Mortal Kombat 1’s T-1000 update has added the iconic Terminator 2 villain to the fighting game, and with it revealed how the developers at NetherRealm have handled its liquid metal form in the face of the series’ trademark Fatalities.
The gory fighting game franchise is famous for slicing and dicing characters in all sorts of gruesome ways, ripping out organs and even complete skeletons. Some characters tear the very soul from their hapless foe’s body, or break bones every which way possible.
But none of this should work on the T-1000, right? The T-1000 is made entirely out of a liquid metal called mimetic polyalloy, meaning it can reform into any shape it touches of the approximate size. And that’s exactly how the T-1000 works in Mortal Kombat 1, with his moveset, Fatalities, and Brutalities all in keeping with the character’s movie rules.
Of course, when it comes to damage being done to T-1000 in the game, some of those rules had to be broken. But as players have discovered, the developers at NetherRealm have done a fantastic job creating a custom look for the T-1000 when it’s on the receiving end of Fatalities and other devastating attacks.
X / Twitter user @daehnny published a series of videos showing how the T-1000 reacts to being torn to pieces. We see that in Mortal Kombat 1, the T-1000 melts as it does in the movies.
But we also see that in Mortal Kombat 1, the T-1000 has a skeleton of sorts and even an intestine. And, not to get too philosophical, but in the world of Mortal Kombat 1, the T-1000 has a soul.
There are some cool visuals at play here, with a dissolve effect for the T-1000 that makes the character look a little more unique than it would otherwise.
There are also unique effects for when the T-1000 is on the receiving end of a Fatal Blow, and we see the character turn to liquid form when it’s “dead,” which is a cool detail.
Of course, none of these Fatalities and Fatal Blows would actually kill the T-1000 were Mortal Kombat 1 playing by the rules established by the films. But then, Mortal Kombat 1 has never really made much sense. It’s about over-the-top, laugh-out-loud violence, and there’s no reason the T-1000 shouldn’t get in on the fun.
Meanwhile, Mortal Kombat 1 players have been working out the T-1000’s Brutalities, and there are some cool Easter eggs in there, as well as references to Terminator 2 itself.
T-1000 is the final DLC character in the Khaos Reigns expansion, and follows playable fighters Cyrax, Sektor, Noob Saibot, Ghostface, and Conan the Barbarian. Fans have wondered for some time now whether NetherRealm plans a third set of DLC characters, or a Kombat Pack 3, amid questions about the 5 million-selling Mortal Kombat 1’s success.
And just this week, NetherRealm offered a first look at skins based on the Mortal Kombat 2 movie that are coming to Mortal Kombat 1 at some point in the future.
Here’s is a sneak peek at the MK2 movie skins in Mortal Kombat 1 🐉
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.
According to Circana, not only was Monster Hunter Wilds the best-selling game of February, but launch month dollar sales more than doubled the total Monster Hunter: Rise achieved during its March 2021 debut.
That stat came as part of a discussion about the current console generation. In the U.S., February video game hardware spending fell by 25% when compared to a year ago, to $256 million. That’s the lowest February total for video game hardware spending since the $184 million reached in February 2020.
Zelnick pointed to the PC platform as growing in importance while publishers wait for Sony and Microsoft’s next moves and with the Nintendo Switch 2 waiting in the wings.
“We have seen PC become a much more and more important part of what used to be a console business, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that trend continue,” he said. “Of course, there will be a new console generation.”
Monster Hunter Wilds is evidence of the trend, then. But it wasn’t the only new release in February to do well. In fact, according to Circana’s data, the top four best-selling games of February 2025 were new releases, with Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, and PGA Tour 2K25 joining Monster Hunter Wilds. Other new releases appearing among the month’s top 10 best-sellers included Obsidian’s Avowed, which also launched day-one into Game Pass, and Sega’s Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.
Circana said the launch month dollar sales total Kingdom Come: Deliverance II reached in February 2025 was more than five times higher than the original Kingdom Come: Deliverance achieved during its February 2018 debut. Embracer Group, parent company of Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse Studios, has already hailed the sequel’s sales success.
February 2025 U.S. Top 20 Best-Selling Games:
NEW Monster Hunter: Wilds – Capcom USA
NEW Kingdom Come: Deliverance II – Plaion
NEW Civilization VII – Take-Two Interactive
NEW PGA Tour 2K25 – Take-Two Interactive
NBA 2K25 – Take-Two Interactive
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 – Microsoft (Corp)
NEW Avowed – Microsoft (Corp)
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii – Sega
Grand Theft Auto V – Take-Two Interactive
Madden NFL 25 – Electronic Arts
Minecraft – Multiple Video Game Manufacturers
EA Sports FC 25 – Electronic Arts
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – Sony (Corp)
Red Dead Redemption II – Take-Two Interactive
Hogwarts Legacy – Warner Bros. Games
EA Sports College Football 25 – Electronic Arts
Helldivers II – Sony (Corp)
Elden Ring – Bandai Namco Entertainment
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero – Bandai Namco Entertainment
Astro Bot – Sony (Corp)
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.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has come to dominate entertainment with its interconnected series of films and TV shows that all tie together to form a long-running, cohesive narrative. Marvel video games, however, do not exist in the same universe, telling stories entirely separate and unrelated to each other. Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man games, for example, have nothing to do with Eidos-Montreal’s Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Similarly, upcoming Marvel games such as Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, Marvel’s Wolverine, and Marvel’s Blade, have no connective tissue.
But there was once an idea at Disney to create a Marvel Gaming Universe that would do for Marvel video games what the MCU went on to do for Marvel movies and TV shows. So what happened?
Speaking on The Fourth Curtain podcast, host Alexander Seropian and guest Alex Irvine recalled this MGU idea, which both worked on, and revealed why it fell by the wayside.
Seropian, perhaps best known as one of the founders of Halo and Destiny developer Bungie, went on to run Disney’s video game business before leaving in 2012. Irvine was the long-running writer of Marvel games, most recently working on the world-building, dialogue, and character backstories for smash hit Marvel Rivals.
Discussing his prior work on Marvel games, Irvine discussed the scrapped MGU.
“When I first started working on Marvel games, there was this idea that they were going to create a Marvel gaming universe that was going to exist in the same way that the MCU did,” Irvine said. “It never really happened.”
Seropian then explained that the MGU was his “initiative,” but it never got funded by the higher-ups at Disney.
“When I was at Disney, that was my initiative, ‘Hey, let’s tie these games together.’ It was pre-MCU,” Seropian said. “But it didn’t get funded.”
Irvine, who had worked on the iconic Halo alternate reality game (ARG) I Love Bees while at Bungie, went into some detail on how this MGU would have worked.
“That was so frustrating because we came up with all these great ideas about how to do it,” he said.
“And I was coming out of ARGs at that point and thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we had some ARG aspects?’ There would be a place where players could go that all the games touched, and we could move them back and forth from game to game. We could link in comics, we could loop in anything, we could do original stuff. And then, as Alex said, it didn’t get funded. So we made a bunch of games.”
But why did the MGU fail to get the internal buy-in to move forward? Irvine suggested the idea became so complex it ended up putting some people at Disney off.
“Even back then, we were trying to figure out, ‘If there’s going to be this MGU, how is it different from the comics? How is it different from the movies? How are we going to decide if it stays consistent?’ And I think some of those questions got complex enough that there were people at Disney who didn’t really want to deal with them,” Irvine explained.
It’s fun to imagine what might have been had the MGU idea got the funding it needed to become a reality. Perhaps if it had, Insomniac’s Spider-Man games would have existed in the same universe as Square Enix’s ill-fated Marvel’s Avengers and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, with characters from each game making cameo appearances across the titles or the stories all building towards some epic Endgame-style event.
Looking ahead, there are questions over Insomniac’s Marvel’s Wolverine game. Will it be set within the same universe as Marvel’s Spider-Man? Could Spider-Man or any other character from those games end up making a cameo in Wolverine in some way?
Alas, the MGU goes down as yet another scrapped video game idea. Although, perhaps in another universe somewhere, it is a reality…
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.
Palworld has a big new update that adds crossplay across all platforms among many other new features.
Update v0.5.0 also lets players store Pal data in the Global Palbox and transfer Pals between worlds. A new storage system has 10 times the capacity of the regular Palbox. Not only can guild members access it, but it can be used as a personal storage with private settings.
Elsewhere, you can now change your character’s appearance without affecting armor stats (transmog), there’s a photo mode, blueprint upgrading, and dedicated servers for Mac, among other changes detailed in the patch notes below.
Developer Pocketpair said it’s working on adding dedicated servers for the PlayStation 5 version and will release them at some point in the future.
Palworld has had an incredible 32 million players since its early access launch in January 2024. The studio has laid out a content roadmap for Palworld’s 2025 that looks fairly lengthy; alongside crossplay, there is an “ending scenario” and more new content on the way for the hugely popular creature-catching survival game.
Palworld launched on Steam priced $30 and straight into Game Pass on Xbox and PC a year ago, 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, and launching the game on PS5.
Looming over all this is a lawsuit from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, who seek “an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages” on the grounds that Palworld has allegedly infringed on “multiple” patent rights. Pocketpair has provided an update, identifying the patents the studio is allegedly infringing, and it has since tweaked how players summon Pals in Palworld, apparently in response. Pocketpair has vowed to take on Nintendo and The Pokémon Company in court, saying: “We will continue to assert our position in this case through future legal proceedings.”
Palworld update 0.5.0 patch notes:
▼New Content ・Crossplay! ⤷ Cross-play is now available across all platforms.
・Global Palbox ⤷ Store Pal data in the Global Palbox and transfer Pals between worlds!
・Dimensional Pal Storage ⤷ A new storage system with 10 times the capacity of a regular Palbox! Guild members can access it, and it can also be used as a personal storage with private settings.
・Cosmetic Armour System! ⤷ You can now equip armour cosmetically in the Antique Dresser. Change your character’s appearance without affecting armour stats!
・Photo Mode ⤷ Accessible from the Pal Command Wheel. Hide the UI and move the camera around to take stunning screenshots.
・Drafting Table ⤷ Combine low-rarity blueprints to create higher-rarity ones!
・Dedicated Servers for Mac ▼Specification Adjustments ・Buildings can now be placed even if they overlap with a Pal ・When connecting foundations or roofs, the connected pieces will now automatically align in the same direction ・Assigning an Ice Pal to the Flea Market will slow down item decay in storage and sales ・Added torches at the entrances of random dungeons for better visibility ・Players can now sit on chairs and cushions ・Some weapons that dealt ultra-high damage to trees will no longer drop items upon destruction ・Added new NPCs and improved NPC behaviour during conversations ▼Balance Adjustments ・Adjusted elemental chest rewards. Dog Coins will always drop from these chests and they also have a small chance of containing work suitability books. (Existing chests in current worlds will retain old drop tables; new ones will follow the updated table.) ・Increased EXP gained from defeating the Attack Chopper ・Increased the DPS of Flamethrowers ・Adjusted the default attack used by Electric and Dark Pals when all active skills are on cooldown, making them more in line with the other elements ・Some human NPCs now have work suitability and work animations when assigned tasks at a base ・Summoned raid bosses can no longer damage other bases ・Added Water attribute to Dumud ・NPC event rewards have been adjusted. To maintain fairness, all NPC conversation logs have been reset, allowing players to claim rewards again! ▼UI ・Favourites have been categorised into Favourite 1, 2, and 3 groups ・Holding the +/- button in the Pal Soul Enhancement UI will now continuously increase/decrease values ・Added a new sorting option for Pal Box: Sort by Work Suitability Level ・Added a “Extra Large” text size option ・Added Fullscreen Mode ▼Achievements ・Added several new achievements ▼ Bug Fixes ・Fixed an issue where players could get launched into space while climbing ・Fixed a bug where getting stunned by an enemy while riding a flying Pal over water would send the player flying into the sky ・Fixed an issue where commanding a summoned Pal to attack would also target the Black Marketeer and Medal Merchant ・Fixed a bug where Bounty Tokens with identical passive effects did not stack properly ・Fixed an issue where players would sometimes get launched upward when dismounting Azurmane ・Fixed an issue on dedicated servers where Pals could get stuck on top of feed boxes ・Fixed an issue where raiding NPCs could attack players through walls if they couldn’t reach them ・Fixed a bug on dedicated servers where Bounty Token effects were not applied upon login ・Fixed an issue where attacking some NPCs did not add to the player’s crime level ・Various many other minor bug fixes
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.
Unlike previous games in the series and indeed Ubisoft games generally, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a unified, actual release date. You cannot pay more for early access.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ release date on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S is 12am local time on March 20, but it’s worth noting there are separate release times for the game on PC depending on whether you’re getting it on Steam or Ubisoft’s own platform, Ubi Connect.
Pre-load is already available on Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
There is of course enormous pressure on Assassin’s Creed Shadows to do well for Ubisoft after a number of delays and last year’s Star Wars Outlaws failed to sell as well as the company had hoped. Indeed, Ubisoft has suffered a number of high-profile flops, layoffs, studio closures, and game cancellations in the run up to Assassin’s Creed shadows’ release.
IGN’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows review returned an 8/10. We said: “By sharpening the edges of its existing systems, Assassin’s Creed Shadows creates one of the best versions of the open-world style it’s been honing for the last decade.”
Assassin’s Creed Shadows global release times:
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Xbox Series X and S and PS5 global release times:
Los Angeles (PDT) 12am, March 20
Mexico (CST) 12am, March 20
New York (EDT) 12am, March 20
Montreal (EDT) 12am, March 20
Sao Paolo (BRT) 12am, March 20
London (GMT) 12am, March 20
Paris (CET) 12am, March 20
Johannesburg (SAST) 12am, March 20
Abu Dhabi (GST) 12am, March 20
Shanghai (CST) 12am, March 20
Seoul (KST) 12am, March 20
Tokyo (JST) 12am, March 20
Sydney (AEDT) 12am, March 20
Assassin’s Creed Shadows PC via Steam global release times:
Los Angeles (PDT) 9pm, March 19
Mexico (CST) 10pm, March 19
New York (EDT) 12am, March 20
Montreal (EDT) 12am, March 20
Sao Paolo (BRT) 1am, March 20
London (GMT) 4am, March 20
Paris (CET) 5am, March 20
Johannesburg (SAST) 6am, March 20
Abu Dhabi (GST) 8am, March 20
Shanghai (CST) 12am, March 20
Seoul (KST) 1pm, March 20
Tokyo (JST) 1pm, March 20
Sydney (AEDT) 3pm, March 20
Assassin’s Creed Shadows PC via Ubi Connect global release times:
Los Angeles (PDT) 9pm, March 19
Mexico (CST) 10pm, March 19
New York (EST) 12am, March 20
Montreal (EDT) 12am, March 20
Sao Paolo (BRT) 1am, March 20
London (GMT) 10pm, March 19
Paris (CET) 11pm, March 19
Johannesburg (SAST) 12am, March 20
Abu Dhabi (GST) 2am, March 20
Shanghai (CST) 8pm, March 19
Seoul (KST) 9pm, March 19
Tokyo (JST) 9pm, March 19
Sydney (AEDT) 11pm, March 19
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.
Marvel is everywhere these days, so it’s not surprising to see the deluge of heroes and villains represented throughout various media like the X-Men ‘97 show and Marvel Rivals video game. Even on the tabletop front, Marvel has seen its fair share of interesting crossovers with the likes of the team-based word game Codenames, and the long lasting trading card game Magic: The Gathering. Coming this Spring, there is yet another Marvel collab featuring the X-Men and the dice-rolling fighting game, Dice Throne. From what I’ve played so far, it’s very similar to past versions, but the new characters and unique abilities give this new X-Men run an interesting take for fans looking for a different kind of superhero tabletop experience.
The new X-Men iteration of Dice Throne was initially on Kickstarter. So the Kickstarter version and the Battle Chest version that can be ordered on their website will have different contents than the retail versions that I was able to play with. These differences are mainly in the quality of the tokens and game pieces, in addition to better organizational improvements like storage trays for each hero. For the retail versions, there are two boxes to choose from showcasing four different X-Men each. One includes Cyclops, Gambit, Rogue, and Jean Grey while the other has Iceman, Psylocke, Storm, and Wolverine. So when deciding on which box to get into, you get a good blend of some fan favorites no matter what. Each character has a difficulty rank from one to six, which can be seen on the back of the box as well. The box with Wolverine and Storm is best for new players, since neither of the heroes have a difficulty over four. The Gambit and Jean Grey box, on the other hand, has both of these heroes in particular at difficulty six, so it’s best to consider your playgroup before choosing one or the other.
Since this is ultimately Dice Throne, the gameplay is much the same, with each player rolling dice to determine what abilities their character will use on themself or their opponents or allies. Of the eight abilities on a character board, one of them is usually a defensive ability and another is a passive – alongside the other offensive abilities. On the center is the ultimate ability, which is of course very difficult to pull off being a game of chance. WIth each character board comes dice, a deck of cards specific to the character, dials for tracking resources, and associated character sheets with added information. It can take some time to understand a character’s abilities and the synergy between each one, but it all comes down to what you roll to decide what your turn will play out as. The deck of cards can assist you in manipulating your roll, but you can also alter your opponent’s roll if you decide to make an attack weaker or fizzle altogether. You’ll be taking turns rolling dice and bashing your opponents until they’re life hits zero. It’s pretty a straightforward goal, but how you get there is where the strategy comes in.
The more Wolverine is attacked, the stronger his attacks will be.
Since the basic gameplay is quite simple, the replayability really comes from the different characters you can pick from. Wolverine, for instance, has a fairly easy playstyle where he gains rage when taking damage. So the more Wolverine is attacked, the stronger his attacks will be. Then you have characters like Storm that can supercharge her abilities to have extra effects. She even has an ability to borrow dice from other players, so she has a better chance of rolling straights, like in poker, which are the cost of some offensive abilities.
Looking at the very difficult side of the character spectrum, there’s Jean Grey, who swaps back and forth between the Dark Phoenix, altering her passive abilities each turn. This means she’s drawing many cards and gaining resources one turn as Jean Grey, then skipping an entire phase but having higher offensive capabilities the next turn as Dark Phoenix. It can be difficult to balance depending on how your opponents affect your plays. Then there’s Gambit, another difficult character who kinetically charges cards with abilities to set up added effects on future turns. So keeping track of said charged cards and when to use them is another layer of strategy. Each character has their own flavor that matches their comic lore, so it’s just a matter of understanding their playstyle to make gameplay go smoothly.
Dice Throne can be played 1v1, but there are other options that the game suggests, like a free-for-all King of the Hill when there are an odd number of players, or even team matches. Since players take turns one at a time, games can last long if players aren’t quite comfortable enough yet, so playing 1v1 is a good way to get your feet wet before moving on to bigger parties. If you have experience with trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, Dice Throne will actually be pretty easy to pick up. Other than the dice rolls determining which abilities to use, the cards are used very similarly to other TCGs. For instance, there is a specific turn order like upkeep phase, income phase, main phase, and dice roll phases as well as the different timings for when cards can be used during either phase.
I’ve seen Dice Throne before, but I’ve never really thought much of it whenever I find myself at the board game section of a store. Sure, dice-rolling games can be fun and interesting, but people will be drawn to whatever genres or game types they prefer. Being a fan of the Marvel universe and superheroes in general, this iteration of Dice Throne really brought me around to checking it out. If you enjoy Marvel characters and want a fun new board game to add to the library, X-Men Dice Throne really scratches that itch for board game nights – especially when your friends enjoy the characters and world as well.
Hazelight director Josef Fares has taken the time to clear the air about his studio’s relationship with EA while promising that the It Takes Two and Split Fiction developer is already working on its next game.
The creative behind the infamous “f*** the Oscars” line spoke about Hazelight’s past, present, and future during an interview on the Friends Per Second podcast. For those who enjoyed Split Fiction, the studio’s most recent critically acclaimed co-op adventure, he says the team is already putting some early ideas together.
“For me, personally, every time a game is out, I’m kind of done with it. I’m kind of like, ‘OK, here’s the next thing,’” Fares explained when talking about his mentality after releasing Split Fiction. “This has been a bit extra special. I would say that it’s been the best-received game we have done, but to be honest, everybody is super happy, but I’m so fully-focused and excited on the next thing that we already have started.”
Fares declined to share too much about what Hazelight’s mysterious next title is called, what it’s about, or what kind of game it will be, mostly because work only began around one month ago. Hazelight is well known for the mark it’s left on co-op gaming, but for now, we’ll have to wait at least a few more years to hear how it plans to follow Split Fiction.
“There is a reason why I can’t talk about the next game; it’s because it’s quite early,” Fares added. “You do know, at Hazelight, we don’t work on [a] game more than three or four years. Three or four years is not so far away. Then we’re going to talk more about it. It’s way too early, but just know this: we are very, very, very, very excited here. Very excited, and we started working on this a month ago-ish.”
A Tale of Two Studios
Hazelight has worked with publisher EA on several titles in the last seven years. While games like A Way Out and It Takes Two have continued to secure the studio’s place as a leading developer in the industry, Fares said the company has had “zero” input when it comes to the games the developer chooses to work on.
“Here’s the thing, people don’t understand this: EA is a supporter. We don’t pitch games to them,” he explained. “We say, ‘We’re going to do this.’ That’s it. They have zero, and I mean zero, thing to say about what we’re doing next.”
While EA has a mixed reputation as a publisher, Fares said his experience with EA has been largely positive as Hazelight charges forward to what’s coming next.
“With that said, I have to say, they’re a good partner,” Fares added. “Nobody believes me. Whatever I say, they’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah. It’s EA.’ Look, I don’t know anything about what EA are doing. Maybe they’re f***ing up with other developers. With us, no. They respect us. They respect what we do. I’m very clear with them that they cannot interfere with what we do. Now, we have become one of their most successful studios.”
Split Fiction has easily solidified its place as another Hazelight success story in more ways than one. While it quickly propelled itself to high ratings from critics (IGN’s Split Fiction review returned a 9/10), it also managed to sell 1 million copies in only 48 hours and 2 million copies in just one week. That means it’s already outpacing its previous title, It Takes Two, which had sold 20 million copies as of October 2024.
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).
It’s wild that it took almost 20 years and dozens of games for the biggest stealth action series around to finally bend towards feudal Japan. Assassin’s Creed Shadows makes the most of that theme, with a great pair of shinobi and samurai heroes sharing center stage that are well-written and fun to skulk through giant castles or wade into vicious battles with. Besides the setting, the bulk of the changes this time focus on making smaller tweaks to well-established systems, such as less cluttered maps and skill trees, while also doubling down on things that really worked in 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage, like the more focused and tougher combat that accompanies its better paced main quests. It’s not a perfect reset, as imbalances and missed opportunities abound, but I feel more confident than ever that Assassin’s Creed could be back and here to stay.
Like a river in the rainy season, Shadows’ story overflows with cliches that are signature to fiction set in this era. Warriors wander the land to bring honor to themselves and their masters. Absent rulers let wealthy bureaucrats exploit the poor. Bandits hold the countryside in the cold grip of fear. If you’re a fan of James Clavell’s Shogun or the excellent movies of Akira Kurosawa, you have certainly seen the bulk of what protagonists Yasuke and Naoe are made to navigate. This isn’t a bad thing, and morally complex intersecting plots still keep the intrigue high, which is the same trick that made Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s stories work when they did. I don’t think I was particularly wowed by the writing on a regular basis, but there are some standout moments of tense reflection and curious happenings sprinkled throughout. The typical Assassin’s Creed conspiracy woven into it fits perfectly within the war torn Sengoku period of Japan, too, like a hidden blade snugly in its wrist sheath.
The leads themselves are wonderful. You spend a lot of the early game with the sharp-witted and broody Naoe, who is among the last shinobi warriors of the Iga clan, a role thrust upon her by tragedy. That tragedy befell her in part by the hands of the charismatic hulk Yasuke, who is a tireless warrior for justice and peace. When they begin working together, they are frequently each other’s most reliable consul, with sound and often different perspectives on the events going on around them. In other words, they truly do balance one another, and while I don’t think either one would win popularity contests against other series stars like Ezio or Edward, together they serve as the bright light in the center of a largely dark tale of revenge.
The story is organized in a way that can be enjoyed in pieces and at your leisure without getting too lost between plot points.
The story overall is paced similarly to Valhalla, where the cardinal reason to be in each of the nine regions of the map is to play through a mostly self-contained chapter. That said, Shadows does a better job of making sure at least some story elements and characters don’t just completely vanish when you leave a region the way they did in its predecessor. Not every new lord or business man you meet becomes completely irrelevant after you’ve solved their problems. I also found these sections, and the overall time it took to move from chapter to chapter, to be more brisk and less filled with frustrating filler than past games. It’s still a bit too full of “go here, do that” as bridges between major moments than I’d prefer, but it’s organized in a way that can be enjoyed in pieces and at your leisure without getting too lost between plot points, almost like how one might read a good book.
Most of the missions in Shadows start on the objective board, a bigger and more elaborate chart of people that need assistance and targets that need eliminating adapted from Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Thematically, this approach matches the tone of using all the information you gather to identify hidden members of the secret society trying to plunge Japan into chaos. Functionally, the way it organizes outstanding tasks and the people involved is far more useful than the old bulleted quest lists. It does trade some of the magic of exploration away as a cost of this efficacy, though. More than once I organically stumbled across a jerk that couldn’t be talked down, just to kill them and find not only his crossed out profile tacked to my board, but also the exact number of remaining silhouettes of the gang I had no idea they were a part of until right then. But it’s a trade I would make every time.
Selecting a quest gave me a short list of clues to help discern where the objective was, which is easier to figure out depending on how well I’d searched that part of the map already. Past games have given hints to identify targets like this before, hoping to create some friction between you and the effort to find your quarry, but Shadows is the first one that I felt constantly made me look at my map and actually deduce where the spot in question might be by using those clues and some educated guesses. I could use scouts, one of the assets you can develop at your hideout, to assist in the narrowing process, pinging an area on the map and highlighting unidentified objectives in the zone. This doesn’t reveal hidden locations or features of the map outside of just a marker though, so it’s a bad way to clear fog of war from a distance. It will also cost one scout whether they find something or not, and scouts are replenished in very few ways, so scouting can be a real risk if you’re trying to make progress in the main story – especially early on.
I felt compelled to just ride through the countryside and genuinely explore.
Rather than lighting up your map with a galaxy of tooltips, Shadows mostly relies on sparse point-of-interest icons to push you towards the areas you’ll need to see the finer details of in-person. Even when you climb up to the signature highpoints to take a good long look at your surroundings, what you’ll see is a bevy of nondescript icons that tell you that something is out there, but you’re gonna have to hop down from that perch and go check them out for yourself to know what. I love this – I could feel my brain starting to detangle the checklist conditioning that years of these games had instilled in me. Not only did I feel compelled to just ride through the countryside and genuinely explore stuff without much expectation of grand rewards, I also felt no nagging compulsion to check off every possible thing to do in a region inorganically.
Most of these undiscovered locations fall into one of a number of reliable categories, like castles you can infiltrate and attempt to steal special gear from or any of the many villages scattered across Japan, but you can’t be sure unless you take it in for yourself. A common thing I would always stop to handle whenever I came across them were world activities – these are smaller locations and events that, when completed, add knowledge points to your characters, increasing their knowledge levels and adding new options to their skill trees. Not all of these events are exciting, with running around temples to find missing scroll pages being my least favorite, but they often don’t take too long and the points are worth it in the end. And in the case of something like the horse archery challenges, they can add an interesting distraction from the action for a short spell.
I was absolutely flooded by the cosmetics I unlocked just in the natural course of completing tasks and looting.
Between outings, I spent some time at the hideout, this iteration of Valhalla’s Ravensthorpe settlement. After collecting minerals, crops, and wood out in the world, you can use those resources to build and upgrade important buildings here that give you access to new assets. I spent the majority of my time at the forge managing my equipment, while other important buildings provide more passive additions or have features that can be managed in places outside of the hideout, like the new summoning ability from the dojo which let me call in help from certain allies I met during my adventure. I’m glad I didn’t have to dote on this place very much as I personally can’t be bothered to decorate a homestead, but for those interested in that sort of thing I was absolutely flooded by the cosmetics I unlocked just in the natural course of completing tasks and looting, so you’ll never be starved for options to spice the place up.
The real sightseeing, though, is out in the world. 1500s Japan is a beautiful place – there’s such a symphony of color over every hill and across every lake. Each season brings with it incredible landscapes, sometimes covered in the reddish brown of Autumn or entombed in deep white snow. In fact, I found the weather to be some of the best I’d ever experienced in an open world. It was hard not to be moved watching powerful winds pick up and bring in rolling thunderstorms, especially when watching how nature reacted to it all in real time, as flocks of birds took flight and ground critters scurry around to find safety. And not for nothing, but in my dozens of hours in Shadows I encountered remarkably few bugs for a game this size.
There are remarkably few quests where Naoe isn’t better suited for the task at hand.
The main 40-hour story revolves around the dual protagonists attempting to unmask and eliminate members of a deadly organization called the Shinbakufu. Once you’ve chosen a target, the multi-mission arcs give you regular opportunities to handle a situation with either Yasuke’s might or Naoe’s stealth. However, while there are certainly scenarios where one is more useful than the other, in general, there are remarkably few quests where Naoe isn’t better suited for the task at hand. This comes down to how their abilities are divided between them. If the classic Assassin’s Creed playstyle is the combination of exploration, parkour, stealth, and combat, Naoe can do all of these competently and excels at parkour and stealth. Yasuke, meanwhile, can’t climb very well or sneak around much due to his size and general lack of grace. He is a devastating force in combat – maybe the most overbearing and dominant protagonist in the series – but Naoe can simply sneak around most situations that Yasuke would cut his way through, solving them with so much less trouble if done well. As much as I like Yasuke, he’s far more limited and one dimensional in his style, with large parts of this game not quite designed to take advantage of his strengths in a way that feels intentional.
It’s particularly disappointing because Shadows does find ways to tailor missions around both of their skills on occasion, usually in bigger, more pivotal and important battles where both heroes need to operate together to succeed. These special missions are separated into sections that allow you to choose which character to proceed with, changing what’s asked of you depending on your choice. In a later game mission, Naoe is securing the perimeter of the castle walls, taking out gunmen, while Yasuke storms the place demanding to challenge this chapter’s foe to a duel for the lives of his hostages. Depending on who you play as, you’re either weaving through blockades to drop specific soldiers without alerting the whole castle, or you’re having a fierce duel against a powerful samurai. It’s awesome, and made the more homogenous space between these moments a real bummer.
Shadows does find ways to tailor missions around both of their skills on occasion, and it’s awesome.
Combat overall is more challenging than in the past. Enemies, especially in groups, are more aggressive, relying on combos and unblockable attacks as often as possible. They also tend to have solid defenses, both in that they block a lot and also in that many of them are armored, essentially giving them a second life bar. Effectively taking them down means having a solid defense of your own, dodging and deflecting their blows to make them vulnerable, and taking advantage before they recover. It requires a more thoughtful execution of your various abilities than previous games have, and I never felt like combat was a chore in and of itself – though the camera really struggled to keep all of the action in frame, and doubly so when inside buildings.
Straightforward combat really sings when playing as Yasuke, whose set of swords, naginata, kanabo, bows, and even guns are all perfect for decimating enemies. He is a juggernaut of a man outside of his toys, being able to literally run through walls and shake the earth with his blows. He’s also tough and can take many more blows before succumbing to his wounds. Naoe is very fragile by comparison, and while capable of doing lots of damage when enemies are vulnerable, she struggles to stagger them without the help of her tools. She gets overwhelmed easily by mobs, especially well-armored bruisers, and when the numbers get above three or four foes, I almost always found it better to drop a smoke bomb and disappear versus attempting to fight them all in an open melee.
This Assassin’s Creed takes the “Shadows” in its name seriously.
On the flipside, Naoe is a menace when striking from the shadows or catching enemies unaware. This Assassin’s Creed takes the “Shadows” in its name seriously, with darkness being a key part of her stealth gameplan. There are some new features that help her out, like being able to crawl and dodge while prone, as well as some returning ones like her Eagle Sense, which lets you see silhouettes of enemies through walls. The long-missing double assassination is back too, and all of these add up to make Naoe one of the most robust assassins in the series. Yasuke can’t hold a candle to his ninja counterpart in this arena.
Enhancing your combat abilities is mercifully less tedious than Valhalla’s skill constellation. Naoe and Yasuke have skill trees focused on their weapons and specialities, with every node feeling far more impactful than simple passive damage bonuses (which still exist, but in small amounts). Gaining new abilities is obviously the most impactful, but some of the real hidden gems add new functionality to weapons, like being able to turn certain attacks with Naoe’s chain sickle into grapples that let you pull enemies into obstacles or off of cliffs. Yasuke and his abundance of weapons made for some skill trees I largely ignored, especially his bow and teppo, as he is such a close ranged juggernaut that I had a hard time justifying spending my admittedly plentiful skill points on a ranged strategy I never embraced.
Speaking of excess, Shadows takes a big step backward from the work done around your inventory in Valhalla and Mirage. There are far too many pieces of randomized, color-tiered gear to pick up from fallen foes or as forgettable quest rewards that have no chance of making it into my rotation. Base stats like damage might make them relevant as last-minute stop gaps to keep your stats in line with bad guys at your level, but only until you find that next piece of legendary gear or earn enough resources to level up a piece you already like. The skills on legendary gear, like a kanabo that turns enemies into shrapnel grenades when you break their armor, are impactful in a way that the generic percentage buffs to XYZ skill that you get from the lower tiers of gear never even come close to.
One of the oldest discourses in the gaming space has circled around again: the question of whether big single-player games are “dead.” This time, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke, who spearheaded development on the blockbuster hit single-player game Baldur’s Gate 3, has weighed in on the matter with a firm position.
Posting on X/Twitter, Vincke noted it’s “that time of the year again when big single-player games are declared dead.” His response: “Use your imagination. They’re not. They just have to be good.”
It would be hard to deny Vincke knows exactly what he’s talking about. Larian built up its reputation game over game, producing stellar CRPGs like Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2 before taking the reins on Baldur’s Gate 3 and, by all accounts, delivering.
Vincke has previously made headlines for his concise insights, whether on the stage at The Game Awards or off. He’s emphasized the passion behind development, respecting the developers and players, and caring about the games. In that light, this take on the ages-old discourse may not be surprising, but it’s still reaffirming.
Indeed, 2025 has already seen at least one major single-player hit in the form of Warhorse Studios’ Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. There are still many months left to go in the year, and that’s plenty of time for other single-player games to steal the spotlight for themselves too.
Larian of course decided to walk away from Baldur’s Gate 3 and indeed Dungeons & Dragons to make a brand new IP. Speaking to IGN at this year’s Game Developers Conference, SVP of digital games at Hasbro Dan Ayoub teased fans may hear more on what’s next for the Baldur’s Gate series soon.
Microsoft has announced the Xbox Game Pass March 2025 wave two lineup, confirming the titles subscribers can expect for the rest of the month.
Out today, March 18, as a day one title is 33 Immortals (Game Preview) (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass. Here’s the official blurb, courtesy of Xbox Wire:
33 Immortals is a co-op action-roguelike for 33 players. Play as a damned soul, and rebel against God’s final judgment. Dive straight into epic, 33-player co-op battles with instant “pick-up and raid” matchmaking. Cooperate with your allies to survive against hordes of monsters and massive, challenging bosses. Expand your arsenal and equip powerful new relics to permanently upgrade your soul.
On March 19, Square Enix’s role-playing game Octopath Traveler II (Series X|S) hits Game Pass Standard.
In this critically acclaimed second title in the Octopath Traveler series, eight new travelers venture forth into an exciting new era in the land of Solistia. Step into their shoes and explore the land as you see fit, using their unique talents to aid you along your journey in this role-playing adventure.
Also on March 19, Train Sim World 5 (Console) pulls in at Game Pass Standard.
The rails are yours in Train Sim World 5! Take on new challenges and new roles as you master the tracks and trains of iconic cities across 3 new routes. Immerse yourself in the ultimate rail hobby and embark on your next journey.
A day later, on March 20, Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island (Cloud, Console, and PC) docks at Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard.
You’re shipwrecked on a lost mythical island. As backpacker Alex, you must befriend the forgotten gods of Greek mythology and restore their memories. Explore the dynamic island and its story sandbox to build new friendships, solve the mystery and save the gods.
Moving on to March 25, Blizzard Arcade Collection (Console and PC) hits Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, Game Pass Standard.
Experience a blast from Blizzard’s past! The Blizzard Arcade Collection brings five classic console games to modern platforms and new audiences, including Blackthorne, The Lost Vikings, The Lost Vikings 2, Rock N Roll Racing, and RPM Racing. Plus, visit the Blizzard Arcade Collection Museum to explore a trove of treasures from each game’s past, including concept art, music, behind-the-scenes interviews, and more.
Here’s a big one: Rebellion’s Atomfall (Cloud, Console, and PC) is a day-one Game Pass launch on March 27 via Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass. It’s well worth checking out IGN’s recent Atomfall hands-on preview to find out more about the game.
Available on day one! A survival-action game inspired by real-life events, Atomfall is set five years after the Windscale nuclear disaster in Northern England. Explore the fictional quarantine zone, scavenge, craft, barter, fight and talk your way through a British countryside setting filled with bizarre characters, mysticism, cults, and rogue government agencies.
Xbox Game Pass March 2025 Wave 2 lineup:
33 Immortals (Game Preview) (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – March 18 Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass
As usual, a number of games leave Game Pass this month. Game Pass members can also save up to 20% on their purchase to keep these games in their library.
Games leaving Xbox Game Pass on March 31:
MLB The Show 24 (Cloud and Console)
Lil Gator Game (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Open Roads (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Yakuza 0 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Yakuza Kiwami (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Yakuza Kiwami 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Yakuza Like a Dragon (Cloud, Console, and PC)
The Lamplighter’s League (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Monster Hunter Rise (Cloud, Console, and PC)
And finally, Microsoft is adding more games over time to the ‘Stream your own game’ collection for Game Pass Ultimate members.
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.
