She arrived in Fortnite back in April as the Season 8 Icon for Fortnite Festival, instantly derailing the battle royale with Jam Tracks like Juno and Nonsense, plus a skin that had players laying down their weapons just to vibe. The chaos came bundled with cosmetics, a themed outfit, and something called “A Sweet Little Bundle”, because of course it did.
Her new album, Man’s Best Friend, drops August 29 and follows the global success of Short n’ Sweet. Preorders are already live at all the usual suspects, including Amazon and Walmart. Amazon’s even got an exclusive Translucent Light Brown Vinyl LP for $33, plus a Light Blue Cassette for $18, and an Audio CD for $14, because physical media is well and truly on a comeback, and honestly, it’s about time.
With the new album up for preorder, Sabrina’s likely going from virtual peacekeeper to real-world chart-topper all over again this year (in my humble opinion, at least).
Alongside the pop star’s inclusion earlier in April 2025, Epic’s still busy throwing ideas at the wall to keep Fortnite sticky, whether it’s superhero seasons, that bizarre Star Wars mode with zero actual ammo, or the new Blitz Royale experiment.
Player numbers have dipped since last year’s chaos-fuelled highs, Squid Game maps, Doctor Doom boss fights, Times Square concerts, and an in-game spectacle starring Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Ice Spice, and Juice Wrld, but there’s movement again.
Whether any of this helps Fortnite claw back ground from Roblox hits like Grow a Garden remains to be seen. But if getting Sabrina Carpenter in-game helped start that rebound? Epic won’t mind riding the vibe a little longer.
Survival horror is finally coming home. Raccoon City is the setting for the classic Resident Evil games, its awesome remakes, and some surprisingly relevant spinoffs. As far as iconic locations in zombie fiction go, Raccoon City easily hangs in the hallowed company of holy horror spaces like the Monroeville Mall and the Winchester pub.
Just as it seemed that Resident Evil had definitively closed the book on RC, Capcom announced a return to the ruins of Raccoon City for the ninth main entry in its seminal survival horror series. For longtime fans, Resident Evil Requiem feels like it could be a joyous reunion…
But life in Raccoon City can be… complicated. Infrequent visitors might find themselves asking questions like “Where am I?” “What the heck happened here?” “Does the world know about the miraculous healing powers of colored herbs?” and “Why do I have to put jewels in a statue when I go to the DMV?”
That’s why we’ve assembled this ultimate field guide to Raccoon City. We’ll explore RC’s behind-the-scenes history, discuss everything that went down in the games, unpack the town’s enduring appeal, and solve a few mysteries along the way.
Why “Raccoon City?”
Introduced in the opening seconds of the original Resident Evil, or “Bio Hazard” in Japan, “Raccoon City” had an important role to play in establishing the series.
Resident Evil’s predecessor, the Japan-only Famicom game Sweet Home, took place in a haunted mansion in the Japanese countryside. Producer Tokuro Fujiwara wanted to remake the 8-bit cult classic for a new generation of consoles, but Capcom no longer had the rights to the film from which Sweet Home was adapted.
So Fujiwara and director Shinji Mikami reworked the concept to center around zombies instead of haunted paintings, envisioning the game as an interactive horror movie, complete with a haunting score, cinematic pre-rendered backgrounds, and jump scares a-plenty. Instead of taking inspiration from supernatural, psychological J-horror such as Sweet Home, the developers instead looked toward the West.
Resident Evil clearly owes a massive debt to George A. Romero, the godfather of the zombie genre who shot his movies in the small cities surrounding Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Setting the game in a fictional Anytown, U.S.A. allowed Capcom to capture the vibe of classics like Dawn of the Dead and create inroads to a Western audience more effectively than any live-action FMV sequence with cheesy American actors
Early drafts of Bio Hazard had the action taking place in a town called “Harnbee,” located in either New Jersey or Arkansas. Capcom ultimately decided to name the city after an animal, which isn’t strange by itself, as the fine folks from Buffalo, New York or Dinosaur, Colorado will tell you. Still, adorable trash pandas seem like an odd choice for spine-chilling survival horror.
One longstanding theory is that Capcom was referencing the species of “raccoon dog” called tanuki, which Western gamers might be familiar with from its presence in Japanese folklore and pop culture. These cute little guys look a lot like raccoons, save for some slight anatomical differences, and they’ve quite frequently appeared in video games. So could “Raccoon City” just be a localized version of “Tanuki Town?” It’s not likely.
For one thing, tanuki aren’t even raccoons at all as far as taxonomy is concerned. More importantly, the original Bio Hazard refers to its setting as “Rakūn Shiti,” using the English transliteration of “raccoon” as opposed to “tanuki” or “araiguma,” the Japanese word for the actual species. With Raccoon City, Capcom is very specifically referring to the North American mammals. But why?
Raccoons aren’t native to Japan, but in the ‘70s, a popular anime called Rascal the Raccoon led to tons of Japanese people importing the little critters to keep as pets. This was not a good idea, as anyone who has to deal with these feral, garbage eating creatures can tell you, and today, raccoons are classified as an “invasive alien species” that causes millions of dollars in damages to crops and wildlife all throughout Japan.
Were the mindless swarms of flesh-devouring zombies that infest “Raccoon City” inspired by these destructive varmints? Could it be a commentary on America’s less-than-stellar reputation on the global stage, or at least the behavior of its most obnoxious tourists? It’s certainly possible, but it’s unlikely that a game that’s such a loving homage to American horror films would make that kind of dig. The real answer is probably more simple: the mansion is in a forest, Raccoons live in the forest, hence “Raccoon Forest,” which in turn gave the city its name.
In the end, Capcom wanted to make a zombie game set in the U.S. and came up with a plausible-sounding place for it to happen. There’s no hidden meaning or dark secret lurking at the heart of Raccoon City… At least, behind the scenes. Within the world of Resident Evil, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface.
Raccoon Rising
Nestled in the Arklay mountains, bordered by the sprawling Raccoon Forest to the north, was a small midwestern town called Raccoon City. Founded in the 1800s, RC was largely unremarkable until the end of the swinging ‘60s, when its struggling economy was revitalized by a corporate benefactor that would one day bring about its total destruction.
In 1968, three best buds with a crazy dream got together to form the Umbrella Corporation. The plan? To create a superior breed of humans through twisted science. While none of the deeply unpleasant men who founded Umbrella had any deep ties to Raccoon City, Oswald E. Spencer just so happened to have some valuable real estate that would be perfect for their evil ambitions.
A few years earlier, in 1962, Sir Spencer commissioned a famous New York architect named George Trevor to build his dream home in Arklay County. Situated above a sprawling limestone cavern large enough to host a secret underground laboratory, the mansion was to be a recreation of Spencer’s childhood estate back in England… with a few twists.
Trevor made his name designing intricate buildings with traps, secret passageways, and tricksy puzzles– the kinds of gimmicks that make lunatics like Spencer (and strategy guide writers) squeal. As the mansion neared completion in 1967, Spencer grew more paranoid, as evil masterminds tend to do. He was convinced that Trevor would reveal his secrets, so he convinced the architect to bring his family to Raccoon City and conspired to wipe them all out.
Spencer infected Trevor’s wife Jessica and daughter Lisa with the Progenitor Virus, precursor to the T-virus, the manmade zombie plague that would later doom Raccoon City. Jessica died, and was entombed beneath the mansion. Lisa survived, but mutated into a shambling, nigh-unkillable monstrosity. Umbrella kept Lisa prisoner for 28 years, experimenting on her to produce even deadlier concoctions like the G-virus.
As for old George Trevor himself, he wound up trapped in a labyrinth of his own making. According to his diary, while searching for his family he actually forgot the solutions to the puzzles he created, which is relatable if nothing else. Unable to juggle all the crests, keys, and cranks that unlocked the Spencer Mansion, Trevor died of thirst and starvation deep within the bowels of his final masterpiece.
With those loose ends somewhat messily tied up, Umbrella was free to continue with its mad science, thriving within a blissfully unaware Raccoon City. The town was growing rapidly, and the jobs provided by Umbrella paid for some much-needed infrastructure. Founded in 1969, the Raccoon Police Department eventually purchased a palatial art museum to convert into its headquarters at the urging of future chief (and madman) Brian Irons.
Now safe under the watchful eye of a deranged serial killer, the growing population soon enjoyed the benefits of a zoo and its adorable mascot, Mr. Raccoon, a kick-ass public transit system, a training school for gifted youngsters, a university, a bustling downtown shopping district, and at least one pro football team. Give it up for your Raccoon City… Sharks? RC also hosted a thriving media industry that somehow sustained eight newspapers and a TV news network, all cut down in their prime twenty years before the pivot to video.
Umbrella kept the city’s economic blood pumping with its legit industries above ground, but the real money came from the top secret research it conducted under Raccoon City’s nose. The eugenicist vision of Spencer and the founders was largely replaced with the extremely lucrative industry of creating bio-organic weapons (B.O.W.s) for the highest bidder. Deadly as they are, the Hunters, Lickers, and Chimera Umbrella churned out by the truckload were merely the beta versions of its ultimate creation, the mighty Tyrant.
In the early ‘90s, Umbrella cemented its hold on Raccoon City by pouring tons of money into a revitalization project called “Bright Raccoon 21.” It built hospitals and orphanages, renovated the landmark clock tower, and recruited a special ops police unit called S.T.A.R.S. in 1996. It also took the opportunity to construct not one but two secret NEST facilities underground, where scientist William Birkin was hard at work on the G-virus.
Umbrella owned the mayor, the police department, and employed 40% of the city’s 100,000 citizens. It had infected Raccoon City like one of its patented viruses, transforming the rust-belt industrial town into a bustling metropolis under the iron grip of Umbrella.
This didn’t last very long.
The Raccoon City Destruction Incident
The situation began spiraling out of Umbrella’s control in early 1998, when strange occurrences around Raccoon City started drawing unwanted attention. Strange dogs with wet, decaying flesh were spotted in the woods, and a series of grisly murders seemingly committed by cannibals had residents spooked about a possible death cult lurking in the forest.
The heat made Umbrella nervous, so it called upon its intelligence agent extraordinaire, Albert Wesker. As the company man in charge of S.T.A.R.S., he was to lead the unit on a sham investigation to clean up the mess and retrieve precious combat data, the single most valuable commodity in the Resident Evil universe. Wesker, magnificent bastard that he is, was plotting to ditch Umbrella at the first opportunity, but he complied with his orders.
On the 23rd of July, 1998, the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team helicopter crashed in the forest, courtesy of Wesker’s sabotage. The man in the shades personally led Alpha team on a so-called rescue mission that trapped them in the iconic foyer of the Spencer Mansion. As the events of Resident Evil 1 play out, S.T.A.R.S. members Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine battle through zombies and B.O.W.s, discover the hidden lab beyond the manor walls, and learn of Umbrella’s role in the slaughter.
As Bravo Team rookie Rebecca Chambers discovered in the extremely mid prequel, Resident Evil 0, the Mansion outbreak was the work of Umbrella co-founder James Marcus, or rather, a mutated leech posing as the murdered magnate. She reunites with Jill and Chris, only to be betrayed by Wesker, who unleashes Umbrella’s apex weapon on his former comrades. Wesker is seemingly skewered by the Tyrant, which is destroyed by a deus ex rocket launcher courtesy of cowardly pilot Brad “Chickenheart” Vickers, as the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members (and a chemically-enhanced Wesker) escape the exploding facility.
Umbrella immediately went to work covering its tracks, hushing up any media murmurs and bribing Chief Irons to discredit and disband S.T.A.R.S. The corporation’s containment efforts were about as successful outside of the lab as in it, and the walls were closing in. Sightings of monsters in the Arklay region continued, growing ever closer to the town as summer turned to fall. William Birkin had seen enough.
The man behind the mutagenic G-virus was preparing to hand over his research to the U.S. government, in exchange for a clean slate and protection for himself, his wife Annette and daughter Sherry. Umbrella caught wind of his intentions and dispatched a spec-ops task force to NEST on September 22nd. In the ensuing firefight, Birkin injected himself with his G-virus, transforming into a body horror monstrosity and releasing T-virus samples among the city’s rats and into the water supply. Raccoon City would be overrun within days.
The military descended on the city in a failed attempt to contain the disease, while Umbrella dispatched its own private mercenary group, the UBCS, to contain the situation. Umbrella also made the most of the opportunity to test new B.O.W.s, airdropping a Nemesis pursuer and handful of Tyrants into the chaos to dispatch unwanted survivors, recapture the G-virus, and explore their combat capabilities in a disaster scenario of its own design.
By the 28th of September, the RPD had fallen and the army had all but abandoned Raccoon City. Those who remained alive did whatever they could to survive the outbreak, often in episodic scenarios perfectly suited for online co-op sessions. On the 29th, a rookie cop with heartthrob hair arrived in Raccoon City, late for his first day on the job and somehow unaware of the destruction that lurked within. Welcome to Resident Evil 2.
Leon Kennedy linked up with Claire Redfield, a young woman searching for her brother Chris, who was off in Europe doing his own research on Umbrella. Together, the two sought refuge in the zombie-infested RPD, evading “Mr. X” and a mutated William Birkin with help from Ada Wong, an agent working for Umbrella’s unnamed corporate rival. Together, they storm the NEST, rescue Birkin’s daughter Sherry, witness Ada’s apparent demise, defeat their tormentors, and haul ass out of the self-destructing facility on a speeding train.
Resident Evil 3 revealed that Jill Valentine was trapped in town while all this was going down, her last escape halted by the relentless Nemesis, programmed to murder any remaining S.T.A.R.S. members. Jill teams up with Carlos Oliveira and his ragtag group of UBCS spooks to infiltrate the secondary NEST facility and find a vaccine. The Nemesis is destroyed, along with any potential T-virus cure, and Jill and Carlos flee the city shortly before its destruction.
On October 1, the U.S. government decided to wash its hands of Raccoon City by wiping it off the map. The President ordered the launch of an experimental thermobaric missile to destroy the town, any evidence of the outbreak, and every living and unliving creature still inside. When the dust settled, all that remained of Raccoon City was a smoldering crater.
Umbrella’s role in the disaster was exposed by journalist Alyssa Ashcroft, a survivor who revealed the existence of B.O.W.s to the world. The U.S. President resigned in disgrace, but the government managed to keep its dealings with Umbrella under wraps. Facing prosecutions, lawsuits, and dwindling sales following the death of 100,000 people, the Umbrella corporation shriveled and died, leaving Raccoon City as its final, shameful legacy.
The Uncanny City
The few brief mentions of Raccoon City in Resi 1 sparked our imaginations, and RE 2 made them a reality. While the sequel largely took place inside the ornate RPD building, RE 2 begins with a bang, throwing Leon and Claire into the burning streets of Raccoon City proper and daring them to survive the horror. Clambering up fire escapes and sprinting past zombie-filled basketball courts was such a mind-blowing expansion of scope in 1998 that we didn’t really notice that Raccoon City doesn’t make any sense. At least, not for an American city.
The pre-rendered backgrounds of the original Resi 2 and 3 are chock-full of narrow, winding streets and mazes of tiny alleys that lead to dead ends, none of which are really representative of a bustling mid-sized midwestern metro. In fact, Raccoon City as originally envisioned feels a lot like the commercial area of a Japanese city– Shinjuku draped in grimy Western set dressing.
Most Japanese game devs in the ‘90s weren’t given the budget to fly across the Pacific to do in-depth research on cities in the United States– Konami famously used the Arnold Schwarzenegger family comedy Kindergarten Cop as its primary reference when conceiving the streets of Silent Hill. RC isn’t supposed to be an accurate U.S. city, it’s an imaginary version of one cooked up via Capcom’s cultural osmosis, based on its impressions of American culture from afar– it’s no coincidence that RE 2’s only accessible building outside of the RPD is Gun Shop Kendo. The result is a Raccoon City that feels familiar enough to Western audiences with a subtle undercurrent that something is wrong, the uncanny valley effect played out in environmental design.
This sensation diminished as the series evolved beyond pre-rendered backgrounds, with the multiplayer-focused Outbreak games returning to a fully polygonal RC. The somewhat forgotten spinoff has been thrust into the spotlight with the reveal that Resident Evil Requiem will star Grace Ashcroft, daughter of reporter Alyssa Ashcroft who was a prominent playable character in Outbreak. It’s a series worth revisiting even without the ability to play online, in large part because of how it expands Raccoon City. Survivors explore bars, hotels, apartment buildings, a zoo, and even Raccoon University campus, fleshing RC into a more fully realized space while maintaining the gritty, pre-HD vibe.
The advent of the Resident Evil remakes gave Capcom the opportunity to update Raccoon City for a new generation. The impressive RE Engine provided realistic, high fidelity graphics, but it feels like something was lost in translation. While the city more closely resembles a thriving midwestern tourist destination, with towering skyscrapers and a more sensible urban layout, it sacrifices the otherworldly aesthetic of the original games. It feels less like a waking nightmare and more like an actual place– even though a real-life Raccoon City is rather implausible. Umbrella funding aside, the sheer amount of amenities and infrastructure built to serve such a small population would probably raise some suspicious eyebrows and definitely jack up the rent prices.
And even if it could exist in our world, that begs our final question: where is Raccoon City supposed to be? Capcom has never definitively stated its location, and the most specific the canonical series ever got was in the intro to the Resident Evil 3 remake.
The (fantastic) tie-in novels by S.D. Perry explicitly placed the city in rural Pennsylvania, as did the screenplay for George Romero’s legendary unproduced Resident Evil adaptation. The Paul W.S. Anderson movies kept things vague, with some clues that Raccoon City is either near Allentown, PA or somewhere in Michigan, but most of the action was filmed in Toronto, Canada. The ill-fated Welcome to Raccoon City film was similarly shot in Ontario, but it too declined to name the state it stood in for.
Countless fan theories have emerged throughout the decades, using every snippet of lore and a whole lot of logical leaps in an attempt to deduce the location of Raccoon City. Plausible arguments exist for Colorado, South Dakota, and even Cleveland, Ohio, but the prevailing hypothesis is that Raccoon is a stand in for Springfield, Missouri. There aren’t many mountains in the midwest, after all, but the foggy Arklay hills could be interpreted as Missouri’s Ozark region. Springfield also happens to be situated above massive limestone caverns with plenty of room for growing young B.O.W.s.
There are a few holes in this hypothesis, like the fact that Leon and Claire emerge from Raccoon City into a sprawling desert that is far removed from any geographic feature of the Show-Me State. The truth is, we probably were never supposed to know exactly where Raccoon City is– and maybe that’s what makes it so creepy.
Raccoon City could be the growing town up the road where a soulless corporation just built a new billion-dollar data center. It could be the quaint hamlet up by the woods that hosts a mysterious old house that’s rumored to be haunted. It could be your city, that one day you might have to escape in a desperate dash for survival. For nearly 30 years, Raccoon City has played host to countless mysteries and unanswered questions, some of which may finally be revealed in Requiem. But one thing has never been in doubt: Raccoon City is a scary place to be.
Netflix is delisting over 20 mobile games in July, including fan-favorite titles Hades and Monument Valley.
In the latest clue that Netflix’s gaming division could be troubled, Engadget spotted that 22 games were set to exit the subscription service. It’s not clear why, or if they will be replaced with alternative titles, but What’s On Netflix cites the removals trim the streaming giant’s gaming catalog by almost 20%.
Most games will disappear on or around July 15, although dates may vary. It’s unclear if they’ll be made available for mobile players via other services or stores.
The closure came mere months after Netflix said Netflix Games was doing better than ever, but that might not have been saying much, given past data on the streaming service’s gaming offering. Netflix said gaming engagement “tripled” last year, in part due to the release of The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy on the service near the end of 2023. Netflix called the GTA Trilogy its “most successful launch to date in terms of installs and engagement, with some consumers clearly signing up simply to play these games.”
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.
UK Games Expo, Britain’s biggest tabletop gaming convention, is a delicious smorgasbord of every kind of physical game imaginable. But if there’s one thing that’s dominating this year’s event, it’s Star Wars. And no wonder: it’s a hugely popular franchise that’s currently enjoying a gaming renaissance with multiple titles getting ongoing support.
Expo is showcasing the newest and upcoming releases for three Star Wars board games and card games: the collectible card game Star Wars: Unlimited, the miniature skirmish game Star Wars: Shatterpoint, and cooperative board game The Mandalorian: Adventures.
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The Mandalorian: Adventures has a new expansion, Clan of Two, based on season two of the TV show that inspired the game. “As big Star Wars fans, we wanted to make sure players feel like they’re experiencing the episodes right on your tabletop,” said Josh Beppler, who co-created the game alongside veteran designer Corey Konieczka. “An expansion was something we always had hoped to accomplish because there is such lovely source material to pull from. Season two of the show was such a massive success, we were eager to get to work on the new characters that were just immense fan favorites.”
Clan of Two adds some new playable characters from the wider Star Wars universe such as Ahsoka Tano and Fennec Shand alongside legendary foes like the Krayt Dragon. But of course, that’s one of the joys of the franchise: there’s so much of it to draw on for inspiration. “What we choose to add is based on a lot of different factors,” Shatterpoint’s lead designer Will Shick explained. “Sometimes it’s just a character that we really love in the office and have a great idea for. Sometimes it’s based on inspiration for a sculpt. A lot of times it’s based on whatever’s really popular among fans.”
If you’ve looked at the release schedule for the game, you might have noticed that diversity has led them to some slightly surprising places. “We’re going to do a shark man from space,” Shick grins. “It’s so cool.” He’s talking about Riff Tamson the Karkarodon, who’s included in the upcoming Terror from Below set. It’s also an opportunity for the team to introduce a new keyword to the game, ‘Aquatic,’ unlocking new possible builds. Shatterpoint is noteworthy for nudging players toward taking thematic teams by using these shared keywords to create powerful combos, and this is no exception.
“That’s a totally deliberate design,” Shick continues. “We found the best way to develop games is to bake in soft bonuses. Or little guideposts that say, hey, this character does something really cool, but if you take this character with another thematically paired character, they both do something even better. It doesn’t force the player’s hand. It’s just that if you play thematically, those bonuses might be more valuable than you taking a min-max approach.
Keywords are also a part of collectible card game Star Wars Unlimited. But as a system that needs a lot of new cards dropped with each new set, they’re used differently. There was already an existing “Force” keyword for Jedi and Sith, but for the newest set, Legends of the Force, the designers built on that by making the Force use a distinct mechanic. Some of the game’s starting bases allow you to gain a Force token which you can spend to unlock powerful abilities on particular cards, while others give you the chance to regain the token.
It’s a mechanically interesting system, although not necessarily that well tied-in with Star Wars lore, but the designers are open about wanting fun to come first. “We tried a lot of different iterations of this mechanic,” designer Joe O’Neill explained. “Some that required you to use your deck to draw cards that gained you the Force, but that often felt very inconsistent. One piece of gameplay that is always in play is your base. So using that allowed us to create this as an opt-in decision that didn’t require any re-writing of rules, didn’t require you to draw specific cards, and then feel like you’re missing out by not drawing the right thing.”
Using the base also leans into what many collectible game players love most about their systems: deck-building. “If you’re choosing to run a heavy Force deck that means you don’t get access to energy conversion bases,” O’Neill continued. “So you have to choose between some of the strongest abilities in the game. You don’t get to run everything and we think that choice is really meaningful and an interesting deck-building decision.” His co-designer John Leto finished up by pointing out that “there are other ways to gain the Force throughout the set which feel thematic. A lot of the bases we chose were places that were important to the Force, like the crystal caves.”
While collectible games like Star Wars Unlimited want to cram as much variety into new material as possible, less malleable formats often use expansions as a way to respond to player feedback from the original game. The Mandalorian, which some fans felt was too short in only offering four missions, is no exception. “The expansion adds four more, so it doubles the amount of maps,” says Beppler. “All the missions can be played on the new maps. It’s all interchangeable. You can take any of the new characters, team them up with base game characters, finding new synergies and combos. I think exploring old missions with these new abilities will give the game a lot of new life.”
He’s hopeful that other tweaks might win over some gamers who passed on the original. “The biggest example is probably the duel deck,” he offered. “It’s such a cinematic way to experience a fight. And it really helps make the theme of these characters stand out.” He’s also included new options that substantially increase the challenge if you found the base game too easy. “We’ve added conditional ongoing events which sit in an action slot and give you a negative consequence until you clear it,” he continues. “We also created deadlier versions of some of the weaker events from the first game. It’s all optional – you can stay in novice mode, and you’re going to have a great time but you will miss some of the deep strategy that emerges from the gameplay.”
Similarly, some of the upcoming Shatterpoint material helps answer a common gripe that the scenarios aren’t varied enough. “We’ve just had a brand new key operation drop, they add a thematic campaign mode that you can play,” explained Ross Thompson, the director of marketing at Atomic Mass Games. “And we’re getting ready to release new tournament kits, too, which will include promo cards, posters and that kind of stuff. Then we’ll have galactic legends coming later this year where you can play as one character that you really want to get into.”
Shick fills in with more detail on this new play mode. “One player will get to control a super-powered main character,” he explains. “So Darth Vader as we see him on screen, not balanced for the game. Then two other players take squads of primary or secondary and supporting characters. It’s a really interesting narrative because one player gets to feel super powerful, while the other player gets that experience of being like, oh my gosh, I’m going against the big guy, how do we come out on top?”
Most ongoing miniatures games encounter the need to tweak and rebalance characters as the game goes on, and Shatterpoint is no exception. However, in the age of online material and army-building apps they’ve taken the unusual step of releasing updated cards and encouraging players to print out the updates. “Print and play offers the flexibility to make those changes and offer them to players widely, ensuring that they’re free and not behind a paywall,” said Shick.
This feels like a remarkably forward-thinking attitude in a sector that’s dominated by power creep and “fear of missing out” marketing. “We’re not too proud to admit the fact that, like game development, design is a craft,” says Shick. “Once a game goes out into the wild, players might do different things to what you anticipated. So we want to make sure that we’re honoring people’s collections, that we’re bringing that value and making the best game possible, both going forward and looking back. If a player picks up a starter box and gets massively appealing characters like Anakin and Ahsoka, they better feel good. We want to ensure they play just as well as they did when the game came out.”
Talk like this is undeniably inspiring. It’s refreshing to talk to designers and feel like they’re truly invested in what they’re doing. It’s true of all the creatives on these games: their enthusiasm for their work and from Star Wars radiates off them as we speak. The Star Wars Unlimited team even collects their own product from booster packs. “We have an entire Teams channel at work just for trading within the studio,” O’Neil laughed. “People post their wants list and when the set comes out we all sit down and all crack our boxes, then set up trades.” And you know that a game design team is doing good work when they’re eagerly looking forward to finishing the day and going on to eat their own dog food.
Matt Thrower is a contributing freelance writer for IGN, specializing in tabletop games. You can reach him on BlueSky at @mattthr.bsky.social.
Death Stranding 2 has a dialogue option at the beginning of the game that fans are getting a kick out of, but while it looks like a scary choice at first, it’s just a harmless Easter egg.
Warning! Spoilers for Death Stranding 2 follow:
Death Stranding 2 kicks off with a Far Cry-esque option at the beginning of the game where Fragile (Léa Seydoux) recruits Sam (Norman Reedus) to Drawbridge, but you get the option to refuse. Death Stranding 2 then does a Groundhog Day thing where the game keeps showing the intro over and over, and you can keep selecting “I wont do it,” but eventually the game forces you to accept the offer.
This first major dialogue choice doesn’t stop you from progressing the story, nor does it do that thing some games do by rolling credits early. It’s a perfectly safe Easter egg that’s in keeping with the Hideo Kojima style, and a fun distraction before you get stuck into the game.
Check out the video below, where we show you exactly what happens when you refuse Fragile’s plea to join Drawbridge.
IGN’s Death Stranding 2 review returned a 9/10. We called it “a triumphant sequel that emphatically delivers on the promise of its original.”
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 Palworld x Terraria update has launched, bringing fishing, salvaging, bigger towns, a Pal trust mechanic and more in one of the biggest patches the game has seen since its early access release last year.
Update v0.6.0 adds the collaboration with Terraria, Re-Logic’s hugely popular sandbox game. It includes a unique dungeon featuring enemies from Terraria, and the ability to collect materials in the dungeon to create equipment from the world of the game. The Moon Lord, a boss from Terraria, is now a raid boss in Palworld.
But the Terraria content is just one part of the update itself. Not only are there PlayStation 5 dedicated servers, but a number of new features. These include fishing, a salvage system, three new types of islands, a Pal trust mechanic, and the level cap raising from 60 to 65. All that and more is detailed in the patch notes, below.
Palworld launched on Steam priced $30 and straight into Game Pass on Xbox and PC early 2024, breaking sales and concurrent player number records in the process. Pocketpair boss Takuro Mizobe has said Palworld’s launch was so big that the developer couldn’t handle the massive profits the game generated. Still, Pocketpair acted swiftly to capitalize on Palworld’s breakout success, signing a deal with Sony to form a new business called Palworld Entertainment that’s tasked with expanding the IP. It later launched the game on PS5.
After Palworld’s huge launch, comparisons were made between Palworld’s Pals and Pokémon, with some accusing Pocketpair of “ripping off” Pokémon designs. But rather than file a copyright infringement lawsuit, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company went down the patent route. The companies want 5 million yen (approx $32,846) each plus late payment damages, as well as an injunction against Palworld that would block its release.
At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March, IGN sat down for an extended conversation with John “Bucky” Buckley, communications director and publishing manager for Palworld developer Pocketpair. We spoke following his talk at the conference, ‘Community Management Summit: A Palworld Roller Coaster: Surviving the Drop.’ During that talk, Buckley went into candid detail about Palworld’s struggles, especially the accusation it used generative AI (which Pocketpair has since debunked) and stealing Pokemon’s models for its own Pals. He even commented on Nintendo’s patent infringement lawsuit against the studio, saying it “came as a shock” and was “something that no one even considered.”
Palworld: Tides of Terraria update 0.6.0 patch notes:
▼Terraria Collab! ・Terraria Dungeon ⤷ A unique dungeon featuring enemies from Terraria has been added! Collect materials in the dungeon to create equipment from the world of Terraria!
・Terraria Equipment ⤷ 6 new weapons and 7 new armour pieces from Terraria have been added!
・The terrifying “Moon Lord” raid boss has appeared! ⤷ The Moon Lord has invaded Palworld! Work together with your friends and Pals to defeat the greatest threat the islands have faced!
▼New Content ・PS5 Dedicated Servers!
・Fishing! ⤷ Craft a fishing rod and bait to catch new Pals! To start fishing, cast your rod in water where you can see fish shadows.
・Salvage System! ⤷ Ride on water Pals and use the fishing rod to salvage supplies at sea! Collect new ores salvaged from the ocean floor to strengthen your weapons.
・New Islands! ⤷ Three new types of islands have been added to the world: Tropical Islands, Iceberg Island, and Shipwreck Island! Find new Pals that live on each of these new islands!
・Mission System! ⤷ You can now find and accept missions around the Palpagos Islands. Help the islanders and get rewards!
・Zoe’s Special Mission! ⤷ By completing missions for Zoe, you can earn her trust and recruit her as an ally!
・Pal Trust Mechanic! ⤷ The more time you spend with your Pal, the more trust you will gain, and stats will be increased. The weaker a Pal’s original stats are, the greater the trust adjustment will be, so even weaker Pals will be able to shine!
・Sleep together with your Pals! ⤷ After a hard day of farming and battling bosses, you and your Pals can take a hard-earned rest together!
・Treasure Maps! ⤷ Use treasure maps to find the location of the hidden treasure and obtain valuable items!
・Enemy Bases?! ⤷ Enemy factions now build bases just like players! They are on high alert and will defend it with their lives, but if you manage to raid them successfully, you can obtain new blueprints for buildings related to that faction.
・Settlement Overhaul! ⤷ We’ve made the settlements larger and feel more lived-in! There are also many mission NPCs now to meet.
・Player level cap raised from 60 to 65!
・New Buildings! ⤷ Pal Surgery Table – By using various implants, you can overwrite your Pal’s passives! You can also change the gender of your Pals here! ⤷ Fishing Pond – Relax and catch some fish in the comfort of your base. ⤷ Hexolite Quartz Mine – Well, you knew we would add this one eventually! ⤷ Large Incubator – Hatch multiple eggs at the same time! ⤷ Palbox Control Device – A terminal that allows you to access your Pal Box from anywhere in the base. It makes Pal swapping during raid battles more efficient.
・ New Building Material – [Clean] ⤷ Decorate your base with futuristic floors and walls with this new building set!
・New Mechanic – Turbulence ⤷ Find unusual air turbulence around the world and use it to jump high into the sky!
⤷ Boost Gun ⤷ Pal Recovery Grenade (These two are weapons for tamers who want to support their Pal!)
・New Item Types! ⤷ Whistles and Growth Acceleration Bell have been added! ⤷ New food recipes.
▼Arena ・A single-player challenge mode has been added! ⤷ Raise your rank by facing off against the fierce warriors of Palpagos Island! Get various rewards with the battle tickets you receive when you win!
・You can now set rules in the arena, such as banning certain pals. ・A public Pal Box has been added at the entrance to the arena that all players can use. ・An arena spectator function has been added in multiplayer!
▼Mechanic Adjustments ・Added equipment durability to the game settings. ・When a cooling Pal is assigned to the flea market, food spoilage rate is now reduced. ・Lyleen’s ability “Bountiful Protection” now recovers HP for all allies within range.
▼Balance Adjustments ・Some aggressive enemies have been made friendly. ・Pal skill cooldowns will tick down even if they are not summoned. ・The speed and stamina of Pals that can be mounted have been adjusted, and the speed of some Pals that were too slow has been improved. ・The lineup of bounty hunters has been expanded. ・With the implementation of the mission system, the rewards obtained from NPCs have been adjusted. To maintain fairness, conversation logs with all NPCs have been reset so that rewards can be received again. ・Pal Condensation is considered end-game content, so the strength of Axel, Marcus, and Victor on normal difficulty has been reduced to reduce its necessity. ・The power of some active skills, such as Pal Blast, has been increased. ・The probability of getting books that enhance Pal’s work aptitude from attribute treasure chests has been increased.
▼Pals ・New Skins!! The results of the 1st year anniversary popularity poll have been decided, and three new skins have been added to celebrate these results! (※You must own the Pal to equip the skin) ⤷ Crown Chillet ⤷ Cyber Jetragon ⤷ Desert King Anubis
・Pals can now swim! ⤷ Swimming motions and animations have been added for Pals, and their speed in the water has been adjusted.
・New Water Skills ⤷ Geyser Gush ⤷ Aqua Surge ⤷ Torrential Blast ⤷ Hydro Slicer
▼UI ・Implemented “Easy Bulk Storage” feature! Conveniently store all materials in any chest around your base with the click of one button! ・Changed specifications to automatically select materials in bulk in the Pal Condensation UI. ・You can now set and quickly select your current Pal presets from the Pal Box UI. ・All neutral enemies now have green HP gauges, and only aggressive or hostile enemies have red HP gauges.
▼Multiplayer ・Fixed a bug where the option to display servers with matching versions was not working.
▼World ・Added more patterns to random dungeons. ・Fishing spots where fish shadows appear have been placed all around the world. ・Salvage spots have been placed out at sea.
▼Achievements ・Several new achievements have been added.
▼Bug fixes ・Fixed a bug where Jetragon would jump too high when jumping. ・Many many other minor issues have been fixed.
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.
Whether it was the anime, the video games, or the card game itself, Yu-Gi-Oh has been a pop culture staple for over 25 years.
Today, it remains one of the most popular and enduring trading card games on the planet, and whether you’re chasing meta-defining staples or just looking to fill out your binder with something flashy, the high-value cards always demand attention.
2025 has taken a breather compared to last year’s chaos. Prices are down, panic-buying has cooled, and both duelists and collectors are feeling the benefits.
But make no mistake, there are still plenty of premium pulls hidden in Yu-Gi-Oh’s 2025 releases. Between Supreme Darkness and Alliance Insight, we’ve seen the final wave of Quarter Century Secret Rares. And just this past week, Starlight Rares officially returned to the TCG, turning heads and inflating wishlists overnight.
So, since we’re halfway through 2025, I’ve been busy taking stock of the most valuable cards you can still pull from Yu-Gi-Oh’s 2025 boosters. It’s time to d-d-d-duel!
10. Mulcharmy Purulia
This reprint of Mulcharmy Purulia is pretty pricey these days, reaching around $100 right now after its printing in Maxze of the Master.
It has started to level off, but it was a sharp climb just a couple of months ago.
9. Mitsurugui Ritual
Sitting at around $90 at the time of asking, this spell card is a dream for reptile-focused decks. The Supreme Darkness Quarter Century Super Rare version has recently dropped from $120 to $90, but it’s still expensive.
8. Maiden of White
If you managed to grab the Blue-Eyes White Destiny structure deck, then good news – many of its cards are pretty pricey to get these days.
Maiden of White is going for around $90-100 right now, with first editions climbing to the $120s.
7. Paladins of Bonds and Unity
As TCGPlayer explains, Paladins of Bonds and Unity is perhaps less useful to play with and more of a collector’s edition. That art is gorgeous, and it’s going for around $100 on the secondary market (although some are asking for more).
6. Maliss P March Hare
It never takes long for Yu-Gi-Oh cards to devolve into made-up words and random letters, but this one is worth checking your packs for. In fact, it’s the most valuable Secret Rare from this year’s Alliance Insight set.
5. Dragon Master Lords
A 5000 attack and defense creature that can’t be targeted by card effects? Where do we sign? This XYZ creature is essentially a one-card wincon, but it won’t come cheap.
4. A Bao A Qu, the Lightless Shadow
Remember what we said about words and letters? This link-summoned monster can bring in monsters while disrupting your opponent nicely. Destroy a card and bring in your own? We’re sold.
But we’ll need to get saving – it reaches over $130 at present.
3. Rimite Dragon Ether Beryl
We didn’t expect this badass dragon to be called Beryl, but this isn’t one to be laughed at. It’ll set you back $150 right now for its Monster Mayhem version, and it plays very, very nicely with Blue-Eyes White Dragon decks.
2. Dark Magician Girl the Magician’s Apprentice
If you’ve enjoyed anything Yu-Gi-Oh over the years, you’ll know this one.
While Dark Magician Girl the Magician’s Apprentice’s core stats are hardly awe-inspiring, collectors love her (I wonder why?) so her Quarter Century Secret Rare from Alliance Insight is fetching up to $170 right now at TCGPlayer and other secondary markets like eBay.
Sorry Dark Magician Girl the Magician’s Apprentice, your artwork is no longer the cutest on this list. The most valuable card of 2025 is the truly adorable Mulcharmy Meowls, which is going for upwards of $200.
Honorable Mention: Battles of Legend: Monster Mayhem
It wouldn’t feel right to wrap up without a quick nod to Battles of Legend: Monster Mayhem. While it’s still early days for this set, and prices haven’t fully settled yet, a couple of cards are already standing out.
That said, it’s too soon to draw any hard conclusions for the time being. These early prices are often inflated by hype, and the market tends to shift quickly. We’ll be keeping a close eye on where these cards land once the dust settles, and the other eye on Duelist’s Advance.
Where to Find Valuable Yu-Gi-Oh Cards in 2025
So your best bet of owning any of the above is simply through the secondary market, and buying individual cards standalone.
But, if you are in it for the love of the game, and fancy fleecing out for some shiny boosters in an attempt to pull some of the rarest cards going, this is where you can buy the latest 2025 Yu-Gi-Oh booster bundles.
We’ve mentioned the highest price sold as well, alongside the current listing price at the time of publication,so you have a good idea what the market is looking like at the moment.
Lloyd Coombes is Gaming Editor @ Daily Star. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay. He’s also a tech, gaming, and fitness freelancer seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar, Tom’s Guide, IGN, and more.
This article includes contributions from Robert Anderson. Thanks to the lovely folks at TCGPlayer for information and data that informed this article.
Techland is taking players back to Harran after 10 years with a surprise free content release for the original Dying Light that it’s calling the Retouched update.
Come June 26, 2025, the thousands of players who haven’t been able to let go of the 2015 zombie parkour hit will be treated to improvements that should improve the experience across the board. The Dying Light: Retouched update includes visual enhancements, a remastered soundtrack, and more for players across PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and S. IGN has asked Techland about a potential Nintendo Switch version of the Retouched update.
So, let’s set the record straight: the Retouched Update is about squeezing out even more from the Dying Light you already love.
It’s an exciting time to be a fan of the original Dying Light, but Techland wants to make one thing clear: Retouched is not a remaster. Franchise director Tymon Smektała said this update is more about improving the original experience without altering its system requirements.
“When I looked online the day after [the update was announced], my heart skipped a beat. Quite a few of you were expecting a full remaster of some sort,” Smektała explained in a new blog post. “So, let’s set the record straight: the Retouched Update is about squeezing out even more from the Dying Light you already love. It’s not a complete overhaul or remaster.”
Some of the visual enhancements players can expect include improved textures, lighting, and shadows. You might notice a wooden fence has a bit more detail or that certain metal surfaces will reflect light more realistically, for example. Techland is especially proud of how some floors and cement walls look in Dying Light: Retouched, sharing images of stone paths that feature more depth than before.
In the audio department, original Dying Light composer Paweł Blaszczak returned to remaster the soundtrack. The entire soundtrack has been re-recorded on tape for Retouched, with new tracks, ambient sounds, and even hit reaction audio also remastered for this week’s update.
“A lot of you have been asking in the last few months about the Retouched Update — where it was, why it was taking so long,” the post continued. “The honest answer is this: we were working with 10+ year old technology. Even with all the new experience we’ve gained over the years, figuring out how to apply those learnings to the original Dying Light engine while keeping everything stable was a challenge.”
The Dying Light: Retouched update is less Techland reanimating a long-forgotten corpse and more of an example of that team delivering a surprise for a game that has somehow managed to stand the test of time. Despite SteamDB listing a player peak of only 45,876, the original Dying Light has hovered around the 12,000-player mark for the last year. Those are impressive numbers for a zombie game that mostly leans on its single-player offerings, and it’s even more impressive considering Dying Light 2: Stay Human, which launched just three years ago, usually struggles to break 10,000 players.
The original Dying Light story will continue with the launch of Dying Light: The Beast, which recently pinned down a release date of August 22, 2025, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. It follows original protagonist Kyle Crane in a new story, and you check out our preview of how it looks so far here. Finally, you can read up on our original Dying Light review, where we gave the parkour zombie video game an 8.5/10.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Frontier Developments is walking back the use of generative AI in Jurassic World Evolution 3 following backlash from fans.
Jurassic World Evolution 3 finally sprouted legs when its official reveal trailer was published as part of Summer Game Fest 2025 earlier this month. Its existence marked the end of a four-year wait for a third game in the dinosaur strategy simulation franchise, but much of the excitement was quickly soured when fans discovered that Frontier had used controversial generative AI technology to create certain scientist portraits in-game.
Shortly after this realization, fans gathered to campaign against the use of AI in Jurassic World Evolution 3 in hopes that Frontier would reverse its decision in favor of content created by actual human beings. It’s a movement that seems to have achieved the desired results, as the team behind the Jurassic Park video game now replied to a popular Steam post to confirm that generative AI portraits will be removed.
“Thanks for your feedback on this topic,” the post says. “We have opted to remove the use of generative AI for scientist portraits within Jurassic World Evolution 3.”
Those who visit the Jurassic World Evolution 3 Steam page will now find that Steam’s AI Generated Content Disclosure can no longer be found above the list of its system requirements. It’s a move that’s already being celebrated by the Jurassic World Evolution 3 community as they look forward to seeing art that wasn’t created by artificial intelligence.
“Thank you. As a dev myself, this was wholly unnecessary from the start and such an own goal that I’m happy to see the pivot, and to be able to wish the team the best for a successful launch,” one Steam user said. “Been such a fan of JWE1+2 (and PC/PZ), so this change takes me from a never-buy to a buy-at-launch!”
Frontier W
Jurassic World Evolution 3 will not use any generative AI!
I repeat: Jurassic World Evolution 3 will NOT USE ANY GENERATIVE AI!
Frontier confirmed in a statement to GameWatcher that Jurassic World Evolution 3 still has a release date of October 21, 2025, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. In the meantime, you can read up on how other companies, such as Epic Games, Microsoft, and Capcom, are using AI in their video games.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
Sony has given PlayStation VR2 (PSVR 2) owners some much-needed love by showing off four new VR games coming to fans within the next year.
The company detailed some of the PSVR 2 games players can look forward to in a PlayStation Blog post. The four titles are Dreams of Another, Grit and Valor – 1949, Hotel Infinity, and Meteora, with each offering a completely different virtual-reality experience from the last.
Dreams of Another
Topping the list of new PSVR 2 games is Q-Games’ latest entry in the PixelJunk series, Dreams of Another. This is one VR game that players already knew about, but its appearance today still comes with a new look at its mesmerizing gameplay and how virtual reality will allow players to thoroughly explore dreamlike worlds in both first- and third-person. It’s currently set to come to PC, PlayStation 5, and PSVR 2 later this year.
Grit and Valor – 1949
If you’re looking for something less serene and more action-y, then Milky Tea Studios’ Grit and Valor – 1949 might be for you. This is a real-time tactics rogue-lite from earlier this year that will soon allow PSVR 2 players to control alternate history battlefields in World War II. That means navigating through menus with the tips of your fingers and even picking up and placing units as if they’re real-life models when it launches August 21, 2025.
Hotel Infinity
Manifold Garden developer Studio Chyr is bringing its puzzle expertise to PSVR 2 with Hotel Infinity, a mind-bending experience that looks to twist player perspectives in more ways than one. Its gameplay trailer shows the slightly creepy hotel — and puzzles — VR fans can get lost in when it arrives later this year.
Meteora
Rounding out the list of Sony’s new PSVR 2 games is Meteora, a space racing game where players step into the rocky shoes of a flaming meteor in what is described as a “combat racing” game. This one is about rising to the top of leaderboards in what looks like a colorful and explosive experience, and it’s coming to PSVR 2 in 2026.
Today’s announcements at least show that Sony has a bit more gas in the tank when it comes to PSVR 2. For more, you can check out our original PSVR 2 review, where we gave the device a 9/10.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
