Bloomberg reported the canceled game, codenamed R7, was an extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe. And while that is not the Titanfall 3 sequel fans have been clamoring for, some are devastated that the fan-favorite Titanfall 2 is still without a sequel almost a decade later.
“I just fell to my knees at Walmart,” said one player, while another simply wrote: “I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE.”
“How many more times will this happen before they finally give it up and leave us to our sorrow?” lamented another.
Not all fans are taking it as bad news, however, as some think an extraction shooter based in the Titanfall universe could have failed, killing the franchise for good.
“Best thing that could’ve happened as far as the continued existence of this franchise is concerned,” posited this redditor. “A Titanfall extraction shooter would probably flop and the c-suite executives would say ‘see, the people just don’t like Titanfall anymore,’ instead of the obvious reason being nobody asked for a Titanfall XTS.”
“I’m fine with this one being canceled,” responded someone else, followed by: “Extraction shooter lmao. Good riddance.”
“So sick and tired of ‘extraction shooters’. They’re so formulaic and boring. I don’t want to loot bunch of useless shit and camp in an attic or sit in a bush for 20 minutes or risk getting shot moving thru big open fields. Give me quick matches, wallrunning and titans blastin’,” suggested this fan.
“Got sad. Read extraction shooter. Was literally okay,” summarized someone else.
The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other thought to have been the aforementioned extraction shooter set in the Titanfall universe.
Mohammad Alavi, who became narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3 before it was cut, told The Burnettwork that much work on the sequel had been done.
“Titanfall 2 came out, did what it did, and we were like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna make Titanfall 3,’ and we worked on Titanfall 3 for about 10 months, right? In earnest, right?
“We had new tech for it, we had multiple missions going, we had a first playable, which was on par to be just as good if not better than whatever we had before, right? But I’ll make this clear: incrementally better, it wasn’t revolutionary. And that’s the key thing, right?
“And we were feeling pretty decent about it, but not the same feeling as Titanfall 2 where we were making something revolutionary, y’know what I mean?”
So, what happened? According to Alavi, it was a combination of the multiplayer team having issues making an experience that didn’t burn players out quickly, and the explosion of the Battle Royale genre with the release of PUBG in 2017.
“The multiplayer team was having a hell of a time trying to fix the multiplayer, because a lot of people love the multiplayer. People love Titanfall 2 multiplayer,” Alavi said.
“But the people who love Titanfall 2 multiplayer is a very small number of people. And most people play Titanfall 2 multiplayer and think it’s really good, but it’s just too much. It’s cranked up to 11, and they burn out a bit fast. And they’re like, ‘That was a great multiplayer, that’s not something I continually play a year, two years,’ right?
“So we were trying to fix that. We were trying to fix that from Titanfall 1 to 2, trying to fix it from Titanfall 2 to 3, the multiplayer team was just dying.
“And then PUBG came out.”
Respawn developers were seemingly more interested in playing a Battle Royale map with Titanfall 3 classes the team had put together, than any of the standard Titanfall multiplayer modes they were working on. This prompted a realisation: ditch Titanfall 3, which may or may not have ended up a better game than its predecessor, to create a Battle Royale that was wonderful.
“And at the time, I had just literally become [the] narrative lead designer on Titanfall 3. I had just pitched the story, the whole game, that me and Manny [Hagopian] had come up with. We made this big presentation and then we went off at break, and came back from break, and we talked about it and we were like, ‘Yeah, we need to pivot. And we need to go make this game.’
“We literally canceled Titanfall 3 ourselves ’cause we were like, ‘We can make this game, and it’s going to be Titanfall 2 plus a little bit better, or we can make this thing, which is clearly amazing.’
“And don’t get me wrong, I will always miss having another Titanfall. I love that game. Titanfall 2 is my most crowning achievement, but it was the right call. That is a crazy cut. Such a crazy cut that EA didn’t even know about it for another six months until we had a prototype up and running that we could show them!”
Vikki Blake is a reporter, critic, columnist, and consultant. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Diablo 4 has launched Season 8 and with it kicked off a series of free updates that will, eventually, lead into the action role-playing game’s second expansion, due out at some point in 2026.
But not all is well within Diablo 4’s ravenous core community. It is a player base hungry for significant new features, reworks, and fresh ways to play the near two-year-old game, and it’s not shy about letting Blizzard know how it feels. Yes, Diablo 4 is more than its core community, with a significant number of casual players who just like to blast monsters without too much thought on how they’re doing it. But the foundation of Diablo 4’s community is made up of veteran fans who play week in, week out, fuss over meta builds, and want Blizzard to give them much more to think about.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that Diablo 4’s recently released 2025 roadmap — the first Blizzard has released for the game — suffered a backlash. In the wake of the roadmap’s release, Diablo 4’s community expressed concern about what’s coming up in 2025, including Season 8, and questioned whether there’s enough new content to keep them coming back.
Season 8 launches not only with all this in mind, but with a number of controversial changes of its own. Chief among them is a significant change to Diablo 4’s battle pass to bring it more in-line with Call of Duty’s, offering players the chance to unlock items in a non-linear fashion. But the battle pass now pays out less virtual currency than before, leaving players with less currency to put towards subsequent battle passes.
In this sweeping interview with IGN, Diablo 4 lead live game designer Colin Finer and Diablo 4 lead seasons designer Deric Nunez respond to the reaction to the roadmap, confirm plans to update Diablo 4’s skill tree (something players have wanted for some time now), and explain those changes to the battle pass.
IGN: How is the team feeling about the rollout of Season 8? Are there any challenges you’re predicting that you might have to tackle?
Colin Finer: Season 8, we’re feeling really good about it. The thing we’re really looking out for is anything crazy that happens in the first week. We’re looking to see if there’s anything that’s gonna be underperforming as part of the boss powers, which is the big marquee seasonal thing that we’ve introduced in this season. So anything that might be underperforming, we’re looking to make buffs. To anything that’s massively overperforming, that’s just breaking the game in terms of, you get one boss power and now everything is easy, we’re probably gonna be toning down.
It’s nothing that we’re too scared about. We find on Diablo the harder something is to balance, the more fun it is. So I think it’s in a pretty good spot. We’re excited for this season to come out and really have players become bosses.
IGN: Has the team’s philosophy around buffing and nerfing following a season rollout changed over the course of Diablo 4’s lifetime?
Colin Finer: Absolutely has evolved and changed, and a lot of it has been revolving around what we try and uphold and respect, which is player time investment and where players are having fun and meeting them there.
So just to give a history on it, in the very first season of Diablo 4, we made a bunch of changes, sweeping nerfs to the game because we wanted it to fit more within our launch vision of the game, where combat was a little bit slow and methodical, and you’re gonna take monsters one-on-one, and bosses are gonna be really challenging and difficult. Obviously, that didn’t go super well because it felt like were defining what the fun of the game was for the players.
Over time we’ve become a lot more hands off once a season goes live. We don’t want to necessarily make any big changes in the middle of a season, for example, to nerf or do big buffs to classes, because we again want to respect player time investment.
For a while we had a thought after Season 1 where it was like, ‘OK well, we won’t nerf at the start of a season, but we will make big nerfs in the middle of a season, or will make big buffs in a season.’ As we saw progression became more deep and we added more ways to min-max your characters, we felt like doing big sweeping changes in the middle of a season would disrespect player time investment. You might work your way up to a really powerful Necromancer build with tons of minions, you’ve tempered your gear, you’ve masterworked it, and then if we found that it was too powerful in the middle of a season, it was way overperforming, if we nerf that, that meant all that time you put into that character was essentially being thrown away. So we didn’t like that.
And we didn’t like the other part where we were going to massively buff a class, for example, in the middle of the season, because you might have wanted to play that. But now, now that you haven’t invested in that build, now it presents this obnoxious challenge where it’s like, ‘Well, I wanted to play this, it wasn’t strong at the start of a season, and now it’s this big climb to get to that point where you’ve unlocked this new build for me.’
In Season 8, what we’re really looking at now is being a little bit more reactive early into a season and then taking a step back. What that changes now in terms of our philosophy is if we see something in the start of a season that is crazy or overperforming — and how we define overperforming is that it’s just short-cutting a lot of the challenge and progression of the game.
Season 7, to give you a clear example of that, we felt like Blood Wave Necromancer was doing this, where you get one unique item on the Necromancer, and now all the bosses in the game are falling over. You’re one-shotting everything in the game. We like getting to that point. We like when players can become God-like powerful. We don’t like when it’s cheapened by one item or one interaction that invalidates everyone else’s journey to get to that spot.
So we’re going to be looking in Season 8 for early outperformers like that, taking S-plus builds to just an S. And if there’s anything new that we’ve added — for example, we’ve added this really cool unique item on the Sorcerer that allows you to fan out Ice Shards — if, for example, that underperforms we will also be buffing those early into a season.
So it’s really just being a little bit more reactive earlier into a season and then taking a step back and letting players have fun with all the stuff that we’ve added.
IGN: I’m big into Diablo lore, and so it’s exciting to see Belial arrive in Diablo 4 as part of Season 8. Why Belial now? And for Diablo lore fans, is there anything meaningful here they should keep an eye out for?
Colin Finer: Absolutely. Diablo, the genre and the IP, greater and lesser evils always have a way of somehow coming back into Sanctuary, right? You thought you had banished them, like Lilith was banished to the abyss but she somehow came back. So Belial is another great example of that. In Diablo 3, he took over Caldeum, throughout the Iron Wolves, which you now see in the outskirts of Diablo 4, and they’ve been cast out. They’re sort of outcasts.
In terms of why Belial now? In Vessel of Hatred, Mephisto is walking the earth in his human form, all hell has broken loose, and Belial, who’s a lesser evil, obviously can’t pass up this opportunity to try and wreak havoc, take advantage of the chaos, take advantage of the fact that the gates of hell are open, Mephisto is walking the earth. And this felt like the proper time for someone like Belial, who’s such an incredibly cool villain, incredibly cool demon, to want to come in and take advantage of this chaos.
So overall, the narrative that we’re really pursuing and interested in is that Diablo 4 is evolving with these expansions and the Vessel of Hatred kicked off this… you never know who’s going to come back. So we have a ton of big bads up our sleeves who are looking and eager to come back into Sanctuary to take advantage of this madness.
IGN: You’ll obviously be keenly aware of some of the reaction to the roadmap among the core community. I think it’s fair to say there’s been some mixed reaction there. Were you surprised by some of the reaction about what was coming to the game this year?
Colin Finer: I don’t know it was necessarily surprising. You know, if you ask our fans, ‘What is it you want more of?’ It’s more details, more content, more things. So we know we have an obligation and we’re in service of the player in terms of really getting them a fantastic experience and adding and evolving Diablo 4 over time.
What we are talking about more on is ensuring that the players understand that this is just a starting point and that it is a conversation with the player base. Part of the seasonal model that we really enjoy is that seasons are a place for us to try really big, crazy, bold new ideas that we then can use community interaction and conversations to validate what’s working for them, to then bring it into the eternal game and to evolve Diablo 4 over time.
So a good example, if you think back to our past, we did this crazy Blood Harvest in Season 2 where all these vampires were running around, it was all hell broken loose on the overworld, and we took a lot of those lessons learned and things that players really enjoyed and pulled that straight into Season 4 with our updates to Helltides. So we’re always looking to have a conversation with the community and hearing their thoughts on what’s working for them and to pull that back into the broader game of Diablo 4 to make it feel like it’s evolving over time.
Part of this was, we have Nightmare Dungeons and Infernal Hordes, we have a couple of features called out on the roadmap, and again, it’s a starting point. We’d love to hear some of the community thoughts and feedback when they see these things in terms of like, ‘Oh, I wish this thing was changed in Infernal Hordes,’ for example. That gives us a lot of great validation in the direction that we’re heading on that particular feature.
Deric Nunez: My initial reaction to the reactions of the roadmap, it was all definitely very fair feedback. We see the roadmap as the kickoff for a conversation that we’re looking to have with the player base. Obviously things get a bit more obfuscated the further out we get. We’re really excited that some element of what the fans are looking for will definitely be revealed as we get further along. When it’s all said and done, I think we’ll be in an overall very strong place for Diablo 4, as we make the road towards the next expansion and refining that foundation and seeding in the new seasonal fun that we’d like to inject season after season.
The fact we’re getting so much feedback from a broad spectrum of the player base, the hardcore blasters and the casuals alike, is definitely all very important for us as we make decisions moving forward, and also validating some of the decisions and directions that we’re already taking with the roadmap yet to be revealed.
IGN: I play a lot of Diablo and I play a lot of Call of Duty, and it looks like Diablo 4’s new battle pass has taken some inspiration from Call of Duty with the way you can now pick what you’re working towards. Can you talk about why you’ve changed it in this way?
Colin Finer: We are updating the battle pass in Season 8 with a new system called Reliquaries. A lot of this was driven by, the battle pass just felt like a pretty long and tedious grind through 150 levels to get the things that you wanted. And we felt like that wasn’t necessarily servicing our players in the best way that we could.
Diablo, there’s a lot of different ways to target or get chances at the types of loot that you want in the game. There’s a lot of control, there’s a lot of ways for players to manipulate the odds, or target something they want, just like the Lair Boss system where maybe there’s a specific boss you want and you can farm that boss to get the unique item of your dreams.
The Reliquary system aims to inject some of that choice and allow players to drive and work towards the things that they actually want out of the battle pass. The high level was, how do we get players more in the driver’s seat in terms of claiming some of the stuff that they actually want out of the battle pass? We think it’s just a lot more flexible now.
IGN: I’ve seen negative feedback to some of the changes to the battle pass where you get less virtual currency back from it now than before. That won’t have passed you by. Can you talk about the reasoning behind those changes?
Colin Finer: Yeah, I think it’s definitely fair reaction. We’re always listening. I think the thing that we think works a lot better as part of the system is, again, you’re able to really work towards and pick the things you want out of the system. I believe also the Platinum that you gain out of the entire system is available to everyone now. So you don’t even need to buy the battle pass necessarily to gain some of those things back. So it’s a net win for everybody overall, in that sense.
IGN: For Season 9, is there anything on the roadmap that people can expect might change either as a result of feedback or because things have become clearer internally? Or is everything on the roadmap that we’re seeing now still what people can expect? I’m talking about Season 9 there but that can extend to Season 10 as well.
Colin Finer: At a high level, it really sets the expectation for what is the big major thing that we’re gonna work on. But just like Season 8, how it has tons of quality of life changes, tons of updates, tons of details, each future season is also going to have that level of detail, content, and variety.
I’ll give you a great example: because it was the Season of Bosses in Season 8, we thought what better time and opportunity do we have to actually update a lot of the bosses that exist in our game? So we took a look at Duriel. He’s been in the game for quite a while. We’ve completely changed the fight. We’ve added some new attacks. We’ve added a lot of fun new ways for him to eat you and kill you. Those level of details all coalesce into one really solid, incredible package for a season that the roadmap just isn’t really able to capture at this point. Because it’s really just trying to say, ‘We’re going to be investing and looking into Nightmare Dungeons… how do we level up that system and feature?’ And there’s just going to be so much that goes into it that really is hard to sell with just a few bullet points in terms of telling players where we’re actually heading.
Deric Nunez: The devil will definitely be in the details when we reveal more. There’s a lot more beyond the veil, the broad stroke of what was revealed.
IGN: Generally, there is a desire from players for brand new skills and build variety. What’s the thinking there about whether or not to do it either way?
Colin Finer: This is a really meaty question, so I’ll dive into a couple sections. Our goal every season is to completely refresh the meta and make it feel like there’s tons of exciting new ways to play the game. A great example of this is you might have played a Whirlwind Barbarian last season, but you can still play it this season, and our hope that the boss powers that we’ve added that are unique to this season have ways to actually make that Whirlwind Barbarian feel completely different and get you to care about different things, and to have it change the way you play.
So a great example is one of the boss powers has essentially a power that when you’re channelling, it’s going to fire a death laser beam. It’s the Wandering Death. If you fought that one, you get to rip the power out of it, and now while you’re Whirlwinding it’s going to shoot that death laser. So that’s a really cool way for you to have a really big impact on your overall build while still having a similar playstyle.
As far as the skill tree changes, I can confirm we are talking about updates to the skill tree, but I don’t have any details. It’s something the team is taking very seriously, and we are talking about, what is a major change that we think would create more build variety and more build diversity going forward?
The reason why it’s going to take us quite a while is it’s kind of a big problem to entangle. So right now, just to dive into some of the details, Legendary aspects are two parts that we consider problematic. It’s both customization, which is like, ‘I want my — for example, if you played Rogue — Twisting Blades to orbit around me.’ We think that’s a really cool thing and really cool playstyle customization choice.
But because it’s a Legendary item, it also has what we call power growth, which is, now Twisting Blades deals more damage. And what that means is if you want to play a Twisting Blades Rogue, you have to play with the Twisting Blades orbiting around you playstyle, right? We’ve just sort of said because there’s both power on this as well as customization, this is the only way you’re allowed to play Twisting Blades Rogue.
So we want to separate some of that out. We want to pull more of the customization into the skill tree and allow aspects to be more power growth. That’s a lot to entangle and that’s why it’s a lot of conversations that we’re having right now. And it’s a lot of work on us to make sure we get it right, so that we release it into a high quality state. That’s just like a little insight into the philosophy that we’re working towards as part of that.
The TL;DR to that is we do want to do something to the skill tree, no plans that I can share now, but it’s something that we’re definitely talking about.
Diablo 4 Season 8 is live now.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Fans hoping to catch the first few episodes of Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld will have to drop into Fortnite if they want to watch the series before it comes to Disney+.
Epic Games unveiled how it will expand upon its existing Star Wars offerings today, revealing that the upcoming animated spinoff’s first two episodes will premiere exclusively through Fortnite. It’s part of the studio’s efforts to double down on Star Wars content for its upcoming Galactic Battle season, which focuses on delivering Star Wars-themed goodies.
You’ll be able to see Tales of the Underworld kick off with two episodes starring Asajj Ventress via the Star Wars Watch Party island starting at 10 a.m. ET on May 2 – two days before the show comes to Disney+ subscribers. Epic encourages fans to link their Epic Games and MyDisney accounts, too, with eligible players being gifted a First Order Stormtrooper outfit in return. It’s unclear how else connecting the accounts will benefit those who participate, though Epic teases that there are “more benefits to come.”
“Disney and Epic are pioneering the future of social entertainment together, and this expansive Star Wars collaboration offers a glimpse into the type of interactive experiences we envision,” Epic Games President Adam Sussman said in a statement. “We are reimagining what’s possible with immersive storytelling in Fortnite with one of the world’s most beloved franchises – stay tuned for a lot more to come.”
You’ll have until May 11 to watch both Tales of the Underworld episodes, at which point Star Wars Watch Party island will no longer be live. It will also feature a Battle Arena for players to duke it out as they use lightsabers to cut down waves of enemies. Those who watch both episodes will earn an Asajj Ventress loading screen.
Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld is a six-episode series animated in the style of The Clone Wars that follows Asajj Ventress and Cad Bane. An official description for the show teases that the former will find herself face to face with a new chance at life and a new ally, while the latter is forced to confront his past.
Disney’s ties with Fortnite extend far past its upcoming Galactic Battle season. The House of Mouse acquired a $1.5 billion stake in Epic in March 2024, positioning itself to collaborate with the game developer for many years to come. It was a move that will see the two powerhouses working together in more ways than one while also resulting in the addition of more Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar outfits in the hit battle royale video game. Some highlights from its next season including Darth Jar Jar and Emperor Palpatine.
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).
The problem with Tempest Rising’s multiplayer is that while it’s perfectly competent at recreating a slice of the old Command & Conquer multiplayer with a pair of new and interesting factions, it’s just that: a slice, rather than the whole pie. With only two factions, nine maps, and the most basic of options for customizing its two or four-player matches, just about everything here screams “minimum viable product.” Combine that with the fact that Tempest Rising doesn’t aspire to be anything more than a revival of C&C’s gameplay, and there’s not a tremendous amount to get excited about. It may well expand over time – such as whenever the Veti faction arrives – but like a vehicle factory that’s only half built, it won’t be super useful until you’re certain you’ll have enough harvested Tempest in the bank to complete it.
I could try to comment on unit balance, but like with any fresh-out-of-the-gate multiplayer game, anything I say will almost certainly soon be obsolete. My anecdotal experiences with the community’s apparent preference for GDF over Dynasty, probably thanks to their self-replenishing drone swarms, is likely to either be nerfed in a patch within a week or proven completely wrong. Soon, I’m sure someone way smarter than I am will figure out a devastating counter that reduces the seemingly unbeatable (and admittedly pretty cool) strategy of loading Skycrane transport helios with drone operating infantry to automatically barrage anything in range to a garbage-tier strategy for fools.
So I’ll leave that to the folks who are busily hashing out the best build orders and counter strategies for the unique characteristics of each faction, which are mostly remixes of C&C ideas with a few twists to get a hang of. I’m a big fan of the Dynasty’s Scrap Trucks, which let you quickly unfold a vehicle-repairing turret anywhere on the map and start plopping down structures that you can pre-construct at your con yard. Naturally, there’s no end to the opportunities for showing off your micromanagement skills by deftly controlling the transforming Trebuchet tanks, picking targets for your long-range artillery and airborne units to clear the way for flamethrowers and armor, activating special abilities to disable groups of enemies and leaving them vulnerable, laying mines, scouting, calling in support abilities, etc. – all while building and protecting your own resource economy and climbing the tech tree.
Because of Tempest Rising’s retro style and adherence to time-tested tech trees I’ve found it instantly familiar and easy to slip back into old habits; I’ve been enjoying going back to the classic engineer-rush where I steal the enemy’s construction yard out from under their noses while a handful of infantry distracts them from the opposite flank. (That’ll only work for a short while after launch, so I’m getting that trollish thrill while I can.) If it worked in C&C, it’ll probably work here.
There are a few features that feel like they’re built almost exclusively for the hyper-competitive set, such as the Doctrine tech tree that invites you to dump thousands of precious Tempest credits into upgrades that, for the most part, don’t get all that good until you’re several tiers deep. Boosting my infantry health by 15%, for instance, doesn’t seem all that worth it until I have a lot of infantry in play (as opposed to building more infantry). At my skill level – and probably that of most people who aren’t hardcore players – the vast majority of my games thus far haven’t lasted long enough to build up the kind of excess cash I’d need to invest in that sort of thing, with most of them wrapping up before the 15-minute mark. But I’m sure that plenty of people will find uses for these to get the upper hand with specific builds, so it’s good to know there’s more depth to be mined if you put in the time to train up.
However, if you are a competitive player looking for your next RTS fix, know that Tempest Rising doesn’t have a ton for you to play with at the moment. For one thing, if you play ranked, there are only 1v1 matches available. Even if there were 2v2 ranked matches (it’s actively being worked on, the developers promise), there would only be three maps available that support four players in teams or free-for-all. 1v1 isn’t much better in that regard, with just six options. Combine that with there only being two factions until whenever the Veti expansion comes along – which could be a while given the lack of a published timeline – and it feels pretty slim compared to a lot of the games that inspired it.
There’s nothing wrong with the maps that are here – each is a symmetrical layout with areas of high and low elevation, plenty of bottlenecks and alternate routes, all dotted with capturable neutral structures that can give you a “free” (for the cost of an engineer) foothold to build defenses and forward production off of, as well as a few that generate resources. It’s simply that there’s nothing unexpected – good or bad – at all, and that gives it a very bog-standard feeling. It’s hard to make the argument that Tempest Rising has gone for quality over quantity when there are no big standouts.
In addition to the roughly 100 job cuts IGN reported earlier today at Respawn Entertainment, EA has made wider cuts across its organization today, impacting around 300 individuals total including those already reported at Respawn.
IGN understands that these wider cuts largely impacted EA’s Experiences team, which includes groups such as EA’s Fan Care team and various others working on customer support and marketing. As with other cuts at EA, those impacted will be given the opportunity to apply for other roles internally prior to being let go.
“As part of our continued focus on our long-term strategic priorities, we’ve made select changes within our organization that more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth,” an EA spokesperson said in an official statement.
“We are treating our people with care and respect throughout this process, working to minimize impacts by helping affected employees explore new opportunities within the company when possible and providing support during the transition.”
The roughly 100 jobs impacted at Respawn included individuals in development, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals working on the Jedi team and two canceled incubation projects, one of which we reported on back in March, and the other of which was, per Bloomberg’s reporting, a new Titanfall game.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
There’s a good argument to be made for Doom’s inclusion among the most influential game franchises of all time. It’s widely considered the progenitor of the first-person shooter genre that’s dominated the market for decades, paving the way for franchises like Call of Duty and Halo while retaining its relevance with excellent modern shooters.
As we near the release of the series’ next chapter, we’ve compiled a chronological list of every Doom game in order.
How Many Doom Games Are There?
There are six Doom games, excluding add-ons and enhanced versions of previously released games, though those are noted within each blurb where applicable. Doom: The Dark Ages will be the seventh mainline Doom game. This list excludes mobile games like Doom RPG, Doom Resurrection, and Mighty Doom.
Which Doom Game Should You Play First?
There are two logical starting points for new players: Doom (1993) or Doom (2016). Most players are better off starting with the 2016 version given its modern design. However, if you’re hellbent on experiencing the full story, your starting point has to be the 1993 original.
Every Doom Game in Chronological Order
The blurbs below contain broad spoilers for the plot of each game.
1. Doom (1993)
Following the release of id Software’s first two games — Commander Keen and Wolfenstein — the developer introduced Doom to the world in late 1993. The shooter was released with three episodes: Knee-Deep in the Dead, The Shores of Hell, and Inferno; the fourth episode, Thy Flesh Consumed, was released in 1995 as part of The Ultimate Doom.
Doom begins the saga by introducing the series’ original protagonist, an unnamed marine known as Doomguy, and sending him on a demon-slaying mission up to Mars before descending to hell. It ends with Doomguy’s discovery of a demon invasion on Earth, setting up the following year’s sequel.
2. Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)
A year later, id Software released Doom II: Hell on Earth, picking up with the demon invasion of Earth seen at the end of Doom. Doomguy helps the survivors escape into space, leaving him as the last man on Earth, before descending back into hell to close the portal between the two realms.
Two add-on episodes were later released for Doom II: No Rest for the Living in 2010 and Legacy of Rust in 2024. Final Doom was a separate, two-episode game created by a community of mappers in 1996, though its content has since been consolidated into modern versions of Doom II.
All of the post-launch episodes mentioned above are set between the events of Doom II and Doom 64.
3. Doom 64 (1997)
Doom 64, id Software’s third entry in the franchise (and the third chronologically), sends Doomguy back into space to deal with an escaped demon and its reincarnated army. To defeat the threat, our hero eventually returns to hell, where he chooses to live out his years protecting humanity from the potential of future invasions.
The 2020 remaster of Doom 64 added The Lost Levels, which is set after Doom 64 and serves as a bridge between the original games and the rebooted series that began in 2016.
4. Doom 3 (2004)
There’s no definitive answer as to where Doom 3 exists on this timeline. Arguments have been made that it takes place before Doom (1993), after Doom 64, or in an alternate timeline altogether. We’re placing it after 64 given its later release date and our best understanding of the timeline, though its placement is ultimately inessential to understanding the ongoing narrative.
In Doom 3, players step into the boots of Doom Marine, an unnamed soldier who is not Doomguy from the previous games. The marine is tasked with investigating strange incidents at a remote laboratory on Mars. What follows is a demonic invasion of the Red Planet and the uncovering of a conspiracy to destroy humanity.
An add-on/sequel called Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil was released the following year. It’s set two years after the events of Doom 3 and follows a different unnamed marine’s attempt to return an artifact to hell.
A remastered version called Doom 3: BFG Edition was released in 2012 and included a new expansion called The Lost Mission, which takes place within the events of Doom 3. This version is also playable in virtual reality as Doom 3: VR Edition.
5. Doom (2016)
The 2016 reboot of Doom introduced Doom Slayer and began a new set of stories within id Software’s Doom universe. The story begins with Doom Slayer being awakened from a sarcophagus to deal with a new demonic threat on a Martian research facility. Doom Slayer, traveling back and forth between hell and Mars, again thwarts the demons’ attacks, before being betrayed and teleported to an unknown location.
A VR spinoff called Doom VFR was released in 2017. It’s set after the events of Doom and follows a Union Aerospace Corporation employee named Dr. Peters.
6. Doom Eternal (2020)
The latest game in the chronology is Doom Eternal. Set after the events of Doom (2016), Eternal sees Doom Slayer return to end another demonic invasion of Earth by killing the three Hell Priests. The story includes a key piece of series lore, revealing the connection between the original Doomguy and Doom Slayer.
Doom Eternal extended the timeline with two expansions: The Ancient Gods Part 1 and The Ancient Gods Part 2. The two-part story picks up after the events of Eternal, with the demons gathering strength in other dimensions and Doom Slayer enacting a new plan to destroy them. Part 1 culminates in the summoning of the Dark Lord; Part 2 is Doom Slayer’s pursuit and confrontation of the Dark Lord, revealing further details about the hero’s past.
Every Doom Game By Release Date
Doom (1993)
Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)
Doom 64 (1997)
Doom 3 (2004)
Doom (2016)
Doom Eternal (2020)
Doom: The Dark Ages (2025)
Upcoming Doom Games
The next game will be Doom: The Dark Ages, due out May 15. Doom: The Dark Ages stars Doom Slayer, a new and more powerful iteration of Doomguy that debuted in Doom (2016). The Dark Ages is a prequel to Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal, according to Bethesda, in which players “step into the blood-stained boots of the Doom Slayer, in [a] never-before-seen dark and sinister medieval war against Hell.” You can check out more of IGN’s coverage ahead of the game’s release:
EA has canceled another incubation project at Respawn Entertainment today, and simultaneously laid off an unknown number of individuals across its incubation, Apex Legends, and Star Wars: Jedi teams, IGN has learned.
In a post today from the studio, Respawn announced is has “made the decision to step away from two early-stage incubation projects and make some targeted team adjustments across Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi.” One of these canceled incubation projects is the same one already reported on back in March.
“These decisions aren’t easy, and we are deeply grateful to every teammate affected — their creativity and contributions have helped build Respawn into what it is today,” the post continued. “We’re offering meaningful support to those impacted, including exploring new opportunities within EA.”
IGN understands that Respawn currently employs roughly 100 individuals, and those affected by the changes include a mix of developers, publishing, and QA workers on Apex Legends, as well as smaller groups of individuals on the Jedi team and on the incubation projects. IGN also understands that at least some, though not all, of the developers from the incubation project reported on in March have already been moved to work on Iron Man at EA Motive. When asked, EA declined to comment on the exact number of individuals impacted, saying it is offering impacted individuals 30 days to find a new opportunity inside the organization and is endeavoring to find roles for as many individuals as it can internally.
Internally at Respawn, work will continue on Apex Legends and the next entry in the Star Wars: Jedi franchise, as well as support on the upcoming Bit Reactor Star Wars game, Star Wars: Zero Company. EA declined to say whether or not any other incubation projects are currently in the works.
In addition to these changes, Respawn SVP of operations Daniel Suarez is being elevated to general manager of Respawn, and will report directly to Vince Zampella. Previously, Zampella served as GM of Respawn, the studio he founded, in addition to his role as head of the Battlefield franchise. Zampella will continue as group GM and EVP overseeing both Battlefield and Respawn.
Notably, just last February, EA told investors that Apex Legends was “not headed in the direction that we have wanted” and hadn’t been for some time. CEO Andrew Wilson said that Respawn is currently working on a major update, dubbed “Apex 2.0”.
“Our expectation is that Apex will also be one of those franchises and that sometime on a longer-term time horizon, there will be an even bigger, more meaningful update to that broader game experience, an Apex 2.0, if you will. This will not be the final incarnation of Apex,” Wilson said.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
IGN’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 map is here! Our interactive map tracks essential locations across The Continent, including collectibles, Bosses, and Pictos, so you always know where to go for your next objective.
Other notable map markers, such as Merchant locations and Lost Gestrals.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Guides
The Continent hides a lot to do in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, whether it’s completing Side Quests or finding and defeating Mimes. IGN’s Game Help is here to assist you on your adventure with informative walkthroughs and guides, which include checklists to help you track your progress.
Meg Koepp is a Guides Editor on the IGN Guides team, with a focus on trends. When she’s not working, you can find her playing an RPG or spending time with her corgi.
Gearbox’s upcoming first-person shooter Borderlands 4 will release 11 days earlier than planned, as confirmed by development chief Randy Pitchford in a video that appears to have gone live early.
Borderlands 4 was due out September 23, but will now release on September 12 across PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
In the video, Pitchford said: “Everything is going great, actually. In fact, everything is going kind of the best-case scenario. The game is awesome, the team is cooking, and so the launch date for Borderlands 4 is changing. We’re moving it forward. The launch date is now September 12.”
“What?! This never happens you guys! This never happens! We’re moving the launch date forward! You’re gonna get Borderlands 4 earlier!”
Pitchford added that the promised PlayStation State of Play focused on Borderlands 4 is due out imminently (Sony just announced it for tomorrow, April 30 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET / 11pm CEST).
Of course, there will be questions asked about whether the unexpected decision to bring Borderlands 4 forward has anything to do with the looming behemoth that is Grand Theft Auto 6. GTA 6 is currently still set for release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S at some point in the fall of 2025. That’s a vague release window that could end up consuming the likes of Borderlands 4, among other games. Has Borderlands 4 moved to give it more breathing room?
It’s worth noting that Borderlands 4 is published by 2K Games, which is owned by Take-Two. Take-Two is also the parent company of GTA developer Rockstar. At a high enough level, right up to CEO Strauss Zelnick, there will be a knowledge of all the company’s games, where they’re at in development, and a desire to give them all the best chance of success. Perhaps GTA 6’s release date recently came into focus, and it was felt that for the good of Borderlands 4, it should come out nearly two weeks earlier than planned.
If Borderlands 4 comes out September 12, we can perhaps rule out a GTA 6 release date during the same month and August. Could it come out in October? November? December 2025? All seem up for grabs now for GTA 6. The risk of course is that Take-Two ends up cannibalizing its big 2025 games by releasing them too close together. And let’s not forget Mafia: The Old Country, another 2K game, launches at some point summer 2025.
As you’d expect, Zelnick said Take-Two is planning its releases to avoid a risk of cannibalization, insisting the timing is driven by a desire to “respect the consumer’s need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next.”
“No, I think we will plan the releases so as not to have that be a problem,” Zelnick said. “And what we found is when you’re giving consumers hits, they tend to be interested in pursuing other hits. In other words, I’ve said this many times, even when the hits aren’t ours, they’re a good thing for the industry. In this case, we hope that the hits will largely be ours. So we feel really good about it and I think that we will time our releases so as to respect the consumer’s need to spend a lot of time playing these hit games before they go on to the next.”
Amid all this speculation is of course the prospect that GTA 6 will be delayed either into early winter, or at some point in the first quarter of 2026.
“Look, there’s always a risk of slippage and I think as soon as you say words like absolutely, you jinx things,” Zelnick responded when IGN asked how confident he was that Rockstar would hit fall 2025 for GTA 6. “So we feel really good about it.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
My first ritual was ended by a large man with two morningstars swinging around him in a circle. Think the hands of a clock — one short, one long — but spikier and much, much more deadly, and equally inevitable as time, at least to the novice. I was playing a Barbarian that run; I didn’t understand what I was doing yet, or how to avoid them. My dodges weren’t dodging. I’d done pretty well up until that point, but he chewed through my lives like a dog with a bone, and then I was dead, my ritual incomplete. But I’d gotten somewhere, earned some upgrades, had a better idea of what I was doing. Time to try again.
Conquest Dark is a strange beast. It clearly owes a lot to Vampire Survivors, but its inspirations don’t quit there. It’s also pulling from stuff like Conan the Barbarian — your characters look like they can bench press a car but start with little more than a loincloth — and some cosmic horror, as a treat. There isn’t much story in Conquest Dark, but the actual setup is cool. After the arrival of something called The Black Planet 237 years ago, humanity stands on the brink of annihilation. Undead armies have laid waste to the great human kingdoms. The Cosmic Gods have fallen. The Primordial Ones have awoken from their long slumber. Only Kharathia, The City of Legends, still stands, one last hope for humanity. In a last, desperate effort, people of all stripes — heroes, criminals, devotees of old gods, those seeking glory — complete Dark Rituals to summon the undead hordes and fallen heroes to gain power, hoping to use it to uncover the secrets of the Black Planet and reclaim what they can.
It’s a cool conceit, but Conquest Dark isn’t one for exposition. Most of this is delivered as text, and it’s up to you to stitch things together. You see it in the little details. The named bosses, like Lord Commander Urien, who appears outside Kharathia. Who was he before? A protector of the city, now turned against it in undeath? What about Witch Smeller Mzawi in the Shifting Sands? How do you smell witches, and what do you do if you catch a whiff of one? What happened at The Chasm of Fallen Heroes? Who was S’hes, why did she hunt Titans, and what specifically did she do to have an order of hunters named after her? What is the Black Planet? Where did it come from? I don’t know how interested in answering these questions Conquest Dark is, but every time I went to a new place, saw what was there, or learned a little bit more from a description, I was intrigued.
Dark Rituals, Big Choices
In practice, Conquest Dark is pretty simple: you go to an area on the map to start a Dark Ritual. Once you’ve selected where you want to be, it’s time to figure out who. You’ve got a trio of characters to select from, and you can reroll those options as many times as you like. You only have one race (Human) and two classes (Hunter and Barbarian) from the jump, though you’ll quickly get more. I won’t spoil the additional races, but the new classes like the agile Thief, paladin-esque Oathkeeper, and the spellcaster-flavored Acolyte of Kuu, all do exactly what they sound like.
But let’s start from, well, the start. The Hunter is faster and more nimble and naturally inclined towards bows and ranged attacks, while the Barbarian has more health and bleed resistance, and thrives up close and personal with melee weapons, but what might be more interesting are the randomly generated proficiencies they get right from the jump. An extra 5% critical hit damage, 2.5% bonus health, or 5% reduced bleed rate may not seem like a big deal, but it can define who you want your character to be, and how you upgrade later. I particularly like that you can reroll your three starting choices as much as you want, for free, or leave an area entirely at no cost if you decide this isn’t where you wanna be.
No matter who you pick, your character starts with nothing more than a loincloth and their fists. That doesn’t last long, though.
Once you’ve got your guy (or gal), the fun begins. First, you select an origin. Veteran of the War gives you Heavy Armor, Shields, and 25% Bonus Health, while Hunter’s Apprentice adds Short Bow proficiency, Survival, and 0.5 Projectile Pierce. It’s important to note that you can double-up here. If you’re playing as a Hunter, you probably shouldn’t take Hunter’s Apprentice, for instance, because you already have two of those proficiencies, but it would be great for a Barbarian that wants to play the ranged game. If you play things, right, you can essentially multi-class: Oathkeepers are already hard to kill, but it’s even more difficult when you take the Stargazer origin, which gives you the Acolyte of Kuu’s barrier. Once you’ve got an origin, the games begin. No matter who you pick, your character starts with nothing more than a loincloth and their fists. That doesn’t last long, though.
After you smack your first undead back to the afterlife, you get your first major choice: your weapon. Some of your options might not seem all that important. Take a Hunter’s opening choices. Shortbow versus longbow’s not really that crucial, right? Wrong. Shortbows shoot faster, but do less damage per shot and have less range, while longbows take a little more time to fire, but hit harder and farther. Once you’re got your killing instrument of choice, things escalate. The first few waves are small, just so you have enough time to get used to things. Like Vampire Survivors, you don’t actually control much in Conquest Dark; just where you move and when you dodge. Attacking happens automatically. Instead, your focus is almost entirely on positioning. Where to be, when to dodge, keeping track of when abilities will activate, and being in a position to capitalize on that big shot or big swing.
I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed
As you level up, you’ll make more choices. What to equip, what abilities to upgrade, when to re-roll a selection you don’t like or skip it entirely for more currency for re-rolls later. There’s a ton of build variety here. I gravitated to builds with huge critical hit damage and high crit chance with the Hunter, but the Barbarian works well with AoE damage and by increasing the chance for enemies to drop health. Picking early and specializing seems to be key.
Your real goal, aside from putting together a build that works, is staying alive as long as you can. See, you get 10 lives on each run. If you lose one, you start bleeding. The more lives you lose, the more you bleed. The first time you die, you start losing 1% of your health every second. The second time, that jumps to 2%. The third time makes it 3% and so on. There’s no way to stop bleeding once you start, but you can reduce it by speccing into health regeneration, reduced bleed rate, and how likely enemies are to drop health. Surviving long enough to complete a Ritual means staying alive after enemies cover every inch of the screen, and you start dying. The longer you can stave it off, the better, but the difference between a failed run and a successful one is how long you can hang on once things go sideways and the bosses start showing up. Like you, they have a lot of lives, and they can get pretty nasty, swinging morningstars or not. They’re tough, but if it bleeds, you can kill it. I’ve had the most success as a Hunter, Oathkeeper, and the Acolyte of Kuu (I like standing far away from things and shooting them), but I admire how different each class feels and how they forced me to approach fights in unique ways that played to their strengths.
Your real goal, aside from putting together a build that works, is staying alive as long as you can. See, you get 10 lives on each run. If you lose one, you start bleeding. The more lives you lose, the more you bleed.
Whether you succeed or fail (and by the way, you die regardless; even if you succeed, an army of unkillable ghosts sweeps in to ruin your day. Oops), you’re going to unlock rewards, and then it’s back to the map to spend them to help future runs. Maybe that means heading to the Stygian Archive in Kharathia, where you can not only see everything you’ve unlocked, but also upgrade individual skills, weapon sets, abilities, and so on with the Soul Coins you get on each run. Or maybe you’re off to the Altar of Power to spend crystals for increased damage, or the Altar of Toughness to take a chunk out of that pesky bleed damage, or the Altar of Souls to make sure you can collect souls (experience) from farther away. And then there’s the Factions, like the aforementioned Order of S’hes, which rewards you with buffs for all classes for slaying things as a Hunter. And then there’s the Obelisk of the Moon, where you can ramp up the difficulty of performing Rituals for increased rewards by offering up Shards of the Black Planet. Then it’s back to a Ritual. Live, die, upgrade, repeat.
Live, Die, Upgrade, Retry
Conquest Dark doesn’t stop and explain how all of this works off the bat, though there is a detailed game guide there if you want to do some light reading before you set off. Mostly, you learn by doing, and I like that. Put me in, coach, I’m ready to play, win or lose. And once you start unlocking more stuff, the wheels start turning. ‘What can I do with this class? How do I build around this thing? What if I tried taking this origin with this class? What can I do?” And once they start, they don’t really stop.
This preview’s written, Lord Commander Urien (the dude with the morningstars) has been sent on his way, and I’ve seen several hours of Conquest Dark at this point. But I also can’t stop thinking about it, either. What I might try next, how I might upgrade certain things, what classes I want to explore. The moment-to-moment gameplay here is remarkably simple. You just move and dodge (or use dodge-based abilities that can double as attacks), but there’s an elegance to it that I appreciate, and it kept me coming back with new ideas. Upgrades may be what put you over the top, but the magic happens when you step into the arena, in the moments between life and death. You’re going to die; that’s a given. The question is how far you can get (and how many horrors you can vanquish) before you do.
