Category: Video Games

Reliable video game leaker billbil-kun has revealed the release date and price for Starfield on PlayStation 5 ahead of an official announcement from Bethesda and Microsoft.

In a post on Deadlabs, billbil-kun said Starfield will release on PS5 on April 7, and it will indeed have a physical edition.

Assuming this release date is true (billbil-kun regularly and accurately leaks PlayStation Plus games, so we have no reason to doubt it), Bethesda’s sci-fi game launches on PlayStation two-and-a-half years after it debuted on PC and Xbox Series X and S, back in September 2023.

Billbil-kun also revealed Starfield will launch on PS5 in Standard and Premium editions, as you’d expect, but there’s no early access for the Premium edition.

As for a price, billbil-kun said it will cost €49.99 / £44.99 for the standard edition, and €69.99 / £59.99 for the Premium Edition, with pre-orders expected on March 18. There’s no word yet on when the announcement will be made.

That price is interesting though as it’s cheaper than Starfield’s PC and Xbox Series X and S launch price from 2023. The Standard Edition of Starfield currently costs £59.99 on Steam, and the Premium Edition costs £85.99, so perhaps a price-cut to align all versions is coming soon.

Last month, Bethesda boss Todd Howard confirmed that Starfield is not getting a huge 2.0-type update. “Obviously, we’ve been working on a lot of Starfield content. I can tell everybody we are going to be talking about [the new content] really soon,” Howard told Kinda Funny. “We’re moving into a phase where we’re ready to talk about Starfield. And really show that in the right way, and what’s coming to the game. We’ve been doing a lot of work that we like a lot.”

Howard added: “You know, I’ve seen some of that, so for expectation-setting, I think it’s the kind of thing where if you love Starfield, we think you’re going to love this. It’s updates and things that change the game, not in an isolated way, but sort of meta. Using outer space and things in ways that we haven’t.”

Interestingly, Howard made a point of saying that ​​”if Starfield is something that didn’t connect with you right away, or you bounced off it, or found it boring in places, I don’t think this is going to change that fundamentally.”

Though Howard was coy about timelines, he did say we may find out more “soonish.”

Starfield launched in September 2023 as Bethesda’s first brand new IP in 25 years, but it was not as well received as the studio’s previous games in the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls franchises, and the Shattered Space expansion, released a year later in September 2024, has a ‘mostly negative’ user review rating on Steam.

Starfield went on to reach 15 million players, but the question of whether Bethesda might walk away from the game to focus on its other franchises has been a running theme since release. In June 2024, Bethesda insisted it remained committed to supporting Starfield, and confirmed at least one other story expansion would come out following Shattered Space. And in an interview with YouTube channel MrMattyPlays, Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard said the developer was aiming to release an annual story expansion for “hopefully a very long time.” That, obviously, hasn’t happened. In August last year, it was reported that Starfield’s second expansion and much-anticipated PlayStation 5 port would now arrive in 2026, following the poor reception to Shattered Space.

Bethesda has confirmed plans to improve Starfield space gameplay “to make the travels there more rewarding” after datamined fragments of code suggested the developer had a more streamlined space travel experience in the works. Based on this datamine, while you may be able to travel between planets within the same system, you won’t be able to fly all the way between systems, nor fly directly from a planet’s surface into orbit, like No Man’s Sky.

In a new video discussing his career, veteran Bethesda developer Tim Lamb confirmed that the studio had been working on Starfield’s space gameplay, and that a new DLC story was still coming at some point.

“I think as it comes to Starfield, I’m really excited for players to see what the teams have been working on,” he said. “We have some cool stuff coming, including free updates and features the players have been asking for, as well as a new DLC story.

“I can’t go into all the details just yet, but I will say part of the team has been focused on space gameplay to make the travels there more rewarding. We’re also adding some new game systems, and a few other smaller delights. There’s also some really interesting stuff coming down the pipe from our verified creators. There’s some fun stuff.

“I just want to say thanks. We really appreciate the support and the enthusiasm. We can’t wait to get it into the hands of our players.”

Last month, Bethesda teased new content for Starfield — at least that’s what fans thought after they spotted a hidden message in a social media video released to celebrate the game’s two-year anniversary.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Resident Evil Requiem looks like a smash hit for Capcom, with record-breaking Steam concurrent player numbers suggesting big sales. But it’s also a hit on Metacritic, where it has the joint highest user score of all time.

Requiem has a user score of 9.5 on Metacritic, which is the same score last year’s breakout hit, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, has. It surged past Metal Gear Solid, The Witcher 3, and Disney Cory in the House’s 9.3 (if you did a double-take at Disney Cory in the House being up there, well… there’s a whole thing about it being on this list that is well worth checking out). Also on 9.3, perhaps more deservedly, are the original Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3.

Website user review scores can be manipulated, of course (Disney Cory in the House shows that!), and not just with games either (Breaking Bad vs. Game of Thrones is a thing). But clearly fans are loving Resident Evil Requiem, which also has an ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ user review rating on Steam. IGN’s own Resident Evil Requiem review returned a 9/10. We said: “Like the result of an experiment conducted in an underground Umbrella Corporation lab, Resident Evil Requiem successfully splices two separate strains of survival horror together into the one highly infectious new mutation.”

Resident Evil Requiem’s overall Metascore is 88, which isn’t enough to make Metacritic’s top 250 games of all time. The highest-rated Resident Evil video game is the original Resident Evil 4, which has a 96 Metascore. Still, Resident Evil Requiem is the second highest-rated video game of 2026, behind only Pokemon Pokopia for now.

We’ve got plenty more on Resident Evil Requiem, including the hunt for the solution to its cryptic Final Puzzle solution, which has been confusing fans for the past week. Today, one person does now appear to have solved the Final Puzzle — but the mystery around the challenge remains, as it’s unclear exactly how they did it.

IGN’s Resident Evil: Requiem guide will help you every step of the way through RE9. Take note of these key tips and tricks before you get started, and focus on finding these important items early. Plus, our comprehensive walkthrough will make sure you don’t miss a single Bobblehead or file as you try to survive from the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center all the way to Raccoon City.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Resident Evil Requiem players have spent the weekend trying to solve the game’s cryptic Final Puzzle, and now a Pokémon fan has provided video evidence they have completed the challenge — despite being uncertain exactly how they did so.

Pokémon trading card fan Gengar Collects has posted numerous screenshots and video evidence on YouTube suggesting he has indeed finished The Final Puzzle, a labyrinthine quest that thousands of players have been trying to collectively solve since before Requiem officially launched last week.

The only problem? Even with this evidence, which really does suggest Gengar Collects has completed the challenge, fans still aren’t sure exactly how to do it for themselves, as it requires the holding of an item that normally can’t be found.

“I don’t even know if it was how it was supposed to be done,” Gengar Collects says in a video that attempts to walk fans through his solution. Essentially, it boils down to him holding an item, Marie’s Doll, and then inputting the puzzle’s now-infamous code sequence. Doing so then granted him the challenge completion — something he also provided screenshots of.

But how to get Marie’s doll? The past few hours have seen a frantic back and forth between Gengar Collects and other fans via YouTube comments, and to be fair, it looks like he’s trying his best to help. A series of screenshots show the location he claims he found Marie’s Doll in (which is different to the doll you find in the cell). Further screenshots show he is playing on Xbox Series X/S, which limits the suggestion he has somehow used a cheat or hack to get the doll item to spawn, where for others it can’t be found.

Yet more screenshots, requested by other players, show a close-up examination of the doll in his inventory. There are no other clues on the item itself — “no name in ink on the bottom of the shoe,” Gengar Collects says, as the doll in the cell has — only more evidence that he is being honest with his claim.

So, what’s going on? Why can no one else find the doll and complete the puzzle? The best working theory at the moment is that Gengar Collects legitimately completed the Final Puzzle, but only after unconsciously doing something during his playthrough that spawned the doll. And it’s this step, now, that fans are rushing to reproduce. (Alternatively, it’s possible the doll spawned due to some kind of bug or random glitch.)

On the upside, fans say they now know the challenge’s ending — and as soon as the doll is obtained, the puzzle can finally be completed. On the downside, Gengar Collects seems equally stumped on what he did in order to be able to pick the doll up in the first place.

Back over on reddit, the work continues. “Inputting the code is the last step, but you need Marie’s doll,” one fan summed up. “That’s the step we need to focus [on].”

“This is just a guess, but could the doll spawning be tied to how often we spoke to Emily?” questioned one fan. “Has anyone tried flushing the toilets using the numbers 204,” suggested another. “This is the room number that Grace and her mom stayed in the hotel.” For more detailed pointers, be sure to check out IGN’s Resident Evil Requiem Final Puzzle challenge guide — maybe you can help solve it?

IGN’s Resident Evil: Requiem guide will help you every step of the way through RE9. Take note of these key tips and tricks before you get started, and focus on finding these important items early. Plus, our comprehensive walkthrough will make sure you don’t miss a single Bobblehead or file as you try to survive from the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center all the way to Raccoon City.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

An extraordinarily rare floppy disk — one of just 50 copies of Tsukihime Trial Edition ever produced — was allegedly destroyed coming through U.S. Customs.

Collector Keripo shared a video of themselves opening the demo floppy disk delivery on X/Twitter, only to discover the disk had been damaged in such a way that it could only have been deliberate. Across the original packaging tape is another labelled “Opened and Resealed By Customs.” It’s unclear if it was courier DHL or U.S. Customs that destroyed the disk.

“My Tsukhime Trial Edition (月姫 体験版) finally arrived, one of only 50 copies in the world,” wrote Keripo on X/Twitter (thanks, Tom’s Hardware). “Only to discover that U.S. Customs had removed all the bubble wrap and physically destroyed the floppy disk. Will file a report, but literally crying right now.”

The tweet includes a video of Keripo opening the package. Getting a peek at the contents, they mutter “Oh my god,” under their breath, before exclaiming: “What the f***! No way. No way. Noooo way. What… they actually destroyed the floppy disk. What the hell. W-w… what the f***.”

This was what it looked like before it was shipped. The sender even took extra care to sandwich it between cardboard paper and use lots of bubble wrap to protect it. Would never have expected US Customs to both remove all that AND intentionally damage the floppy directly… pic.twitter.com/k4tHjIuBZ5

— Keripo (@TehKeripo) February 27, 2026

If you’re wondering if the sender/seller could’ve sent it like that, Keripo wrote: “This [embedded above] was what it looked like before it was shipped. The sender even took extra care to sandwich it between cardboard paper and use lots of bubble wrap to protect it. Would never have expected U.S. Customs to both remove all that AND intentionally damage the floppy directly…

“It was actually a friend who helped me buy and ship it. He has his own copy, so he was able to do a scan and confirm its authenticity, including some unfortunate bad sectors. But the value isn’t the content but the physical collectors item, which has been damaged beyond repair.”

Challenged on why they just-so-happened to be recording as the package was opened, Keripo wrote: “When your carefully packaged box containing a historical artifact arrives at your doorstep completely ripped apart and barely held together with ‘Opened and resealed by Customs’ tape, plus makes rattling noises that it shouldn’t when you pick it up, the first thing you should do is whip out your camera and record.

“The video is real, U.S. Customs opened/resealed the box poorly, the item is genuine, not a fake, the package shipped from my friend in Portugal, not Japan, the excess packaging is common for fragile Japanese collector item,” they added.

It’s unclear why the disk was destroyed, but some suggest the demo’s ‘Adult Only’ label may have been the issue, as the law states “all persons are prohibited from importing into the United States from any foreign country […] any obscene book, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular, print, picture, drawing, or other representation, figure, or image on or of paper or other material, or any cast, instrument, or other article which is obscene or immoral.” What constitutes “obscene or immortal” is determined on a case-by-case basis.

Tsukihime is a Japanese adult visual novel released in 2000 developed by Type-Moon. It has since been adapted into both an anime and manga series. Keripo hasn’t said how much they paid for Tsukihime Trial Edition, but did point to what they described as an authentic auction listing for it, which went for around $16,000.

This is what an authentic auction listing of a Tsukihime Preview Edition looks like. The winning bid here for this 2021 Mandarake live auction was 2.5 mil JPY (~$16k USD). There has been no legit public listing for Tsukihime Trial Edition in over 15 years so this is the closest… pic.twitter.com/xsnQJgiL4x

— Keripo (@TehKeripo) March 2, 2026

IGN has asked the U.S. Customs and Border Protection department for comment.

Keripo added that they intended for Tsukihime Trial Edition to be the main attraction at a public Type-Moon museum “featuring all their historical works before they became big.” “Now its even more special as the one-of-a-kind ‘destroyed by U.S. Customs’ edition!” they joked.

Image credit: Keripo / X.

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.

Highguard, the free-to-play PvP raid shooter announced at The Game Awards last year and released only for most of its developers to be laid off just weeks after launch, may have failed because it “leaned too far into the competitive scene.”

That’s according to former Wildlight developer and level designer Alex Graner, who told Quad Damage Podcast that developers “don’t strive to create something that doesn’t work out,” throughout development, Wildlight “really leaned into the competitive side of it, and that was always one of my biggest fears as a player.”

“I can only speak to my side of it as a level designer, but when I joined [Wildlight], it was trying to figure out this new, ambitious game, and this team is always pushing the boundaries,” Graner said, as transcribed by PCGN, via Eurogamer. “You don’t strive to create something that doesn’t work out, but it happens, unfortunately. Throughout development, we really leaned into the competitive side of it, and that was always one of my biggest fears as a player.”

“3v3 duos is always the sweatiest version of anything like battle royale, objective modes, wingman, you know it, you name it. It requires such a high intensity of communication with your team, and team play, that it doesn’t leave much room for casualness. I think that was the biggest thing that turned a lot of players off Highguard,” he added.

The issue, Graner believes, is that Highguard had “all these different rules and stages,” which made it difficult for players who don’t already have a team to play with, and particularly challenging for new players.

“It’s like, ‘Oh, you want to loot, now we’ve got to chase this objective, now we have to plant this objective, now it’s overtime… It has all these rules, which I think works at a really high level, but when players are first coming in it’s a lot to grasp,” Graner explained. “On top of all that, because it was 3v3, that kind of game just requires high-skill movement and shooting, which is already a pretty high [bar to] entry as well. So if you just have a few bad games or your teammates aren’t sticking together, you’re just going to get rolled, and it’s very hard to 1v2 in our game.

“It’s all designed to be a team-based shooter. I think that was the biggest thing. People just kind of turned it off because they didn’t have the team.”

Another former developer also recently spoke out about the disastrous announcement and launch, saying the game, and by extension its team, “turned into a joke from minute one, largely due to false assumptions about a million-dollar ad placement.” A number of high-profile video game developers have also defended Highguard following the online backlash during the game’s launch.

We recently learned that Highguard was apparently financially backed by Tencent, which seemingly pulled funding just a couple of weeks after it launched. It reportedly has fewer than 20 developers working on it. Highguard hit a peak of 97,249 concurrent players when it launched on Steam. Now, it has just 105 on Valve’s platform.

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.