After years of waiting, Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally in the hands of the people. By this point, many will even have completed it. Gone are the days of applying clown makeup during each major gaming event, replaced instead by widespread love for Team Cherry’s sequel. Yet, for me, I’m struggling to be excited about Silksong, despite the fact it’s the latest entry in one of my favorite genres.
For this issue of Access Designed, I’m not going to be analysing Hollow Knight: Silksong in the traditional sense. The game’s demands of speed and precision, combined with a lack of accessibility features and my own disability, has meant that I physically can’t play it. And so I’m unable to give an accurate analysis of gameplay, story, and even the art direction of different zones, all of which can be examined through an accessible lens. Instead, I want to talk about the overarching problems of the Metroidvania genre itself, and how Silksong is just perpetuating and reinforcing inaccessible barriers.
It Goes Beyond Difficulty
Like its predecessor, Silksong continues the trend of challenging players with complex platforming and boss battles. While difficult experiences have become mainstream successes in recent years, some Hollow Knight players have noted that Silksong can be particularly punishing. Those concerns have been at least partially addressed by the developers, who notably nerfed two early game bosses within the first week of Silksong’s release. And while difficulty is absolutely an accessibility issue, I’m not going to argue for or against it in Silksong.
Difficulty is the proverbial low hanging fruit of accessibility critiques. Accessibility consultants, champions and journalists have written articles about what difficulty is or isn’t, produced clips or reels talking about the importance of difficulty settings, and created countless threads on social media, advocating for more diverse accessibility tools to adjust a game’s difficulty. We spend so much time championing the inclusion of difficulty options that we often miss other crucial barriers that prevent a variety of disabled individuals from enjoying a new game. Is Silksong difficult? According to reviews and conversations, yes. Should we focus all our accessibility arguments on that alone? Absolutely not.
What Silksong Lacks
Aside from no accessibility settings for difficulty, Silksong’s overall settings options are minimal, especially for a game released in 2025. Volume can be adjusted through sliders, the HUD can increase in size, and some actions can be rebound, but only on specific buttons. For disabled players looking for a variety of accessibility menus, Silksong is objectively a disappointment.
While I acknowledge that studios do not all share the same engine and thus don’t have a unified toolbase to create accessible options, nor do developers all have the same level of knowledge to implement these features, I do wish Team Cherry had taken direct inspiration from Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s Memory Shards system. Ubisoft’s smart new addition to Metroidvanias allows you to take a screenshot of a location and pin it to the map, which provides a persistent reminder of previously-visited zones that may require specific items to traverse, or places to return to once you’ve become stronger. This option revolutionized the Metroidvania genre, with The Lost Crown becoming one of last year’s most accessible games. While Silksong does feature the ability to purchase and place markers on your map to help remember safe areas and other important points of interest, there’s nothing that comes close to The Lost Crown’s Memory Shards. I understand Team Cherry may not have the same resources as Ubisoft, but to offer nothing that aids accessibility beyond the bare minimum in the form of map markers is frustrating.
What Silksong Gives
As I’ve mentioned through previous editions of Access Designed, options are not the only form of accessibility. While Silksong fails to provide numerous accessible settings, its use of inclusive design, particularly through Tools, can give some relief. The Fractured Mask, for instance, prevents a fatal blow from killing Hornet. This is fantastic for physically disabled players that struggle with precise motions, or cognitively disabled players that need more time to memorize boss attack and movement patterns, allowing for a second chance at life before returning to a rest bench. The Fractured Mask is also great for difficult parkour sections, and the fact that this Tool recharges on rest means you always get that second chance on every attempt. The Compass, meanwhile, tracks your position on Silksong’s sprawling map, and is another helpful item for cognitively disabled players. And my personal favorite Tool that I’ve discovered through watching let’s plays is the Magnetite Dice, which randomly nullifies a single hit. Despite the random chance associated with this item, this is great for physically disabled players that may lack energy during extensive play sessions.
But these Tools aren’t offered immediately. Players are forced to progress through the game, beating challenging bosses and completing side quests before unlocking them. While I’m a firm believer that disabled people deserve to be challenged by the games they play, offering crucial pieces of accessibility from the very start of the game doesn’t limit that challenge – it just enables us to play like everyone else. In Silksong, some players may not make it far enough to unlock the Tool that would provide them with a vital accessibility feature.
The Overarching Metroidvania Problem
Silksong’s difficulty and lack of accessibility offerings make for an inaccessible challenge, but that’s not why I can’t play. As my disability progressed and I lost function in my hands, I found the speed and precision required to play Metroidvanias became too much. Even The Lost Crown, with its accessibility offerings, was too taxing for me to finish.
Before I decided to purchase Silksong, a friend advised me to wait until he could play. After several hours, he told me not to buy the game because the speed, combined with the dexterity needed to platform, fight, and use items, would undoubtedly leave me exhausted and frustrated. Therein lies my biggest critique of this genre – beyond what we’ve seen in The Lost Crown, no accessibility settings or system designs have yet to address the speed and inaccessibility of the core combat and platforming gameplay.
I am the first person to admit I am no game designer. I also acknowledge it’s virtually impossible to make every game accessible to every disabled player. Yet, as a lifelong fan of the genre, I genuinely miss playing these games. I’m not critiquing them out of baseless anger, but rather a desire to play one of my favorite genres once again.
Hollow Knight: Silksong, from the perspective of a sequel, is an achievement. Yet, for disabled players looking to dive deep into Team Cherry’s newest game, it’s an accessibility failure. Difficulty aside, disabled players have few offerings to help them navigate the map and defeat challenging enemies. And for those comments undoubtedly proclaiming that not every game is made for everyone, let it be for the individual to decide – not based on inaccessible practices, but rather just a fondness of the genre. For developers looking to Silksong’s success, I ask that they please use its lack of accessibility as motivation. As a lifelong fan of the Metroidvania genre, I hope someone will use Silksong’s failures as inspiration to make me return.
Grant Stoner is a disabled journalist covering accessibility and the disabled perspective in video games. When not writing, he is usually screaming about Pokémon or his cat, Goomba on Twitter.
Nioh 3, the newest entry in the Warring States Period Soulslike series, is the first to use open field maps. Unlike the previous mission-based titles, Nioh 3 sets players free in an open space, allowing you to take on areas, enemies, quests and more as you please.
So, how exactly are the game’s open fields constructed? We asked the developers about the density players can expect from the map, interesting techniques they used during development, and the struggles they faced along the way. General Producer Fumihiko Yasuda and Producer Kohei Shibata tell us about the development philosophy that lies at the core of the Nioh series, like the difference between a brutally difficult game being “unreasonable” and being “stressful.”
Drawing on Team Ninja’s experience to create dense yet free open fields
IGN: Did you run into any challenges when creating this game’s open fields?
Fumihiko Yasuda: When we tried to create open fields early on in development, we found they had lost the kind of density you’d expect from the Nioh series. While we did have some experience from creating Rise of the Ronin at the same time, the goal of that game was to depict the Bakumatsu period. The Nioh series is different in that it’s a game about overcoming a world that’s crawling with enemies.
We went through a lot of trial and error in an attempt to create dense yet free open fields. One time we tried a bottom-up approach to development by starting with Nioh’s traditional stage-based maps and expanding them from there, but those ended up feeling a little suffocating. We spent a lot of time dividing up the pace and creating the backgrounds of the maps, such as dividing them into open areas and more difficult bottlenecks.
How did your previous experience influence this part of Nioh 3’s development?
Yasuda: That’s something we’re conscious of as we make games. Development generally takes three to four years, and Team Ninja puts out a game basically every year, so we share the knowledge we’ve gained from releasing those titles within our teams and across projects. I hope we use the experience we acquire from making Nioh 3 in future titles as well.
When I looked at the open field, it felt like a map that had multiple proper routes that I could take. There were places where I could fall to my death, though. I imagine that must have been difficult to design.
Kohei Shibata: We’ve made it so that it’s easy to look at a place and know that you’ll die if you go there. Take a cliff, for example. If we made it look too realistic, it would have protrusions and rocks all around, making players feel like they can climb up it. We’ve done everything we can to remove sections like that.
We’ve also made it as clear as we can when there are multiple routes available to the player. Crucibles and Lesser Crucibles will have clearly ominous auras around them. You’ll also be able to see what areas are full of wandering enemies, giving the player the option of where to go. I do think that the fun of finding your own route has been a part of Nioh, even when it was stage-based, so we’re using that experience as well to put together our maps.
“We’ve given players the ability to jump for the first time in the series, allowing them to move vertically onto roofs and adding variety to how they can play through the game.”
Yasuda: Until now, Nioh players instantly knew where they couldn’t go because there was no jump. But with this game, we’ve given players the ability to jump for the first time in the series, allowing them to move vertically onto roofs and adding variety to how they can play through the game. It is possible to mislead players about whether or not they can go somewhere, though, which is something our map designers had to be conscious of as they worked.
One approach that’s often used is to guide the player’s eyes by covering objects in yellow paint. I didn’t see any of that in this game, so tweaking everything to work must have been difficult.
Yasuda: Who knows, the game’s map might be bright yellow by the time it launches (laughs). Yes, the yellow paint problem is a difficult one. In a 2D game, players will notice things without needing to guide their eyes too much, but I can understand the desire of game designers to use yellow paint once you have a realistic 3D game.
Could you tell us once more about out-of-combat activities and collection elements in the game from the perspective of open-field density?
Shibata: We wanted to come up with elements that are trademarks of the Nioh series, and that’s where we added a number of activities involving yokai. These did exist before in the series as well, but you’ll be able to chase a Scampuss (a cat-like yokai) around or search for Kodama.
Yasuda: The world of the Nioh series is one where evil yokai have devastated a world during an age of war. That’s the kind of place you’re crossing, so you won’t find many peaceful towns there, even in an open-field game. That said, comical yokai do exist in addition to cruel ones, and we’ve used those as contrasts to give players a moment to decompress.
Shibata: The game has side quests known as Myths. Hell exists in this world that’s been overrun by yokai, and not many humans have been able to survive. The spirits of those who’ve passed away might ask you for help, beginning a side quest. Completing these will allow you to get a glimpse at the game’s backstory.
Yasuda: Early in development, we did have quests you could receive from living humans, since the game took place on an open field. While you do of course accept quests from major characters who are still alive, generally speaking, side quests now start with the spirits of the dead. This was something we decided on based on our focus on narrative, and it seems like a natural path for the series to take.
Is there text that will teach players overseas more about Japanese culture as they play the game?
Yasuda: History has always been a motif in the Nioh series, and so we’ve prepared a dictionary of yokai and people. It’s something we created so that players in the West can understand the games as well. There were so many characters in Rise of the Ronin, and we found ourselves feeling that there were a lot of people overseas who don’t know about the Bakumatsu period. When it comes to lore, flavor text and more about historical figures and yokai, Nioh 3 has even more of it than previous games in the series.
“History has always been a motif in the Nioh series, and so we’ve prepared a dictionary of yokai and people.”
Shibata: This dictionary will get updated as you progress through the story. Also, as you explore the field you’ll see places that become frozen due to the influence of Crucibles, changing the mood depending on the field. History and fiction are combined and depicted according to the Nioh way of interpreting them.
The difference between “unreasonable” and “stressful”
We’ve seen a lot of brutally difficult titles in the games industry as of late, but it seems to me that the trend lately has been to think about offering options for a wider audience, such as by adding selectable difficulty. What’s your approach to difficulty in this game?
Yasuda: I think there are a lot of ways to define the Soulslike genre. Players can of course learn and get better at the action in the Nioh series, but the games are also full of RPG elements. They can increase their level, gather equipment, and create specialized builds. Compatibility and player taste also play a role when it comes to individual bosses. There are even online elements to the game, and making use of all of these to overcome a difficult moment and feel accomplished is something common to all the games in the series. We want Nioh 3 to be no exception.
While selectable difficulty is a part of some of the other games that I’ve made, Nioh 3 continues to only have one difficulty setting. There are so many ways to make it through the game, to the point where I might even worry that we overdid it this time around. We’ve been very conscious of not making the game unreasonably difficult.
If we did include selectable difficulty, you might get situations where someone says, “I beat Nioh,” only to be a bit bothered when others show up to say “What, on easy?” That isn’t a desirable outcome, so we want there to be the same value to beating Nioh no matter how you did it. It’s something that’s been important to us throughout the series, and that includes this game.
I have seen players argue over other games in the genre that did include selectable difficulty. I take those discussions into account as I make games, and I do think that selectable difficulty is a valid approach to take in games. Though I keep an eye on how players and the media react, we won’t be taking the route of adding selectable difficulty to Nioh 3.
There was one boss on the open field that I struggled against. I finally defeated it once I used the Living Artifact transformation skill, though. There are really so many ways to approach the game.
Yasuda: That is something we’re trying to do. Nioh games until now have had a linear map design, and I think that ended up requiring players to simply grind out levels if they got stuck on a boss. While there are some linear maps in this game, it has open fields, meaning that you can take other routes if you think an area is too difficult to take on. By defeating bosses elsewhere and leveling up, you can grow stronger without having to do the same thing over and over. We’ve taken a step forward in that regard by having a wider variety of ways to beat the game. There are of course challenging moments awaiting players, though. Just because you’ve explored doesn’t mean the game will be easy, and there’s still plenty of toughness there.
I know that open fields and open worlds have become the standard in lots of games now, but making Nioh into an open-field game is a major change in the gameplay experience. We saw so many users taking a wide variety of approaches even in the alpha demo, and we want them to enjoy that in the full game as well.
It sounds like you took on a tough challenge there.
Yasuda: Yes, it has worked out well in some ways that we intended. But every time we release a new Nioh game, I always feel like the players manage to exceed my imagination (laughs). I’ll often think, “Wow, you can beat it like that?” While there are times when we have no choice but to make balance changes with updates, in general, we think that nothing is more valuable than the playstyles and strategies that players discover. Players who’ve put thousands of hours into the games have come up with strategies that we truly could have never imagined, and I’m looking forward to what those will be this time as well.
Shibata: There have even been times when something is so amazing that we decide to intentionally leave it untouched.
Yasuda: We now live in an age when players share their strategies for beating the game with one another, so there are times when specific unintended builds run rampant. As these are games that are fundamentally about creating builds to take you through the game, we of course don’t want to have to nerf specific builds, and we’re doing what we can to avoid that as we approach release.
There are often cases of bosses being too difficult and getting nerfed in high-difficulty games. What will your approach to post-release adjustments be?
Yasuda: In general, I don’t want there to be any nerfs. I want everyone to share the experience of beating the game’s bosses under the same rules and conditions. I don’t want there to be conversations where people say, “You did that post-nerf, right?” Camerawork is one common issue, and there are times when it becomes unreasonable in ways that we didn’t intend. We’ll fix the camera if there are situations where people feel like they lost because of it, and there are even situations where we might choose to nerf a boss. Nioh 3 isn’t out yet, though, so we of course have no plans to nerf anything at the moment. I’d say that the biggest determining factor is us wanting to avoid players feeling like they lost because the game was unreasonable.
You also used the word “unreasonable” when discussing your adjustment plans in the survey results for the alpha demo. Speaking as a developer, what would make something unreasonable to you?
Yasuda: When it comes to balance adjustments, I often talk to the development team about the difference between unreasonableness and stress. I don’t think it’s a bad thing for games to make players feel stressed. Nioh is designed to be a tough game that makes players think.
“Nioh is designed to be a tough game that makes players think.”
Say there’s a moment where players can dodge an attack with a slow animation. But if it was so instantaneous that you can’t see the animation, players wouldn’t be able to react. There’s nothing unreasonable about an attack if you know it’s coming based on an animation where the enemy is preparing for that attack. But I don’t think it’s good to demand that players avoid or otherwise deal with unpredictable attacks. Players also have resources like stamina (Ki) to worry about, and so we’re removing that sort of unreasonableness whenever possible. I think that might be the most critical balance approach taken by the development team assigned to action.
Shibata: There was an enemy in the alpha demo known as the Crucible Wasp that players hated. Though this game has jumps that allow for mid-air action, the pre-fix Crucible Wasp was so high up that jumping attacks couldn’t hit it. Performing a mid-air attack that still can’t hit a target in flight will make players think that the game is at fault, not them. It’s not fair, which is why we’re making tweaks to make sure that players don’t feel like they lost for any reason other than themselves.
Some players hate it when bosses in Soulslike games use feints, or delayed attacks. How do you feel about those?
Yasuda: Lately, Team Ninja has made parry-focused action games like Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. There are times when the development side uses those sorts of delays in these kinds of action games. Delays can be used in order to teach players about the quirks of an enemy’s actions. That’s why I’m not completely against delays. That said, I don’t think it’s good when enemies track you after a delayed attack, causing it to hit you even though you avoided it. That would probably count as unreasonable for me.
Yasuda: Delayed attacks with weapons that don’t even seem particularly heavy will cause any sense of their weight to be lost as well. They’d simply be nasty. For example, a delayed attack with a heavy hammer seems like the right choice both in terms of visuals and action gameplay. I do think there are delayed attacks that aren’t unreasonable.
It’s not particularly difficult to create an intentionally difficult game, you know. But they need to not be unreasonable, and their animations need to be convincing as well. What’s important is that players think that they’re the ones who messed up if an enemy defeats them. You can make a game that people can’t beat if that’s what you really want, right? But nobody would enjoy a game like that, and I doubt anyone would want to go back and keep playing it.
Fans of the genre do like rating their bosses.
Yasuda: There is someone on the development team assigned to action who oversees boss creation. Like all of our people in charge, that person is on an emotional rollercoaster while seeing how people react to the game on message boards and social media.
The topic of Zhang Liang in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty’s demo acting as a wall for players often comes up in the genre. Do you think Takeda Shingen will become a boss like that?
Yasuda: I’m not sure about that yet. You’ll be able to face off against Takeda Shingen as a boss challenge at Tokyo Game Show 2025, but if the clear rate there is too low then we might adjust him to be weaker for release. He is the character who shows up at the end of a big chapter, so I doubt he’ll ever be an easily defeated boss. A model of Takeda Shingen who’s transformed into a yokai will be waiting for you all on the TGS floor.
Additional control methods and other improvements from the demo
I understand you’re going to add a system to the options that allows you to use Burst Counter without a Style Shift. Why did you decide to do that? Is there a reason you’re so insistent on being able to Style Shift using one button?
Yasuda: In Nioh 2, Burst Counter was performed with R2 and the circle button. I’d wanted to make it a one-button action ever since we created 2, like a lesson learned upon reflection. The decision had been made because there was a somewhat limited degree to the moments when enemies used major attacks in the previous games. I told the team that I wanted to make it a one-button action from early in development and had them experiment with it ever since then.
Shibata: We added it as an option because of requests from players who wanted to play only Samurai or Ninja Style without having to switch to the other. The biggest reason we made Burst Counter a one-button move was to maintain the tempo of the game’s action. Nioh is a fast game, so having to change styles with a multi-button combination creates a problem where it inherently introduces a moment of delay. Being able to freely switch between the Styles with a single button is something we wanted to value a lot.
The demo I played today featured a Nioh 2-style control type that lets you Burst Counter with R2 and the circle button. So you added this based on player feedback?
Yasuda: That’s absolutely right. It seems there were some people who preferred the controls of the previous title. We also added a weapon swapping feature like those found in the previous games due to what we heard from players. Some new elements that we added and consolidated into Nioh 3 turned out to actually create unfamiliarity for players who were accustomed to the series, and so we accommodated them based on the feedback we got.
I was unsure until the very last moment, but we ended up adding a proper weapon swapping system.
Are there any tweaks or fixes from the alpha demo that you’d like to highlight?
Shibata: Going back to weapon swapping, that is something we were hesitant about because we thought it might become too complex when combined with this game’s switching between styles. But even with that switching, we did hear players saying that they wanted to swap weapons. As developers, we did know that there would be players who wanted to stick to one Style while switching between weapons. I was unsure until the very last moment, but we ended up adding a proper weapon swapping system.
As you saw in the alpha demo, players will unlock new elements in the game step by step. You don’t start with three Samurai Style stances as you did before, unlocking them yourself instead. We wanted to have this gradual unlocking system so as to not confuse players new to the series or those returning to it after a long time away.
Yasuda: I often compare it to the difference between a manual and automatic transmission in a car. Demanding that first-timers to the Nioh series immediately use all the various actions that have come together until now seemed like it could be too much. As this is the third game in the series, it does seem like many alpha demo players were Nioh veterans, and it became clear to us that they expected the feeling of manual control they had experienced in previous games. We’ll be developing a button configuration feature as well as a setting for simplified controls thanks to these realizations we got from players.
Please tell us about your personal feelings for the Nioh series.
Yasuda: Stepping back from the details about the games, the title of the original Nioh was actually announced a very long time ago. Even at the start, Nioh gave players the image of “two individuals as one,” being the Japanese term for the two Benevolent Kings (powerful guardians of the Buddha), and the initial pitch for the game did mention it featuring both samurai and ninja. The idea would be to scale a castle as a ninja, then fight one-on-one as a samurai. In the end, though, we decided we needed to focus on the theme of fighting yokai as a samurai. At the end of the original Nioh, there’s a moment where you’re told that you are the true Nioh, which is to say that what William has done as a samurai together with Hanzo as a ninja is the embodiment of those two Benevolent Kings. So this theme of samurai and ninja has in fact always been foundational to these games. We were also sure to make the story of Nioh 2 about two individuals acting as one.
While I wasn’t the one to propose the themes of Nioh 3, it does feel like we’re calling back to those original themes now. Of course, I tell everyone that I’ve been talking about this from the start (laughs). So because of that as well, I hope that everyone will enjoy the action of both Samurai and Ninja Style, as well as making their characters. At the time, it was really hellish when the name of the game was the only thing set in stone. There was no meat at all to the game, but everyone knew its name (laughs).
Finally, do you have a message for IGN readers?
Shibata: We really did learn a lot from all of the alpha demo players and your feedback. We looked at many kinds of feedback, whether from commentary videos or on social media, and we’re drawing on your thoughts while working to improve the game. You’ll be able to try out a new stage in the TGS 2025 demo, and so we hope you look forward to future updates about the game.
Yasuda: There’s been a bigger gap than before between the release of Nioh 3 and the previous game. In part because of that, our development has focused around challenging ourselves to add open fields and the Ninja Style. After taking a look at the reaction to the alpha demo, I feel like I know where we are now, and so does the team. We’ll be working hard on the final adjustments to the game from here, and I hope everyone looks forward to its release.
Silent Hill f only launched in ‘advanced access’ on September 23, but modders are already at work, with one stripping out the series’ signature fog completely.
The horror adventure released yesterday for those who bought the more expensive digital deluxe version, but for everyone else, it goes live tomorrow, September 25 (check out the Silent Hill f global release times for more).
While you may be wondering why someone would remove such a key part of all Silent Hill games’ atmosphere, toning down the fog effect gives you a much better look at Ebisugaoka’s gorgeous environments (thanks, GR+).
You may recall a similar mod for Silent Hill 2 Remake and, like this one, gave us a better look at the titular town and its interior and exterior spaces.
Silent Hill f takes us to 1960s Japan, where we follow Hinako Shimizu, a teenager struggling under the pressure of expectations from her friends, family, and society. It’s official release date is tomorrow (September 25) across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S.
IGN’s Silent Hill f review returned a 7/10. We said: “Silent Hill f presents a fresh new setting to explore and a fascinatingly dark story to unravel, but its melee-focussed combat takes a big swing that doesn’t quite land.”
In case you’re wondering, no, Silent Hill f is not a sequel to any of the existing Silent Hill games, so you can play it even if you’ve never jumped into a Silent Hill game before. Instead, it offers a standalone story “independent from the series.”
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.
It looks like we have one announcement set for Sony’s State of Play in already: the release date of Nioh 3.
As reported by Gematsu, listings on Amazon Japan revealed a February 6, 2026 release date for Nioh 3 on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam. The listings, now removed, relate to the standard and Treasure Box editions of the game, and included box art.
The Treasure Box edition includes a B5-size official art book, a selection soundtrack CD, an original desk mat, and an Sunekosuri fur ball key chain.
PS5『仁王３』
2026年2月6日発売とAmazonが掲載してしまう。 「State of Play」で発表なのでは？
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.
Overnight, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio director and executive producer Masayoshi Yokoyama introduced RGG Direct 2025, a livestream chiefly dedicated to a remake of the previously leakedYakuza 3, which will be released alongside the spin-off game, Dark Ties.
Yakuza 3 was released in 2009 — that’s over 15(!) years ago now — and Yokoyama said this remake “is the best iteration of the original game, Yakuza Kiwami 3.” Dark Ties, however, is a “new, never-before-seen story,” which means this essentially bundles two games in one package.
“Like a Dragon & Yakuza series will celebrate its 20th anniversary on December 8 of this year,” the team said. “We sincerely appreciate your continued support of RGG Studio.”
Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties
“We’re developing [Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties] based on the concept ‘a legend is reborn and a new legacy begins,'” Yokoyama added, after which chief producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto said that both Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza Kiwami 2 “directly link to this title.” Producer/director Ryosuke Horii introduced details about the upcoming game, which is out in February 2026.
“[Kiwami 3] is a total remake of 2009’s Yakuza 3,” he explained. “We’ve rebuilt it from the ground up using the latest technology developed by our talented staff. The game has evolved enormously with loads of new cutscenes and newly added game elements. I can proudly say that we’re delivering a game worthy of the Kiwami title.”
We had a good time with the original, awarding it 8.5/10 back in 2010, but while the remake follows Yakuza 3’s story, RGG has added cutscenes “that we weren’t able to fully deliver before.”
“Whether it’s Kiryu and his pal Rikiya Shimabukuro, or enemies like Mine, Kanda, and Hamazaki, we’ve further detailed their thoughts and actions to better depict the human condition and connection,” Horii added.
Additional scenes are not the only new things coming to the game, either. Players can expect re-recorded voice lines as well as brand new ones, and “overhauled” animations, with some scenes “changed drastically with different developments and outcomes.”
“In order to greatly outdo ourselves and make a game that everyone will love, we didn’t take the safe, defensive route by glorifying the past with a simple remake, but instead took a more aggressive approach to make Yakuza Kiwami 3,” Horii said.
🐉A LEGEND IS REBORN AND A NEW LEGACY BEGINS🐉 Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties releases Feb 12, 2026 on PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Nintendo Switch™ 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam). 👉Digital pre-orders now live (link in bio)! Physical to follow in coming days.#YakuzaKiwami3… pic.twitter.com/hhIei4IUYv
— RGG Studio | Like a Dragon & Yakuza Series (@RGGStudio) September 24, 2025
The battle system has also been reworked so you can expect two kinds of battle style, Dragon of the Dojima: Kiwami and a brand new battle style, Ryukyu, which is inspired by generational Okinawan martial arts.
“For beyond a remake, Yakuza Kiwami 3 is a brand new title, vastly evolved from the original,” Horii added, after which Sakamoto explained the new Dark Ties story sees Yoshitaka Mine — chairman of the Hakuho Clan and a “popular character from the series” — as protagonist for the first time, joining the yakuza to “pursue unwavering bonds.”
Essentially a spinoff, Dark Ties is an action-adventure game that depicts the events leading up to Yakuza 3. It’s a story of the “gritty reality of human relationships in the criminal underworld,” with a “refined but cool” combat style centered around boxing.
Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties are out on February 12, 2026. You can pre-order now.
Yakuza Kiwami 1 and Yakuza Kiwami 2
Meanwhile, both Yakuza Kiwami 1 and Yakuza Kiwami 2 are coming to Nintendo Switch 2, with both physical and digital editions available, on November 13, 2025.
They’re also coming to PC via Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S, albeit a little later on December 8, 2025.
Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut
Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut is already available on Nintendo Switch 2, but it’s now also coming to PC via Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S on December 8, 2025. Again, it’ll available both digitally and physically.
Live-action Yakuza 3
Details were slim here, admittedly, but a live-action production featuring Kazuma Kiryu is also on the way. The team working on this previously worked on one of Japan’s most popular crime series, Nihon Touitsu.
“Through the collaboration of the game and the live-action drama themed around the underworld, we’re creating a work to make Yakuza even more accessible to those unfamiliar with the series,” Yokoyama explained, adding that multilingual localization will also be available “to make this more accessible for those of you around the world.”
Stranger Than Heaven
To close out the livestream, fans were treated to a brief behind-the-scenes snippet of Stranger Than Heaven, which is also in development. We don’t get to see much, unfortunately — the video is only a couple of minutes long — but the team is making good progress, as showcased by a BTS peek at programming, mocapping, and more.
New Virtua Fighter Project
I’m afraid I have nothing additional to report here other than to reiterate that Yokoyama said a “new Virtua Fighter project” was on the way. Watch this space…
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.
A fresh update for Nintendo Switch 2 launch title Mario Kart World has once again improved the frequency of lap-based courses, meaning fewer tracks that require you to drive for miles through the game’s open world in order to get started.
There are some welcome adjustments to racing generally, too, with slightly more time spent invincible after spinning or crashing out during a race — so you have a fairer chance at getting back on track. Item boxes will now take slightly less time to refresh, also.
For those who do enjoy the game’s open world, improvements have been made there, too. Nintendo has added the locations of previously-found P Switches and Peach Medallions to the map for easier tracking, and you can now warp to P Switches if you want to go replay them.
Other tweaks include the ability to join friends in Knockout Tour, and encounter UFOs more easily in Free Roam. Nintendo’s full patch notes for the update, which brings the game to version 1.3.0, lie below:
Mario Kart World Ver. 1.3.0 patch notes:
General
You can now join friends playing “Knockout Tour” by selecting “Friends” from “Online Play” “1p.”
Up to 2 players can now play “Free Roam” while waiting if the game was full when trying to join friends playing “Race,” “Knockout Tour” or “Battle” in “Online Play.”
The “Free Roam” map now displays the locations of P Switches you’ve run over and Peach Medallions you’ve obtained.
You can now select a P Switch from the map and move to a location near the P Switch.
In “Free Roam”, you can now transform into the character pulled into the UFO.
If “Dash Food” in “Settings/Controller” is set to “Doesn’t transform” then you will not transform.
It is now easier to encounter UFOs in “Free Roam.”
The conditions for the appearance of some Peach Medallions in “Free Roam” have been adjusted.
When spectating in “Knockout Tour” or “Balloon Battle” in “Online Play” or “Wireless Play”, you can now choose who to watch, even if you are holding the Joy-Con 2 or Joy-Con horizontally.
Decreased the time between when an item box is taken by someone and the next time it is revived.
Increased the invincible time after spinning or crashing during a race.
Reduced the force of jumps when landing on a rival from above.
Decreased the amount of time between when you finish and when spectating begins in “Knockout Tour” or “Balloon Battle” in “Online Play” or “Wireless Play.”
Decreased the amount of time between passing through the checkpoint and when the ranking is displayed in “Knockout Tour” in “Wireless Play” and “LAN Play.”
Further increased the frequency of lap-type courses appearing in the selection when choosing the next course in “VS Race” and wireless races.
Fixed Issues
Fixed an issue in “Online Play” and “Wireless Play” where the ranking would sometimes become incorrect if a player went off course at the same time as reaching the finish line.
Fixed an issue in “Grand Prix”, “Knockout Tour”, and “VS Race”, where the CPU’s ranking would sometimes drop after reaching the finish line.
Fixed an issue in “Knockout Tour” in “Online Play” where other players’ ratings would sometimes appear as “0” on the results screen.
Fixed an issue where a Spiny Shell would sometimes pass the first place player in “Wireless Play” or “Online Play.”
Fixed an issue where players would sometimes be sent flying backwards a great distance when hit by a Spiny Shell.
Fixed an issue where the second item in an item slot would sometimes not disappear when hit by Lightning.
Fixed an issue where hitting the base of a pillar in mid-air would sometimes cause a large jump.
Fixed an issue that sometimes caused movement to become unstable when doing a wall ride on water.
Fixed an issue where players would sometimes be swept away strongly after landing when doing a mini jump while going up a river.
Fixed an issue where players would sometimes pass through the ground when hit by a car driving on the road.
Fixed an issue in “Free Roam” where players would sometimes be unable to enter pipes correctly after exiting a trailer.
Fixed an issue where the results screen would sometimes become distorted after spectating “Balloon Battle” in “Online Play.”
Fixed an issue where the game would sometimes not proceed to the course selection screen after exiting a pipe during “Free Roam” in “Online Play.”
Fixed an issue where Bullet Bill would sometimes slip through walls when used in “Sky-High Sundae.”
Fixed an issue where players would sometimes get stuck on a wall at the start of the race heading from “Airship Fortress” to “Shy Guy Bazaar.”
Fixed an issue where players would sometimes get stuck in walls when using a Bullet Bill in “Bowser’s Castle.”
Fixed an issue in “Cheep Cheep Falls” where item boxes were sometimes difficult to pick up when Smart Steering was turned on.
Fixed an issue in “Knockout Tour” “Spiny Rally” where sometimes there was an item box buried in the ground.
Several other issues have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Popular Grand Theft Auto 5 roleplay server nopixel is collaborating with Rockstar Games for an official “evolution” of the RP service called nopixel V.
The nopixel X/Twitter account confirmed the news today with a trailer teasing Rockstar-backed roleplay support for GTA 5. With Grand Theft Auto 6 on the horizon, Rockstar’s continued interest in the RP community has fans hoping for nopixel servers on console versions of past and future GTA games.
We’re excited to support the nopixel team as they create the future of GTA RP. https://t.co/pyb9SzfrfZ
Nopixel 1.0 launched in 2016, three years after GTA 5’s original release date, as a PC server where players can immerse themselves within the world of Los Santos by roleplaying as everything from taxi drivers and EMS to police officers. Various updates have arrived for the massively popular roleplay offshoot in the years since, but nopixel V marks the team’s first official collaboration with Rockstar.
It’s not quite clear what exactly nopixel V is. The announcement itself promises to bring its updated take on GTA 5 RP to the Rockstar Games Launcher and other PC platforms “soon,” pointing fans to its website for more news and to sign up for invitations.
A roster of content creators confirmed to be involved in nopixel V is also available on its website and includes names like Valkyrae and Pokimane. More names will be unveiled in the near future, with the next announcement tied to a countdown that ends in one week. While there’s still much about nopixel V to be revealed, official presence on the Rockstar Games Launcher and other PC platforms is still a significant change.
“I used to be on nopixel, then I started working on GTA 6, and they told me I couldn’t do RP anymore because it kind of goes against… they had this whole speech, like, ‘What if somebody took your album and re-recorded it, and more people were listening to that,’ and I’m like, ‘Okay, I kind of get that, but I was having a good time. Alright that’s fine,'” T-Pain said at the time.
Now, with Rockstar doubling down on its support for fan-driven RP servers, some believe it’s only a matter of time before the company announces roleplay support in GTA 5 on consoles, or even for GTA 6. However, Rockstar has yet to announce plans for this kind of support.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
EA’s official Skate FAQ is very clear about what 2025’s new early access iteration represents for the series as a whole. “This isn’t a sequel, remake, or a remaster,” states the brief explanation. “It’s the evolution of the Skate franchise.” The first part I wholeheartedly agree with. This is not Skate 4, and it certainly isn’t a remake of the originals by any stretch of the imagination. The second part is not entirely untrue either: It is an evolution, of sorts. That is, it’s certainly changed. A lot. Unfortunately, this means this new version of Skate bears little semblance to the late-2000s originals I love – and I’m currently finding it impossible to warm to its sanitised, homogenised, and monetised reinvention. Yes, Skate has evolved dramatically, but it’s done so to blend into its free-to-play, service game-dominated surroundings – like moths in the sooty cities of the British Industrial Revolution. I don’t think I’ve ever compared a game to an insect before, but perhaps it makes sense when I find it this repellant.
Before I get too deep into why it’s offputting, there are a couple of true strengths that I can identify in Skate’s early access launch – the first of which are the sound effects. When it comes to capturing the nuanced array of skateboarding sounds – the hiss of spinning wheels, the friction of plywood on varied surfaces, and the clink of metal on metal – the team has done a terrific job. Ignoring the music and dialogue (which I’ll discuss later), Skate absolutely nails its sounds. This stuff is the symphony of skateboarding and, when you’re in a real flow, there’s an almost meditative rhythm to it. The pops and pings, the scrapes and squeaks – these sounds are just soothing, and I don’t know how else to explain it.
It must also be established that the feel of Skate, when you’re on a board at least, is still supreme. I adore the wild, arcade wackiness of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater – and I respect the punishing, twin-stick precision required by the likes of skate sims like Session – but Skate’s controls are my jam. Just about everything I crave is wrapped up in its approachable yet deceptively deep system. Tricks on the right stick, turning on the left, grabs on the triggers, and grinds on… how good you are at lining them up. There’s a lot of depth to unlock once you get the hang of it.
The feel of Skate, when you’re on a board at least, is still supreme.
Now, the new Skate doesn’t quite look and feel identical to the older games. Turning appears a little stiffer, and probably lacks a bit of the more pronounced and organic lean from the early Skate games. The grind assist is also considerably too sticky by default, and there’s definitely jankiness present in the transition skating; I’m experimenting with the pump settings but haven’t quite cracked a consistent solution to always getting the momentum I want and not getting randomly bogged down. Skitching is absent, and there are other missing tricks. Overall, however, it’s entirely familiar enough to be instantly intuitive to me as a returning player. At a minimum, Skate has done a fine job of reconstructing that buttery, legacy street skating feel from the original games. That’s an important thing to bring back if you’re going to use the classic name.
Unfortunately, that’s all it brought back.
Streaming the Cube
Making Skate an exclusively online experience was an immediate and utter mistake. During my first session on the day of its early access launch I was unceremoniously disconnected during a random challenge and kicked out of the map, back to the main menu. The error message here was comically emblematic of my thoughts on the overall situation. Something went wrong? Yes, something certainly went wrong with Skate. But it went wrong long before I started playing.
I am, of course, aware that server problems and queues are typical of day one of a new online game (although I’m still waiting in queues the week after launch). The community has come to accept this compromise as the opposite side of the free-to-play coin. For me, this is uncharted territory. The last time I waited in an online queue I was buying concert tickets, but at least I got seats to Metallica out of it. Skate is giving me no such joy. It does not benefit from being an online-only live service. It has new priorities, like selling $25 clothing ensembles. To pass the downtime I played a bit of the existing Skate trilogy (all of which are parked on my Xbox courtesy of backwards compatibility and will work just fine offline today, tomorrow, and in 10 years time).
In a deeply unfortunate twist, playing the new Skate is regularly just as annoying as not being able to play it. From the get-go it’s evident every shred of the personality of the originals has been ruthlessly and shamelessly cut away in favour of infantilised garbage. Every part of Skate has been corporatised and Disney-fied, from art style to attitude.
Every part of Skate has been corporatised and Disney-fied, from art style to attitude.
Remember the authentic human characters that accompanied your skater as you progressed through the story modes of the old games, who would blurt in sympathy as you tumbled down the dam for the tenth time, breaking every bone in your body? Well, forget anything like that. Your “filmer” in the new Skate is… an AI app, called Vee, who just may be the single worst video game character I’ve ever encountered. Vee’s dialogue is beyond nauseating, and is delivered in a faux-robotic fashion that makes it doubly awful. It’s essentially a simulation of AI slop – like having a friend that only speaks to you like they’re reading the captions on a Tik-Tok video. The low-fi and realistic filmer approach of the old Skate games is greatly missed. In 2025, this could have been emulated easily by just giving us an in-game friend with a phone. Instead, we have an ill-conceived chatbot who regards my successful tricks as, “Algorithmic!”, refuses to stop “edu-skating” me on the fact “footy” means “video footage,” and mines 35-year-old LL Cool J songs for quips even my mum would wince at. “Your female parent said knock those objectives out?” Good grief.
Holy Cow Oh My God
Sadly the “human” cast is no better. They’re saddled with an inauthentic, overwritten script stuffed with cringeworthy sentences no person would ever say aloud, and lines I’m not even sure the voice actors quite understood before reading. Skate’s fascination with the term “skater eyes” (which is inexplicably capitalised in the captions like some kind of proper noun) is simply baffling. It’s referenced with such heavy regularity that it sounds like the name of an in-game function you can personally toggle on and off to highlight particular parts of the environment like Batman’s Detective Vision (like certain things that are automatically covered in a yellow mask during some challenges) but it isn’t. It’s just a hackneyed slang phrase Skate has invented and overuses far beyond the point of parody.
Who says the word “BEEP” instead of cursing, even mildly? Everything that’s even a fraction edgy or mature has been masked under layers of corporate coddling, like those soft, squishy curves that stop toddlers from splitting their heads on the corner of the kitchen bench. You can, I guess, mute the dialogue – but that doesn’t make it immune from criticism. Besides, the dialogue is also just one part of a cavalcade of complaints I have about the current state of Skate.
Why was it so important, for instance, to concoct an in-universe explanation for the fact that nobody in Skate’s new city of San Vansterdam can suffer any injuries? Making skaters invincible thanks to the medical miracle of “ImpervaTEK” doesn’t make Skate better; it just feels like it’s here because some suit was worried about the optics of children playing a game where people tossing themselves off buildings might have to be depicted as being seriously hurt. As a result, Skate’s traditional post-wipeout x-rays and bone-snapping sound effects are totally gone (as are bloody scrapes, grime, and wear on skaters and their boards).
My sons began playing the original Skate games from about the moment each was old enough to hold a controller. I vividly remember them cackling uncontrollably at how many bones they could break as their characters tumbled and fell, their skeletons squelching and shattering. Skate 2025 seems totally toothless in comparison. It treats its audience like babies.
10 Things I Skate About You
Skate’s art style doesn’t do it any favours, either. The stylised approach may be crisp and colourful, but it’s also vanilla and boring. The doe-eyed, Sims-style character models do absolutely nothing for me, and this cartoony u-turn is a truly unwelcome departure from the realistic approach the series previously took. I don’t like their plastic beards, or their chunky pants, and I certainly don’t like being surrounded by them at all times – particularly when other players have a habit of visibly stuttering, lagging, and even floating as they move by. It’s also a complete eyesore having everyone constantly clipping into each other, all plonked in front of the same shop counter – or teleporting and gathering atop the same ramp. I don’t know where I start and everyone else begins.
There’s also a real sterility to the city that the simplified visual style can’t shake. Plain walls, impossibly clean surfaces – San Vansterdam just isn’t a place that feels legitimate or lived-in. It feels fake because it looks fake. There’s not enough granular detail or texture. Hell, sometimes there’s no texture at all, like when the roads appear to glitch and turn into a featureless, uniformly black surface. That happens a lot.
San Vansterdam isn’t all that interesting to skate around, either. The map is a largely flat downtown area, broken up into four quadrants that aren’t particularly distinct from each other. You can skate across it in about two minutes. There’s no zany hill descent, or dam drop, or wild spillway – nothing I’m drawn to gravitate towards like I am in Skate 2’s San Vanelona. There was a sense of reward in finding a neat place to skate in the original games, because the maps primarily felt like cities – not skateparks. The DNA of San Vansterdam is that everything is skatepark-adjacent. Top of a building? Skatepark. Inside a church? Skatepark. At this point, designing the city to be an unrestrained skate utopia just feels like too much – like it’s a big, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater level instead of a city you can skate in. It’s weird when the original Skate games were entirely antithetical to that.
Speaking of pro skaters, don’t expect to see any of those old faces in the new Skate. This obviously means no cleverly edited live-action intro montage packed with recognisable skaters in silly situations. Starting with a memorable short film may have become a tradition for the original trilogy, but that idea appears to have been firmly kickflipped to curb. More disappointingly, however, it also means no pro challenges – no real-life skaters to meet and speak to as you progress through what constitutes the campaign at the moment.
Could pros come to the game later in this fashion? As a live service… maybe, I guess. But I’m very pessimistic they’d add the same level of personality they injected into the original Skate games. Those had brief cutscenes with back and forth between the pros and your sarcastic filmer. Is John Rattray going to have a conversation with a disembodied app on a floating video camera? I doubt it.
As it stands right now, the campaign feels weak: part lengthy tutorial, part service game treadmill, where miscellaneous skating tasks are rationed out every 24 hours. Some of these are satisfying enough, and they do reward a certain degree of mastery of Skate’s classic controls. There are stints of Skate where I’m absorbed to some degree, sure, but there’s surprisingly little to it right now – particularly considering how immediately the daily challenges have begun to repeat.
In terms of solo content, there are no competitions, no death races, no games of S.K.A.T.E. No magazine cover shoots, or sponsorship challenges. The campaign missions, or “tours”, here are really just a series of lessons. It’s clumsily paced, too, since the only way to unlock new tours is to complete an extensive amount of goals from the miscellaneous trick challenges that are refreshed on a daily basis. That is, many hours after completing a daily objective that required me to do multiple manuals, I found myself sleepwalking through a separate tutorial mission about how to manual. And this after Skate confirmed with me I’d played Skate 3 before I even set foot on a board.
Skate sure does love its collection missions, though. In these you must skate a certain line while hitting a predetermined amount of floating wheel bearings, or perhaps skate through some basketball-sized bird poo. Either way, it’s mobile game-inspired fluff. I’m not a bored toddler in a restaurant being handed an iPad while his parents peruse the dessert menu, so this is just not my scene.
The whole progression loop is simply geared around collecting enough in-game currency to open loot boxes.
That only became more evident when I realised the whole progression loop is simply geared around collecting enough in-game currency to open loot boxes. Want to rank up? You need to return to the store to trigger that. Hey, while you’re at the store, why not open some boxes of crap with all your in-game credits? I didn’t bother opening any for the first few days because I wasn’t interested, but I eventually realised the boxes also contain additional reputation points that are important for leveling up your neighbourhood rank and unlocking new fast travel spots – so you basically have to open them. This means sitting through the unskippable “Congratulations!” animation for each individual one – that I assume has been meticulously modelled for maximum poker machine potency – every single time.
Which boxes? These ones, just past all the premium items you need to hand over real money for instead. Wait, why are there bundles of items priced at 1600 Skate-bucks when Skate-bucks are available in increments of 500 and 1050? Oops. Guess you’ll have to buy more than you need. It’s insidious and I hate it. I hate it in other games and I hate it in this one. I am not young and immune to the caveats of free-to-play gaming. It makes it feel like a service and a store first, and a game second.
Hell, maybe that’s true. After all, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
The next big expansion in the Pokémon Trading Card Game has been steadily gearing up. Phantasmal Flames lands on 14 November 2025, and collectors are already scrambling to secure their favourite sealed products before the inevitable shortages.
With headliners like Mega Charizard X ex taking centre stage, demand is set to run hot across every major retailer. Whether you’re chasing bulk booster packs, prefer the organisation of an Elite Trainer Box, or just want a quick dip with blister packs, here’s the full breakdown of where you can preorder Phantasmal Flames, and at what price, before current stock vanishes.
Elite Trainer Box (ETB)
The Elite Trainer Box is the marquee product for each set, and Phantasmal Flames is no different. Packed with nine booster packs, a 1 full-art foil promo card featuring Charcadet, themed sleeves, dice, and all the accessories needed for play.
For Phantasmal collectors and Pokémon TCG fans in general, it’s the best way to get started.
TCGplayer: The only place with standard Phantasmal Flames ETB stock readily available. However, these Elite Trainer Boxes are listed for around $174.56, while the Pokémon Center-exclusive version is an eye-watering $2000 at the lowest.
Best Buy: Listed at $49.99, making Best Buy the only retailer selling these at MSRP. No stock is currently available, and we expect any units that do pop up to sell instantly
Pokémon Center: Listings are slightly higher at $59.99 each, but are still completely sold out. We’d also expect any stock to sell instantly, so it’s important to keep an eye out.
Booster Box (36 packs)
For players who want the biggest bang for their buck, Booster Boxes are the classic choice.
TCGplayer: Phantasmal Flames Booster Boxes are twice the MSRP with an 100%+ markup, but it is the only marketplace with stock available for Pokémon TCG collectors at the moment.
Best Buy: Listed at $160.99, but is regularly cycling between “Coming Soon” and “Sold Out” with no regular stock available yet phantasmal flames – Best Buy
Pokémon Center: MSRP $161.64, but is also currently sold out at the time of writing
Booster Bundle (6 packs)
Positioned between a blister and an ETB, bundles are great for smaller sessions.
TCGplayer: Preselling at nearly $90 each, which is a huge price hike, but is currently the only way to get one guaranteed
Best Buy: Priced at $26.94, but marked as “Coming Soon”, with no stock available
Pokémon Center: Also listed at $26.94 MSRP but marked as sold out.
3-Pack Blisters & Single Blisters
These casual-friendly packs usually come with a promo card and coin, perfect for a stocking stuffer or a starter collection.
TCGplayer: Singles are currently out of stock, but the 3-Pack Blister is available for $49.99; the Weavile Blister is slightly higher at $50.97
Best Buy: Listing a “Styles May Vary” SKU at $13.99 each (meaning you’d get Sneasel’s or Weavile’s at random), but it is currently out of stock
Standard Boosters & Sleeved Booster Packs
Individual boosters are intended to be the cheapest entry point, with an MSRP of around $4.49 MSRP in the US, containing 10 random cards each.
Best Buy: Listed at $4.49 (MSRP), but still isn’t available to order at the moment, marked as “Coming Soon”
Build & Battle Boxes
Perfect for prerelease events, these contain four booster packs and a ready-to-play 40-card deck.
TCGplayer: The only live option at the moment are cases of 10 Build & Battle boxes. While each being worth around $65 is still a high price, this is likely the beat deal we’ll see around Phantasmal Flames’ release period.
Is Phantasmal Flames Up for Preorder at Amazon & Walmart?
At other major retailers who normally sell Pokémon TCG sets, like Amazon, Walmart, and Target, Phantasmal Flames is currently not available to preorder.
This can be for any number of reasons, but it is usually due to these online stores simply not receiving stock allocation from the wholesaler, yet.
There’s also the element of the ongoing Pokémon card shortage happening in the industry right now. Because of the continuous concern over scalpers and bots taking advantage, some stores take longer to prepare contingencies than others — like Amazon UK introducing invitational lotteries for Pokémon TCG ETBs.
If you’re determined to get Phantasmal Flames products at fair pricing, timing is everything. Be ready to refresh Best Buy at odd hours, and don’t sleep on bundle or blister preorders. For those who’d rather lock it in, TCGplayer guarantees stock at a premium.
Ben Williams – IGN freelance contributor with over 10 years of experience covering gaming, tech, film, TV, and anime. Follow him on Twitter/X @BenLevelTen.
Blizzard has just released Diablo 4 Season 10 — the Season of Infernal Chaos — featuring the new Chaos Armor feature along with adjustments to the endgame loop. Additionally, the Infernal Hordes mechanic has been reworked, and players will face a new ladder boss: Bartuc, Lord of Chaos. To help you come to grips with all the changes and take on Bartuc, check out this massive Season 10 Compendium our friends at Maxroll have put together!
Chaos Armor
Chaos Armor is a special tier of item above Ancestral. These items can contain effects which are not normally found on the item slot.
This opens up more options for buildcraft as you gain access to effects that were otherwise mutually exclusive. Learn more with Maxroll’s Seasonal Guide.
D4Planner Update
If you want to get theorcrafting, check out Maxroll’s Diablo 4 Planner (updated for Season 10). You can plan out your equipment, skills, paragon, and mercenary. Plus select the new Chaos Armor and Chaos Perk effects.
Tier Lists for Season 10
Season 10 brought a big change to the build meta, with a lot of builds gaining significant amounts of power from the Chaos Unique items. As a result Maxroll has updated all of their Diablo 4 Tier Lists.
Get started with leveling builds, ranked on their ability to take you from level 1 to 60 quickly and efficiently.
On the other hand if you want to farm resources and clear quickly, check out the Speedfarming Tier List. As usual, the Sorcerer class dominates S tier thanks to their ability to teleport with ease.
The Overall Endgame Tier List is a list of builds recommended by Maxroll creators, of builds that perform well across a wide variety of content including Bosses, Pit, Speedfarming and more.
Pit Push focuses on builds that excel in the Pit of Artificers, pushing into higher tier content and scaling well with gear. This season, Spiritborn and Druid builds are particularly well suited to pit pushing.
The Bossing Builds Tier List focuses on single target damage output and ability to kill T4 Bosses quickly and efficiently.
On the other hand, if you’re dead set on playing a specific class, check out our Class tier lists to find out how each build performs relative to the others available for that class.
If you’re new to Diablo 4, our Game Help Alliance partners at Maxroll have an extensive section catered to beginners, going over many of the game’s mechanics and systems. In addition to the above, Maxroll has tons of Diablo 4 guides and resources freshly updated for Season 10. Their Build Guides section has over 100 builds covering leveling and endgame across all of Diablo 4’s classes. If you want to be up to date on the most efficient farming and pushing strategies, head over to the Meta Section. The Boss Section includes guides on how to take down Diablo 4’s most challenging foes, along with the rewards you can earn for beating them. Learn more with Maxroll’s Season 10 Guide Compendium.
Written by: IGN staff with help from the Maxroll Diablo 4 Team
