Update: After previously leaking it ahead of time.
After months of teasing for Tales fans, Bandai Namco may have slipped up and revealed its hand a little too early and shown us what the next Tales series remaster is.
As reported on Push Square, it looks like Tales of Xillia will be the next title getting the remaster treatment. Originally released on the PS3 in 2011 and 2013, the game has been stuck on the older console since, so fans should be pretty happy about this
Skibidi. Dop, dop, dop. Yes, yes. Skibidi. Double u. Neem, neem. This is the clarion call of the modern age, the infernal message brought unto our virgin ears by the Skibidi Toilets. No, wait, keep reading! It’ll be worth it. Probably. After all, the word skibidi has now been added to the Cambridge Dictionary, and this is a reality we’ve all got to reckon with.
Skibidi Toilet, in case you’ve been living somewhere free from the influence of vertically-framed surrealism, is a long-running series of 3D animations by YouTuber Alexey ‘DaFuq!?Boom!’ Gerasimov. It generally conveys the tale of a great war between a legion of heads protruding from loos and an army of folks with cameras for heads, with help from Half-Life 2 assets and inspiration from the annals of Garry’s Mod machinima. Any 12 year olds you know probably can’t get enough of it. Or think it’s lame because they’ve already moved on to the next thing.
How do you pronounce Rayquaza, the legendary dragon Pokémon? No, you’re wrong.
Between competitor clashes at this weekend’s Pokémon World Championships 2025, spectators were treated to a handy big screen pronounciation guide for the Sky High Pokémon. Brace yourselves, Trainers.
According to The Pokémon Company itself, Rayquaza is apparently pronounced Ray-KWAY-zuh, and not the far more common pronounciation of Ray-KWAH-zuh. The fan response to this revelation, however, has been decidedly mixed, with responses on social media such as “False,” “Noooo,” and “That’s Kway Kway.”
“This is surely AI,” wrote one fan, unable to accept what they were seeing. “It’s Ray Kwah Zuh.”
“I don’t care,” added another fan. “Ray-KWAH-zuh supremacy.”
“It doesn’t matter how many times The Pokémon Company tries to correct us, this is the real way to pronounce it and I ain’t taking no for an answer!”
Despite these complaints, the pronounciation does make sense. Like many Pokémon names, Rayquaza is a mix of other words — in this case being ray, referring to its celestial nature, and quasar.
“It’s named after quasar so it’s correct,” wrote Arcashine, attempting to inform others, “but man I don’t think I’ll ever be able to not call it Raykwahzuh lol.” Yeah.
Why is The Pokémon Company informing fans now? It seems likely that Rayquaza and its Mega Evolved version will pop up in the Mega Evolution-focused Pokémon Legends: Z-A, set to launch on October 16. Now, to try and remember Rayquaza’s correct pronounciation when the time comes.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Nexon has acknowledged “irregularities” in a series of TikTok advertisements for The First Descendant after fans accused the company of producing the “low effort” marketing materials via AI.
It follows breaking news over the weekend in which Reddit user iHardlyTriHard collated four unusual advertisements after scrolling their For You Page for just 15 minutes. With all four exhibiting mismatched lip syncing, strange head movements, unnatural dialogue, and at least one that appears to use the likeness of content creator DanieltheDemon — although whether this was with or without permission, we don’t yet know — fans immediately began speculating that they’d been produced via AI.
It’s truly crazy to see the game the First Descendent not only steal content from a known content creator and used AI to promote their game. But they did ANOTHER ad using AI again to promote their game.
Nexon was quick to respond, although the developer’s statement spawns as many questions as it answers.
It said the ads came from a TikTok Creative Challenge for creators, “which allows creators to voluntarily submit their content to be used as advertising materials.” And while “all submitted videos are verified through TikTok’s system to check copyright violations before they are approved as advertising content,” it has since identified “cases where the circumstances surrounding the production of certain submitted videos appear inappropriate” and launched an investigation.
Interestingly, the statement doesn’t apologize — the only time an apology appears, it’s due to the “delay in providing this notice” about the investigation, as it’s “taking longer than expected.” Nexon said that once “verification is complete,” it will share an update “through an official notice.”
Here’s the statement in full:
We would like to inform you of certain irregularities identified in the operation of our TikTok Creative Challenge for creators.
As a part of our marketing campaign for Season 3: Breakthrough, we recently ran a Creative Challenge program for TikTok creators, which allows creators to voluntarily submit their content to be used as advertising materials.
All submitted videos are verified through TikTok’s system to check copyright violations before they are approved as advertising content.
However, we have become aware of cases where the circumstances surrounding the production of certain submitted videos appear inappropriate. Thus, we are conducting a thorough joint investigation with TikTok to determine the facts.
We sincerely apologize for the delay in providing this notice as the review is taking longer than expected. Once the verification is complete, we will promptly share an update through an official notice.Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Mega Evolution is the talk of the town for Pokémon in 2025, and it looks like it won’t be long before Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket gets in on the fun too.
As showcased in the weekend’s Pokémon World Championships Closing Ceremony, the next TCG Pocket expansion will introduce a batch of Mega Evolution cards to the mobile app. While the full lineup is yet to be revealed, we got a peek at the Mega Gyarados ex, Mega Blaziken ex, and Mega Altaria ex cards, which we’re sure we’ll all be chasing when the next expansion arrives at some point “this Fall”.
I have good news for Battlefield 6 players concerned about the modest sizes of the open beta maps — a new leak suggests at least two more of the as-yet unreleased maps will be bigger than any we’ve played so far.
Based on recent datamines, Battlefield Wire shared an image, below, showing the purported size of two maps — Eastwood and Mirak Valley — in relation to the beta map Siege of Cairo. And you don’t have to get out a measuring tape and ruler to see that they’re considerably bigger (albeit still a little on the snug side for some).
Here are the borders of two of the larger maps coming to Battlefield 6 👀
MP1st has also shared renderings that an anonymous poster has uploaded to Imgur. They give us a closer look at Mirak Valley — a map located in Tajikistan with mountains and a river slicing through the middle — and Californian map Eastwood, which is supposedly coming post-launch, but likely sometime in Season 1. Expect to see a golf course, villas, and bonus vehicles like a boat and a golf cart. You can check out all the renderings for Eastwood here, and Mirak here.
This should be excellent news for players unimpressed by Battlefield 6’s beta map offerings thus far, and whilst we can only take datamined rumors as precisely that — rumors — it bolsters DICE’s claim that “large maps exist, and the tempo scales accordingly, you’ll be able to see soon enough!”
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
Last week, soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers got a patch that rendered a number of its bosses unkillable, seemingly in response to pressure from some Chinese players. For those who aren’t keen on the patch’s changes, which particularly transforms the challenge you’ll face in the game’s fourth region, there’s now a mod dedicated to undoing them by letting you roll back to a previous version.
For a more in-depth view of the changes patch 1.5 made and what they mean for the game, it’s well worth reading our Jeremy’s story on it from last week. The short version is that a number of big foes associated with the Ming dynasty have been made to fall down in exhaustion when you defeat them, rather than being killed. As you might imagine, this has implications not just in terms of the minute-to-minute experience of playing Wuchang, but also the story it tells.
After weeks of being upwards of $70 each (with the exception of Final Fantasy 6’s Revival Trance, which has always hovered close to MSRP), you can now buy a bundle of all four decks for $200 (or $199.99, to be precise).
That’s less than $50 a deck, despite three out of four costing more than that when bought separately. In fact, Final Fantasy 7’s Limit Break is STILL $72.50 at Amazon.
Amazon reckons it’s 29% off of the MSRP of the bundle, but given the price some of these decks have been going for (rightly or wrongly), we’d call that a more conservative estimate.
As a reminder, here’s our ranking of the four decks.
4 – Revival Trance (Final Fantasy 6)
Not just focused on Final Fantasy 6, but specifically the back half of the game, Revival Trance is helmed by Celes, tasked with rebuilding a party after the world goes to ruin.
That’d be a great theme for a revival deck, but there aren’t that many cards that, well, revive fallen comrades from your graveyard or anyone else’s.
There are also no big reprints of note here, which is a shame.
3 – Scions and Spellcraft (Final Fantasy 14)
Final Fantasy 14’s Commander deck is somewhat of a rare beast insofar as it’s a spellslinger-style deck in Esper colors (White, Black, Blue).
As a result, its focus is on non-creature spells and dishing out damage with Y’Shtola, one of the two Commanders. It’s just a little slow to get going, needing you to pull out as much mana as possible in early turns to be able to start slinging those big spells.
Propaganda and Snuff Out are decent reprints, but there’s little else of big financial value.
2 – Limit Break (Final Fantasy 7)
Final Fantasy 7’s deck is absolutely fantastic, and actually dovetails nicely with Fallout’s Scrappy Survivors precon from last year (as long as you’re happy with yet another bold RPG crossover).
It’s all about getting your creatures to 7 power to trigger additional effects from Cloud or Tifa, while minimizing equip costs to allow you to switch gear and keep opponents guessing.
Reprint value is decent, too. Not only do you get Darksteel Plate, Sword of the Animist, and Fire-Lit Thicket, but Clever Concealment has some amazing new art of Cloud’s disguise.
It’s all about counters, meaning you can buff your creatures, deal damage, and proliferate. It really could get out of hand quickly, and you can even get creative with the Summons in the deck, too.
Reprint-wise, you can get Walking Ballista, Damning Verdict, and Bane of Progress, all with new artwork.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
The 2025 Pokémon World Championships just concluded, and as is tradition, the closing ceremonies featured new announcements fun for Pokémon fans of all kinds, presented by Tzunekazu Ishihara, President and CEO of The Pokémon Company. Here’s a round-up of all the important Pokémon announcements revealed at the World Championships you don’t want to miss, including the introduction of a new fan event called PokémonXP, and much more.
Pokémon Champions Coming to the 2026 Pokémon World Championships
Empoleon, Dhelmise, and Vaporeon Joining the Pokémon Unite Roster
Empoleon will be coming to Pokémon Unite as a playable character on September 19, while Dhelmise and Vaporeon are “coming soon.” No word on what roles the three new Pokémon will be.
Starting on September 4, Groudon will be taking over for Rayquaza at the Theia Sky Ruins in the final two-minute stretch of the game. Defeating Groudon will give you a “massive Attack boost and goal-scoring speed increase.” But if the opposing team knocks you out, they’ll steal the buff from you!
Mega Evolution Coming to Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket
A new season is coming to Pokémon TCG Pocket this fall, and with it, the debut of Mega Pokémon, including Mega Altaria, Mega Gyarados, Mega Blaziken and more Mega Evolution Pokémon ex.
Legendary Pokémon Eternatus Makes its Global Pokémon GO Debut
Eternamax Eternatus began appearing in the Anaheim, CA right after the Pokémon World Championships concluded, but that won’t be the only chance for GO players to get their hands on this rare Pokémon. The Pokémon GO: Dark Skies event will take place from Monday, August 18 to Saturday, August 23, with the Max Finale taking place between Saturday, August 23 and Sunday, August 25. During the unticketed event, which can be joined from anywhere in the world with the free GO Pass: Max Finale, players will be able to catch every Dynamax and Gigantamax Pokémon that has appeared so far, plus Eternatus.
Mega Charizard X and More Returning to Pokémon TCG
We got a sneak peek of some new cards featuring Mega Evolution Pokémon and cool full-art cards during the closing ceremonies, including for Mega Charizard X ex, Mega Gardevoir ex, and Mega Lucario ex. Though not a “mega” itself, Oricorio ex was also revealed, which has a unique Ability called Excited Turb: As often as you like during your turn, if you have any Fire-type Mega Evolution Pokémon ex in play, you may use this Ability. Attach a Basic Fire-type Energy card from your hand to one of your benched Fire-type Pokémon.”
We also got a look at a new, adorable Mega Dragonite ex card, but not the full-art version just yet! Its Ability Sky Transport will allow you to switch your Active Pokémon with one of your Benched Pokémon.
4-Player Ranked Battles Coming to Pokémon Legends: Z-A
The latest trailer shown durin the Pokémon World Championship closing ceremonies featured a breakdown of Z-A Battle Club’s four-player Ranked Battles. We saw in the trailer four trainers battling at once, being able to take down multiple Pokémon at once with powerful, well-timed AOE attacks–like Draco Meteor. The goal is to get the most knockouts you can before the three-minute timer is up, and don’t worry, you can rejoin after one of your Pokémon faints! These real-time Link Battles! can be played locally or online against other players.
PokémonXP, a New Pokémon Fan Experience, Coming to San Francisco
We already knew the 2026 Pokémon World Championships were coming to San Francisco, but so is PokémonXP, a new “event that celebrates all things Pokémon” with “a range of Pokémon-centric festivities.” It will take place August 28 to August 30, 2026, overlapping with the 2026 Pokémon World Championships, at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. Passes will go on sale September 17, 2025 and start at $120 USD for a multi-day pass, which includes two Pokémon Trading Card Game booster packs, a PokémonXP collectible pin, and a lanyard.
There are two different multi-day passes. The regular one, and multi-day + arena pass, which includes normal access to the PokémonXP event, plus access to the arena on Championship Sunday.
2026 Championship Sunday Taking Place at Chase Center in San Francisco
This year, The Pokémon World Championships hosted Championship Sunday in an arena, and in 2026, they’re upscaling it even more, bringing Championship Sunday to the massive Chase Center, which has a seating capacity of 18,064 (at least, for basketball games.) Compare that to the Anaheim Convention Center Arena, with a capacity of 7,500. Which, I heard, was filled to capacity this year!
Casey DeFreitas is a deputy editor on the guides team at IGN and this year is the second time she’s covered the Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim, CA. Catch her on socials @ShinyCaseyD.
