If you’re looking for a Pokémon TCG card to invest in before it gets to over $1,000 raw*, Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat is a solid bet right now.
Originally announced in 2023 with Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, and later given out as a treasure hunt prize on exiting the exhibition, Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat is the infamous 85th promo card in the Pokémon TCG’s Scarlet and Violet series.
It’s notorious for a few reasons, and unsurprisingly, it’s the usual story of scalpers ruining it for Pokémon trainers and collectors, causing chaos to the point that the museum stopped giving out the card. Scalpers even hassled visitors, asking to sell them the Pikachu card for cheap so they can resell it on the secondary market.
At the time, this card was going anywhere from $100 to over $1500 on eBay, but thanks to a new re-print and distribution of the promo card via Pokémon Center online orders, things settled down. Well, as far as scalping goes.
It’s no longer available, which means we’re seeing a real climb on this card in the last 12 months. Looking over at value data on TCGPlayer, we were looking at $139 for this card in near mint condition in October 2024, and it’s (more or less) been a straight climb ever since.
It plateaued between March and July this year at around $330, but then started shooting up to over $680 right now. If you want a Pokémon TCG chase card that looks the price, out of print and a safe investment, I’d still snap up Pikachu in Grey Felt Hat today. I even own this one myself, and I’m holding onto it for as long as I can.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals.
*Raw is the term used for trading cards that haven’t been graded, which are now hitting $1,000 at a grade 10 across PSA, Ace, Tag, CGC, and more.
Too many Battlefield 6 rounds of Conquest have been ending in a dissatisfying time-out, Uncle EA have found, with rival teams failing to completely devour each other’s supply of spawning tickets. We’ve all known engagements like that – tit-for-tat exchanges between mostly AFK recon players. Irresolutions that might yawn forever were it not for everybody’s real enemy, the clock. The gutsy response would have been to retitle Conquest “Bathos”, or “War on Terror” if they wanted to sadden George Bush, or “Waiting for Bravo” if they wanted to amuse the Beckett fans, or “Deadlock” if they wanted to tweak Valve’s whiskers. Instead, EA have taken the coward’s way out and chopped the allowance of tickets on a per map basis.
We may only be a few months into a shiny, new Mario Kart game with lush open worlds and challenges aplenty, but as I scrap it out in yet another Knockout Tour or pootle about for P Switches and Peach Coins, I can’t help but yearn for something a little more familiar.
Free Play Days – F1 25, Everspace, Hell Let Loose, The Stone of Madness, and Ra Ra Boom
Kyle OceanMarketing Manager, Xbox
Different worlds collide with Free Play Days! F1 25 is available this weekend for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and Essential members to play from Thursday October 16 until Sunday, October 19.
Everspace is available on both Console and PC with Xbox Play Anywhere during Free Plays Days.
Hell Let Loose is open to all Xbox members with Free Play Days for All.
The Stone of Madness and Ra Ra Boom are free for all members to try with two-hour and one-hour timed trials respectively during Free Play Days, no Game Pass membership required.
How To Start Playing
Scroll down and find and install the games on each of the individual game details pages on Xbox.com. Clicking through will send you to the Microsoft Store, where you must be signed in to see the option to install with your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and Essential membership. To download on console, click on the Subscriptions tab in the Xbox Store and navigate down to the Free Play Days collection on your Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S.
Keep The Fun Going
Purchase the game and other editions at a limited time discount and continue playing while keeping your Gamerscore and achievements earned during the event! Please note that discounts, percentages, and title availability may vary by title and region.
F1 25 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Join the trial of F1 25 between October 16-19 and experience everything the full game has to offer! Try out the revamped My Team mode, the thrilling third chapter of Braking Point, and much more. Also: don’t miss the 2XP weekend, whether you’re playing the trial or already own the game.
Everspace Xbox Play Anywhere An action-focused single-player space shooter, combining roguelike elements with top-notch visuals and a captivating story. It takes you on a challenging journey through an ever-changing, beautifully crafted universe full of surprises. Your skills, experience, and talent for improvisation will be tested continuously as you piece together the puzzle of your existence through encounters with interesting characters, each having their own unique part of the story to tell.
Hell Let Loose Optimized for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Play Anywhere Jump into the ultimate WW2 experience spanning Eastern, Western and North African theatres of war. Hell Let Loose drops you into the action, where you will have to fight across fields, bridges, forests, towns and more war-torn environments! Buy now for 60% off and play for free between 16th October – 19th October.
The Stone of Madness Optimized for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Play Anywhere A real-time tactical stealth game set in an 18th-century Spanish Monastery. Located in the Pyrenees, this time-worn Jesuit monastery is home to a madhouse and an inquisitorial prison. Five prisoners – plagued by cruel punishment, madness, and despair – pool their skills and resources to face their phobias, stave off insanity, uncover the mysteries of the Monastery, and find a way to escape.
Ra Ra Boom Optimized for Xbox Series X|S A 4-player local co-op brawler. Perfect to play solo on a weekend, but even better with friends. Choose your hero, bash some robots, and upgrade to increase the chaos.
Don’t miss out on these exciting Free Play Days for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Premium and Essential members! Learn more about Free Play Days here and stay tuned to Xbox Wire to find out about future Free Play Days and all the latest Xbox gaming news.
Editor’s Note: Removed Ready or Not, which has been rescheduled for a later date.
In a lot of ways, Battlefield 6 is a return to some of the classic elements of the first-person shooter series. But even as it draws on features that players have loved for years, it also makes adjustments to the formula that can seem small, but have a big impact. From changes to the class system to help you find your perfect play style, to map destruction that can create chaos or provide advantages, Battlefield 6’s look back to its past is actually full of steps forward into its future.
Here are nine ways Battlefield 6 is improving the storied franchise with subtle and not-so-subtle improvements.
Waves of destruction
One of the things that has always set Battlefield apart is the destruction players can wreak across its multiplayer maps. In Battlefield 6, destruction has been amplified to be both realistic and strategic, and it plays a big part in both multiplayer matches and in the campaign. Blasting out walls to expose enemy soldiers or destroying towers to eliminate machine gun nests gives you more options as you fight through Battlefield 6’s story, and watching huge structures blow apart is always mesmerizing.
Enhanced squad commands
Battlefield is known for its squads, and you’ve often had a team of fighters backing you up in the franchise’s many campaigns. In Battlefield 6, you can issue squad commands to focus fire on a tough enemy, or tell a particular member of your team to use their class’s skills, like having your Recon mark targets or your Assault use a grenade on a tough position.
Escalation mode feels perfect for Battlefield
New to Battlefield 6 is Escalation mode, a 64-player match type that combines elements from classics like Conquest, Domination, and Breakthrough to make something new. In Escalation, two teams vie for control of control points, and once one team controls more points than the other, a meter begins to fill. If the meter is completed, the team with more territory scores a point, and one of the control points disappears from the map. As you keep fighting for territory, the contested area of the map shrinks, creating more intense battles and forcing teamwork to attack and defend positions. Throw in Battlefield 6’s many vehicles, and you have a mode that’s both highly strategic and intensely chaotic.
A better Class
Bringing back a focus on its four classes — Assault, Recon, Support, and Engineer — is a core element of Battlefield 6 returning to the series’ roots. But Battlefield is also taking those classes into the future with this new game, thanks to the Training Paths you can unlock for each one. Training lets you focus on different aspects of a class’s specific role. For example, as an Assault, you can work as a fast frontline fighter, or unlock the Breacher training, which lets you emphasize blasting through walls and clearing rooms. Each class has its own Training Paths to unlock through completing Assignments, so you can customize your play style while becoming an expert in the capabilities of each class.
More responsive movement
Battlefield 6’s Kinesthetic Movement system brings a lot of adjustments to how you get around in the game, and they feel so natural and intuitive that you might not even notice them. From running while crouched to keep your head down, to rotating on your back while prone to shoot behind you, to leaning out of cover to take a shot, to jumping on the outside of vehicles to hitch a ride, Battlefield 6 is full of small improvements that make it easier to get where you’re going and fight well when you arrive.
Jumping straight to the firing range
There are a lot of little tweaks to Battlefield 6 that make it a more welcoming game than past entries into the franchise, like short explanations of different game modes and classes to help you learn the game faster. As you’re tweaking your loadouts, you can also take any gun you’re playing with straight to the firing range to try it out by pressing L2, allowing you to instantly test attachments and modifications to find exactly the weapon for you.
DualSense haptic feedback that puts your boots on the ground
In both the campaign and in multiplayer, Battlefield is an intense, over-the-top experience, where gunfire and explosions constantly rock the air around you. All those sensations are translated into intense haptics through the DualSense controller, helping to capture just how fierce, powerful, and enormous all those crashing vehicles and collapsing buildings really are.
Modular maps offer a variety of battles
In past Battlefield games, the largest multiplayer maps also contained flashpoint locations within them that could function as maps on their own. Battlefield 6 continues this design philosophy, but dials in the focus even tighter than before. Each of the largest maps in the game contains multiple different kinds of areas, where you might find yourself fighting pitched gunfights through the corridors of a skyscraper under construction, before running into a village full of small cottages that are quickly being leveled by tank fire. Lots of these locations work as maps for the smaller game modes, like Team Deathmatch, so you can learn their intricacies across lots of different experiences.
A more creative Portal mode
Since Battlefield 2042, the Portal mode has allowed players to create their own Battlefield games by tweaking rules sets and building their own map. Those tools have been greatly expanded in Battlefield 6 to offer a whole lot more freedom. Players are only just beginning to explore what’s possible with the Portal, but already you can find lots of different kinds of matches, thanks to a new server list and new discovery features.
Between maps, modes, Portal, and a full campaign, there are a whole lot of unforgettable Battlefield moments to be had in Battlefield 6, which is available now on PlayStation Store. Plus, Season 1 is just around the corner on October 28.
After that blowback, it feels like Silksong developer Team Cherry is taking a cautious approach to the rollout of this fresh translation, with the studio now inviting further feedback from players using the Simplified Chinese translation to provide feedback on its clarity, style and spellings.
Otherwise, Silksong v1.0.28954 includes another list of game fixes — though Team Cherry has said that this list is still a work-in-progress, with more bugs likely set to be squashed before the patch rolls out more widely.
For now, the update is set to improve controller support on Steam, correct instances where Hornet’s plasmified state was being erroneously cleared, and ensure that Styx always hands over rosaries when given the Queen’s Egg.
Updated Simplified Chinese translation with a new script for public testing. This is a basic implementation only, to be refined and updated based on player feedback.
Various localisation fixes implemented across all languages
Switched to Unity’s Input System to improve overall controller support. This includes rumble features now working for various controllers, and additional controllers being recognised. Some issues may remain. For a full list of supported controllers and features, please visit: https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.inputsystem@1.14/manual/SupportedDevices.html
Fixed Styx not giving rosaries when delivering the Queen’s Egg
Fixed Druid’s Eyes sometimes not equipping correctly when first acquired
Fixed some down attack colliders getting stuck on in rare instances
Fixed several instances of Hornet’s plasmified state clearing when not intended (eg Bellway travel)
Fixed issues entering the plasmified state when killing a Winged Lifeseed, rather than using the Plasmium Phial
Reduced unintentionally long bind time when using Multibinder with the Shaman crest
Updated Multibinder’s initial bind to clear maggots, per community comments
Various smaller tweaks and fixes
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
iRacing‘s always scared me a bit. Not just because you pay for it with a subscription that I’ve never felt committed enough to proper online sim racing in one place to sign up for, but because it’s serious. No giggling allowed. Obey the track limits, spend hours playing around with damper setups, do not touch my bumper or I’ll call three different police forces level of serious. A 42 page-long official sporting code doc for members level of seriously serious.
iRacing Arcade, its new sibling with a Steam Next Fest demo, is thankfully not as serious.
Could Dead Space return now EA has new owners? That’s what Glen Schofield, the creator of the series, is hoping to make a reality. EA apparently isn’t interested in a new sequel, but the veteran game director is optimistic the sci-fi survival horror series isn’t permanently lost in space.
After he delivered the opening keynote address at this week’s Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show in Bangkok, IGN caught up with Schofield and asked him if he thought there was any future for the Dead Space series.
Schofield, who helped create the original Dead Space while working as the executive producer at EA Redwood Shores in 2008, didn’t play a part in the creation of Dead Space 2 in 2011 or Dead Space 3 in 2013, but he did go on to create a spiritual successor in the form of 2022’s The Callisto Protocol while working as the founder and CEO of Striking Distance Studios. It’s clear that he hasn’t completely given up hope that Dead Space will rise like a necromorph again, despite the fact it would appear that publisher Electronic Arts has.
“I went to [EA] recently and they’re like no, we’re not interested anymore,” said Schofield. “I said, I can get back the leadership team. I need the models from EA Motive [who built the Dead Space remake in 2023] and I can save you 30 to 40 million dollars on the idea that I have. And, they’re like, ‘no.'”
Schofield left Striking Distance Studios in late 2023, less than a year after the release of The Callisto Protocol, and has since served as the director at Pinstripe Games, a studio which is yet to publicly announce any games it may have in development. But it would seem he’d be ready to make a new Dead Space game if he ever got the call.
“I have quite a few ideas that I’m ready to go with and one of them is Dead Space 4,” said Schofield. “The fact that EA just got bought, I think there’s an opportunity. I’m already making calls.”
Late last month, EA was acquired by an investor group composed of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners in a transaction worth approximately $55 billion. Schofield wonders if in order to recoup some of that cost, the investors could potentially look to offload some of the publisher’s more dormant intellectual property.
“We’ll see,” said Schofield. “I don’t know where EA’s head is right now, I don’t think they made money on [the Dead Space remake]. Dead Space needs to be adapted to different mediums — movies, TV series, it would be great.
“But I am more optimistic [since the sale of EA], because somebody new could buy [the Dead Space IP].”
If indeed EA was looking to offload some of its IP, it would be fair to assume that Dead Space could be on the auction block. Despite the fact that EA Motive’s remake was well received by critics, it apparently fell well short of EA’s internal sales targets and a possible Dead Space 2 remake reportedly wasn’t even considered.
IGN’s Dead Space remake review returned a 9/10. We said: “Dead Space is a superb remake and undoubtedly the definitive way to experience one of the best survival horror shooters that Capcom never made.”
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN’s Australian office. He reviewed both the Dead Space remake and The Callisto Protocol for IGN, and would slice off his own arm with a plasma cutter in order to play a Dead Space 4.
Huh. It turns out Quantic Dream, makers of such decision-heavy dramas as Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human, haven’t just been tinkering with their long-teased Star Wars: Eclipse. They’re also taking a sharp turn into competitive multiplayer, announcing Spellcasters Chronicles: a 3v3, third-person, free-to-play MOBA full of aerial magefights and big stompy demon lads. Huh.
It’s hard to imagine a starker departure from the studio’s previous work, or a riskier one. The modern Multiplayer Online Battle Arena isn’t so much a genre as a graveyard, with League of Legends and Dota 2 ambling around and occasionally sharing a knowing look between the headstones. Still, Spellcasters Chronicles seems determined to try, offering shorter, punchier matches and bigger maelstroms of hero-shooter spectacle.
The lawyers in Sony and Tencent’s ongoing legal fracas over alleged Horizon homework-copier Light of Motiram continue to dish out the words. Letters, phrases, and sentences are being flung to and fro with reckless abandon. Sony are the latest corp to take a swing, not only calling Tencent’s defense “nonsense”, but accusing the Chinese conglomerate of playing shell company hide-and-seek.
If you need to catch up on the tale of this copyright clash, it began in July, when Sony brought about legal action accusing Tencent-published post-apocalyptic open worlder Light of Motiram of being a “slavish clone” of their Horizon series. Tencent battled back, filing a motion to dismiss the case last month. “Sony’s effort is not aimed at fighting off piracy, plagiarism, or any genuine threat to intellectual property,” Tencent claimed at the time. “It is an improper attempt to fence off a well-trodden corner of popular culture and declare it Sony’s exclusive domain.”
