From everything we’ve seen, Dotemu and Guard Crush Games’ fantasy ‘Rogue ’em Up’, Absolum, is shaping up to be a decent slice of stylish fun. It arrives on Switch in just a few weeks on 9th October, but before we get to see the finished product for ourselves, the studios have made a surprise reveal about the original fantasy IP: an animated series is in the works.
The series is set to be developed by animation studio Supamonks, and will set out to “build upon Absolum’s lore and narrative, expanding its universe beyond the game,” the press release reads.
Grounded 2’s Hairy and Scary Update Crawls Onto Your Screens Today
Shyla SchofieldSenior Communications Manager, Obsidian Entertainment
Summary
Face off against AXL, the terrifying new tarantula boss.
Craft an entire suite of tarantula-themed gear, from armor to a candlelit throne.
Build smarter with the streamlined BUILD.M grid system, and power up your Buggy with seamless PEEP.R and Hot Pouch support.
Brookhollow Park just got a lot more… hairy. And a lot more scary! Grounded 2’s newest update unleashes AXL, a colossal tarantula with enough legs, fangs, and fur to make even the bravest teens scrambling to fine-tune their loadouts. But don’t worry—you’ll have the tools to fight back, and they’re every bit as fearsome as the towering arachnid they come from.
Defeating AXL opens up a whole new frontier of power. You can forge an imposing tarantula armor set, wield the devastating Tarantula Bow and Spear, and even decorate your base with spidery flair. From larger-capacity chests to flickering candles to the kind of throne Yoked Girth would envy, you’ll have plenty of eight-legged style to show off.
This update also makes it easier than ever to turn your park empire into an architectural masterpiece. The streamlined BUILD.M grid system is here to make placing, snapping, and perfecting your creations more intuitive, giving your wildest blueprints a chance to shine.
Meanwhile, your Buggy is getting a serious quality-of-life glow-up: with both PEEP.R and Hot Pouch integrated, you can scan, swap, and stock up without ever leaving the driver’s seat. Pair that with a hauntingly stylish new Praying Mantis armor set, complete with plague doctor vibes and some nifty healing tricks, and you’ve got more ways than ever to customize your playstyle.
Not only that, but we are excited to announce Japanese and Brazilian localization have been added to Grounded 2 with this update. More languages will be added throughout development, so keep your eyes on our socials and the road map for future announcements!
Hairy and Scary is all about dialing up the intensity while keeping the spirit of play alive. It’s spooky, it’s stylish, and it’s brimming with new ways to survive the tiny terrors of Brookhollow Park. And if you think this is where the surprises end, think again. The backyard has a few festive frights tucked away for October, so keep your eyes peeled for holiday surprises lurking just around the corner.
Grounded 2’s Hairy and Scary update is available now in Game Preview for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud, and in Early Access on Steam. Jump in today with Xbox Game Pass, and prepare yourself—it’s hairy, it’s scary, and it’s only getting wilder from here.
Shrunk again, but the world is much larger. Survive a sprawling open world alone or in co-op with friends. Craft weapons, forge armor, and build bases while exploring the park on your trusty Buggy mounts. Unravel hidden mysteries and face unexpected threats. But something else is out there—and it hasn’t forgotten you.
Shrunk to the size of an ant, you’ll find once-familiar spaces turned into a sprawling, uncharted frontier. Survive alone or in co-op with friends, crafting weapons, forging armor, and building bases as you explore manmade playgrounds overgrown by nature. Traverse this new realm on trusty Buggy mounts—your capable allies—and uncover the mysteries lurking beneath bright colors and towering structures. But stay wary: something else is out there, and it hasn’t forgotten you.
Survive, Adapt, Overcome
The world is relentless, but so are you. Shape your adventure with unique archetypes, each offering distinct abilities to match your playstyle. Whether you rely on precision, cunning, or sheer strength, you’ll need every advantage to survive against the threats lurking in the park.
Stronger Together
The perils of the park are daunting alone, but with friends, every challenge becomes an adventure. Work together to build, fight, and uncover the secrets buried beneath the grass. Whether you’re facing danger side by side or continuing your journey in a shared world, survival is always better with allies.
Because Walking is Bogus
They scurry, they fight, and now—they help you survive. Hatch, raise, and ride your own insect friends – Buggies! Saddle up and traverse through the park, fight on them or alongside them in battle, or use them to gather resources and build your base. The right partner could mean the difference between thriving and barely surviving.
A Shadow That Follows You
The threat is always there—watching, learning, waiting. You don’t know where it’s coming from, only that it never leaves. The deeper you dig, the closer it gets. Some mysteries should stay buried, but it’s too late now. It knows you’re looking. And it’s ready. Every answer drags you deeper, every step invites something closer. You were never alone. You thought you were in control. You were wrong.
In My Hero Academia: All’s Justice, you can relive the Final War of My Hero Academia with cinematic visuals in Story Mode, and experience new My Hero Academia action in flashy, over-the-top 3v3 battles featuring a giant roster of characters and their Quirks!
In our latest trailer, we revealed new modes such as the Team Up Mission mode where you can become a student of U.A. High Class 1-A and experience hero life on the streets based on never-before-seen scenarios made for the game.
In addition to the Team Up Mission mode, you can see a quick preview of another newly revealed mode: Hero’s Diary.
Today, we’re here to introduce Hero’s Diary in more detail along with a first look at additional footage!
What is Hero’s Diary?
In Hero’s Diary, you can enjoy game-original episodes depicting the unknown daily lives of the U.A. High 1-A students, along with battles based on those stories.
These episodes include never-before-seen interactions, such as moments between classmates during breaks from lessons, or rivals pushing each other to improve. You’ll also get to see a different side of the characters outside of the battles in the main game!
Each of the 20 characters in Class 1-A has multiple Memories to unlock, so you can discover untold stories of your favorite characters.
Hero’s Diary unlock conditions
By clearing the Team Up Mission, you can unlock game-original, special moments with Deku, Bakugo, and other members of Class 1-A! The special moments will be unlocked based on the progress of the Team Up Mission.
In these Team Up Missions, you become a U.A. High 1-A student, including Deku, and take on training exercises set in a virtual space. Based on an original game scenario, you’ll team up with your fellow 1-A classmates and experience hero life firsthand. You can freely move around the city using each character’s unique Quirk-based actions. In addition to the main scenario and missions, there’s a wide variety of sub-missions to enjoy such as freerunning, item searches, and intense battles – experience it all in this unique mode!
Also, the Heroes and U.A. students that appear in the Main Menu and Team Up Mission map will change depending on the time of day!
Talking to them might trigger original conversations or even battle missions! So, if you see a character you’re interested in, be sure to strike up a conversation! Clearing these missions might even earn you a reward…!?
On top of unlocking the Hero’s Diary, once you clear Team Up missions you will also unlock Archives Battles where you can relive iconic battles from the past.
These are just a few of the many experiences to look forward to when My Hero Academia: All’s Justice launches on PlayStation 5 on February 6, 2026!
Pre-orders have just started so be sure to get an Early Unlock for two playable characters as a pre-order bonus. Details on the characters will be revealed later, so stay tuned!
Rumi, Mira and Zoey — the KPop Demon Hunters trio better known as HUNTR/X — will all land in Fortnite this week on October 2, and star in Demon Rush, a special version of the game’s fan-favorite Horde Rush mode.
In Demon Rush, you’ll work together with your party and the HUNTR/X trio to survive against waves of demons — a change from previous incarnations of Horde Rush. You’ll also, of course, be able to pick up Rumi (and Mira and Zoey!) in the Fortnite Shop.
While Horde Rush typically goes live during Fortnitemares, the game’s annual Halloween celebration, Fortnite’s big new KPop Demon Hunters collaboration will arrive as a separate offering, in less than 48 hours’ time.
Indeed, Demon Rush is already visible within Fortnite itself if you head to the game’s Discover tile — which also shows a countdown for the mode officially going live.
Released this summer to enormous success, KPop Demon Hunters has smashed Netflix records to become the streaming service’s most watched title ever, with more than 325 million views. A special sing-along version of the film is also now available, and Netflix is already preparing to capitalize on the film’s success with plans for a live-action remake, a stage musical and sequels.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Summer Eternal, one of the infinite number of Disco Elysium spiritual successor studios that cropped up last year, have been mostly quiet on whatever it is they’ve been cooking up since forming. They announced their existence with an evocative political manifesto, and today they revealed what’s next. No, it’s not a video game, but something a lot more physical, tangible, and interestingly old fashioned: a book.
The director of Resident Evil Requiem has said Western players are more likely to choose the game’s first-person option, after growing up on a diet of PC first-person shooters such as Doom.
Meanwhile, Japanese fans more accustomed to third-person console RPGs like Dragon Quest have tended to play Requiem’s demo in third-person, director Akifumi Nakanishi told Denfaminicogamer, in an interview translated by Automaton.
While Requiem doesn’t launch until next year, a demo version has been publicly available at both Gamescom in Germany and Tokyo Game Show over the past couple of months. After attending both shows and watching fans try the game for themselves, Nakanishi said he had spotted the difference in how most opted to play in each location, and suggested it was due to how audiences had played other games while growing up.
“I think those kinds of differences are significant,” Nakanishi said, describing the popularity of shooters in the west, as opposed to console RPGs in Japan. However, this was now changing, he continued, citing the popularity of both Minecraft and Apex Legends among younger Japanese gamers today.
After originating in third-person, the Resident Evil series switched to first-person gameplay for Resident Evil 7. But recent years have also seen the launch of various re-releases of previous third-person classics, such as 2023’s celebrated Resident Evil 4 Remake. Requiem will be the first title to hand players full control over which perspective their prefer.
After playing the Resident Evil Requiem demo myself at Gamescom, there’s definitely something to be said for its first-person perspective, which is presented as the demo’s default. In first-person, it’s harder to tell how close behind you the game’s unsettling new monster might be, something that ramps up the horror elements. That said, the view does give you a narrower field of vision for finding hidden objects and clues, which sometimes proved a little frustrating. In reality, it seems likely that most players will likely try a bit of both.
At the moment you can preorder it for $39.99 from a variety of storefronts including Amazon, GameStop, and Target. That’s weirdly $20 cheaper than the digital deluxe edition that’s been available since the game first launched, but hey, we’ll take that win. Get your preorders in at the link below and learn everything that comes with this physical deluxe edition further down.
Preorders are live for the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Physical Deluxe Edition Contents
When you pick up the physical deluxe edition of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered – which features a very cool cover that features a leather-like background texture with gold detailing – you’ll get plenty of bonuses alongside the base game. These include:
Unique digital Akatosh and Mehrunes Dagon Armors, Weapons, and Horse Armor Sets
Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine story expansions
Access to the Digital Artbook and Soundtrack App
Additional downloadable content: Fighter’s Stronghold, Spell Tomes, Vile Lair, Mehrune’s Razor, The Thieves Den, Wizard’s Tower, The Orrery, and Horse Armor Pack
Earlier this year when it was released, we gave The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered an 8/10 in our review. Writer Travis Northup said it’s, “a fantastic open-world RPG that’s aged quite well, with questlines and stories that are better than I remembered, modernizations (like the slightly improved leveling system) that remove some of the friction of the original, and loads of opportunities to make this adventure whatever you want it to be via the plentiful freedom afforded to you.”
Other Preorder Guides
Looking to secure a few more games for your physical library? Have a look at our list of other preorder guides below to see what else is available to preorder at the moment, from 007 First Light to Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and more.
If you happen to be a PC gamer more interested in savings than physical copies, I’d also check out the Steam Autumn Sale, which happens to include digital discounts on Oblivion Remastered.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.
“That’s not a minotaur, that’s just a guy with horns,” yells one of the YouTube commenters on the reveal trailer of Minos. They might be right with their Monty Python-esque accusation, but regardless of how much the maze-building roguelike and its developers Artificer have put the cat amongst the Greek mythology-loving pigeons, the demo that’s currently out for it is good fun.
This one is more focused on general bug fixes and gameplay improvements, but it’s a welcome update nonetheless. Highlights include fixes to soft-locks and freezing scenarios, collision issues, improved visual consistency, and more.
Minecraft has announced a major new game update, Mounts of Mayhem, that will be spearheaded by the addition of… the spear!
The sharp-tipped stick is the first new weapon added to Minecraft in some time, and the first new tiered item — one that is available in progressively more durable variants — added since the hoe, back in 2010.
After so long jabbing at skeletons with a sword, you might wonder why the spear is being added now. Well, thankfully it sounds like there will be some interesting new gameplay possibilities as a result of the spear’s addition, and in particular: jousting.
As in real life, you’ll be able to wield your nearest spear on foot, or on your nearest horse, which is where part of that Mounts of Mayhem title comes in. The other part? Well, that comes from the fact that it isn’t just you getting to play around with a spear… Mounted Zombies (who also now ride Zombie Horses) will get spears also.
In an update video revealing the spear’s mechanics, developer Mojang explained that the weapon can be used for slow, long-range jabs or stronger charge attacks that deal damage based on how fast a player is moving. On horseback, at a gallop, your spear is going to do significant damage to any enemy standing in your path. However, the same is presumably true of those Mounted Zombies.
Crafting or upgrading your spear using different materials will allow you to create a bog-standard wooden spear, but also fancier golden, stone, copper, iron, diamond and even Netherite alternatives. However, while the item’s durability might increase, fancier materials will be heavier — making the spear’s attacks slower. It’s an interesting trade-off.
Mojang has confirmed that your mounted combat can extend underwater, via Mounts of Mayhem’s new tamable aquatic mob, the Nautilus. You can even wield spears while soaring through the skies with Elytra wings.
Will spears be part of the next Chicken Jockey meme whenever the Minecraft Movie sequel comes around? Perhaps. Until then, players can begin testing Mounts of Mayhem features “soon,” Mojang said, ahead of a full release further in the future.
