Category: IGN

If you’ve put down your controller this year to go touch a very particular patch of grass, you might have noticed that something strange is going on at the world’s major film festivals. It started in May, when a film adaptation of virally-successful Japanese indie game Exit 8 premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival – the first videogame movie to do so. The film’s director, Genki Kawamura, gives his source material a compelling structural spin, appealing equally to the arthouse crowd and to game fans. But live-action adaptations of video games are, of course, nothing new.

That’s why Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Cinematic Cut is so interesting. It is not a live-action adaptation of developer Warhorse Studios’ critically-acclaimed RPG. Instead, it is an abridged and reformatted version of Act One of the game itself, presenting a newly-edited blend of the open-world game’s cutscenes and gameplay in a two-hour linear form. It was perhaps the strangest Special Presentation at this month’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic – a unique cross-format experiment. One that wasn’t Warhorse’s idea.

“It all happened at the official launch of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2,” explains KVIFF artistic director, Karel Och. “The first contact was made through a mutual friend, and Warhorse and KVIFF made each other understand that they wanted to collaborate at some point. During the following months, it was exciting to have a glimpse of what Warhorse represents – and I dare to say the same goes for our friends from the top of the gaming business.”

Warhorse’s communications director, Tobias Stolz-Zwilling, concurs. “They wanted to make the festival more modern and interesting – to offer something new”. The largest film festival in Eastern Europe, KVIFF attracts a younger, more adventurous audience than its contemporaries. The studio saw the film festival’s strange idea as a chance to give video games greater cultural relevancy in the broader mainstream. Besides – much of the game’s cinematics team were already speaking the festival’s language.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s cinematic director, Petr Pekař, studied film editing and directing with the intention of becoming a traditional filmmaker, but he found his calling in video games. “There are a lot of filmmakers in the Czech Republic, but the market is not that big, so it’s a bit overcrowded.” says Pekař. “Thankfully, there are multiple studios creating cutscenes, which are basically animated movies”. Pekar learned on the job creating cutscenes for Mafia 3, then joined Warhorse – first as a cinematic designer on the original Kingdom Come, then as director on its sequel.

Bringing Deliverance 2’s cutscenes to the big screen invites comparison with conventional cinema, an arena far from the cinematics’ original purpose. “If you’re a player, you’re mainly looking forward to playing the game,” says Pekař. “The cutscenes are more like dessert for the game – not necessary – but when it’s good and it clicks, it really helps the game, the story, and the overall feel”.

The Cinematic Cut opens, naturally, on the game’s first cutscene. As it happens, you can’t help but feel like you’re settling in for a YouTube video titled ‘Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 – All Cutscenes’ (“I don’t think anybody actually watches those in full” Pekař quips). The team’s cinematic direction is confident, but familiar – steeped in high fantasy tropes. A fiery siege on the castle is highly reminiscent of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy – a major influence on Warhorse’s stylistic approach. Transported to the cinema screen, the scene serves as a striking reminder of how video games have traded in pastiche since their inception, responding to our desire to live out the fantasy ourselves whenever we see something cool on screen. But, of course, Cinematic Cut doesn’t deliver on this pivotal fantasy like its source material does – it’s non-playable.

When the cutscene footage ends, something curious happens. Father Godwin readies his crossbow and the scene transitions into first-person. But this is no Let’s Play. Smart, quick cuts establish a new, more cinematic editing language for first-person gameplay. Godwin heads towards the stairs – cut – now he’s halfway up them – cut – now he’s atop the ramparts, plunging his sword into an enemy. It’s remarkably thrilling. “[The gameplay] was mostly recorded by Vítek Mičke, our marketing specialist,” explains Pekař. “He also made the trailers, and he’s got a good sense of timing and aesthetics. He knows how to control the camera with the controller to properly set the scene and set the mood – so it looks cool.”

A couple of awkward transitions disrupt this otherwise ‘cinematic’ tempo. A sudden cut to a ladder lowering, for example, has the distinct feel of a gameplay segment ending and a cutscene beginning, and reminds you of the objective-based game that birthed the footage. But these moments are few and far between, and they accentuate how much Warhorse has otherwise succeeded in their first attempt.

“I think this is an experiment that somebody can pick up and do better than we did – or maybe we can do it again in the future with our future projects, and learn from our mistakes.” reflects Pekař. “It’s a really interesting experience to see it on the big screen – and I was surprised that it held up. It’s odd, but it somewhat works. It’s not some kind of new cinematic media that will sit next to the movies, but for festivals and conventions, for fans – I think it’s a format that others will be doing as well”.

The team at KVIFF are equally pleased with the results. “Storytelling has many faces,” says Och. “We’re proud that a new chapter in the festival’s modern history was written in collaboration with people that we respect a great deal who follow the same goal.”

“I think this format builds a bridge,” concludes Pekař. “Gamers can come to appreciate aesthetics and cinematography, the color palettes and moods in games more, and – in the same way – movie fans can understand how movies have different functions when they’re working with interactivity. When these two mediums collaborate, sometimes it creates really strange and cool ideas. When people go out of their bubble to see something different, it helps us to understand each other’s mediums.”

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Cinematic Cut is available to watch on the KVIFF.TV website for a small fee (approx. $6) until July 31, 2027.

Blake Simons is a journalist with a taste for the self-reflexive, sentimental and surreal.

It only took one match of Wildgate to see the potential in its spacefaring PvPvE mayhem. The intensely cooperative chaos of managing a spacecraft, delving into PvE dungeons for loot, and fending off rival crews makes for complex and exciting contests of teamwork and communication. After dozens of matches and more than 20 hours of playtime, though, it’s also become clear that there’s plenty of room left to build on that compelling concept. There are only a small number of characters, ships, and weapons to bring into battle, and once you’ve trekked across a few matches worth of dungeons, you’ll likely have seen all the different enemies to fight and areas to explore, which limits the longevity of these cosmic bouts. But when a good crew comes together, Wildgate’s simple but solid gunplay and multifaceted ship-to-ship combat gives Sea of Thieves a run for its money.

Wildgate is a unique multiplayer shooter that sends five teams of four players out into the most dangerous section of the galaxy, called the Reach, to battle it out for loot and glory. Their ultimate goal is to find the all-important Artifact hidden somewhere in space and escape with it out of the Wildgate, but since there’s the little issue of only being one to go around, a clash of crews in tumultuous FPS combat is all but inevitable. To improve your chances of survival (and search for the Artifact along the way), you’ll want to hurriedly touch down on various asteroids and planetoids to enter as many of the small PvE dungeons as possible, killing enemies and solving simple puzzles to claim whatever loot they’re hiding.

Upgrading your spacecraft with better shields, weapons, defensive measures, and stat improvements (like improved turning speed) can make all the difference when an enemy vessel nears and all hell breaks loose, which make for Wildgate’s tensest moments. I especially enjoy picking my favorite cannons for my ship, as there are some really neat options, like the sniper cannon that can cause a whole lot of trouble for enemies even when they’re far away, or the bomb cannon that attaches bombs to whatever they hit and can be exploded when shot by another cannon. If you’re able to find and escape with the Artifact, or simply murder all the enemy crews before they’re able to extract it themselves, then victory is yours – and in matches that can run over 40 minutes each, the taste of triumph is one of the sweetest there is.

Unfortunately, the level of coordination required doesn’t always lead to great outcomes when matchmaking with random crewmates, where silent players or, worse yet, insanely toxic personalities can make for a bad time. I found the vast majority of my matchmade experiences resulted in catastrophically bad showcasings of Wildgate’s potential, as you really need a full team communicating and firing on all cylinders to have any hope of beating your opponents. But when I got lucky with matchmade teams or brought my own friends to the party, working together to take down dungeons and outplay rival squads made for some incredibly memorable matches.

There’s no story to be found in Wildgate, or at least not one outside of little snippets you can read from a menu between matches, but the world definitely has a distinct and endearing personality to it. That could be in the baddies like raiders and alien life forms who look like booger people, or the playable characters, called Prospectors, who span from a big dog-looking alien to an aquatic creature in a mecha fishbowl. Each Prospector has their own interesting set of traits and abilities they can use to contribute to the team’s success (or demise). A four-armed alien named Ion, for example, can use his brawn to damage the hulls of ships just by smacking them with his fists, while Venture the robot serves as a great starter character since they don’t require oxygen to survive, regenerate health faster, and get warned when enemies are behind them.

I had a lot of fun trying each one out to see which suits my playstyle, with my favorite being Sal, an aquatic engineer who is an expert at healing the ship and can turn unwanted loot into useful items by rerolling it – a frankly overpowered ability in a game where your luck with loot drops is often the difference between life and death. There seems to be a little bit of imbalance with the characters in that regard, as Prospectors like Kae, whose teleport and telekinesis abilities makes her amazing at boarding ships without notice, even stealing items off their hull without ever entering the vessel, can seem quite busted at times. On the other hand, characters like Adrian, who can mostly just move through space extremely quickly, feel woefully underpowered by comparison. And, as is the case with lots of stuff in Wildgate, the biggest issue is simply a scarcity of options, because it doesn’t take long to unlock all seven Prospectors and decide on the winners. Seeing the same handful of familiar characters aboard each ship just feels a bit underwhelming in what’s supposed to be a galaxy of possibilities.

There are also several ships to unlock, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Your starter ship, the Hunter, is reliable all around, with three front-facing cannons and increased speed when you elect to drop your shields that make it well-suited for getting in and out of skirmishes quickly, but the other three are more interesting in their tradeoffs. My favorite, The Bastion, has a special feature that makes it much more difficult to board by rival players, with doors that lock down tight (if your knucklehead teammates remember to close them) and the ability to detect intruders by default – plus it has more health and defensive capabilities than other ships to offset its modest cannons and speed. This allowed me to play it slow in matches, building up defenses and resources while outlasting my opponents like a balled up hedgehog waiting to prick would-be predators.

There’s also the Privateer, a warship with eight cannon slots that fire faster and do more damage than other ships, which all but mandates an extremely aggressive playstyle that either proved immediately effective or resulted in the shortest matches imaginable. Finally, there’s the Scout: a tiny little ship with low health and offense that’s more than made whole by insane maneuverability and speed, and which I must admit that I won the most matches with just because being able to more easily find or steal the artifact, then outrun my opponents for a quick extraction, is pretty hard to beat. Unfortunately, these were also some of the less interesting games I played since ship-to-ship combat is so much fun and it’s tough to set that aside in the name of victory.

When fighting on foot, you’ll use a small handful of weapons and gadgets to ward off NPC monsters, and occasionally other players when boarding or being boarded by the enemy. With only nine weapons currently available, there’s not a lot of different playstyles to choose from. That’s especially true when some options like the Sidelong launcher, a weird, horizontally-firing blaster that pierces through the environment, didn’t really connect with me and gathered dust on the shelf, making my viable pool of options that much smaller. Still, there are a few that stole my heart, like the goo-firing gatling gun or the powerful anti-ship rocket launcher that lets you tear through enemy vessels without needing to be mounted on a turret. You’ll also pick two gadgets to keep in your toolbelt, which allow you to do things like toss a drill onto the side of a ship to damage it over time, or a tool that automatically reloads all your weapons whenever you teleport back to your ship. My personal favorite is the rock, which is, well, a rock. You throw it at people and it does enormous damage – I just really appreciate that they could have made it a throwing dagger, but they chose the funniest possible option instead. There are few better feelings than bringing down a rampaging enemy who is carrying a massive weapon with a regular ol’ rock.

Although matches can be a ton of fun and you can definitely develop a “just one more match” mindset early on, with only one game mode and such limited character and ship options, it all feels a tad thin at the moment. Wildgate could have some real legs with regular content updates, and it’s nice that developer Moonshot Games has already put out a roadmap that promises three new characters or ships per year, because what’s here at the moment feels like just a taste of what will hopefully be a game with a lot more variety down the road. I’m not quite sure that update cadence will be fast enough to sustain my short attention span, but it’s at least a good sign there’s a plan in place that has the potential to keep me coming back to this weird galaxy. There’s still a ton of fun to be found in getting better at winning, and knowing what I know now about the types of dungeons to be found and loot to be claimed has made me a lot more strategic with how I play, but I stopped being surprised by things I saw out in the Reach pretty quickly.

One thing that does help keep games fresh is the fact that there are randomly generated modifiers injected into each match that require you to adapt if you want a chance at winning. One game might feature energy-devouring leeches floating out in the void that attach to your ship as you go and need to be shot off, while another might be filled with an abundance of asteroids that make traveling especially dangerous, or a cosmic storm that sweeps through large swathes of the map and will destroy your ship unless you’re able to loot a special shield to defend against it. These are a really clever way to make every match not feel like a carbon copy of the last, but once again, there just aren’t that many of them yet, and I started seeing repeat modifiers in pretty short order – definitely one of the areas where a bit more variety would go quite a long way, especially if they have live events that impact the world in some way to shake things up.

Last weekend, a global beta test began for Where Winds Meet, the open-world game published by NetEase that is already available in China. This free-to-play game takes place around the year 1000 between the great Tang and Song dynasties during what’s known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. In it, players take the role of a lone wandering hero during this time of upheaval where one’s own strength matters more than the rules of society. IGN readers may not be too familiar with the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, but don’t worry – the same even seems to apply to players in China.

We know that the game takes some influence from Ghost of Tsushima and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild thanks to a past interview with lead designer Chris Lyu, but it can be difficult to imagine exactly what the gameplay will be like. According to Lyu, it is “the world’s first wuxia-themed open-world” game. Once I got my hands on the game, I found Where Winds Meet was indeed a wuxia game through-and-through, with the strength of the concept bringing together a variety of elements seen in games today.

Once you’re finished with character creation and begin playing the game, you’re first met with a graceful man with flowing hair resting in a bamboo grove while holding a baby to his chest, almost like Zhao Yun from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Then, another handsome and long-haired man comes to talk to him, and it seems that this man with a baby has betrayed his school. He hops on a white horse then gallops through the bamboo while avoiding his pursuer’s weapons, at times in slow motion. All of these shots are reminiscent of famous scenes from various Chinese movies of the past, making it clear from the start that this game is closely linked to the wuxia tradition.

A sense of “wuxia-ness” oozes out of this game at every turn even after this opening scene ends and you take control of the character you’ve created – whether that’s through its gameplay in general, its systems and graphics, or its dialogue. A few minutes after I started walking freely through its world, I spoke to an old man on the side of the road who asked me to repel a bear who’s been after honey. It seems that the protagonist is able to learn techniques from the movements of the bear, as pressing buttons at the right time according to icons that pop up caused him to learn tai chi from the beast, incredibly enough.

All of this serves as a tutorial for the Mystic Arts that make up part of your arsenal, but more importantly, this process of observing familiar objects and nature to learn abilities and grow stronger gives the player a strong sense of the game’s wuxia flavor. It seems there are other abilities that come from nature, like Lion’s Roar and the venomous Toad Style, so I’m sure there will be many other techniques the protagonist learns from all the creatures of the game’s world. Just as you might expect to be able to use magic to create fire in a game with a fantasy setting, the player in this game’s wuxia world is able to master strange powers of their own. It’s also interesting to note that these abilities can be used outside of combat as well. For example, nearby fish are caught up in tai chi when it’s used by the water’s surface, making for efficient fishing.

One of the most notable things about this thoroughly wuxia game is its inclusion of many elements we’ve come to expect from combat systems and exploration in action games today. For example, pressing the correct button just before an enemy’s attack lands will parry it, creating a back-and-forth tempo during action segments.

While equivalent to the kinds of parry systems that have become a staple in recent action games, this game goes into slow motion when it’s time to parry an enemy attack and displays an icon telling you what button to press (though it is possible to turn this icon off in the options). While similar to Final Fantasy XVI’s Story-Focused mode, these icons deplete an Insight Points meter when they’re displayed and won’t show up if you run out, so you can’t recklessly fend off every single enemy attack.

There are currently seven weapon types that a player can use (with plans to add more). In addition to standard swords and spears, there are also more unusual weapons like umbrellas and folding fans. Each weapon provides for its own unique gameplay, such as the umbrella’s skill that temporarily stuns an enemy, or the fan’s ability to create a zone that heals the player and their allies.

Players can equip both a main weapon and a sub-weapon, each enabling a variety of martial techniques. What techniques are available to you will also change based on the school you study under, with a total of eleven available schools. The game’s combat style changes quite a bit depending on the combination of mystic and martial skills you use, allowing for a wide degree of customization. Between all of the different attacks, the balance between offense and defense enabled by parries, and the overall voracious approach to combat elements, it felt like the game had taken a menu of popular modern features and ordered one of everything.

The bow and arrow is treated differently whether it’s being used as a main or a sub-weapon, capable of attacking enemies from afar while also solving puzzles by burning through vines to open up pathways. The way it’s positioned shows the influence of another game that was previously mentioned, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The game’s core of open world exploration and progression has also been extravagantly created. During the preview, I was able to visit Kaifeng, one of China’s eight ancient capitals located in Heinan province that flourished at the time as one of the world’s largest cities. Despite the war-ravaged world, the city in the game was open and lively, with its residents chatting away like it was Cyberpunk 2077 after just a short walk through its streets. It sounds like upwards of a thousand NPCs have reputation levels, allowing you to befriend them on an individual basis.

It’s not hard to imagine how people live in the game’s detailed streets of Kaifeng, apparently recreated by referring to historical remains that still exist today. Walk down the big street that cuts through it all and eventually you’ll find a large arching bridge. A beautiful palace with towering defenses awaits you on the other side, making it clear just how prosperous this Chinese capital was at the time. From there the player will be able to dig into the secrets around their own birth as a wandering hero.

After only about three hours of gameplay, I could tell that Where Winds Meet is packed full of elements that players have experienced before in open-world games. But what shocked me most of all is that while you could call this a mishmash of features, the key concept of wuxia along with the way those elements are presented worked to bring all of them together in a natural way. Perhaps you could say that what best defines Where Winds Meet is this coexistence of the past decade of what has made open-world and action games fun alongside its Chinese creators’ love for the genre of wuxia.

The Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Universes Beyond set is drawing to a close (at least until Spider-Man’s arrival), with Edge of Eternities debuting in just a few days.

The new sci-fi set will take us to space, and there are new synergies emerging already. This week’s movers and shakers include cards with spaceships and aliens in mind, thanks to data from TCGPlayer.

Climbers: Return of The Gaffer

Players have already spotted a lot of potential in The Gaffer, a three-cost white card who turns lifegain into card advantage.

This card from The Lord of the Rings is seeing a climb ahead of Edge of Eternities, reaching $9 and up, thanks to synergies with Ragost, Deft Gastronaut. It was just $2 not long ago.

Next up, we mentioned Thrumming Hivepool last week, and Hatchery Sliver is another shoo-in for Sliver decks with Edge of Eternities. It’s slithered its way to over $10 pretty quickly.

Sticking with Slivers, The First Sliver from Modern Horizons saw a steep drop but has now started to pick up. Giving your Sliver spells Cascade, and offering a 7/7 body in its own right, it’s likely to be a nuisance to play against, and it’s now $30.

The last Edge of Eternities synergy this week is Sylvan Safekeeper, which plays on the land sacrificing theme of the World Shaper Commander precon. It’s up to $8 and climbing.

Finally, it wouldn’t be a Crashers and Climbers without something to do with the Tidus deck, and this week it’s Wave Goodbye, which sends a board’s worth of cards back to an owner’s hand if their cards don’t have a counter on them.

Crashers: Big Beasts and Baddies

This week’s crashers are well worth a look for just about anyone. First up, Summon: Primal Odin from Final Fantasy is now under $2. Given you can manipulate his lore counters with the right setup, you can keep Zantetsuken primed to deal game-ending damage to players.

One more Final Fantasy one, and it’s Ultima, Origin of Oblivion. This 4/4 could be an ideal inclusion in colorless decks since it gets you double colorless mana, but it also ‘blights’ an opponent’s land. It’s just a dollar.

Next up, we switch our focus to Dragons. Tarkir: Dragonstorm remains one of my favorite sets of this year, and Betor, Kin to All was arguably a better inclusion in the Abzan Armor deck than Betor, Ancestor’s Voice. Now you can right that wrong for under $4.

Sticking with alternative versions of Commanders from the set’s precons, Ureni, the Song Unending is down to under $3 and could be devastating if you can pull enough lands before introducing it.

Finally, Craterhoof Behemoth’s Showcase Halo Foil version is one of the priciest cards in the set, but you can get this big bad beast for around $12-$15 in its standard printing.

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

IGN’s Donkey Kong Bananza maps are here! Our interactive maps track essential locations across the game’s various layers, including Lagoon Layer, Hilltop Layer, The Divide, and more. If you’re looking for collectibles, such as Banandium Gems and Fossils, or simply want to see all the Challenge locations, you’re in the right place.

Donkey Kong Bananza Interactive Maps

Obsidian recently made a lot of hay out of how it’s a studio that’s best known for sequels, and with Grounded 2’s early access version already shaping up to be one of the best survival games I’ve ever played, the marketing team should have plenty of fodder for that bit for years to come. This miniaturized survival game isn’t even half complete, with only one act (which took me around 25 hours to beat), just a handful of regions, and plenty of technical issues to iron out, but it already eclipses the already stellar original in practically every way. Stomping through the park atop an ant or spider simultaneously makes travel faster and more interesting while also solving my long-standing inventory gripes with Grounded 1 by letting you offload your loot to a multi-legged backpack; the RPG mechanics of building into specific specializations like warrior and mage have been seriously leveled up and streamlined; and the story, characters, and pacing are a massive step up compared to its predecessor.

If you missed the first one (and you really shouldn’t have), part of what makes both of these games special is their premise, which realizes a dream that pretty much everybody had as a kid: they’re survival RPGs where you and up to three friends play as a group of teens who have been shrunken down to the size of ants and are made to brave a miniature suburban wilderness, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-style. You and up to three friends will battle bugs, build bases out of grass and pebbles, face off against an evil corporation obsessed with shrinking kids for some reason, and get lost in a world that feels magical and epic despite taking place in the most mundane places ever, like the inside of a trash can.

Where the original’s excellent story was the best-kept secret in gaming (mostly due to the fact that story bits were separated by dozens of hours of survival gameplay) the sequel keeps its goofy characters and hilarious dialogue front and center. In true Obsidian fashion, this is one of the most laugh-out-loud-funny games I’ve played in a while; each of the four returning protagonists is way too comfortable with the idea of being shrunken this time and are bursting with smarmy one-liners, and your main “ally” and guide, Sloane Beaumont, gives one of my favorite performances with her vaguely evil stepmother routine that never failed to put a smile on my face.

Moving from a backyard to a park allows for some interesting new areas, my favorite of which is an overturned ice cream cart that has transformed the entire region into a frigid wasteland where unprepared travelers will freeze in their tracks. There’s also a giant statue that acts like a foreboding tower which demands to be scaled, and a garden of cobblestone steps that serves as a vast labyrinth. Beyond these examples, though, there are currently too few areas that feel special and unique – you’ll also find a big bush filled with branches to navigate, a fallen grill that serves as a volcanic area, and a picnic table, but all of those ideas are taken straight from the previous game’s backyard setting and don’t mix things up too much. The first Grounded also has a neat koi pond water area, a bug-bombed zone filled with poison, and a desert-like sandbox, but this new map doesn’t currently have that same level of variety yet. Of course, many of those were added during Grounded 1’s own early access development period, and there are still massive parts of the park currently roped off – so assuming something doesn’t go terribly wrong (and in this day and age, that’s not necessarily a guarantee), it’s reasonable to assume that Obsidian has some big ideas to roll out before 1.0.

A lot of the fundamentals from the first Grounded have returned, including enemies like red ants and orb weavers, weapons like the life-draining mosquito needle rapier, and mechanics like the mutation system and weapon upgrades that will all feel pretty familiar as of now. But Grounded 2 also doesn’t shy away from trying new things and making important improvements, like how you no longer need to carry around a shovel, ax, and hammer since it’s all been replaced with a much better omni-tool that you always have on hand and doesn’t require repairing. That’s just handy!

One massive change is the fact that you can now build into specific classes, like rogue or mage, with armor and weapons available to support different playstyles. This was already sort of an unofficial thing in the original, but now you get equipment specially designed with certain functions in mind and stat bonuses to go with them, which is really freakin’ cool. Getting to choose between turning my nerdy teen into a fast-moving rogue with a deadly dagger or a lumbering brute with a two-handed weapon and ladybug shell armor was exactly the kind of thing I didn’t know was missing, and it absolutely rules.

The biggest addition, though, is that you can now hatch and domesticate insects to use as your own personal exo-stallions, which completely changes how you navigate the wilderness. Instead of building ziplines or trekking everywhere on foot, you can now scramble across the entire map in no time at all and even battle mosquitos and beetles from your mounted beastie. Right now there’s only two mounts available, but they’re both absolutely badass gamechangers: a red soldier ant that can carry a ton of materials and chew through obstructions with its powerful mandibles, and a giant orb weaver that can crawl across spiderwebs and scare lesser bugs away with a mighty spider roar. The ability to dash across the map in less than a minute also means that now when a friend finds themselves in a tight spot, you can summon your warbeast and race to their aid, which wasn’t always a real option in the original.

I love what I’ve seen in those areas, but one place I hope Obsidian will eventually show some more love is base building, which is disappointingly similar to the original right now. Its mechanics are still serviceable enough to get the job done, but too often I’m getting the same old error messages that some object I was trying to place was obstructed when there’s no obstruction in sight, and some building surfaces (like pebble foundation) are so uneven that placing items leaves them so hilariously askew that it’s just unacceptably ugly. It seems like one of the least-improved areas in its current state.

Another thing that could use some love is enemy variety, since the vast majority of baddies you’ll find in Grounded 2 are ripped straight from its predecessor, so I already knew all their moves before I set foot in the park. Occasionally I’ve run into some new creatures, like ice-breathing butterflies that fight with the ferocity and tactics of a dragon, or praying mantises that use their razor-sharp claws to slice me to pieces, but more often than not I was killing the same ants, orb weavers, and larvae I’ve already slain thousands of. For that matter, right now Grounded 2 is even missing lots of the enemies found in the original (or, if they are here, I haven’t looked under the right rock yet), like black ox beetles and wasps – but, again, there’s a pretty good chance Obsidian is saving these monsters (or better yet, revised versions of them) for the later areas that aren’t accessible just yet.

As for how it runs, this is a fairly rough one even as early access games go. Especially since the last one still didn’t perform the best even well after it reached its 1.0 version, I wasn’t expecting it to run flawlessly, but even with those expectations set, this was reliably unreliable. After building a good-sized base and chopping down a bunch of grass, I found that the area near my home regularly had serious framerate issues, my game crashed about once every five or so hours, enemies would occasionally get stuck inside objects, and more. “Unfinished game feels unfinished” is hardly a surprise, I know, but this is still enough of an issue that it’s likely to prove a sticking point for those with a low tolerance for the wrong kind of bugs. I tend to have a fairly short fuse when it comes to this stuff, so it’s a testament to how great everything else is that I’m still so high on Grounded 2 after having to put up with all of it.

When it comes to 2D action platformers, I don’t necessarily need them to be revolutionary. But I do expect a superb execution of the fundamentals – speed, control, and challenge – all of which the upcoming Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is nailing down based on a two-hour hands-on demo I played. That’s not to say it doesn’t have new ideas woven into the formula, it’s just that I came away simply impressed by how this reboot plays like a well-oiled machine.

If you haven’t seen it in action yet, think of it as the classic Shinobi franchise getting the Streets of Rage 4 treatment; a vibrant and expressive hand-drawn art style that looks fantastic in stills and even better in motion. Many of the developers at LizardCube had worked on the Streets of Rage reboot, and it ended up being a great fit because it breathes life into a 2D world in a way few other games have done. A level’s backdrop can give a notable sense of scale, and the illusion of distance in this new Shinobi – what could’ve been a drab shipyard level feels immense when you see the details of huge cranes, ships, and containers in the background. And the interiors painted with neon signs and neo-modern shops and stalls fill the in-betweens with personality. A great sense of style pops in small but effective ways.

A banging electronic trip-hop soundtrack fused with traditional Japanese folk instruments also feeds into its balance of classic and modern sensibilities, vaguely reminiscent of something out of Samurai Champloo. The Art of Vengeance both looks and sounds effortlessly cool.

I went through the opening level that I played earlier this year at Summer Game Fest, which reintroduces series protagonist Joe Musashi as his village and clan are under attack the minute you start. His wife Naoko and understudy Tomoe are introduced as he has to leave them behind to chase down a military invasion led by the antagonist Lord Ruse and a gang of his demonic minions. You’re taught the basics like combos, dodging, wall-jumping, and special abilities, quickly pitting you against a mix of platforming sections to sharpen your mobility and combat encounters to test deftness with the blade and Ninpo specials.

This preview round, however, I cleared two full levels around the midway point, where I had a slew of new abilities and much tougher foes. I had to play both in Arcade Mode which reconfigures levels for a time attack-style version of them, and while the checkpointing was generous, Arcade Mode is all about having a seamless run to earn a high grade in the end. The aforementioned shipyard had pesky drones, guards in riot gear, and enemy ninjas with unblockable dark spells – any combination of these guys made for some tough normal encounters that can get overwhelming if you don’t know who to prioritize. And with clever but trial-and-error platforming challenges, it was a tall task to get through without death (at least on my first try).

I know that on paper, all this may sound like what you should expect from a proper 2D action platformer, but it’s the flow and fluidity of the gameplay that made my time with Shinobi so enjoyable. When I can slice a gang of enemies within a sliver of health and hit the shoulder buttons to pull off a swift and dramatic multi-hit execution, I’m pumped up like I’m stringing a series of glory kills in the new Doom games. The novelty hadn’t worn thin because, like glory kills, it doesn’t get in the way of the flowing fast action, and you get health and Ninpo energy in return as a treat. Hitting your light-heavy combos is all well and good, but when I execute my counterattack Ninpo on a dime to chop down a strong enemy’s health, I’m nodding my head in satisfaction. And Joe’s ultimate ability, which builds up through taking damage, just burns through everything on screen which was clutch in sticky situations that had me popping off when it finished a boss. Even something as simple as going from a platforming section into divekicking a foe to start my combo string in combat sequence is a small but effective thing that shows LizardCube knows what makes 2D action tick.

There wasn’t any real story content to glean from these later levels, but boy, are these stages long. And when they’re capped off with intense boss fights, Arcade Mode can really wear you down – which isn’t a derogatory mark, but rather an indication of demanding Shinobi can be.

It’s not all going from left to right, however. The second level I played was in neon-soaked slums that had three sections to the west, east, and south where I had to find and save children being held captive. This stage leaned more into exploration, where connecting ziplines and jumps to avoid hazards and lurking enemies pushed me to be more precise with movement. Snipers lurking in the distance could one-shot me lest I one-shot them first, goopy slimes moving underground can pop-up for toxic damage, and those damn riot guards are a different kind of challenge in close quarters. The boss fight here was my favorite, which had me thinking more about aerial combos since he could fly across the combat arena – he also had a phase where he would heal up if I didn’t do enough damage in time.

Balancing depth and approachability is one aspect I think Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is getting right from what I’ve played. I have just enough tools to feel equipped for its toughest battles, not overwhelming and not shallow. Thus, the focus is on your mastery of the toolset and reacting to some devastating combat mechanics from enemies. Since it controls incredibly smooth, and is properly paced with a speed to match its style of challenges, the fundamentals of a good 2D action platformer seem to all be here.

The return of our old ninja-themed action games is great to see – well, maybe it’s just this and Ninja Gaiden Ragebound (which also has Streets of Rage 4 lineage via publisher DotEmu). But in the years since both series’ heyday, we’ve seen countless others set the bar higher and higher with games like Dead Cells, The Messenger, and Katana Zero to name a few. To speak for Shinobi specifically, Art of Vengeance feels like an old head coming back to show the youngins that they still got it.

It’ll truly prove whether or not the series still has the juice when Shinobi: Art of Vengeance launches on August 28 this year for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.

We’re over halfway through 2025 already, which means it’s time to check in on all of Sony’s PlayStation Studios to see what they’re making and what games are coming to your PS5 in the months and years to come. While the console has received some great exclusives in 2025, including the critically acclaimed Death Stranding 2, none of Sony’s first-party studios have released a new game this calendar year aside from the annual inevitability that is MLB The Show.

So, surely that means plenty of PlayStation’s studios have games coming out soon, or at the very least have secrets up their sleeves, right? Well, that’s exactly what we’re going to take a look at here. What are the developers behind PlayStation’s highly-respected library up to now? And how long will it be before we get to both see and play their projects? So let’s dig into what each studio is doing, and when we can realistically expect to see new games from them.

Naughty Dog

Naughty Dog’s attention is now firmly on Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, a space-faring game with retro 80s vibes. After leaving the future of The Last of Us HBO show in the hands of Craig Mazin, studio head and creative director Neil Druckmann is now working full steam ahead with his team on the Uncharted studio’s first new series since 2013. But aside from a cinematic-heavy trailer at last year’s Game Awards, we’ve seen very little of this sci-fi story.

What we do know is that it stars Tati Gabrielle as Jordan A. Mun, a bounty hunter who gets stranded on a planet when on the trail of a criminal syndicate called the “Five Aces”. It’s also rumoured to have a deeper combat system than any previous Naughty Dog game, with the reveal trailer giving us a tiny glimpse of its lightsaber-esque gameplay. Oh, and the music is being composed by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. That’s never not a good thing. Could this be Sony’s big 2026 PS5 game? We can certainly hope, but we would love to see some gameplay before making such assumptions.

It would appear that this isn’t the only iron Naughty Dog has in the fire, though, with Druckmann teasing that the studio has a second, unannounced game in development. Could this be The Last of Us Part 3? Uncharted 5? Something completely different? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Santa Monica Studio

Santa Monica Studio released God of War Ragnarok to huge success in late 2022 and followed up with the surprisingly lengthy free Valhalla DLC in December 2023. What’s next for the studio remains a mystery, although we do know Cory Barlog – who led development of 2018’s God of War – moved on to helm a new project in 2021 after leaving Eric Williams to fill Ragnarok’s director seat. Little to nothing is known about that new project, but given it has been in development for a number of years already, it wouldn’t be beyond unreasonable to expect to see it revealed this year.

As for a new God of War game, well, we likely can’t expect that as quickly. Despite the gap between Ragnarok and its predecessor being only four years, the end of Kratos’ Norse saga signals a new direction for the series, which, naturally, means it’ll require a lot more work from the ground up. We can hope, of course, but don’t expect to see everyone’s favourite angry dad any time soon. That said, we wouldn’t say no to a remake of the original trilogy…

Insomniac Games

Insomniac is arguably Sony’s most prolific studio, having released either a Spider-Man or Ratchet and Clank game every couple of years for almost a decade now. Its most recent launch was in 2023 with the hugely successful Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and so – based on pattern – you’d be forgiven for expecting a new Insomniac game in 2025. But in a worrying sign of the fragile state of the games industry, even a game of Spider-Man 2’s magnitude couldn’t prevent layoffs from occurring last year. That capped off what turned out to be a doubly damaging couple of months for the developer, following a huge data breach and subsequent theft.

The data theft revealed that the studio’s highly anticipated Wolverine game is not expected until 2026 at the earliest, but also that a Venom game may arrive before it. Either way, it’s highly unlikely Insomniac will be springing any surprise games this year, and after all the studio has gone through recently, I think it’s fair to allow it as much of a break as anyone.

Sucker Punch Productions

Sucker Punch is following up 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima with Ghost of Yotei, scheduled for an October 2, 2025 release. As showcased in a recent State of Play stream, the standalone sequel takes us to Hokkaido on a revenge quest to deal with the “Yotei Six” — the murderers of protagonist Atsu’s family. With a non-linear quest structure and more varied arsenal, it’s looking set to be a true evolution of Tsushima’s open-world foundations.

Guerrilla Games

Guerrilla followed up 2022’s Horizon: Forbidden West with the Burning Shores DLC one year later as it continued to build out Aloy’s story. With the West Coast-set sequel ending on a cliffhanger, it’s not a stretch to expect the Amsterdam-based studio to be working on the third part of the trilogy next. We wouldn’t expect any news on that one soon, however – the development time between Zero Dawn and Forbidden West was five years, so we’re likely a little while away from seeing Aloy and her metal dinosaur friends again.

What we’re reportedly more likely to see first is a live service Horizon game that is currently in the works, starring “a new cast of characters and a unique stylized look”. Perhaps this is something we can hope to see more of sooner rather than later, although this year may be a stretch, with Sony perhaps reassessing their live service future following the failure of Concord and the troubles facing Marathon.

Housemarque

Finnish developer Housemarque is following up 2021’s Returnal with Saros, another sci-fi action game. Starring Rahul Kohli as Arjun Devraj, players will be taken to a lost off-world colony on the planet Carcosa in order to investigate its mysteries. An evolution of Returnal’s roguelike rhythm, it’s set to deliver Housemarque’s trademark challenging shooter combat when it arrives on PS5 sometime in 2026.

Haven Studios

Originally due for release this year, Haven Studios’ multiplayer shooter Fairgames is now expected in the Spring of 2026. It’s not been smooth sailing for another of Sony’s planned live service offerings, with Jade Raymond — who only founded the studio in 2021 — leaving the project earlier this year. Work is still ongoing on the online heist game, though, but with little to nothing seen of it since the 2023 cinematic trailer reveal, we’re left waiting to see what its gameplay actually looks like.

Bend Studio

Bend has been pretty quiet since the release of Days Gone way back in 2019, aside from giving us a remaster a couple of months back. But in 2022, a few slithers of detail were revealed about what the Oregon studio is currently working on. It shared that its new game will “build upon the open-world systems of Days Gone” but won’t be announced until “the time is right”. Apart from knowing it won’t be a continuation of Deacon St. John’s story, we really know nothing.

It’s been a rocky year for the developer so far, with reports that a live-service game it had been working on had been scrapped by Sony, as well as layoffs impacting 30% of the team as it transitions to its next project. Whether this new game the reduced headcount is working on has anything to do with those details revealed three years ago, or if the studio is starting again from scratch, is unknown. Either way, we wouldn’t expect to hear anything soon.

Media Molecule

Media Molecule spent most of the past decade working on Dreams, the game creation and curation project that was released in 2020. But as a result of significant layoffs at the studio in 2024, live support for the game has now ended, with MM’s current aim being to ensure “Dreams transitions into a self-sustaining platform”. There has since been no news on what the developer’s next project will be.

Team Asobi

Team Asobi gave us one of 2024’s biggest games with the charmingly creative platformer Astro Bot. An ode to PlayStation history, it won many awards and cemented itself as one of the PS5’s very best offerings. Since then, the Japanese studio has continued to support it with regular updates and levels as recently as this summer. But what next? Well, we wouldn’t be surprised to see another Astro game on the way, given the critical and commercial success of last year’s hit. There’s certainly no shortage of obscure PlayStation characters left to sprinkle through more of those colourful levels.

Bluepoint Games

Following the success of both the Shadow of the Colossus and Demon’s Souls remakes, Sony acquired Bluepoint Games as a first-party studio in 2021. We don’t know what its first project since joining the PlayStation Studios family is, though, but we do know that the developer has expressed its desire to create an original game, rather than reimagining another classic. Perhaps we could see a reveal soon, but seeing as Sony confirmed that a live service game, which was reportedly set in the God of War universe, was cancelled at the studio earlier this year, it seems unlikely.

Polyphony Digital

Polyphony has been making Gran Turismo for 25 years now, so it would certainly be a shock to see it veer from that path in the near future. GT7 came out around three and half years ago now, meaning maybe the time is approaching for the reveal of the studio’s next racing sim.

San Diego Studio

Similarly, San Diego is well established as the MLB The Show studio. This year’s entry only dropped in March, so we can expect to see another next Spring if history is anything to go by.

Firesprite

Firesprite most recently developed Horizon: Call of the Mountain for PSVR 2, following the studio’s new-found focus on VR games. What’s next is anyone’s guess, however. A new VR game would be the educated guess, but given Sony’s lack of commitment to creating games for its second-generation headset, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the UK studio pivot to something more traditional.

Recent reports discussing layoffs and unrest at the developer suggested that Firesprite was working on a live-service Twisted Metal game, which has since been canceled. It’s currently believed that the studio is now working on a new game called Project Heartbreak. Details are thin on what this is, though, and so we have no idea of when we can expect to see it.

teamLFG

Formed earlier this year as part of PlayStation Studios, teamLFG was spun out of Bungie to create a new team-based action game that draws inspiration from fighting games, platformers, MOBAs, life sims, and “frog-type games”. As to what a frog-type game is, your guess is as good as ours, but the project has been described as letting players “inhabit a lighthearted, comedic world set in a brand-new, mythic, science-fantasy universe”. This one doesn’t seem too far along the production pipeline, though, so we aren’t expecting to hear more anytime soon.

Dark Outlaw Games

Another new PlayStation studio for 2025, Dark Outlaw Games is led by Call of Duty veteran Jason Blundell. Very little else is known about this team or what they’re working on, though.

That’s everything we know about upcoming first-party PlayStation games, and the truth is that very few release dates look to be coming up quickly. Of course, this can and likely will change soon, and with GTA 6 looming on the horizon in 2026, it does make sense that many publishers are waiting for Rockstar to unleash their powerhouse before they make their own moves. That said, that doesn’t prevent 2025 from still looking relatively empty when it comes to PS5 exclusives. Let’s hope that the outlook will look a lot brighter soon, not only for players waiting for new games to play, but for the developers who work so hard to deliver them to us.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.

Aetherdrift might not have been the most popular Magic: The Gathering set of 2025 so far, but there’s no denying that Wizards of the Coast poured plenty of creative fuel into the engine of the long-running card game.

As a result, there are still some great cards to chase, from The Aetherspark to Ketramose, The New Dawn, and we’ve rounded up all of them below. Looking for more chase cards? We’ve got you covered for Innistrad Remastered and Tarkir: Dragonstorm.

TL;DR: 10 Most Valuable Chase Cards From Aetherdrift

Aetherdrift has dozens of borderless, Fracture Foil, First-Place Foil, and Showcase editions of main set cards, but these are the 10 most valuable.

From a competitive standpoint, not many of these see much play, although Ketramose, the New Dawn is the face of a hot new Modern combo deck.

And for you Commander players, this is a great chance to nab the elusive Radiant Lotus Fracture Foil or the Aetherspark First-Place Foil.

10. Brightglass Gearhulk (Borderless First-Place Foil)