To return to Ninja Gaiden’s 2D roots in 2025 is a wonderful thing. Dotemu, upon acquiring the license for a series reboot, approached Spanish indie developer The Game Kitchen to get the job done. Known for their remarkable Blasphemous titles, the project was overseen by Team Ninja, who have held the series mantle from 2004 to present. And, while Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is not strictly the Ninja Gaiden one recalls from its NES days, the task here has been carried off with all the panache modern technology can afford, resulting in a blisteringly gorgeous action-platformer.
For those old enough, Ninja Gaiden was once a formidable 8-Bit challenge that either destroyed a child’s willpower or forged them eternal gaming mastery. It was, and still is, brutally hard. While Ragebound echoes this, in that it gets seriously challenging after its first third, its format is far less aggressive. You don’t have lives, you have checkpoints, and respawns come in an infinite flavour. You don’t have entirely linear progression, but a world map where you can return to any substage to earn higher ranks, complete mini challenges, or recover Golden Scarabs. If you’re not well equipped and your reflexes suck, however, the Pirate Stage boss will have you spitting teeth.
Rare Celebrates 40 Years with Ruby-Themed Exclusives and More
1985 was the height of the British home computer scene; an era of games delivered on cassette tapes by young coders producing innovative titles straight out of their bedrooms. Among the most notable of these developers were Ultimate, already responsible for ground-breaking titles like Jetpac and Knight Lore – but the studio’s founders weren’t about to rest on their laurels.
This was the year that Ultimate co-creators Tim and Chris Stamper would form Rare – an ambitious new studio intended to focus on dedicated video game consoles, which had already established themselves in Japan and were about to take the rest of the world by storm.
2025 marks the 40th ‘Ruby’ Anniversary of that bold endeavour, and Rare’s inviting everyone to join the celebration of this impressive milestone, offering free gifts, discounts and plenty of swag to claim in their shared-world pirate adventure, Sea of Thieves.
Pictures, Plaques and Pressings
Celebrations begin today, August 4, the official anniversary date, with the unveiling of a heritage plaque at the site of Ultimate’s first home in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. For those not within striking distance of the English Midlands, however, there are new gamerpics and an Xbox dynamic background (above) starring a who’s-who of Rare characters old and new.
Fangamer are marking the occasion with a range of retro Rare merchandise, including a varsity hoodie, wireframe logo T-shirt and commemorative ruby pin. There’s also a limited edition wireless controller being unveiled courtesy of 8bitdo, shining in the studio’s signature colours and officially licenced by Xbox and Rare.
Meanwhile, iam8bit will be opening pre-orders for their freshly-announced Rare 40th Anniversary vinyl collection later this week, while Evercade enthusiasts can look forward to a new cartridge collection of twelve vintage Rare titles spanning home computer, console and arcade.
A huge heritage sale in Sea of Thieves’ Pirate Emporium begins on August 6, offering discounts on items inspired by classic Rare games, and beginning tomorrow, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will be able to claim an exclusive Rare Ruby Emote as a Perk for use in-game.
Ruby Rewards on the High Seas
The party really starts in Sea of Thieves when its latest Season, Smugglers’ Tide, arrives on August 14, bringing even more anniversary antics in its wake. For a limited time, select Ancient Coin Packs acquired by spending Microsoft Rewards points will come bundled with a Rare Ruby Hat, which can also be earned via the Microsoft Rewards app.
A 40th Anniversary bundle of cosmetics will be arriving on storefronts at the same time, while pirates logging into the game before the month is out will receive the Rare Ruby Eyepatch. An array of ruby-themed items will be arriving in the Outpost shops, while the Pirate Emporium plays host to the limited-time Ruby Reaper’s Mark sails and offers a Seasonal Plunder Pass, featuring Rare Regalia items with a similarly scarlet hue.
Community Spirit
Rounding out August with one last anniversary hoorah are Twitch Drops and Sea of Thieves’ Season 17 Community Weekend, which begins on August 30. Taking part will award players with the Community Weekend flag and Paper Cutout Emote, there’s a Ruby Legend Figurehead to earn from a global community goal, and there’ll be group activities like photo walls and Pop-Up Plunder to enjoy, too.
There’s all this and more besides, including an updated Rare All-Stars EP hitting Spotify on August 15, so be sure to keep tabs on Rare’s social channels for the latest and be sure not to miss out — you only turn 40 once!
Koei Tecmo is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its Dynasty Warriors series with a number of announcements. Chief among them is confirmation of a “large-scale” DLC coming to Dynasty Warriors: Origins, and a mystery remaster of a “classic series title.”
That’s all we have for now. Koei Tecmo said further updates regarding upcoming games and special anniversary events will be gradually announced on the new website.
Dynasty Warriors is a tactical action series of games that spans over 20 years and has shipped over 21 million units worldwide. Traditionally, players take on the role of officers from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms while battling through hordes of soldiers in 1 vs. 1,000 gameplay.
The latest game is the aforementioned Dynasty Warriors: Origins, which saw developer Omega Force return to the series’ roots in what is considered one of the best entries in the franchise in years.
IGN’s Dynasty Warriors: Origins review returned a 9/10. We said: “Dynasty Warriors: Origins doesn’t just have the largest amount of enemies the series has thrown on screen at once, it also deepens its combat, improves its storytelling, and provides a healthy amount of replayability.”
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.
August 2025 now has as many Skyblivion developer diaries as there are modern The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion reimaginings: two, which in both cases remains a weirdly high number. But while last week’s Finishing Skyblivion focused on one volunteer’s attempts at getting the ambitious Cyrodiil-in-Skyrim mod over the line, this other vid makes a very specific pitch to those whose interest may have been diverted by Bethesda’s official Oblivion Remastered, showcasing how Skyblivion looks to more aggressively expand and rework the original RPG.
Scarlet and Violet 151 is still shifting fast too. Charizard ex, Blastoise ex, and Venusaur ex are climbing, but the Illustration Rares of Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle have dipped, which makes this a solid time to grab those before prices settle again.
Outside of trading cards, there’s some fun stuff dropping today. I’ve already preordered the Vault Boy Fallout Pop Vinyl, but I’m tempted to pick up the rest of the lineup now that they’re all available for $14.99. If you’re into mini PCs, there are a couple of solid builds going for under $175. They’re perfect for work-from-home setups, light gaming, or just keeping your desk tidy.
Pokémon TCG Price Check
Whilst there’s a couple of savings on Amazon today, TCGplayer is knocking big box retailers out of the water. The White Flare binder box is a couple of dollars cheaper on Amazon, but looking at older sets like Destined Rivals show a clear gap in market value and the notorious Amazon mark ups of 2025. Destined Rivals Elite Trainer Box is currently sat at $85 on TCGplayer, for example, which is cheaper than the Amazon sale price last week of £88.
Pokémon TCG Crashers and Climbers
Scarlet and Violet 151 card prices continue to shift, with Charizard ex, Blastoise ex, and Venusaur ex SIRs climbing steadily thanks to standout artwork, competitive playability, and high collector demand. Charizard has jumped to $210, Blastoise is up 28% to $84.99, and Venusaur is up 27% to $69.99. Zapdos ex and Alakazam ex are also on the rise, with Alakazam seeing the biggest gain of 35% to $44.98.
On the other hand, prices for Kanto starter Illustration Rares like Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle have dipped as more product floods the market. Charmander is down 14% to $44.44, Bulbasaur is down 18% to $32.20, and middle evolutions like Charmeleon and Wartortle are following the same trend. While the final evolutions remain the most sought-after, now is a good time to pick up the earlier stages at a more reasonable price.
Magic: The Gathering Deals
Once again it’s TCGplayer and the secondary market values saving MTG players and collectors a small fortune over Amazon. Even sale pricing of the Fallout Commander Deck – Science! is $4 cheaper, with my favorite deal in this lineup being for the four pack bundle of Fallout Commander Decks. Amazon works out at $47.07 per deck, with TCGplayer massively undercutting here at $41.56. That’s well over $10 saving per deck, with even more savings compared to Amazons single pricing overall.
Fallout Funko Pop Preorders
Dropping throughout December 2025, these Fallout Pop Vinyls focused on the Fallout TV series should drop around the same time as Season Two. There’s also chances to get a random rare variant, which is about as much Funko hype as I can handle. I’ve preordered Vault Boy already, but I might get the whole lineup before preorders run dry.
Mini PC Deals
Mini PCs are great for a work from home setup, a bit of light gaming or just saving some space. Both of these models have decent specs whilst being good enough to run Minecraft and your day-to-day productivity apps. Plus they’re dirt cheap, so there’s nothing to loose.
Christian Wait is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything collectable and deals. Christian has over 7 years of experience in the Gaming and Tech industry with bylines at Mashable and Pocket-Tactics. Christian also makes hand-painted collectibles for Saber Miniatures. Christian is also the author of “Pokemon Ultimate Unofficial Gaming Guide by GamesWarrior”. Find Christian on X @ChrisReggieWait.
We enter week one of RPS Post-Graham. The office Slack echoes like the Great Hall of Durin after a Balrog teaparty. Horace coils about the foot of the Treehouse like a sullen Viking serpent. The Maw seems peevish and incontinent, spurning any news we offer it. The wifi network keeps changing its name to “Execute Order 66”.
It is time to smash the emergency glass and bust out a few favourites from my personal collection of morale-boosting videogame intros. Here’s Red Alert, to put some spring in your step; Okami to let the light in; Colony Wars for the WRAAAOW noise at the end. And here are this week’s most interesting new PC games.
Financial service giants Mastercard have denied accusations that they sought to influence the recent removal of adult/NSFW games from Steam and Itch.io, claiming that they have “not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms,” and that they allow all lawful transactions. It’s a brief and unequivocal statement, but Valve themselves have since suggested it might not be entirely accurate, telling PC Gamer that Steam’s payment processors objected to the availability of law-abiding adult games by citing one of Mastercard’s specific rules.
And it’s still releasing this year, according to Nintendo!
We are all pretty excited for Metroid Prime 4‘s arrival at this stage, we think you’ll agree. In fact, apart from the ever-elusive Silksong, we can’t think of another game that’s got us biting on our furniture as we wait for further information about when we can actually play the bleddy thing again, as we loved it so much first time around. Deep breaths.
Now though, Nintendo has just gone and casually announced that lucky gamers who happen to be attending Fan Expo Canada at the end August, will be able to get a hands-on and play the game. They’ve also, just casually mind, reconfirmed that Samus’ latest outing will see a release in the year of our lord 2025. Which is the same year that we are currently in. Hooray for that!
As fans continue to wait for a final release date, Nintendo has reaffirmed that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is still on track for 2025.
After a long and bumpy development that has stretched much of the past decade, fans are eager to hear when the highly-anticipated Switch and Switch 2 exclusive will arrive.
But as the months roll on and gossip spreads of the game needing more time than initially expected, Nintendo has now re-stated that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will still launch before the end of the calendar year.
Indeed, in a news post advertising the company’s upcoming preseence at Fan Expo Canada, Nintendo has stated that Metroid Prime 4: Beyond will be playable there ahead of it becoming “available later in 2025.”
It’s unclear if this hands-on opportunity is a new demo, or the one made available to members of the public who attended the Switch 2’s pre-launch tour. Still, it’s a positive sign the game and its launch are in Nintendo’s sights — and still coming at some point within the next five months.
The statement comes amid online discussion surrounding the fact that Nintendo has not released new details on the game or fresh footage of it for a little while. The last new Metroid Prime 4: Beyond trailer uploaded to the Nintendo of America YouTube account comes from the company’s Nintendo Switch 2 full console reveal back in March. Since then, the biggest news about the game’s launch has been the advertising slip-up that saw the game promoted as being “Out Now” in a billboard on the London Underground. If only!
At the same time, Nintendo leaker KiwiTalkz had prompted concern among fans that the game was originally due sooner, closer to the Switch 2’s launch, but has been held up due to last-minute snags. This, just days after Nintendo’s recent third-party focused Partner Direct (where Metroid Prime 4 would not have featured anyway) has contributed to a sense of unease among fans over the game’s arrival.
It has been a long wait for a new 3D Metroid game, lengthened further by Nintendo taking the decision to reboot the project’s development back in 2019 after an earlier incarnation being made by Bandai Namco did not meet Nintendo’s expectations.
Nintendo’s current Switch 2 release schedule for the remainder of 2025 includes Drag x Drive (August 14), Kirby and the Forgotten Land — Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World (August 28) and Pokémon Legends Z-A (October 16), plus Kirby Air Riders and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which do not have set dates.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
Following a leak earlier on, Capcom has now officially released the teaser trailer for the next Street Fighter 6 DLC character.
The secret agent C. Viper, who originally made her debut in Street Fighter IV, is scheduled to arrive in Street Fighter 6’s World Tour, Battle Hub and Fighting Grounds on Autumn 2025 for all platforms including the Switch 2.
