Last month we saw quite a few adventure games spring into action. What game from last month’s lineup was a fresh start? Some of the big new releases included Assassin’s Creed Shadows, MLB The Show 25, Hitman World of Assassination (PS VR2), and Split Fiction.
How does it work? At the end of every month, PlayStation Blog will open a poll where you can vote for the best new game released that month. After the polls close we will tally your votes, and announce the winner on our social channels and PlayStation.Blog.
What is the voting criteria? That’s up to you! If you were only able to recommend one new release to a friend that month, which would it be? Note: re-released games don’t qualify, but remakes do. We define remakes as ambitious, larger-scale rebuilds such as Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Final Fantasy VII Remake.
How are nominees decided? The PlayStation Blog editorial team will gather a list of that month’s most noteworthy releases and use it to seed the poll.
Bandai Namco and FromSoftware have revealed another Nightfarer making their way into Elden Ring Nightreign. The bow-wielding Ironeye will be one of the playable characters in the co-op action game, and they’re bringing some pretty hefty weaponry to Limveld.
The core of Ironeye’s kit is, as you might expect, dealing damage from afar with ranged attacks. The Ironeye starts with a bow and specializes in Dexterity-based weaponry, so they’re able to add some extra damage to any team that needs some long-range support.
Bows are especially useful in Elden Ring Nightreign, as they offer the ability to revive a downed party member from a distance rather than up-close. Given some of the up-close combat footage we see in today’s trailer, below, it seems like skilled Ironeye players won’t have an issue with getting within arm’s reach either.
Of course, you’ll still be able to loot and utilize whatever weaponry you can scavenge while running throughout Limveld in Elden Ring Nightreign. Picking the Ironeye won’t limit you to just bows or anything. But hey, playing to your strengths will probably help when it comes to surviving the night in Nightreign.
FromSoft’s survival action co-op game Elden Ring Nightreign isn’t far off now, with a May 30, 2025 release date looming just off in the distance. The studio has already confirmed Nightreign will continue to receive more bosses and characters, even via DLC per a store page listing.
So even if Ironeye isn’t your cup of tea, perhaps another adventurer would be. Though, if you want to help your team, lobbing arrows from the backline to thin out the horde certainly isn’t a bad way to go about it. Especially if they’re absolutely massive arrows.
Marvel Rivals’ Venom twerk emote is finally here, and to no one’s surprise, it has resulted in a swarm of twerking Venoms in nearly every Marvel Rivals match.
Load up NetEase Games’ hero shooter today, April 1, and you’ll no doubt be met by at least a few Venoms throwing it back. It’s a calculated release meant to coincide with all of the other gags polluting the internet today. The emote is also completely free to obtain, so the low barrier to entry, coupled with April Fools’ Day, has Marvel Rivals fans acting up, to say the least.
Even if you’re just perusing through your social media feeds, you’ll likely run into a few clips showing how the more creative players are bringing Venom’s cheeks to the battlefield. While some break up the heat of battle with a quick dance, others are gathering in matches populated exclusively by Venoms, presenting the perfect opportunity to start a twerking dance party. It’s exactly what everyone expected to happen, and it’s hilarious to see in action.
While the emote has been made available as part of April Fools’ Day 2025, it doesn’t look like the emote will be removed when Season 1 ends, so expect to see Venom dancing for years to come. For now, even those without the free Venom emote are gathering to enjoy Eddie Brock’s twerking abilities. You can see how it’s being celebrated with some of the posts below.
If you’re looking to get in on the booty-shaking fun, you’re in luck. The “Symbiote Boogie” Venom emote is available for free as part of the Galacta’s Cosmic Adventure limited-time mode. You can read more about what it takes to nab the emote before it’s gone here.
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).
This has likely been true for some time, but it made me notice that ‘slop’ had evolved from a common adjective into the realm of de facto terminology. If you dislike GenAI, you refer to its output as ‘slop’. It’s become lexi-canonical.
I think we can do better. “Slop” evokes a tepid cylinder of condensed cream of mushroom soup, glumly wibbling in a chipped bowl. When I think of GenAI, I picture something closer to tropical insects laying eggs beneath soft flesh of victims. There’s something parasitical and sinister about flaying the skin of artists who’ve explicitly spoken out against GenAI and then gleefully parading around in that stolen flesh. Slop sounds like Soft sounds like Plop sounds like Globule. It slides down too easy; gets off too lightly.
Switch 2 is tantalisingly close – at least, more details about Switch 2 are tantalisingly close, with the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct coming on 2nd April. We’re hoping for a date, a price, a huge slate of games, the works!
But even with all the info and excitement, there’s a good chance the console itself won’t be launching for a few months yet. Fortunately, Switch has still got some gas in the tank, with some genuinely brilliant-looking games scheduled to launch over the next couple of months.
Every year, the fruit flies and mosquitoes return to my kitchen, drawn to the illicit aroma of unlidded pasta sauce and the rank embroidery of carbonised toast around my cooker. Every year, I attempt to remove them non-violently by building intricate traps out of vinegar bottles, or performing slow-motion kung fu punches with a jug.
My inability to keep the winged hoodlums at bay has alienated me from my so-called friends, but on the plus side, it has also equipped me to play The Mosquito Gang, an asymmetrical multiplayer affair in which one, regular-sized human player attempts to carry out various domestic tasks while four, tiny mosquito players attempt to suck their blood.
New life-sim game inZOI has some of the most robust and realistic character creation tools we’re yet to see in a game. So, naturally, the first thing players decide to do when getting their hands on such technology is recreate their favourite pop stars and frankly terrifying childhood nightmare hauntees.
We’ve collected over 30 of our favourites (some legitimately impressive) for you to take a peek at here. From an almost lifelike Billie Eilish and an advanced look at GTA 6’s Lucia to the sexiest (?) of all Squidwards we’ve got you covered. Below is a slideshow if you want to take a look for yourself, or at the top of the page is a video if you want to spend over 40 minutes watching us react and rank them. I recommend it!
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editorial Producer who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.
Dungeons & Dragons company Wizards Of The Coast have apologised for “mistakenly” sending a legal takedown to the creator of a free Stardew Valley mod that adds a village inspired by and featuring characters from Baldur’s Gate 3. The mod has attracted praise from Larian CEO Swen Vincke, who was naturally a bit piqued when it was taken offline.
Schedule I continues to receive post-launch updates following its overnight viral success on Steam. The latest is Patch 5, which brings the drug dealer sim up to version 0.3.3f14.
While Patch 5 makes a number of important improvements to the game, of most interest to its many players is the developer’s note that Schedule I’s first content update is set to launch this weekend.
Schedule I is currently the top-selling game on Steam, with more players than big hitters such as Monster Hunter Wilds, GTA 5, and Marvel Rivals after going viral across social media, Twitch, and YouTube. In the game you go from being a small-time dope pusher to kingpin, manufacturing and distributing a range of drugs throughout the grungy city of Hyland Point. You can expand your empire with properties, businesses, employees, and more.
It’s developed and published by TVGS, aka Australian indie developer Tyler, who has called Schedule I’s explosive launch “amazing but pretty overwhelming.”
“I never expected this kind of response!” Tyler said in a post on reddit. “At the moment I’m just trying to stay focussed and get patches out ASAP. Also looking forward to getting started on content updates as soon as all major bugs are patched.”
To that end, Patch 5 fixes a number of employee bugs, multiplayer bugs, and casino bugs. Tyler has also implemented a number of pathfinding validity checks to hopefully prevent crashes.
Schedule I Update 5 version 0.3.3f14 patch notes:
Tweaks/Improvements
Added an active display setting to choose which monitor the game displays on.
Botanists will now automatically move product from their supplies to drying racks.
Owned vehicles are now visible on the map app.
Implemented a few validity checks/failsafes for NPC pathfinding and warping. I think this was one of the primary causes of crashing on certain chipsets (thanks to Chi Chi on Discord for bringing this to my attention).
Refactored employee item movement behaviour to be a bit smarter.
Implemented NPC effects culling at a certain distance to improve performance.
Bug fixes
Fixed non-host clients sometimes not being able to hit/stand in blackjack.
Fixed a quest UI bug that was sometimes causing infinite loading screens in multiplayer.
Fixed clipboard selections not reassigning without first manually clearing the existing selection (employee beds, botanist supplies, etc).
Fixed the dealer sometimes preemptively revealing its hand to non-host players in blackjack.
Fixed first-person jacket looking janky.
Fixed ‘Master Chef’ achievement being rewarded prematurely.
Fixed some property null references that were causing multiplayer loading/desync issues.
The drying rack ‘dry’ button is now non-interactable if the input slot is reserved by an employee.
Fixed NPC ‘stay in building’ behaviour sometimes causing errors for non-host players.
Fixed NPC voiceover emitters sometimes throwing a null reference.
Tyler added that sneak peeks at the first content update will be posted soon.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
75 people have been let go by Eidos-Montreal, the studio announced yesterday. The Deus Ex and Tomb Raider developers laid off the workers because they didn’t have the “capacity to entirely reallocate them”, according to a statement. It’s a further blow to the workforce at the Embracer-owned company, following hefty cuts last year.
