Until Then is a visual novel that tells the story of Mark Borja, a high school student who grapples with the usual day-to-day of teenage life while trying to figure out why he’s experiencing weird cases of déjà vu. It’s a slow burn; one that relishes in the quieter, mundane aspects of life that many TV shows and movies would rather you believe didn’t exist.
With beautiful pixel art visuals at its heart, Until Then feels a lot more ‘alive’ than a lot of visual novels, with dialogue and actions taking place entirely within the scene; so in other words, no ‘talking head’ sequences where static characters are nattering to one another from across the screen.
Surprise! A new My Hero Academia game is on the way.
We learned the news during Bandai Namco’s brief teaser for its upcoming Summer Showcase, and while details were light — at least for now — we can expect more when the showcase goes live on July 2 at 12pm PT / 3pm ET / 9pm CEST / 4am JST.
My Hero Academia debuted in April 2016 and became an instant hit, telling the story of Izuku Midoriya as he navigates a school for superheroes after only just inheriting the world’s most powerful abilities. Alongside the eight seasons of anime, four films and myriad games have been released, too. The eighth and final series is set to air this coming October.
Bandai Namco went big on little things last week, too, confirming Little Nightmares 3 will release on October 10. And if that seems very far away, anyone who pre-orders a digital version of Little Nightmares 3 between now and launch day will get to revisit the game that started it all with Little Nightmares Enhanced Edition as an early access title.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Dune: Awakening griefers are at it again, concocting ever-new and exciting ways to make other players’ lives miserable. And once again, the griefing concerns Ornithopters.
But despite Funcom’s mitigations, unscrupulous players have discovered another way to grief players by landing their Ornis on top of unsuspecting players — this time to prevent them from farming.
“All the griefers are now coming into Hagga to farm spice. They’re doing the same thumper and land on thopter technique they perfected in [Deep Desert]. But now they’re using it to farm all the minor nodes in Hagga,” wrote one aggrieved fan over the weekend.
“This game has some massive issues ahead. Griefers are in an all-out war against everyone else on their server, and yet there’s zero way for solos to band together to stop it. And as a Dune fan, I don’t think planting a thumper and then having four thopters land on you is part of the mythology.”
u/RandoFinder then edited their post to add: “I kept my Thopter at 730 km for 30 minutes until a spice blow, and as soon as I moved, four thopters were chasing me. JFC, y’all are pathetic. This was in Hagga. I had players tonight telling each other to doxx me when I stood up to them in Hagga chat. I’ve been in WoW general and other horrible chats, but Dune general is the most toxic chat that I’ve ever seen.”
“I think it goes without saying that PVP is PVP, and killing other players in a PVP zone is totally legitimate and expected,” responded another player. “Entrapping someone by abusing game mechanics intended to prevent grief of a similar kind, ala pinning people with ornithopters that otherwise can’t be destroyed or escaped in a PVE zone, is griefing. Griefing should be explicitly and implicitly disallowed. If you’re in a PVE zone, you should not have to worry about players killing you through an abuse of mechanics.”
At the time of writing, there has been no public response from Funcom about the issue.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Yaaar, me hearties. Pull up a barstool and take another swig of grog. I be hearin’ fresh tales of a treasure that’s reportedly still in development at Ubisoft.
These whispers be comin’ from Matt Ryan, the voice actor behind Assassin’s Creed Black Flag‘s swashbucking stabber Edward Kenway. He’s cheekily told some landlubbers that they may have to beat the game again, prompting the parrots to start squawking about a return to the Carribean yet again.
Balls have never been footed so fast. Rematch, the moreish multiplayer soccer game from the developers of Sifu, has seen its first cases of speedhackers infesting the game over the last week.
It’s not unusual for multiplayer games to suffer a few cheaters, and it’s not clear how widespread the hacking tools are being used among the growing number of players (now at 3 million players, according to Sloclap). But it is a mild concern to anyone who prefers their team mates and opponents to move at regular human pace, and not say, the speed of an angry motorcycle, as shown in footage captured by several players.
Welcome, friend, to the good year of 2025. Scavengers Reign has just been renewed for its third season, Greggs have starting doing their festive bake all year round, and the Dead Space remake sold gangbusters.
Wait, no, sorry. This is the bad timeline. Scavengers Reign was acquired by a company who actively balk at anything people might want to watch with their entire faces, and Dead Space apparently didn’t sell well enough for EA to greenlight more. It’s with a certain melancholy then, that I recommend the Steam Summer sale’s offering of Dead Space remake at 80% off (£10/€12/$12/perhaps a sillier price if you live somewhere Valve doesn’t consider important).
While Ubisoft keeps quiet about a potential Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag remake, the actor behind the game’s hero Edward Kenway has offered up some teasing words to fans.
A souped-up version of Ubisoft’s piratical Assassin’s Creed entry has been the subject of numerous leaks over the past few years, and is now widely expected among fans. But Ubisoft itself has never confirmed the project — and declined to comment on the matter when contacted by IGN last month, when an Assassin’s Creed merchandise maker also dropped an obvious Black Flag remake hint.
Now, at a fan convention, Edward Kenway voice actor Matt Ryan has given perhaps the most obvious tease so far that something is on the horizon.
“Have you beaten the game?” Ryan asks a fan, as captured on video by TikTok user therebelarchive. “Well, you might have to beat it again…”
When the fan replies “Is this true? I have to run through all of them again,” Ryan responds with a knowing wink, and then says:
“Well, especially this one. There’s a reason I say that, but I can’t say anything.”
Matt Ryan (Voice of Edward Kenway) Teases Black Flag Remaster via a fan interaction at a convention!
— YT.com/Super DropKick (@SuperDropKick17) June 29, 2025
While Ryan is likely aware of the ongoing speculation around a Black Flag remaster, could his involvement in it extend beyond seeing his prior work re-released? Reports have suggested Ubisoft is working on a substantial re-working of Black Flag — does that mean Ryan himself is involved, re-recordling dialogue, or contributing to new story elements?
With no all-new Assassin’s Creed game set for the end of this year, fans believe the Black Flag remake would be well positioned to arrive in time for the holidays. Here’s hoping Ryan isn’t made to walk the plank for dropping this latest hint, and it’s not too long before Ubisoft makes the remake official.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
I have thus far in my life avoided playing any factory automation games because I only ever see them recommended in the same breath as dire warnings and laments. “Play Infinifactory! It ruined my life! “, “I now exclusively play Opus Magnum inside the skip that is now my home after my family kicked me out. 10/10!”, etc etc. But the way Number Machine‘s extendo-arm hex pushes sets of tiles has awakened something in me. Taking a sprawling genre and making it tiny and a bit pastel is basically a genre unto itself now but one I’m a supporter of. Here’s a trailer.
The latest UK Charts are here, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding 2: On The Beach has comfortably landed at number one following its debut, pushing Mario Kart World down to second place for the first time.
Interestingly, however, it seems physical sales for DS2 are down 66% when compared to the first game, according to The Game Business’ Chris Dring. It’s a much different world we live in now, of course, so it’s likely that there are simply far more digital sales this time around.
