While we eagerly await Resident Evil: Requiem to give us a good scare next year, Amazon’s dropped an excellent deal on a slightly older Resi title that’s worth picking up to keep you on your toes in the meantime. The excellent Resident Evil 4 remake for PS5 has dropped to just $15 at the retailer. Yes, you read that correctly! This marks its lowest price yet, according to price tracker camelcamelcamel, making now an excellent time to scoop it up for your library if you haven’t had the chance to yet.
Resident Evil 4 for PS5 Down to $15 at Amazon
Considering when it first came out it was listed for $59.99, this makes for a 75% discount from that original price, which is an incredible amount of savings for a game we absolutely adored (awarding a shining 10/10 in our review). IGN’s Tristan Ogilvie said at the time that, “Its combat is friction-free but no less stress-inducing thanks to its ferocious cast of creatures, its story rapidly shuttles through a series of action scenes that are diverse in structure but uniformly unwavering in intensity, and its world is rich in detail and full of fun and often snarling surprises.”
If you’ve yet to add it to your libary, there’s truly no better time than now to do it. Especially considering Resident Evil: Requiem is set to arrive next year in February. Plus, with spooky season right around the corner, now is the perfect time to have a scary game ready to play when October hits. And if you’re curious which order these games should be played in before the new one drops, check out our breakdown of how to play the Resident Evil games in order so you can set yourself up for success next year.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
MindsEye developer Build A Rocket Boy has released Update 4 across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, insisting it remains “committed to refining” the game following its disastrous launch.
In July, IGN reported that Edinburgh-based BARB had issued at-risk of redundancy emails to its around 300-strong UK workforce after MindsEye flopped at release.
All the while, MindsEye’s troubled launch saw the developer cancel sponsored streams, with reports of players securing refunds even from the normally stubborn Sony. Steam concurrent player numbers, which do not tell the whole story of a game’s popularity, were worryingly low.
Story-driven action adventure game MindsEye was initially designed to be a part of Everywhere, the ‘Roblox for adults’ creation platform led by former Grand Theft Auto design chief Leslie Benzies. BARB eventually switched to focus on MindsEye, but it has so-far failed to do the business for the company.
In July, Benzies told staff that the studio would bounce back and relaunch MindsEye, blaming its struggles on internal and external saboteurs, among other things.
In a post to the MindsEye community issued today, September 5, BARB said “we remain committed to refining MindsEye and enhancing the gameplay experience. Ongoing updates will continue to be shared.”
To that end, Update 4 introduces a range of UX improvements, numerous performance enhancements, and tackles bugs. Update 4 is significant in terms of size, weighing in at 15GB on PC, 7.2GB on PS5, and 12.1GB on Xbox Series X and S. Update 5 will deliver a “major” performance, combat and enemy AI system improvement, BARB teased.
This week, the CEO of MindsEye publisher IO Interactive, which is working on 007 First Light, responded to the game’s launch, telling IGN: “that was definitely tough, right?”
The question now is whether BARB can save MindsEye by encouraging players not just to come back to the game, but to actually buy it.
MindsEye Update 4 Patch notes:
IMPROVEMENTS
Environment
Trailer Tanks in Free Roam now explode when shot at
Several improvements have been made to architecture and assets to help with performance
Improved weather change when player leaves the Factory at the start of Robin Hood Mission
Improved traversal on A New Job and Loose Ends missions where player may get stuck in certain assets
Visual Effects
Cutscene VFX performance improvements
Cutscene VFX management changes and Niagara system updates to reduce CPU spikes and overall frame rate
Disabled ambient rubbish to improve performance
NPC
Small performance improvement on Robots
NPCs that are aiming and in-cover now look more natural
Art
General performance improvements: shaders, assets, collisions
UI
Resolved inconsistent dropdown menu behaviour in graphics settings, ensuring reliable input response
Added the ability to skip cinematics
Audio
Audio Optimisation regarding Mass Vehicles
Music adjustments throughout MindsEye missions
Added Destruction SFX on Glass Bottle Props
Missions
Conditional dialogue now triggers with more natural pacing
The companion drone torch is now automatically enabled when entering or starting in dark areas
Animation
Optimised the ambient and civilian animations
Exit/entry animations no longer play for driverless vehicles
Gameplay
Aim assist will focus on enemies in vehicle turrets over the driver
BUG FIXES
Various Mission flow bug fixes
Fixed pixelated reflection in Rocket Transporter window
Fixed Industrial vent asset to help with performance
Resolved an issue where players transitioning from Meeting Marco Silva to Executive Paranoia could drive through objects and fall through the map
Fixed ambient animation glitches in Welcome to Redrock City
Fixed an issue where camera rotation was lost after cutscenes
Several lighting LOD pop issues fixed in cutscenes
Fixed a bug where burning vehicles wouldn’t transition to destroyed state
Fixed several traversal issues in world where the player may get stuck
Fixed an issue in The Ziggurat where a hole in wall allowed players to climb through and trap themselves
Fixed an issue in Oh Lily! where players could get stuck in Morrison’s Silo without a way to get back out
Fixed collision on glass roof of Silva Factory
Fixed a number of Character Model issues in cutscenes that made them look deformed and stretched for a few frames
Resolved Silva’s teeth looking too bright on medium/ lower settings on PC
NPCs no longer freeze when interacting with certain objects
Weapon Wheel hover SFX is now triggered correctly, without delays
PC only
The character Red Sand Male 25 is now available for use in Build.MindsEye
Fixed a UI issue where backing out of a submenu in ‘Build’ caused the second-last selected tile to remain highlighted
Fixed a bug where the ‘effects’ tile would remain highlighted after returning to Build mode from Play mode
Fixed an issue where the placement header text overlapped UI elements in the asset settings menu when playing in French
Fixed a bug causing specific Korean characters to appear invisible in vehicle spawner labels
Fixed a localization issue where the French translation of “Total PI” overlapped with the performance impact number in the top toolbar
Replaced the incorrect icon used for the MindsEye menu button in Play/ Build with a proper menu icon
[Min Spec Performance Improvement]: Disabled Nanite compute materials as it has a negative effect on GPU rendering time in our game, especially on older Nvidia Graphics Cards.
[Min Spec Performance Improvement]: Fixed an issue where our Nanite render pipeline always used the Hardware Rasterizer path rather than correctly splitting between Hardware Rasterizer and Software Rasterizer
Console only – PlayStation and Xbox
Fixed a UI focus issue where the graphics settings tab failed to auto-focus on the first option when accessed on PS5 and Xbox
BUILD.MINDSEYE PATCH NOTES – PC ONLY
IMPROVEMENTS
Publishing UGC Content
Added a toggle to enable or disable Logic Nodes from being captured in the thumbnail capture of UGC Content
Logic Nodes
Timer Nodes improved; you can update or refresh their value at any time through multiple other logic nodes, and can now be refreshed infinitely
Timer Logic Nodes now support decimal places up to .000
Custom UI Nodes updated to always be set to “Node Active” = True, by default
Attributes Menu, Catalogue & Versioning
Minor QoL & screen position improvements to the Creator HUD, Attributes Menu & Tools
Minor QoL improvements to naming, duplicated items, missing thumbnails or icons in the Assets Catalogue
Updated the search functionality in Assets Catalogue to take into account both object name and the tags
Added a warning when the player reaches the maximum number of allowed versions when creating new versions
Added missing hotkeys to the Controls Panel for Inserting Path Points
Featured Stamps Updates
Multiple fixes and QoL improvements to existing set of Featured Stamps
Added more Stamps to the Featured Stamps tile
BUG FIXES
Removed EVERYWHERE vehicles from Build.MindsEye – those vehicles were made accessible unofficially, and we will bring them to MindsEye when they are ready
Fixed an issue where the AI Spawner Spawn limits and Performance Scores of spawners were not correctly calculated
New Performance Score applied to AI Spawners as follows:
AI Spawner – Performance Score: 10 / Max Quantity Allowed: 10
Individual AI NPC – Performance Score: 6 / Max Quantity Allowed: 100
Fixed an incorrect controls description for Build Collision Control List Keys; now correctly displayed as (B) instead of (P)
Improved camera behaviour in Build.MindsEye: your last position is now saved more frequently for a more reliable creation experience
Fixed an issue with erratic camera behaviour when using the Group Macro Node
Fixed an issue where players were unable to like Stamps with long names
Fixed an issue that prevented players from editing Stamp Descriptions that exceed the 220 character limit
Fixed an issue that caused vehicles to move very slowly, or not at all, when using Custom Speed on the Drive To Node
Grid snapping is now enabled on the XY Plane by default
Fixed an issue with Destructible Assets not being selectable
Fixed issues with Filtering in the Assets Catalogue
Fixed various issues with the Vehicle Selection UI Node
Fixed multiple issues with the Transform Variable Node and Advanced Transform Node parsing incorrect values into the Location and Scale Overrides
Stamp Attributes now display the correct Thumbnail based on the current Version selected
Fixed various issues with spawn-points and spawning in Build.MindsEye
Fixed various issues with the Physics Force Node causing objects to disappear
Fixed an issue where Foliage Assets were not searchable in the Catalogue
Fixed a crash caused when attempting to ungroup a group within a group
Fixed a crash caused by undoing creation and deletion of large Stamps
Fixed an issue with some deprecated assets being displayed in the library – which were discernible by having “DONOTUSE” in their name
Fixed texture issues on a number of assets in the Build.MindsEye Catalogue
Fixed an issue with missing Localisations for the Light Effects in Build.MindsEye
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
The splash damage caused by Hollow Knight: Silksong’s massive launch impact has spread beyond huge Steam concurrents and struggling storefronts to the parts of the internet where video game pirates hang out — and there something interesting is happening: the pirates are urging each other to buy the game instead of downloading the cracked version.
Team Cherry’s hotly anticipated Hollow Knight sequel finally came out on September 4, 2025 priced $20, six years after it was announced, and instantly crashed storefronts including Steam.
As the storefronts recovered, player numbers swelled to the point where Silksong hit an incredible launch day peak of 535,213 concurrent players on Steam, enough to make it the 18th most-played game ever on Valve’s platform. The true player count across all platforms will be much higher.
Silksong also launched DRM-free on GOG, so it was no surprise to see a cracked version available to download in the hours after launch. What was a surprise was the response from some veteran video game pirates, who urged their peers to support Team Cherry and buy the game instead.
“First game I’ve bought day of release in a decade probably,” said pyrokzg on the piracy subreddit in response to a thread upvoted 7,000 times. “Not even the decade for me. It’s the very first,” added Vamsi-Thopu.
So, why is this happening? Clearly, there is a huge amount of goodwill from across the internet directed at Team Cherry, the small indie developer that saw the original Hollow Knight blow up to such an extent that it was able to take its merry time with this ambitious sequel.
But there’s also a feeling that Team Cherry does things the right way. For a start, there’s a DRM-free version available at launch, but the Australian studio was also keen to honor the promises it made with its original Hollow Knight Kickstarter all those years ago. There’s even a free upgrade for the Nintendo Switch 2 version. In short, Team Cherry are the good guys, and the feeling is they deserve their success.
“It’s a 3-4 person team that has done right by their fans at every turn,” said No-Shape6053, also on the piracy subreddit. “Making sure the PC release is DRM free. Making sure all original backers of Hollow Knight get Silksong free on their choice of platform. This is a time where if we can afford to support them, we should.”
“Support the devs if you can, they deserve it,” added iTzNowbie. There’s plenty more where that came from, too. “The only game I will feel bad if I ever pirated it,” said beastfire24. “Hey the game is pretty cheap. This one, we should not pirate,” said Sythrin.
Interestingly, some have expressed surprise at the collective urge not to pirate Silksong, which itself prompted a discussion about why this is happening with Silksong but hasn’t happened with similarly beloved indie games in the past.
“Usually people here claim that the title, price, or the indie status makes no difference to them, but I guess that Silksong is just that respected,” offered MixaLv.
“I’m surprised too,” added ALIIERTx. “Many times people are like, ‘I don’t care if I pirate from indie developer,’ but on this one everyone is pretty defensive against piracy. I’m fascinated.”
Responses to this reinforce the Team Cherry angle. “Team Cherry has built themselves an amazing reputation,” suggested Someone_Existing_1. “Because they’re only a three-person studio, they can keep their games super cheap due to far less employees needing pay. Also they aren’t greedy f***s like most companies, so their DLCs are all free and there’s no microtransactions or online-only bulls**t.”
Be sure to stay up-to-date with all the latest from IGN by clicking here and setting IGN as a preferred source in Google.
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.
Most of the time, a game based on a successful manga is made after the anime adaptation has been airing for some time, but that wasn’t the case with Kaiju No. 8 The Game. (You can read our hands-on impressions here, by the way.) It tells its own story within creator Naoya Matsumoto’s world, as well as referencing pivotal events from the mainline narrative, and is one of the rare instances in which the game and anime were being developed in parallel.
“When this game began its development, the manga was only getting started,” says Kaiju No. 8 The Game’s Producer Shinya Fujita. “So there was still a lot of information that we didn’t know yet. And also at the same time, the manga was to be adapted into an anime as well. So this made it very difficult.”
The team started working on Kaiju No. 8 The Game more than two years ago, and the anime only started airing in mid-April last year. This meant that the game development team and the anime production effort (which involved both Production I.G and Studio Khara) were both exploring what this world would look like in action and how best to bring the characters – and kaiju – to life.
Akatsuki Games “often referred to the manga for unreleased characters, weapons, and locations,” reflects Fujita. The team also had access to Naoya Matsumoto, the writer and illustrator of the manga, and “his advice and support were crucial,” confirms Fujita, who goes on to say that he was “surprised by his deep knowledge of game development and respect for the process.”
That’s not to say that Akatsuki Games was disconnected from the anime. As its production moved ahead, the team were able to work with both studios on specific things. Fujita says that while his team looked to the manga for their character designs, they received invaluable help for the weapon designs from Production I.G, who “were able to create references that were very detailed and easy to understand”, and leveraged the expertise they’d gleaned from the likes of Ghost in the Shell. The team also received references for kaiju designs from Studio Khara, which had been brought onboard to oversee the kaiju designs in the anime; a natural fit given this is the studio established by Hideki Anno and responsible for the Rebuild of Evangelion films.
The work on background designs also lined up with the anime. “We received a lot of art boards from Production I.G,” says 3D Artist Kazushi Matsumoto. “Every day we’d be checking what the new materials were. In the early stages sometimes we’d find that our 3D design didn’t match the art board so we’d have to remake it. It’s not like we had all the reference material we needed in the first place – we had to work closely with Production I.G. In the case that we had exactly the same location as the anime, we’d have Production I.G review our designs as well.”
One area that was completely separate, however, was the audio side of the game. “I deeply admire the anime’s exceptional music,” says Sound Artist Yasuaki Iwata, “and the sound team is inspired by the anime’s music and takes a reference [from it] while creating entirely new compositions tailored specifically for the game experience.”
“Since music strongly reflects a composer’s individuality,” adds Sound Director Mitsuhiro Hikino, “we carefully structured our team. We were fortunate to have experienced game composers with extensive game experience and theatrical music composers who excel at creating music that complements visuals… We centered our music around genres like Japanese digital rock and used instrumentation familiar to fans of the IP and its culture. We deliberately kept melodies subtle to prevent the music from overpowering the experience, instead allowing it to complement and enhance the impressive visuals.”
Producing work that stands up next to the excellent anime was obviously important to the team, but so too was ensuring that the manga’s author, Naoya Matsumoto, was happy with their vision for his world. And sometimes that meant changing tack. Japanese mobile games often have provocative new outfits for their characters that players can acquire through their gacha system, incentivising them to invest more time and/or money in the game.
“Sexy costumes… [are] pretty common in the Japanese mobile game industry,” says Art Director Yuya Kuroyabu. “When we proposed this plan, Matsumoto-sensei said ‘well, no – this [approach] is not for this IP.’ So we studied the IP concept again and tried to come up with some unique designs for this game.” The upshot is that the character outfits stay true to the fact that they’re all soldiers in the Japan Anti-Kaiju Defense Force or CLOZER (a specialised military outfit central to the story), keeping this game more closely aligned with the manga and anime, and reworking the concept of ‘fan service’ in the process. “The essence of the design,” concludes Kuroyabu, “is the military style.”
Most important of all, however, was getting Matsumoto’s blessing for Kaiju No. 8 The Game’s original storyline. It takes place at a specific time in the manga and anime’s arc, and features all the main characters. “We, the game developers, proposed ideas [to Matsumoto-sensei],” Producer Shinya Fujita explains. “We wanted to create a unique setting for the game,” so came up with the concept that Kaiju Dimensional Gates were opening up around the globe, triggering an all-in response from anti-kaiju forces. “Then, building on to the Kaiju Dimensional Gate setting,” Fujita continues, “we created the original story and then created the character Sagan Shinomiya.”
“Sagan is a very important character,” Fujita explains, “because she’s the only game-original character connected to the anime/manga cast.” Given how central Kikoru and Isao Shinomiya are to Kaiju No. 8’s story, it genuinely is a pretty big deal for the game to introduce Kikoru’s non-blood related sister. “We didn’t actually have any instructions from Matsumoto-sensei,” says Art Director Yuya Kuroyabu on whether the team had free reign to create the character, “but we proposed ideas and spent a lot of time communicating.”
This included pivoting away from what Fujita describes as “a completely different character design” to find the current version which “was the better fit for this military setting.” “Because she plays such an important role, we wanted to make sure we get her right,” he concludes.
“Sagan is a very important character, because she’s the only game-original character connected to the anime/manga cast.” – Shinya Fujita
Sagan is joined by a couple of other new characters – Chester Lochburn, CLOZER’s strategist, and Suited, CLOZER’s weapons development guru – and the team have been quite clever in how they approach their gameplay designs. Characters in this game fall into three broad categories – Attacker, Support and Defender – and as you might imagine, given their overwhelming offensive power, many of the core cast from the manga/anime fit into the Attacker category. It makes sense, then, for the new characters to help bulk out the numbers in the other roles so that players can build well-rounded squads focused on their favourite characters.
With Matsumoto on board for the story and new characters, there was still the question of how to handle series protagonist Kafka Hibino. After all, he’s simultaneously one of the weakest and strongest characters in the manga/anime. The team have followed Matsumoto’s lead by keeping this duality and allowing Hibino to use his Ultimate to transform into Kaiju No. 8 mid-fight, going from a pistol packing support player to an absolute beast. It really is binary too, as his transformation completely replaces his human moves with kaiju ones and strips him of his pistol in favour of bare knuckle brawling. “After transforming, he gains access to powerful abilities like AOE attacks and high-damage Ultimate, allowing players to truly feel his strength,” says Producer Shinya Fujita.
The team have even created a standalone Kaiju No. 8 character that starts in Kafka’s transformed state. “While this version can’t equip weapons like other characters,” Fujita comments, “he possesses incredibly powerful base stats even without them. Pretty much what this means is that in the game you can skip the process of acquiring or leveling up weapons; he’s simply strong from the get go.” Even so, balance is key. “We want to avoid situations where a specific character becomes almost mandatory to progress,” explains Fujita, “or where players can’t freely use the characters they genuinely want to play.”
This is also reflected in the game’s monetisation strategy – which is always a thorny topic when it comes to live service titles, but particularly those with heavy gacha components. “Our goal is for fans to enjoy playing with their favourite characters, even if it impacts rarity,” says Fujita, “[so] we provide more opportunities for casual users to collect characters and enjoy the game.” The examples he gives of this are gifting players the choice of a rare character, as well as Kikoru/Kafka at launch, plus the free characters from the pre-registration campaign.
Coming back to Kafka, as you’d imagine he’s central to the game’s new story, and there’s a lot of it, with each mission bookended by cutscenes or dialogue sequences. If it feels to-the-point, that’s very much deliberate. “In the main Kaiju No. 8 story, the focus is heavily on maintaining narrative momentum,” explains Fujita, “and thus everyday life aspects are intentionally not depicted. To fill in those gaps, we created the character stories.” This is a separate mode with small stories based around the major characters. “We hope players will enjoy the casual conversations between characters and discover new parts of their personalities that aren’t seen in the main story.”
Even so, in keeping with the manga and anime, there are still some pretty goofy, playful sequences in the main story. “We’re trying to stay as true to the original work’s artistic direction as possible,” says Fujita, while also wanting to “show a ‘cooler side of Kafka’ in the game,” as compared with how he’s often portrayed in the anime.
“We’re trying to stay as true to the original work’s artistic direction as possible…” – Shinya Fujita
As for the enemies, this is where the game really takes off. “There will be 20-30 different genres [of kaiju],” says Art Director Yuya Kuroyabu. A few examples pulled from the series include Wyvern-type, Lizard-type and Ant-type, but we can’t wait to see what else the team comes up with. Kuroyabu mentioned that the team were inspired by kaiju movies, particularly the Tokusatsu genre, and utilised classic elements from those films such as low camera angles to emphasise size.
The kaiju designs also have to fit neatly into a fun gameplay framework. “Our core philosophy for this game is to prioritise clarity,” explains Producer Shinya Fujita, “so we’ve tried to give kaiju abilities that can be inferred from their appearance. For example, Fungal-Type kaiju might inflict status ailments like poison, while Spider-Types might use web attacks to reduce your speed.” These status effects may be easy enough to counter on their own, but when the game starts throwing multiple types at you simultaneously, it’s going to get a bit more complicated. You can read more about how the game plays in our hands-on impressions.
As for the kaiju design that Art Director Yuya Kuroyabu is most excited about, it comes down to how the team are helping to flesh out existing details in Matsumoto’s world. “The one I want to call out is Kaiju No. 1,” he says. “I forget which episode [it was in], but it did show up in the original manga and anime – but only from the bust up – so no one knew what the rest of it looked like… and now we’ve designed it, so you can find out in the game! We also used this kaiju as one of our key visuals as well. It’s a special one for me.”
3D Artist Kazushi Matsumoto shares a similar sentiment. “There are a lot of things that aren’t from the manga or anime that we’ve realised in the game,” he says, “so we’re looking forward to the players discovering them. Plus, we’ve prepared a lot of content for not only Kaiju No. 8 fans, but for Japanese anime lovers too.”
Now that Kaiju No. 8 The Game is out in the wild, there’s the question of what comes next. “We’re planning event stories that’ll let players get to know individual characters better,” says Fujita, “along with high-difficulty battle content for players seeking more challenging gameplay. And of course, we’re also planning story events featuring characters in special seasonal outfits.”
And presumably, in keeping with Matsumoto’s wishes, those outfits will not be overtly sexy. Regardless, “the most important thing” about running a live service game, says Fujita, “is to have love for the IP. Being a fan helps understand what other fans want.”
Cam Shea visited Akatsuki Games in Tokyo as a guest. He’s a former IGN staffer, now freelance writer and beer geek.
Happy Hollow Knight: Silksong launch day to all who celebrate! I’ve only played three hours so far and I’m already overwhelmed in the best possible way. It took no time at all for me to get completely lost in the world of this hotly anticipated sequel, one that shortens the intimidating lead-in area its predecessor had in order to more quickly give you branching paths to pick from and the tools to explore them more confidently. It’s too early to get a real sense of where things will go, how all the changes it makes to stuff like upgrades and abilities will play out, or how big this beautiful new land truly is, but my impression so far is that Silksong is already managing to meet the sky-high expectations that have been set for it.
One of the most immediate differences Hollow Knight fans will notice is that our new hero, Hornet, isn’t the silent type like her pint-sized companion from the original. She has personality and charm, chatting with the bugs you meet across the world of Pharloom. I was initially worried that this might change the quiet tone in an unappealing way, but Hornet is still a fairly stoic character overall – confident and cautiously friendly, happy to speak her mind when she feels she should, but still reclusive in a way that allows others to do most of the talking. So it’s a shift, especially when she explains something a little more directly than Hollow Knight’s vague dialogue ever would, but one I am enjoying for the moment.
It also helps that the writing is top notch once again. It’s often poetic and illusive in a way that never feels overly pompous, leaving plenty of room for serious characters and silly gags alike. An early favorite of mine is a pilgrim singing to a door in an attempt to open it, only for them to claim the credit when you find the lever that actually does so. All the attention to quality and detail that made Hollow Knight a true standout is still alive and well here, with areas I can’t wait to learn more about, characters I am excited to get to know, and stellar music I can already tell I am going to be listening to for a long time to come.
Another aspect I am excited to see evolve are the options for customization. Ability-granting charms are color-coded this time around, meaning you have to pick your priorities if certain items overlap – for example, a lot of the early options I’ve found go into the yellow slot, making me choose if I want enemies to drop more currency or if I want to have it automatically be picked up for me when they do. That choice extends into a secondary attack (the only one I’ve found so far is a quick throwing dagger), and even Crests that more drastically change your attack in a way that feels like you are swapping weapons.
Honestly, I just can’t wait to stop typing this so I can dive back in.
It seems like a huge amount of flexibility, and I’m excited to see if the options I will unlock let me truly start crafting coherent builds in the way I am hoping. This system runs the risk of offering a lot of false choices or leading you down certain paths that are just obviously better than others, but if Team Cherry has figured out the proper tuning, it could also open the door to supporting massively different playstyles based entirely on your own tastes.
I imagine we’ll need to take advantage of those options, too, because Silksong isn’t messing around. It’s not afraid to punish you, such as the way you drop all of a currency called Rosaries when you die and have to do a corpse run to the location you were killed to retrieve them, and enemies can be tough enough to force you to take that walk if you push the limits of your exploration too far. That said, Silksong has a lot of ways to mitigate that punishment, such as letting you pay to stash your extra Rosaries in the form of a consumable item, giving you an early option to lose less of them on death, and not tying every unlockable to that single resource in case the worst does occur. It’s still early, but I think this will result in less frustration overall relative to Hollow Knight.
Similarly, one of the most common reasons people would bounce off the original was the initially sparse map system – the early areas branch in a way that meant you could miss the map for a long while, and then you had to return to town to buy upgrades before it updated or even showed you on it. You still need those upgrades, but the place you get them is now located right on your path before things start to open up, and that happens much earlier, so that’s another rough edge smartly smoothed down. It’s still a dangerous thrill when you are exploring an uncharted area for the first time, trying to push your luck in search of that next resting spot, but that’s no longer a feeling you are forced into before you’ve even found your footing.
I could keep digging into more early observations, but honestly I just can’t wait to stop typing this so I can dive back in. I haven’t even wrapped my head around how big this thing is going to be – and if its achievement for speedrunning 100% completion is any indication it could be quite large, as you now have to do that in under 30 hours compared to Hollow Knight’s 20. But so far Silksong is exactly what I want from a sequel like this: it’s not completely reinventing the wheel or messing with all the things that made the first game so incredible, but it’s also not resting on its laurels. No part of it feels untouched, and as far as I can tell right now, it somehow feels even better for it.
The sequel to Team Cherry’s original bleak and beloved metroidvania game finally launched across PC and consoles earlier today, bringing an end to more than six painful years of anticipation. As what is sure to be millions of fans swarm to see if the wait was worth it, The Verge has pointed out that the Hollow Knight: Silksong credits tease a special cameo from one of the most notable indie developers of the last decade.
Those who navigate to the Hollow Knight sequel’s credits – which can be found in the “extras” option on the main menu – will notice that Barone is featured among the shortlist of names included under “Additional Character Voices.” It means that, if you know where to look, you’ll be able to hear the mastermind behind farming sim sensation Stardew Valley among those lending their voice talents to the land of Pharloom and all of its insect inhabitants.
Unfortunately, it’s a bit unclear how exactly Barone is featured in Hollow Knight: Silksong. ConcernedApe’s head of operations and business development, Cole Medeiros, confirmed with The Verge that, while the Stardew Valley creator does indeed play a role in the Hollow Knight follow-up, they aren’t ready to reveal who he plays. Medeiros added that Barone would “rather not say which character(s) so as not to spoil any surprises for anyone.”
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).
Civilization VII developer Firaxis has laid off an unknown number of individuals today, despite the insistance of Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick that the game’s sales are consistent with expectations.
Today, a number of Firaxis employees announced across social media that they had been let go, including members of production, narrative, and art. Civilization VII publisher 2K confirmed the layoffs to Game Developer, saying the studio was restructuring and optimizing its development process for “adaptability, collaboration, and creativity.” The company did not confirm the number of individuals impacted.
Firaxis released Civilization VII earlier this year, and the game has since received a mixed reception on Steam amid player complaints about the game’s user interface, lack of map variety, and that it was missing expected features. Since then, Firaxis has released a number of updates to the game to improve it in these areas.
In the meantime, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of 2K parent Take-Two, has said that while Civilization VII did get off to a “slow start”, the company’s internal projections for the “lifetime value” of the game still match initial expectations.
“I think the key thing is that Civ has always been a slow burn. It’s always been a title that had — I’m not really a big believer in the long tail theory of the entertainment business — but Civ is an example of that theory. And right now our projections for the lifetime value of the title are very consistent with our initial expectations for the title.
“So while we were off to a slow start and while we have had to make changes — and there are more changes coming — I feel like consumer uptake is better and better and we feel really good about the title. I think over time it’s going to take its place in its civilization pantheon in a very successful, credible way.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
At the time of this article’s publication, and as those storefront problems ease, Silksong was on a huge 453,993 concurrent players on Steam, making it the third most-played game on Valve’s platform behind only Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2.
This number looks set to rise, too, as more people download the game ahead of its first weekend on sale. The question now is, just how big will it be? It’s already the 29th most-played game on Steam of all-time, with the likes of Helldivers 2 in its sights.
Silksong is one of the most anticipated games of 2025. Over six years after its initial announcement and as the most wishlisted game on Steam, Silksong finally launched today, September 4, across PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S priced $19.99 and weighing in at 7.62GB.
Of course, Silksong’s true player count will be much bigger across all platforms. Neither Sony, Nintendo nor Microsoft make player numbers public, but Silksong crashed those storefronts, too, so it will be massive everywhere. And let’s remember Silksong is a day-one Game Pass title. Yep, this one’s enormous, perhaps even the biggest indie game launch of all time.
Little was known about Silksong ahead of launch, so players are only now discovering its secrets. One of the first revelations is the achievements list (Silksong has 52 Achievements and 53 Trophies to unlock and discover).
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Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
For those looking to add some games to their PC library as the chilly fall weather starts to roll in, September’s Humble Choice lineup has officially been announced. This includes a wide variety of games, including WWE 2K25, Destiny 2: Legacy Collection, The Plucky Squire, and five others you can stock up on for just $14.99 if you sign up for a Humble Choice membership. On top of those games, this month also comes with one month of IGN Plus for free, which allows you to turn off ads across the site, get free games, and more.
Humble Choice – September 2025
WWE 2K25
Destiny 2: Legacy Collection
The Plucky Squire
SpellForce: Conquest of Eo
Return to Monkey Island
Eastern Exorcist
Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks
Grapple Dog
One Month of IGN Plus
Alongside a curated mix of PC games that are available to redeem each month, there are plenty of other perks you’ll get to enjoy with a Humble Choice membership as well. These include up to 20% off select games on the Humble Store and 5% of your membership going to support a charity. This month it’s Team Rubicon, a veteran-led humanitarian organization that assists communities before, during, and after a disaster happens. If you don’t think the membership works for you, you can also pause or cancel it at any time, too.
Humble has plenty more to offer right now, too. If you’re a big reader, you can scoop up all of the Murderbot books there for $18. Or if you’re looking for more games, Humble is also offering a stellar bundle of LEGO games called the LEGO Worlds Collide Bundle, which nets you $499 worth of LEGO games for as low as $15. That’s an excellent deal, and well worth jumping on before it’s all done.
Humble Bundle is part of IGN Entertainment, the division of Ziff Davis that includes GamesIndustry.biz, IGN, and MapGenie.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
Sony is gearing up for the release of Ghost of Yotei by offering a series of limited-edition hardware that’s etched with imagery from the game. You can get PS5 consoles, DualSense Controllers, and console covers with black or gold etchings. All of them are now available to preorder at PlayStation Direct and are set to release on October 2. Below, we dig into what items are available, how much they cost, and more.
Featured in this article
All the new items are listed in the catalog above. For more information about them, you can scroll down.
PS5 Console – Ghost of Yotei Limited Edition Bundle (Gold or Black)
The PS5 console bundle gets you Ghost of Yotei-themed PS5 and DualSense controller, with either black or gold designs on them, as well as a voucher to download a digital copy of the game.
DualSense Wireless Controller – Ghost of Yotei Limited Edition (Gold or Black)
The DualSense Wireless controller is similarly decked out in Ghost of Yotei markings, available in either black or gold. Aside from the stylized design, it’s a standard PS5 controller with all the features you’d expect, including haptic feedback and adaptive triggers.
PS5 and PS5 Pro Console Covers – Ghost of Yotei Edition
If you want the look of the Ghost of Yotei PS5 but you already own a slim PS5, you can pick up just the console covers. That lets you turn your standard PS5 into a Ghost of Yotei one without buying a whole new console.
Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert for IGN. He also runs IGN’s board game and LEGO coverage. You can follow him on Bluesky.
