Howdy, Helldivers! Have you ever wanted to be a space cowboy, enforcing the fair laws of Super Earth on the edges of our galaxy, protecting our most remote colonies from undemocratic threats? Then step up, pardner, and claim your sheriff’s star with the new premium Warbond: Borderline Justice!
We’re heading out to the Wild West with the weapons this time. First up, let’s take a gander at the new R-6 Deadeye lever-action hunting rifle. You can look forward to killin’ time bullseying bugs and rounding up squids and looking cool while you do it.
But a lawman is nothing without his trusty sidearm. And instead of individual shots, the LAS-58 Talon “revolver” secondary is energy-based, meaning a slow and steady hand can keep on shooting without overheating. But if you need to bring the kind of heat that can’t be measured by degrees, the Talon can do it.
Another classic cowboy loadout item is the TED-63 Dynamite that comes with a variable timer and leaves an explosion that’s sure to straighten the curves, flatten the hills, and take down any roaming patrols among the willows.
Do you ever get a hankering to rise up above the herd and get a bird’s eye on the action? Could be that the LIFT-860 Hover Pack is just what you’re looking for–when the joint starts jumping, you can rise and hover for a little while and still aim or use ADS.
Helldivers are made out of muscle and blood and that’s why we have to keep you armored up. The GS-17 Frontier Marshal is a regulation standard medium Helldiver set, but it still manages to conjure up the look of hard living on the galactic frontier, hunting Bile Titans for sport.
But if you want to look less like a running gun and more like the sheriff of Vernen Wells, I might suggest the GS-66 Lawmaker heavy armor, complete with cowboy holster and bandolier. Both sets of armor look great with either the Reaper of Bounties cape or the Way of the Bandolier cape.
No matter which look you choose, you’ll be mighty good with the Gunslinger armor passive, which gives your secondary increased reload speed, increased draw/holster speed, and reduced recoil.
With Borderline Justice, you’ll also unlock a new player title, Super Sheriff, to let everyone know you’re their huckleberry–the galactic border colonies can rest a little easier on your watch. We’re also providing player cards that match each cape, and you’ll also get a brand new booster: Sample Extricator! When you put down a big enemy, there’s a small chance it’ll drop a sample to toss in your saddlebags.
Cowboy hats might be outlawed by the Helldiver uniform code, but you can still say your howdies and farewells with the Tip Hat emote.
If all that doesn’t light your fires, then I don’t know what will. Put the hammer down, divers, and give ‘em hell when Borderline Justice arrives on March 20!
Dinosaur survival game Ark 2, which some had suspected might have run into trouble or even been abandoned, is back on after developer Studio Wildcard revealed a new expansion for Ark: Survival Ascended that leads into the sequel.
Ark: Lost Colony is the first original expansion pack for Ark 1 remake Ark: Survival Ascended, and its reveal trailer, below, was produced by anime studio Mappa (Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan, Chainsaw Man) and stars voiceover by the Michelle Yeoh, who reprises her role as Mei Yin from Ark: The Animated Series.
Studio Wildcard said the expansion will feature numerous cinema-grade anime story sequences created by Mappa. Here’s the official blurb:
In this new frozen world, players follow in the footsteps of legendary Ark survivor Mei Yin, on a soul-searching quest deep into the chilling heart of darkness to find answers to long-buried secrets of Ark’s past.
Ark: Lost Colony will present survivors with thrilling new challenges as they become the hunted in a vast occupied city, and gain access to powerful new kinds of character abilities, unique gear, building systems, and phenomenally exotic tames.
Will Survivors be able to face down the demons lurking in Arat Prime, and connect Ark’s past and future?
In its note to press, Studio Wildcard said Ark: Lost Colony “directly connects” the storylines of Ark’s Extinction and Genesis expansions and leads into the events of Ark 2.
Ark 2 is the Unreal Engine 5-powered sequel to the hugely successful Ark Survival Evolved. It was first announced with a surprise Vin Diesel cameo at The Game Awards 2020, at the time with a 2022 release date, but it was later delayed into 2023. Then, earlier in 2023, Ark 2 was delayed again, this time to late 2024 as an Xbox Series X and S console exclusive, day-one on Game Pass, and on PC via Steam and Windows.
As recently as December 2023, Studio Wildcard was still insisting Ark 2 was on track for a late 2024 release window. Obviously that didn’t happen, sparking concern from fans. So this announcement, coming three months into 2025, will help reassure fans that Ark 2 is still in the works, although Studio Wildcard failed to provide an updated release window.
We do have firmer details for Ark: Lost Colony, however. Pre-orders kick off in June 2025, and all purchases immediately unlock exclusive Ark: Lost Colony preview gameplay content. A full release is set for November 2025, with Ark: Lost Colony priced at $29.99 for Xbox Series X and S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
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.
Metro 2033 turned fifteen this month, prompting a blog from 4A Games celebrating the FPS horror series’ past while looking forward to the next entry. The unnamed Metro 4 surfaced again last January as part of a reveal for VR title Metro Awakening, following a 2023 blog detailing the studio’s experience under the Russian invasion.
“We do want to reassure you that work is continuing on both of our projects despite missile strikes, air-raid sirens, and terror still raining down on Ukraine,” reads the new blog. “These circumstances are incredibly challenging, the situation remains dangerous and not within our control, but we are currently as safe as possible, and we want to manage your expectations around the reveal of the next Metro title, it will be ready when it is ready, and we can’t wait for you to see it”.
Playtonic’s upcoming 3D platformer Yooka-Replaylee (aka the “remastered, remade, remixed version” of Yooka-Laylee) has officially been confirmed for a “2025 launch” and as part of this, the team has released a new trailer.
It’s a “new gameplay explainer” and well, if you somehow haven’t played the original game yet, this is a great way to get a quick recap about what exactly you can expect from this title inspired by certain “collectathon” platformers of the past.
It’s a new week and that means a new update for the Switch Online ‘Nintendo Music’ mobile application.
This time Nintendo has added three soundtracks to the service. This includes the Game Boy hit Tetris, its NES counterpart and the NES album of Dr. Mario.
It’s beginning to feel like the late ’90s all over again, what with how Mortal Kombat is all the rage. 2024 saw the release of Mortal Kombat 1, the latest entry in the uber-popular fighting game series. And now MK is returning to the big screen, as Warner Bros. gears up for the release of Mortal Kombat 2, a sequel to 2021’s surprisingly solid reboot.
In light of all these big developments in the MK world, we thought now would be the perfect time to look back at the franchise’s long, colorful and occasionally baffling history in film and TV. Check out our slideshow below or scroll down for a closer look at all the Mortal Kombat adaptations and how closely (or not) they followed the source material.
Mortal Kombat (1995)
The original Mortal Kombat movie is widely regarded as one of the best video game adaptations to date. Which, granted, is a very dubious honor. Even so, the movie still stands as a solid example of how to bring the series to life in live-action. It presents a reasonably faithful retelling of the original game’s extremely barebones storyline, while drawing in elements of Mortal Kombat II and some of the backstory from the tie-in comics. Like many adaptations, it positions Liu Kang (Robin Chou) as the central hero destined to defeat the soul-stealing Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). For purists, the movie’s biggest sin is simply that it doesn’t replicate the violence of the games, opting instead for a more pedestrian PG-13 approach.
What the movie does capture, however, is that essential undercurrent of camp and zaniness that goes hand-in-hand with the gratuitous violence. Mortal Kombat the movie definitely isn’t guilty of taking itself too seriously. It’s also the movie that introduced the world to The Immortals’ “Techno Syndrome,” the most iconic video game music this side of the Super Mario Bros. theme.
Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins (1995)
There’s some pretty stiff competition when it comes to deciding the worst Mortal Kombat adaptation ever made, but this direct-to-video release may just take the top honor. Released ahead of the live-action film and ostensibly a prequel to said film, The Journey Begins sets about fleshing out the origin stories of various MK icons. But the connective tissue is dubious at best. And as dated as the CGI in the live-action movie may be, it’s state-of-the-art compared to the archaic, sub-Playstation quality 3D fight scenes in The Journey Begins. Hardcore fans may want to watch this one out of sheer, morbid curiosity (especially since it’s included as a bonus feature on the Mortal Kombat Blu-ray), but don’t expect it to actually enhance your enjoyment of the games or the movies.
Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1996)
The ’80s and ’90s TV landscape was littered with attempts to translate adults-only pop culture properties into kid-friendly cartoons. Case in point – RoboCop: The Animated Series, Rambo: The Force of Freedom and Toxic Crusaders. We honestly have to respect Kenner’s moxie for deciding to cut out the middleman and directly market Terminator 2 and Aliens toys to kids without even waiting for cartoons.
With Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, USA Network threw its razor-edged hat into the ring. This short-lived series aired on the network’s Action Extreme Team block in 1996. Somewhat bafflingly, it attempts to serve as a continuation of both the 1995 movie and the Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 video game, though the all-ages approach basically renders that moot. Defenders of the Realm simplifies the complex series of alliances and rivalries that define the MK mythos, instead featuring a team of heroes led by Raiden and Nighthawk tasked with defending Earthrealm from Shao Kahn’s interdimensional invaders.
Defenders of the Realm does make one notable addition to the franchise, however. The series was actually the first to introduce Quan Chi before his roles in Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat 4.
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
If the first Mortal Kombat movie is among the best attempts at adapting a video game to film, its sequel is easily among the worst. It’s not necessarily that Annihilation plays fast and loose with the source material. It introduces a number of popular characters like Shao Kahn (Brian Thompson), Jax (Lynn Williams) and Sindel (Musetta Vandel), along with familiar MK elements like Animalities, the death of Johnny Cage and Kuai Liang taking up his brother’s mantle as Sub-Zero. The problem is that the movie fails to string any of that together into a coherent and interesting story. There’s not much internal logic to what happens or which characters appear.
But even if the plot lived up to the first movie, Annihilation is plagued with lousy effects, underwhelming fight scenes, and actors who would seemingly rather be anywhere else. It’s telling that, apart from Chou’s Liu Kang, nearly all the returning characters were recast for the sequel. But if nothing else, at least the soundtrack is pretty good.
Mortal Kombat: Conquest (1998)
While Annihilation basically destroyed Mortal Kombat’s big-screen prospects for the next two decades, that didn’t stop TNT from airing a live-action TV series in 1998. Mortal Kombat: Conquest serves as a prequel to the movies, taking place 500 years before the era of Liu Kang. Instead, Conquest revolves around Liu’s ancestor Kung Lao (Paolo Montalbán), a warrior monk tasked with training a new generation of fighters to defend Earthrealm. While many of the series’ supporting characters are new creations, many MK fan-favorites show up over the course of Conquest’s one and only season.
The best that can be said for Conquest is that it was ahead of its time. The prequel premise is strong, and it’s certainly a better offshoot of the 1995 film than Annihilation. But even at the time, it was difficult to ignore the lousy wire-fu fight scenes and generally bad special effects. It’s hard not to wonder what might have been if Conquest had come along a decade or two later.
Mortal Kombat: Rebirth (2010)
Outside of the games themselves, the MK franchise largely went dormant in the ’00s. It wasn’t until filmmaker Kevin Tancharoen took the initiative and put together a short, unauthorized Mortal Kombat movie that the ball started rolling again.
Though produced on a very low budget and not sanctioned by Warner Bros. or Mortal Kombat’s creators, Tancharoen’s short film Mortal Kombat: Rebirth is a surprisingly professional adaptation. Rebirth is unique in that it downplays the franchise’s supernatural trappings, instead casting Scorpion (Ian Anthony Dale) as an assassin working with Captain Jackson Briggs (Michael Jai White) and Sonya Blade (Jeri Ryan) to bring down Shang Tsung’s criminal empire and get revenge on his nemesis, Sub-Zero.
Tancharoen intended for Rebirth to serve as a proof-of-concept for a possible movie reboot. He sort of got his wish as he was given the reins of the live-action web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy (2011)
Tancharoen returned to the MK franchise the following year, this time with the actual approval of Warner Bros. and a greenlight for a full season of live-action webisodes exclusive to Machinima. Legacy doesn’t follow the new continuity established in Rebirth, though Dale, White and Ryan all returned to reprise their roles for Season 1. Instead, Legacy acts as a prequel to the original game, with each Season 1 episode fleshing out the backstory for a different Kombatant.
Season 2 proved to be a fairly steep departure, with Legacy shifting to a more narrative-driven approach while bringing in a number of new characters and recasting many existing roles. One bonus of that revamp is that Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was able to reprise the role of Shang Tsung (paving the way for him to make the jump over to the games in the form of Mortal Kombat 11 DLC).
As inconsistent as it is in terms of tone and plot, Legacy shows the potential in a more earnest take on the MK mythology. It also looks surprisingly robust for a free-to-watch web series.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge (2020)
Mortal Kombat returned to the animated realm in 2020, in what proved to be a vastly better adaptation than either The Journey Begins or Defenders of the Realm. It helps that Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge is aimed squarely at adults. In fact, this direct-to-video release is actually the first R-rated Mortal Kombat movie.
Scorpion’s Revenge is an adaptation of the original game’s storyline, but with a twist. Rather than framing the movie around the heroic Liu Kang, we’ll see the fateful tournament from Scorpion’s point of view. The movie explores the character’s tragic origin story and the beginnings of his feud with Sub-Zero. You can learn more in IGN’s Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge review.
After years of rumors about another live-action Mortal Kombat movie, the franchise finally returned to the big screen in 2021. The new movie isn’t connected to previous projects, but instead serves as a complete reboot. Star Mehcad Brooks (who plays Jax) describes it as having “grounded realism” despite retaining the Fatalities and other violent trappings of the games. Here’s a full breakdown of the Mortal Kombat reboot’s cast.
The reboot hit theaters and HBO Max simultaneously in April 2021. You can check out IGN’s Mortal Kombat review for more. Though the pandemic obviously affected the film’s box office haul, it proved critically and commercially successful enough that Warners greenlit a sequel.
Mortal Kombat 2 (2025)
The rebooted Mortal Kombat series will return to theaters in 2025 in the form of a sequel currently titled simply Mortal Kombat 2. In addition to returning favorites like Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, and Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, the film will also introduce Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage, Martyn Ford’s Shao Kahn, Damoin Herriman’s Quan Chi, and Adeline Rudolph’s Kitana. We recently got a closer look at several of the cast members.
At this point, there seems little doubt that Mortal Kombat 2 will be a better sequel than Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was, but that’s not exactly a high bar to cross. The question is whether the sequel can continue the momentum generated by the original and pave the way for even more of the proposed sequels. There’s plenty of fight left in this franchise yet.
Note: this article was originally published on 04/09/2020 and updated on 03/17/2025 with the latest news about the Mortal Kombat franchise.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket byfollowing @jschedeen on BlueSky.
Atari cannot stop reviving its classic arcade titles at the moment, and we keep lapping them up. This time around, the legendary developer and publisher has teamed up with Canadian studios Mighty Yell and 13AM Games to bring back the 1980 shoot ’em up Missile Command.
Missile Command Delta is a brand new, turn-based tactical take on the series which blends strategic gameplay with mystery and puzzle solving. It’s a far cry from what we’re used to from Missile Command, but the developers are aiming to retain the “tension and suspense of the arcade original”.
So you’re after an AMD Radeon RX 9070 / XT? While the price is great, trying to seemingly find one at retail price is about as easy as finding a PS5 in 2020. Instead of paying inflated prices, I’d instead recommend picking up a prebuilt gaming PC—and these Skytech options are some of the best I’ve seen.
Silent Games and Secret Mode have announced that their acrobatic, pensive action-RPG Empyreal will launch on 8th May, with a demo still available on Steam. I hadn’t come across Empyreal before, but I already have Opinions, mostly positive. Firstly, the fonts for damage number pop-ups are… weirdly stringy, given the heft and colour of the character models and environments. There’s barely any meat on them. It makes me feel like I’m beating up a checkout machine, not thwacking golems.
Secondly, I quite like the looks of the game’s four biomes, which “reflect certain philosophical principles”, in the words of game director James Rogers. Going by fleeting glimpses from the below seven minute overview video, there’s a Nature world and a Technology world and a dessicated biome that reminds me of Rime, with a scalding blue sky that consists of tumbledown hexagonal plates.
New details about what’s in store for the horrors waiting within Silent Hill f have emerged, and they make it clear that developer NeoBards Entertainment is keeping in step with the series’ tone.
Warning! The following descriptions contain some gruesome details about the content of Silent Hill f, which will entail possible spoilers and mature content.
Konami aired its latest Silent Hill Transmission broadcast just last week, sharing more details about the upcoming Silent Hill f. Developed by NeoBards, set in a mountain town in 1960s Japan, and written by Higurashi and Umineko author Ryukishi07, Silent Hill f looks to be an interesting new venture for the horror series.
The broadcast didn’t include much in the way of gameplay though. In lieu of that, fans have been poring over the content warnings and ESRB rating for Silent Hill f, both of which are live and provide some surprisingly detailed descriptions of what terrors wait in the town of Ebisugaoka.
Over on the ESRB site, Silent Hill f garnered a Mature 17+ rating for “Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity.” None of that by itself is terribly surprising, but it’s the rating summary that offers some more detail:
“This is a survival-horror action game in which players assume the role of a student confronting supernatural entities in a 1960s Japanese mountain town. From a third-person perspective, players explore the town, solve puzzles, interact with characters, and battle enemy creatures (e.g., humanoid monsters, mutants, mythical creatures).
“Players use axes, crowbars, knives, and spears to defend against and kill enemy creatures in melee-style combat. Blood-splatter effects occur frequently as characters are attacked; several areas depict large bloodstains in the environment and near corpses. Some enemy attacks can result in players’ character getting impaled in the neck and/or getting their faces ripped apart.
“Cutscenes sometimes depict gore and more intense acts of violence: a character burned alive inside a cage; a woman branded by a hot iron; entrails and sinew displayed on serving platters in fantastical celebration/ceremony; a character sawing off her own arm; a character slicing off portions of a character’s face during a ritual. Concept art depicts a nude mannequin-like character, with exposed buttocks and partially exposed breasts; the character appears in a creature-like form throughout the game.”
Faces ripped apart, hot irons, and a character sawing off their arm certainly paint a gruesome picture. Silent Hill f could get pretty gnarly, even by Silent Hill’s standards. It is, after all, the first game in the series to earn a CERO:Z in Japan, an 18+ rating; the others have typically garnered CERO:C or CERO:D, which are 15+ and 17+, respectively.
Silent Hill f may also be dealing with some heavy topics and imagery too. For that, we can look at the game’s content warning, displayed on both the official site and the Steam store page:
“This game contains depictions of gender discrimination, child abuse, bullying, drug-induced hallucinations, torture, and graphic violence. This game is set in Japan in the 1960s and contains depictions based on the customs and culture of that time. These depictions do not reflect the opinions or values of the developers or any individuals involved. If you feel uncomfortable at any point while playing, please take a break from playing or speak to someone you trust.”
Between the actual physical horror and tackling these kinds of themes, Silent Hill f certainly seems like it’s engaging with the kind of material you’d expect in a Silent Hill. For horror fans, that’s hopefully a good sign.
Silent Hill f has no release date at the moment, though having an ESRB rating this detailed certainly suggests it’s not far off. It’s currently targeting PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC when it does launch.
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