What to Expect From Star Wars in 2025

With 2025 looming, Star Wars fans have a whole new year’s worth of content to look forward to. Unfortunately, 2025 isn’t shaping up to be the franchise’s biggest year. With no new movies on the docket and only one live-action series confirmed for release, the pickings are looking a little slim.

But that’s not to say there’s nothing exciting on the horizon. The release of Andor Season 2 alone is reason for Star Wars fans to celebrate like the Rebels dancing on Endor. Let’s take a closer look at what is coming in 2025, and the many Star Wars projects we hope to learn more about in the next 12 months.

Andor Returns for Season 2

This is the big one. The Star Wars slate may be a little sparse in 2025, but it’s hard to complain too much when we’re getting a sequel to what is widely regarded as the best Star Wars project Disney has released so far. That’s right, Andor Season 2 is finally dropping in April 2025.

Season 2 chronicles the second half of this deep, introspective origin story for Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor. If Season 1 was the story of how a young Cassian became radicalized and joined the fledgling Rebel Alliance, then Season 2 will show us the dangerous missions he undertook leading up to the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Fittingly, with the series moving closer to the time period of Rogue One, we’ll see more familiar faces from that movie pop up in Season 2. Most notably, Alan Tudyk will reprise the role of K-2SO, as we learn how Cassian first met this eccentric Imperial assassin droid. We’re also looking forward to seeing Ben Mendelsohn don his cape once more as Death Star project manager Director Orson Krennic.

Fans can expect Season 2 to cover a lot of ground, with multiple time jumps unfolding over the course of the season and the final batch of episodes set in the days leading up to Rogue One. In other words, don’t expect a Season 3. But do expect a Star Wars story that continues to explore the ordinary men and women who lit the spark of rebellion in a time of great darkness.

More Star Wars: Visions

More Andor is great, but what about the animated side of things? With The Bad Batch wrapping up in 2024, the one Star Wars animated series confirmed to return in 2025 is Star Wars: Visions. Once again, fans will be treated to an anthology of animated shorts featuring various animation studios interpreting the mythology of Star Wars through their own, unique lens.

Season 3 is said to bring Visions back to its roots as an anime anthology, whereas Season 2 took more of a global approach. The studios involved in Season 3 include Cyberpunk Edgerunners’ Studio Trigger and Attack on Titan’s WIT Studio, along with David Production, Kamikaze Douga, ANIMA, Kinema Citrus Co., Polygon Pictures, Production I.G, and Project Studio Q.

Will There Be More Star Wars TV?

However much we’re looking forward to more of Star Wars: Andor and Star Wars: Visions, there’s no getting around the fact that 2025 is looking pretty thin on the Star Wars TV front compared to previous years. In 2024 alone we got two live-action shows in The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew and two animated series in The Bad Batch: Season 3 and Tales of the Empire. But in 2025, we only have one confirmed live-action series and one animated series, plus the final two episodes of Skeleton Crew.

Is there a chance Disney has more shows planned we don’t know about? Possibly, at least on the animated front. Don’t forget that we only learned about the existence of Tales of the Empire a month before it dropped on Disney+ in May 2024. It’s entirely possible that they could pull the same trick again in 2025, announcing another “Tales of” anthology series to follow up Tales of the Empire and Tales of the Jedi.

There’s also the question of whether Disney has any long-form Star Wars animated projects in development right now. With The Bad Batch wrapping up last year, we have to imagine that Dave Filoni and others have been hard at work crafting the next great Star Wars animated saga. We probably won’t see that series release in 2025, but it’s possible we’ll at least get an announcement and maybe even see some early footage. That could be one of the big announcements at Star Wars Celebration Japan in April.

But on the live-action front, don’t expect any big surprises in 2025. The Acolyte was officially canceled, and with The Mandalorian saga continuing on the big screen, we don’t even know if The Mandalorian: Season 4 is ever happening. That just leaves Ahsoka: Season 2, and that series isn’t returning until 2026 at least.

The End of the High Republic

If things are looking a little barren on the live-action Star Wars front right now, the same certainly can’t be said for the publishing side of things. Fans of the Star Wars books and comics will be eating very well in 2025, particularly those following Lucasfilm Publishing’s High Republic saga. For the past several years, these books and comics have been exploring the triumphs and tribulations of the Jedi hundreds of years before the Star Wars movies, and it all comes to an end soon.

Look for several major High Republic novels to be released in 2025, including Charles Soule’s The High Republic: Trials of the Jedi, Claudia Gray’s The High Republic: Into the Light, and Justina Ireland’s The High Republic: A Valiant Vow. Of these, Trials of the Jedi is the one most worth keeping an eye on, as it serves as the climax of the entire High Republic initiative. This novel will chronicle the final battle between the Jedi and the Nihil and the Nameless. Look for Trials of the Jedi to be released on June 17.

Not to be outdone, Marvel Comics has quite an ambitious Star Wars lineup planned for 2025. In 2024, most of Marvel’s ongoing Star Wars comics were exploring the period between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Now that those books have ended, Marvel is casting a wider net and branching out to multiple Star Wars eras in 2025.

Kicking things off, look for Marvel to wrap up the limited series Star Wars: The Battle of Jakku in January. This series has been busy fleshing out the final major battle between the dying Empire and the New Republic two years after Return of the Jedi, and we’ll see the climax unfold in writer Alex Segura and artist Jethro Morales and Leonard Kirk’s The Battle of Jakku: Last Stand.

From there, Marvel is veering in two wildly different directions with its newest ongoing Star Wars comics. First, writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Madibek Musabekov are heading to the Prequel era in Star Wars: Jedi Knights. Set before the events of The Phantom Menace, the series will follow numerous members of the Jedi Order, including Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Mace Windu, and Shaak Ti. The series even focuses on Count Dooku before his defection from the Jedi Order.

Elsewhere, Marvel is venturing deep into the era of the Sequel Trilogy for Charles Soule and Luke Ross’ Star Wars: Legacy of Vader. Set in between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, the series explores Kylo Ren’s struggle as the newly crowned Supreme Leader of the First Order and his quest to recommit himself to the Dark Side following his battles with Rey and Luke Skywalker. Soule previously fleshed out Ben Solo’s Dark Side origins in 2020’s Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren, so consider this a sequel of sorts.

We have to assume these aren’t the only new Star Wars comics Marvel will be launching in 2025, as the publisher has tended to publish four or five ongoing titles at any given time. Will Doctor Aphra get another solo series? Will we see other books fleshing out the blank canvas that is the post-Return of the Jedi era? Only time will tell on that front.

The Future of Star Wars Games

If 2025 is shaping up to be a relatively quiet year on the movie and TV front, it’s not looking any better in terms of video game releases. In fact, there are no Star Wars games confirmed for release in 2024.

About all fans have to look forward to at the moment is new DLC for Star Wars Outlaws. According to Ubisoft’s DLC roadmap, fans can expect a new story campaign called “A Pirate’s Fortune” to release in Spring 2025. This campaign focuses on fan-favorite pirate villain (or perhaps he’s more of an anti-hero) Hondo Ohnaka as he bumps into Kay Vess.

Ubisoft has yet to reveal what, if any, new Outlaws content is planned beyond “A Pirate’s Fortune.” Are there even more adventures planned for Kay and her motley crew, or do the lukewarm sales numbers spell doom for Outlaws’ ongoing future? We’ll have to wait for future announcements to learn more.

Beyond that, all we can do is hope that 2025 brings with it news about other upcoming Star Wars games. We know EA is developing a third game in the Star Wars Jedi series. But with there being four years between the release of 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and 2023’s Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, it’s probably too much to hope the new game will actually release in 2025. At best, we might see early footage of the game and get a better idea of when in the Star Wars timeline it takes place.

We’re also crossing our fingers for news on the oft-delayed remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch confirmed in 2024 that the game is still in active development, despite rumors to the contrary. But what state is the game in right now, and when will we see footage of the remake in action? Hopefully, 2025 brings with it some good news on the KOTOR front.

And let’s not forget Quantic Dream’s Star Wars: Eclipse, another title that was announced and then seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth. Will 2025 be the year Eclipse finally rears its head again, or will it go the way of so many other canceled Star Wars projects?

What About the Star Wars Movies?

2025 won’t deliver any new Star Wars theatrical releases, which at this point is nothing new. On the theatrical side, the franchise has been dormant since the release of The Rise of Skywalker back in 2019. But that’s not to say Lucasfilm hasn’t announced plenty of new Star Wars movies in recent years. It’s worth looking at what’s currently in the pipeline and how likely we are to get an update in 2025.

The Mandalorian & Grogu

First, there’s the lone Star Wars movie that’s actually in production right now, The Mandalorian & Grogu. This big-screen spinoff of The Mandalorian continues the shared story of the two heroes after the events of The Mandalorian: Season 3. Co-creator Jon Favreau is directing the film, which is currently slated for release on May 22, 2026. With any luck, we should see a teaser trailer for the film at some point in 2025, possibly as early as Star Wars Celebration Japan.

Dave Filoni’s Mando-Verse Movie

Not to be outdone, Favreau’s partner Dave Filoni is directing his own live-action movie, one expected to tie together characters and threads from The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, The Book of Boba Fett, and other projects from that era. Don’t expect much news on this movie in the foreseeable future, however, as Filoni has to focus on Ahsoka: Season 2 first.

James Mangold’s Star Wars Movie

Logan director James Mangold is helming a movie set in the distant past of the Star Wars universe, revealing the origins of the Jedi Order and reportedly featuring a “Biblical” scope. Lucasfilm may announce a writer for the movie in 2025, but don’t expect more updates than that.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s New Jedi Order Movie

Daisy Ridley is reprising the role of Rey Skywalker in a new movie set 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. Ms. Marvel’s Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is directing. Hopefully, we’ll see some updates about the film in 2025, but it’s unclear where in the pipeline it currently falls.

Simon Kinberg’s Star Wars Trilogy

X-Men producer Simon Kinberg has been tapped to oversee a new trilogy of Star Wars movies. Despite early rumors the trilogy will directly continue the Skywalker Saga, IGN was able to confirm it’s instead meant to focus on a new storyline. It’s still early days on this project, so we’re not expecting to hear much about Kinberg’s trilogy in 2025.

Taika Waititi’s Star Wars Movie

Thor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi is apparently still set to venture into the Star Wars universe, though it’s been years since we’ve gotten any substantive updates on this mysterious project. Will that finally change in 2025?

And that’s what you can expect from the Star Wars franchise in 2025. It’s a relatively quiet year, but there are still some very cool projects for fans to look forward to in the new year. What Star Wars story are you most excited to experience in 2025? Let us know by voting in our poll and posting down in the comments.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.

Guide: Best Nintendo Switch Life Sims And Farming Games

Life comes at you slow.

Reformatted and revised with a couple of new additions. Enjoy!


If you’re looking for a change of pace and some welcome distraction from everyday life, few mediums offer such engrossing, ongoing escapism as video games. Even the best books have an ending, but some games can go on almost indefinitely and come to form a calming part of our daily routines.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Sonic’s Live-Action Movies Have Apparently Surpassed $1 Billion At The Box Office

A fourth movie is already on the way.

Sonic’s movie career started as a nightmare but quickly turned around when the team behind the original live-action movie changed his look. It’s now morphed into three entire films and following the release of Sonic 3 late last month, this series has just hit another big-screen milestone.

According to Box Office Mojo data (via Reddit), the Sonic 3 movie has now made an estimated $280 million worldwide – and combined with previous sales of the franchise (close to $320 million for Sonic in 2020 and $405 million for Sonic 2 in 2022) this apparently makes it a billion-dollar movie franchise!

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Inti Creates Plans To Announce “Several Titles” In 2025

With a special focus on “2D action games”.

2025 is just kicking off and various video game companies and industry figures have been sharing their plans for the year ahead.

As for the Japanese developer Inti Creates, it hopes to announce “several titles” this year. Unsurprisingly a major focus will be placed on its signature style “2D action games”. Here’s exactly what the CEO and president Takuya Aizu had to say about this in a new year message on social media:

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Poll: What Score Would You Give The Year Of Shadow? Go On, Tell Us

2024 marked a year-long celebration.

2024 is now over and that means the “Year of Shadow” and all of the celebrations related to the “Ultimate Lifeform” are winding down.

Sega originally announced this annual campaign in April 2024 and followed it up with all sorts of announcements, merchandise, and toys. Sonic fans got new Shadow-themed LEGO, toys, comics, and promotional events.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

AGDQ 2025 Starts This Weekend, Featuring Crazy Taxi With a Live Band, Elden Ring on a Saxophone, and Much More

At last, it’s time for the most exciting live competitive event of the year. No, I don’t mean the Super Bowl – it’s time for Awesome Games Done Quick, the annual charity speedrunning marathon that features a week of talented gamers showing off the wildest things they can do with video games.

Games Done Quick (GDQ) has been running for 15 years now, since 2010. The event is a live broadcast speedrunning marathon, during which speedrunners take turns showing off beating video games as fast as possible, and often in wacky and especially impressive ways. In recent years, the events have shown off increasingly ambitious performances, including blindfolded or one-handed runs, two players using a single controller, showcases of tricky arcade games, and even speedruns performed by dogs.

The annual event is held to raise money for the Prevent Cancer foundation, having previously raised a record high of $3,442,033 in 2022, and $2,539,832 just last year. And this year’s marathon has some pretty ridiculous runs on the docket. There’s a run of Crazy Taxi backed by a live band, someone playing Elden Ring with a saxophone, new Super Mario Bros. Wii run while simultaneously playing piano, a two-players-one-controller run of Breath of the Wild, loads of randomizer races, and it all wraps up with a Map Randomizer Race between some of the best Super Metroid runners out there. If you’ve never watched GDQ before, it’s really worth tuning in.

AGDQ 2025 kicks off at 9:00 AM PT on Sunday, January 5 with a run of Pikmin on Nintendo Switch, followed by Portal 2. In fact, Sunday’s full of bangers: Kirby’s Air Ride follows, there’s an Astro Bot run, then The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, a run infamous for appearing at GDQ every years and getting shorter each time as the community discovers new, run-changing skips.

If I keep going I’ll just list every single run in the entire event, so here’s a quick list of highlights you should definitely check out. Definitely peak at the official website for a look at the full schedule, because there’s tons of great runs I didn’t list here, and the timing will be subject to change constantly throughout the week.

Sunday

  • 9:00 AM PT: Pikmin – All Parts
  • 10:24 AM: Portal 2 – Single player No SLA
  • 1:56 PM: Ori and the Blind Forest – Randomizer World Tour 11
  • 3:30 PM: Astro Bot – Any%
  • 6:19 PM: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker – Any%
  • 9:14 PM: Alan Wake 2: Night Springs – All Episodes
  • 10:01 PM: Alan Wake 2: The lake House – Any%

Monday

  • 9:54 AM PT: UFO 50 – Various Games Showcase
  • 10:51 AM: Super Meat Boy – Any%
  • 11:37 AM: Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS – SMC Any% No Auto
  • 3:00 PM: Metroid Prime – Any% Inbounds Race
  • 4:42 PM: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Any% 2 Players 1 Controller
  • 6:45 PM: Horizon: Forbidden Rest – NG+ Story

Tuesday

  • 7:47 AM PT: Unicorn Overlord – Any% Story
  • 8:26 AM: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana – All Story Bosses
  • 10:18 AM: Spyro: Reignited Trilogy – Spyro 1, Any% NBS
  • 1:25 PM: Super Mario Bros. – Any% STA
  • 6:20 PM: The Last of Us: Left Behind – Remake – Grounded
  • 8:05 PM: Silent Hill 2 (2024) – New Game Light Restricted

Wednesday

  • 8:51 AM PT: Sonic X Shadow Generations – Any%
  • 10:23 AM: Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu!/Eevee! – Any% Pikachu/Eevee
  • 1:43 PM: New Super Mario Bros. Wii – Any% While Playing Piano
  • 3:30 PM: Donkey Kong Counry: Tropical Freeze – Any% Original Mode
  • 5:07 PM: Fallout: New Vegas – All Romances
  • 5:52 PM: Super Mario 64 – A-Button Challenge TAS Showcase
  • 6:27 PM: Rocket League – Workshop Map Speedrun Showcase
  • 7:24 PM: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Main Quest

At 8:24 PM PT, GDQ will kick off a block of games that have been affectionally referred to in past years as “Awful Games Done Quick” or the “Awful Block.” These are games that are silly, janky, broken, or otherwise of questionable quality, and always make for some hilarious speedruns. The first run, Superman 64, you’ve probably heard of before, but the rest you may have not. The Awful Block runs throughout the night on Wednesday into very early Thursday morning. Speaking from experience, I highly recommend having insomnia and staying up all night to watch it. The block concludes with Kevin Costner’s Waterworld at 3:11 AM on Thursday.

Thursday

  • 10:55 AM PT: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – All Dungeons
  • 3:00 PM: Lies of P – Any% Glitchless
  • 5:02 PM: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – Any%
  • 6:55 PM: CHUNITHM LUMINOUS PLUS – Arcade Showcase

Friday

  • 2:36 AM PT: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth – Any% Easy
  • 9:21 AM: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – Tightened Vice
  • 3:00 PM: Tetris: The Grand Master – Multi Game Showcase
  • 4:00 PM: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 48 Tracks (DLC) 200cc, No Items
  • 5:45 PM: Kaizo Mario World 3 – 100%
  • 6:52 PM: jubeat copious APPEND – Showcase
  • 8:07 PM: Super Mario World – 96 Exit Race

Saturday

Seriously, just stop sleeping and watch the entire day Saturday. I want to list every game here. It starts with Peggle Extreme and Metal Gear Solid, for pete’s sake! There’s not a bad thing on the schedule! Fine, fine, my editor said I have to narrow it down:

  • 6:57 AM PT: Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire – Any% Race
  • 10:32 AM: Elden Ring – DLC Lockout Bingo
  • 12:52 PM: Elden Ring – Saxophone Controlled Boss Showcase
  • 1:27 PM: Crazy Taxi with Live Backing Band – Crazy Box
  • 2:30 PM: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – No Logic Randomizer
  • 6:35 PM: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom – Any%
  • 7:55 PM: Super Metroid – Map Randomizer Race

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.

Valve’s Dead TCG Artifact Suddenly Had 12,000 Players on New Year’s Day, and the Community Is Baffled

As we rang in the new year earlier this week, thousands of people seemed to be celebrating in an admittedly unusual way: by playing Valve’s 2018 TCG Artifact.

Then, as quickly as they started, the 12,000-ish individuals all stopped playing at once on January 3, leaving the game as empty as it had been at the end of 2024.

Who were these people? No one seems to know. The Artifact community isn’t reporting any sudden spikes in interest, and no one’s really talking about the game on social media apart from marveling at the sudden jump in player numbers.

So why, then, is SteamDB suggesting that a free-to-play card game that is, by all accounts, close to dead, seeing wild spikes in users over very specific two-day periods?

As spotted by Forbes, Artifact Classic’s (the original, now free-to-play version of Artifact) player count suddenly spiked on December 31, jumping from a measly ~200 concurrent players up to the 5,000s, before spiking to a height of over 12,000. Artifact remained at around 11,000 concurrents through the second, before its playercount absolutely tanked back down to ~150 at midnight on January 3rd. What’s strange is that something almost exactly like this happened earlier this month, too: on December 14, player counts shot up to around 14,000, hung out there for about two days, and dive bombed again into the hundreds on the 17th.

So what’s really going on here? The actual answer is that no one really knows. The most prevalent community theory seems to be that it’s bots, though why someone would train bots to play Artifact isn’t exactly clear. One person suggested someone was training an AI to play the game “for shits and giggles” which is perhaps as good an explanation as any. Another person suggested the spikes were due to scam bots increasing playtime in random games in order to make their Steam accounts look legitimate for other purposes.

Another theory pointed out by multiple members of the Artifact subreddit is that the spike in players is due to pirates. Because certain video games require Steam authentication, in order to pirate those games, pirates will use the AppID/SDK of a different, free-to-play game to fool Steam into thinking they have a real copy. In this case, it’s being suggested they’re using Artifact. That said, this theory doesn’t entirely hold up, due to the extremely sudden spikes and then drops in activity at very precise times.

So the actual answer behind Artifact’s mysterious player numbers remains a mystery for now. We did reach out to Valve for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication. What is clear at least is that despite the numbers, Artifact itself doesn’t seem to be garnering any meaningful, real-world interest eight years after launch and four years after Valve effectively called it quits, even though the game itself was pretty fun at first. At least the bots, if they are indeed bots, in Artifact don’t seem to be bothering legitimate players, unlike the on-and-off situation over in Team Fortress 2.

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.

First Call of Duty Update of 2025 Ushers in Squid Game Crossover, Increases Mantle Speeds, and Adds a New Wildcard

Call of Duty’s 1.065.000 is now installable, setting the Squid Game crossover for Black Ops 6 and Warzone live.

While the Squid Game crossover, alongside its controversial Event Pass, is the highlight of this update, it also makes a number of changes to the first-person shooter, as detailed in the patch notes on Activision’s website.

Conspicuous by its absence is mention of anti-cheat after a troubling period for Call of Duty that’s seen its hardcore community call on Activision to do more to prevent cheaters from impacting both Black Ops 6 and Warzone. Expect anti-cheat improvements from Season 2.

The 2.699GB patch (PS5) for the Call of Duty app, which must be downloaded whether you own Black Ops 6 or not, adds new Multiplayer and Zombies modes, the new High Roller Wildcard, and makes various balance changes to Scorestreaks. The patch notes in full are below.

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 update 1.065.000 patch notes:

GLOBAL

Movement

  • Increased all mantle speeds.
  • Doors can now be opened and closed while sprinting.

Weapons

  • New Cleaver Melee weapon now available via Event rewards.
  • Addressed an issue where the player’s view could become obstructed with specific weapons when using the Dark Practitioner Tracer Pack Bundle without an optic.
  • Addressed an issue where Gun Screens would not be visible on the Saug Mecha-Drake Mastercraft Blueprint.
  • Hawker Hybrid optic now correctly works with the Ginger Dread Blueprint.

UI

  • Improved AAR flow.
    • Added a Dismiss button to exit at any point and a timer.
    • Added a Summary at the end.
  • Improved readability when searching for a match.
  • Addressed an issue where Gun Screens could not be previewed.

NOTE: Some players may see their Operator selections and Operator customizations reset after this update.

MULTIPLAYER

Modes

  • Red Light, Green Light (NEW)
    • Young-hee is watching, so don’t misstep at the wrong time. Get on the pitch in the Red Card stadium and play three rounds of Red Light, Green Light, each two minutes long.
    • In Round 1, no one gets a weapon. In Rounds 2 and 3, you can pick up weapons on the ground and eliminate other competitors with melee attacks and Finishing Moves. There’s just one simple rule: When Young-hee says “Green Light,” the fight is on. Move a muscle after she says “Red Light” and you’re toast.
  • Pentathlon (NEW)
    • Prove that you have what it takes in the long run by competing in a series of Multiplayer modes to find out who reigns supreme! Play Domination, Kill Confirmed, and Hardpoint along with two new mode variants: Piggy Bank Team Deathmatch and Roulette.
      • In Piggy Bank TDM, every elimination adds score to the Mega Piggy Bank; fight for possession of the huge payout when it drops part way through the match.
      • In Roulette, one-shot eliminations via the Roulette Handgun award double the points, though with each fired shot there’s a chance it’ll blow up in your hands!
  • Squid Game Moshpit (NEW)
    • Fire up the Squid Game Moshpit including Team Deathmatch, Domination, and Hardpoint with a twist as players gain access to three important Squid Game-themed features:
      • Red Light, Green Light Scorestreak: Is the fight getting too hectic for you? Stop the enemy in their tracks with this Scorestreak that calls “Red Light,” commanding all enemy players to stop moving or risk elimination.
      • Piggy Bank: Eliminated players have a chance of dropping a Piggy Bank that awards a small score boost when picked up. For a bigger payday, watch for the Mega Piggy Bank. Every elimination adds additional score to the Mega Piggy Bank, so once it drops, fight for it to acquire all the deposited score within.
      • Roulette Handgun: The epitome of high risk, high reward. The Roulette Handgun spawns in the center of the map; grab it to activate a permanent UAV effect while wielding it and land one-shot eliminations against enemies, earning more than double the normal score to help you obtain Scorestreaks more quickly. The catch? Your location will be marked for everyone to see, and every shot has a chance to blow up the weapon, taking you down with it.
  • Prop Hunt
    • Improved spatial audio on Prop whistles.
    • Addressed an issue where Prop UI could remain present when switching rounds to the Hunter team.
    • Addressed an issue where Props could block doors from opening when locked in place.

Wildcards

  • High Roller (NEW)
    • Allows players to equip up to four Scorestreaks.

Scorestreaks

  • RC-XD
    • Slightly reduced the RC-XD’s max damage.
  • Archangel Launcher
    • Addressed a rare issue where the next bullet fired from a weapon after using the Archangel Launcher could be an Archangel rocket.
  • Care Package
    • Care Packages will now contain the Scout Pulse Scorestreak less frequently.
  • LDBR
    • Decreased the damage the LDBR does to its owner.
    • Reduced score requirement from 950 to 800.
  • Sentry Turret
    • Increased Sentry Turret fire rate.
    • Increased Sentry Turret HP.
    • Reduced score requirement from 1000 to 950.
  • Hellstorm
    • Reduced score requirement from 1050 to 1000.
  • Watchdog Helo
    • Slightly increased the Watchdog Helo’s damage.
    • Increased Watchdog Helo accuracy when it acquires a new target.
    • Reduced score requirement from 1100 to 1050.
  • Strategic Bomber
    • Reduced score requirement from 1300 to 1100.
  • A.G.R. MK 1
    • Top speed increased.
    • Acceleration increased.
    • Addressed an issue where the A.G.R. MK 1 was deploying with less HP than intended.
  • Dreadnought
    • Slightly increased Dreadnought HP.
    • Reduced score requirement from 1800 to 1700.

UI

  • Addressed an issue where the wrong Finisher would sometimes be previewed.
  • Addressed various issues with overlapping text.
  • Correct Calling Cards now display during the Winner’s Circle in Free-For-All.

Audio

  • Reduced the range of Emote sound effects.

ZOMBIES

Maps

  • Citadelle des Morts
    • Elemental Sword Wonder Weapons
      • General
        • All swords can now hit up to two enemies per swing. The additional hit will do damage based on distance.
        • Additional hit damage is 100% at close-to-medium distance and 50% beyond that.
        • Players can now parry Amalgam grabs with Elemental Swords.
        • Addressed an issue where sword damage could be decreased when using the Void Sheath Augment for Aether Shroud.
      • Balmung
        • Ability procs more frequently while charged.
        • Reduced the required kills to charge from 40 to 25.
        • Decreased cooldown from 20 to 10 seconds.
        • Slightly lowered the chance to activate the passive effects to account for the decreased cooldown between activations.
      • Durandel
        • Increased special attack damage.
        • Increased Electric Beam special attack damage per tick from 40% to 65% of base zombie health.
        • Ability now procs more frequently while charged.
        • Decreased cooldown from 25 to 3 seconds.
        • Slightly lowered the chance to activate the passive effects to account for the decreased cooldown between activations.
        • Addressed an issue where Durandel’s charged attack would not be visible to other players.
      • Caliburn
        • Adjusted to activate Napalm Burst Augments when the sword procs, similar to Balmung and Durandal.
      • Solais
        • Slightly reduced effectiveness of Armor regeneration ability.
        • Slightly increased swing interrupt time for sword swing.
        • Lowered Armor regeneration percentage from 5% to 4% per swing.
    • Main Quest
      • Addressed an issue where players could sometimes be unable to pick up the Lightning Rod depending on where it dropped.
      • The Lightning Rod zombie will now return to the Dungeon if there are no players nearby.
      • Addressed an issue where activating the Time Out GobbleGum to progress a round during the Main Quest boss fight would respawn eliminated players in the starting area and down them.
      • Players will now respawn in the boss fight arena.
      • Addressed an issue where Special Round effects would not disable when entering the Main Quest boss fight.
      • Adjusted Deadshot ADS placement to be more accurate against the Main Quest boss.
      • Addressed an issue where Krafft could speak to the player before interacting with him in the Dungeon.
      • Addressed an issue where saving and quitting in a Solo match before speaking to Krafft would prevent Main Quest progression after loading the save.
      • Addressed an issue where the Light Ritual mirrors could not be interacted with after a player joins in progress.
      • Addressed an issue where wisps in the Light Challenge for the Mystic Orb would freeze visually but still count toward completion.
      • Addressed an issue where the Mystic Orb would not be visible to players joining in progress after the Knight’s Ceremony.
      • Addressed an issue where Main Quest progress was not saved when picking up the Mystic Orb after the Knight’s Ceremony and saving and quitting in a Solo match.Addressed an issue where the Durendal sword could be floating upon loading into a saved Solo match.
      • Addressed an issue where melee weapons would not be able to open one of the locks on the Pack-a-Punch container.
      • Closed an exploit where players would take no damage and be unable to move when failing the Sanctuary timed challenge.
      • Addressed some instances where a specific set of interactions could lead to blank objective text.
      • Addressed an issue where the Blood Aetherium Crystal could get stuck in a non-playable area.
      • Addressed some issues with visual effects spawning in non-intended locations.
      • Updated the model for the Mystic Orb.
  • Terminus
    • Addressed an issue where players respawned by progressing a round during the Main Quest boss fight with the Time Out GobbleGum would be unable to see the boss’s health bar.
    • Addressed an issue where the Workshop Lockdown Main Quest step would end early by placing a Shock Charge after starting.
    • Speed Boost option now properly functions during the Boat Race Side Quest.

Modes

  • Dead Light, Green Light (NEW)
    • Compete in an undead version of the stop-and-go game in Dead Light, Green Light. In the “Green Light” phase, players gain a bonus to earned Essence, so rack up the zombie eliminations. Once “Red Light” is called, Essence is drained from any player who moves, so spend big before this phase or hang tight to avoid throwing away your hard-earned currency. And it doesn’t end there. When the dreaded “Dead Light” phase begins, prepare for a tough fight as a meaner wave of enemies approach.
    • Available first in Citadelle des Morts, with Liberty Falls added after Week 1.
  • Directed Mode
    • Directed Mode now available for Citadelle des Morts with unique rewards.
      • NOTE: The deadline to earn the Main Quest early completion rewards for Citadelle des Morts via Standard Mode has been extended until the end of Season 01 to allow players additional time to complete the Main Quest.
    • Extended time between rounds and the delay between spawning zombies after five looped rounds at the round cap in Directed Mode.
  • Training Course
    • Addressed an issue that would prevent the “Getting New Weapons” station from progressing.

Weapons

  • Addressed an issue where players would lose the ability to equip a second weapon if the “Weapon Cycle” setting was enabled.

GobbleGums

  • Addressed an issue that left the player vulnerable briefly while teleporting from “Anywhere But Here!” or “Nowhere But There” GobbleGums.

Ammo Mods

  • Shadow Rift
    • Big Game
      • Big Game will no longer deal lethal damage to Elite enemies.

Field Upgrades

  • Aether Shroud
    • Void Sheath Augment
      • Addressed an issue where melee weapon damage would not be increased.

Scorestreaks

  • Mutant Injection
    • Addressed an issue where Mangler Cannon effects could be stuck on the screen after the Scorestreak has ended.
  • Chopper Gunner
    • Addressed an issue where the gun from the Chopper Gunner could be used after the Scorestreak has ended.
  • Sentry Turret
    • Addressed an issue that prevented a Sentry Turret from being placed after using the Balmung charged ability.

Power-Ups

  • Fire Sale
    • Addressed an issue where rarely Fire Sale would leave an extra Mystery Box on the map.

Enemies

  • Doppelghast
    • Addressed an issue where the needle blast from a Doppelghast affected by Brain Rot could harm the player.
  • Vermin
    • Addressed an issue where Vermin could sometimes hit twice with one attack.

Activities

  • Splitscreen
    • Addressed an issue where zombies would sometimes ignore the host player.

Challenges

  • Camo Challenges
    • Addressed an issue where Pack-a-Punched GS45s would not progress the Siamese Camo after Military Camo progression was complete.
  • Daily Challenges
    • Addressed an issue where the “Drink 3 Perk-a-Colas” Daily Challenge would not progress.
  • Calling Card Challenges
    • Prestige 3: Explosive Surprise
      • Addressed an issue where the Explosive Surprise Prestige 3 Calling Chard Challenge was not tracking properly.
    • Prestige 8: Close Call
      • Updated this Challenge to count kills from teleporting with the “Anywhere But Here!” GobbleGum.
      • Updated this Challenge to also include “Nowhere But There!” GobbleGums.
    • Addressed issues that prevented the following challenges from tracking properly:
      • Trophy Hunter: “Madness”
      • Prestige 6: “Gullible”
      • Prestige 7: “Old Faithful”
      • Prestige 10: “Stupify”

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.

Guide: 161 Games You Should Pick Up In Nintendo’s ‘Hits For The Holidays’ eShop Sale (North America)

Reminder: It wraps up on Sunday.

Just a reminder that Nintendo of America’s holiday eShop discounts finish this Sunday night, so if you were waiting for payday to come around before diving back into this monstrous sale, the clock’s a-ticking.

Well, until the next time 3,000+ games are discounted. Carry on!

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Marvel Rivals unbans Steam Deck and Mac players wrongly caught up in cheater purge

Steam Deck, Mac, and other Linux-based enjoyers of superhero shooter hit Marvel Rivals can once again play without fear of being pulped under an unlawfully swung banhammer. Developers NetEase had recently doled out bans of up to 100 years to players they suspected of cheating, but in their eagerness, failed to distinguish between legitimate compatibility layers – the software that non-Windows operating systems, like the Steam Deck’s SteamOS, use to run native Windows games – and actual hacks. Per IGN, NetEase have now apologised to the affected players, and lifted the bans.

Read more