Category: Video Games

Xbox just had a great Q2…and it might have PlayStation to thank. Or is it PlayStation that should be thanking Xbox?

Per data shared from Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, six of the ten best-selling games on PlayStation consoles in the U.S. during the second quarter of 2025 (April through June) were published by Microsoft.

Most of those games were new. Forza Horizon 5 debuted at No.2 for the quarter (just behind Elden Ring Nightreign). The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Remastered was right behind it. Doom: The Dark Ages debuted at No. 6 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle came in at No.8.

Developer NetEase Games has pulled back the curtain on Marvel Rivals Season 3.5, revealing a first look at Blade and many of the other additions coming in August.

The studio offered a breakdown for everything included in the mid-season refresh today, including how players will be able to use the legendary comic book Daywalker’s abilities to cut through the new content included in the upcoming August 8 update. It follows the launch of Season 3: The Abyss Awakens – and Jean Grey – just weeks ago and is a sign that NetEase intends to stick to its quick content release schedule.

Marvel Rivals Season 3.5 Adds Blade and New Team-Ups Next Week

Blade’s introduction into Marvel Rivals as an actual playable character and not just a creative bit or world-building has been a long time coming. The infamous vampire-hunting hero first made his debut all the way back in Season 1, but has been sidelined as an NPC since.

Now, players finally have the chance to control Blade for themselves, and NetEase didn’t hold back. He’ll arrive next week as a Duelist, using his shotgun as a mid-to-close-range weapon before going in for the kill with his Ancestral Sword. Finally, players can use the Sword of Dracula for Blade’s ultimate ability, allowing him to tear through entire enemy teams with style.

“Almost a century ago, Eric Brooks was born of two worlds: the light of his mother’s embrace and the dark of the vampire that attacked her,” a description from NetEase says. “After embracing his existence as a dhampir, he became the Daywalker, the ultimate vampire hunter, combining unmatched combat skills and unwavering supernatural abilities.

“When Dracula reigned over New York City, it was none other than Blade who confronted him first. By then, however, it was too late. Dracula had mastered the almighty power of Chronovium, defeating the Daywalker and imprisoning him within the castle dungeon.

“After Dracula’s fall, Blade was sent to Wakanda to recover, but his story is far from over. Now recruited by Shuri to save all existence, Blade stands awake and at the ready against the dark forces of Hela and Knull.”

With the launch of the Marvel Rivals Season 3.5 update next week comes changes to the team-up abilities. Guardian Revival and Atlas Bond are both being removed from the experience, and Loki is being removed from Ragnarök Rebirth. In place of these adjustments come two new team-ups: Duality Dance and Vibrant Vitality. The former includes Adam Warlock and Luna Snow, while the latter brings Mantis together with either Groot or Loki. Existing team-ups are also expanding, with Iron Fist joining Chilling Assault, Star-Lord joining Rocket Network, and Blade joining Lunar Force.

NetEase Is Making a Splash With Marvel Rivals in August

Also set to join NetEase’s popular hero shooter come August 8 are adjustments to how players can help maintain a positive environment in their matches. In what the studio calls “Operation: Shield the Community,” players will be able to utilize a custom text chat filter, allowing users to mute specific words. NetEase says it will monitor popular muted words, which may then be added to its official list, while also saying that it’s been able to monitor all in-game voice chat conversations since July 24.

Marvel Rivals Season 3.5 will also introduce increased penalties for players who leave in the middle of Competitive game modes. Examples include longer bans from Competitive play and larger point deductions, with remaining players gifted point compensation at the end of affected matches. Leaver penalties will be handled on a case-by-case basis, with NetEase promising to speed up the appeals process for those looking to appeal a ban.

Finally, the new Resource Rumble game mode and its Throne of Knull map will arrive later in the month alongside an August 22 update. NetEase stops short of detailing exactly what makes these additions stand apart from other maps and modes but teases more with plans to premiere a gameplay deep dive soon. Expect to see Resource Rumble first launch in Quick Match before it joins Competitive at a later date.

Marvel Rivals is chugging forward as NetEase works to maintain the two-month seasonal release schedule it promised back in April. It means more characters will be added faster as the team continues to address player feedback with frequent updates.

Marvel Rivals Season 3.5 launches next week. While we wait for full patch notes, you can see how the cast of The Fantastic Four: First Steps reacted to the Invisible Woman’s infamous Malice skin.

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).

Monster Hunter Wilds got off to an incredible sales start when it launched in February. Unfortunately, it seems as though its success has fallen off one heck of a cliff since then – and Capcom appears to be trying to amend that by releasing an endgame content expansion much sooner than expected.

The sales data comes from Capcom’s quarterly earnings report, which includes a slide presentation showing sales data for the company’s top ten best-selling games from April 1 to June 30. The presentation shows that Monster Hunter Wilds sold 477k copies during that period, only just above the 389k copies sold of four-year-old game Monster Hunter Rise. Wilds was the 9th best-selling game of the quarter for Capcom, while Rise was the 10th.

To be clear, even though Rise is four years old, those aren’t exactly gangbusters sales figures either. In Capcom’s consolidated financial results, the company says, “Regarding catalog titles, although sales were soft for Monster Hunter Wilds, the latest title in the series released in February this year, Monster Hunter Rise, a previous title in the same series, continued to see sales growth.” This is technically true, in that Rise continues to sell copies, but calling it “growth” is a bit strong.

Last quarter, Monster Hunter Rise only sold 384k copies. In fact, sales of the game slowed down significantly throughout last year after the game sold 725k in Q1, 640k in Q2, and 691k in Q3. That’s not really shocking, especially once Wilds was announced – people were bound to hold off on buying Rise if there was a brand new game just around the corner.

What’s more interesting here is how much better Rise was selling throughout most of last year, several years after its release, than Wilds is selling now. Just a few months out from its launch, Wilds saw a steep, steep sales dropoff. After releasing during the first quarter to a Capcom record-setting 10.108 million copies sold, 8 million of which were in just three days, Wilds shot up to become the best-selling game in the U.S. year-to-date according to Circana. And while it’s still No.1 as of July 5 due to that initial spike, for the month of June, it didn’t even crack the top 20 best-selling games.

Why is Wilds having such a bad time of things? Well, despite reviewing well initially, its endgame content is sorely lacking compared to past games, so the many fans who play Monster Hunter over time, with friends, are struggling. It’s also suffering from severe performance issues on PC specifically that have yet to be fully resolved. Despite new content and seasons, fans remain unsatisfied with the state of the game, to the point where some players are taking things too far and apparently harassing and threatening individual Capcom team members over it.

An update on release date and content of update Ver.1.021

The expansion of endgame content which was originally planned as part of Title Update 3 in late September will now be released ahead of schedule as part of the Ver.1.021 update. To accommodate this change, this update… pic.twitter.com/aQF1oFMCFR

— Monster Hunter (@monsterhunter) July 29, 2025

Which all perhaps explains why Capcom has bumped up a planned expansion of endgame content from the end of September to August 13. The planned expansion will include a new level of quest difficulty, a new rewards system, weapon balance adjustments, and other improvements. It’s unclear as of yet if this will solve the performance issues, but perhaps it will sate those frustrated at Wilds’ weaker endgame.

We’ll have to wait for more details to see if this is the start of a turnaround or if Wilds will go down as one of the more disappointing Monster Hunter titles long-term. In the meantime, perhaps a Rise Renaissance is on the horizon if fans gravitate back to older games.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.