Over the last few decades, soccer (or football, if you’re not from the US like me) hasn’t changed much. Sure, there are new rules, improved tactics, and so much more money involved in the modern game – but at its heart, it’s still all about kicking a ball into a goal more than the other team. So how does a series like EA Sports FC improve each year when the sport it’s emulating isn’t introducing massive changes? For me, it’s about quality-of-life updates, and FC 26 has those in spades. You’ve heard the phrase “death by a thousand cuts,” but this is more like “fixed by a thousand pieces of tape.” It’s not that every problem has been solved, and many of the micro issues like confusing player-switching and weird tackle animations have returned from FC 25 – but at least in my early time with it, FC 26 is inching in the right direction in nearly every aspect.

A phenomenal example of this is the new gameplay presets. In the past, everyone was using the same gameplay style, whether diving into competitive games in Ultimate Team or trying to win the league against CPU opponents in Manager Mode. This year, EA has split things between two different presets: Competitive and Authentic. With the Competitive preset, you can expect the fast-paced action and smarter AI teammates that you might be used to from previous FC/FIFA games. Meanwhile, Authentic will feel more realistic to what you see on the real-life pitch every weekend. Players are slower, and you need to use your tactical intelligence to get into scoring position.

The most important part of this change is that these two options do not impact each other. That means EA can tune Competitive mode however is needed without changing the balance of Authentic mode, something they couldn’t do in previous versions of FC. I’ve only played about a dozen games with each preset so far, but they already feel distinct in a way that is valuable. Players come to FC 26’s various modes for different reasons: Career Mode players want a game that plays as close to real-life a possible, while Ultimate Team and Clubs players want fair and balanced online competition. Those two ideals have sometimes worked against each other in the past, so giving us two totally separate gameplay styles lets EA serve both communities.

What’s strange about the implementation is that the Authentic preset is restricted to offline modes only. That means you can’t even use it in your Squad Battles matches despite them being the only single-player content in Ultimate Team. It’s something I hope is added in the future, as it feels strange not to include all of the single-player content by default, especially when it does exactly that with the new version of the Season Pass.

Before diving into some of the other positive changes, let’s go over that Season Pass, as it’s one of the biggest points of contention for me. Last year, EA introduced a paid Season Pass into FC 25 toward the end of the cycle, so we knew this was coming, but seeing it drop on day one does sting. You can ignore it and stick with the free version of the pass, or even earn enough in-game currency to buy it without spending real-world money, but I would argue that this might be the worst version of a Season Pass we’ve seen in a sports game yet.

The issue with FC 26’s Season Pass is that you’re not just earning rewards for Ultimate Team, where people are already (unfortunately) conditioned to spend money. You’re also earning a ton of rewards for Clubs, Player Career, and Manager Career. The latter is where things really get icky, because one of the big draws for FC 26 is that Icons and Heroes are finally available in Manager Mode. For the first time ever, you can take classic players like Luis Figo, Toni Kroos, and Julie Foudy and put them into your Manager Mode saves. It should be a revelation, but instead, EA made the strange decision to lock many of these players behind the Season Pass.

There are several reasons this is frustrating. The first is that you probably won’t be able to acquire enough XP for them by playing Manager Mode alone. EA might implement more ways for non-Ultimate Team players to earn XP, but with how things are currently constructed, you’ll need to dive into that lootbox opening simulator if you want to finish enough of the pass to claim all of the Career Mode rewards. Even as someone who primarily plays Ultimate Team, this change sucks. I already know how bad FC’s monetization can get, and I hate seeing it expanded to more of the playerbase in a way that feels scummy.

As if that weren’t frustrating enough, Career Mode players aren’t likely to earn enough Ultimate Team-specific currency to purchase the Season Pass in that mode alone. That means you’ll need to spend real money to unlock players like Gianfranco Zola, Miroslav Klose, and Park Ji-Sung. Keep in mind, this is only the first Season Pass. If FC 26 continues to lock Icons and Heroes behind future passes, we’ll likely see desirable players like Ronaldinho, Ruud Gullit, and Johan Cruyff tucked behind a paywall as well.

It’s an unfortunate situation that reeks of EA trying to get even more money out of its playerbase than usual. It’s bad enough that Ultimate Team players are being milked dry, but now you can’t even enjoy your offline Career Mode without feeling the pull to spend money.

What makes this even more painful is that most of the modes feature fun updates to their tried and true formulas this year. For example, the new Manager Live Hub lets you dive into specific challenges and earn new jerseys for your club. These feel like the next step toward a historical mode like the Negro Leagues option in MLB The Show, as you’ll be challenged to recreate moments like Jamal Musiala’s double with Bayern Munich or take a mid-level club like SK Rapid or Strasbourg to European glory. The classic version of Career Mode is still there, but Manager Live gives you a rotating list of challenges that will test your skill on and off the pitch.

Even Ultimate Team is home to several small yet meaningful changes. Everything from the return of tournaments to the ability to choose the cosmetics on your Evolutions feels carefully crafted to deliver the improvements fans have been asking after for years. We’ll have to wait a month or two to see the impact of the slower Ultimate Team power curve, and I’m hesitant to judge the stability of the servers until they are live for everyone, but my early experience is positive.

While I’m not much of a Clubs player, the new Archetypes have certainly piqued my interest. Without a dedicated group, it’s unlikely I will spend too much time in Clubs, but the Archteype system seems like an improved way to handle progression to my untrained eye. While a meta will surely settle over the mode in the coming weeks, having this clear sense of forward momentum makes me wish I had a group of 10 friends to play with.

I have more to play this weekend, but so far FC 26 seems to provide enough quality-of-life changes that I feel more positive about the on-pitch product after a few years of stagnation. However, I can’t help but be annoyed by how heavily monetized every mode is becoming. I’ve always felt it was relatively easy to ignore the pull to spend extra money unless you wanted to compete at the very top of Ultimate Team, but that’s much less true this year. Now, not even the Career Mode players are safe. FC 26 is EA at its most money-hungry yet, and I can’t help but worry where we’re going next.

CD Projekt looks set to include multiplayer features in Cyberpunk 2, years after similar plans were scrapped for Cyberpunk 2077.

A posting for the role of Cyberpunk 2’s lead network engineer lists the job’s responsibilities as including the need to “develop and optimize multiplayer systems, including matchmaking” with an aim to “address challenges related to latency, bandwidth usage and server performance.”

Applicants will also need to work “closely with game designers, gameplay programmers, and other departments to integrate network features seamlessly,” the job description continued, to “play a pivotal role in designing and implementing the network architecture and online systems.”

As expected, the role is primarily based out of CD Projekt’s Boston studio, where work on Cyberpunk 2 is now underway, while the company’s Polish teams focus on The Witcher 4.

While CD Projekt is yet to confirm Cyberpunk 2 will feature online gameplay, the developer did spend years experimenting with the possibility for the original Cyberpunk 2077. It has previously said it wanted to eventually bring online gameplay into all of its franchises, and specifically said it was considering multiplayer gameplay for Cyberpunk 2 in the past.

The prospect of Cyberpunk 2 finally achieving the studio’s multiplayer ambitions therefore should not be surprising — though until CD Projekt confirms the features officially, there’s always the possibility these could fall by the wayside once again.

Work on some kind of multiplayer component for Cyberpunk 2077 went on for years within CD Projekt, and was ultimately planned to arrive as a post-launch DLC. Ultimately, however, the offering was scrapped completely as a result of the game’s initially rocky launch, with priority instead placed on ensuring the base game worked as well as possible.

“We really needed to look at what were the priorities for Cyberpunk [after it launched],” Cyberpunk 2077 senior quest designer Philipp Weber said back in 2022. “The priority was that the main experience will run for the people in a really good state, and essentially, the switch of priorities meant that other R&D projects had to go away. With Cyberpunk, we wanted to do many things at the same time, and we just needed to really focus and say, ‘Okay, what’s the important part? Yeah, we will make that part really good.’”

Earlier this month, breathtaking Cyberpunk 2077 star Keanu Reeves told IGN he was keen to return for CD Projekt’s sequel. “Absolutely. I’d love to play Johnny Silverhand again,” he told us, when asked if he’d be interested in revisiting his legendary rockstar terrorist.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

Last week’s Apple Event provided a first look at mobile gameplay from upcoming 3D RPG and strategy game Arknights: Endfield, alongside confirmation of the title’s early 2026 release.

The GRYPHLINE game, set in the same world as the studio’s tower defence hit Arknights, featured in a segment showcasing the iPhone 17 Pro. The gameplay demo was shown running on the next-generation A19 Pro chip, which enabled the combat sequences to play out super-smoothly, while the hardware-accelerated ray tracing and 16-core Neural Engine helped the vibrant visuals of the AAA title to shine.

Apple’s post-event press release also exclusively revealed an early 2026 release window for Arknights: Endfield. Following its appearance in the showcase, the game has since featured on multiple Apple channels, from the official website and Apple Newsroom, to other promotional materials for new products.

This high-visibility, pre-launch inclusion indicates Apple’s confidence in the game’s quality and its strong performance on mobile devices – a significant step as previous demos for the exploration, real-time combat and base-building centred game had focussed solely on the PC version. This included a technical test running back in 2024, and a closed beta that took place earlier this year, allowing players to have hands-on experience of the updated combat and AIC factory system.

Arknights: Endfield has enjoyed a major presence at headline gaming events and conventions throughout 2025, including Japan Expo, Anime Expo and gamescom. GRYPHLINE has confirmed that this run of high-profile appearances will continue with a showcase at the Tokyo Game Show (September 25-28).

The Chinese developer is gearing up for a busy Q4, as its 2-4 player co-op puzzle shooter POPUCOM lands on Nintendo Switch. Originally launched on Steam and the Epic Games Store in June, the candy-coloured title – in which you are summoned to an unknown planet to embark on a playful enemy-slaying and puzzle-solving adventure with your friends – featured in the September 12 Nintendo Direct, which revealed a Holiday 2025 release date.

User-made mods should not be considered prior art, Nintendo has argued, as part of the company’s lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair.

Nintendo’s claim appears to be an attempt at blocking Pocketpair from using popular Pokémon mods as evidence that the franchise’s patented gameplay was already being featured in other games elsewhere.

The argument put forth by Nintendo — essentially, that mods require a separate base game to function, so therefore are not art by themselves — has raised eyebrows across the games industry and among Pokémon fans alike, with many suggesting it could have far-reaching consequences if accepted by a judge.

Writing in Games Fray, which first reported the development, games industry reporter and legal analyst Florian Mueller described the suggestion that gameplay ideas or innovations featured in mods were not viable as prior art as something that showed “utter disregard for the enormous creativity” of many mod makers.

Additionally, and perhaps more concerning from a legal perspective if accepted, the ruling could potentially open the door to mods being considered “fair game” for patent thieves, who could swoop in and incorporate the same ideas into full game releases — which would then be protected.

“Patents are a special monopoly granted by the governments of the world to encourage creative invention,” business lawyer and creator of the Virtual Legality podcast Richard Hoeg told IGN today. “If something already exists in the world, some new person is not allowed to claim they invented it and get that protection.

“We call everything that already exists ‘prior art,’ and it would be ludicrous to exempt any piece of game design from that category simply because of how it’s stood up in the software. The mechanism for access shouldn’t really matter. It exists. It makes things like it in the world non-novel and thus not subject to protection. We don’t give out monopolies to second place.”

Will Nintendo succeed with its claim? Mueller suggests it is unlikely, as courts typically reject any attempt to narrow what can be considered prior art — with Nintendo taking an “extreme position” here. But time will tell, as the lawsuit shows no sign of winding down.

While Nintendo’s legal threats continue, Pocketpair is busy putting together Palworld’s big 1.0 release, due at some point in 2026. In the meantime, development will focus on removing “jank” from the game, communications director and publishing manager John “Bucky” Buckley said earlier this week, though a smaller winter update is still planned.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

On January 20, 2026, students at the University of Tennessee will attend the world’s first Grand Theft Auto college history class. That’s right: we got a GTA college history class before GTA 6.

‘Grand Theft America: U.S. History Since 1980 through the GTA Video Games’ was devised and will be taught by history professor Tore Olsson, who eagle-eyed IGN fans might remember from our coverage of his Red Dead Redemption American history class — another world first. Accompanying that course was Professor Olsson’s book, Red Dead’s History, and its audiobook narration by none other than Arthur Morgan actor Roger Clark.

It turns out, Professor Olsson had planned to launch his class with GTA 6 firmly under his belt, but Rockstar’s high-profile delay to May 2026 dashed those plans — just as they did those of so many video game publishers. So, with what will no doubt be the biggest entertainment launch of all time waiting in the wings, Professor Olsson will soldier ahead.