Grow a Garden Summer Update Propels Roblox Game to Astonishing Concurrent Player Record, Dwarfing Even Fortnite — Here Are All the Details

Grow a Garden has released its Summer update 1.11.0, propelling the Roblox game to comfortably the highest recorded concurrent player count in video game history. The patch notes are below.

The microtransaction-fueled free-to-play farming simulator had already shot past Fortnite’s concurrent peak of 15.3 million players, achieved during the Marvel-themed season finally back during Covid-era 2020, with an incredible 16.4 million concurrent players. At the time of this article’s publication, with players logging in for the Summer update, Grow a Garden was at an astonishing 21.3 million concurrents.

Grow a Garden Summer update official details:

Summer’s here! Introducing our biggest update so far with all new seeds, pets, gear and the limited time Summer Harvest event to celebrate the coming of summer.

Explore the all new Summer Season and join forces with other gardeners to participate in the Summer Harvest event. This update brings brand new seeds, pets, craftable items, all new weather, features, and so much more in this Grow A Garden update! 😎🌴🌞

In Grow a Garden you do exactly that: grow a garden. Each new player starts off with a plot of land and 20 Sheckles, the in-game currency, to buy simple seeds for vegetables like carrots. Your garden even continues to grow while you’re offline.

The 16-year-old who created Grow a Garden in just a few days remains creatively involved in what it’s become but is no longer the only name attached. Roblox experience management company DoBig Studios and popular developer Janzen Madsen (a.k.a. Jandel) and his network of creators at Splitting Point are now also involved.

Grow a Garden’s success is down to tight update strategies and events as reliable draws for Roblox players, and this Summer update is a perfect example. Other recent examples include bringing in a DJ for entertainment and organizing a mass dance party.

Check out IGN’s feature, Roblox’s Grow a Garden Towers Above Even the Biggest Steam Games — but You Probably Have No Idea What It Is, to find out more.

Grow a Garden Summer update 1.11.0 patch notes:

  • Summer Update & Summer Harvest:
  • The summer harvest event happens at the start of every hour. Gather your friends and submit as many summer fruits as possible to the cart! The more summer plants you submit in the 10 minute time frame, the higher tier of random rewards you can unlock – 1000 points minimum are required. There are all kinds of rewards including old event items. Don’t miss out…
  • The summer update brings a refreshed seed shop with lots of brand new seeds, new pets, new gear, and lots more!
  • Plants:
  • Feijoa
  • Loquat
  • Prickly Pear
  • Bell Pepper
  • Kiwi
  • Pineapple
  • Banana
  • Avocado
  • Green Apple
  • Cauliflower
  • Elephant Ears
  • Rosy Delight
  • Parasol Flower
  • Pear
  • Cantaloupe
  • Wild Carrot
  • Pets:
  • Mimic Octopus
  • Macaw
  • Orangutan
  • Flamingo
  • Crab
  • 8+ More
  • New Items:
  • Summer Seed Pack, 6 possible new seeds inside!
  • Reclaimer, destroy a plant and get the seed back!
  • Tanning Mirror, Help attract the sundried mutation during the Heat Wave event
  • Paradise Egg, 5 possible new pets inside!
  • Rare Summer Egg, 5 possible new pets inside!
  • Common Summer Egg, 3 possible new pets inside!
  • Events:
  • Heat Wave: when it’s hot crops have a chance to get the ‘sundried’ mutation
  • Gale: a rare and powerful gust of wind, chance to give the ‘windstruck’ mutation
  • Windy: blowing air, chance to give the ‘windstruck’ mutation
  • Tornado: multiple tornados at once, chance to give the ‘Twisted’ mutation
  • Windstruck, applied by the gale and windy events, 2x multi
  • Twisted, applied by the Tornado event, 5x multi
  • Sundried, applied by the Heat Wave event, 85x multi
  • Verdant, applied by the Scarlet Macaw, 4x multi
  • Paradisal, sundried + verdant , 18x multi

Cosmetics:

  • 20+ Summer Cosmetics!
  • Fixes, Changes, & QOL:
  • Crafting has been added permanently
  • Sam has gone on holiday…
  • Lightning rod moved to crafting
  • Made lots of performance optimisations & improvements
  • & lots more!

We’ve been covering Grow a Garden and creating guides to explain features such as how gear works, a weather and mutation guide, and the different seeds that are available to purchase. You’ll also find information on updates such as the Lunar Glow Event and recent Pet Egg update that took place last month, and more over in our Grow a Garden guide.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Talking Point: Do You Have A New Go-To Racer In Mario Kart World?

Cowtastrophe.

After the best part of a decade with Mario Kart 8, we’d wager that you had probably grown pretty close to your main. You know, your main. The character that you picked to sit behind the wheel, regardless of the situation, because their weight class, look, or general vibe matched your playstyle perfectly.

But then Mario Kart World came along and shook those mains up. A new batch of racers have been added to the mix, but a huge batch have also fallen off the roster (pour one out for the Koopaling mains out there). After two weeks of open-world racing, huge swathes of us have found ourselves pivoting to a new racer, either drawn in by the shiny new faces, or rebounding from the loss of our go-to picks.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Switch 2 Has Already Overtaken The Combined Lifetime Sales Of The Entire Xbox Series Family And PS5 Pro In Japan

You could say it’s off to a good start, then.

The Switch 2 is off to an amazing start all over the world, but in Japan, its success has been especially remarkable; it’s already the fastest-selling console in the nation’s history, outperforming even the mighty PS2.

With 947,931 consoles sold at launch, the Switch 2 overtook the 630,552 set by Sony’s second PlayStation. We now have the console’s second-week figures in, which make for some interesting reading. The hybrid system’s first-week momentum has slowed, as you might expect, but it has now sold 1,101,136 systems in its homeland.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Random: Lies of P Developer Rewarded With Switch 2 Console Bonus

Fans are already calling for a Switch 2 port.

It’s been a difficult year for the video game industry at times, but there are still plenty of success stories out there and the latest one is a sales milestone for the Lies of P developer Round8 Studio.

While we don’t have anything to report here about a Switch 2 release (at least for now), according to South Korean publication The Elec (via VGC), Korean publisher Neowiz is rewarding every member of the local development team with Nintendo’s brand-new system after the success of the new DLC ‘Overture’ and more than three million cumulative sales.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Nintendo Appears To Have Updated Donkey Kong Bananza’s Switch 2 File Size

Make some space for DK (and Pauline).

Nintendo shared all sorts of new information about Donkey Kong Bananza during the title’s Direct earlier this week.

According to updated listings, Nintendo has been able to work its magic and reduce the game’s file size from 10GB down to 8.5GB. It’s not all that much, but given the size of various other titles on the Switch 2, we’re sure many users will appreciate the extra space.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Deltarune Chapter 5 Locks In ‘2026’ Release Window

See you next time.

Deltarune made its debut on the Switch 2 earlier this month and now that chapters one to four are available, you might be wondering when the next one drops.

Well, it seems the end credits of the fourth episode have confirmed chapter 5 will be arriving in 2026. There’s no specific date attached to this release window, but it’s scheduled for some point next year. So, there you go!

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

“A Minecraft Movie” Now Streaming on Max

A Minecraft Movie Key Art

“A Minecraft Movie” Now Streaming on Max

The post “A Minecraft Movie” Now Streaming on Max appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Limited Edition IGN Artist Series Hellwalker Prints from Dave Rapoza Now Available

IGN Store has partnered with Bethesda Softworks and world-renowned artist Dave Rapoza to create Hellwalkers – the latest piece in IGN’s exclusive museum-quality IGN Artist Series.

Available only on IGN Store, Hellwalkers – IGN Artist Series 004 vividly captures the menace and power of the legendary Doomslayer, as made possible by the equally legendary artist Dave Repoza, a lifelong Doom fan himself.

IGN Store has 400 premium weight art prints ($70) and 100 premium acrylic art prints ($275) – both measuring a bold 18 x 24 inches. These pieces are brutal, iconic, and highly-collectible.

Each print is individually numbered and signed by Dave Rapoza and the acrylic print is truly fine art, backed on gator board and featuring a Certificate of Authenticity (laser-etched on the Doomslayer’s Shield Saw).

Id software has proven for more than 30 years that Doom truly is eternal. Since its world-shaping debut in 1993 to the epic, weighty, powerful play style of The Dark Ages, the Doom franchise’s Doomslayer has stood at the forefront of gaming as an immortal icon. This IGN Artist Series is a must-own for any serious Doom fan, and will not be reprinted once it is gone. The piece is destined to become a collector’s item, and is a perfect edition to any Doom fan’s wall.

Dave Rapoza is a self-taught artist who grew up in Carver, MA. For nearly 20 years his stunning artwork has been turning heads. Rapoza’s artwork has graced Marvel Comics covers, Magic: the Gathering, Paizo Publishing projects and a huge range of others. He has also contributed art to Diablo IV, League of Legends and the Witcher 3, among many other games.

“My first experience with Doom was playing the original in my neighbor’s kitchen on their ancient computer—it made a big impression on me, especially the music and definitely helped spark my love for games,” Repoza said. “Whenever I take on something like this, I try to tap into what made me a fan in the first place and boil that down into a single image. It’s a fun challenge, and I’m proud of how this one turned out. Hope you enjoy it!

The IGN Artist Series is IGN’s love letter to the pop culture icons we all love to watch, play, and discuss. Available for under a day, IGN Artist Series 001, 002, and 003 was produced in partnership with Bethesda and Amazon Prime Video and featured Fallout’s The Ghoul, Maximus, and Lucy MacLean, from artist Kevin Tong.

Duke Nukem Rights Acquired by Devil May Cry and Castlevania Showrunner

Netflix’s Castlevania and Devil May Cry showrunner Adi Shankar has turned his attention to the Duke Nukem series after acquiring the screen rights from Gearbox Software.

The animated adaptation creative lead teased his next project during an interview with Esquire. Although projects like Devil May Cry Season 2 are currently top of mind, it sounds like something based on the legendary tongue-in-cheek first-person shooter franchise is currently in the works.

“I’m being approached with different IPs and companies that want to work with me,” Shankar said. “I bought the rights to Duke Nukem. Not the gaming rights, but I bought it from Gearbox.”

Duke Nukem is an unmistakably ‘90s video game franchise that got its start in 1991, but it wasn’t until 1996 that it would find its FPS footing with Duke Nukem 3D. Although a laundry list of sequels arrived throughout the 15 years that followed, its 2011 entry, Duke Nukem Forever, was heavily criticized by critics and fans alike. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360-era title did so much to damage the blond, buzzcut hero’s reputation that there has not been a new Duke Nukem installment since.

Shankar is already cooking up ideas for what a present-day take on Duke Nukem could look like. It’s unclear if fans can expect to see an animated Duke Nukem show in the vein of Shankar’s other projects, a movie, or something completely different, but it’s clear Shankar is trying to put together a project of some sort behind the scenes.

“I don’t intend on having anyone tell me what to do on this one.

“It’s a middle finger to everybody,” Shankar said when describing his vision for Duke Nukem. “When Duke Nukem blew up, a bunch of people sat around trying to turn it into a brand, when it’s just a middle finger. Duke Nukem can’t be made by a corporation, because the moment a corporation makes Duke Nukem, it’s no longer Duke Nukem. I don’t intend on having anyone tell me what to do on this one.”

We’ll have to wait to see what Shankar has in store for the ‘90s icon. For now, no casting, plot, or release date details for the Duke Nukem show have been revealed. It’s unclear how the recent rights aquisition will impact the Legendary Entertainment Duke Nukem movie reported on in 2022.

For a better look at what to expect, you can read up on his other Netflix projects. We gave Season 1 of Devil May Cry an 8/10 in our review, with Castlevania Season 1 earning an 8.1/10 from us upon its release in 2017. Shankar is involved in other Netflix projects, too, including the Castlevania: Nocturne spinoff series, an Assassin’s Creed series, and even an animated PUBG show.

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).

Official PlayStation Podcast Episode 517: Shocking Developments

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com!

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or download here


Hey, everybody! Sid and Tim are back this week to discuss the foundation System Shock 2 laid for gaming generations to come, recap what the team saw at Summer Game Fest 2025, and their latest gaming adventures.

Stuff We Talked About

  • Next week’s release highlights:
    • Ruffy And The Riverside | PS5
    • System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster | PS5, PS4
    • Black Desert | PS5
    • Death Stranding 2: On The Beach | PS5
  • PS Store Promo: Mid-Year Deals —  Save up to 70% on select titles, now until July 2
  • Ghost of Yōtei — Sucker Punch explores Hokkaido to learn ancient foraging skills and more
  • Climate Station  — a new experience for PS5 and PS VR2 that transforms decades of climate science into an interactive story.

The Cast

Sid Shuman – Senior Director of Content Communications, SIE

Tim Turi – Content Communications Manager, SIE


Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.

[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]