Andrezj Sapkowski, the creator of The Witcher, has said he regrets including a throwaway reference to “Witcher schools” in one of his books, which CD Projekt’s The Witcher video games have since massively expanded on.
Writing in a Q&A on reddit, Sapkowski said his single mention of a “School of the Wolf” in The Last Wish, a short story collection, had been an “unworthy” inclusion that he was now considering deleting from the book’s future print runs.
But for many fans of The Witcher, who know the franchise from its existing trilogy of video games, Witcher schools are now an important part of the franchise — and something that CD Projekt has developed into a key part of its lore.
CD Projekt has established that there are at least seven guild-like Schools: the Wolf (to which hero Geralt belongs), the Cat, Griffin, Bear, Viper, Manticore and Crane. Those within each school wear a medallion showing them as such — and indeed, the studio’s first teaser for The Witcher 4 sparked huge speculation among fans with its focus on a new school medallion, which CD Projekt later confirmed was for a previously-unknown School of the Lynx.
But while video game fans have enjoyed the series sorting Witchers into Hogwarts-like houses, it’s safe to say that Sapkowski isn’t on board.
“A single sentence about some ‘School of the Wolf’ mysteriously made its way into The Last Wish,” Sapkowski wrote. “I later deemed it unworthy of development and narratively incorrect, even detrimental to the plot. Therefore, later I never included or referenced any Witcher Gryffindors or Slytherins again. Never.
“However, that one sentence was enough. Adaptors, particularly video game people, have clung to the idea with remarkable tenacity and have wonderfully multiplied these ‘witcher schools’. Completely unnecessary.”
Sapkowski continued to say he was tempted to simply delete the reference to the School of the Wolf, removing it from his own book canon, even if the lore invented by CD Projekt would still remain. Alternatively, the author suggested he could expand on the matter in a future work — something fans have suggested he might do to deliberately rein in the concept closer to his own personal vision.
“I’m still uncertain about what to do with this situation,” Sapkowski concluded. “Perhaps, taking the path of least resistance, I’ll erase the sentence about the ‘school’ from future editions of The Last Wish.
“Or maybe I’ll want to expand and clarify the matter somehow in subsequent books? Perhaps I’ll shed some light on the issue of Witcher medallions, their significance, and their connection to specific individuals? There are many possibilities, and the sky is the limit.”
Sapkowski’s comments come alongside the arrival of his latest Witcher novel, Crossroads of Ravens, in English nearly a year after its debut in Poland. Crossroads of Ravens is a new standalone prequel novel in The Witcher saga that takes place decades before both the games and the main novel saga. It follows a teenage Geralt of Rivia fresh from Kaer Morhen, and his early steps as a Witcher.
The Witcher Season 4, meanwhile, premieres on Netflix on October 30. Liam Hemsworth recently spoke about the recasting of Henry Cavill as Geralt, admitting reaction online forced him off social media and the internet.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Fans think they’ve uncovered proof that 2009 action game Prototype could be getting a new lease of life.
While the game has mostly remained dormant on Steam since its release 16 years ago, eagle-eyed fans spotted a flurry of updates behind the scenes via SteamDB, as well as a revealing datamine effort that has discovered a mysterious change to the game’s credits that adds in remaster studio, Iron Galaxy, and a curious reference to Ubisoft Connect.
That’s not all, though. “So one of the OG modders for the game data mined the recent update and has found a lot of interesting things,” StanleyMitchel explained on the game’s subreddit. “For Prototype 1, they have added some test maps and quite a few new names in the credits. There might be some hope for a remaster after all.”
They then linked to two text versions of the game’s credit roll, which highlights the changes. These include a new “downloadable content” team, another team for “Ubisoft Connect Version,” “Activision Localization,” “Demonware,” and finally, “Iron Galaxy Studios.” In all, 753 changes were made to the original credits list.
“One of the new studios in the credits worked in [sic] the Spyro remasters,” Nixson wrote on Discord. “This is 100% confirmed. They’re remastering the games. Likely using the same engine/code or some hybrid like Oblivion. There’s a lot of new names in the credits, mainly other Activision studios,” they added. “I’m starting to think the new Prototype game in-the-works thing may be true.”
As for the strange Ubisoft Connect reference? Don’t forget that when Microsoft acquired Activision as part of its historic $68.7 billion deal in 2023, Microsoft agreed to sell Activision’s cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft. So while none of this is confirmed, it’s possible Prototype is one of the games Ubisoft will be adding to its subscription service. Watch this space.
Prototype sees you take control of Alex Mercer, a dark, genetically mutated shape-shifter with no memory of his past, hell-bent on solving the mystery of his existence as he tears through New York City. We had a good time with it when it released way back in 2009, calling Prototype a “game with many cool features [but] lack[ing] many of the finishing touches that make for a great and memorable game.”
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.
Call of Duty: Warzone has promised a “bold new experience” will come to the battle royale next spring, inspired by Black Ops 4’s original battle royale mode, Blackout.
In a message posted to X/Twitter, the Call of Duty team appended an image of players dropping from the sky and the words: “Approaching the drop zone… Call of Duty: Warzone is bringing a bold new experience in Spring of 2026 inspired by the original Blackout, set on Avalon.”
The Blackout battle royale mode was released alongside Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Call of Duty’s “responsive and forgiving gunplay, nimble movement, and creative but practical equipment fit beautifully into the trendy last man standing format,” we said of Blackout in our 2018 review. Blackout was eventually superceded by COD’s dedicated battle royale experience, Call of Duty: Warzone, which was in turn spruced up in 2022, but there are plenty of fans who hold a special place in their hearts for the OG mode given the thousands of replies and likes the Twitter tease has received.
While there’s been no formal follow-up to any of the questions asking what, exactly, Activision means by the term “experience,” the publisher teased: “And here’s just a glimpse on what’s dropping into Call of Duty: Warzone:
Bold New Blackout Experience on Avalon
Rebirth Island Refresh
Verdansk Updates
Ranked Play
And MORE!
“Stay tuned for more information as we have more FREE content updates all next year!”
As for the next mainline Call of Duty game? Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 officially releases on November 14, 2025, for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One. Those hoping to try before they buy can test Treyarch’s updated formula October 5-8 via an open beta. Players willing to pre-order can get in on the action even earlier via an early access beta running October 2–5 — here’s when the closed and open betas goes live in your timezone.
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.
Magic: The Gathering’s latest set takes us through the Spider-Verse, and while yesterday we highlighted that Amazon’s Marvel’s Spider-Man booster box deal may not have been all it was cracked up to be, the retailer is back with a bona fide deal.
The Marvel’s Spider-Man bundle includes 9 Play Boosters. Ignoring the rest of what’s included, you’d be paying an inflated $7.77 for each pack, but the discount brings things down to $6.11.
That doesn’t take into account the rest of the contents, though. If you’re looking to build a Spidey-themed deck, the 30 included land cards (split between foil and non-foil) will help even your mana be correctly themed for this Universes Beyond set.
The exclusive alternate art card, for those unaware, is a foil version of Radioactive Spider, which is a 1/1 by itself but can be sacrificed to search your deck for a Spider Hero card.
Then there’s a slick deck box and a spindown life counter that comes in Spidey’s iconic red and blue coloring, making this a solid pickup for kicking off your Spider-Man MTG collection.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
As a life-long lover of sci-fi battle scenes, it is always a joy to order a fleet of dozens of starships of all shapes and sizes to hyper-jump to a neighboring planet, then zoom in and watch as they burst into existence on the other side, bearing down on the entrenched enemy as they scramble fighters and bring their guns to bear. It’s something we’ve seen play out many times in Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, and more, though few games let you control warfare between interstellar powers on the scale of Sins of a Solar Empire 2. It often takes hours of slow and steady management across layers of intimidatingly complex grand strategy systems to build up to those major confrontations, but the payoff is spectacular.
The important thing to know going in is that while this is a bewilderingly complicated real-time strategy/4X hybrid that lets you zoom from a view of an entire solar system down to an individual spaceship in a fleet of hundreds, you do not need to know everything about it to have a good time with it, or even win. I should know – after a few dozen hours playing largely against Unfair (the setting above hard) AI opponents, mostly in four-way free-for-alls, I’ve won more than I’ve lost even though I still have a lot to learn about the many, many differences both large and subtle between the six playable factions and how their fleets, structures, and upgrades interact. Unless you’re in this to mostly play at a high level against human opponents who’ve optimized their build orders and mastered the mechanics, once you get your head around the basics of building your economy, research, and fleet management, I’ve found that you can lean into the aspects that you enjoy most and all but ignore things you aren’t interested in, and still enjoy building your empire and crushing enemies.
Fundamentally, all six of Sins 2’s playable factions operate in a fairly similar way in that they all colonize planets, extract resources, build orbital structures for research and production, and have similar lineups of corvettes, frigates, cruisers, and capital ships, but beyond that their differences are significant and complex as hell. The two human TEC factions both generate money in part by setting up networks of trading outposts, but they come with different upgrades and bonuses that makes Enclave better suited for a defensive playstyle and Primacy more aggressive – among them, the Novalith Cannon superweapon that can bombard planets from across the solar system and the ability to earn money by sending in raiders. The Vasari Alliance, meanwhile, have no use for the TEC’s money at all and are focused on diplomacy with minor factions that let them periodically call in favors like reinforcements or upgrades, while their Exodus counterparts are the only faction that can completely destroy planets as they strip them for resources. The Advent Reborn and Wrath are big on resurrecting destroyed ships and mind-controlling enemies, respectively. All of that is a gross oversimplification, of course, but in the interest of avoiding turning this review into a mirror of the massive guides to each faction on the official site, rest assured that they’re pretty distinct. The list of unique technologies and items they all have access to means there’s a lot of replayability here just from trying out each one.
It really does look spectacular when major battles are joined and the lasers and missiles start flying.
If you played the classic 2008 Sins of a Solar Empire (or its half-step sequel Rebellion) Sins 2 may seem a bit unambitious when you first begin – at least, after you’ve stopped gawking at how much better and shinier all the ships look in an updated game engine that can handle cool things like all the rotating, target-tracking turrets you could ask for. It really does look spectacular when major battles are joined and the lasers and missiles start flying, but it takes a while to get to that point. The early hours of Sins 2 play very similarly to its 17-year-old predecessor: the routine of starting from a single world, exploring the map around you with automated scouts, and racing to colonize every planet and asteroid you can clear of local defenses with your chosen starting flagship and small fleet (as you research the technologies required to inhabit each planet type) is for the most part indistinguishable.
The main new wrinkle is presented by an exotic materials system that limits how quickly you can ramp up high-powered military assets like capital ships and starbases, but later on this becomes kind of irrelevant. At first they’re hard to come by, and you have to either unearth random ones from planets and asteroids you colonize or destroy enemy capital ships and salvage them – and because most major ships and starbases require a specific material, you may have to improvise with what’s available rather than go with your favorite ships out of the gate, which adds some variety from game to game. Eventually, though, you can research the ability to build refineries that slowly produce exotics out of the standard resources of metal and crystal you’ve extracted, and then you can build whatever you like – it’ll even auto-research the technologies and then produce the materials if you have the resources available, so all exotics really do after that point is add to build times.
In the midgame, Sins 2 really starts showing off what makes it different from the original.
When you reach the midgame, Sins 2 really starts showing off what makes it different from the original by layering on so many different systems that I had to play multiple, hours-long games before I came close to engaging with them all. Even having gone through an in-depth series of tutorials (there’s no traditional RTS story campaign in which to learn the ropes) and after over more than 40 hours of practice, it’s an overwhelming amount of things to keep track of: two parallel research trees with multiple paths, numerous planetary upgrades, buildable items you can equip on your individual capital ships and worlds, simple diplomacy with both player-controlled factions and independent worlds, culture expansion, resource management, pirate raids, other faction-specific mechanics like trade routes and castable powers, and unique Titan superships, among others. With the default settings, planets will even slowly orbit the sun in the center of the map at different rates, which sounds interesting but can be annoying if you forget to check the movement preview for a while and suddenly one of your worlds has drifted to the middle of enemy territory and is cut off from reinforcements. (It is, however, very funny when this happens to someone else.)
For that matter, everything in Sins 2 appears to be moving slowly when you’re watching a fleet glide across a planet’s gravity well before jumping to the next or a progress bar for research or construction fill up, but it’s deceptive in that there’s virtually always something you can be doing to improve your empire. Once you figure out which menus to peruse to manage equipment on individual planets, capital ships, and starbases, view and expand available build slots on your planets, search for which of the dozens of technologies to research next, keep tabs on your economy growth, and more, it can feel like things are moving too quickly to do all of that and build fleets to send on lengthy journeys to where they’re needed to defend or attack. It’s workable because the tools for organizing fleets are simple and mostly intuitive, with improvements such as letting you build reinforcements directly from a fleet’s menu instead of seeking out a shipyard, but I’m still glad that I’m allowed to pause time (in single-player) to figure things out.
It’s also a good thing that you don’t really have to micromanage your ships in combat if you don’t want to. You’ll certainly get more out of your battleships if you’re zooming in to manually do things like send out swarms of nanites to do damage over time, restore allies’ shields, or launch a massive missile salvo at a particularly bothersome enemy ship, but they’ll also auto-cast those abilities for you by default (as long as you’ve taken the time to choose which ones to unlock when a ship levels up). Similarly, precise positioning certainly matters because you can do things like keep your vulnerable ships outside the firing range of a starbase or stationary defensive turrets, and it’s always wise to try to save your experienced capital ships to fight another day by withdrawing from a fight before they’re destroyed (you’ll get frequent notifications when their shields are down or their hull is crippled, so it’s hard to miss those opportunities).
Wars are won on a logistical level by making sure your fleet is well supplied and fully upgraded.
But those maneuvers matter most when you’re fighting an equally matched opponent, and the key to victory is to never do that if you don’t have to: wars are won on a logistical level by making sure your fleet is well supplied and fully upgraded, and has a good composition of light frigates and heavy cruisers along with speedy fighters, corvettes, and long-range support craft all backing up your capital ships. All the micromanagement in the world can only take you so far when you’re outnumbered two to one because your enemy had more shipyards and a more powerful economy.
Granted, part of the reason I’ve been able to win most of my games without making full use of every tool at my disposal is because the rival empires’ AI tends to drop the ball in the late game. I’ve played multiple matches where enemy fleets would gang up on me by attacking on two fronts simultaneously and push me back to my core worlds, but then they’d back off while I still held enough territory to be able to rebuild my fleet. Eventually I was able to regroup and then steamroll them, even though they beat me to building the massive Titan warships at the very top of each faction’s tech tree.
It’s entirely possible that in these cases my opponents were too busy fighting each other to deal with me while I rebuilt my fleets, but the fact that neither took the time to deliver a killing blow to my home world and seize my territory when they had the chance seemed a little silly. Until that point, though, the AI puts up a good fight, with lots of opportunities for skirmishes and trading blows around border worlds.
In theory, Sins of a Solar Empire 2 works best as a multiplayer game because humans would have no such trouble going for the jugular. However, in practice I’ve never been able to actually finish a multiplayer game because of how long and involved they are. Even a “small” game of Sins 2 with two players on one of the pre-built or randomly generated maps is sprawling, involving dozens of planets and other heavenly bodies to fight over, which can take hours against an opponent who knows better than to leave his homeworld undefended; a large one can actually have multiple solar systems you can jump between and up to 10 players, so it’s quite a commitment for a group to see one through. To its credit, Sins 2 does allow for players to easily jump in and out, with AI taking over control of a faction until a human returns to pick up the reins again so you won’t be left unfulfilled if your opponents have other obligations to attend to.
All of this is before you get to the modding scene, which is busily churning out conversions that let you add Star Destroyers, Battlestars, and Romulan Warbirds (among many others) to the mix using the built-in mod manager. If the original Sins of a Solar Empire is anything to go by, that community will keep giving us new fan-pleasing toys to play with for a very long time – maybe even decades – to come.
One of the lost arts in the fighting game genre is a good, meaty single-player mode that’s there in addition to your standard arcade runthrough or story mode. And no, Street Fighter 6’s “We have Yakuza at home” World Tour doesn’t count. Think Soul Calibur’s excellent Weapon Master or Guilty Gear’s absolutely bonkers M.O.M. The art isn’t gone – Tekken 8’s awesome Arcade Quest is right there – but it’s on life support. I got the chance to sit down with My Hero Academia: All’s Justice at Tokyo Game Show, and what I played of its Team-Up Missions just might be the shot in the arm fighting games need – at least when it comes to single-player modes.
VR but Not VR
What makes All Justice’s spin on this unique is that the whole thing is an original story developed in conjunction with the creators of the manga and the anime. The other interesting thing here is that it all takes place inside a virtual reality program. But All’s Justice isn’t just doing its best Metal Gear Solid 2 impression, and this isn’t just a string of fights. You’ll be exploring the virtual world of All’s Justice, too. In fact, I found running around, doing side quests, and just enjoying The Vibe to be as compelling as My Hero Academia’s brawls. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s load up my VR tour from the start.
My journey began with Izuku “Deku” Midoriya and Toshinori “All Might” Yagi exploring the VR world of the Team-Up Missions when they get a call from Mei Hatsume, who needs your help to fix a Nomu whose programming has gone haywire. Sounds like a job for a superhero, so off I go. After a quick battle against the Nomu that serves as a very basic tutorial, the rest of Class 1-A shows up to back Deku up. From there, I was cut loose for a couple more missions and allowed to explore the world.
The coolest thing about All’s Justice is that you’re not just running from one map marker to the another looking for The Next Thing.
The coolest thing about All’s Justice is that you’re not just running from one map marker to the another looking for The Next Thing. In fact, Deku and I quickly got sidetracked. We were supposed to be training with All Might when Ochaco “Uravity” Uraraka called and asked for my help, so I whipped my way over to her. See, you can use each hero’s Quirks (If you’re unfamiliar with My Hero Academia, a Quirk is a person’s superpower) to navigate the world. That means that when you’re Deku, you’re swinging around like some kind of Legally Distinct Spider-Man. When I arrived, I found that Uraraka was helping a little girl look for her lost cat. All right, My Hero Academia. I’m immediately charmed. We saw the cat up on the roof; the only problem was getting there. While Deku’s Definitely Not Web-Slinging is great for getting around, it’s not really ideal for leaping a tall building in a single bound and rescuing a lost kitty.
Good thing we’re playing Team-Up Missions, huh? A quick switch to Uravity and one use of anti-gravity powers later, and I was up, up, and away and soon reuniting a very happy little girl with her adorable cat. Producer Aoba Miyazaki told me that this stuff was key to nailing the feeling of My Hero Academia. Battles are important, yeah, but the series is also about high school students learning to be heroes, and that means being in that world and interacting with those people was just as important.
Friendly Neighborhood Superteam
Cat saved, it was time to train with All Might. We were essentially playing Hide and Seek: we’d complete tasks assigned by Pro Heroes and get the clues we needed to find All Might. Turn us loose on the world, All Justice’s. We’re ready. And if the whole saving the cat thing wasn’t a clue, not everything’s going to be a fight.
Don’t get me wrong: All Justice’s is still an arena fighter, and if you’ve played one, you know what to expect. You’ve got your basic combos, unblockable attacks, special moves that vary between characters, a super-powered mode known as Rising, and your Plus Ultra ultimate attacks. You can also tag in your partners mid-combo when you absolutely, positively have to rearrange someone’s face. It’s great fun, even if you’re just scraping by while Endeavor is pummelling you and you’re trying to remember the controls. I was yelling “It’s fine!” a lot during the fights when it was most assuredly not fine, but I clutched them out.
But there was other stuff, too. One time, I had to race to the top of a building before time ran out, but Ochaco couldn’t just float up to it. We had to find buildings we could use as stepping stones to get us where we needed to be. And everyone has their own different traversal options. Froppy can climb up buildings because she’s essentially a frog. Bakugo can use his explosions to boost himself to higher places. Koda can speak to animals, and that can help you out, too. I didn’t get to see that one in action, but I bet it’s great for finding cats.
There are also lots of side missions, both with other heroes and regular citizens. At one point, I was walking down an alley when a random villain pulled up, looking to throw down. Let me tell you, that dude came to the wrong neighborhood. I sent him flying through like an entire rack full of bikes, which became kind of a running theme. Deku and his friends are heroes, but if you own a bicycle, these dudes are a menace. Well, at least when I’m piloting him.
Superhero Around Town
There are also buildings to heal up your team between battles, but Miyazaki told me that there are also challenge gyms if you’re looking for something tougher. In addition, the map for the main story and the Team-Up Missions are connected, so you can transfer from one mode to the other by just running around. She also told me that completing the Team-Up Missions unlocks two other modes: Archives mode and Hero Diaries. You can play out iconic fights from the series in the former, and the latter lets you see what the Class 1-A crew is up to outside of the anime, just like the Team-Up Missions. What I played of the Team-Up Missions was already charming, but it’s great that there’s more to unlock if you complete them all.
We did eventually track down All Might, and then we had to fight him. You can have up to three characters on your team at any one time, but for this battle, I just had Deku and Uravity. Against All Might, the Big Bad Booty Daddy of My Hero Academia himself. Things started… badly. I almost got happy birthday’d when I made a bad tag and All Might caught both Ochaco and Izuku at the same time, draining about two-thirds of my health with a single combo. I popped Rising mode immediately to try to stay alive, and whittled him down until, at low health, I landed the perfect hit, turned that into a tag combo, and ended with a Plus Ultra that finished All Might off on the very last hit. It was a blast, and a great way to end my time with All’s Justice.
I left My Hero Academia: All’s Justice impressed with the fisticuffs, but also its dedication to building a world where you’re actively being a hero, not just punching something. Like fighting games themselves, being a superhero isn’t just about fights; the stuff between brawls matters, too. My Hero Academia’s cast isn’t just a bunch of Quirked-up pugilists; they’re learning how to be heroes, and that means helping people. Sometimes, saving the cat is the most heroic thing you can do.
The Mortal Kombat series has been kicking around (and pulling out gory human insides) for several decades now. It spans over two dozen entries and numerous gaming platforms. It’s a cultural behemoth. To celebrate the history of this over-the-top violent fighting game franchise, Insight Editions is set to release a new book on October 21. It’s called Mortal Kombat: Flawless Victory – A Visual History of the Iconic Series, by Ian Flynn, and it’s available to preorder now (see it at Amazon).
The book is packed with behind-the-scenes artwork ranging from the concept stages to the final products. You get close looks at beloved characters like Scorpion, Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, and Sub-Zero, as well as the stages and environments that make up the series. It also has exclusive interviews with the development teams that go into what it takes to design a series like Mortal Kombat.
Here’s a look at some of the pages you’ll find in the book, including some never-before-released exclusive spreads.
And if you want more, you can check out the slideshow below.
For more new books, check out our picks for the 10 best books of September. There are some big new releases, like Dan Brown’s The Secret of Secrets, which brings back the Da Vinci Code’s Robert Langdon, and Richard Osman’s latest in The Thursday Murder Club series.
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.
As a Yakuza fan, I’ve recommended the series from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, otherwise known as RGG, to plenty of people, but it has long come with one big caveat: Yakuza 3. It’s not that there is anything necessarily wrong with it, but with high-quality remakes of the first games in the series, and the more modern and refined graphics and gameplay of the newer entries, it has stood out a bit as a bit of an odd duck, looking and playing worse than the games before and after. However, with the just-announced Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties, a twin pack combining a remade Yakuza 3 alongside a brand-new companion game, that might all be about to change. I had a chance to play both at Tokyo Game Show 2025, and I came away impressed by how much RGG Studio is trying to improve and expand on the original.
Yakuza Kiwami 3
Yakuza Kiwami 3 isn’t just an up-rezzed port; it’s a full remake. Everything is rebuilt, from the graphics to the combat to the new cut scenes and voice acting – including some modern motion capture to better bring the characters to life. While it will still follow the story of Yakuza 3, some scenes will play out differently or expand. It’s an ambitious agenda, but probably the right one to bring the now 16-year-old game to modern audiences.
My hands-on begins with Kazuma Kiryu chopping wood outside the Morning Glory Orphanage, where he was raised and now runs, in Okinawa. The modern graphics look great as he swings his axe, his sweat glistening in crisp 4K (for those that are into that sort of thing). After the events of Yakuza 2, he’s moved on from being a Yakuza and is trying to live a peaceful life running the orphanage. An eviction notice arrives, and Kiryu heads into town to confront the head of the Ryudo family, the owners of the land on which the orphanage is built. He runs into Rikiya Shimabukuro, a member of the Ryudo clan and, naturally, a brawl ensues, giving us our first taste of the updated battle system.
Charging Kiriyu’s Heat Gauge to execute brutal finishers like smashing a chair on an opponent’s head never gets old.
Kiriyu has two fighting styles to employ. The first is Dragon of Dojima, his classic brawling style, mixing punches, kicks, throws, and environmental weapons like street signs, traffic cones, and even the odd bicycle when the opportunity presents itself. It’s as flashy as ever, and charging Kiriyu’s Heat Gauge to execute brutal finishers like smashing a chair on an opponent’s (in this case, Rikiya’s) head never gets old. The real magic comes when I switch to his brand new Ryukyu style, however. This style is rooted in Okinawan culture, and while using it, Kiryu combos through eight different weapons, like a pair of tonfa, a weighted chain, or, my personal favorite, a boat oar. I put away my opponent with a mix of all of the above, which was enough to convince Rikiya to direct me towards where to find his boss.
This opened up an opportunity for a bit of open-world exploration, which I took full advantage of, exploring a nearby street market, beating up some ruffians with a crowbar, and taking in a quick round of a golf mini-game. Okinawa looks great on the modern engine, and getting around was a breeze thanks to the new Street Surfer Mk. 0, a Segway-like rideable that Kiryu seems to be able to summon out of thin air for some quick joyriding. Zooming around on that, hopping off to beat the snot out of some goons with my tiny shield (also part of the Ryukyu set), then making a speedy getaway was so Yakuza in the best way.
Finally, I turned my attention back to the main story. As Rikiya escorts me to his headquarters, we are interrupted by a commotion as a rival family trashes a local market, taking the shop owner hostage. Kiriyu, sweet guy that he is, agrees to help, leading to a massive nine-vs-two melee, as he and Rikiya take on the boss and his lackeys. This really showcased how much more refined the combat is, as I was able to take advantage of the smooth movement and dodging, creating windows to bash the bad guys and escape, with a slick double-team KO of one poor crony eating a massive kick to the face from Kiryi while restrained by Rikiya.
My time in Yakuza Kiwami 3 ended there, but I barely scratched the surface of everything new coming to it. There will be more personal moments with supporting characters, time dedicated to running the daily operations at the orphanage and taking care of the kids, even a new team battle mode where you build your own biker gang to fight for turf with others.
Dark Ties
The bigger surprise of the Yakuza Kiwami 3 announcement was the reveal of Dark Ties, an all-new companion story to the main game. This places you in the role of Yoshitaka Mine, the antagonist of Yakuza 3. Dark Ties covers Mine’s rise from a disgraced businessman, driven from his own tech startup, to the underworld boss that acts as Kazuma’s foil in Yakuza 3.
His story begins with Mine reflecting on his life and the loneliness that drove him to pursue wealth and influence. By happenstance, he witnesses a deadly fight between rival Yakuza families, and seeing the bond of men willing to die for their boss, Daigo Dojima, acts as a catalyst, and he sets out to see if he can find that same loyalty in the criminal underworld.
My demo takes place early in the game, with Mine tracking down Tsuyoshi Kanda, an infamous Yakuza just released from prison. Mine hopes Kanda will be his entry point to begin his own rise, though as is Yakuza tradition, you don’t go more than a few early steps before some punks decide to pick a fight. Apparently, Mine’s suitcase looks expensive, and they want whatever is inside. A bad decision.
The core battle system is roughly the same as Yakuza 3, but with a few significant twists. Mine’s fighting style is very different from Kiryu’s, relying heavily on quick boxing combos, technical wrestling moves, and new aerial attacks. He can jump and plant a foot on the chest of one enemy, then leap to another, dishing out damage all around as he delivers an array of flying moves, like springboard jump kicks or mid-air tackles. They look very cool, and make for a fun bit of planning ahead as you scope out which enemies to latch onto and jump towards.
The core battle system is roughly the same as Yakuza 3, but with a few significant twists.
In addition to the standard Heat Gauge that fills up to enable special moves, Mine has three chained hearts that fill up as he lands attacks. Once at least one is full, he can activate a powerful buffed mode called Dark Awakening. This functions like a new fighting style, with a different moveset unleashing extremely powerful attacks. More than one chained heart can be activated at once, increasing the potency of Dark Awakening. It’s a neat twist to make Mine’s gameplay more distinct, and tapping into the rage behind his calm exterior fits his character well.
It quickly became clear these punks picked the wrong suitcase to try to snatch, as I knocked them senseless to the cheers of onlookers who witnessed the attempted robbery. With the ruffians handled, I’m given the option to head to the prison to track down Kanda or kill some time exploring the city. This sorry mission seems important, so naturally I… immediately go find a karaoke bar to sing a song. Hey, it is Yakuza after all. I rent the room, and Mine pours his heart and soul into his solo performance, which is really funny given his normally extremely stoic nature. I nail rhythm on my button presses, delivering a perfect performance befitting a man of Mine’s talents.
Buoyed by my outstanding singing, I decide it’s time to get down to business and try to hail a cab to the prison where Kanda is being released. One more group of punks tries to stop me (nothing a fireman’s carry followed by a quick kick to the face couldn’t solve), and I find myself outside of the prison as Kanda takes out his frustration on his paltry, two-man welcoming committee. Kanda is penniless, his branch of the Yakuza family disgraced. As Mine tails him through the streets of Kamurocho, my hands-on time ends just as he rounds a corner to meet his future right-hand man for the first time.
As a sucker for a good organized crime story, I’m definitely intrigued to see how much we get to witness Mine channel his inner Vito Corleone and build his criminal empire from the ground up, especially if it means some proper bromance time with Mine and Diago. The fact that it comes as part of the package with Yakuza Kiwami 3 is great, and I’m excited to see how it all turns out when Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties release on February 12, 2026.
I was very pleasantly surprised when a new Thief game was announced at Sony’s June 2025 State of Play. It’s one of my favorite franchises — I am still of the opinion that Thief II: The Metal Age is the best stealth game ever made – and it’s been dormant since 2014’s fairly forgettable Thief. That entry in the series was probably most notable not for what it included but what it didn’t: namely, voice actor Stephen Russell, who’s provided the titular thief’s voice and wry attitude since the original back in 1998.
And so Thief VR already starts off on the right foot by including Russell as Garrett – even if you don’t play as him. Rather, you play another prowler named Magpie in events set between Thief: Deadly Shadows and Thief (2014). I played the tutorial mission and then a later one, with a developer politely refusing to spoil how Garrett factors in, only that he and Magpie become joined somehow at an early point in the campaign. From a context clue I heard in the second mission I played, it sounds like Garrett’s spirit or soul might be trapped in some kind of trinket that Magpie wears (after presumably stealing it).
Anyway, Thief has always been about stealth in its purest form, meaning: steal as much loot as possible and don’t get spotted, because if you do, you aren’t physically powerful enough to kill almost anyone. And based on what I’ve played so far, Legacy of Shadow seems to get and fully embrace this. Quite simply, there are valuables everywhere here. On tables, in chests (both locked and unlocked) – even on top of those fancy beds that have a “roof” on them. Keeping a keen eye out for goodies to stuff into your pockets (by way of grabbing them with your VR controller and putting them into an imaginary loot bag on your hip) will satisfy the inner kleptomaniac in any of us. In fact, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the numerous times there were multiple loot items in a single spot – say, two valuable chalices – and I did something that only a Thief VR game could allow me to do: grab them both at the same time, like some insatiable loot-hording goblin.
I couldn’t help but chuckle at something that only a Thief VR game could allow me to do: grab them both at the same time, like some insatiable loot-hording goblin.
Speaking of unique VR modifications to gameplay, I really like the way you can go about knocking out unaware (and unhelmeted) guards in Legacy of Shadow when you’re sneaking around crouched: by first swinging your blackjack at their knees to bring them down to theirs, and then whacking them on the back of the head. And yes, you can reach your hand out, grab them by the ankle, and drag them into darkness in order to hide the unconscious bodies. Lockpicking, meanwhile, has you take your pick out from your inventory, insert it into the lock, and then grab both pieces with both hands and rotate until they get into a narrow zone. It’s a good VR-ification of Thief’s classic mechanic. Also, just as in the other Thief games, you’ve got a light gem that shows you how visible you are, though here it’s on your hand since that’s the most organic form of a UI for VR.
Because Legacy of Shadow is set farther along in the Thief timeline, the light-giving torches of the early games have been replaced by electric lights, meaning you can’t snuff them out with one of your water arrows. Yes, if you were wondering (as I sure was) if Thief’s classic arrow types would return, most of them indeed have! In addition to regular arrows — used as a last murderous resort that will leave a noticeable bloodstain on the floor – the fire, water, and rope arrows are back. No word on the moss arrows that were useful to fire at cobblestone floors in the old Thief games to muffle the sound of your footsteps as you slunk about.
And speaking of dousing lights, some rooms have lit candles providing illumination. Not only can you pinch them out with your fingers via the VR controller, but my demo guide told me that in the final version, the PSVR 2’s microphone will be incorporated, allowing you to blow out the candles (note: Thief VR is also being released for Steam VR and Meta Quest). Another VR-specific touch: you can find loose non-valuables like plates or pottery to toss across the room, causing them to shatter and luring any nearby guards to investigate.
OK, so Thief VR has all the right tools, but does it know how to use them? Based on the mission I played – I’m not going to go into detail on the tutorial level, as it was really just to (obviously) get me up to speed on Legacy of Shadow’s mechanics – this longtime Thief fan is going to answer with a resounding “Yes!” thus far. The goal in this mission was to steal a relic from inside a large, well-guarded manor. And by well-guarded I’m talking about plenty of guards patrolling the grounds outside as well as a bright searchlight that pans back and forth across the premises and an alarm system that will sound off if you’re spotted.
Just getting in was a chore. My instinct in every Thief game is to try and figure out how to stealthily take down every guard. After a few failed attempts, I won’t say that wasn’t possible here, but I had to be wary of the time constraints of my one-hour demo appointment. So I reluctantly snuck past the patrolling guards outside until I could reach the side of the manor, where I was able to use protruding stones in the masonry as climbing points to grab onto and mantle my way up to an open window.
Once inside, I found loot – so, so much loot – and a bookcase puzzle that required me to pull books with sentence-like titles on their spines in a specific order. It turned out that the solution was inscribed on a painting on the opposite side of the room, but before I noticed that, I was able to put the phrases together into a cohesive poem of sorts, which granted me access to a key I’d need later. I next needed to get downstairs, leaving me two choices: the stairs, which meant getting by a patrolling guard; or down a chimney, at the base of which was a roaring fire. (On this note, having multiple paths to get everywhere is another classic Thief tenet that Legacy of Shadow seems to absolutely nail.) I chose the latter, physically reaching over my shoulder with my PSVR2 controller, grabbing my bow, and then reaching my other hand over my other shoulder to get and ready a water arrow. I aimed down the chimney, loosed the arrow, and snuffed out the flames, allowing me to safely descend to the first floor undetected.
I took out a couple guards on the ground level using the aforementioned kneecap-to-neck-whack one-two blackjack combo, then reached the library room housing the relic I sought. It was in an elevated glass case in the center of the room, very prominently displayed. But when I approached my prize, a security measure activated, sending the relic and its display down a level to the basement via a pulley system its platform was rigged to.
But before I could go down, I had to go back up – to the second floor of this very study, which had a fuse box way up high that I needed to pull in order to disable the relic’s security system. Another VR moment ensued: after climbing a ladder up against the wall of books, I had to hand-over-hand my way along bars hanging down from the ceiling in order to access the fuse box at the very top of this high-ceilinged space.
Once I snuck down to the basement – via a main hallway I’d already knocked out the guard of – I simply had to sneak past one last guard. Except this one was sleeping. I snuck around behind his chair, stood up, took out my blackjack, and…saw at the last moment that he was wearing a helmet, which almost certainly meant that whacking him over the back of the head would only wake him up and piss him off rather than send him into a deeper state of unconsciousness. Moving along and into the relic’s safe room, I this time had no more opposition from either man or security system, grabbed the relic, and then simply had to escape, which meant going back upstairs, outside, and past those pesky patrols and their searchlight again. I remained annoyed at myself for not taking them out in the beginning, but I did successfully reach the exit.
There were a few secondary objectives I very badly wanted to go back and achieve – like finding a secret loot room in the basement and burning the hanging banners of the manor’s lord – that I knew I didn’t have time to do in my limited time. Yet again, Thief VR gets kudos from me for respecting that critical part of Thief’s past: having more to do than just the main quest, and making it fun to want to make that extra effort. Anyway, I look forward to taking my sweet time to check everything off of my to-do list in the final version of Legacy of Shadow later this year.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
Rumi, Mira and Zoey — the KPop Demon Hunters trio better known as HUNTR/X — will all land in Fortnite this week on October 2, and star in Demon Rush, a special version of the game’s fan-favorite Horde Rush mode.
In Demon Rush, you’ll work together with your party and the HUNTR/X trio to survive against waves of demons — a change from previous incarnations of Horde Rush. You’ll also, of course, be able to pick up Rumi (and Mira and Zoey!) in the Fortnite Shop.
While Horde Rush typically goes live during Fortnitemares, the game’s annual Halloween celebration, Fortnite’s big new KPop Demon Hunters collaboration will arrive as a separate offering, in less than 48 hours’ time.
Indeed, Demon Rush is already visible within Fortnite itself if you head to the game’s Discover tile — which also shows a countdown for the mode officially going live.
Released this summer to enormous success, KPop Demon Hunters has smashed Netflix records to become the streaming service’s most watched title ever, with more than 325 million views. A special sing-along version of the film is also now available, and Netflix is already preparing to capitalize on the film’s success with plans for a live-action remake, a stage musical and sequels.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
