan. If you want to spend a little more, you can also get one of three two-sided playmats, which is a nice touch as there are a fair number of double-sided cards in the Final Fantasy set.
Looking for more Final Fantasy? MTG cards from the upcoming set featured in this week’s crashers and climbers update, and it’s good news!
Lloyd Coombes is Gaming Editor @ Daily Star. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay. He’s also a tech, gaming, and fitness freelancer seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar, Tom’s Guide, IGN, and more.
So much of Dying Light is informed by the series’ melee-first design. Its impact can be seen in the damage system that causes its grotesque zombies to fall apart with every slash of your blade, as well as the weapon crafting, which turns household tools into hilariously impractical killing machines. And, of course, it influences the parkour movement, which allows you to keep well away from chewing teeth and clawing hands.
So what happens when you add guns to this close-quarters formula? And I don’t mean one or two rusty pistols, but a whole armoury stocked with shotguns, assault rifles, and plentiful ammo. That’s a question the next game in the series, Dying Light: The Beast, poses. The answer is not the obvious one. Far from transforming into a regular first-person shooter, guns have turned Techland’s latest into something that feels closer to Crysis or even (if you squint a bit) Dishonored. They’re another layer of an increasingly varied toolset that ensures every encounter is a sandbox solved by your own rules.
For this month’s IGN First, I was able to play an hour-long mission from an early section of Dying Light: The Beast. This meant stepping into the combat boots of Kyle Crane, the returning protagonist of the original Dying Light. Held hostage and experimented on for 13 years by a shadowy figure known only as The Baron, I join Kyle a few hours into his quest for revenge. Deep within the new, much more rural zone of Castor Woods, I infiltrate one of The Baron’s factories. And, standing on the facility’s roof, I realise my options are more varied than the last time I played Dying Light.
Using Kyle’s heightened “survivor” senses (a benefit of all those experiments he endured), I’m able to highlight the patrolling members of The Baron’s militia. Some are marked in orange, while others are red; an indication of who is armed with melee weapons or guns, respectively. It’s a colour-coded threat level that helps me set up a plan of action. Yes, it’s all very Batman: Arkham.
I start right in front of me with a blissfully unaware bowman. Approaching silently, I perform a melee takedown using a shiv I’ve crafted – much faster than choking him out – and then swipe the bow from his corpse. Bows were, of course, in Dying Light 2, but kept out of reach until the back half of the game. Their earlier introduction in The Beast promises a greater level of engagement options across the campaign, especially considering their ranged stealth potential.
Notching an arrow, I headshot the bowman’s buddies, including a rifle-wielding sniper on the opposite roof. No one hears him slump to the floor, so I’m free to parkour across and add his gun to my collection. Once again, my engagement opportunities expand: no longer limited to firing single arrows and enduring long draw speeds, I can take out groups of charging melee enemies before they make it into striking range… although everyone around me will know exactly what’s going on. Might as well make a spectacle of it, then.
I dive down to the roof below, where a further two riflemen, a squad of brawlers, and – delightfully – a pile of explosive gas canisters await. The dive triggers a slow-motion effect. It’s hardly the slick bullet time of Max Payne and the old FEAR games, feeling more as if you’re suddenly travelling through sticky air rather than becoming John Wick, but it nonetheless successfully emphasises Kyle’s military background.
Taking more than a few pages from The Walking Dead’s book, you can now smear yourself in undead guts in order to mask your human scent.
With this expanded toolkit, Dying Light’s encounters have graduated into a space similar to Crysis and Far Cry’s sandboxes. Using Kyle’s survivor sense allows you to methodically remove enemies with guns from the playing field before going toe-to-toe with less dangerous foes. Flowing fluidly from stealth takedowns to silent headshots to shell-sputtering shoot-outs allowed me greater control over the space than I’ve come to expect from the typically messy melees of Dying Light 2. Combined with the parkour, which makes a respectable stand-in for teleportation, there’s even a little of Dishonored’s strategy to be found here, too – albeit less elegant in execution. My hope is that, beyond the boundaries of this demo, there are encounters that encourage a strong variety of approaches.
I’ve reason to be hopeful. As I explore Castor Woods, I encounter a zombie wearing a battery pack that detonates on contact, sending arcing forks of electricity through the horde. Another wears an explosive canister on its back – just one good shot will turn him and his buddies into barbeque. Talking of seared flesh, I later acquire a flamethrower. It’s clear that there are plenty of toys to experiment with, and I hope that Techland is playful enough to use these elements to coax players into cleverly absurd solutions for clearing out the undead and deadly alike.
It’s worth noting that Techland has upped its game when it comes to stealth, too. The bow, shivs, and tools like throwing knives are naturally all very good at silently dispatching human opponents, but there’s now a method for quietly avoiding zombies, too. Taking more than a few pages from The Walking Dead’s book, you can now smear yourself in undead guts in order to mask your human scent, and then casually walk through the horde. It’s a simple stealth tool, but one that’s incredibly evocative of the fiction Dying Light revels in.
But Kyle isn’t special because he can use a gun or take a bath in a zombie’s insides. Those aforementioned experiments have turned him into the titular Beast. It’s a similar backstory to that of Aiden Caldwell, the protagonist of Dying Light 2, but where Aiden’s infection gave him some zombie-like superhuman abilities, Kyle has become something much closer to a leaping wrecking ball. Triggered at will after taking and dealing enough damage to fill a meter, Beast Mode allows you to tear regular enemies apart with gory animations akin to Doom’s Glory Kills. A thunderous ground pound violently throws foes to the seven winds – using it indoors is effectively a screen wipe attack, sending zombies splattering into the walls and ceiling. All this came in handy against the demo’s final boss, a towering “Chimera” zombie known as a Behemoth, which is capable of hurling engine blocks and concrete boulders across the arena. The Behemoth has a number of easily recognised attack patterns, but the challenge is in its resilience, as well as the number of minions that shamble after you. With Beast Mode engaged, I was able to easily clear those mobs and inflict big damage spikes against the boss.
But as much as going toe-to-toe with another beast is good fun, I’m actually more interested in the utility aspects of Kyle’s mutations. Techland tells me that playtesters have used the Beast mode’s extended leap ability to bypass entire parkour challenges. And so it’s the unconventional uses of these abilities that promise to join the likes of guns and camouflaging yourself with guts in ensuring that The Beast feels like a meaningful upgrade over its predecessor.
The scope of this demo was pretty limited – in fact, it was largely a playable version of the hands-off presentation I saw at gamescom last year, and so there is almost certainly more to see in time. But being able to wander about this small slice of the world on my own time allowed me to enjoy some of the smaller details. The world feels like a substantial upgrade over Dying Light 2, not so much in level design (although much of what I liked about the old town section of Villedor returns) but in atmosphere. The new weather effects system is exceptional, with storms drenching the landscape with heavy rain and winds whipping trees, bushes, and long grass into a frenzy. And when the sun sets, the light really does die. It’s nearly impossible to see during the witching hour, forcing you to sparingly use your flashlight to navigate between the patrol paths of the much more difficult nighttime terrors. Long-time fans who pine for the scarier nights of the first game should hopefully be well catered for.
When I left my appointment with Techland at gamescom last year, I was somewhat skeptical as to how guns would affect the core ideas Dying Light is built on. Naturally, the studio wanted to show off its new toys, and that hands-off demo was played largely as a shooter. But having had the opportunity to play myself, in which I had the agency to choose when and where guns were deployed, I quickly learned that firearms are just one component of Dying Light: The Beast, not the main attraction. Their addition, alongside what feels like a strengthened inclusion of the bow and the series’ many trademark DIY melee solutions, made the demo’s encounters feel richer and more textured. Each combat scenario felt like a problem with a dozen solutions, rather than the melee mosh pits that I typically found myself in while playing Dying Light 2.
The question now is how all this evolves over the wider game. There are several tools and weapons that I didn’t get extensive or any time at all with, such as the aforementioned flamethrower and oddities like a throwable shock knife, and so my hope is that The Beast constantly adds weapons with unique utilities to the toolkit. And then, of course, there’s your mutations; each Chimera you kill allows you to inject more freaky DNA into your veins and unlock a skill tree of powers. I can only hope that the further down those branches you go, the more wild your ability set becomes. And provided the campaign continues to offer up interesting challenges that encourage the use of both abilities and tools, then I think The Beast could be a much more interesting sequel than it initially appears to be.
If you’re looking for DTI codes, IGN’s got you covered! In this article, you’ll find a list of all the active and working Dress to Impress codes in June 2025 that you can redeem for free rewards and bonuses in DTI, including outfits and accessories like hats, bags, and jewelry.
Active Dress to Impress Codes (June 2025)
Here are all the active Dress to Impress codes in June 2025 and the free rewards you get for redeeming them:
ANGELT4NKED – Helmet
3NCHANTEDD1ZZY – Wand
ELLA – Skirt
1CON1CF4TMA – Sweater dress
B3APL4YS_D0L1E – Doll accessory
MEGANPLAYSBOOTS – Boots
CH00P1E_1S_B4CK: Streetwear outfit set
S3M_0W3N_Y4Y: Axe
KREEK: Bear hat
LANA: White shorts, shirt, and legwarmers
LANABOW:White bow
BELALASLAY: Black jacket with pink halter top
LANATUTU: White dress
IBELLASLAY: Red, green, and blonde hairstyle
M3RM4ID: Orange mermaid set
TEKKYOOZ: White handbag
LABOOTS: Black boots
ITSJUSTNICHOLAS: Black jacket
ASHLEYBUNNI: Bunny slippers
LEAHASHE: Sweatshirt and sweatpants
KITTYUUHH: Black cat
C4LLMEHH4LEY: Puffy dress and bear headband
SUBM15CY: Necklace and eyelashes
D1ORST4R: Bag and bow
All Expired Dress to Impress Codes
Below, you’ll find a list of expired DTI codes that no longer work and can’t be redeemed as of June 2025:
SWEETHEART (was only redeemable between February 15 and February 16, 2025 at 8AM PT)
YEAROFTHESNAKE
NY2025
WINTERUPDATE(was only redeemable between 8 AM – 11 AM PT on Saturday, 14 December!)
4BILLION
CHOOPIE10K
THEGAMES
EYELASHES
REWARD4CLASS1C
How to Redeem Dress to Impress Codes
Follow the steps below to redeem Dress to Impress codes and claim free rewards in DTI:
Open the Dress to Impress Roblox Experience.
Click on the handbag icon on the left-hand side to open the DTI Codes menu.
Enter your code in the “Type here…” field.
Check for any spelling mistakes or errors.
Click the checkmark icon to redeem the code.
Why Isn’t My Dress to Impress Code Working?
If the code you’re trying to redeem in DTI isn’t working, it’s likely because of one of two reasons:
The Dress to Impress code is expired
There’s a spelling mistake in the code
When inputting a DTI code in Roblox, make sure it’s spelled correctly (for example, a capital I isn’t a lowercase l, 0 and not O, and vice versa) and that there are no spaces before or after the code. We’d recommend copying and pasting codes straight from our article to ensure they’re correct as we’ve tested and verified that the codes on this page are working ourselves.
If your DTI code still isn’t working after checking for typos, it’s more than likely expired and can no longer be redeemed in Dress to Impress.
How to Get More DTI Codes
To get more Dress to Impress codes, the best way is to join the official DTI Discord server. While we check for new codes daily, the quickest way to know about new Dress to Impress codes is to follow the Roblox experience’s official Discord server where updates are posted in real time.
The Dress to Impress Summer Update is set for June 28, 2025, so we’ll likely see new DTI codes then. As always, we’ll keep you updated as soon as any new codes drop, so bookmark this page!
What is Dress to Impress in Roblox?
Dress to Impress is a popular dress-up Roblox Experience available on PC, console, and iOS and Android mobile devices. In it, you put on your best outfit to complete a specific theme and walk the runway in a bid to earn votes from other players and become a top model. As you gain votes, you gain ranks and can access more clothing and accessories, so make sure you’re truly dressed to impress! Also, for toy lovers and collectors, you can now pre-order a mystery pack of 2 Dress to Impress minifigures right now for $30 at Walmart.
Meg Koepp is a Guides Editor on the IGN Guides team, with a focus on trends. When she’s not working, you can find her playing an RPG or making miniatures.
Announced at Summer Games Fest, Chronicles: Medieval is an exciting freshman effort from brand new developer Raw Power Games. While this is their first title as a studio, the team is made up of legacy talent from games like Hogwarts Legacy, Hitman, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and more. The trailer debuted today gives a small taste of what Chronicles: Medieval is about, but we were able to take part in a special presentation to dive further into Raw Power Games’ ambitious history-carving title.
Set in 1313 AD Europe, players assume the role of a created character with little to no social influence on the world around them. It’s the player’s goal from the outset to take this character, perhaps just a lowly craftsman hailing from a no-name village, from rags to riches to ultimately become the most influential and powerful person of the age. While said craftsman may start from meager beginnings, nothing is stopping them from one day picking up a sword and becoming a mercenary, turning to a life of banditry for economic redistribution of a five-fingered variety, or joining the King’s Army to seek glory on the battlefield.
As the player climbs social ranks through honors and tournament wins and eventually achieves a leadership position, the game then tasks them with growing their sphere of influence over as much land as possible. While an empire may be made at the end of a sword, that is not the only way to gain control over much of Europe. Engaging in diplomacy, building trade routes, and forging alliances can all help you create a bloodless bridge to other nations. For players who are feeling a little malicious but do not quite have an appetite for war, subterfuge and espionage are also on the table. Chronicles: Medieval is about letting the player decide how they will build their legend and watch the world react to their actions.
For players who are feeling a little malicious but do not quite have an appetite for war, subterfuge and espionage are also on the table.
Over the course of the campaign, proprietary simulation technology throws the occasional wrench into the players’ best laid plans by hoisting the unexpected. Famine, plagues, and other kinds of natural disasters will blaze their way across Europe and could either become a mutual enemy for the player and allied countries or an opportunity to grab more land. What better way to win a war than to strike when your opponent is at their weakest?
Of course, this isn’t to say that war is always a bad option. Raw Power Games wants to simulate the large-scale battles of yore by letting players prepare, command, and fight alongside armies in giant conflicts. The developer describes these clashes as a pillar of Medieval equivalent to the sandbox storytelling and is aiming for them to be equal parts historical and compelling. While the campaign is single-player, players who wish to have a friend join them in the brutal knight-on-knight melee battles can do so in the co-op mode made up of custom battles.
A major focus for Chronicles: Medieval is the ease for players to mod the game. Community Manager Clemens Koch insists that modding is not just supported, it is part of Raw Power Games’ DNA. “A hundred Thomas the Tank Engines vs. one Master Chief?” Koch pontificates. “That’s only doable by modding.”
Raw Power Games is aiming for an Early Access release for Chronicles: Medieval in 2026 on PC, hoping to build the game alongside the community playing it. While many things could happen in the meantime, the current plans are to stay in Early Access for about 12 months before officially releasing, then thinking about things like the console releases. Raw Power Games does not quite consider it a Game as a Service, however, as it is a premium title that intends to make full use of its time in Early Access.
They just emailed Tom Hardy and asked if he’d like to voice the trailer.
And by the way, for those curious how The Dark Knight Rises and Inception actor Tom Hardy ended up narrating the trailer, the answer is quite a bit simpler than one would expect: they emailed him and asked. After Raw Power Games showed Hardy the trailer, identifying him as the ideal voice to introduce the game, Hardy loved it and agreed to lend his dulcet tones for the narration.
If Chronicles: Medieval makes good on all its promises, players should have a fantastic time exploring every narrative nook and cranny in rising to the top of 14th century Europe’s socioeconomic landscape. Whether it be through aggression, defense, or diplomacy, the crown of an emperor awaits players ready to take on the world in this ambitious title.
It’s official: Resident Evil 9 is coming, and we just got our first real look at it during Summer Game Fest 2025.
Resident Evil Requiem is a single-player survival horror game due out February 27, 2026 across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S.
On-stage at SGF, host Geoff Keighley said Resident Evil Requiem marks a “bold shift for the franchise both in tone and gameplay.” Expect “high-stakes cinematic action” on top of survival horror.
Check out the debut trailer below.
The trailer appears to confirm a destroyed Raccoon City, which was nuked at the end of Resident Evil 3, with city shots that perhaps suggest open-world game design. We may have a brand new playable character on our hands in the form of FBI technical analyst Grace Ashcroft, who is investigating a series of murders. She’s ordered to return to the scene of her mother’s murder, and must face the past.
Capcom’s official website doesn’t have much to add, but does point to “technological advancements” and “a story with rich characters and gameplay that’s more immersive than ever before.”
Here’s the official blurb:
Requiem for the dead. Nightmare for the living. Resident Evil Requiem is the ninth title in the mainline Resident Evil series. Prepare to escape death in a heart-stopping experience that will chill you to your core. A new era of survival horror begins in 2026. Technological advancements combined with the development team’s depth of experience combine in a story with rich characters and gameplay that’s more immersive than ever before.
We’ve known a new Resident Evil game was coming for a year now, with Capcom having teased the next game during its summer stream last July and then teased it yet again just last month while celebrating 10 million players of Resident Evil 4 Remake. That remake, which launched in 2023, was awarded a rare IGN 10/10, with our reviewer calling it “the series’ most relentlessly exciting adventure rebuilt, refined, and realised to the full extent of its enormous potential.”
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.
For those excited for developer Neowiz’s highly anticipated Overture add-on content, the wait is over: the Lies of P DLC is out right now.
The post-launch story content for Neowiz’s Pinocchio soulslike was shadow-dropped for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S during Summer Game Fest 2025 today. It means you can stop what you’re doing right now and go play it for yourself without the need to wait for a release date announcement. You can see what lies in store with the gameplay trailer below.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor 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).
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach launches later this month, but for those who simply can’t wait, Hideo Kojima took the stage at Summer Game Fest today to show a new clip from the game.
The clip shows two new characters: Lucy (played by Alissa Jung) and Neil (Luca Marinelli). Neil is a porter, like our friend Sam Porter Bridges. The two share an emotional moment sparked by a shared branding on their hands, Neil seeming to recall Lucy from somewhere in the past, and Lucy getting extremely upset about something. Kojima reveals that Neil will play a similar role to Mads Mikkelsen’s role last game in terms of performance and emotional impact.
Death Stranding 2 is the sequel to Hideo Kojima’s open-world delivery adventure game. It features Fragile and Sam Bridges many years after the events of the first title.
We also saw a topless Norman Reedus step through black goo to meet a man called Tarman (played by Miller) and his flying pet cat alongside a creepy talking puppet. Other characters include Tomorrow (played by Elle Fanning) and Rainy (played by Shioli Kutsuna). It’s out on June 26, 2025, exclusively on PS5.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
With the Nintendo Switch 2 finally in my hands, naturally the first thing I set out to do was play the stuff that didn’t run great on the original Switch, just to see how much of an improvement the new console is. One at the top of the list was Hogwarts Legacy: an ambitious open-world game that really struggled on Switch. First, let’s look back at why I loved it the first time around, when I reviewed it on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC.
Hogwarts Legacy is Close to Unplayable on the Switch 1
Before booting up Hogwarts Legacy on the Switch 2, I replayed through the first hours on the original Switch to see how it ran, and the result was pretty awful. This thing runs like a wounded animal, with extremely low-rez characters and environments, unstable framerates, and extremely long load times every time you fast travel. Exploring the Hogwarts campus, which is one of the best parts of this adventure on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or PC, is especially irritating anytime you try to walk through a door and find it locked while it takes a couple seconds to load, sometimes even showing a little loading icon after a while. It got to the point where I’d sometimes think a door wasn’t interactable, until it suddenly swung open after I’d started to walk away.
The gap in performance between this version and the versions available on other platforms is so huge that I honestly can’t even recommend playing it, even if you’ve got no other recourse. There’s just no way to experience all the things Hogwarts Legacy does really well when it’s chugging along like this.
The Switch 2 is a Massive Step Up, Even If It Still Lags Way Behind the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Modern PCs
Thankfully the Switch 2’s significantly more powerful hardware fixes a whole heck of a lot of this. It’s still not at parity with the Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, or high-end PCs, but at least feels akin to what I remember the Xbox Series S feeling like – not 4K or anything, but more than good enough, especially considering that it all runs on a mobile device. (That’s pretty shocking.) I still noticed some pop-in and had a bug at one point that required me to reset, which are all the kinds of issues I saw in other versions, but it’s an absolutely massive improvement over the Switch 1 and plays great in docked and handheld mode.
There Are Some Neat Updates Since the Last Time I Played
There are also just a bunch of things added to Hogwarts Legacy since the last time I played, including a photo mode, which feels very important in what is essentially a Harry Potter Isekai life sim, and the ability to reset your skill tree selections so you don’t lock yourself into some rookie build. Plus, my personal favorite upgrade: they removed all the annoying platform-exclusive stuff, like the side quest that was only available on PS5, and added some new cosmetics to collect.
For the Switch 2 specifically, Hogwarts Legacy also supports the new mouse mode, which allows you to swap between traditional joystick controls and using one of the Joy-Cons like a mouse if you prefer to aim that way. The mouse controls work surprisingly well, and I was able to aim in combat without issue. Still, I can’t really see myself using this over the standard joystick mode, just because it’s sorta uncomfortable to hold the Joy-Con on its side for extended periods of time and there’s really nothing wrong with just doing it the old way. But it’s definitely a neat option to have!
I Still Really Like This Game
It really stood out to me how much I still enjoyed playing this after over two years. Hogwarts remains one of the most detailed settings I’ve ever seen in a game, and I could lose hours exploring the grounds and practicing my spellcraft. Combat is also surprisingly interesting considering how lame it looks in the movies. They actually made whipping around a stick a lot of fun, as you juggle enemies in the air, parry and counter enemy attacks, and consider whether or not to just murder people with very illegal curses.
The main story is definitely still a weak point, with a pretty generic and uninteresting goblin villain and lots of vague talk about ancient magic. However, the characters you spend the journey with, from your fellow classmates to the professors who lecture you each day, more than make up for that shortcoming.
I’m still bothered by all the stuff that bothered me about it two years ago, especially enemy variety, which somehow feels worse than I remember it being (boy, oh boy, does this thing make you fight spiders a lot). And some technical issues are still alive and well after all this time, which isn’t great. But this is still an incredibly good game that gave me almost everything I wanted as a Harry Potter fan. The fact that it’s now available on a device you can play on the subway without major sacrifices is just insane, and it makes me want to play through it all again the next time I get on a plane.
Our most recent sighting of Silent Hill f came during Sony’s State of Play June 2025 showcase, and with it came our first look at Hinako in action. Literally.
For some, the emphasis on combat encounters may be surprising, as Silent Hill is a series that has tended to focus on environmental storytelling and psychological horror over combat. However, this latest trailer — the first we’ve seen to offer a meaningful glimpse at gameplay and combat — coupled with a new interview with producer Motoi Okamoto, suggest that our protagonist may have to endure a more physical experience.
“The game features unique combat,” Okamoto said in a post on PlayStation Blog. “The encounters are as challenging as the obstacles that Hinako must overcome in life. The combat will have a heavier focus on melee and be more action-oriented compared to last year’s Silent Hill 2.”
That last sentence surprises me, as Silent Hill 2 Remake itself involved significantly more combat that the original game — or, indeed, any other game in the series bar perhaps Silent Hill Homecoming.
Okamoto said that tougher combat, with the visuals and music’s “juxtaposition between beauty and terror,” along with the “terrible beauty of the game’s monster design,” makes for a terrifying adventure. Even the puzzles are apparently “grounded in psychological anguish and suffering.” Yikes.
Silent Hill f takes us to 1960s Japan, where we’ll follow Hinako Shimizu, a teenager struggling under the pressure of expectations from her friends, family, and society. The story was written by Ryukishi07, creator of the When They Cry visual novel series. As displayed at the beginning of the Japanese-language reveal trailer back in March, it is the first Silent Hill game to get an 18+ rating certification in Japan.
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.